What Women Supporting Women Actually Looks Like — Beyond the Hashtag
We talk about women supporting women like it’s a bumper sticker. Like retweeting someone’s launch post counts. Like dropping a fire emoji on a fellow founder’s reel is the same as showing up.
But ask any Black woman entrepreneur what has actually moved the needle in her business — and nine times out of ten, she’ll point to a person. A phone call at the right moment. A favor that wasn’t in anyone’s job description. A woman who showed up when she absolutely did not have to.
This Women’s History Month, we’re telling that story — the real one. Through the journey of Kalyn Johnson Chandler, founder of Brooklyn-based stationery and lifestyle brand Effie’s Paper, and the circle of extraordinary women who have helped build her dream alongside their own.
The Unglamorous Truth About Building a Brand from Scratch
Kalyn Johnson Chandler built Effie’s Paper from a passion for beautiful paper goods and sorority culture into a brand with products in 450+ retail doors globally and corporate clients that include Goldman Sachs, HBO, and Bank of America. From the outside, it looks like a straight line. From the inside, it looks like every entrepreneurial journey does: exhilarating, exhausting, and absolutely impossible to do alone.
“Entrepreneurship can feel incredibly isolating,” Kalyn has shared openly. “You’re making decisions every day that no one else fully understands. You need people in your corner who get it — not just as cheerleaders, but as mirrors.”
What Kalyn has built around herself isn’t a network in the LinkedIn sense. It’s something older and more personal than that. It’s a sisterhood of women who operate in different industries, with different gifts, but share one non-negotiable: when one of them needs something, the others show up.
The Conference. The Empty Booth. The Friend Who Showed Up Anyway.
Here’s a moment that tells you everything you need to know.
Kalyn had secured a coveted booth at Tory Burch’s inaugural Embrace Ambition Summit — the kind of opportunity that takes years of relationship-building and a business that’s ready to be seen on a big stage. The day of the event arrived. Her team couldn’t make it. Not one person. She was going to be standing alone at that booth, representing everything she’d built, without a single backup.
Caption: Kalyn and Katrina at the Effie’s Paper booth at the Tory Burch Embrace Ambition Summit (April 2018).
Enter Katrina McGhee.
“She just showed up. No hesitation. That’s what real support looks like.”
[PHOTO 4]
Katrina McGhee — author, speaker, marketing expert and the kind of friend every entrepreneur needs in her corner — stepped in and worked that booth alongside Kalyn like she’d been on the Effie’s Paper team from day one. She didn’t have to. She wanted to. And because of that, what could have been a stressful, lonely day became one of the most memorable moments in Effie’s Paper’s story.
That’s not a hashtag. That’s a friend.
The Photographer Who Wasn’t There — And the Artist Who Was
Sometimes the Best Plan B Is a Friend Who Picks Up the Phone.
Another day. Another curveball.
Kalyn flew into town specifically for a brand photo shoot. The kind of shoot you plan weeks in advance, coordinate outfits for, build your content calendar around. She landed, turned her phone off airplane mode, and found a text message from her photographer. Sick. Unable to make it. Shoot canceled.
Or so it seemed.
Kalyn called Malene Barnett from the tarmac.
Malene Barnett is a celebrated textile designer, ceramicist, author and visual artist whose work has been featured globally — a creative force in her own right. She and Kalyn have been navigating the entrepreneurial journey together since 2017, the kind of friendship where you don’t have to explain the context because she already knows the context.
Malene didn’t hesitate. She picked up her camera and stepped in as photographer. The shoot happened. The content was captured. The business kept moving.
[PHOTO 7]
Caption: Malene, artist extraordinaire, put on her photographer’s hat and saved the day.
“She saved the day. Full stop. That’s what it means to have women in your life who are rooting for you — not in theory, but in practice.”
The two women still laugh about it. But beneath the laughter is something neither of them takes lightly: the understanding that showing up for each other is not optional. It’s the agreement.
Your Hype Woman Is Good. Your Accountability Partner Is Better.
[PHOTO 9]
Then there’s Bola Sokunbi — founder of Clever Girl Finance, bestselling author of four books (the fifth book will be out next month), and one of the most respected voices in personal finance for Black women. Kalyn and Bola met in 2018 through the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses Program, and what started as a professional connection grew into one of Kalyn’s most valued accountability partnerships and dearest friends.
[PHOTO 10]
Caption: Kalyn and Bola at the Effie’s Paper booth at New York’s Bryant Park’s Maker’s Market (May 2022).
Bola’s business operates in an entirely different space than Effie’s Paper. And that’s exactly the point. The best accountability partners aren’t always your competitors or your peers — they’re women who understand the weight of building something from nothing. Bola gets it. And she holds Kalyn to a standard that makes her business better.
[PHOTO 11]
Caption: Bola’s fifth book, Clever Girl Millionaire, hits the stands next month.
Behind Closed Doors: When Sisterhood Becomes Strategy
[PHOTO 12]
Caption: Kalyn and Valerie Wray after a recent planning session (February 2026).
Valerie Wray, founder of The 125 Collection — a sophisticated candle brand rooted in the power of intentional living — is more than a name in Kalyn’s circle. She’s a collaborator. The two women have been quietly meeting, mapping, and dreaming up something that could change the trajectory of both of their businesses. The details aren’t ready for the world just yet. But if the vision comes to fruition, you’ll want to have been paying attention. This is what women supporting women looks like when it goes beyond encouragement — when it becomes strategy, partnership, and a shared bet on each other’s futures.
What This Actually Looks Like in Practice
Women supporting women isn’t always a collaboration announcement or a joint venture. Women who are quietly building empires while lifting each other up. Sometimes it’s quieter than that. And more powerful.
It looks like a text that says: “I’m coming to help.” It looks like picking up a camera when you didn’t bring one. It looks like a check-in call at 8pm when someone’s spiral-texting about a decision that needs to be made by morning. It looks like celebrating someone’s win on your platform even when your own season is hard.
It looks like buying from each other’s businesses. Recommending each other to the rooms you’re already in. Sharing the opportunities that don’t fit you but are perfect for her.
Community over competition isn’t a slogan. For these women, it’s an operating system.
Why Effie’s Paper Is Part of This Story
Effie’s Paper was never just a stationery brand. From its very beginning, it was built on the values of sisterhood, intention, and showing up beautifully for the moments that matter.
But so is this story. Because the same spirit that goes into every silk bandana, every travel jewelry box, every piece of intentional stationery — is the same spirit Kalyn’s circle embodies every single day. The belief that beautiful things deserve to exist. That Black women deserve to be supported. That building your dream and lifting someone else’s doesn’t have to be a trade-off.
It’s both. It’s always been both.
This Women’s History Month, Make It Personal
History isn’t only made by the women we put in textbooks. It’s made in the phone calls, the favors, the showing-up-when-you-didn’t-have-to moments that never make the highlight reel but absolutely make the business.
So this month — and every month — we’re celebrating the women who build, and the women who show up for the builders.
Shop Kalyn’s pretty stationery and lifestyle accessories at effiespaper.com| @effiespaper. Connect with Bola Sokunbi at clevergirlfinance.com| @clevergirlfinance. Explore Malene Barnett’s work at malenebarnett.com| @malenebarnett. Find Valerie Wray’s The 125 Collection at the125collection.com|@the125collection. And pick up Katrina McGhee’s books at katrinamcghee.com| @katrinamcghee.
Support them. Share them. Buy from them. That’s not just women supporting women. That’s how we build something that lasts.
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Effie’s Paper is a Brooklyn-based Black-owned stationery and lifestyle accessories brand with products in 450+ retail doors globally. Shop the full collection at effiespaper.com | @effiespaper
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