{"id":13617,"date":"2026-06-09T09:24:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T13:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13617"},"modified":"2026-06-15T07:26:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:26:16","slug":"little-words-big-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/?p=13617","title":{"rendered":"Little Words, big business"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you go to the Little Words Project store in The Mall at Short Hills, you can grab a seat at the bar, but you can\u2019t order a beer \u2014 or anything alcoholic, for that matter. What you can order is happiness and good energy, literally. Little Words sells jewelry (beaded <\/span>bracelets are a mainstay) emblazoned with short, pithy statements designed to remind the wearer, for example, to \u201cbelieve,\u201d \u201cthrive,\u201d and \u201ckeep going.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Adriana Carrig \u201912, the company\u2019s founder, is the embodiment of good energy. When she walks into the Short Hills shop, she seems to be everywhere at once: joyfully greeting the staff, briskly reorganizing the bracelet bar (where shoppers can create their own jewelry), checking out the accessories that gleam on the wall across from the bar, where they beckon shoppers with their words of kindness, comfort, and encouragement.<\/span><\/p>\n

This shop is one of 13 across the country, from Boston and Austin to Nashville and Disney Springs. Little Words has relationships with Target, Nordstrom, Disney, Amazon, and The Paper Store. Now in its 13th year, it\u2019s a multimillion-dollar business.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Disney partnership, Carrig says, \u201cis the thing I\u2019m most proud of and excited about.\u201d Since 2024, the company has been creating bracelets exclusively available at Disneyland and Disney World, with new designs introduced every quarter. And it\u2019s not <\/span>just parkgoers eager to acquire them. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing our bracelets pop up on resellers for two to three times the original price,\u201d Carrig says, \u201cbecause everyone\u2019s just trying to get their hands on this exclusive collection.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the brand is rooted in positivity today, its origins lie in Carrig\u2019s personal struggle with bullying. \u201cHonestly, there\u2019s not a time in my life that I don\u2019t remember going through some sort of bullying experience,\u201d she says. Carrig traces much of the bullying \u2014 which she characterizes as \u201ccompetitive cruelty\u201d \u2014 to her outspoken and unbridled personality. \u201cI was very much myself,\u201d she says, \u201cand it kind of rubbed some folks the wrong way.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To buoy her spirits, she started creating beaded bracelets for herself bearing words of comfort and inspiration. And, in fact, it was the experience of being bullied that kindled in Carrig a desire to spread kindness, that became the basis of the Little Words brand.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her brand was born during her early days as a sister of Delta Zeta, the sorority Carrig joined as a TCNJ freshman. As the sorority\u2019s vice president of membership, she was tasked with the responsibility of devising a way, in her words, \u201cto keep the love circulating.\u201d She immediately thought of the beaded bracelets she\u2019d made in high school, but with a twist: When she and her sisters no longer needed a bracelet \u2014 when they\u2019d conquered a fear or achieved a goal \u2014 they\u2019d pass it along to someone else <\/span>who needed a boost.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Founder
Adriana Carrig<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carrig calls that concept her \u201cX-factor.\u201d That idea transformed a basic piece of jewelry into something charged with meaning. She started selling the bracelets online and at street fairs and enjoyed the process of getting a business up and running \u2014 so much so that she began to reconsider her plan of heading to law school after graduation. So she made herself a deal: If her LSATs were high enough to get into Harvard Law or another top-10 option, she\u2019d go to law school. When that didn\u2019t happen, she says, \u201cI took it as a sign to go full-bore with the business.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She invested $5,000, money she\u2019d saved while working retail at Anthropologie and Ralph Lauren. When she broke the news to her parents that she\u2019d decided against law school and would be, as she says, \u201cbeading bracelets in their basement,\u201d they simply asked how they could help. She wasn\u2019t surprised. Her mother, a Mexican immigrant, moved to the U.S. at 18 entirely on her own; whenever Carrig left the house, her mother would send her off with the words \u201cQuerer es poder, or If you want it, you can achieve it,\u201d says Carrig. \u201cIt was the first line of my college application essay, and it was just ingrained in who I am.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In those basement-beading days, Carrig was sustained not just by her belief that she\u2019d succeed but also by her parents\u2019 support, both emotional and physical. Her mother would work on the bracelets with her, filling in faded letters with a Sharpie, and her father would lug boxes of bracelets to the post office. Both her parents would accompany her to street fairs and sit behind her as she sold, pitching in to <\/span>customize bracelets on the spot. \u201cThis product has been about customization from the very beginning,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also been about empowering women (the majority of the company\u2019s customer base) and, yes, spreading kindness \u2014 ideas that are essentially baked into the brand. Today, the brand\u2019s bestselling words include \u201cstrength,\u201d \u201cyou got this,\u201d and, of course, \u201cgood energy.\u201d Each bracelet features a small tag carrying a number to register it on the company\u2019s website, allowing a customer to track a bracelet\u2019s journey from one wrist to a<\/span>nother.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2015, a little more than a year after starting the business, Carrig moved her operations out of the basement, even though not everyone shared her faith that Little Words would succeed. Some local retailers called her wares \u201cchildish,\u201d noting that they could make the bracelets themselves \u2014 responses she also occasionally received from customers at street fairs and even a few acquaintances. Luckily, she was, as she says, \u201cdelusionally confident.\u201d Eventually, that confidence paid off. She hired a rep group \u2014 sales representatives who pitched her product to retailers \u2014 who, in 2019, clinched a partnership with Nordstrom: \u201cone of the most pinch-me moments of all time,\u201d Carrig says. That same year, <\/span>Fortune<\/span><\/i> published a feature on Little Words, highlighting the company\u2019s rapid online growth.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Bracelets
Little Words bracelets,
made from crystal and
stone beads, can be found in stores nationwide.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, the rep group wanted to pitch the line to Target\u2019s kids\u2019 buyers, but Carrig says she was adamant \u201cabout sticking to the demographic we knew best, which <\/span>was adult jewelry.\u201d She was right. Three years after the Nordstrom deal, Target followed suit. An unexpected jolt of momentum arrived when Taylor Swift\u2019s fans began making and trading beaded bracelets bearing song titles and other messages. Suddenly, the media wanted to talk about bracelets and sisterhood, and Little Words became a go-to source. \u201cWe were able to get into a lot of articles that way,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even as the company picked up steam, Carrig never entertained the notion that she could open a retail shop. That idea came from her husband, Bill Carrig \u201912, whom she\u2019d met and dated at TCNJ and eventually married in 2017. She credits TCNJ with her happiness \u201cbecause I found him there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"CEO
Bill Carrig<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bill had built a successful career in business, working at Johnson & Johnson and then at the multinational investment firm BlackRock. All that time, he\u2019d been offering his wife not just support but sound \u2014 and sometimes inspired \u2014 business advice. It was Bill, for instance, who\u2019d come up with the company name. Then, in 2021, he left BlackRock to join Little Words as chief operating officer. \u201cIt was a family decision,\u201d he <\/span>says. \u201cI\u2019d been at my job going on eight years, and it was great. But Little Words was getting big enough that Adriana really needed support running it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

His suggestion that they open a retail shop that would include a communal experience where customers could sit down and make their own bracelet \u201cmade perfect <\/span>sense,\u201d he says. Though Carrig wasn\u2019t convinced at first (her initial response: \u201cThat\u2019s not possible.\u201d), the idea aligned with what she\u2019d envisioned for the company from its <\/span>inception. \u201cThe bar really helped dial in on the community we\u2019d been trying to build from the very beginning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2021, the first Little Words Project store opened on Bleecker Street in New York City\u2019s Greenwich Village. Like all of the shops that would follow, it sold premade <\/span>bracelets carrying a variety of inspirational words and phrases. It also offered shoppers the opportunity to book seats at the Bead Bar, a literal bar stocked with beads rather than alcohol, where they could create their own bracelets with custom messages <\/span>and designs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The company\u2019s expansion to brick-and-mortar shops not only delighted consumers but also caught the attention of Disney, whose <\/span>representatives reached out in 2024 to propose their now-successful partnership.<\/span><\/p>\n

Working with Bill, who became CEO in 2025, has been a boon to Carrig \u2014 and not just because of his finance degree and years of business experience. Certainly, it supports a healthier work-life balance, especially since the birth of their two sons, Ford, <\/span>born in 2021, and Jett, in 2023. \u201cWhen one of us has to step in more at work, the other gets to step up more at home,\u201d she says. And Bill, she says, \u201cis just willing to do what it takes to support our family and my dream.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She also hired Aimee Ogbonna \u201912, her sorority sister, roommate, and now <\/span>best friend. After college, Ogbonna worked in luxury hotel marketing before founding her own marketing business. Carrig hired her as a consultant in June 2023 and was <\/span>impressed enough to offer Ogbonna a full-time role at Little Words only a few months later. As vice president of community impact, Ogbonna creates partnerships with nonprofits like Sad Girls Club, which provides mental health resources to women of color, the Stork Foundation, which offers financial support to people who can\u2019t afford the staggering costs of IVF, and F*ck Cancer, which promotes early cancer detection. Generally, those partnerships involve creating custom bracelets, with $5 from each sale going to the nonprofit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From its days in the dormitory, before it was a brand or had a name, Little Words has always been about making a difference, so the partnerships Ogbonna builds are as <\/span>essential to the company as the jewelry it sells. \u201cI call her my consiglieri,\u201d Carrig says of Ogbonna. \u201cShe\u2019s the person I can go to morning, noon, or night.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The fact that Carrig hired both her husband and her best friend makes perfect sense, given the company\u2019s ethos. \u201cI think what makes working here really special is that most of us are friends,\u201d says Ogbonna.<\/span><\/p>\n

Carrig has learned to be what she calls \u201cmore precious about my time,\u201d doing her best to think about work when she\u2019s at work and to think about her family when she\u2019s with them. She\u2019s still, of course, the same person her husband describes as \u201csomeone who has insane optimism in her fingertips and can probably work harder than <\/span>anyone.\u201d She just does it a little smarter now. To underscore that point, Carrig <\/span>sticks out her wrist, where a stack of beaded bracelets acts as a collective cheering section, and stretches out one in particular so that its message is clear: \u201cin the moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Photos: Peter Murphy<\/span><\/p>\n

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