Doe-Anderson partners with Louisville black-owned business to give pro bono services

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - In March, Doe-Anderson launched a program geared towards helping a black-owned business grow and expand.

After receiving more than 70 applications, the advertising company chose to partner with JoBé Products, a company that sells a bookbag that turns into a desk.

JoBé Products calls their product a besk, a bookbag that turns into a desk.

The idea came to CEO Jocari Beattie in 2014 while trying to do homework at the beach as a college student in Florida.

“All I had was my backpack, and I thought what do you need to get your work completed? It’s a desk. So I was like alright, that’s also a backpack,” Beattie said. “I went on Amazon and couldn’t find it, so I was like alright and wrote it my idea book, then thought I could probably work on this.”

And so he did. Nine years of working on prototypes led him to the final product in 2023.

The besk sells not just around the U.S. but around the world.

Still, Beattie felt they were missing the means to get their product out there.

So when Doe-Anderson launched their All Hands: Black Small Business Enrichment Program to give pro bono services to a black-owned business, he jumped at an opportunity.

“This knocks off like a huge checkmark in our book of something that we really wanted to work at and do and something that was a lot better, so we can like actually partner with a company that this is actually what they do as a profession,” Beattie said.

Beattie and JoBé Products were one of more than 70 businesses that applied for the program.

Doe-Anderson’s Public Relations Account Executive Kaelin Massey said Beattie and JoBé Products stood out with their innovation and potential for success.

“We needed to partner with a business that was in that, what I describe as just about to turn the corner,” said Massey. “Like they’re right there, but they just need that little push to get past the corner, and that’s what we hope to give Jocari once we’re all done.”

Massey said the besk’s innovation and sustainability with the use of recycled plastic to make it is what took Jocari over the top of his competition.

With their help, Doe-Anderson said in the next year they hope to make JoBé Products a household name.

“So we hope that through our efforts and what we have skill set wise, we can push him forward and put him in front of a crowd that didn’t know it existed,” Massey said.

Beattie said after working with Doe-Anderson, in the next 5 to 10 years he hopes to replace every classroom desk with his besk.

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