You are a serial entrepreneur, turned President.
After I sold my first company Try The World, I was looking at new opportunities like a VC –hunting for a disruptive product, great KPIs, and a large market. I was also looking for an opportunity that aligned with my values. I fell in love with ettitude’s sheets and the positive impact our company could make on the planet with our innovative CleanBamboo® materials, which save 99% of water and 38% of CO2, and avoid toxic chemicals & pesticides vs. cotton, the dominant fiber in the bedding industry.
I admired ettitude’s Founder & CEO Phoebe Yu’s textile innovation experience, and background, and knew right away we would be great complementary co-founders. Phoebe had invested 4 years into the research & development of our textile and commercializing it into final products. I was impressed! I joined when the product was already proven in the Australian market, but ettitude was not yet well known in the US. I was excited to get behind such an incredible product and the opportunity to grow it in the US and globally.
Joining at the ground floor of a startup as co-founder is not that much different vs. founding it yourself. If the co-founders find an equitable relationship, clear division of responsibilities, and a shared vision, and bring value to growing the company, it can work very well.
Just start! Don’t wait for a special time to start working on your passion project. If you’re still working a full-time job, find 1-2 hours per day that you can dedicate to your side gig. Network with other founders. Learn. Use new technologies to give you an advantage.
Phoebe and I aligned that we were going to raise funds in order to reach our growth objectives before I even joined the company. We were accepted into Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, a 4-month accelerator in NYC, which invested the first $100k into ettitude, and soon after I found out I was pregnant with my first child. It was an exciting time for me to grow 2 babies at once – ettitude and my first daughter! Knowing that I would need to take some time off put even more healthy pressure to secure capital in our pre-seed round before my leave - we were up to the challenge!
Phoebe and I often got questions in 2018 from potential investors about our plans for my maternity leave. While it was annoying to me to be treated differently vs. male entrepreneurs who were expecting children, we answered with a solid plan that Phoebe and other team members have been cross-trained to manage my work streams while I would be out on mat leave. I set all major initiatives in motion that the rest of the team could execute while I would be out.
It was a great test to find investors who were aligned with our values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Investors who participated in our pre-seed round saw our long-term vision, appreciated the strength of our professional backgrounds, and believed in the product. If anyone did not invest due to one co-founder taking mat leave, I’m glad they are not on our cap table today! I went through the process again, expecting my 2nd daughter and raising our seed round in 2020. Since then, ettitude has been named one of Inc. 5000’s Fastest Growing US Private Companies twice in a row!
First, I recommend completing all important projects, such as your raise and strategic plans prior to your leave, delegating and arranging for backup in advance, and being clear with investors about your plans.
Second, I advise founders to take the necessary time off that they need postpartum. Founders tend to put pressure on themselves to return to work too soon, juggling postpartum recovery and work, in a way that can be unsustainable. Because the United States does not have federally mandated family leave, every company has different policies, and nobody has a specific amount of time in mind. Founders are human. The success of the company often hinges on their physical and mental well-being. Hence it is important to take the necessary time to heal and go through this incredibly physically, emotionally, and mentally challenging time to transform into a new self and go back to work at the time when you feel ready.
Finally, I advise all new parents to set strict boundaries for work and life. For founders especially, work can fill up all the “free” time that we have. Other people don’t know what is going on in your life unless you tell them. We need to normalize publicly blocking time off on our work calendars for life’s necessities - such as pumping/feeding your baby, feeding yourself (yes, even having proper time for lunch can become a challenge when you’re running a company), putting your baby to sleep, doctor’s appointments, and mental health days.
After I went back to work post-first baby, assuming I and the team could continue to work the same way we did before, there were too many times I would pump while driving to work to make it to 9am in-person meetings, then pump and eat lunch in a nursing room while on zoom calls on mute with my camera turned off, with milk occasionally shooting out onto the screen, and then still miss our baby’s 7pm bedtime because I would get stuck in LA traffic after 5pm meetings that ran late. Pre-Covid, there were no boundaries, and few accepted norms for new moms, especially at startups, that I could look at.
Looking back on this, I realize how unsustainable that pre-pandemic working parent lifestyle was and I am grateful that our country is starting to understand the demands that are placed on parents. After more than a few public occurrences, it is no longer mortifying to have your children barge into your home office while on a zoom meeting. It became a bigger conversation and the parents themselves are starting to feel more empowered to defend their boundaries (such as leaving mid-meeting if it’s running late) and taking the time that they actually need.
The advantage of being a founder is that YOU can set the working culture of your company. Based on my own experience as a new parent, we established an inclusive company parental leave policy for employees of all genders at ettitude that takes into account the needs of new parents: 3 months paid family leave, an additional optional 1-month unpaid leave, a 2 month adjusted/flexible work schedule post-return to work, as well as extra mental health days. We also have generous PTO and sick leave and encourage blocking the calendar for important life activities. Thanks to these and other policies, ettitude has been named one of LA’s Best Places to Work by Built in LA.
Sustainability is caring for the planet! After becoming a parent, I became even more passionate about preserving the health of our planet for future generations. Concurrently, ettitude’s ambitions as a company have grown from just sustainability (do less harm) to regeneration (improving/returning to the original state/giving back to nature more than you took). ettitude became a certified B Corp, Climate Neutral, and a member of 1% for the Planet – donating 1% of its revenue to environmental non-profits.
I also welcomed the concept of regeneration for myself: as a new parent, I viscerally understood that I needed proper sleep to function at my peak. Sleep is an incredible method that our body has to regenerate and replenish. At ettitude, we promote healthy sleep with products that are proven to improve sleep efficiency by a clinically significant 1.5% due to its silk-like softness and superior breathability, keeping the body at the optimal temperature for sleep. I only sleep in ettitude sheets!
Phoebe Yu launched ettitude as a Direct-to-Consumer brand because the barriers to entry were much lower. It takes more working capital and more time to launch with retailers, which is more difficult for a new brand. Today, ettitude is still primarily D2C, although our products are also retailed via Urban Outfitters, Grove Collaborative, and Zola, among others.
Babba Rivera! An awesome founder of an innovative clean hair care brand Ceremonia, and a mom of 2. I love that she frequently shares how she manages to balance work, motherhood, life, etc on her social platforms – contributing to this public conversation about the needs of working parents and entrepreneurs.
I can’t live without my smartwatch. It helps me stay on track with my work and life schedule, and my physical health – making sure I get enough quality sleep every night and get enough activity every day.
AI improves many parts of our work and life. One of our values and strategic pillars at ettitude is innovation. At every weekly All Hands meeting, we ask our team what AI tools they’ve been playing with recently and whether they have anything to teach the rest of the team. In every weekly “reflection” letter that department heads send to the whole team as well as in every team member’s performance review, there is a section on innovation. The world is evolving very quickly and it’s important to explore what tools can apply to your situation to give you an advantage.
Having fallen in love with ettitude's products and mission, Kat joined ettitude in 2018 to help expand the company globally. Prior to ettitude, Kat had a decade of experience scaling mission-driven brands. In 2012, Kat founded Try The World, a direct to consumer natural and artisanal food subscription company, which disrupted the global food supply chain. It was named by Crain's NY as the #3 fastest growing company in New York before it was acquired in 2017. Today Kat also serves as advisor and investor in several direct to consumer brands. Prior to her startup journey, she held strategy positions at Weight Watchers and Thomson Reuters and received her MBA from Columbia Business School
