Thereasa Black holds numerous positions. She’s a reservist in the U.S. Navy who has piloted aircraft carriers, an attorney, having passed the Maryland bar in 2019, and also a devoted single mom, a role she would undoubtedly describe as her most personal and important.
These distinct aspects of Thereasa’s life journey factored into her current focus as a successful, self-made entrepreneur. Her company, Bon AppéSweet, specializes in what she calls “better-for-you” desserts—a line of plant-based, dairy-free chocolates and other delectables sweetened with dates and made with simple organic ingredients.
How did a Navy reservist with a law degree find her purpose as an unconventional chocolatier?
Her story boils down to her dedication to building wealth for her daughter.
“I left active duty to go to law school and had my daughter, Bella, while I was there,” Thereasa explains. “A week after I took the bar exam, the Navy called me up and said, ‘We’re mobilizing you out of the reserves, and you’re going to Japan for a year.’”
The sudden and unexpected call to duty meant extended time away from Bella, who hadn’t yet turned two. While the new mom met her obligation to the Navy, she knew it had to be her final deployment. Once she returned home to her daughter, transitioning to a high-stress, all-consuming job was no longer an option. Fortunately, she used her deployment time to consume books on finance and business. Back in the States, she decided to start her own company.
“When I lived in Japan, I started making cheesecakes for my sailors,” she reflects. “They loved them, and they started sharing them with other people, and the orders started to come in. I loved baking. I knew I wanted to go there.”
Her daughter inspired the focus on no-sugar, non-dairy desserts. During Thereasa’s deployment in Japan, relatives hooked Bella on sugary treats. Rather than make her give up the desserts she loved, Thereasa figured out how to prepare them with healthier ingredients. That personal triumph led to making and selling her date-sweetened gelato under Amore Congelato (or “Frozen Love”).
The response was strong out of the gate, but then came COVID.
“When COVID happened, FedEx and UPS couldn’t guarantee their delivery times, so all my product was melting in transit. I would have to ship it again and again. I was losing so much money.”
A quick pivot from frozen desserts to Thereasa’s unique dairy-free chocolates put the venture back on track. Renamed Bon AppéSweet, the company has paced a steady climb ever since. A constant in Thereasa’s evolution as an entrepreneur has been an extraordinary sense of discipline regarding finances, a habit she formed, in part, as a response to the spending habits of the adults around her.
“I was raised by my mom, and we didn’t have conversations about how to save money. I saw how my family members spent money and decided to be different.”
Since this driven millennial entrepreneur came of age—starting with her first job as a babysitter at 10 to well into her college years at Temple University, where she worked as many as three jobs to support herself—Thereasa learned how to become “strategic” about saving and spending. “I did not want to be in debt like all the adults and parents I knew. I paid off all my college loans by my third year out of college. I went into adult life essentially debt-free.”
Starting one’s adult life with zero debt is a great advantage, but it’s not enough to get a venture off the ground, especially with a young child to support. “As a single mom, I knew my daughter was financially dependent upon me,” Thereasa asserts. “I knew that if I failed, she would fail. We would lose our house; we would lose everything,”
Fortunately, the Navy provided an income safety net while she worked to establish the company. More importantly, she had that foundation of fiscal discipline and self-reliance to draw upon. Citing the experience of more affluent entrepreneurs, she says: “When I started, I couldn’t go to my family and say, ‘Hey, can I borrow a small loan of $1 million.’ They didn’t have money to give me. I had to start my company with what I managed to earn.”
Thereasa benefited from some savvy money moves while still very young. For one thing, she determined that paying a mortgage would be cheaper than renting and was able to purchase a home before her deployment. When the time was right to sell, the property provided rental income and served as a ready cash source that enabled her to self-finance the new venture.
In addition, she made ample use of her deployment time overseas to hone her baking skills and devour books on business and finance, which she now realizes was a luxury. “I feel like most people don’t have an opportunity to sit down and just think about the next step, but that’s what I did for that year. I just figured out what I wanted and made plans for it to happen.”
She put the knowledge she gained during her deployment to good use when building the company. “Much of my research showed me that pricing was the biggest thing people did wrong. They are looking at their competitors, trying to match what they’re doing, and going out of business. I set our prices based on how much my products cost to make and ship.”
Positive consumer response and realistic pricing meant early profits and more money to invest in growth and improvement. Today, Bon AppéSweet enjoys robust online sales. At the same time, its selection of premium sweets is a growing presence on retail shelves nationally, from big chains like Walmart and Whole Foods to your neighborhood specialty grocer.
As in the beginning, her young daughter remains the primary inspiration for Thereasa and her enterprise. For starters, every product that goes to market must pass “The Bella Taste Test” first. On a more personal level, Thereasa’s motivation for growing Bon AppéSweet into long-term success is to provide for her daughter.
“I’m a single mom,” she explained. “If something happens to me, my daughter has nothing except what I’ve managed to build. That’s why I work as hard as I do because I need to build her future.”
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