In launching Apogee Collective, short for “living life without apologies; be unapologetically you”, Meryl Lim hopes to empower us towards greater sexual positivity.
Using adult pleasure product brands Genvie and Hedonist as a starting point, her company has built a strong ecosystem that includes educational workshops and talks aimed at igniting and normalising sex and relationship conversations.
As 2024 comes to a close, we got her to look back on the lessons learnt and how these will make her a stronger leader in the next year.
“Restrictions in the sexual wellness industry continue to be our biggest challenge. As an entrepreneur, what I do is so broad, with unceasing tasks and countless firefights. In the first few months of business, our payment gateway was shut down, and our marketing content was constantly taken down. Nonetheless, we focused on the lessons learnt and found ways to improve our business model.
“Prioritising my time wisely is crucial. I’ve learnt not to sweat the small stuff and to delegate more. In particular, the latter saves me time to do tasks that can propel our business forward. Time is money, after all.
“I have always led with servant leadership; it helps me to balance my heart and head. Also, knowing that I spend most of my time at work helps me put things in perspective—my team is like my family. “Activities outside of work, such as badminton sessions and get-together meals, enable us to build rapport with one another for more open feedback.
“Mentoring is the foundation of servant leadership, in my opinion. One-on- one sessions allow us to understand different viewpoints, explain our decisions, and analyse how things may have been misunderstood. Sometimes, we’ve had to fix process flaws.”
