MEET
THE
FOUNDERS

What started as a pandemic hobby to kill time while we were both unemployed grew into something we never even dreamed of. Literally. We didn’t set out to start a business. We were making bracelets for our friends, trying to stay busy, and assuming it would end whenever real life started again.

It didn’t. People kept buying, so we kept going. We returned to our day jobs, reinvested every dollar, made more mistakes than we would like to admit, and learned almost everything the hard way.

Somewhere along the way, we found ourselves toning down our designs, worrying about what people would think, and changing things to appeal to as many people as possible. Until one day, we looked at the business we had built and realized it didn’t really look or feel like us anymore. The irony was that KYELLA had grown in the first place because people connected with the things that felt most like us. But while our own style had gotten bolder, the business was becoming safer.

So we took back control and surrounded ourselves with people who saw our vision as clearly as we did. Don’t get us wrong: having a vision does not mean we know what we’re doing. Most of our decisions are made with absolutely no clue how we’re going to pull them off.

But it’s fine. At least, that’s what we’ve been telling each other since day one. And somehow, it always is. We figure it out—even when one of us is convinced we can’t. Mostly because we’re stubborn, but also because when one of us can’t see a way through, the other one usually can. And when neither of us can, we do it anyway.

The difference now is that, for the first time since we sat on Jen’s porch with the pink notebooks Kyla bought for our very first business meeting back in 2021, we know exactly what we’re building.

So, if you’ve been here since we were stringing beads at local farmers markets under the cheapest tent we could find on Amazon, thank you for sticking with us. And if you just got here, impeccable timing. Either way, we are so fucking happy you found us.