Josephine Lee of The Pointe Shop - 028
Growing up, Josephine watched her mom start multiple businesses including a successful dance retail store, so when she found herself opening her own store after college, she assumed she had it figured out by way of watching her mom.
However, what she didn\u2019t realize, was that in 2011, brick and mortar stores were slowly beginning to become a \u2018dying industry\u2019.\xa0 Dance Retail stores were closing left and right and here Josephine was, stuck in a 5 year lease, and feeling like a prisoner to her business.\xa0
Until she had a change of perspective.
Her mom said, \u201c You can either view your store as a jail cell or as your castle\u201d. And from then on, Josephine began to expand her mind as to what her business could become beyond the blueprint of the stereotypical retail store model.
Not long after that, she realized, \u201cOh my gosh, I have customers driving 4 to 5 hours , just to come visit me and get fitted for a pair of pointe shoes!\u201d\xa0
Which led her down the path of asking herself, \u201cHow can I better serve them? By bringing my store to them."
So in 2014, Josephine created The Pointe Shop, her mobile pointe store that has visited 100\u2019s of schools and studios all across the United States, and is revered as being one of the top pointe shoe retailers in the country.