Denise Lee, Founder and CEO of ALALA, Defines Her Brand

When she trained for her first triathlon six years ago, Denise Lee was swimming, biking, or running six days a week. But she couldn’t find gear that made her “feel like a badass.” So she set about to craft activewear with a look that motivated her to train harder and reflected her edgy, urban, high-fashion style. ALALA, the athleisure company she launched four years ago—before athleisure was even a word—has gone on to thrive despite burgeoning racksful of competitors. On this week’s episode of #WeGotGoals, Lee told me she credits this success, in part, to luck and good timing. But she has entrepreneurship in her blood—her parents both had their own businesses. Clearly, she drew inspiration from their perseverance and strength from their encouragement. “When people think about starting their own thing, it’s really important to have that support from the people closest to you, because it’s scary enough as it is,” she says. “If you really have a lot of people telling you, ‘Don’t do it, stay at your job, just be comfortable, you know, just climb the corporate ladder’—I do think that can be a hindrance to your early success and early development of your business.” She’d also spent time working for Chris Burch, a serial entrepreneur in the New York fashion world. From him, she absorbed instruction on speed and trusting your intuition. Far better to make a bad decision quickly, he told her, than to dawdle while making a good one. “If you’re a smart person, you’re confident in yourself and you trust your gut, most of the time you’re going to make the right decision and not make too many bad decisions,” she says. “But even if you do make bad decisions, you’re able to make them quickly and adjust to whatever decision you made, and then pivot off of that and make another quick decision.” The big goal Lee set this past year was to craft a clearer vision and personality for ALALA. She kicked off this process with an ingenious exercise—asking everyone to come up with adjectives they thought defined the brand, then narrowing it down to three. Now, they use these words as a guidepost and filter for every move, from big marketing campaigns to individual Instagram posts. Listen to hear how she’s created successful partnerships, whether she managed to crush that triathlon after all, as well as what those three adjectives are (and if you, like us, were inspired to craft your own—share with us in the comments). You can see more of ALALA’s personality on Instagram and online. #WeGotGoals is produced by Cindy Kuzma. If you like it as much as we do, please subscribe—and rate and review it on Apple Podcasts. ### Transcript JAC: Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talk to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen. With me, I have Maggie Umberger and Cindy Kuzma. CK: Good morning Jeana. JAC: Good morning Cindy. Cindy you talked to Denise of ALALA, right? CK: Yep I sure did. I talked to Denise Lee, who is the founder and CEO of ALALA, which is brand of activewear that's kind of taking the world by storm right now. MU: Cindy I loved listening to your interview with Denise because it is an up and coming brand and it was cool to hear the brand story and sort of that journey that it has been on. But I didn't expect to take away such personal life lessons from it. And I really did. So you'll hear in the interview an exercise that she took her team through to help really define what Alala is. And I thought about it and I was like I want to do this exercise for me to kind of gauge, am I doing the things that ladder up to who I am? It's a simple exercise just defining three adjectives that really encompass who you are. But I haven't done it before. So I was surprised and delighted to take away a personal lesson. CK: What is interesting about that too is that--there's a little bit of fear involved in letting go of some of the things that don't fall under those adjectives but once you really have that clarity of vision and are able to make decisions based on those adjectives that do define and describe you I think it really ultimately leads to kind of a sense of freedom and purpose. And yeah it's definitely something that could be applicable for a person or a company. JAC: And it's interesting to hear her talk about partnerships and other brands that she grew up with. I know that as aSweatLife has grown we've seen brands like Carbon 38, ALALA, Bandier, all sort of grow in athleisure and activewear space. So hearing her name those brands as partners and almost mentors not that you look to a brand at the same age as a mentor but sometimes they are because they learn lessons that you aren't learning at the same time. A partnership actually led her to me where I met her and got to talking about this very podcast which is how we ended up with her on the show. She caught a trend before it was a trend. ALALA is athleisure at its finest. I'm wearing a pair of ALALA pants that are luxe in every sense of the word. They have details that I would never think of. There's a sort of shiny brushstroke gloss on them. There's mesh behind my knees. These pants are not traditional yoga pants. Everything they make is meant to be worn in all areas of life and the company was founded right at that sort of inflection point where athletic attire became what you wore all day everyday. So they kind of got lucky in that they caught that trend and they caught that trend with some partners who also had some clout and some movement like Bandier and like carbon 38. CK: Right. It's true. I think you're right that she was lucky in her timing. But the reason that she got lucky is because she wanted something that wasn't there. I mean she came up with the idea to create this line of activewear because she was looking for workout wear that inspired her to work out. But then that she could also wear around town in New York as the busy kind of entrepreneur type woman that she was. And she didn't see anything out there. So she caught the train but she was able to do that because she was focusing on on a need that wasn't yet being filled. And that's what let her take advantage of that opportunity at that moment. MU: And when we talk about setting goals and attaining them you actually have to make decisions to get there. She has a really interesting take on making decisions. CK: Yeah, she talks about making bad decisions quickly and then adjusting if they turn out to be bad. You know again back to the point of her being in a kind of a cohort of a lot of brands coming up at the same time I mean things move quickly in this space and she has learned from her mentors and has applied to her life and her business that sometimes it's better to just make a move even if it's not 100 percent the right one. And you can always course correct it's far easier and far better for your business than just kind of sitting around waiting for for you know deliberating and making sure you make the 100 percent right decision every single time. MU: It's a really refreshing take on making choices. So here is Cindy with Denise. <music> CK: I'm Cindy Kuzma and I am here with Denise Lee who is the founder of ALALA. Denise, thank you so much for joining us today on the #WeGotGoals podcast. DL: Thanks for having me, Cindy. CK: Before we talk about our two big questions on #WeGotGoals I wanted to have you tell our listeners a little bit more about how the brand got started. I know the idea came about because of your own unsuccessful search for activewear that you wanted to wear. Is that right? DL: Yeah, exactly. So in 2012 I was training for a triathlon. And along with that was six days a week of running and swimming and training and so being a part of the fashion retail industry in New York City I've always had my own sense of style and as I was training for the first tri I was like, OK well I want to go out and get some new activewear so that I feel more motivated to work out six days a week and I look good and I feel good. And during my own personal search at the time there really wasn't too much out there besides the big brands that we all know. My thought on those were just that it didn't really reflect my own personal taste and my personal style like I wanted something cooler and kind of more innovative and you know, made me feel like a badass. So I looked around and there really wasn't too much out there. And so that's kind of the genesis of how ALALA started. I thought there was a wide space for a more kind of New York City downtown cool aesthetic activewear line and you know that was something that was missing from the market. CK: Well, and my next question was going to be what you felt kind of to describe the aesthetic and what you kind of feel sets the brand apart. So that sounds like a pretty good description of that. DL: Yeah I think we are very much rooted ...