For a while now, I’ve been contemplating starting a series of articles called: Friends’ Businesses. More recently the ideas surrounding this plan came together and I’ve decided to start with the first article dedicated to businesses our friends have developed, businesses that are fun and creative, that are more edgy and less mainstream.

Also, we figured we write a lot about how we feel about certain things and we think it’s time to share the spotlight with our friends, to voice their daring endeavors and cool business plans. When we look around at our circle of friends, we noticed that lots of them are engaging in interesting businesses concepts… Some of them started as hobbies (aside from the full time job) and evolved into more ‘serious’ involvement, while others debuted by quitting the current jobs and focusing on the business idea full power.

Our first season of Friends’ Businesses debuts with 2 edgy and fun businesses started by our girlfriend, Kay (who you may very well remember from this article) – Huggable Pillows (Huggable pillows for huggable friends) and Urban Royals (Almost pretentious hand made t-shirts). Needless to say, I’m the proud owner of some huggable pillows (no less than six of them ;))) and urban royal t-shirts too, so I know what I’m talking about… especially when I’m wearing my dandy urban t-shirt, sinking into some of my huggables ;)) Sounds so good, I may just do this after wrapping up this article.

Kay was super excited to share some of the insights and background on her two businesses, thus I’ll keep my mouth shut for a while (usually very hard to do) and let her tell us more about it.

About my projects, right, babe? Ok. I will share some insights.

First of all, I’m an ENFP kind of thing. I’m not ALL about practical stuff, even though, I cant deny it, it would be helpful in some cases. But there were some moments when that background in terms of personality really helped.

So, think about this scenario: I’m in between jobs. A bit depressed that I’m in love with this guy and I can’t see him because…well, because life…and we’re talking a lot over the phone…especially during nights, under the moon’s blessing. And one night, among those crazy passionate moments, I realized that I have this thing that is always near me in my deepest and cheesiest moments. That thing that truly gets me, knows all my secrets and…well, supports me unconditionally. And, yea, that thing was … OK, well, a couch pillow.

A very boring one in terms of design. But it didn’t even matter. It was my comfort zone, my best friend in times of drama. So, after my big epiphany, I had this crazy idea of sharing this with my friends. “Dudes, I’m into pillows now! Did you even realize that these things are our best friends? Dogs are so overrated, the mooshy great stuff are really supporting us from the shadow always? They are the truly promoters of what “non-judgemental, disinterested and open-minded “ should look like.”

Haha, I’m joking. Yea, to carry on, it was just a simple step to make a small project with decorative pillows – because I had some messages that I really wanted to share with people like me. Funny, cheesy, melodramatic. A whole rainbow of emotions painted on these pillows, the kind of item that you see in a morning or evening and you just wanna hug it because it gets you:

“Good morning, today you have yet another chance to be stupid”

“Another moment of self-discovery? You’d better try a new drink!”

“People like you never get old”

”Forget about him. Hug me. Now!”

It was a project that came from a crazy idea that I had one night because instead of hugging my boyfriend, I kept hugging this stubborn pillow. And it was very fun to see how that turned into a thing that people are digging. Girls were very much into this concept. A lot of presents, surprises and gifts shared all over the world with these fun Huggable Pillows.

And, yes, after that, I liked a lot some messages that were painted on the huggables. And I was like: ”This is so me, I just want to put them somewhere that people can see it”. And I made some tests on some crazy T-shirts, dresses. It was crap, in the main phase. But, after that, I was like: “Ok, I don’t get clothes, I need a friend that is an expert in this area”. I will bring fun and games and the other will bring the clothes’ friendly vibe.

So, I went one day to my beautiful friend Ramzinha, a designer, and told her: “Babe, don’t you think it would be cool to have these t-shirts with, mostly, sarcastic messages, that are pretty fun to wear for people like us?” And she was like: “I’m very busy, you’re the same, but it seems like very fun and we’re gonna do it, of course!” And in between a hectic schedule with work, a crazy social life, pretty fun stories, we managed to make these T-shits, dresses, whatever we like it in terms of design. The concept was born from our type of personalities – people that you can’t forget that easily. Just that… and this description is the best one until now: Clothing for us and people like us. For the beautifully imperfect, fun, unique and transcending personalities. For the people that are not afraid to joke about themselves, their bad habits, crazy laughter or poor love choices. For the highly instinctive ones that would take a dive in the cold water, enthusiastically chasing the golden fish. For the untamed spirits who smile at every corner of the puzzling life’s road, walking confidently with their crazy shaped, delightfully crafted crown upon their heads.

Moreover, besides work, over the past 4 years, these 2 projects of mine/ours were a big source of happiness. We met a lot of cool people, shared a lot of different stories, tons of laughter and satisfaction that people are into your ideas. Believe me, this is a big deal.

And now, a few last things that I still wanna say. Some people are into really pragmatic stuff and they search for that big idea. Other people are a fountain of ideas, but they never start anything. And there are people like me: That start stuff, but they don’t put enough energy in order to push projects to business due to life stuff/jobs, etc. In all these cases, I thing perseverance is the biggest “enabler”. Try it, dig deeper in you, find that idea, keep it, struggle for it, be fearless, search for new ways of improving it, don’t abandon it in times of struggle! And always be passionate about it, about you! Don’t forget to dig inside you and to bring to surface what you have there: all your dreams must come to light in this life! You owe it to yourself to at least try! So, TRY IT! It will make great memories. In the worst case, you don’t have anything to loose ;)

Muah, K

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