Alumna brings budding business to Chapel Hill

Jillian and Mitchell Kinkeade recently relocated TheRightOne, the company they started to replace popular brands of wireless earbuds for customers, to 200 W. Franklin St. Mitchell Kinkeade (CEO) and Jillian Kinkeade ’19 (chief growth officer) are capitalizing on the entrepreneurial energy of a community very familiar to her as a Carolina alumna.

While an undergraduate at Carolina double-majoring in computer science and statistics, Jillian Kinkeade started multiple businesses, including an app development firm that she launched with a friend. She remembers working out of Innovate Carolina’s 1789 student innovation hub and community.

“I learned that there are coworking spaces that you can use, and so many resources for entrepreneurs,” she said. “I was also very involved with pitch competitions that allowed me to meet the Innovate Carolina team and so many entrepreneurs with different types of businesses, so I was able to see their progression of growth.”

The early exposure she had as a student to entrepreneurs and small business leaders still shapes her work at TheRightOne. “By watching all those other businesses I met through Innovate Carolina, I learned how to spot and figure out the times when we needed to take a next step in our own business: Do we need a lawyer? It is time to get a new office?”

Jillian Kinkeade tests AirPods to ensure no defects appear in products sold by TheRightOne. (Brock Pierce; Innovate Carolina)

She also worked as a student intern with the Innovate Carolina, helping design and implement support programs and events for other student entrepreneurs. It’s an experience that’s come full circle as the Kinkeades began hiring Carolina students and recent alumni to work at TheRightOne, including 2025 graduate and Innovate Carolina intern Benjamin Mills, an information science major who helped Innovate Carolina with data analysis and visualization.

“It’s been great moving to North Carolina and hiring students and alumni that have a lot of the critical foundation and skills we need,” she said. “The people we’ve hired are very hard working and intelligent, and they’re able to catch on to processes quickly and complete them routinely with very good accuracy.”

The Kinkeades started TheRightOne in San Jose, California, moving back to North Carolina later to be closer to family. Attracted to the Innovate Carolina Junction because of its rental flexibility, they leased a single private office at the Junction, eventually increasing to three offices in the coworking hub over the course of the next year. By late 2025, they realized the business required a larger office footprint and made the move of just a few blocks.

“The theme of being in Chapel Hill has been connection because it’s been so collaborative, and we really feel like part of the community,” said Mitchell Kinkeade. “We’re excited to plant our roots here and grow.”

Sheryl Waddell, director of innovation hubs and engagement at Innovate Carolina, enjoys seeing the business thrive. “We’ve loved watching Mitchell, Jillian and TheRightOne team grow from a single office at the Junction into a thriving company with a larger downtown footprint, and we couldn’t be prouder of what they’ve accomplished.”

TheRightOne, which served more than 700,000 customers in its first five years, notched 33% year-over-year growth in customer orders from 2024 to 2025. As an online-only business, TheRightOne has seen an increasing need for more physical space, which it uses for inventory, testing, packing and shipping. The company’s growth is spurred by its premise: giving people across the U.S. an affordable, convenient solution to the common conundrum of losing one earbud and wanting to replace it without spending big on a completely new set.

That’s also the key to the company’s unusual name. When users do lose an earbud, it always seems to be one for the right ear.