Little Words Project, a New Jersey-founded bracelet brand whose first retail shop popped up in Manhattan’s West Village in 2021, has grown from a small startup into a viral must-have among its fan base. The company has reached $20 million in revenue and has now opened 13 retail stores in the Northeast. Its success has come through brand development as well as partnerships with companies targeting mostly female consumers. The company has launched product lines at big-box stores like Target and collaborated with brands like e.l.f. Beauty and retailers like Sephora.
As the brand grows, so do the complexities of managing inventory, supply chains and operational costs, and navigating this expansion requires sound financial leadership to balance growth with profitability. With a focus on community and connection, Little Words Project continues to scale while maintaining its core mission of spreading kindness by prioritizing vendor relationships, leveraging unique star-studded marketing opportunities and developing a sound supply chain.
Brian Roddy
Vice president of finance and operations, Little Words Project
Notable previous employers:
- Throtle
- WithumSmith+Brown
This interview took place at SuiteConnect in New York City. It has been edited for clarity and length.
ADAM ZAKI: This is a unique company and you have a very traditional finance background. How did you end up here?
BRIAN RODDY: We all went to The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) together — that’s where the company was founded. [CEO Adriana Carrig] started this her senior year, first within her sorority, making bracelets on campus as a way to spread kindness. When she graduated, she decided to do it full-time and moved the manufacturing from campus to her parents’ basement.
I had always been a fan of her craft, especially after watching her spread the Little Words Project story, passing on bracelets at all moments of any given day. No matter where she was, she would be passing on a bracelet, and for me watching the face of someone receiving said bracelet and the story behind it never got old. I knew she was passionate about what she was doing, and her passion always really interested me.
After college, I worked in public accounting before taking a controller position — two roles that taught me so much about what I do here now. I was a controller at a cash-strapped technology startup, and it was a challenge. The little things in public accounting that only those who have been there can get, like when you’re asking for the trial balance documentation but not getting into the details of how they produce that information, were frustrating.
It was those types of things that always left me wanting a bit more. As a young accountant, I wanted to see the inner workings of a business beyond my area of focus. Of course, there are chances to collaborate in areas like HR, supply chain and technology, but I wanted to move beyond making manual journal entries and dissolutions.
So at the tail end of 2020, right after COVID-19, I checked in with Adrianna, and she told me how much the business had grown, including partnerships with Nordstrom. I started consulting for her on an ad hoc basis — cleaning up the books, helping them make decisions based on their QuickBooks data, and things like that. At the same time, I was working in that controller position, so my desire to be part of the business was growing as I was simultaneously learning how to support a growing finance function at scale.
It got to the point where we all saw a ton of opportunity here. We knew that if we did it the right way, we could grow and compete with some of the biggest bracelet and jewelry brands. Adriana had established a brand that was ready for growth. We were small at the time — and still are to some extent — but that was when I knew I was ready to come on board full-time.
How have you ensured the company can handle its growth?
RODDY: The backing of our sales growth has helped the finance function’s flexibility here, but I think another large component that I have focused on is vendor relationships. If you’re like us, where we aren’t raising multiple rounds of capital or bringing in a ton of investors, I think it’s really important to have vendors that understand the ebbs and flows of your particular business.
It’s a long-term vision that’s key here, as we’ve had vendors helping us from building displays to manufacturing our bracelets for almost five years now. They have grown with us, which is great because it allows them to be invested in what’s most important to us. Our vendors know that moments like Mother’s Day and Black Friday are critical for us, and being able to leverage those opportunities is essential to our business. When our vendors understand that importance — not just because it helps us but because it helps them — it creates a loop of growth that is special.
On the other hand, when the business slows down or our forecasts are lower during certain months, they help us through that. Our vendors know that we are here for the long term. If they are flexible on things like how much money upfront they need or when our payments come due, it helps create flexibility when developing the cash conversion cycle.
How has your role changed since you started?
RODDY: I brought on a controller about a year ago, and that was huge because, before that, it was just me. She is an excellent, classically trained accountant who helps me streamline the finance function so I can focus on bigger-picture things now — long-term cash planning, forecasting and growth plans. I also have an operations role with the company, so we are thinking about things like supply chain diversification and automation in all parts of the business. I am also heavily involved in marketing and customer analysis to ensure we are staying on track with how we are investing in the marketing side of things.
This has been rewarding for me because I’ve been able to use both sides of my brain, so to speak, where I can bring the buttoned-up finance side along with the decision-making, creative side that I felt was missing earlier in my career. Right now, that means catching the marketing wave at the right time and taking a bit more risk than we maybe would have before. My growing involvement in that is something I’ve enjoyed.
Your company had a viral moment in 2023 when NSYNC member Lance Bass presented Taylor Swift with one of your bracelets on stage at MTV’s Video Music Awards. How did this come about?
RODDY: Lance Bass is a big fan of ours and reached out, saying he wanted to give Taylor Swift one of our bracelets during an award presentation. We obviously jumped at the opportunity and overnighted him the bracelets. What I commend him for is that he made a real effort to promote our brand. He talked about us on his social media and made it known to the public that this bracelet came from a small company with a great brand and mission.
My first move was, of course, working with Adrianna and the team to ensure we could logistically get him the bracelets as fast as possible, which we did. But then we thought about how we could leverage this moment after the fact. We did this in a variety of ways, like pitching a friendship bracelet line to Target, which ended up working with us — and that line is still performing well.
[Swift] was launching a book at Target around that time, so Target wanted us to have the bracelets on display to coincide with the book launch. It created some supply chain pressure, and we ate a bit of the expediting costs there, but these types of things are important beyond the dollars and cents because they help create a snowball effect in brand recognition.
To further leverage this, during the most recent [Swift] concert in Miami in October, we tried something completely new and sponsored the Brightline train that concertgoers were taking to the venue.
I go back and forth a lot, differentiating between brand spend versus growth marketing spend as our performance continues to accelerate. It’s easy to attribute things to growth marketing spend, but brand spend — especially as we build out our retail locations — is huge. It’s a part of our business that is our strength, well-established and pivotal to continuing to create great products while also keeping our mission of spreading kindness at the forefront as we grow.
