We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Joannie Wu. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Joannie below.

Joannie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

Due to stigmas attached to pole dancing, my business partner and I have frequently experienced prejudice and have not been taken seriously by others for our business. We’ve recently seen this from potential landlords and real estate representatives as we are trying to expand our business into a significantly larger space to meet student demand.

A “dumb stripper” reputation frequently precedes us and the door is slammed before we can even engage in conversation. This is a terrible stereotype because of our ass-backwards culture since I am of the belief that strippers are some of the smartest, savviest, and most resourceful service providers.

We struggled immensely to get real estate representation — finally connecting with somebody who barely just got his real estate license working in a commercial real estate company. After we got our foot in the door, we led all conversations with an executive summary which highlights our business’s success over the last 5 years, our community impact, and the owners’ experience as individuals with leadership positions in technology and design innovation industries.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I moved to Austin, TX about 13 years ago without knowing a single person in this city. After a few years of struggling to find a social group I came across a pole dance class on Groupon and tried it out of curiosity. I was SO TERRIBLE at it and I didn’t care — it was so fun I had to go again and again. I kept taking classes and found myself going out after class and socializing with the other students and finally building that sorely needed friend group in this city.

Through the years I have gotten significantly better at pole dancing but what continues to fuel my passion is the community. I met my business partner (and best friend) in those early days and we continue to champion this comradery in our studio — starting with our name: soFly Social.

We believe that pole dancing has the unconventional power to connect and lift people up. It serves as the perfect platform to begin to explore one’s body and the physical and emotional challenges and breakthroughs. We want to provide people the space to discover themselves more while exploring the fringes of their self movement in a physically and psychologically safe and considerate environment.

What I am most proud of is that we create space for all — regardless of size, gender, race, age, backgrounds, and beliefs. We are honored to be part of the journey of many students who have discovered, embraced, and transitioned to their true selves. We hold to this code even when it’s difficult. For example, we have held space for a student who have been asked to leave multiple studios due to conflicts they had related to a neurological difference.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The pandemic. OMG the pandemic. The sheer will it took to react with agility to what felt like a really high stake game of dodgeball, between figuring out how to continue our business in a shutdown, dealing with clients with varying degrees of compliance to our policies, all the while trying to just cope as a human.

We managed to persevere by quickly aligning our instructors and pivoting to Zoom classes on a limited schedule, and not being hyper reactive to the barrage of information. We held strong to our defined policies until we evaluated potential changes.

Agility in decision making and holding steady in our decisions has saved us and allowed us to thrive. Through the last 3 years of the pandemic we have grown to a second location and we take a lot of pride that we did not have to rely on any pandemic PPE or loans to help us survive.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Respect and appreciate the effort of pursuing a goal outside of societal norms. Work is work. Pay them.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://sofly.social
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/soflysocial/
• Other: Personal IG: https://www.instagram.com/joanniewu/

Image Credits
Brit von Bossy, Dave Idemoto, Polymath Photography