Northeastern University graduate Melissa Montelione Clayton combined business smarts, an entrepreneurial spirit and devotion to her children to create Tiny Tags, a fine jewelry company that celebrates motherhood with customizable name tags, lockets and bracelets.
Named to Inc.’s Female Founder 250 List in 2024 for partnering with Target and exceeding sales goals, Clayton talked with Northeastern Global News about how Northeastern shaped her future, why she took time out of the paid workforce to raise her three sons, and how her business is all about the brand.
Clayton, who spoke at Northeastern’s “Built to Last” WISE Summit last month, also shares what it took to get actor Meryl Streep to be featured in a Tiny Tags signature necklace. Her comments have been edited for brevity and clarity.
I definitely feel entrepreneurship is in my blood. I grew up going to my dad’s software business office, cleaning the trash, sweeping the floors, going to trade shows, stuffing envelopes.
So I was always thinking of products and what businesses I could start.
When we were still living in California, I saw a mom wearing a hand-stamped necklace. I bought one and wore it back East and all my girlfriends said they wanted that.
This was before Etsy, before social media. I said, ‘I’m going to figure out how to make these.’
At the time I was starting my business, everybody was telling me what to do. ‘Oh, you’ve got to do brides; you’ve got to do graduates; you’ve got to do dads.’
But I listened to a book called ‘Brand Warfare’ that says you have to stand for something, and you have to be specific. It’s all about the brand. That really resonated with me, and I deleted everything off the website that did not have to do with moms.
It made running the business so much easier. I would get emails about doing bridal expos and I would say, ‘No.’
It was a lifesaver.
I had an undergraduate degree in philosophy from a different university and was working as a customer service person at a bank with no real direction.
My dad, who’s been very influential in my life and who is an entrepreneur, said: ‘You’ve got to go back to school. You’re going nowhere.’
I took a class at Northeastern in accounting, and I loved it. I heard about the accelerated MS in accounting program, where you have a paid co-op and literally become a CPA by the time you graduate.
I applied and I remember I was really nervous I wasn’t going to get in. So I showed up at director Bill Kelly’s office with a letter about why I should be accepted. I got accepted, and it was a game-changer.
My co-op was at Coopers and Lybrand, which later became PriceWaterhouseCoopers. They made me a job offer and I was on my way to a career with a very clear path. Then I worked in public accounting for a couple of years and went to work at Oracle before having my first son.
I also met my husband at Northeastern. He, too, was in the accounting program.
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I went online and found a jewelry wholesaler that sells to mom and pop shops and bought the alphabet sets and a hammer and got everything in the mail.
But I couldn’t figure out how to blacken the letters to stand out against the metal. I gave up. I threw everything in the closet.
Then six months later when I was on a plane, wearing the necklace I had bought, I started talking with the woman next to me and said: ‘What do you do?’
She said she was in jewelry design school. I told her the problems I had trying to make a necklace and she said, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s so easy.’ She gave me a business card and told me to visit a jewelry supply store where she worked in San Francisco.
When I got back from my trip, my husband picked me up at SFO and we went right to the store. The woman I talked to wasn’t there that day but another employee helped me and told me about a chemical called liver of sulphur that you use to blacken letters in sterling silver.
If I had not talked to that woman on the plane, I would not have started the business.
My husband, Michael, and I both had an hour commute. I felt, ‘This is never going to work.’
So we completely shifted our life around, and it was the best thing I ever did. I completely loved staying home. We moved from Massachusetts to California, and I was pinching myself to be honest. I was like, ‘This is insane. It’s gorgeous. Every day I’m at these gorgeous parks.’ You didn’t realize that there was such weather.
Ten years ago my husband quit his job and took over operations and finance for Tiny Tags. I said, ‘Let’s take a leap of faith.’ And that was the year we went from $450,000 to $1 million in revenue.
We’ve been inside of People magazine, we’ve been on Oprah’s website multiple times. But I think the biggest run-around-the-kitchen moment was when Meryl Street wore Tiny Tags.
She was speaking at the Massachusetts Conference for Women and I hounded the organizers: ‘What are you possibly going to give Meryl Streep?’
We got her the 14-karat gold circle pendant with her four kids’ names on it. She put it on right away and wore it all for all the press she did. She wore it not because we are Harry Winston; she wore it because she’s a mom who loves her kids.
Target saw what we were doing on social and reached out to me in 2017 and said, ‘Would you like to work for Target?’ I said no at the time because my kids were still young and I was still building the business.
But we stayed in touch and launched Tiny Tags in 2023 as a test in 200 stores. Now we’re in 1,600 Target stores and will bring in $7 million to $9 million. That happened because we built a brand.
I look at other companies that I think are doing an amazing job. I’ve reached out and DM’d and talked to so many amazing CEOs that are so much bigger than me, and they have always lent an ear, whether it’s for 15 minutes or talking to you for an hour a month over six months.
When the CFO of Reese Witherspoon’s company, Draper James, was in Boston, I hit her up on LinkedIn and we had a chat, then we had coffee, then we had lunch then she said, ‘You should talk to our partnership folks.’
Now we’re doing a collaboration with Petite Plume. We are launching a new ‘mama’ nameplate and they are putting ‘mama’ on their pajamas.