Ashley Merrill is a serial-entrepreneur and investor whose personal mission is to elevate and empower all women & girls. 

In 2012, Ashley just started business school and in the same month realized she was pregnant with her first child. The news lit a now-or-never fire and pushed Ashley to overcome her fears and launch the company she had been thinking about for years, Lunya, a luxury sleepwear line that provides confidence to the modern woman. In our interview, we’ll have an honest conversation about why we need more successful women in business, what the journey was like starting a high growth business while raising two young kids, and the importance of partnership in your marriage. 

Ashley is also the Chairwoman of Outdoor Voices, an activewear brand, founder of Lahgo, a men’s luxury sleepwear line, and her newest project, the Deep, a platform for curious people that will change the way we have conversations with each other. 

In this episode, we'll talk to Ashley about:

* Ashley opens up about her college experience and how she landed in culinary school [4:05]

* Ashley shares how to make an impact and be in an industry despite not fitting “the mold” [8:42]

* How Ashley pivoted her career and found the confidence to make the leap [11:33]

* How the idea of Lunya came about and why motherhood motivated her to actually go for it [14:51]

* Ashley shares her unique story on launching Lunya while she was in labor [18:51]

* Ashley walks through how she funded the business and how the VC landscape has shifted over the years [21:36]

* Why we need to have more successful women businesses [30:15]

* Ashley opens up about her life and marriage starting a high growth business with two young kids [31:16]

* Ashley discusses her definition of wealth and why she equates it to freedom [44:05]

Follow Ashley:

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashley__merrill/

* Lunya: https://www.lunya.co/

* Lahgo: https://lahgo.co/

* The Deep: https://www.thedeep.life/

Follow Yasmin:

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yasminknouri/

* Stay updated & subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.behindherempire.com/

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listen in as we discuss how learning on the job and being resource-constrained can translate into sustainable success, and how ashley plans on building a men's sleepwear brand in a rapidly-changing environment. 

Ashley Merrill is the founder and CEO of Lunya and Lahgo, a D2C luxury sleepwear company that’s experiencing 200% year on year growth. Founded in 2012 they served over 120k customers in the last year.

Welcome to the The Voice of Retail, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada

On this episode we’re in the motor city, Detroit, to talk with innovative online retailer and sneaker marketplace  StockX co-founder Josh Luber.  We talk about the intersection of passion and profit, how StockX innovative formula drives authenticity and credibility into the collectible re-sell market, and how a perfect price transparency model based on the stock market is driving record sales even in the face of the covid crisis.  Last, we explore the wildly innovative IPO market that StockX creates for brands to launch product lines in this celebrity (Drake, Mark Walberg, Eminem) funded platform.

Next we head west to Santa Monica and chat with Ashley Merrill, CEO/Founder of Lunya Company, a purpose-built retailer focussed on bespoke sleepwear for the modern women.  We talk about the origin story behind the brand, and how the COVID crisis had changed the way Ashley is thinking about the business and how Lunya goes to market.

But first, lets check in with Josh from StockX

******

Thanks to Josh and Ashley for being my guests on this episode.   If you liked this podcast you can subscribe on Apple, Spotify or your favourite podcast platform, please rate and review, and be sure and recommend to a friend or colleague in the retail industry.

I’m Michael LeBlanc, Founder and President of M.E. LeBlanc and Company Inc. and you can learn more about me on www.meleblanc.co or of course on LinkedIn

Until next time, have a safe week!

Most companies add a second product line when they want to grow. This week’s guest decided to build a second brand instead.

Ashley Merrill founded women’s sleepwear line Lunya in 2014 because she was tired of wearing her husband’s clothes around the house. Five years later, she decided to expand into menswear, but just adding a men’s line didn’t sit right with her.

Tune in to find out why Ashley decided to start a second brand, how she grew her company from a startup to an established business, and lessons she’s learned about building a team.

• 5:16 How an ambition to solve a problem resulted in launching Lunya
• 8:00 How business has evolved since its unconventional 2014 launch
• 10:42 Why having major funding in the beginning isn’t always best, and the spending that eventually moved the needle for Lunya
• 13:05 The value of identifying your brand muse.
• 15:28 One company value that’s contributed to Lunya’s success
• 16:30 Hiring lessons learned growing from a start-up into an established business
• 21:00 How Lahgo started and why Ashley built a second brand, rather than simply adding the men’s line to Lunya
• 25:44 The biggest trap entrepreneurs can get stuck in
• 28:48 The High 5 Test and the lessons Ashley learned from getting her MBA
• 33:20 How non-traditional methods of getting in front of people help the brand
• 39:36 Ashley’s key piece of advice for business owners

• Lunya
• Lahgo
• Kinfolk Article featuring Ashley
• The High 5 Test
• Episode 159: The $100 Million Dollar Blueprint W/Mike Danner of Ancient Nutrition
• @ashley__merrill on Instagram
• @lunya on Instagram
• @lahgo on Instagram
• @a_brawn on Twitter
• @andrewfoxwell on Twitter
• Brand Growth Experts
• Foxwell Digital
• Review or subscribe on iTunes

Biossance president Catherine Gore has always considered skin care as medically significant, and believes customers will be more inclined to share that thinking as coronavirus lockdowns continue around the world. "Our skin is our largest organ, and it's also our first line of defense against outside aggressors," Gore said on the latest Glossy Beauty podcast.

Education is a big part of Biossance's marketing strategy and value to customers. One of Biossance's central ingredients for skin care, for instance, is squalane, which it derives biochemically from sugar cane -- the larger cosmetics industry sourced a similar squalene (with an e) from a not-so-vegan source: shark liver.

That makes a big difference for the typical customer who has more time to do her research, according to Gore: "What's actually driving her is a curiosity to do better for her own skin and the planet and to make better choices," she said.



Ashley Merrill, founder of Lunya and Lahgo, joined us for this week’s episode. She shares how she got started and built a successful women’s and men’s, comfort dedicated clothing line. Ashley talks about her ups and downs as well as how she’s handling the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Don’t forget to please leave a comment below or review us on iTunes or Stitcher.

If you leave us a review please let us know and we’ll send you an eCommerce Uncensored T-Shirt. You can email us at kevin@ecommerceuncensored.com or jason@ecommerceuncensored.com. Sorry but we can only ship the shirt to US only.

You can also check out the video of this podcast and see our beautiful faces on our YouTube channel. Click here to check that out and subscribe.

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Meet Ashley Merrill, founder, and CEO of Lunya, a line of modern luxury sleepwear for women. Starting a business is hard enough, but Ashley managed to do it as a new mom! Listen in as she shares her core values, how she overcame her struggles, what it’s like to be married to and live with another entrepreneur. She also shares how brand marketing is important and how to maximize its impact. Tune in now!

Timestamped show notes​ 02:28 - Starting Lunya 03:06 - Are you born an entrepreneur? 04:00 - Finding a gap in the market 05:45 - The first steps in starting Lunya 07:05 - Ashley’s background in business 07:58 - Ashley talks about the questions she had at the beginning of her journey 09:22 - Lunya’s first collection 12:30 - What does the name Lunya mean? 13:48 - What is Lunya? 15:22 - Ashley talks about how Lunya’s fabrics collections address different problems 18:33 - How do you listen to the customer? 20:48 - Lunya’s brand marketing and how to maximize its impact 24:48 - Ashley talks about how her team of creatives helps set the tone for their brand 24:56 - Ashley’s entrepreneurial lineage 25:58 - What’s it like living with another entrepreneur? 28:10 - The difficulty of juggling being a parent and an entrepreneur 29:10 - Ashley talks about her habits and being organized 34:02 - Fitting in fitness 34:55 - What it’s like having an almost all-female staff 36:52 - Systems and processes 37:43 - Lunya’s Core Values 42:05 - Lunya looking forward 44:41 - Ashley shares her sources of inspiration 46:17 - “My inbox is my to-do box” 47:49 - Ashley’s advice for aspiring female founders 50:15 - Ashley shares how she has learned from struggles 55:58 - Swallowing feedback 57:58 - Ashley shares how she and Marc met

Link Lunya’s Website: ​https://www.lunya.co/

Ashley Merrill, the founder of premium sleepwear brand Lunya, stops by and delivers a masterclass on how to build a brand in the DTC era. She talks about the earliest days, about what differentiation in a crowded space really looks like, about pricing and business model, brick and mortar, focus and prioritization, and self-doubt.   If you're a startup founder interested in brand, or trying to start a DTC company, get a notebook ready. This is packed with insight.