Why doesn’t the LGBTQ plus community have a spirit that’s created by us and targets us directly?
Trademarks, TTBs, one year later, and Lambda Vodka’s on the market and in stores.
(relaxing music)
So we decided to go with vodka because we went with our own personal opinion when we go out to nightclubs and bars, is that vodka is one of the number one spirits that we see being purchased. And it's one of the easiest to distill. So my husband, he did a little more research to the community, which was very smart. And he found out the significance of the Greek lambda symbol within the LGBTQ community, the Stonewall Era. So we thought, wow, this is a good connection.
- It was perfect.
- Yeah. Good connection for us in the community.
- We've amassed such a huge amount of support from the community and surprisingly so. So it started off as a hobby. He was just gonna try it out. Let's do one pallet and see how it goes. Before you know, it's like, okay, we can't stop. We have to keep going because everybody wants this.
- It's hard to get a spirit into location. So we were humble enough to get 20 plus locations to purchase our spirit on top of working a full-time job.
But we still thought, well, how can we go about alleviating the full-time job from the equation and focusing directly on the spirit.
Why not open a brick-and-mortar to sell your product in your location?
So that’s why we decided to go into business of opening our very own lounge, and Lambda Lounge is here.
- I heard somebody outside call it the gay Cheers.
- Lambda Vodka as well as Lambda Lounge are supportive of the LGBTQ community because we are providing a safe space for us to commune. We're open six nights a week strictly for the LGBTQ plus community and supporters of the community because there aren't a lot of places in Harlem that give us access every night of the week. When we decided to do the lounge, we knew that we were gonna need funding for it. So then it came, okay, we have to go to a financial institution, and TD Bank reached out to us. And when I tell you they came, and they presented extremely well, we've never felt more at home with the bank than when we met Steven at TD Bank.
- I think what caught us off guard was we had no idea that there was a bank that actually had a sector of it's dedicated specifically to the LGBTQ community. That immediately, finding that out, we were sold.
- And to add on to that, not just for the community, but having someone from the community be a representation of it.
So, I mean, that really made us feel at home.
- We had tried other routes before going to TD Bank.
We went the SBA route.
We tried to get grants.
We tried these avenues, and they weren’t receptive.
So we ended up deciding to go with different lenders.
We didn’t want to accumulate a lot of debt in this process, but it turned out to be something that was necessary and TD Bank, (man speaks faintly)
Yeah, they were right on point with it. We were able to get our home equity line of credit.
- So we moved all of our accounts over to TD Bank.
And Steven, he really seemed genuine that he cared, not only trying to get our business, but he also provided us with resources for people to look over our business plan. And this was prior to us even having business with TD Bank. So it's a little more than getting business.
They actually do care about you.
- When I met Charles and Richard, they had this amazing vodka brand that they had just built and had aspirations of opening up a lounge.
And when we sat down, I saw that there were so many opportunities to really connect them to some technical assistance providers that I was partnered with to really help with getting them the resources they needed to access capital and start their brand.
Starting a business is such a daunting experience because there's so many things that you don't know, and you need help with. And being able to help connect them to these resources really made a difference.
And that’s kind of what we’re looking for as I go out into the community, is to really help make a difference through, not just our products and services, but the resources that I can help provide.
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