Wright’s Small Business Changes the Graduation Cap Game | nebraska today

Featured Sponsor

Store	Link	Sample Product
UK Artful Impressions	Premiere Etsy Store

Whenever there have been graduations, there have been people with curly, textured hair frustrated by ill-fitting graduation caps. On the eve of her high school graduation, Myayla Wright and her parents finally decided to do something about it.

“I was sitting around trying to figure out how to put this grad cap on my hair, and there was no way,” said Wright, a junior from Olathe, Kansas. “I was talking to my parents and I said, ‘There’s no way there’s nothing to this – graduations have been going on forever.'”

Weeks later, the family was in their basement firing up a 3D printer to prototype the Grad Cap Remix, a device that fits over a standard graduation cap and uses a unique headband that fits all hairstyles, curly or straight. Three years and one patent later, Wright and his family’s business has taken off in ways they could never have imagined.

“The response has been incredible,” Wright said. “We get all sorts of comments like, ‘This saved my graduation day,’ ‘I’m so glad this exists,’ or ‘Why didn’t it show up sooner?’”

Wright was thrilled to find that the product is helping people in more ways than one.

“We get a lot of requests from people with sensory disorders or cochlear implants because it’s cleaner and easier for them,” Wright said. “For people who wear hijabs, it also works much better. It helps a lot of people we didn’t think it would help.”

Wright knew they were onto something big when a TikTok he posted showing off the embed gained serious traction.

“One TikTok I did blew up with 40 million views,” said Wright, who handles social media and marketing for Grad Cap Remix as well as being a student athlete on the Husker Cheer Squad and keeping up with her major in nutrition, exercise and Health Sciences. .

“I keep up with hashtags, trendy sounds, and things that capture an audience so our content can work within those trends.”

With the goal of partnering with great gift providers, Wright hopes the Grad Cap Remix will become a staple at graduations everywhere, including here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Everyone has asked her, from her teammates on the cheerleading squad to total strangers asking about getting an insert.

“I’m excited that even on my own campus people are interested in using one,” he said.