Today we’d like to introduce you to Riley Rhoads.
Hi Riley, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Since a young age, I have always dreamed of owning my own business and was surrounded by generations of business owners and entrepreneurs. I had done some side gig’s throughout high school from babysitting to decorating cakes and worked part-time at Old Navy for about 3.5 years in Jefferson City, MO. When it came time to pick where I wanted to go to college, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be an engineer or a doctor. So, I settled on Business and came across UMKC Bloch School of Management. UMKC was the only school I toured and quickly fell in love with Kansas City.
Hold Tight Baby started when I had my daughter my sophomore year of college. I was 20 years old and waitressing on the weekends at Homegrown in Brookside. I was also a full-time student at UMKC, studying to get my BBA.
As a full-time student with a newborn, the constant juggling felt overwhelming. By the time my daughter was 8 months old, tasks like leaving the house with a baby, fixing my baby’s socks or shopping for clothes online became huge stressors. But soon, I realized these little tasks added up to a bigger problem—the mental load that so many moms carry. I found myself spending so much time and energy worrying about my baby’s clothes—was the sizing right, would they fit, and were they comfortable?
That’s when it hit me. I wasn’t alone. Many moms were facing the same challenges, and it was taking away from the precious time we have with our babies. Hold Tight Baby is my solution to ease that mental load, so moms can spend more time doing what truly matters: holding their babies tight.
I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason. So, with an idea and some early prototypes that I had sewn myself, I applied for a program at school that my advisor happened to tell me about when signing up for next classes. Soon enough, I was accepted into UMKC’s Business Accelerator or “E-Scholars” program. This was when the feeling of “this is where I belong” started.
Going into my senior year at UMKC, I started in the program. E-Scholars helped me find a community of entrepreneurs and offered resources that were pivotal in my journey. The program was available to be taken for credit, which allowed me to work on my idea as if it were a class. It also taught me how to pitch my idea and has since allowed me to raise a few thousand dollars that I can use to get my business started.
Interviewing customers and getting early feedback on my prototypes helped reveal next steps in product development. Asking as many questions as I could to mentors and in class, helped me get the answers to the roadblocks I was facing.
One of biggest challenges was getting started without having to purchase a million units of all of the components. My biggest cost was manufacturing and I knew I wanted to source locally. I was blessed to be connected to my small batch manufacturer, FasionTechKC, a Kansas City-small batch manufacturer. The program is also where I met a few friends that were willing to help me with marketing and financials, my small little team if you will 🙂
We launched a pre-order in March 2025 and we are now selling online at HoldTightBaby.com. We also have started a few local partnerships with ParaMi in Independence and Delta Chiropractic in Brookside.
My team and I have since graduated from UMKC in May 2025. I plan to keep working at Homegrown and seeing where Hold Tight Baby takes me.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I tend to be an over-thinker which has most likely contributed to some of the challenges that I have faced. When you’re trying to start a business, there is always going to be challenges along the way. You really just have to ask yourself if it is worth it to keep going. For many people, it might not be. For me, the mission of Hold Tight Baby is what has carried me through the obstacles. I have heard many people say that they’re really in it for the money, which is one of my pet peeves. If people are in it for money, they’ll likely get to a road block and quickly back down. It truly is a matter of is this idea going to keep you up at night if you don’t see it through. For me, that was the case. I truly want to help those who experienced the same problems as I did. The best piece of advice I have gotten has been “how do you eat an elephant?” and the answer is always “one bite at a time”. Starting a business can be so overwhelming, but you really have to break it down and small as you can and make a priority list of the things that you want to get done.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Hold Tight Baby is a brand that supports parents by simplifying baby clothing, reducing mental load, and giving them more time to grow secure attachments and raise emotionally intelligent children.
Our first product, Hold Tight Twisty Pants, are footed baby pants that are sized by diaper sizes, grow with your baby, and feature our patent-pending ankle twisty.
Finding the right size for your baby is a challenge when companies use standard age or month-based sizing. I chose to size our pants by diaper size because its the one thing that is consistent no matter the age or growth rate of your baby. It’s also something that’s intuitive. As a parent you may not know how tall your baby is that doesn’t stand yet or how much they weigh off the top of your head, but you know exactly what size diaper they’re in. Diaper based sizing is the future of baby clothing.
Babies triple in size by their first birthday, which means they may wear an outfit one time. Our stretchy brush-knit fabric, fold over waist band, and ankle twisty allow our pants to last months instead of weeks. In many cases, twice as long as leading brands.
Our patent-pending ankle twisty isn’t just for looks. It keeps the footed bottom in place, eliminates the need for socks, and flips front-to-back to allow for growth. No more readjusting, extra steps in dressing, and smashed toes in footed items that are too small or flapping feet that get legs tangled in footed items that are too big.
These features together simplify the baby clothing experience, saving parents time, money, and stress.
I am most proud Hold Tight Twisty Pants because they really are a game changer for parents of young children.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
I think every entrepreneur needs to have some degree of risk taking in their personality. For me, it’s more about taking risks that are backed in evidence. It goes back to the fact that I was not going to sleep at night if I didn’t figure out how to make this idea feasible.
I remember ordering bolts of fabric. It was a lot of money, and there were thoughts of doubt. I reminded myself of the things that moms had told me when I talked to many of them in the beginning. I knew that had to order the fabric so that the pants could be made and I could bring this solution to moms that are living with problems that I could fix.
Pricing:
- Retail Selling Price: $45.00
Contact Info:
- Website: https://holdtightbaby.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/holdtight.baby/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552731561644
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@holdtight.baby?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
