Adriana Carrig, Founder and CEO of Little Words Project

For my latest Tiny CEO interview, I interviewed Adriana Carrig, the founder and CEO of Little Words Project, a jewelry company.  She has released many bracelets, all focused on empowering girls and women all over the world, as well as doing collaborations with many different companies and franchises including Disney, Emily in Paris, and even Wicked! She is also the author of The Power of Little Words: How One Kind Word Can Change Everything, a book about embracing yourself and spreading kindness and joy in your community. 

What inspired you to start Little Words Project?

I grew up my whole life dealing with bullying and negativity, and I really wanted to create something that would bring positivity to the world. And so that's where Little Words Project came into play.

What inspired you to write your recent book, The Power of Little Words: How One Kind Word Can Change Everything?

I wanted to write my book because I wanted to put my story down on paper about what words essentially have gotten me through the past 30 years of my life. I wanted to memorialize all of the experiences that I've had and the “little words” that got me through. The topics range from dealing with bullying as a young girl, to entrepreneurship, to motherhood and fertility and everything that comes along with that. There are a lot of business and friendship topics as well…pretty much everything that touches being a young woman and an entrepreneur at the same time.

How long did it take you to have stores around the country and do bracelet collabs with different companies?

I've worked on and owned the Little Words Project brand for 11 years. I started it in 2013, so it's been a very long time. For the first 7 years, we didn't really have a ton of brand collaborations. It was a lot of just beating the pavement and trying to get the word out there. We started retail about 8 years in, and the last 3 years we've really been seeing the uptick–so it took a while, almost a decade! But that doesn't mean that it takes that long for everybody. I think it's just how our brand developed.

I sometimes hear about how Little Words Project is referred to as the “Nice Nation.” Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

Nice Nation is our Little Words community, essentially customers and people who just love the Little Words Project and are also kind individuals. We have a Facebook group, where we have everybody essentially assemble, meet, and connect. It's just a really great digital community, but also in an IRL or in-person community we activate at various touch points, like our retail stores. So Nice Nation is our little kitschy name for the club of, if you will, of customers who love Little Words and love spreading kindness.

What is your favorite part of your job?

My favorite part of my job is probably seeing how much our products impact people who wear them and engage with our community. It's been cool to see how much the bracelets mean to the people who wear them. It's definitely very rewarding.

What is the hardest part of your job?

The hardest part of my job–I think it's probably building a team and getting the brand to grow as quickly as the customers want it to grow.

I was wondering what inspired you to start the beading workshop in your various stores around The United States.

The thing that inspired me to do that is just the knowledge that everybody always wanted to have. The experience of making a bracelet is very therapeutic, and it's extremely comforting and communal when you do it with other people. So we wanted to have the stores be an in-person experience for customization. We felt like the custom story was really strong on our website, and we wanted to continue that through to our retail stores. The workshops have been one of the best elements of the store by far.

Who's your favorite woman role model?

I think I would say Sarah Blakely, who's the founder of Spanx, because she is a really cool CEO and founder, and she bootstrapped her brand and figured it all out. I love that. She doesn't really see things as obstacles, and she knows that she can do anything she sets her mind to, and that's really how I like to be, too.

What is your favorite collab you've done? 

My favorite collab…We've worked with Barbie. We've worked with the WNBA. We've worked  with Disney and Wicked. If I had to pick a favorite–this Wicked one was so cool as a young theater-lover, and as a person who appreciates the art so much and how we were able to activate it. We were even able to get the costumes into our storefronts, so that's been really cool. So I'd probably say Wicked right now is my number one favorite. Although Disney is up there, it's hard!

Would you ever want to do a collab to help support She's the First?

So I actually have worked with She's the First in the past. I recently met Tammy Tibbetts, one of the founders, and she went to The College of New Jersey, which is where I went to school. So the answer is, yes, but we just haven't had a chance to work together again since we did originally in 2017.

Do you have any advice for young entrepreneurs like me, who are looking to start a business?

I'd say you have to believe in yourself. First and foremost, you have to believe in yourself more than anybody else does, because if you don't believe in yourself, then there's no reason for your business to thrive, because there will be enough people who doubt you. So you have to believe. You can doubt yourself every once in a while, but you have to end it with believing, and keep pushing forward, knowing that you will succeed.