If you were sitting next to Jenn Mariani’s family at a restaurant in 2019, you might have wondered what was keeping her daughters, then 4 and 2, entertained as they waited for dinner to be served. The girls were busy with the contents of a small bag—think half makeup kit, half binder—that their mother had filled with hands-on activities intended to limit the need to resort to screens.
In June, Mariani launched a subscription-based business inspired by that original bag. Called Keke Kids, it’s geared to children ages 3–6. Professionally manufactured, the colorful gender-neutral nylon totes are designed with four custom pouches that can be clipped onto a binder and rotated in and out to suit the child and the need. Here, the entrepreneur, 38, fills us in on her cool new business.
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Do you have a background in business? My background is in music therapy. I grew up in Columbia, Missouri, and moved to St. Louis in 2005 to pursue a degree in music therapy at Maryville University. I primarily worked with kids, first at the Special School District and then for a private company.
You made that first bag for your kids almost three years ago. What inspired you to turn it into a business? During COVID, I got more serious about making my idea into a business. When we were forced to be at home because of lockdowns, my kids grew more reliant on screens; then, with online school, screens became even more of an everyday norm. I guess you could say COVID inspired me to make Keke bags a reality…that and my husband really encouraging me to do something productive once my youngest went to kindergarten.
What were some of the challenges you faced when bringing this idea from concept to reality? In April 2021, I found a company to prototype the bag, and they connected me with a designer in Austin, Texas. The bags are manufactured in China and ship out of a warehouse on North Warson. As with everything these days, the supply chain problems were the biggest challenge. It has been a real practice in patience and letting go of expectations.
How do you determine which activities go into a pouch? I look to my own children for inspiration. What milestones do they need to hit, and how can I nurture that skill in different ways? I also want each activity to target a different emerging skill: social/emotional, fine motor, pre-academics, and creative. For example, one of the pouches in our subscription box is an alphabet game—one side is a wooden puzzle where you fit the letter into the corresponding spaces, and on the back is a white board with a dry erase marker. There is an activity where kids thread laces through cardboard zoo animals, aimed at helping with fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and pincer grasping.
