We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alia. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alia below.

Hi Alia, thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

The first thing I built was for my children.

I was a young mother in the DMV, trained as a professional modern dancer, a former preschool teacher, with a background in brand events and startup operations, and I had already decided: traditional school was not going to be an option for my kids. That wasn’t a reaction. It was a conviction. I had stood inside classrooms. I understood the system from the inside, and I knew what I wanted for them went beyond what it could offer. So homeschooling was always the plan. What I needed was a community to do it with, and that’s where the co-op was born. Not from watching my children go without, but from knowing exactly what they deserved and refusing to compromise on it.

But while I was building for them, I was quietly falling apart in my own isolation.

I was lonely in a way that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. I was a mother, but I wasn’t just a mother. I had a professional identity, a creative background, ambitions that didn’t pause because I had children. And I couldn’t find community that held all of that at once. What existed was either surface-level or simply not real. Not honest. Not the kind of connection that actually sustains you.

What I kept coming back to was what I already knew how to do: curate.

I had spent years inside worlds most people never see. As a dancer and later as an influencer, I had access to brand experiences and curated events that were genuinely beautiful and genuinely exclusive. Not in a way that felt intentional, just in a way that left most women out by default. Everyday women. Mothers. People with full, meaningful lives who deserved that level of care and curation applied to their experience too.

I also had real operational knowledge. I worked under the owner of Ilovekickboxing during its expansion and inside a private luxury group fitness and spa concept, and those experiences gave me something most founders don’t have early: I understood what it actually takes to build something that runs. The systems, the culture, the gap between a good idea and a functioning organization.

So I took everything, the loneliness, the dancer, the teacher, the operator, the curator, the mother, and I built L&Lé Society.

The name comes from my children. It always will. They are the reason the co-op exists, and they are the reason I refused to let myself disappear into motherhood without community. We launched in December 2025, and the Co-Op relaunches this September. What I’m building is for the mother I was when no one was building it for me.

That’s how I knew it was worthwhile. Because I needed it, and I looked for it, and it wasn’t there.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Alia, and I am the Founder and CEO of L&Lé Society, a holding company in the DMV area built around two divisions: L&Lé Mom Society, a membership community for modern mothers, and L&Lé Society Co-Op, a hybrid educational co-op for children ages 2 to 8.

My background is layered. I trained as a professional modern dancer, later continuing my training at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, worked as a preschool teacher, built operational experience opening and running startups under the owner of a well known group boxing chain and inside a private luxury group fitness and spa concept, and spent years as an influencer and content creator with access to curated brand experiences that most everyday women never see. All of that lives inside what I build now.

L&Lé Society exists because I needed it and it didn’t exist. I am a young mother in the DMV, homeschooling by conviction, professionally ambitious, creatively wired, and I couldn’t find a community that held all of what I was at once. So I built one.

What sets L&Lé apart is intentionality. L&Lé Mom Society offers membership-based community and experiences designed to meet modern mothers at the intersection of identity, lifestyle, and connection. L&Lé Society Co-Op brings that same intentionality to early childhood education, offering a values-aligned, holistic learning environment for children whose parents have chosen a different path.

What I’m most proud of is the genuineness of this brand. It was never manufactured. It was born from a real gap, a real need, and a real woman who refused to wait for someone else to fill it. The demand for what L&Lé offers confirmed what I already knew in my bones. The name comes from my children. Everything I build, I build in their direction.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Resilience, for me, is not a highlight. It is Tuesday morning.

I am a sole provider of three babies under three years of age. Twins, and a baby girl. Every single day, seven days a week, I am the one responsible for my children’s stability, their education, their home, and their future. There is no backup plan with a pulse. There is just me, and the decision I make every morning to keep going.

Building L&Lé Society while navigating the reality of doing it entirely alone has been the hardest and most clarifying experience of my life. I have sat with financial pressure that had no easy answer. I lead a team of women, hold space for their growth, make payroll decisions, manage partnerships and events and curriculum and community, all while being the only parent fully present in my household.

What people see is the brand. The events, the membership, the co-op vision, the aesthetic. What they don’t see is what it costs to hold all of that together when your personal life is not giving you much to stand on.

I don’t share this for sympathy. I share it because I think resilience gets romanticized. It gets turned into a quote on a slide. But real resilience is quieter than that. It’s choosing your children’s future over your own exhaustion. It’s building something meaningful in the middle of something hard. It’s refusing to let what is falling apart around you become the ceiling on what you’re building.

L&Lé Society is proof that I didn’t stop. That’s the story.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

The first Mommas Matcha event was supposed to happen in my home. That was the plan, and I was ready.

Then my living situation changed overnight. Suddenly I had no venue, no budget to speak of, and an event that was already in motion with women expecting to show up.

Most people would have cancelled. I didn’t have the option to fall apart, and honestly I didn’t want to. So I started moving. I needed a space that felt right, that matched the aesthetic I had already built in my head, and I needed it to cost what I actually had. That combination felt impossible on paper.

It wasn’t.

I found a venue that was more beautiful than my original vision. The cost was within reach. The event came together in a way that felt less like logistics and more like it was always supposed to go that way. The women who came had no idea what it took to get the room ready. They just experienced what I had promised them.

That moment taught me something I carry into every part of how I build now. The pivot is not the failure. The pivot is often where the real thing lives. I have learned to move quickly when the ground shifts, to stay attached to the vision and flexible about the path, and to trust that when I keep going, something always meets me there.

All glory to God. Every single time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.llesociety.com
• Instagram: Thealiaraquel, llesociety
• Linkedin: L & Lé Society
• Other: Threads : llesociety
  Tik tok : ll.society

Image Credits

Images by me