A Black Women’s History Month #magicmaker is detailing how she turned her sex-positive business into an entrepreneurial empire.
Source: @GrandHussle
Brooke Jones may be the founder and CEO of The Hidden Vault sexual wellness brand, but her financial freedom journey humbly began in a New Orleans garage. The business baddie who invested $5,000 into personally crafting and creating products around sexuality exploration, now helms a thriving multi-million dollar company and she’s got big plans to expand.
Launched in 2019, The Hidden Vault continues to promote sexual health and wellness in a discreet way for its customers and Jones has expanded her offerings to sell products specifically designed for women, couples, and the LGBTQIA+ community. With The Hidden Vault making millions on its own, Jones is now focused on expanding her empire for her sons and she’s released a book titled” From Bars To Boss” chronicling the harsh lessons she learned as she went from a life of illegality to legitimacy.
As Black Women’s History Month continues, Jones told BOSSIP about how her hustler’s spirit allowed her to ultimately unlock The Hidden Vault.
Tell us about your background and how you got to where you are today.
I would say it started from the struggle, growing up as a kid trying to find my way in life and I implemented it into my adult life and it worked. My “Bars to Boss” book title come from the fact that I was incarcerated for selling drugs. When I went to jail for hustling, I had a lot of time to sit there and just think and I’m like, “If I could sell pills and make a hundred thousand dollars in little as three months, I know if I can find something legal to do, I can make millions.”
Source: @GrandHussle
I gave myself a year ,and in my first 12 months I made a million off The Hidden Vault. So I just took that same hustle and that same drive that I had in the streets and just turned it into some legal boss moves, and that’s how I got here. But like I said in my book, it all started from my childhood. In a way, I was forced and pushed into the world to figure things out.
Let’s talk about The Hidden Vault. Black women are often shamed when we talk about our sexuality, but with you obviously, you want us to be more open and to explore with The Hidden Vault brand, tell us more about it.
Like you said, we [Black women] get ridiculed. I was everything but the child of God when I started branding myself as Body by Brooke, the Instagram model that showed her body all the time on Instagram. And at first it was tough because the perception I was given wasn’t really me. I had to actually educate myself during the process and I gained a tough skin from the brand Body by Brooke while showing body half naked. The first product that I came out with was the drops, we call that our energy massage oil.
My grandfather was a farmer, and he had plants that he mixed up because he was vegan, and he never took any medications for erectile dysfunction or anything like that. And he went ahead and used this little formula that he mixed up from the plants that he grew at the farm, and nobody ever wanted to do anything with it. So I actually mixed it up and I gave a few samples out, the feedback was amazing. So I mixed up a hundred bottles in my kitchen, and a hundred bottles went the same day. And I’m like, “No way, wait, this is it. This is a thing. It really works, it builds stamina.”
And at first for me, I wanted to sell what I represent. And like I said, I represented sex. So I was going into the adult field at adult stores. But the more I sold it and the more I got the feedback and the reviews, [I changed]. I had one review touched me so deeply, there was a guy said that he was almost to the point of taking his own life because of his sexual performance, it was horrible. And once he used that product he said that it saved his life and I kid you not it’s on our Google review, and I don’t even know this man. Some people think like, “Oh, she got that review made up” but for me, I knew that it was authentic and it changed my world. It changed my way of thinking. So that’s how the Hidden Vault became centered arouind health and wellness instead of just some adult company.
We’re saving lives one drop at a time, that’s where I get the slogan from. I have some people say I save their marriage or that they was on the verge of breaking up and I never knew sex was that important and that deep until I started selling these products. I educated myself and [I see] it’s more of a need than a want. And I didn’t know it was that important in this world but it is and I feel great about it.
What advice do you have for black female entrepreneurs who want to expand and want to get into business but worry that they can’t be as successful as you are?
I talk to a lot of black women and my thing is, if you seek God and you put God first, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Faith don’t come with worry and faith without works is dead. So I just say step out on faith. When I got into this, I tried several different things before I got it right. I used to sell eyelashes, I used to sell hair. I used to host cubs thinking this going to be my career. And it wasn’t, but I never gave up because I knew that God had something for me. So what I would say is, you have to step out on faith. A lot of people take chances on the wrong thing. Taking chances on yourself and betting on yourself is the best thing you could ever do. And when you do it and you get, it’s a feeling you’re going to get when you know it’s right.And that right there will make you just go go go like energizer battery.
I was scared when I started my brand Body by Brooke, I was scared of what my family was going to say. And my family said a lot, my friends said a lot, a lot of people detached from me, because they didn’t want to be around a person like me. But I knew I had a mission and I couldn’t let the distraction stop me. So along the way, I lost a lot of friends, I lost a lot of people, the perception I gave had me looking a horrible person. But in the end I was able to tell my story and people got it. They get it now. And when I first started, I had 93% of men following me. Now I have 50/50. Men and women. And it’s because the women didn’t understand me then until I became successful.
So there is a time and for everything, but the main thing is don’t give up. Believe in yourself, bet on yourself, put God first, and you can’t have worries when you got fate. And fate without work is dead also. So fate don’t come with worries, and just step out and do it, I mean, what do you have to lose. I mean, I thought about it when I started the Hidden Vault, I started with my income tax check and I was like, Lord, if this don’t work, because we living in a flesh. So we come with doubt. And in my mind I’m like, if this don’t work, Lord, I’m just going to waste my $5,000 and I need to do this and I need to do that. But what I realize is every year that I got a return, I was spending it on material things, things that I didn’t have the following year.
So if I can do that, I can actually take this five, invest it, and if worse comes to worse, I can just sell it for a cheaper price just to get my 5,000 back. I’m just like, “I have to do this.” And that was the best investment I ever made, I don’t regret it at all of course. I feel like there’s not a person on this earth that can’t do it. Why not you? If I could do it, I come from nothing. I come from living in a house with my grandmother and 20 of our grandkids, all of us just in the house, being nothing. And if I can do it, I think it’s not impossible for anybody else to do it. It’s not hard. And I went around to different entrepreneurs begging for help. Nobody would help me but God, so my main thing is to put God first.
Source: @GrandHussle
Lastly, what’s next for Brooke Jones?
I’m tapping into real estate. I purchased so many singles, but recently I had a baby, he’s six months and I purchased him an apartment complex. So I’m getting into real estate and I’m excited about that. I have plans on getting hotels and my main thing that I’m working on now, I want to do a swinger club. I definitely want to implement a swingers club into my portfolio. And I’m working on vending machines so the Hidden Vault products could be worldwide. It’s a lot of projects that I’m working on, but aside from the Hidden Vault, real estate, I’m tapping into real estate. I want to say when you get to a certain level or you’re making a certain amount of money, it could be gone in a second and you can lose it in a second. So invest, invest, invest. So I’ve been taking the Hitting Vault money and investing for my kids and for myself. So we tapping into this real estate, something that we know never going anywhere. And hopefully one day, I’m owning some Hiltons or something like that. So yeah, that’s the route we taking—but the Hidden Vault will never ever go anywhere. We’re here for the long haul!
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