We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Joanne Spruill a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Joanne , appreciate you joining us today. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea
It was my Uncle’s 70th birthday so I bought him some pajamas. Nearly my entire family attended the Historically Black College and University (HBCU) North Carolina A&T State University. My mom noticed the pajamas were the school colors and told me to go online and find some A&T slippers and she would pay for them. After doing a google search, I was able to find many different varieties of slippers for schools but none for HBCUs and that’s how HBCU slippers began! I began to search and understand how shoes are made because I thought I could just buy shoes and place the logo on them. Little did I know, it was not that simple. First, universities require a license and for you to pay royalties. So, I had to complete the application process, which is not for the faint of heart. But, we were able to complete the licensing process. Then, we had to get approval for each school. Finally, the artwork for each item has to be approved by the school. Once you make sales, you pay royalties on the back end.
After the school process was finalized, we had to figure out how to actually make the slippers. I say we because by this time I had brought on my partner, a graphic artist, Brian Ham of Authoritees Inc, North Carolina. I knew I didn’t have the technical expertise to put a shoe together myself and didn’t even know how to speak to manufacturers about what would be required. First, I thought that we could just place the logo on the shoe but we quickly learned that the logo had to be embroidered onto the shoe BEFORE it is assembled. So the search began, to try to find a U.S. manufacturer to put the shoe together which took months and to no avail, it was impossible. So we reached out to manufacturers in China via the Made in China app and HBCU Slippers was born! We started with NC A&T since my partner and I both attended there and we had many friends and family who attended as well. My partner then also noted, if we’re going to have slippers, then we also needed, robes and pajamas. So now HBCU Slippers and Comfort Apparel offers the full compliment of apparel for HBCUs. Our goal is to have offerings for all 100 HBCUs throughout the country!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am Joanne Spruill, Esq. I am from Goldsboro, NC. My “day job” is serving as Chief Compliance Officer for the Benefits and Protection division of a financial services company. Additionally, I am President and CEO of CLA Enterprises, LLC and am what can be best classified as a “serial entrepreneur. I run HBCU Slippers and Comfort Apparel, the first clothing line that offers slippers, robes, pajamas and other items specifically for HBCUs. We also have the non-profit farm Little Washington Growing Group where my 81 year old mother and I grow chemical and pesticide free fruits and vegetables. Finally, I am about to launch the first, black-owned, interactive Spades app, The Big Joker. Where you can play spades but also see and talk to your opponents while you play.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I have had to demonstrate and continue to apply resilience as we have worked on launching our first virtual interactive Spades app, The Big Joker. The idea for the app was sparked during Covid. In the black community one of our favorite pastimes is playing the card game Spades. When the pandemic hit, we were not able to come together anymore and just enjoy ourselves playing one of our favorite games. So I thought I would get on a Spades app to get that feeling back. However, the existing spades apps will not let you play people you know, and you cannot see or talk to each other. Also, in the black community, we play spades different ways. The current apps only offer one way.
So, we decided to create an app. The first virtual interactive spades app, The Big Joker. We initially tried to have some HBCU college students develop the app but they could only take us so far. A friend of mine referred me to her good friend. She was a software developer but also taught it as well. We thought she could help the students with the process but eventually we had to have her work on it alone. She fully developed the app and we were almost ready to launch, but we kept having connectivity issues. We had put so much money and effort into the process by this time, I was ready to quit. But my partners, friends, and family members all encouraged me to stick with it; four years later we have built the app again with a team from India. We are in the final phases of user testing and are almost ready to launch.
Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?
One of our best sales stories was during the annual Homecoming celebration at North Carolina A&T State University (NCAT)(affectionately known as the Greatest Homecoming on Earth (GHOE). This celebration has many vendor opportunities but before the actual game day is the process to purchase a ticket. The event sells out within the first hour that tickets go on sale. We took a chance and logged in at midnight when the ticket portal opened and were able to secure a number of tickets. This is significant because by 9am that day, tickets were completely sold out! We used the tickets as a marketing event and decided to raffle them off. If any person purchased merchandise from our site HBCU Slippers, they would be entered in the raffle to win two reserved seat tickets to the game.
Well, we didn’t have many people enter by purchasing but we were glad that some people did. Tickets are so hard to get that we think people were skeptical. However, we were able to run the raffle and announce a winner! We contacted the winner and he asked if we could deliver the tickets to his father. He noted that he was in Maryland and he didn’t want to take any chances of the tickets getting lost in the mail. Plus, his father would be the one attending the game. I agreed to meet up with his father and he was an amazingly wonderful man! We got to talking and I learned that he had attended every NCAT Homecoming game since 1975. The only one he missed was during Covid when they didn’t have a game. He said he was talking to his son and they weren’t sure he would be able to go to the game because they couldn’t find tickets. His son assured him they would find a way – and they did! Not only was he able to keep his streak going, but we shared his story and it went viral! People were so excited to hear that this man would be able to continue an alumni tradition and they were also impressed to learn and understand that this is what our brand is all about. A win for everyone!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://claenterprises.org
- Instagram: @hbcuslippers @thebigjokerapp @littlewashingtongrowinggroup
- Facebook: The Big Joker App, HBCU Slippers, Little Washington Growing Group
- Linkedin: Joanne Spruill
