Iowa · North Carolina · Everywhere in Between
Bobbiette
The Brand.
Founder • Systems Architect • Procurement Strategist • Creative Producer
I started as a 14-year-old model from the cornfields of Iowa who ended up on Oprah's stage, walked runways in Paris and New York, co-founded a nationally recognized fishing team, and built a procurement framework inside a transit agency that now powers two businesses and a movement. The thread through all of it? Systems. Story. Structure.
The Drew Barrymore Show
The New York Times
The TODAY Show
BBC Sport
Travel Noire
Black Enterprise
AS SEEN IN
TWO VENTURES. ONE FRAMEWORK.
Where do you need
to go from here?
I run two companies built on the same Core 6 SmartStack methodology — one for institutions, one for entrepreneurs. Here's how to know which one is for you.
B2B · INSTITUTIONAL CONSULTING
Socialotus
Media Group
Government agencies, transit departments, and institutional clients who need brand systems, procurement infrastructure, and operational frameworks built for them. Done-for-you, built to last.
B2C · ENTREPRENEUR EDUCATION
Brand
or Bust™
Overwhelmed millennial women entrepreneurs who want to build their business on systems, not hustle. The Core 6 SmartStack Framework taught directly — through courses, community, and the KISS Guide.
Five Chapters
The whole story.
Unedited.
I don't believe in hiding chapters. Every phase of this journey taught me something I'm still using. Here it is — all of it.
CHAPTER 01
1997 – 2013
From Cornfields
to Catwalks
It started at 14 — a Black girl in Iowa who didn't fit the standard mold, and chose to make her own. I began modeling in a market that had no real fashion infrastructure, which meant I had to build the infrastructure myself. I organized "Super Shoots" — massive collaborative events where photographers, models, stylists, and makeup artists would come together in one space. I built the websites. I managed the registrations. I coordinated across dozens of creatives. I was building systems before I knew that's what they were called.
In 1997, I was selected as one of 50 national Youth of the Year representatives through the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. Oprah Winfrey invited us on her show and awarded each of us a $25,000 scholarship through her Angel Network. That moment — being seen and validated on a national stage — shaped everything about how I think about storytelling and visibility.
Eventually the work grew beyond Iowa. I founded Baroque Fashion Media, producing fashion shows in New York, Las Vegas, Paris, Miami, and North Carolina. I worked alongside photographers like Steven Whitsitt — Michael Jackson's photographer — helping him rebuild his brand and systems. I was directing and producing international creative events with zero formal training. Just frameworks I built because they had to exist.
"I was building brand systems before I even knew what branding was."
CHAPTER 02
2010 – Present
The Day Everything Started.
All at Once.
April 2010 was one of those days. On the same day, I got married, got fired from my job as a marketing manager at a small credit union in Iowa, and founded Socialotus Media Group. Shortly after — found out I was pregnant.
I didn't spiral. I built. My first client was a semi-pro football team owner. Then small businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, community campaigns. We moved to North Carolina and I kept building — branding, web design, digital strategy, storytelling for organizations that needed someone who understood both creativity and systems.
Over 17 years, Socialotus has served 79+ clients across industries — from Durham County's public health campaigns to transit agency workforce programs to full brand ecosystem packages. The firm has launched 209 websites. Run 58 social campaigns. Every engagement shaped the methodology I'd eventually formalize as the Core 6 SmartStack.
Today, Socialotus Media Group is the institutional consulting arm of that work — focused on brand strategy and systems delivery for government and institutional clients.
"I didn't have a plan that day. I had a skill, a laptop, and no other option."
CHAPTER 04
2020 – 2024
The Fishing Team That
Became a Movement
In 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic, a group of Black women went deep-sea fishing in North Carolina — and won. I co-founded the Ebony Anglers and built the entire brand around it: the visual identity, the content strategy, the media relationships, the storytelling framework that made a local fishing team into a national conversation about Black women in the outdoors.
The Drew Barrymore Show called. The New York Times wrote about us. BBC Sport covered the story. Black Enterprise. Travel Noire. Hundreds of outlets worldwide. We sparked a cultural movement around Black women reclaiming outdoor spaces — and I did it using the same frameworks I'd been building for clients for over a decade.
What I learned from Ebony Anglers shaped everything that came after it: when you build a brand with the right systems underneath it, it can go from local to legendary without you burning out in the process. That insight is the philosophical foundation of Brand or Bust.
"When structure meets vision and chaos gets organized into legacy — that's what frameworks do."
CHAPTER 04
2014 – PRESENT
Inside the Institution.
Building from Within.
In 2014, while running Socialotus, I started contracting with Durham County Government — working on public health campaigns, community programs, and internal communications. It was my first real immersion in how institutions operate: the approvals, the compliance layers, the politics, the deeply human need for systems that don't collapse when one person leaves.
In 2017, I joined Chapel Hill Transit as an administrative assistant in the maintenance department. That's not a glamorous title. But I took every challenge as an opportunity to learn — and quietly started applying the same frameworks I'd been building for brand clients to the operational problems I was seeing every day inside a transit agency.
In 2023, that work paid off. I was promoted to Procurement Analyst and Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Liaison Officer. The promotion didn't happen by accident. It happened because I had adopted AI as a learning and thinking partner earlier than almost anyone around me — and used it to accelerate my systems thinking, deepen my procurement knowledge, and identify that I had a framework that was genuinely scalable.
Here's the part of the story I love the most: I built a website for my job interview. A fully designed procurement hub — a visual, navigable system that demonstrated exactly how I'd organize and run the department. That website got me the job. And then, over the years that followed, that concept became a real, functioning procurement infrastructure inside the agency. The mockup became the model.
I'm now pursuing my CLGPO and CEIO certifications and continuing to develop training frameworks for procurement professionals. The procurement chapter isn't a detour from the brand strategy work. It's the deepest proof of concept the framework has ever had.
"When structure meets vision and chaos gets organized into legacy — that's what frameworks do."
CHAPTER 05
2024 – FUTURE
The Framework.
Taught to Everyone.
Brand or Bust is where everything I've learned about building — fashion shows, fishing teams, government campaigns, procurement systems, brand identities, small businesses — becomes teachable to the entrepreneurs who need it most.
The Core 6 SmartStack Framework is the methodology I developed across 17 years of building systems for other people. Six pillars: Identity + Brand, Strategy + Planning, Content + Communication, Admin + Operations, Products + Services, People + Ecosystem. One framework. Works for a transit agency. Works for a solopreneur. Works for anyone who needs their brilliance organized.
Brand or Bust launches publicly in August 2027, when I exit Chapel Hill Transit and take the methodology full-time. But the KISS Guide is available now. The Founders Circle is quietly enrolling. And the movement is already building.
If you're an overwhelmed millennial woman entrepreneur who's tired of hustle culture and ready for systems that actually work — Brand or Bust is where you belong.
"Motivation doesn't save you. Structure does. I built the framework to prove it."
Formative Chapter · 2020–2024
Ebony Anglers:
From local team
to global movement.
The Ebony Anglers weren't just a fishing team. They were a proof of concept. A Black all-women's competitive deep-sea fishing team that won tournaments and sparked a worldwide conversation about Black women in outdoor spaces — built entirely on the same frameworks that now power both Socialotus and Brand or Bust. If the methodology can build a movement out of a fishing boat, it can build anything.
The Unifying Methodology
One framework powers
everything I build.
The Core 6 SmartStack Framework is the methodology I developed across 17 years of building systems — for fashion productions, fishing teams, government campaigns, small businesses, and transit agencies. It's the architecture underneath everything I do.
Six pillars. Every business, organization, and institution operates across all six whether they know it or not. The ones that do it intentionally scale. The ones that don't keep rebuilding from scratch every time something breaks.
Through Socialotus Media Group, I deliver the Core 6 as a done-for-you system for institutional clients. Through Brand or Bust, I teach it directly to entrepreneurs. Same framework. Two delivery modes. Zero redundancy.
Core 6 SmartStack
01
Identity + Brand
Who you are
02
Strategy + Planning
Where you're going
03
Content + Comms
How you're heard
04
Admin + Operations
How you run
05
Products + Services
How you earn
06
People + Ecosystem
How you scale
Let's Connect
Not sure where
you fit? Start here.
Whether you're an institution looking for systems, an entrepreneur ready to build, or a journalist or collaborator — here's where to go.