Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ari Krzyzek. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ari, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you scale up? What were the strategies, tactics, meaningful moments, twists/turns, obstacles, mistakes along the way? We’d love to hear the backstory the illustrates how you grew your brand.

I started the business with my husband in 2011 thinking that it would just be us two building a bespoke creative and web studio. Seeing the growth of our business and building it together for a few years, we realized we needed to outsource and hire help in order to create a sustainable business.

As easy as it sounds, it’s not easy to do. This is especially true when you start a company without much experience building a team. How do you even begin?

Our first step was to bring in interns, and then gradually document our processes so they could replicate them. For example, revising the design or creating a new web design page. Gradually, we add some additional help to help us manage our projects. Our team realizes how critical and valuable a project manager is when managing different projects with different due dates. So on top of adding key team members to help with the design and development team, we hired a project manager to help us bridge the collaboration between multiple teams as well as between clients and our internal teams.

Often, people ask us whether expanding our team of two people to five people and then to seventeen people was relatively easy. The journey wasn’t easy for me. As a perfectionist, I wasn’t sure whether I could trust my team to complete projects on my behalf. It took me almost a year to let go of control and build trust in my team. As a result of this experience, I learned the following:

1. Hire based on personality and skills, not one or the other.

2. Equip your new hire with best practices and documentation on how things are done in your company.

3. Be open to new ideas and feedback to help improve your business or project processes and operations.

Ari, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

In 2011, I packed one suitcase and left the comfort of my home, family, and friends in Bali to pursue my love and dream. At the time my husband and I were freelancers doing our own things. I mainly take on design projects, while he would work on web development projects. We used to take on freelance projects through websites like UpWork, 99Designs, and Freelancers.com.

A few months after we got married, he proposed to me to be his partner in business and build a company together. I thought it was a great idea and said yes. I clearly have no clue what I was doing. Not knowing how to start the process of building a business, we did what most millennials like us do: Google it. We found SCORE and attended their business 101 classes to build our Business Plan, file an LLC, put our website together, and our company Chykalophia (read: see-ka-lo-fia) officially opened for business in October 2011.

Being newlywed and new business partners, our personal and professional relationships had no boundaries. We were stepping on each other’s toes, telling each other what to do with our clients and what’s the right or wrong way to get our ducks in a row. It was hurting us. However, with the help of our mentor, we were able to set boundaries for both of our relationships and slowly put things in order for the business.

When we built the business in 2011, we didn’t have any funds to support the company. We bootstrapped it along the way. Because of that, I ended up taking on a full-time position at Sears Holdings from May 2014 to June 2016 to help support fund the company and take on part-time role on the projects at Chykalophia.

It was not until June 2016 that we were able to see some traction and growth in the company. I knew that I won’t be able to juggle everything after delivering my first child. I chose to officially join the company full-time again in July 2016.

Today, Chykalophia has grown into a woman minority-owned web agency helping Femtech DTC & women-led brands transform their website to unlock business opportunities. Through our proven process, we get them the clarity they need to craft a brand that delights their customers beyond pretty design, and delivers no-brainer UX. We build the underlying web framework and tools that enable them to sell at scale. It leads to growth once it is implemented.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In order to build your brand, you need to show up! I though the opposite of this when I started my company. I was so comfortable being behind the scene, hiding behind my computer. My mindset shifted when my mentor challenged me to speak at panel events. She challenged me to speak at three panel events within one year. At first I was really against it. As much as I could think of, I made excuses like …

It’s fun to be behind the scenes.

I hate telling people what to do.

Where I am now feels good to me.

Now that I look back, I can see why excuses kept me from growing.

Without being out there, in front of my target audience and to show up at places where they are at, I was doing everyone a disservice. I couldn’t offer my value by hiding behind the scene.

When I completed the challenge of speaking at three panel events, I realized what I was missing. A community, a space to share my knowledge and value. A way to serve others. At the same time, I didn’t realize I was building my brand by showing up.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I didn’t realize how much I have to give when it comes to all the knowledge I have around building a brand, user experiences, as well as all-things website. A lot of my target audience who are primarily women founders and entrepreneurs are constantly looking for guidance on these topics. So when I started to share my learning content for these topics online as well as through workshops, it help build up our reputation in Chicagoland area, in our communities of tech ecosystem, as well as online.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://chykalophia.com
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/chykalophia
• Facebook: http://facebook.com/arichykalophia
• Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/arichykalophia