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

Sharise, appreciate you joining us today. Crazy stuff happening is almost as certain as death and taxes – it’s technically “unexpected” but something unexpected happening is to be expected and so can you share a crazy story with our readers.

I think you hit the nail on the head, entrepreneurship is probably the craziest ride I have ever subjected myself to, but in the best way. Rather than one culminating moment, there have been a lot of smaller great moments that collectively make me love the decision to make this investment in myself and my brand.

– The support of customers who not only repeat buy, but go on to buy multiple SKUs in every color and every size, just to show support to my small, black owned business.

– A former co-worker of mine told a friend of hers about my travel planning business and not only did they go on to plan a group trip with me, they ordered custom Dope Too, LLC T-shirts for all 18 trip attendees.

– Because my friends are dope and well-connected, the prominent comedian, Affion Crockett, with over 1.5 million followers, was pictured wearing my brand at one of his shows and posted several photos of him wearing it on his Instagram page stories.

These are just a few of the many stories I have that make me proud to be the brand owner and even more proud to wear the brand name on me almost every time I leave home.

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 think my hustler spirit comes from both growing up in Detroit and attending the best HBCU in the country, Howard University. Although I was fortunate enough to attend prominent schools in my area, growing up in Detroit teaches you that you have 2 choices: to either make it…or not. Because of that, like so many other millennials, I’m a multi-hyphenate. By this I mean, there isn’t any one thing I do. I have created a space for myself that allows me to have a full time job in the career I received my degrees in, as well as own two of my own businesses. One in the travel planning space, Postcards From Everywhere (https://www.postcardsfromeverywhere1.com) and a second in the fashion industry, Dope Too, LLC (https://dope-too.myshopify.com).

What I am most proud of is that Dope Too, LLC was birthed out of the pandemic. As you can imagine, the travel business essentially came to a halt. Yes, I still wanted to have a second stream of income, but more than that, I still wanted to make connections and make an impact. In a time when we were all still “inside,” I wanted to feel a sense of community. I launched Dope Too, LLC during Black History Month in 2021. My first release, the signature “Dope IRL Hoody” sold out three times. From there I have built this idea into a true brand with a full line of luxury athleisure wear for both men and women. The line consists of the signature hoodie, crewnecks, T-shirts, jogger shorts, dad hats, winter beanies/pom hats and the jogging pants which release on October 14th, 2022.

I built this company with zero investors, without a team, without PR. For the initial launch I was not only packaging and shipping every order but also hand-delivering all local deliveries. This company is my baby and one of the things I love about it is that my customers feel proud to wear my pieces. I see them traveling from state to state and country to country, out for a date night or drinks with their friends. It’s truly a representation of how they see themselves, and that Is dope in real life. Not just posting about life, but outside living it on their own terms.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

A lesson I’ve learned is that sometimes strangers will be your biggest fans. My friends, family and boyfriend have been a huge support system, sometimes buying several of each product just to show my brand love. But what I mean by my initial statement is that there are people I’ve never met, from around the country that are cheering me on at every step. Checking in on me frequently, telling their friends and family about my products, purchasing from every drop, tagging me every time they wear and post a product they have purchased. I’m so grateful to have built this dope community of love and support from those that I’ve still never had a chance to meet in real life.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Beyond social media, beyond being in the news, I think three things that have helped build my reputation within my market are:

1. A dope concept – It’s one thing to sell a product, but there has to be thought and strategy behind the product you sell. What’s missing in the market? Does the product have a message? Can people relate to the product? Does the product have life beyond one season or one piece?

2. A quality product – In a world oversaturated with fast fashion, not only does your product need to be dope, but it needs to be well made. Before you source your materials, order samples, no matter the costs. Test out the samples. Wear them yourself, have friends wear them, wash them, dry them. Make sure before you’re putting your brand mark on a product for sale, you’ve used the product through all of the cycles a normal consumer would. That way there are no questions, you can stand behind your product’s design and quality.

3. Excellent customer service – I pride myself in providing excellent customer service. As I mentioned, I am a team of one, running multiple companies as well as holding a full time job. While all of those are blessings, sometimes, not often but sometimes, things happen. I’ve had an incident where a client purchased a product and when I shipped the product, I shipped the wrong color. When the client reached out via email, I responded within hours and offered a number of options. Ultimately, they still wanted the product and I drove to them to pick up the old product and hand delivered the new product as well as offered a discount code on a future order. Because of that, the client was a repeat customer. The thing about my community is that they are one that offers grace. They know that small businesses are run by real people. There’s no mechanism or machine here, it’s a human being reading every e-mail and packaging every order. As long as they are treated with kindness and respect, they always show me the same.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dope-too.myshopify.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reesetravelstoo/?hl=en