Chykalophia, founded by husband-and-wife team Peter and Ari Krzyzek, specializes in building strong brand pillars and online experiences.
We’re a creative and technology agency that gets excited about social, cultural impact and innovation with data and tech along with visionaries behind them.
Ari Krzyzek
Ari is here to talk about her background, how she developed the concept for her brand, and how she keeps it consistent to this day.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. What did you do before you started your business?
My name is Ari Krzyzek. I am the CEO and head of strategy here at Chykalophia. We are a digital brand consultancy, primarily helping women-led brands, those in FemTech DTC, with all things related to brand strategy and UX strategy, all the way to design and implementation for a web platform. It could look like an e-commerce website, It could look like a web application, or it could be a marketing website. So we help find these different resources, strategies, and implementations to ensure that you create the conversion you need for your business.
What is the meaning of your brand name? How did you come up with it?
My company name Chykalophia came long before I knew I was going to create a company. I was in high school at that time, in my senior year. I Got really bored in a biology class one day and was just learning and uttering all the different names around our body. Scientists come up with a lot of different names. Looking at all those names, I thought to myself, Okay, so all these amazing scientists come up with terms. Why can’t I come up with a name too? So I created Chykalophia, and I was doodling it, adding colors to it, and playing with some designs. I passed it to a friend of mine who loved doing screen printing at a time: Can you print this and then put it on my black Canvas backpack? He did it, and I wore it super proud the next day, and people just started knowing me by that name.
Eventually, when I got to the art school, we got into so many different platforms, like Behance or DeviantArt, designers would probably know these names, and I would’ve used the same name. Every design that I come up with, people would know me; that’s Chykalophia design. So it just ended up becoming its own brand name, its own brand equity. And when my husband and I got married, I didn’t realize he had yet another plan for me. He would propose and say, Hey Ari, would you want to build a business with me? I do code; you do design seems like a great, you know, pair. I was like, sure, let’s do it. And he would ask me, in terms of name, would you want to keep the name Chykalophia and I said, Heck yes. Let’s do it. Well, that’s honestly how everything got started until today.
How do you keep your brand consistent nowadays, especially when talking about so many channels and ways you can interact with an audience and distribute content?
That’s a really good question. In my opinion, small and big companies have different challenges around consistency. Everything starts with the founder initially, but things get bigger. Then you get more resources, team members, and customers than ever before.
How do you maintain that consistency? Starting with really having clarity on your brand. I think that’s the first step, right? When you know what your business is about, what the brand stands for, what the brand is against, and the brand values that you have in for internal or even external communication. When you have all these different pieces already played out, you have a clear vision, mission, and purpose for your brand; everything else comes strategically in a way. Because you always fall back to what’s the brand’s north star? What’s the purpose? Can we stay true in all of our messaging for that particular purpose on that specific vision and mission that we have already defined previously? In the next, you know, five years or ten years, sometimes you would encounter a lot of different changes. You might pivot, change various services, offer new products, and do so. But the core of your mission, the core of your purpose, your why in the brand or for the brand, it’s always going to stay the same, right? So you rarely change those.
We host engaging conversations about naming, branding, and entrepreneurship, exploring everything from initial triumphs to the hurdles along the way. If you’ve got insights on innovative branding strategies, lessons learned from entrepreneurial ventures, or thoughts on the significance of a solid domain name strategy, and you’re keen to chat about them, we’d love to hear from you!
How does your brand name match your company vision? What new horizons can a better name open? Get in touch if you feel your brand deserves a better name, we are always happy to help.
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