About

Who Are We

Jess, RJ, Eli, Emmy, and Alice.

We are the owners of Co x Lab. It's not one of us who own this business, it's all of us. We're a homeschool family that has made entrepreneurship a part of what we do every week. Designing, budgeting, networking, marketing... if it's a part of starting a business, it's a part of what we're trying to teach our kids. 

We don't know exactly where this will all take us, but we know that we are learning a lot along the way. 

This little experiment all starting with a question...

We're a homeschool family that decided to do an experiment. What would happen if we mashed up some of our favorite genres in some unconventional ways? What if we found ways to cheer on our favorite team while also showcasing some of our other fandoms? 

In the 2023-24 season, our girls started checking out football games to see if they could catch a glimpse of the one and only Taylor Swift. Emmy had already seen Taylor at Ford Field for the Eras tour and now she was watching to see what football games she'd spot her at. 

I was also raised as a lifelong fan of the Detroit Lions - even in the rough years. Well, it didn't take long for watching Taylor's boyfriend to get replaced with cheering on the Honolulu Blue and falling in love with some of our favorites like Jared Goff, Aidan Hutchinson, and so many more. 

And that all led to the idea... what if we had some shirts that mixed together these genres? What if we could have shirts that show off our love for Taylor Swift but don't force us into buying Chiefs gear. An idea became some mockups of designs on the computer. Some mockups on the computer became sample shirts. And eventually we decided to run a homeschool experiment by turning it into a family business with a simple goal - sell enough shirts to buy tickets to a Lions' game. 

Chapter One

We did it! January marked our first-ever family trip to a Lions game, and there’s no doubt we’re hoping for many more to come. Even better? We hit our first milestone—100 shirts sold.

At the start, it felt like a long shot. We knew it would take a ton of support from friends and family—and even more, we had to reach people we didn’t know. The whole family pitched in: passing out flyers in the cold, learning how to give elevator pitches, even figuring out Photoshop. That game wasn’t just a reward—it was proof that we could do something big together.

So, what’s next? Time to dream up the next goal. Stay tuned!

Learning the Offseason

Since meeting our January goal and wrapping up an incredible football season, we’ve been working hard to build a brand that goes beyond the football collabs. We’ve been dreaming up new ideas, learning how to budget through slower months, and launching fresh collections for both the Red Wings and the Tigers. We’re so excited to see where this takes us next—especially as we gear up for our first Tigers game as a family at the end of April. And yes, we’re already dreaming about what the next football season might hold.

Football is Back (2025-26 Season)

By the time the next football season rolled around, things felt different.

We had met our original goal. Then we passed it. We made designs people actually wanted. Some posts took off in ways we never expected. One of our shirts even found its way onto a Lions player—which still doesn’t feel real when we say it out loud. We sold at our first markets. We learned how to talk about what we were building to strangers. And slowly, this little homeschool experiment started to feel like something more.

Something is Shifting

But when football season ended, reality hit.

Sales slowed, and we expected that would just be the way it was. And then we got invited to sell at the Detroit Auto Show with the Sundays are for Detroit mini market. Eli's design, The Larkness Monster, was gaining traction. Emmy and Alice (and Jess) met a ton of amazing women who were running businesses. And thanks to the inspiration, Alice sketched up a design, that led to something unexpected. 

Her sketch is now becoming our first primarily screen-printed shirt—a full-circle moment that captures exactly why we started Co x Lab in the first place.

It seems like things are shifting - our brand, our experience, and our opportunities. We are finding our people. We are making memories. And we are learning what it looks like to build something slowly, together, and letting our kids see that creativity, consistency, and courage actually matter.