Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Giving a Voice to the Voiceless: How Kalilah Wright, CEO and Founder of Mess in a Bottle, has revolutionized the apparel industry

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

This episode checks all our boxes: Radical entrepreneur? (Check!) Radical e-commerce strategy? (Check!) Radical mission? (CHECK!)In this episode, host Ryan Alford interviews CEO and founder of Mess in a Bottle, Kalilah Wright.Kaliliah started the business after the Freddie Gray riots in Baltimore a few years ago. Her idea? - To give a voice to the voiceless. How did she accomplish this? - Putting messages on shirts no one else was willing to create.The company is thriving through their e-commerce strategy. Kalilah tells us how Instagram and Facebook have proven useful for both engagement and as platforms for online shopping.| Be sure to leave us a review and subscribe to hear more radical marketing strategies and to learn from more revolutionary entrepreneurs! || Follow our host on instagram here! | Check out all things radical on THE RADCAST instagram | | For more from Mess in a Bottle, visit their website here and their instagram |   If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 

You're listening to The Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, it's Ryan Alford. Welcome to the latest edition of The Radcast. We are knee-deep in our e-commerce series, and we've got another radical guest that also happens to be in the e-com business.

I'm really excited to have Kalila Wright on. Hey, Kalila. Hi. Thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting. Cool. We're excited to have you on. So the founder, and I don't know if you call yourself a CEO, but you're definitely running as a CEO.

No, I'm not. Mess in a bottle. I'm in the CEO hat right now. I'm definitely founder and CEO for sure founder and CEO of Mess in a Bottle which we're going to talk more about momentarily

and you know for the ones that watch our videos on YouTube if you're watching the video you'll see I'm sporting a t-shirt from Mess in a Bottle we'll talk more about the messages and what they mean but they go right down our path, especially being in the business marketing,

kind of entrepreneurial space, really cool messages. But Khalilah, let's just start, you know, where we start most of these, you know, you kind of tell us about you, your background, and, you know, we'll kind of lead right into where we are now today with Mess in a Bottle. Right. So Mess in a Bottle, so we're a t-shirt company and we come packaged in a reusable bottle. So I had this idea in 2016 shortly after the Freddie Gray riots. Freddie Gray,

an African-American male, he died while in police custody. And so I really wanted my community to have a way of having a voice so we wanted to give a voice to the voiceless and we wanted to invoke change so I started putting these messages on t-shirts and then I had them packaged in the reusable bottles so this comes from the 310 BC concept of receiving a message in the ocean um so, you know, that's pretty much the history of how Mess in a Bottle really got started. Well, let's go back even a little further. I love that. And I love the notation.

It makes me think of Castaway almost, the old Tom Hanks movie. He had the volleyball they wrote stuff on. I love Castaway. You would have killed to have gotten a message on the island. But let's talk more about your background, though. I mean, where are you grew up? I know you're from Jamaica originally. I was born in Jamaica, raised in Brooklyn. And Penn State graduate? Did I pick up on that? Penn State, yeah, Penn State graduate. and then I went to Morgan State University for grad. So I just had, you know, this background in architecture.

Like, I was chasing this architecture career for a while now. And it really, you know, surprisingly enough, I was chasing architecture, but fashion was really always, you know, my first love. So even when I was chasing architecture, really always, you know, my first love. So even when I was chasing architecture, I would still work at different fashion retail companies at night. You know, so I worked at places like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Club Monaco. So, you know, fashion was just always a part of my life. But I think that I really wanted to take the architecture realm just so, you know, I think that it was just different for

a woman to wear a hard hat and for me to really learn about, like, construction and things like that. And I think that that design aesthetics really has now aided me within my fashion design and fashion company. Well, they're kind of, I mean, you know, they're probably not as far apart as you think. It's like, how do things get made? How are they built? How are they brought together?

What are the component parts that make something more than the original? So I see the connection there. Sure, it's helped your brain maybe the way you've, you know, built the company. I'm sure it's helped on some levels. It has. And, you know, what I've told myself is, you know, I didn't box myself into being just a designer of buildings.

You know, I am a designer now of, you know, of apparel, of clothing. So I really do think that it's really about how you look at your work and how you're able to strategically, you know, position what you know, because now architecture has helped me to design my bottles and use those to really create, you know, for us to be able to put our t-shirts inside. So I really did use my architecture degree and career and, you know, the design experience to really build out my sort of bottles. What's it been like building the company?

I want to get into kind of the nuts and bolts of the marketing and this website and all those things, but what's it been like building the company and becoming an entrepreneur and all of those things that they're always perfect, right? Right. Of course they are. Yeah, right. What's it been like? You know, I think that it's been quite interesting, especially right now.

Like I'm in a phase where I'm shifting from, as you said, founder and just this creator and, you know, grassroots and trying to figure out how to make a company work, where now we have the how. And so now it's just like, okay, well, what's the next step? And it's really, you know, keeping steady sales, scaling the business, really understanding the business. Like, that's a whole different beast and animal. And, you know, I think that now I'm at a different space in the business where I'm like, now I'm really trying to figure out how to sustain a company and become the CEO. So, you know, I think that I went from being a founder to now I'm the CEO. And eventually, sooner than later, I think I'll just become the owner where, you know, I'm more overseeing everything and I'm not worried about the day to day as much as I am now. Yeah, that makes sense. Talk about like maybe the early stages.

You know, you had the idea. And once you started that early scale, I mean, was it just we started an e-com site. You started getting the word out there. Maybe talk about some of the early states of e-comm and building for you. Yeah, so, you know, we started initially on a platform called Big Cartel. And so, you know, at the time, I thought it was a really cool way of me being able to start an e-comm website, putting up some products and kind of figuring it out. And so then we transitioned from Big Cartel to eventually Shopify, which, of course, Shopify has a lot of analytics, a lot of background,

a lot of, you know, for you to really figure out, you know, how your business is doing. So we did these two, you know, different e-commerce sites. And, you know, it's been quite interesting because I think right now, even during a pandemic where a lot of retailers are closing, I think one of the advantages that we've had is we've already built this really, you know, sustainable e-commerce business. And so while a lot of people were scrambling, trying to get their business on e-commerce, we were already on here with a lot of data and a lot of information. And, you know, we've worked the last, like, four to five years with really honing in on

our audience and really using the time to look at how to scale and what to do within an e-commerce business and how to still also capture your audience's attention. And, you know, there's just a lot of details that I think that we have the upper hand and advantage because we've been on e-commerce now for several years. Makes a lot of sense. What's, you know, we've had really similar discussions with other entrepreneurs that were well positioned with everything that's gone on. So kudos there.

positioned with everything that's gone on. So kudos there. What are the marketing channels that have driven the most success for you guys over your last three or four years? I'm sure some of those have changed or you've added things on. It's how it goes. When you have more budget, you can spend more money and you can do those things. But let me talk about some of those marketing channels that have been successful for you guys. But let me talk about some of those marketing channels that have been successful for you guys. Definitely, I would say Facebook and Instagram. Instagram even more. You know, I think that just for my age group and where we are within the business.

And so I think that we really target people anywhere from 23 to like 36. And I think that that has really, you know, that's the core audience of probably people on Instagram and, you know, Facebook here and there, but I think really using those channels as well as podcasts and having just a lot of visibility, I think that people don't even understand how much going on others' podcasts and really being able to, you know, have that type of exposure has also been very integral as well. Yeah, we've had a ton of great PR. You know, I saw it in doing some of the research of Riley. Our producer was already a fan, you know, from the PR that's been out there. you know, from the PR that's been out there,

is at what point did you shift? And I'm assuming you have team help now. I mean, that's the hardest, I think, for entrepreneurs. It's like, you know, you're doing everything yourself. I'm sure it's all like, you know, skidding bones to get the thing going. Was the transition hard or easy for you to take on resources that were helping? It's hard. Okay, maybe hard. I'm going to say hard.

It's hard because I think that it's almost like being a mechanic or being a car driver. Yeah, I'll say I'm a car driver. And you're used to rigging your car. You're like, oh, I don't need the mechanic to do this this and that but you know and so you start to jack it up and you do your own thing and you're like it works like why get you know a professional or somebody and then

you know and then a mechanic comes in and they're like you can buy like this you know but I think that that's kind of what I've experienced with the business and giving up you know some of the power, the things that I'm so used to doing. I think that for me, I'm like, it works. It works. You know, I can make it work. But I think that I have accepted that at this point in

this phase, I'm no longer making it work. I want it to be, you know, flawless. I want it to work well. I want it to be easy and, like, not as stressful on me. So I think that, you know, I'm like the reason that I'm trusting these people and hiring professionals is because, you know, we want a successful, thriving business. And so I think that as a founder, sometimes you have to let go of that control and know that these people are here and there are other resources that can really help you um and if you want the business to grow you cannot just continue to depend on just you like you know i'm home now you know with my son and um and it's one of those

things where it's just like through this pandemic and through the shift of your business you know we may not have been able to survive if it was just me doing all of the marketing, the social media, the e-commerce site, you know, and then having production as well. So I think that if you want to grow and if you want to scale, you're going to have to make some of those hard choices in letting go. And I think one of the biggest things that happened at a staff meeting recently is they said, you know, what part do you want to know about? Like, where do you want to be involved in? And

like, whatever you don't want to be involved in, like we, you know, we're not going to include you in. How big is the team now? We have about 12 to 16 people. Like we have, it's growing, it's growing, it's changing. We're hiring, we're getting new people. So, yeah, we have a good amount, a good amount of people. You know, I know the apparel business, the t-shirt business, I think there's a lot of people,

it's a popular space, it's a perceived easy, I know different, because we've helped enough companies, you know, especially on the we've helped enough companies you know especially on the fulfillment production side um and i know you do some master class stuff we'll give some shout outs to that at the end so we won't break down every secret maybe but talk about some maybe recommendations or anyone out there that might be starting a t-shirt company apparel any uh any quick tips that uh might salivate salivate the listener to maybe come check out your master

course? So I would just say that there are a couple different ways for you to start your own apparel or t-shirt company. You don't have to have a lot of money. You don't have to have a lot of following. I've made a lot of mistakes

through the years with dabbling into different parts of the business. money, don't have to have a lot of following. I've made a lot of mistakes through the years, you know, with dabbling into different parts of the business. And, you know, so like you mentioned, you know, I do the T class to really share and I'm very transparent about a lot of our successes or things that I didn't do so well that I'm still working towards. So I think that for anyone who wants to start in a power brand, I do think it's easier than maybe a lot of people think. But I do think, and you can actually start it with almost little to no startup capital. But I do think that then if you want to scale it and grow it,

you'll then need funding for that. How much are you, do you produce all your stuff? Are you at the point now where you keep a production amount of certain things versus call it on demand with whatever it is? A little bit of both. We're a little bit of a mix. So again, having an operations manager, we do a lot of forecasting. So we'll sort of say, okay, we think we're going to do this amount of number. Maybe we should, you know, increase the amount of products that we have

or, you know, the amount that might be allocated to a certain product. So we really just really focus on the forecasting part of it, look at the numbers. And, you know, we set our goals at the beginning of the month, and then from there we go on to, you know, to really think about what's doing well, and then we do weekly and monthly check-ins as well. How do you come up with the messages? I mean, are they – do you have a writing team now? I mean, do they know kind of your vision?

They're helping? Are you – it seems like it originated with your mind, and I still see the thumbprint everywhere, but maybe talk about your process for creative. It still is me. You know, it's still, so I recently hired a creative director, and I think that it's been helpful to have somebody,

like, help to flesh out the ideas, but overall, the messages are still me, and, you know, and it's just been been it's been able to work in that um in that direction because i think our marketing and our you know our audience are really um made up of people that look like me and i think that um it's been good because the voice and the message, you know, it comes from a black woman. And so I think that it's just been really nice that now, you know, other groups, other ethnicities, you know, they are also just appreciating the voice of a black woman. And so I think that for me, I'm not open yet to like a writing team and like my main director. me, I'm not open yet to a writing team and

my creative director. He gets the most of it because I'm just like, it has to be very authentic to me and I don't divert from that. I love that. Let's talk a little bit about there since you went there. The empowerment,

a black entrepreneur, female, that is empowering others. That just seems like a message that's got to be hitting home now. I mean, what kind of feedback are you getting? Like you said, it's got to be great. Yeah, it is. I think that, you know, I really, I think that people are really excited that I started

this thing from nothing. are really excited that I started this thing from nothing. And they watch me grow the brand, figure out what I want to do, make mistakes. So I think that it's been really gratifying to see, almost like your home team is winning. And they've been really rooting you know, rooting me on and really people buy. You know, my mom is a super fan and supporter, of course, and she buys literally every month like several Messing About. She has more than I do. And so, you know, it's been really sweet where I think people who are even strangers,

like that's the energy that I get. They just really want to support the brand. And it's been, you know, it's been helpful to spread the message. Have you been involved in, you know, maybe even like the youth movement? You know, it just seems like it would be a great message to be, you know, in the African American community. I think there's maybe I would assume this perception that maybe it's something that's not attainable,

and you're sitting here living proof of that and living that daily. Yeah, we actually had several schools. I do mentorship. I probably don't post about it as much as I should, but we do mentorship as well as we have different, you know, groups of kids who come and they come to the shop, they see what we're doing. And I think that you're absolutely right. I think that people do want to see, especially

a black woman sitting at the head of a table and the fact that you can have a dream and, you know, and allow it to become something real that is attainable. And that's been my main goal. I mean, not even just for kids. I think just for even here in Baltimore, we have a lot of youth that are cleaning cars outside. And I try my best to teach them and say to them, this is not your only means of being able to get money

and start your own business. Like, you know, I want to show you what entrepreneurship really looks like. Yep. I love it. What's been, I mean, I think we've talked about a lot of it, but what are you most proud of? What I'm most proud of is probably, I would say maybe my son. I think my son really enjoys, like, you know, he hates it on the most days, but coming to the shop, you know, I think being able to come to a space. So I would say my son and also being able to hire, especially black women. You know, I think that and I've created this space where we feel comfortable in this space.

I think that even now having all these conversations about like black women's hair and going into work and, you know, and this is something that we've lived with for years where it's like, you know, we're a show pony and it's like, oh, tell me about your hair. Tell me about your texture. And, you know, and so now it's a space where we're all like, you know, hey, this is my 4C here. And this is, you know, what I'm putting it in. This is what products I use. And it's comfortable.

It's not, you know, it's not rigid. And it's not a place where you're afraid to be you. So I think that I'm very proud of allowing my son to be able to see the space that I've created for black women, you know, I think that that's one of the most things that I'm proud of. What, any partnerships, so anything, you know, going back to maybe the business and marketing side, anything that you can talk about, I mean, you've got direct-to-consumer site, doing a lot of things on social media, any visions or goals to be it it looks like there is uh but i'll let you speak to it you know with partnerships or you know more mass

selling or you know whether that's amazon or amara mart or or shoot you know gucci or whatever you know i don't know what are we uh what are we thinking? Or do we, anything in the works? Definitely next year, we will be in a mass retailer. So that is going to be exciting. And I think that honestly, I'm just pretty open and allowing, you know, the universe to sort of lead me in whatever direction is going in. And so I think that I'm really open, you know, whatever direction it's going in. And so I think that I'm really open. You know, we had a partnership last year with Warner Brothers.

And so I think that I'm continuing to be surprised at what's to come. You know, I don't even know sometimes as to, you know, whose vision board I'm on, you know. So I think that it's been really cool to sort of watch these things happen and just, um, and allow it to. I love it. I love it. Uh, so we can't name the mass retailer yet. I can't. Not yet. It's coming though. The Radcast wanted to break the news, you know? I know. It's going to be, we'll be announcing pretty soon, maybe in about a month. Okay. But I'll say in January we'll be in school. Nice, nice. Well, congrats on that.

Thank you. As we kind of close out here, we've kind of danced around a little bit, but what's the, not end game, but where's all this going? Where are we headed? No, I don't know. I'm still trying to figure it out too. I mean, you know, I don't know. I have dreams of possibly a mess and bottle beverage, dreams of a mess and bottle hotel, you know, the message hotel. I have, you know, I think I have dreams of maybe selling the company for, I have, you know, I think I have dreams of maybe selling a company for, you know, several million dollars.

I have no idea, you know. So I think that I'm just really open to whatever comes. I think the vending machine is something that we want to probably pay attention to and start to deploy some vending machines all over. So I'm just open. I think that this has been a fun ride, and I've been really excited and just open to whatever's to come. I have an idea for your vending machine. You need to have a mystery soda, and you don't know which shirt you're going to get.

Exactly. I like it. And it's just a mess. Exactly. Well, Kalila, it's been really great. I really appreciate your time. I know you're busy. I think there's been some enlightening things. I love that, you know, just kind of that message of opportunity that is out there.

I know there's a lot of negativity in the world and a lot of negative news, but that you're living proof that there is opportunity and you're showing others that opportunity, building a hell of a business at the same time. Thank you so much. Thanks again for having me. My pleasure. We'll talk soon. Thank you, man. Thank you. Really enjoyed this episode with Kalila Wright, amazing founder and CEO of Mess in a Bottle.

We discussed everything from her background to getting Mess in a Bottle to a great place where they are booming in the e-commerce space with both merchandise and future partnerships. Really interesting talking to an African-American woman in The Times and everything that's going on, hearing her perspective and just really inspiring both the youth and other African-Americans to the dream of entrepreneurship and really everyone. Her messages really touch the gamut of anyone starting a business and was really fascinating to hear about her background. Appreciate everyone listening to this episode. You can always follow along with more at theradcast.com or on Instagram at the.rad.cast.

And we'll see you next time. at the.rad.cast. And we'll see you next time. To listen to full episodes or to contact us, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow our host at Ryan Alford on Instagram.

Thanks for tuning in.