758. Turning Your Message Into a Brand You Can Wear Proudly with Kalilah Wright

Kalilah Wright is a girl with a MESSage. She’s the Founder and CEO of Mess in a Bottle, a clothing and accessories brand built to inspire people to be vocal. She’s got that entrepreneurial spirit and loves helping people create the thing that they should be doing in the world. She shares how to take that message that you just have to share and turn it into a thriving business.

Question Highlights:

What is your business and where did the idea come from?
What was the transition like from your job to your entrepreneurial journey?
How did you learn to manage yourself and focus as an entrepreneur?
What’s something you’re trying to step into more?
What do you do when you’re at your best?
What do you do when things aren’t great?
How would you describe yourself to somebody?
If you could only print one more t-shirt, what would your message be?

Guest Bio:

Kalilah Wright, born in Jamaica W.I., migrated to the United States at the tender age of four and was raised in Brooklyn, NY. She is the founder and CEO of expressive brand Mess in a Bottle. As an accomplished designer and trained architect, she used her Master’s degree from Morgan State University and Bachelor’s of Arts from Penn State University to establish the brand in January 2016 in Baltimore, Maryland.

The Mess in a Bottle brand was established to evoke change, question Kalilah’s audience, and allow individuals wearing their messages to be vocal without saying anything at all.

Each item is designed and printed at her Baltimore in-house studio space.

Kalilah has participated in multiple pitch competitions and won the Wells Fargo Business Pitch competition in 2016 and the iFundWomen pitch competition in conjunction with the Baltimore Ravens in 2018. Mess in a Bottle has collaborated with numerous brands and created limited edition capsule collections with Warner Brothers Studios (for their movie The Kitchen), YouTube, Roc Nation artist Rapsody, The TLC Network, BET, Google, and Target (for their Black History Month collection). Celebrities including Viola Davis, Serena Williams, Luvvie Ajayi, Lena Waithe, and Yvonne Orji are all proud supporters of Mess in a Bottle.