S1 E.17 The Birth of LWP and Advice on Starting Your Own Business

 
In this Episode

Let’s talk business! In this episode, Adriana and Mariah (well, more Adriana gets interviewed by Mariah) take you through the early years of LWP – how it started, all the way to today. While a lot of you may know this story already (because our podcast listeners are the OG Nice Girls), it’s still fun to listen back to, and hopefully you can gain some insight into what it’s like to start and continue your own business. 

So, as you might know, Little Words Project started as a result of Adriana being bullied throughout her childhood, and even well into her college years. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg to LWP’s real roots, and its growth since then.

To get the full picture, let’s start at the beginning. Adriana was born on April 4, 1990… well, okay, maybe not that early. We’ll fast forward a bit. Adriana was a part of her high school’s youth group and found a really supportive community there, that was there for her even through the lowest lows of her bullying experience. Something they did in that youth group was make necklaces out of yarn, and while they were talking in groups, the speaker would wear the necklace, and then they’d pass it on to someone else to wear, and they’d have to give the next person a hug. The youth group named these necklaces “Warm Fuzzies” (because they were supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy when you got a hug), and this idea kind of stuck with Adriana as she continued on with her life past her youth group days.

Fast forward a little bit more, and we find Adriana in college at TCNJ, in her Delta Zeta sorority. As the VP of Recruitment, one of her tasks was to figure out a way to “keep the love circulating.” Drawing on her experiences from youth group, she decided to take the idea of the Warm Fuzzies, and put it into bracelet form. She started making these bracelets with inspirational words on them, and that became Delta Zeta’s “thing,” if you will. Each pledge class received inaugural bracelets, and around campus, everyone knew that if you had one of those bracelets on, you were a part of the Delta Zeta family. 

Warm Fuzzies continued to take over at TCNJ (we’re being dramatic… not the whole campus, but certainly within Adriana’s sorority), but Adriana had reached graduation – what was going to happen to the Warm Fuzzies when their creator left campus?! Adriana knew that she wanted them to stay a part of the sorority, and at the time she graduated, Instagram had just come out. So, she used that platform to her advantage and started a hashtag… #WarmFuzzyDiaries. Go ahead, you can look it up. The idea was that the girls who had the bracelets would take pictures of them wherever they were in the world, and that would be a way to essentially track the bracelet’s journey, and see where it was going and what it was doing… sound familiar? 

At this point, however, Adriana still had no intention of making this a full-fledged brand. In fact, she had secured a full-time job working in New York City after graduation, and she was studying for the LSATs! Yes, the LSATs… she was planning on going to law school after graduation – a real life Elle Woods. But, one night, she woke up with an idea – what if I could create a sisterhood, not just within the grounds of TCNJ, but for the masses? What if I could make these bracelets trackable, and create a larger community? And from that point forward, Adriana knew that this could be something bigger than it already was. 

Adriana asked her Delta Zeta girls if they would be okay with her turning Warm Fuzzies into something more, and they backed her 100%. She waited to tell her parents that she was entertaining this option of starting her own business until after she had taken the LSATs, and they were completely supportive as well, asking how they could help in any way, shape, or form. 

To get herself up and running, Adriana just started talking to anyone and everyone she could about the business she was starting, because you never know who you might be talking to, who might be willing to help, or who those people might have a connection with that can help you too. Through doing this, she did find a couple of people who helped her set up a website, make a campaign video, and more. 

November 11, 2013 was a big day. Adriana both officially launched Little Words Project (as named by Bill), and she received her LSAT scores back… which turned out to be the exact same score that she had gotten when she took the exam in college. Talk about a sign from the universe that she was on the right path in creating her business instead of pursuing law school!

And while that brings us to the story of Little Words Project from its inception, there are so many more gems in this episode ranging from advice on how to start your own business, the hardest parts about being a business owner, LWP struggles, knockoffs, and more that are worth tuning in for. Thank you for listening, and more importantly for supporting LWP and Glow Through It. We could never have done it without you. 

Important Times

1:38 - Welcome back!

3:20 - The beginning of the story 

5:12 - LWP before Mariah

18:30 - How did she know where to start?

21:00 - When did Adriana tell her family? 

26:38 - A word from Adriana

33:10 - Another word from Adriana, what was her schedule like when it all started

38:45 - How did she grow her business

46:00 - First famous brand/celeb? 

54:29 - Knockoffs

56:27 - Has LWP ever struggled financially? 

1:01:33 - What is LWP’s secret sauce?

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Welcome bestie.
We’re so glad you’re here.

We’re Adriana and Mariah. Co-hosts, entrepreneurs, BFFs, and girls just like you trying to figure it out as we go.

 
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S1 E.18 Mental Health & The Power of Positive Energy with Kelly Lamor Wilson

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S1 E.16 Alexis Rosenbaum: Navigating Life, Business & Infertility in a World Built for Men