Set Active re-hired a creative manager who left to explore a different industry. She returned as a senior brand manager with new skills and a renewed appreciation for the company's environment. This highlights the long-term value of supporting employees' career explorations, as they can return with valuable external experience.
Instead of spending hours agonizing over how to deliver constructive criticism, Lindsay Carter used AI. She inputted her concerns for a new assistant and prompted the AI to act as an expert. It generated a clear, structured, and helpful email in five minutes, demonstrating AI's power for improving leadership efficiency and communication.
Instead of just gathering feedback, Set Active actively involves its community in creating two major collections per year, letting customers vote on colors, styles, and designs. This transforms them from passive consumers into active stakeholders, ensuring the product resonates and generates guaranteed excitement and sales upon launch.
Lindsay Carter explicitly connects her personal state—unhealthy and sleep-deprived postpartum after skipping maternity leave—to poor leadership and decision-making. This directly resulted in the company's first-ever down year, demonstrating that founder well-being is a critical business metric, not just a personal issue.
For founders without a large marketing budget, building in public isn't optional. Lindsay Carter attributes Set Active's initial hype to sharing behind-the-scenes content on her personal social media. She argues that consumers want to root for the underdog, and showing the story—failures and all—is the most effective way to build a loyal following from scratch.
Lindsay Carter's most impactful early decision was placing a second purchase order before knowing if the first would succeed. This high-risk move ensured that once the initial inventory sold out, new product was arriving to keep the momentum going. In a hype-driven market, waiting for sales data can mean losing customer attention.
Facing a down year, Lindsay Carter put her ego aside and called trusted industry contacts for help. This simple act provided concrete, tactical advice—like using new AI tools and auditing marketing funnels—that gave the company an immediate boost and catalyzed its recovery. Asking for help was a critical strategic lever, not a sign of weakness.