Phoebe Kunitomi, okko

Please tell us a little about your company.

I started okko in late 2018, while pursuing my MBA at Wharton. The idea for the brand was born out of an acute personal frustration. As many women can relate, I had a perfect outfit for a party, but my top drawer was filled with undergarments that either showed through it or were simply too uncomfortable to wear. That’s why our brand only offers a collection of body wear that is timeless, versatile, and comfortable. 

What is your personal mantra?

‘Doing more with less’ is my personal mantra (I wore 10 pieces of clothing for 100 days last year!). Over the past several months, I have started to more deliberately connect what I practiced in my own life and the mission behind the brand.

Interesting thought process- how did you arrive here?

Here’s my thinking: It’s a given that (most) women need to wear underwear and bras. But, do we need undergarments, or material possessions in general, that we rarely wear or don’t add value to our lives? My answer is probably not.

What is your goal for okka?

Today, what I hope okko stands for is something more than quality, wearable undergarments. Rather, okko is a brand advocating for more thoughtful, conscious consumption. We are not about reducing our lives to bare bones possessions. Rather, we aim to speak to women who want to free their lives of unnecessary clutter in order to make room for more: more experiences, more confidence, and more freedom to wear your favorites.

What do you love about your job?

So many things! Since I was a young girl, I have wanted to start my own business. I think that drive comes in part from seeing my mom’s Korean side of the family create new lives for themselves in America through entrepreneurship. I also love building something from scratch, including the challenges.

Since starting okko, all of these reasons still remain true and keep me going. But, another great part of owning a women-focused business specifically is that I get to really connect with my wonderful customers. okko stands for ‘our kind of #knockout.’ What it means to me today is that we are a brand built from the ground up through the support of all the badass, empowered women in our community. I absolutely love that.

Over the course of your career, what would you pick as your greatest failure?  Why?

I like to categorize ‘failures’ as mistakes that have varying degrees of severity. The reason why is because I believe that we learn from mistakes by understanding the lessons and applying them to be better in similar situations in the future. Thus, there is nothing I ‘failed’ at, just learned from.

For example, during the early days of okko, we knew we wanted our inaugural collection to include our signature bra and undies. As a regular user of nipple covers, I was also convinced that others would be similarly excited about these adhesive boob products. So, after perfecting the design and packaging, I went ahead and ordered thousands of nipple cover pairs across three different colors. I had high hopes for this product – finally no hard nipples!

Fast forward a few months, the nipple covers weren’t selling on our website very quickly at all. To make things worse, it was pretty expensive to store them because of their bulky packaging. After speaking with customers, the issue was that fuller-busted women cannot use nipple covers due to the minimal support (unlike boob tape which provides support).

Although I was frustrated for quite some time, I revisited my sales strategy: although we keep our nipple covers on the website, the team started to focus our sales efforts on wholesale channels. For our retail partners, nipple covers are a great complementary product for low-cut tops and backless dresses and could be a fairly inexpensive in-store impulse buy. Only time will tell whether this strategy is accretive, but so far, we have had more relative success commercializing this product in our wholesale channels compared to DTC ones.

What do you wish you would have known earlier in your career?

I have two things that I wish I knew before starting okko: 

(1) Surround yourself with the right people—During the early stages of your new venture, people are the ‘make or break.’ Of course, healthy conflict is a good thing. But, if you have serious interpersonal issues with an early team member, those issues can turn into serious problems. If you are looking to bring someone onboard, ‘date’ them first. Start off with a discrete project with clearly defined goals, then assess the relationship to see if there is a longer-term opportunity to work together.

(2) Don’t rush—As mentioned, I launched okko while at Wharton. I had a large handful of peers who were launching their respective brands ahead of okko. I felt a self-imposed pressure to launch while still at school, so it looked like I was making progress as well, at least comparatively. In retrospect, I could have taken my time and invested in getting smarter at being an entrepreneur from the outset. We’re in the long game here!

How do you pick yourself back up again after failure?  

I always, always do a post-mortem lookback. The most important part of mistake is learning from it. But, you can’t learn if you don’t know what went wrong. For my post-mortems, I often write down a timeline of decisions that I made, then see where I could have spent more time on the decision or brought in other people to help advise me. 

As an example, we had a terrible, unethical manufacturer during the early days, and these problems ended up being extremely expensive and mentally taxing. The root cause of the issue was that my lack of experience in supply chain. So, I brought on an advisor with deep experience in this area.

Another trick is to make sure that the mistake does not impact you emotionally or cloud your judgment. Mistakes can be frustrating and angering, and one needs to release those emotions instead of bottling them up. 

Agreed!  What have you found to help you release your emotions?

I have a wonderful therapist with whom I meet regularly. Speaking with her is helpful because I get to share my thoughts with a neutral, independent party. I highly suggest that every entrepreneur get a therapist or executive coach!

What wisdom would you like to provide others currently experiencing failure?

My mentor once told me: “You have a dream, and you need to follow it.” 

For everyone else out there who has a dream but is struggling with getting it off the ground, my advice is to persevere and be flexible. That is, mentally, refocus your mind to stay strong. In practice, do not get stuck on a single path. Get creative and adapt to the situation. With both the right mindset and toolkit, you can transform a failure into a success (or at least a workable solution).

My name is Kirsten Böhme and I’m the VP of Digital for UWIB NYC, marrying my two great passions of storytelling and social media. 

I'm excited to have you join us each month as I highlight successful female founders, removing the stigma and shame associated with failure in the Failure is Fabulous series. 

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Send me a Female Founder Suggestion.