Rising Stars: Meet Keith Johnson of Downtown Detroit

Today we’d like to introduce you to Keith Johnson

Hi Keith, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I got the idea to start JUICIE Detroit back in 2018 because I saw a need in the Detroit communities for affordable high quality nutrition. I also noticed that there was a lot of educating that needed to be done around the subject of living a completely healthy lifestyle. I was particularly fed up with my friends and family waisting their time, money, and energy on “healthy” products that were nothing more than trash disguised beneath fancy labels. This is why transparency about our ingredients and health benefits is a critical component of everything we stand for. I wanted my brand to showcase how living a health centered life can be fun, obtainable, and hassle free. I began researching and experimenting with different juice blends to come up with my original 6 and, in 2020, I did a soft launch of the brand. Back then, we were called Juicie Juice. The launch was a success and my six starter juices became an instant hit in the community. Everyone loved the unique blends and raved over the delicious juices we created. We ran the test trial store for about five months, doing several pop ups across the city at food markets and community yoga events. After pausing operations in 2021, we officially relaunched in 2024 as JUICIE Detroit on Juneteenth. Since our relaunch, we have expanded our offerings from the original 6 to 14 unique cold pressed juice blends as well as one protein almond milk blend. We are soo grateful to have had the opportunity to service the Metro Detroit community with over 350 bottles of delicious cold pressed juices so far.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
While support for the brand has been substantial, learning how to navigate growing a new company from scratch with a limited budget has been a tumultuous learning journey. Not having an excess of financial resources has made learning how to effectively budget business expenses very crucial as well. Thankfully, thanks to all the research I put into the pricing strategy for my products prior to launch, we have been able to sustain. Learning how to effectively market the brand has also been quite the journey as well. Being a new company with an extremely tight budget, allocating funds towards marketing initiatives can seem nearly impossible at times; however, it’s important to market your company so that you can gain brand exposure. Something that I realized worked for me, especially in the beginning, was leveraging word of mouth and social media as much as possible. I realized that once someone tried my products, they would become an instant fan, posting about their juicing journey on socials and placing repeat orders for their favs. This is something that I eventually began to play into and encourage. We’ve worked hard to position the brand to be our customer favorite wellness bestie.

One thing that I didn’t particularly realize was heavily apart of the entrepreneurial journey until I stepped out to officially create my brand was how often you have to keep your mental health in check. Often times, when you are cranking out high quality content in an effort to market your brands, it can get very discouraging when it receives little to no engagement. I had to learn to not internalize the low engagement numbers and push myself to keep putting my brand out there because, eventually, my future customers will find it. Reminding myself of all the small wins along the journey has also been crucial. It’s sometimes very easy to dismiss the small growth because the road to the end goal seems so expansive. However, it’s the small wins in the present that will bring that future dream to fruition. Keeping this in mind on the day to day has truly kept me motivated.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My professional background is in fashion visual merchandising. I’ve done merchandising for brands like Nordstrom, Lululemon, and Ferragamo and have had the opportunity to lead several new store opening projects for Lululemon. I’ve also served as a merchandising director for Terrascend USA where I helped develop their merchandising department and completed revamped their store’s floor layouts. While I loved growing within the merchandising space, I’ve always known that I wanted to start my own company. Branding is a huge passion of mines and I thoroughly enjoy coming up with a concept and building it out. JUICIE Detroit is just the first of many ideas to come.

What matters most to you? Why?
I love my friend group! They have been soo supportive of me throughout my various endeavors throughout the years and have kept me both grounded and motivated. They are all so thoughtful and are always sending words of encouragement and checking up on me. I’ve gotten through several depressive episodes thanks to their support and they are a huge driver for my pursuit of success in my entrepreneurial journey.

Pricing:

• All of our juices are affordably priced from $6 up to $8 dollars. We believe that high-quality nutrition should be accessible for everyone.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://juiciedetroit.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juiciedetroit/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juiciedetroit
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith-johnson-8186ba66/