Alumni Profile: Alumni Couple Launches Diaper Business

By Haley Dittbrenner ’25
Summer Fall 2023 Issue

Gannon '15 and Krystal Duke '14 Keller with their daughters. Gannon ’15 and Krystal Duke ’14 Keller with their daughters.Gannon Keller ’15 and Krystal Duke ’14 Keller live in an ecofriendly manner, limiting single-use plastics and reusing items. They applied the same philosophy after welcoming their first daughter in January 2020 by using sustainable cloth diapers. The couple quickly recognized that, while there are many cloth diaper companies, few diapers come in a variety of styles and prints. They decided to fill this niche by founding Kinder Cloth Diaper Company — and to differentiate themselves, they focused on art sourcing.

“We have to find ways to stand out in a very competitive landscape, and our prints are the primary way that we do that,” Krystal says. “We pay the extra money for exclusive licensing from independent artists, where our competitors are buying similar and sometimes the same stock resources.”

The couple notes that their differing academic backgrounds — Krystal’s in graphic design and Gannon’s in business — complement each other in their business venture.

“We work really well together, almost symbiotically. Gannon’s strengths lie in business, analytics and financials. He’s good at the stuff behind the scenes that customers don’t see — like building spreadsheets with sales data to determine when we need to reorder a certain product to keep it in stock,” Krystal says.

“By contrast, Krystal’s strengths lie in the visual stuff,” Gannon says. “She handles design, product development, social media and website maintenance. We’re both contributing to the success of the business in different ways.”

Gannon also works at PNC as a business analytics manager, and Krystal works as a graphic designer with the marketing company Formerly Known As, whose clients include Ford, MeowMix, Milkbone, Rachel Ray Nutrish, JIF, Uncrustables and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Krystal lauded Susquehanna’s graphic design major as being especially helpful post-graduation. She found mentors in her professors, who gave her a footing for her career. Today, she uses her company to collaborate with SU graphic design students and alumni on diaper designs.

When it comes to launching a business, Gannon emphasizes the importance of not allowing perfection to be the enemy of progress.

“Nothing is ever perfect,” he says. “Embrace that and make progress on it. You can wait forever for perfection, but only have a limited time to seize an opportunity.” 

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