What if the secret to national scale is hidden in a story time circle at your first store? We sit down with founder and CEO Monica Royer to unpack how Monica + Andy grew from a neighborhood, experience-led boutique into a parent-trusted brand now selling online and in 1,200 Walmart locations—without sacrificing organic quality or the brand’s soul.
Monica walks us through the earliest days: a Lincoln Park shop that doubled as HQ and community center, where music classes and new-parent meetups fueled real product insights. Those hands-on lessons set the tone for everything that followed, from fabric choices and fit to bundles that match the rhythm of early parenthood. When the opportunity to go mass arrived, the team had already sequenced the crucial pieces—sourcing, quality control, and a codified set of brand values—to deliver the same standard at scale.
We get candid about the tradeoffs behind the strategy. Monica shares what keeps her up at night, how leading a growing team changes decision-making, and why a great co-founder can be the difference between stalling and moving with conviction. She breaks down omnichannel the practical way: treat DTC as home base, anchor to five core values, and let assortment flex by channel without confusing the customer. Along the way, we explore post-COVID shifts, the risk of playing it safe, and why community is still a better growth engine than ads.
If you’re building a consumer brand, this conversation is a field guide to scaling without drift: start close to the customer, make quality non-negotiable, sequence your operations before you widen distribution, and preserve the story that made people care in the first place. Subscribe, share with a founder who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to tell us which insight you’ll use this quarter.
More About this Episode
From Passion to Purpose: How Monica Royer Is Redefining Modern Parenthood Through Retail Innovation
Navigating parenthood has never been simple, but in recent years, parents have found themselves in a new world of options, expectations, and evolving consumer experiences. At the heart of this shift is Monica Royer, founder and CEO of Monica + Andy, a brand born not just from entrepreneurial ambition, but from a deeply personal need to redefine how parents discover and experience the products they use every day.
What began as a desire for softer fabrics and safer clothing for her own newborn quickly became a bold leap into the retail world - a leap that would not only challenge the traditional blueprint for success but also introduce a brand ethos rooted in empathy, quality, and community.
Building a Brand with Heart
Monica's foray into retail was anything but conventional. Inspired by the direct-to-consumer (DTC) success of her brother, Andy Dunn, the founder of Bonobos, Monica saw firsthand how cutting out the middleman created more personal, human experiences between brand and buyer. But where Bonobos focused on menswear, Monica saw an opportunity in a very different space: parenthood.
In 2014, just after giving birth to her daughter, Monica launched Monica + Andy with a simple but powerful mission: to deliver thoughtfully designed, organic baby clothing through a seamless and supportive customer journey. This wasn’t just about fashion. It was about solving a problem that so many new parents face: where to find safe, high-quality products that actually reflect their needs, their values, and their new reality.
The decision to place a strong emphasis on organic materials wasn’t a marketing tactic. It was personal. Monica wanted what every parent wants: safety, softness, and reliability for her child. That ethos became the cornerstone of Monica + Andy, and it remains central as the brand expands.
From Direct-to-Consumer to Omnichannel: A Shift in Strategy
For the first several years, Monica + Andy thrived as a DTC brand. Its flagship store in Chicago's Lincoln Park doubled as an office and community space, with daily programming like storytime, music classes, and prenatal events. This approach organically connected the brand with its core customer: parents in the early, sometimes overwhelming, stages of raising children.
Those physical interactions provided invaluable insights. By watching how real customers navigated the space, touched the products, and responded to experiences, Monica fine-tuned not just the merchandise, but the emotional touchpoints of her brand. In many ways, this stage was the incubation of the Monica + Andy DNA - empathy-driven retail powered by human connection.
But scaling the business required more than insight and intent. It required infrastructure and partnerships. In 2023, the brand took a significant step forward by partnering with Walmart to launch MA by Monica + Andy, a more accessible product line available online and in over 1,200 stores across the country.
This expansion into omnichannel retail marked a major milestone not just for Monica + Andy, but for what it symbolized: a recognition that big-box retail and emerging DTC brands can not only coexist, but collaborate in ways that elevate the customer experience.
Bridging Mass Retail and Personal Connection
Working with Walmart came with its own set of challenges and revelations. For Monica, it meant learning to scale without compromising the soul of her brand. Quality and values had to remain intact, even at mass production levels.
Rather than diluting the brand, the Walmart partnership reaffirmed its core values. From day one, Monica insisted on maintaining organic cotton and high-quality materials even when it would have been easier, faster, or cheaper to compromise. Walmart, to its credit, embraced the challenge and recognized the value of introducing curated, thoughtful brands into its assortment.
This partnership also offered a glimpse into the future of retail: one where mass retailers collaborate with niche, purpose-driven brands to deliver both scale and authenticity. It’s a new model of consumer trust, one that blends the convenience of national reach with the intimacy of values-based storytelling.
Keeping the Customer at the Center
Monica’s approach to brand-building centers on understanding her customer not just as a consumer, but as a human being navigating one of life’s most transformational moments. Whether interacting through a website, a physical store, or a Walmart aisle, the experience must feel consistent, heartfelt, and grounded in empathy.
To maintain that consistency, Monica + Andy has identified five key pillars that guide every decision, from design to distribution. While not all were named directly, it’s clear that quality, safety, customer experience, organic sustainability, and emotional connection are foundational. These guideposts serve as the brand’s North Star, ensuring that no matter how large it grows, it remains tethered to its mission.
Monica likens this commitment to having a “home base.” The direct-to-consumer channel is that home base - a testing ground, a community hub, and a source of truth for what the brand stands for. The ability to innovate and iterate there gives the company the insight and confidence to scale wisely in other channels.
Scaling With Intention
As Monica reflects on her growth, she’s quick to acknowledge that scaling too quickly can be risky. The years spent refining her product, understanding her audience, and developing a resilient supply chain were critical to preparing for the Walmart partnership. That intentionality, the discipline to grow in sequence, not in haste, is a key takeaway for other emerging brands.
Rather than trying to be everywhere at once, Monica advises starting small, learning deeply, and using that insight to inform broader strategies. It's this measured, customer-centric approach that allows her to navigate the complexities of omnichannel retail while staying grounded in her brand’s purpose.
The Human Side of Leadership
What’s striking about Monica’s journey isn’t just her business acumen. It’s her candor about the emotional toll of entrepreneurship. She’s open about the sacrifices she’s made as a mother, a daughter, and a partner. She shares the weight of knowing she’s responsible for not just a business, but the livelihoods of her employees and the trust of her customers.
That vulnerability isn't a weakness. It’s the heart of her leadership style. It keeps her grounded and deeply aware of the privilege and responsibility that come with building something meaningful. Whether facing health scares or the day-to-day pressure of scaling a startup, Monica’s resilience is driven by purpose, and that purpose always comes back to the people she serves - parents like her, navigating the unknown with hope and heart.
A Blueprint for New Founders
For anyone looking to build a brand today, Monica offers a refreshing counter-narrative to the typical founder mythology. You don’t need an MBA. You don’t need a finance background. What you need is a problem that matters to you, a commitment to solving it, and the courage to start.
It helps, she says, to bring your full, authentic self to the table even if you feel like an imposter. It helps to build a support network, whether through co-founders, family, or mentors, and most of all, it helps to stay connected to the reason you started, especially when the journey gets hard.
Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is both simple and profound: You belong. Take your seat at the table, build what you wish existed, and don't wait for someone else to give you permission.
The Future of Monica + Andy
Looking ahead, Monica’s goals are both ambitious and grounded. She envisions Monica + Andy playing a larger role in reshaping the retail experience for modern parents offering not just better clothes, but better everything. From sustainable materials to inclusive designs, the goal is to build a platform that supports families holistically.
It’s a journey that’s still unfolding, but one thing is clear: Monica Royer isn’t just building a business. She’s building a movement. One that believes better experiences for parents start with better products, more empathy, and the courage to do things differently.
In today’s retail world, that’s exactly the kind of innovation we need.
