Today we’d like to introduce you to Cayla Ridley.
Hi Cayla, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
By any conventional measure, Quorra should not exist.
It was not born from venture capital or a carefully modeled business plan. It did not begin in a boardroom or emerge from a pitch deck. It began in a moment when everything familiar collapsed—when ambition collided with survival, and survival, quietly, became purpose.
I grew up on a farm.
No connections. No shortcuts. No head starts.
I had never been on an airplane, never left the country, never imagined a life that stretched beyond what I could see directly in front of me – a life in a small town on a farm. I learned early how to work hard, how to keep going, how to make do with what you had. I did not grow up dreaming of owning an agency. I grew up learning how to survive.
Before founding Quorra, I was a surgical technician for a podiatrist in Macon, Georgia. I loved helping people, but I knew I wanted more. So I went back to school. During that time, I got my first taste of marketing working for Coca-Cola during College GameDay in Athens. I remember being on television and thinking, This is it. This is what I want to do. I loved the energy. I loved creating moments that made people feel something.
I earned my bachelor’s degree in psychology from Georgia College and stepped into the world believing hard work would be enough.
It was not.
After graduating, I could not find a job anywhere. I applied to Starbucks. To Goodwill. To anywhere that would take me. I was living in Athens, exhausted and embarrassed, wondering how I had done everything right and still felt so lost.
Then one day, I walked into Red Dress Boutique and asked if they were hiring. They told me they needed help in the warehouse packing boxes. So there I was, college degree in hand, packing boxes for $8.50 an hour.
And I was grateful.
That job taught me every corner of e-commerce. I packed boxes. I worked inbound inventory. I learned operations from the ground up. Then one day, they asked if I could help in their social media room. I was excited and terrified. They trained me to take over their influencer program because the woman running it was leaving.
I was given a budget of $2,000 a month.
I treated it like everything depended on it. Because it did.
Within months, the program grew so substantially they increased the budget to $50,000 a month. The CEO noticed. We planned four major influencer trips and partnered with the Four Seasons. I watched the company celebrate its first $100,000 sales day. When I started, they were barely doing $30,000 in sales in an entire month.
That was when I learned what would later define my agency:
Marketing doesn’t work when it shouts. It works when it listens. Connection is the most powerful currency in business.
Then life intervened.
I moved to Houston for what I believed would be my next professional chapter—a position at a real agency with real opportunity. Then the pandemic arrived. And with it came a part of my life I stayed silent about for far too long.
I was in an abusive relationship.
There were days I showed up to work with bruises on my face and arms, telling myself I just needed to get through the day. I learned how to cover them. How to explain them away. How to keep my head down and pretend everything was fine.
But nothing about it was fine.
I was let go, and I packed my life into my car and drove back to Georgia, carrying more than heartbreak. I carried shame. I carried fear.
I carried the feeling that I had failed at everything.
There was no plan waiting for me. Only uncertainty.
And then, unexpectedly, my phone began to light up.
Former clients reached out. Not with sympathy. With trust.
“Could you still run our campaigns?” “We need you. Can you help us?”
At the time, I had no agency. No formal business. No infrastructure. What I had was a laptop, a bruised body, a bruised confidence, and a decision to make.
I chose not to disappear.
Quorra began quietly—built from late nights at my kitchen table, learning and relearning digital marketing out of necessity. Email strategy. Paid media. Influencer outreach. Google campaigns. SMS automation. What started as survival work became something more deliberate: a company rooted in performance, but shaped by resilience.
As the agency grew, so did its culture. I made a decision early on to build the kind of team I once needed but never had. The women who joined Quorra became more than staff. They became collaborators, challengers, and advocates.
It was through that community that I found my voice again.
Confidence did not arrive all at once. It was built slowly—in meetings where my ideas were respected, in campaigns that succeeded, in moments where I stopped shrinking to make others comfortable. Quorra became proof that a single devastating chapter does not define a life or a career.
Today, Quorra operates as a full-service performance marketing agency serving brands across fashion, wellness, technology, and e-commerce. Our services span Meta and Google advertising, email and SMS marketing through platforms like Klaviyo and Omnisend, influencer strategy, and experiential campaign management.
But what differentiates our agency is not the list of services. It is the way they are delivered.
There is no outsourcing. No anonymous handoffs. No junior teams quietly learning on a client’s dime. Every campaign is managed directly by senior strategists. The philosophy is simple: treat every brand as if it were your own because that is how Quorra was built, with everything on the line. We understand the value of every marketing dollar.
Over the years, we have helped brands navigate some of the most complex growth challenges in modern marketing. We scaled Crimson Dawn’s revenue through a reimagined influencer commission model that prioritized sustainability over short-term wins. We helped Cyclone Pods expand its wellness footprint through performance-driven paid media and affiliate partnerships. We launched GauthMath’s back-to-school influencer initiative to reach a new generation of students. We built Lago Scrubs’ influencer program from the ground up, connecting healthcare professionals with lifestyle creators. We refined Solely Fit’s voice through strategic creator alignment. We guided Judith March through its transition from wholesale to a direct-to-consumer powerhouse with full-funnel campaign execution.
Along the way, Quorra has launched campaigns for brands navigating strict advertising restrictions, scaled e-commerce companies to triple-digit growth, and partnered with designers from around the world. I have hosted influencer activations at London Fashion Week and traveled to Italy to collaborate with international creatives—milestones that still feel unreal to the girl who once had never even been on a plane.
Yet when I think about what matters most, I do not point to revenue or recognition.
I point to the moment I decided to tell the truth about what I survived.
For years, I kept that part of my story private. I worried that vulnerability would be mistaken for weakness. That surviving abuse would somehow make me seem less capable.
I was wrong.
Strength is not the absence of struggle. It is the refusal to let struggle have the final word.
Today, Quorra is a certified partner with Meta, Google, Pinterest, TikTok, Klaviyo, and Omnisend. We deliver an average return on investment exceeding 400% for our clients and have helped cut customer acquisition costs in half through creator-led advertising strategies.
But the numbers are not the point.
The point is what they represent:
That a woman can come from nothing and still build something extraordinary. That a company can be forged not from comfort, but from courage. That the worst day of your life does not have to be the day your story ends.
I once showed up to work with bruises and left without a job.
I did not lose my future. I found it.
And in doing so, I built Quorra not just as an agency, but as proof that resilience, when paired with vision, can become an extraordinary force.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not at all. It has been anything but smooth.
There were seasons when the struggle was obvious, and seasons when it was quieter but just as heavy. Early on, the hardest part was simply surviving. I came from very humble beginnings, growing up on a farm where you learned early how to work hard but never imagined a life beyond what was right in front of you. I had never been on an airplane, never left the country, never seen what was possible for myself. So when I started chasing something bigger, I felt like I was building a future I had no blueprint for.
Professionally, I hit walls over and over. After college, I could not get hired anywhere. I went from applying for marketing roles to applying at Starbucks and Goodwill just to make ends meet. When I finally landed at Red Dress Boutique, I started in the warehouse packing boxes for eight dollars and fifty cents an hour. I had a degree and big dreams, but I was starting from the very bottom. It taught me humility, patience, and the value of learning every part of a business from the ground up.
Every struggle forced me to evolve. Every failure taught me something I couldn’t have learned from success. Every moment I wanted to quit became proof that I could choose to keep going.
Starting Quorra came from that exact place. I did not have funding, a team, or even a formal business at first. I had a laptop, a few clients who believed in me, and the determination not to disappear. There were nights I worked until three in the morning, teaching myself everything I could because failure was not an option.
Even as the agency grew, the struggles did not stop. Learning how to lead a team, how to trust myself, and how to stop shrinking to make others comfortable was a journey of its own. Building confidence after everything I had been through took time. But surrounding myself with strong, creative women changed everything. They helped me remember who I was before life tried to convince me otherwise.
So no, it has not been smooth. But every struggle shaped the way I lead, the way I treat clients, and the way I build Quorra.
The hard parts gave me empathy. The setbacks gave me grit. And the moments I thought would end me ended up becoming the foundation for everything I have built since.
But here’s what I’ve learned: Smooth roads don’t build strong drivers
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Quorra?
Quorra is a full-service performance marketing agency, and what we do is help brands grow in ways that actually matter—connecting with their audiences, building loyalty, and driving measurable results. We specialize in Meta and Google advertising, email and SMS marketing through platforms like Klaviyo and Omnisend, influencer strategy, and experiential campaign management. Essentially, we help brands tell their story in a way that converts, while keeping everything human and authentic.
What sets us apart is how we deliver our work. We are not a faceless agency. Every campaign is managed directly by senior strategists—we don’t outsource, we don’t hand clients off to junior teams, and we don’t take shortcuts. Every client gets our full attention because every brand deserves that kind of care. We treat every brand as if it were our own, because that is how Quorra was built—from a place of risk, care, and everything on the line.
I am most proud of the brands we’ve worked with and the transformations we’ve helped create. We’ve scaled Crimson Dawn’s revenue through a reimagined influencer commission model, built GauthMath’s back-to-school influencer program, guided Judith March through a transition from wholesale to direct-to-consumer, and helped Cyclone Pods and Solely Fit grow through performance-driven campaigns and strategic influencer alignment. Along the way, we’ve also partnered with entrepreneurs from Europe, hosted activations at London Fashion Week, and launched campaigns that navigate challenging advertising restrictions.
What I want readers to know is that Quorra isn’t just marketing services—it’s a team of humans who are obsessed with helping brands grow and care about the story behind the business. We deliver results, yes—but we do it with precision, empathy, and creativity. Whether it’s through email, SMS, influencer partnerships, paid media campaigns, or offline conferences/events, our goal is to help brands not just reach people, but connect with them in a meaningful, lasting way.
At our core, Quorra represents resilience, trust, and bold creativity. We help brands show up as their best selves—online, offline, and everywhere in between.
Any big plans?
Looking ahead, I have big plans for Quorra and for myself. This year, I am thrilled to be helping plan an event at New York Fashion Week this September in partnership with Fashion Synergy Events, an incredible company that has hosted events at fashion weeks in Paris, Milan, and London—and now I get to help them bring that magic to New York. I’m also planning to travel to Italy in June to attend Expo Riva Schuh and meet companies from around the world. I hope to connect with brands globally, and help them grow, whether they’re brick-and-mortar shops, wholesalers, or designers.
I’m also focused on learning more about the supply chain process so that I can provide guidance to anyone who wants to start a business. My goal is to develop systems that actually work—efficient, scalable systems that support growth without compromising quality. Alongside that, I want to explore ways to incorporate AI as a tool, not a defining factor, in our business. After all my travels and experience, I know AI is here to stay, and I want to use it thoughtfully to scale smarter, not faster.
Ultimately, my vision is to bring business to U.S. brands that want to scale both domestically and internationally, and to continue expanding Quorra’s reach globally. I always dream big, and my goal is to keep growing—personally, professionally, and for every client who trusts us to help them succeed.
Quorra’s future is about expansion, innovation, and connection—building bridges between brands, markets, and people worldwide, while never losing the personal care and attention that defines who we are.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.quorra.agency/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quorra.agency/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caylaridley/
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/company/quorra-agency/
