Your peace of mind is this Halifax couple's business
Autumn Grant and Jonathan Dododza started Flo Meditation + Wellness in 2018
What's it like to be an entrepreneur in Nova Scotia right now? We emailed the same list of questions to a number of different businesses. In our series Owning It, we're sharing their thoughts on everything from morning routines and core values, to backup plans.
Video produced by Amy Grace and Claire Fraser for CBC. Graphics by Bria Miller.
Business: Flo Meditation + Wellness Inc.
Owners: Autumn Grant and Jonathan Dododza
Core values: Loving kindness, togetherness, sustainability, diversity, ubuntu and curiosity.
What led them to meditation: Grant and Dododza met while working together at a company in Vancouver. "Autumn was the human resources manager, and Jonathan was the event coordinator. Guided meditations were a mandatory part of our work schedule and we were pleasantly surprised with how good we felt after quieting our mind," they say on their website. They fell in love, had their baby, Florence, moved to Nova Scotia (where Grant is from) and started Flo Meditation + Wellness.
In business since: 2018
The couple started out with a physical studio, but left after a nine-month lease. They started meeting people in their own spaces and teaching online. They also create meditations for apps.
"We are the first of our kind in the city," said Dododza.
Q: If your journey as an entrepreneur was a road, what would it look like?
A: "It would look like the Hana Highway. The Hana Highway is a long road that goes all the way around Maui. The road itself is windy. It has so many turns. It's unpredictable. It's crazy, which has kind of been our journey, just adapting and changing and pivoting at times that we need to pivot without really knowing what's going to happen. But the Hana Highway is also a beautiful drive. The drive is literally breathtaking. It's stunning. It's been a path to get there, but a beautiful journey and I wouldn't do it any other way," said Dododza.