BROCKTON — Fun sex advice and taboo topics surrounding sexual health and pleasure are one click away because of a Brockton native. Instagram may be a new tool when it comes to all things in the bedroom.
B Condoms, a condom and wellness brand, is spicing up social media with its account accumulating over 75,000 followers and counting.
“Our Instagram page has a real, honest discussion of sexual health, and creatively speaking, this needs to be discussed in society. We need to have backdoor discussions and communicate research-based education and reliable information to the audience,” said owner Jason Panda.
The social media page contains an in-depth blog-style post with cartoons and educational material from embarrassing mishaps to advice on making yourself more confident during sex.
The way the brand utilizes social media gives it leverage and outreach to a much large audience, Panda said.
Now, you may be wondering how a man from Brockton ended up with a condom brand in many major retail stores, including Walmart, CVS, Walgreens and Target.
Well, the answer is simple but complicated — hard work and consistency through trials and tribulations.
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This company wasn’t built overnight and has been running for over 10 years.
Right now, B Condoms products are in 8,000 retail stores across the country, Panda said.
Panda started B Condoms with a few friends in 2011, and they slowly fizzled out as the years progressed.
Panda left his job as a corporate lawyer earning over $200,000 a year to pursue his new business venture fully.
The business generated little profit for several years, but this did not discourage Panda. He kept pushing the brand even though his business partners left one by one.
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“We were losing money, and people wanted to move forward personally,” Panda said.
In hindsight, the entrepreneur’s goal was to market a condom that would disrupt the industry, he said.
“No one took us seriously. It took a while to get people to see this concept of a Black-owned condom company. It was a foreign idea to people 10 years ago,” Panda said.
As a child growing up in Brockton, he watched his mother run a detox facility and saw how HIV, AIDS and pregnancy impacted his community.
Panda noticed that companies weren’t targeting communities of color to lessen STI and pregnancy rates.
“I wanted to create a change,” Panda said.
And that is precisely what Panda did.
He created a condom that’s PH balanced, vegan, made with natural latex, and free of skin-irritating chemicals and harsh smells. While also protecting from sexually transmitted diseases.
“We create millions of condoms annually,” Panda said.
The business opened a warehouse in Atlanta after COVID hit and there was a movement to buy products from Black-owned companies.
This movement tipped the scale for the business and created more growth opportunities, Panda said.
Panda published weekly blogs on the Instagram page, and the following gradually jumped, and that’s when big retailers started to notice.
The business then expanded into thousands of retail stores.
The entrepreneur owes his success to just betting on himself no matter how rough the road was getting.
“We went from having products in zero stores eight years ago to having them in 8,000 stores 18 months later (after COVID). Sometimes you must trust the process. You can do all the right stuff, but it takes time. Don’t get too wrapped up about what others are doing with their success,” Panda said.
Enterprise staff reporter Alisha Saint-Ciel can be reached by email at stciela@gannett.com. You can follow her on Twitter at @alishaspeakss and Instagram at Alishaatv. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Enterprise today
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