Cheyenne Franks (Gonzalez) shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Cheyenne , it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: What is a normal day like for you right now?
A normal day for me is extremely full, and extremely scheduled out. To be as productive as possible, I schedule out just about everything but bathroom breaks. Wearing as many hats as I do in a day, I must stay disciplined. My day usually starts at 3am. I go to the gym for 1-1.5 hours, leaving just enough time for my husband to go after me (before our work day begins). When I arrive home, I see my husband off to work, make myself a homemade protein coffee, and I snap into teacher mode. I’m a stay at home homeschool mom of two (kindergarten and first grade). After I’m done feeding them breakfast, we begin our school day at our in home classroom. Once our schooling is done for the day, the kids are allowed free time, while mom snaps into business mode. Running two businesses generally consumes the rest of the day, with brief pauses for feeding and tending to kids (and a lot of interruptions). Work for me consists of everything from designing and website coding, to meetings, marketing and overseeing in house production. The list is truly endless. I typically pause business mode around 4pm, at which point I feed my family dinner and take the kids to sports. Because my children are homeschooled, it’s extremely important for me to keep them as active and as socialized as possible. After sports, my wonderful husband sees my kids to bed so I can snap myself back into business mode until I’m ready to shut my brain off for the day. I rarely get time to myself, but in the rare event that I do, I spend my time researching new business strategies, learning how to improve what’s already working, and I enjoy reading books about marketing, finance, and business management.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Cheyenne Franks (formerly Gonzalez), and I am the founder of Kids and Kreatures Clothing Company, a gothic/alternative themed clothing brand for kids. In 2021, I noticed a gap in the market, when my kids were just 1 year old and 6 months old. I could not find kids clothing that matched our family aesthetic (I myself am a fashionably alternative mom) and when I did find it, I found it to be not age appropriate and way overpriced. I personally cannot justify spending $35 on a child’s graphic t shirt that will be outgrown in a month and have ketchup all over it before noon. I assumed that if I had this problem, so did other parents like me. I decided to fix it for all of us, and so my company was born.
Our slogan is “Dare to be Different.” Our mission is to encourage kids of all ages to be themselves; even if that makes them “different.” Part of what inspired this slogan, was my own upbringing. My whole life I’ve been told “You’re so pretty, but why do you dress that way?”(Referring to my all black and heavily tattooed aesthetic). Being myself is something that I’m incredibly good at, but I realize that not everyone has the confidence to overcome the criticism. I want to spread this confidence to others, especially the youth. Life is short. I think everyone should do what they want in life, whether that be dressing a certain way or choosing the non traditional path, and that’s overall what we are trying to promote. Happiness and self confidence. I want to help kids find their confidence, and ultimately find their way in life.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
The answer to this question, is absolutely no one. I’ve always had a clear vision for myself and what I wanted to be in life, and the people who loved me the most have heavily questioned my decision making, whether they say it out loud or not.
The day I expressed that I wanted to pursue business school, I was told “It takes a certain kind of person to be successful in business. Nursing is a safer option. More job security.” The day I dropped out of nursing school to pursue a career in retail I was met with a look of heavy concern. That same retail career that they were so concerned with led me into business management which I ended up doing for 10+ years. I learned an incredible amount about sales, team leadership, marketing, customer retention, employee retention, conversions, visual displays, finance, the list goes on, all of which I implement into my own businesses today. As much as I loved the job that I was doing, I knew the biggest difference I was making was to someone else’s pocket book. I felt like, “Why am I making someone else millions of dollars per year, when I could be doing that for myself?” Again, I recall the dismay on my families face when I chose to leave my corporate job, to “make goth stuff for kids.” Everyone thought I was nuts. Most people probably still do. But I can confidently say that I now make more money for myself than that other corporate job ever could have paid me, and most importantly I’m happy. My kids get to grow up and witness two hard working parents who chase their dreams, and get the fullest out of life regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. My kids are learning how to run a business daily, whether they realize it now or not and giving them the gift of skill combined with confidence is one of the greatest gifts I have to give as a mother.
I would like to clarify, I am not trying to say “I don’t have a supportive family.” They are absolutely supportive now, and they’ve always stood by my side whether they thought I would succeed or not, but it’s taken me 30 years of proving them wrong to get their trust. I’ve accumulated 30 years of experience in doing the opposite of what they’ve advised and getting positive results. I suppose a “College dropout who tattooed her face and quit her stable career to pursue making gothic clothes for kids with two babies on her hip” definitely sounds questionable but sometimes you just have to trust the person driving the bus.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
As crazy as it sounds, I’m so glad I grew up with a drug addict as a father. History shows, that children born into poverty often remain in poverty for the duration of their life because that’s the life they are taught to live from a young age. Growing up in an environment where electricity wasn’t guaranteed and drugs came before Christmas gifts taught me what NOT to be as I got older.
I decided on my own to leave my home to live with my grandparents when I was 12 years old. This was the push my mother needed to leave her abusive husband, and she later went on to marry a successful businessman; a farmer. This “new dad” was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. He taught me work ethic. He taught me what it was like to work an 8 hour work day AFTER an 8 hour day in public school and he taught me what it felt like to work for everything you have.
I think I’m one of the rarely lucky people that got to experience both poverty and wealth before I was old enough to decide my own life path. It’s because of that, that I have a very clear understanding of what happens when you work hard and make smart financial decisions, and also what happens when you don’t.
I would never wish my childhood for my own kids, and I’m very glad to say that they will never know what that life is like, however, if I had to start my life over today, I would still choose to have a pill addicted, abusive, no income dad in the beginning. It’s because of him, that I will never be that way.
Next, maybe we can discuss some of your foundational philosophies and views? Is the public version of you the real you?
The public version of me is 100% the real me, and that is something that has helped me create the community of support that I have. Some would describe it as “cult like,” some would call it a “family.” Regardless, my followers are loyal because I give them every piece of me, and unlike most companies, I take the time to pay attention to those who are supporting me consistently, not just when I’m doing good.
One of the hardest things I’ve had to accept in this industry is that most of what is showcased to the public is rarely the truth. I’ve learned that business owners who I once strongly admired are actually losing their houses but are posting “Business is booming! Record breaking year! So grateful!” And companies that are going bankrupt are doing the same. Business owners that I once aspired to be like, I’ve stopped following, because they are quick to tell you how much money they made this year, but they aren’t as quick to tell you that they are 122million in debt and are being forced to downsize this year.
I recently worked a tattoo convention as I often do, selling Kids and Kreatures products as a vendor, and to be honest, the show was awful for every vendor in the building. An event that was advertised to have thousands of people in attendance only produced maybe 200 heads total. Every vendor in the building took a hard loss that weekend, including myself. I went home and posted a tik tok video that read “Lost my ass in money today, so the entire website is on sale.” It was raw. It was real. And it was honest. It also helped me generate enough in sales to make up for the disappointing weekend. I was disgusted when I saw another vendors post that read “Such a fantastic weekend! You’re all amazing! We sold out of everything! Thank you so much to everyone who waited in line to see us!” There was no line. There was no success. There were no sales. There were no people.
Business owners in 2025 are faced with the feeling of competing against something that doesn’t exist daily and it’s exhausting. On paper I have 220k organic followers that I’ve obtained in 4 short years, using no ads or paid methods, I have a company with zero debt and heavy cash flow, that fully sustains itself, large profit margins and little overhead. On paper, I should feel comfortable, but I constantly feel “behind” because I’m always comparing myself to Joe Schmoe who has 2million followers (which he didn’t disclose were paid), several million in debt (not disclosed), not profitable (not disclosed) and was fully crowd funded (not disclosed). Social media can be a toxic and unhealthy environment to be involved with, and I refuse to add to the toxicity.
I’ll continue posting transparency, telling others about the hard times, inspiring someone to follow their dreams even when it’s difficult, and growing my organic audience who find the value in truth over sugar coated garbage.
Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. What are you doing today that won’t pay off for 7–10 years?
Today I’m building the largest alternative kids clothing brand in the world. I’m 4 years in, no days off. I went my first 3 years without pay, putting every penny back into the business. Year 4 I was finally able to take a pay check, and it’s a good thing I’m not paid hourly, because if that were the case, the company would be going bankrupt. It’s impossible to reach extremely high goals if you don’t get a 10 year head start. Nothing great comes over night. It takes an insane amount of self motivation, discipline and above all, consistency. Do I own the largest alternative kids clothing brand in the world as of this moment? No I do not. Have I taken a day off in 4 years? No I have not. Do I have an extremely detailed and clear cut business plan that will get me to my goal within the next 5 years if I follow it daily and stay consistent? Absolutely I do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://KidsandKreatures.com
- Instagram: @kidsandkreatures
- Facebook: Kids & Kreatures
- Other: TikTok: @kidsandkreatures
