Listen to this articleBelow is our recent interview with Jonathan O’Donnell, the Founder at L’Aquila Active:
Q: Could you provide our readers with a brief introduction to your company?
A: L’Aquila Active is a blog and affiliate marketing site that focuses on yoga, meditation, and sustainability. We have a focus on traditional Indian yoga (where almost a third of our traffic comes from), as well as our top contributor, Shanti!
We feel that the world is a hectic and stressful place (especially recently!), and we know that stress, anxiety, and depression is on the rise globally and has created a global mental health crisis.
Our mission is to change that while also empowering the individual. We offer weekly yoga poses and routines along with meditation that focuses on breathwork. We also write about the chakra system and the science behind it which calms and soothes our autonomic nervous system also known as “fight or flight response” and helps calm us naturally. We are also on a mission to help our climate and educate the population on the relatively little known threat of microplastics that come from plastic water bottles, plastic waste, and our clothing. We also give guidance on how we can all do our part to reduce waste and live sustainable lives – on the individual, corporate, and governmental levels.
Q: Any highlights on your recent announcement?
A: Originally, L’Aquila Active started as an E-commerce store but we took a step back during COVID when our business model became unsustainable due to rising shipping costs, disrupted supply chains, and the loss of many vendors. Many of them were startups that went bankrupt during this difficult time.
It was a humbling experience and we decided to start from scratch and build a blog with a team of writers and grow our traffic organically. We moved our platform from Shopify to WordPress. That being said, we are back and better than ever and have grown organic traffic aggressively in the last year. With a captive audience, we will once again become a marketplace for all things sustainable, especially yoga apparel, active wear, cosmetics, and supplements.
Q: Can you give us more insights into your offering?
A: L’Aquila Active’s primary mission is to reduce your stress and anxiety while at the same time, helping you increase your level of consciousness, self-awareness, and become the best version of yourself. We believe that this is something everyone needs and deserves, and we focus on physical poses in yoga to help heal your body naturally of natural ailments like back pain,insomnia, and can also help improve circulation and heart health.
However, we also focus equally on the mind with ancient traditional Indian meditation practices that have been around for millenia. This not only reduces stress, anxiety, and depression, but also improves quality of sleep, focus, concentration, memory, and self-awareness. We approach this from a traditional and cultural perspective coupled with scientific backing and studies.
We can’t take care of ourselves without being conscious of our environment, our climate, our planet, and all the plants and animals that surround it. We also write tirelessly on how to improve the planet, and we focus on little known topics like microplastics, forever chemicals, fast fashion, and the highly polluting container ship industry as well as exciting developments in the future for sustainability like electric cars and helicopters. We point out the complexity of climate change and try to simplify it for our audience.
Finally, we try to put this all in perspective, holistically and spiritually, and make our audience understand that we belong to the planet, and it does not belong to us. We have a responsibility to protect and nourish the well-being of the planet, the animals, and to each other.
Q: What can we expect from your company in the next 6 months? What are your plans?
A: We have grown rapidly in the last six months in terms of organic traffic, and we are going to reoffer sustainable clothing, such as organic cotton and recycled polyester yoga clothing and activewear.
We have over 10 brands lined up from all over the world – organic cotton sourced in India, Sustainable,fair trade, and women lead wool Kyrgyzstan, and vendors from Western Europe including Sweden and the United Kingdom, and recycled polyester made in the United States.
In addition, we are also excited to add other sustainable cosmetics and health supplements that are organic, Non-GMO, vegan and cruelty-free. We are excited about this new development and will keep you guys posted!
Q: What is the best thing about your company that people might not know about?
A: We are really popular in India! Our top writer, Shanti, is from Chennai, India and is a certified yoga instructor and also an English teacher. She’s doing a great job, and right now almost half of our traffic is from India! Although we still have a long way to go to reach our full potential, we are truly international. Although based in the United States, only about 20% of our traffic comes from the U.S.
