Delaware State University Entrepreneur Interview

Just JKing is a clothing line created by Jabbar Hussie Jr., branded in 2014 and established in 2017. The brand journey started in Maryland, Jabbar started buying shirts from Walmart, and putting his brand onto them. He started off in a King’s Dominion park and was kicked out for solicitation. He then began to take a break to focus on apps and the big picture of the brand. In September of 2017, he began to code and create a website to spread his brand to other states.  

The main goal of the clothing line started out as a way to let teenagers be motivated to be themselves and that everyone is royalty “JKing”, it then progressed for all ages to wearing the brand. Jabbar decided that he wanted to be self-employed. He’d researched easy business plans and decided on t-shirts it then expanded to hoodies and other fashions. Jabbar plans to use his current profits for future planning in creating apps for motivation and self-help. He plans on releasing an app soon on time management, as he discovered that is the number one problem in college. The business traveled from Maryland to Dover, Delaware, and is promoted through a website as well as on-site promotion at Delaware State University. He hopes that his clothing motivates people to feel good in their skin, as well as the clothing. The name is a pun on ”just kidding” and the ”k” in king, he believes that ”everyone is kings and queens. A common misconception is that you need to dress up to be royalty, royalty is a mindset and how one carries themselves.”  

His business wasn’t always successful, he has had many trials and tribulations and still has a lot to learn. In the beginning, the website wasn’t very professional and did not get any sales because of it. Later on, he had a graphic designer agreement, it was agreed that the artist would sell her art on the site so she would be promoted as well as the possibility of him gaining customers as people look at his site. He promoted a sample of her work, her parents saw it an believed that she was not given credit for her work and threatened to sue. She was also trying to sell shirts to other organizations.  

He has discovered that the shirts that he uses to print his logo were higher priced than other organizations and has since changed his shirts. His customers often didn’t understand the quality of the shirts. He currently is working on finding a brand ambassador to get his brand more promotion, his recent brand ambassador was not getting enough promotion to increase sales. He struggles with being a college, in junior year he had less income, due to his struggle with marketing, he wanted to be split from his brand; he wanted people to recognize the brand for the brand name and not his association with the brand, which did not work in his favor. As he decided to associate himself with the brand he was able to gain the attention of customers and spread the word to his friends and classmates. He has learned how to better advertise his business and endorses his fellow friend and upcoming rapper at DSU, Gene Gray, collaborating with him to create a clothing line endorsing his music. As well as collaborating with two comedians at DSU and two YouTubers.

- Miela Nichy