Thereasa Black dreamed of launching a desserts business during her military deployment. When she wasn’t working, she pitched business ideas to colleagues who would also taste test her sweet concoctions. Her passion for launching her own business stemmed from never wanting to be separated from her young daughter again.
“When I was in Djibouti, I had this idea that I could be with my daughter. At that point in time, it was just a dream,” recalls Black.
Today, you’ll find Black in her Bon AppéSweet chocolate factory in southern Maryland where her team makes the winning business idea – date-sweetened chocolates. Bon AppéSweet launched in 2021 and had early success when Black was able to sell the products in a major retailer. But she also wanted to grow her digital sales beyond her own website and started selling in the Amazon store in 2023.
Sales were modest at first – just one or two orders per month. Bon AppéSweet now processes up to 30 orders daily, all stemming from an advertising strategy that began with a mere $10 daily budget.
“I didn’t really have a lot of extra cash laying around to work on ads,” says Black, a Navy veteran and Bon AppéSweet’s founder and CEO. But she realized advertising was actually attainable after attending a Veteran EDGE conference, where another successful veteran entrepreneur offered crucial advice about Amazon Ads. “He said, ‘It’s worth it. You’re not just putting money in—it actually comes back to you tenfold,’” she recalls.
Taking this advice to heart, Black started small, investing just $10 per day in Amazon Ads and immediately saw 3,000% sales growth. The boost was so dramatic that it created unexpected challenges for the small chocolate maker based in Leondardtown, MD.
“The chocolate chips were going crazy, absolutely crazy,” Black recalls. “We couldn’t even sell the chocolate chips in the front of the store because as soon as they were made, they were being shipped.”
Black’s approach to Amazon Ads remained conservative even as sales grew. “I never went over $15 a day, and I still had that growth,” she explains. “It demonstrated that if I increased the daily advertising spend, I could potentially exceed 3,000% growth.”
This growth is largely driven by Black’s unique take on chocolate. After years of testing flavors and looking for alternative ingredients to milk and sugar, she discovered that the taste of dates resembled caramel. Plus, her daughter approved.
“Most healthy foods don’t taste very good, and a kid is only going to eat food that tastes good,” says Black. “I had to make something that she would like. So, she became my No. 1 taste tester.”
In addition to Amazon Ads, Black leverages A+ Content, which allows independent sellers to tell their brand story and showcase products in their own words on Amazon. This feature was particularly important to help consumers understand the health benefits of dates—a superfood, packed with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals.
She also uses Amazon’s analytics and insights to track sales performance and optimize her listings, including adding more chocolate flavors based on what people search on Amazon and adjusting keywords through A/B testing.
“Amazon lets you track everything you’re doing and shows you how you’re growing over time,” Black explains. “That’s monumental because most grocery stores don’t tell you that. You can’t see how a small tweak can change something.”
Black’s ultimate goal for Bon AppéSweet is to sell the business to a larger chocolate company or to go public. And her personal goal is to one day go on a big trip with her daughter.
For other independent business owners, especially fellow veterans and women, Black’s experience offers valuable lessons about the power of starting small and scaling strategically.
“Bon AppéSweet is a beacon for every mom, every single parent, every woman, every black woman, every veteran that dreams can come true,” says Black. “Don’t let anybody else write your story for you. It’s your story to write.”