Today we’d like to introduce you to Grace Clark.
Grace, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
As a young kid, since I was about eight, I have always wanted to own my own business. Naturally, I have always had the ability to draw well, so I decided to use that as the base of my business. Initially, I started making a custom shirt, which is something I still do now as a part of Clark’s customs. The custom shoe part of it came into play a little later. On my 16th birthday, I needed some shoes to wear with my outfit but nothing seemed to be what I was looking for. As a solution, I hit YouTube and learned how to make my own. I kept practicing on my own shoes and then people began reaching out to me to do theirs as well. As of today, I am about to start my 2nd semester of college while running two businesses. Hustle Or Be Hungry is my clothing brand that I created in my junior year of high school while on bed rest from a ruptured brain aneurysm. It hospitalized me for nine days and kept me out of school for a few months. At that time, I was still painting shoes and creating new designs for my clothing line. From the beginning to now, Clark customs has done a little bit of everything, baby shoes, sandals, football cleats, track spikes, and your everyday average tennis shoe as well as shirts for parties or personal reasons.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road. When I did my 1st shoe, I did not use the correct paint and it completely fell apart. Also, being a small business, not a lot of people know about me, so the traffic can be a little slow at times. Building my social media platforms to high numbers has also been a struggle. Attracting people to my business and trying to get potential clients is very difficult as well.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Clark Customs – what should we know?
Clark Customs creates custom apparel weather; it is shoes or shirts that people will not be able to find in any retail or online store. I specialize in hand painting shoes to whatever the customer asks for. I have done everything from just making a shoe a different color to putting cartoon characters on them. An example is recent, I did a Gucci x Air force one collaboration for a customer. It was a shoe you can’t walk into any store and request but thanks to my company, you can now get and no one else will have it. As a company, the thing I am most proud about is how clean and precis my work is every time no matter how big or small the details are. Hand painting and creating everything personally onto a shoe or sandal of any type is what sets Clark Customs apart from the rest.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I feel the determination to not have to work for anyone else and be able to do something I love and am passionate about everyday is very important to my success. Also, I feel like being resourceful is important because things can unexpectedly happen and as a business owner, you cant sit around and let things get out of hand just because you were not ready or equipped for something to happen. It also plays into the fact that when you don’t have everything you may want, there is still a way to get things you need done. For example, I didn’t have any fancy backdrops or a professional camera taking pictures of my products. I would use things found around the house or outside an my cell phone and make the best out of it, which ended ups till turning out really well. You have to be selfless too, and that played into my success a lot. Sometimes outings had to be missed. Sleep had to be lost, personal money had to be put into the business to pay for materials or equipment or get them finished in time.
Pricing:
- Custom sneakers start at $65 and increase depending on design
Contact Info:
- Website: hustleorbehungry.com
- Phone: 4693707411
- Email: contact.gfdesignz@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/clark.customs?igshid=3r1ly3bmt3m5
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