Little Words Project founder Adriana Carrig on making friendship bracelets a thriving business even before Taylor Swift

0:06Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast. I'm your host, Cale Guthrie-Weissman, the editor-in-chief here at Modern Weedtail. This week, we have Adriana Kerrig. She's the founder and CEO of Little Words Project, which is a really, really impressive, successful company that makes, among other things, beaded word bracelets. It's been around for over a decade. They've really been expanding over the last few years. They have many stores open. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the last stat I had is that you guys have a$20 million revenue run rate, which is extremely impressive. I believe that was from last year.

0:40So if you have any updated stats, feel free to share them. I just want to talk about the expansion because Little Words Project began as a predominantly direct-to-consumer over the last few years. I believe starting with the pandemic, you guys saw real huge growth and you've been doing a number of different, really fascinating things that have been really growing the business. And I want to talk all about it. But Adriana, how are you doing? Thanks for joining. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. I appreciate that incredible intro. You're pretty accurate on everything you've said.

1:07And yeah, the brand started in my parents' basement back in 2013. And over the past 10 years, I have been slowly but surely building it with an incredible team of people to the point where it is today, which is, you know, we now have 12 retail stores and pretty sizable wholesale business with partners like Target and Nordstrom and a really great D2C.com business as well. So we're really proud of the growth and where we've gotten to. So, yeah, it's super impressive. And I was, you know, I always try to do a little bit of LinkedIn stalking before I talk with someone on the show. And you're a really unique one, because correct me if I'm wrong, but this is this is what you've done fresh out of college, right?

1:50Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're currently at my first job. No, I did have one other job, a few. I mean, I worked in retail myself, actually, which kind of is funny. It made me a true retail junkie. I'm like, I love the art of like retail sales and the experience of retail. I worked at Ralph Lauren, which made me really kind of intentional about the customer experience. And it's definitely what has informed a lot of how we have built the retail experience for Little Words Project. But after that, I worked for a brief stint in PR and in marketing at a boutique marketing firm. And I was doing that while I was simultaneously coming home at 7 p.m.

2:33to work on this business where I would come home. I was commuting into the city from Jersey. I would come home. And then from seven o 'clock to 2 a.m., I was beating these friendship bracelets. And my father was my original shipping department and he was shipping them out for me. We were big night owl families, everything at night. And after about a year of doing both, I was able to leave that full-time job and completely jump ship into this business full-time, which was about in 2014. So for a literal decade, I have been doing nothing but this and I started it at just 23. Wow. That's amazing.

3:08There are very few stories like that. While I was doing the research for this, it reminded me of this age old question that I've always had. And I want, which we'll get to probably later when we talk about the retail stores. But I have this memory growing up, which where I grew up in a very small town, and there was a bead store in that town, and all it sold was beads. And my question was always, how do they stay in business? And I feel like you would have the answer for this. But I guess I'll start with my first question, which sort of lends itself to this, which is what, what was your vision in 2013?

3:37Did you think this? Did you know it would be only direct consumer for the first few years and then go into retail? Did you have an overall grand vision or was it just, this is what you wanted to do and it evolved over time? The latter. I will say, you know, as a 23-year-old fresh out of college, I didn't have a ton of understanding of what I was starting, right? Like I couldn't really look at it with this plan of like, I'm going to start D to C and then I'm going to go wholesale. Then I'm going to, you know, I wish I had that kind of foresight. I probably would have done things a little bit differently if I had.

4:11But I will say I let the business and the community that we were building inform our next move pretty much every time. I started this because I had wanted to create a kinder, more connected world. I had grown up being bullied from a very young age. And the whole purpose of the product was not to create, you know, this like bead empire or this bracelet empire. It was really more so to bring kindness to the world through this little vehicle right on our wrists, right? So the whole concept is to wear your word for as long as you need it and then pass it on one day to someone who needs it more. And each individual tag on the bracelet has a code.

4:53It's a unique code, making each bracelet essentially a one-of-one. And that code is used to connect the bracelet to our website, share your story, why you chose it, how it's helped you. And then when the next person does the same as you continue to pass them on, you can start to see where the bracelet travels and how it affects people down the line. So it's that little X factor that really makes it more than just a friendship bracelet, right? It makes it truly a vehicle of kindness and connection and community. And that's what I set out to build, right? So over time, I kind of just, you know, I failed forward, right, and figured it out as I went.

5:30And, you know, the decision to go D2C first or to go with just the website first was really more so about the understanding that it needed to have a brand. It couldn't just be that I was making these bracelets and selling them on Etsy. I couldn't just be going to street fairs. I needed to have a story around this product because of its simplicity and how maybe easy it was for anyone to make. I had to really prove the X factor. And that I knew from an early position. And I think that was because of my marketing background and my understanding of sales, right? And why people decide to buy something, right?

6:10So yeah, I definitely, I'm not foreign to the question of, I'm sorry, you did what? You've sold how many of these bracelets? You have a brand around this product and this product alone. And yet it's been our superpower because it's allowed us to kind of build and grow a little bit under the radar. Well, I think to my original question, what I've realized over time is that the store that I'm thinking about had a huge community to it. And I feel like what you tapped into and what you're talking about is that it's very community building. But I have a feeling, and I was doing some reading earlier about how it grew, But social media played a big role in that.

6:49Like you had an Instagram presence, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So Instagram had just essentially started when Little Words Project had started. It was very new. And influencers weren't a thing yet. People were not really sure how the platform was going to show up. But I very early on started leveraging it as a tool to show the behind the scenes, to show what I was doing, how I was doing it, what I was figuring out as I was figuring it out. And I think it really helped lay the foundation for how we would continue to show up with the business over time as authentic and transparent and really just kind of bringing our community on along for the ride.

7:30It definitely was the foundation for what the community ultimately became, which was kind of this group of friends, right? That just want to support one another, help one another when they're down. It's kind of the reason that we did have such a successful COVID year, you know, beyond the fact the product really helps lift people up during times of need and struggle. But I also was very transparent then, right? I did a story where I was like, guys, we need your help. I don't want to furlough. I don't want to lay anyone off. We need to keep building. You know, if you have dollars to spend, please spend them with us.

8:02And it worked. And our customers showed up for us in droves. But even before COVID, I feel like community has become a very important word in the DTC and the retail world. But like in 2013, it wasn't used in the same way. So when did you come to realize and how did you leverage it where it had to be such a core part of the business and the storytelling? It was a core part from the very start. It was the reason that I wanted to create this brand, right? As a young girl going through so much bullying and always feeling excluded and like I didn't belong somewhere, I actively, selfishly was trying to create something for me to belong to, right?

8:44In a way, right? And I think, you know, I had come up with the idea while I was in a sorority in college, which is, you know, known for community and sisterhood. And we had been making them for ourselves in that sorority, in that group of 60 women and sharing them amongst ourselves, right? At chapter meetings and help, the bracelets really started to become this symbol of sisterhood. And when I graduated, saw they were still doing it, I thought to myself, why couldn't this be a sisterhood for the masses, right? So community was at the core of why this product came to exist from the very, very start.

9:17And yeah, over time, people have definitely started shifting towards, okay, we need to give these customers a purpose for why they're shopping with us. We just very much so from the very start, that was always our purpose. And our customers always shopped us for that reason. As it grew, as it became more systematized, as you your sales doubled, etc. And like also, as, as you increase your sales channels, you know, you're in major stores like Target, how were you able to maintain that sort of one to one community aspect? Because that that becomes hard when you're in big box retail. Yeah, no, it's definitely been harder the more we've grown.

9:56And, you know, even just as far as how present I have personally been as a part of the story. I've gone in and out over the last decade of like, OK, am I the forefront of it or am I behind the scenes? Do I talk as it's my brand or do I want, you know, to have like the hit by the bus theory and make sure it functions without me? Like, how do we keep that going? And I think we're kind of coming back on a wave of I do want to be at the forefront. I definitely am someone who, you know, I have so much that I believe in that I think has gotten us to this point. And, you know, I have that platform that I want to, you know, jump off from and bring my community along with me on.

10:35But, you know, when it comes to the big box story and how we keep that community build, it's really just about like making decisions with the concept of the community first being at the forefront of those decisions. So even when it came to Target, I was adamant that we could not go at a cheaper price point. And that's not something that's normal for Target, right? We weren't making a sub brand. We were taking our brand identity and putting it in Target. it. This was in an effort to maintain all of our independent retailer relationships that we had built tirelessly over the last decade. We did not want to offend or upset them.

11:10We did not want to affect our D2C business. We really wanted to be intentional with that decision. Further, I was adamant about having real marketing presence. Like I wanted them to put my name. I wanted them to put the brand storytelling, the mission behind it. I wanted a splash page on the website. And I know it's kind of like, okay, well, yeah, everyone wants that. So what made you get it? I think we had a really Target has been an incredible partner. We had an incredible buyer who got what we were trying to build. And like most brands, Target's goal is to increase community building and work with real authentic brands.

11:45And I'm very blessed and lucky and grateful to say that that's what Little Words Project is. And we just stayed really resolute in that reality and just did not veer no matter what opportunity came knocking. If it didn't fit within the core goal of creating and building community and it took away from it in any way, shape or form, we've turned it down. Is it daunting to give such strict parameters to such a major retail player? Like I imagine you said everybody wants to say we can't lower our price for Target, but then you're like, I'm also talking to Target. So how, like, talk about that. Yeah, you know, I think it has to do with the fact that we've been bootstrapped.

12:28Right. So we bootstrapped the brand to 20 million dollars, which was in 2023. We took our first investment, which was early 2023. That storytelling is was really just it really informed a lot of how we built and therefore a lot of what we did or didn't need. Right. So Target's been a huge player in our brand building and it's now become a major piece of the brand. So that's, you know, that I will establish up front. But I always had this kind of delusional confidence, I guess, if you will, to not worry that if they said no, then okay, there would be another opportunity that came knocking that would work.

13:07And I think that's because we had done it. Like I already could look back and see the proof of when we stay true to what we believe and we don't veer for any one thing or another, and we just stick to the concept of the core mission serving that core customer, it always pays off in the end, right? And so I've been able to look back at that decade and I'm not as much of like those, there are those brands that kind of shoot out of a cannon and they go and they get that funding early and then they get these opportunities and then they just kind of side shift and they become the brand that the big box wants them to be rather than saying, no, this is the brand that you want and need.

13:44And I think because we had such a long tail of building the brand, it enabled us to come from that position and it gave us a little bit more clout to the targets of the world, right? So, you know, but no, yeah, it was definitely scary. Like I second guess myself all the time. And I will tell you also, there was a moment when we were talking and seeking the target relationship that we had, like in our hand, we had the kids buyer very interested and the kids buyer was ready to put us in the stores. and our rep at the time, or still our rep now that we work with was like, you know, it's really hard to get the adult jewelry buyer.

14:22We might want to take this as like a foot in. And then, and I was adamant because this is not a kid's brand. I didn't want it to become a kid's brand, knowing full well that Target would have turned it into a kid's brand, right? If we got such large distribution, it would have maybe cannibalized the business a little bit. And so I think that was a scary decision to be like, I have Target literally ready to buy and that's dollars, right? But I'm going to say no because it doesn't serve the core customer. And ultimately, the target adult buyer came, you know, opened the door a few, I want to say, you know, four to six months later.

14:58And it's, you know, the rest is history. So yeah, I mean, I think I do. I'm always daunted, but I try to do things anyway, feeling that way. No, that makes a lot of sense. And that's like, I mean, the fact that you did say no, and then it came back just sort of proves ultimately the point that you there, the thesis that you have, I guess. But going back to the bootstrap thing, because I think that's really important and interesting and something that not a lot of brands can say that they can do to$20 million. But that also gives you the ability to choose when and how you expand. So how, when did you realize it was time for you to begin doing wholesale?

15:39So actually, the wholesale story really started in 2015, 2016, so about three years in. And it came, like most of this business has come, just out of a product of connecting with others, having honest and open conversations about what I understood and what I didn't understand, and being very willing to ask the questions. Right. So I had actually I had heard from a rep, a wholesale rep in the industry around 2000, like I said, 2015, who had said something to me along the lines of, you know, I really want to rep your brand. I only have a couple of other jewelry brands that I that I rep and would love to rep you.

16:20And I'm like, what does rep mean? What what are you talking about? What is I don't even have any. I'm like, what is like what is wholesaling? I just thought, OK, I go into these stores and ask them to carry the line and whatever. But I wasn't doing that because I had one bad experience in 2013 where they were like, my customers will never wear this. Meanwhile, they're one of our accounts now, LOL. But I walked into that store and I was like, ooh, I don't want to do that ever again. So I'm going to just not do this for the next two years. I'm going to figure out the D to C play online and not worry about wholesale.

16:51So anyway, long story short, that woman opened the door. Her name was Eileen. She taught me what a line sheet was. She taught me what a trade show was. and then through another connection of another female founded business called Headbands of Hope actually who's still around they reached out to me about they were going to be doing a trade show and did I want to split a booth with them and I was like okay sure so now I'm like all right I have to figure out displays I have to figure out how to get there I have to figure out like what my booth is going to look like what is a booth and so it was a lot of just like again trial and error figuring it out doing things like at the bare minimum just to get there and show up and let the product speak for itself after that.

17:29And it was really, truly, you know, a snowball effect from there. And I think that this whole business from now to even from then to even now, where we talk about where we are at in our retail expansion and our plans there, it's very build the plane as we fly. And it's it's that that I do think is a product of bootstrapping, right? We've never had the luxury of saying, okay, we've got millions of dollars. So what expert team can we hire? What expert research can we do? What, you know, expert branding can we have? Like, we have probably rebranded this brand every year since 2013, right? Because it's just a constant like chipping away at it.

18:12And yeah, I think it's been our superpower in a way too. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. So you mentioned or you sort of hinted at this a few seconds ago, but talk about the retail play because you opened a store. Your flagship is in New York City, right? Yes. And so when did you when did you decide you needed to do that? And you now have 12, as you said, how what made you decide to ramp it up that quickly? Yeah, so we opened our first store in November of 2021 in Bleecker, in the West Village on Bleecker Street in Manhattan. And it was lightning in a bottle. It was like immediately, I mean, it did a million in its first year.

18:56It was like an immediate, you know, four-wall profitable experience. And it was amazing to see the customer show up live in person, right? We never had this in-person experience for these customers. And yet we were founded on community, right? And community makes you think, you know, coming together, doing something together in person. And that's where the brand really took off was once it had that in-person experience of the retail store. So once we did the Bleecker Street experience, we were like, wow, this could probably show up in tons of different markets. While Bleeker is in our backyard, being a Jersey, New York-based brand, we wanted to test new markets and try new cities.

19:38So in 2022, we did five more locations kind of in different markets. We did mostly street retail, really just trying to figure out where the product would sing the most. And what we learned is that where we set up stores, we have the tendency to see larger selling online in those markets, right? So it became a really decent customer acquisition play, but not huge, believe it or not, just decent. And that enabled us to continue just testing these new markets. Luckily, it hasn't been super expensive for us to launch into retail because our product has been kind of an easier access point. It's not like crazy apparel numbers of inventory, right?

20:32It's like a lower price point product. Now, it's been harder at the AOV level, right? And making sure that we're seeing the revenue numbers because our product is$25 retail. So that was always a stopgap for me. How could we ever do retail with such a low price point product? It was my husband who came in. He joined in 2021 as our COO and president from a career at Blackstone in private equity. And he's the one who was like, let's try retail. And it was his first and probably best hot take for the brand. And now, you know, here we are two, three, almost three years, no, two and a half years later, not even.

21:13And, you know, we're on our 12th store. It's definitely been a sprint over 2023 was a bigger sprint for us. And now we're trying new options like malls and lifestyle centers and trying to see which one is the perfect fit. Again, the build the plane as you fly mentality, really just establishing that foundation of really understanding what works for us and our customer and our community. But ultimately, what we've learned above all else is that people want to come in and do something. And it kind of recalls back to that bead store where you go in and you make something. That's what the customer's number one desire is when they walk into our doors, is to be able to sit down at one of our beating bars and make themselves a bracelet.

21:56And that's what we found to be the kind of winning, the winning, the secret sauce, if you will. You said earlier that you were testing out new markets, seeing what worked and what didn't. How did you decide which markets to enter? Was it just based on general intuition? Did you do market data? I always feel like usually it's where people see maybe a mode of sales or where sales could be. But how did you tally those numbers? It was kind of a little bit of both. On the one hand, you know, we opened in kind of like these flagpole cities. So we opened in Boston. We opened in Miami. We opened in San Francisco, in Georgetown.

22:35Like we opened a second store in New York. we really wanted to have these like brand flag planting opportunities, right? So it was more of a means of customer acquisition and, you know, top of the funnel brand awareness that we knew we could back up with the experience when we asked the customer to come in store. Like we knew we could be profitable. We just had to kind of start somewhere. So we started with that energy of like planting flags. And then over time, once we started to see, okay, these lifestyle centers are working better than these other street retails. This amount of foot traffic in this area is the sweet spot.

23:14This is what we have to do in stores that are a smaller footprint. We really started to learn and kind of lean into what's working and iterate on what we established at the forefront. Now we can be a little bit more opportunistic about our retail expansion. We're a little pickier about where we select to be, Um, but we've kind of, we're starting to really figure out that perfect formula. Um, and it's really been able to, uh, make a difference. Got it. Got it. I want to ask something that's a little bit different, but it's, I've really been wanting to ask you this, which is like, you know, you saw the COVID bump.

23:50You've been seeing this growth year over year, but have you seen a Taylor Swift bump given the friendship bracelet thing? Yeah, no, I, I, I would have been surprised if you didn't ask me this. You know, yes and no. I will say that the overall category of the friendship bracelet has definitely seen a lift thanks to Taylor because of just everyone and literally everyone and their mother making these bracelets because she said to do so in one of her songs. I mean, it's like the woman has power. It's incredible. And I'll also say that, you know, we've certainly leaned into it on our end. We created a collection that is the exact collection that Lance Bass actually gifted to Taylor Swift on the VMA stage.

24:33He gifted her our product. Wow. We created it for him, got it to him the day before, and he gave it to her on the stage of the VMAs. And so when that happened, we leaned into it immediately. We jumped on the viral, you know, social media play. And we popped those very bracelets up on our website that we knew Taylor now owned. And we saw, you know, customers came out in droves to buy that collection. Her fans bought that collection. And we definitely saw a little lift around that. But what's funny is, you know, we look back at that, those numbers, and we've actually had to do it recently for our investors and had internal conversations about the overall Taylor effect.

25:13And while she's been an incredible brand adjacent female that we're like so proud to be associated with in some way, we only saw we saw a less than 1 % sales lift from that collection, which is immaterial when you think about the overall brand presence. And I think it just goes to show that, you know, the brand has had its own legs before Taylor. And while the rest of the world who jumped on Taylor adjacent things that maybe didn't make sense to their regular product assortment, right, they might have seen a more significant lift because they really did grift. Whereas we've just kind of, sorry to say, whereas we've just, like, I almost want to say, like, we kind of paved the path to begin with on the friendship bracelet.