The Quality Makers: Lindsay Carter of Set Active

Lindsay Carter was close to finishing her degree in elementary education when she realized she had no interest in becoming a kindergarten teacher. “I didn't have many options because it was my senior year, so I knew that I had to take it into my own hands to start going down a path that I found interesting,” she told TQE. She turned to social media marketing and landed a job at NBC Universal in Los Angeles. After a few other roles in social media branding, she launched her own agency. 

While helping companies develop engaged online communities, Carter realized she should be developing her own digital following. She noticed that most other athleticwear companies targeted niche audiences like runners and yogis. “I didn't feel like there was a company that was marketing to the everyday girl,” she says. Set Active was born to fill that void. 

What inspired you to launch a brand focused on matching workout sets?

I was sitting at Alfred Coffee on Melrose Place, waiting to sign another client to my marketing agency, and I had the idea in the back of my head. I was hyper-aware of what women were wearing as they got coffee since that's an everyday activity for most people. I took mental notes of what women wore and how I could simplify it. That’s how matching sets came to me. 

If a girl had a matching set to pull from her closet, it would simplify how she got dressed. I knew I wanted to launch with matching sets, so I picked colors that I wished I could wear other than black. I started with pink, blue, and red in addition to black. They were originally named after important women in my life, and then it evolved from there.

What differentiates Set from other workout and athleisure wear brands?

We were the first to simplify the way you get dressed or the way you think about leaving the house. Matching sets is a timeless trend that isn't going anywhere. So it's almost a contradiction that people call it a trend because matching sets are always going to be in. It just makes getting dressed so much easier. You feel put together, you feel chic, you feel like you can conquer the day. And just having that mentality of “I look put together” helps you go after what you want to go after. 

I also started showing the BTS on social media at a time when no one was doing that. I organically cultivated a community and saw how integral listening to your community is to building your brand. At the end of the day, you're creating a product for your consumer, and if you're not listening to your consumer, they're probably going to check out and go elsewhere. But when a consumer feels like they're being heard and listened to, loyalty and retention are much stronger. I caught on to that really early and I think our community sets us apart from other brands in the direct-to-consumer space.

How do you connect and communicate with your audience?

Any forum in which I talk or post content is where I'm engaging with the community. We use my personal Instagram and Set’s Instagram. We use our email list, which has over half a million subscribers, and my Substack. I also ask questions on my broadcast channel. When you have such a niche community of highly engaged people who are willing to give their candid feedback in a constructive way, it has a big impact on the consumer. And now we've just brought on TYB, which is [Outdoor Voices Founder] Ty Haney’s loyalty platform, which is all about community. So I'm really excited to see what that does as we head into 2025. 

Social media is obviously a huge component of your brand. Do you carefully plan your content, or is it more spontaneous? 

I don't have a plan or a schedule. It's so funny because I'll post a Substack and either my content strategist who helps with my TikTok or our PR team will say, “Wait, wait, wait, don't post that! We want to save it for something else.” 

Everything is just what feels right to me at the moment. Today, I sat down at my computer and I have back-to-back meetings all day, but I haven't done a Substack in about a week, and I just start writing and whatever flows, flows. I think that's why my engagement is so high on my Instagram, TikTok, or Substack. I don't have a plan or a strategy. It's just what feels natural and organic to me, and I think the authenticity translates through social media because it's not forced.

How did becoming a mom impact your relationship with or your role at Set, if at all?

My kids are three and two. Becoming a mom added a mental health layer that I think I was expecting, but didn't realize the gravity of how it would affect me. They always say it's a hard balance. Being a mom and a CEO both require you to be so present that it almost feels impossible. And it did feel impossible. The first year that I had my son Ace was really tough. I felt like I was either abandoning my business or abandoning being a mom. I put myself in therapy and realized I couldn’t continue this way. I needed to figure out how I could do both. Setting boundaries has really helped me be able to run a company and be the best mom I can be.

Have you had any close mentors or sources of career inspiration along the way?

I have. I lost my mom at a young age. I was neighbors with a girl named Jane Buckingham, who also lost her mom at a young age, and she took me under her wing to guide me on things that girls usually go to their moms for. She is also a powerhouse in the world of business. She sold a company called Cassandra Report and started her own business called Trendera, where she writes marketing reports and trend forecasts for household names. I’ve watched her balance being a mom and running a company, and I’ve seen her make mistakes. She's been a huge help. 

A lot of my founder friends are younger than me and don't have kids, so I've had to navigate this stage of life, either with what Jane has to say when she's available, or by trial and error on my own.

You recently dropped a line in collaboration with Chelsea Parke. How do you consider who to collaborate with and how do you build those relationships?

It’s hard to answer that, because the difference in how I operate, how I go about business, how I go about collaborations, is truly what feels authentic and organic to me. I feel like some other brands or businesses try to force a square peg in a round hole, and that's never going to work. 

With Chelsea, we recently did a collaboration that did really well. It basically broke the internet. I think it was one of Chelsea’s first drops last year or the beginning of this year that sold out. She had just gotten on the map. She was getting a lot of heat on the internet for selling out too quickly, and I reached out to her on Instagram, and said, “I've been there before. I've been in your seat. This is how I navigate challenges like this. Keep your head up. This is a great sign. Keep doing what you're doing.” I don't think anyone had ever done that to her. She's navigating something like this for the first time, and it organically turned into an honest, real friendship. When we were discussing what's on the horizon for both brands, we have customers who are fans of both of us, and I thought it would be a fun partnership. It just all happened organically.

Do you foresee more collaborations in the future? 

Yeah, we have a huge collaboration with [Parke’s] company planned for next year, which I'm really excited about. It'll be a much broader assortment of SKUs with storytelling. We are really being intentional with who we collaborate with next year. We don't know for sure if it's going to happen, but we're working on a really well-known name for our birthday in May. Those conversations are just starting, so we'll see what happens. We just want to make sure it makes sense with what we're doing, so we don't pump collaborations out as much as other brands do. 

How do you think about sustainability in fashion?

It's always something we're looking to improve on. What people don't know is how expensive it is, even though it's better for the environment, to be sustainable, and it can really make or break a company in terms of keeping the lights on. So we have to make sure that working towards sustainability is a long process rather than a rush. At the end of the day, we also have to keep our lights on. 

We now have biodegradable plastic packaging, so you can literally put it in boiling water and it disintegrates. Also, the drop ship model helps us be sustainable because it makes sure we're not sitting on inventory. We're ordering enough for the demand, but not over-ordering, so there isn’t a bunch of wasted fabric and inventory. Our head of production, who just got back from a trip to China, is always looking for ways to make our product as eco-friendly as possible. 

Were there any early product launches that helped the brand grow quickly?

Our seamless activewear, which we dropped with. I think when people think about starting a company, they over-complicate their SKU assortment. Whenever I'm giving advice to other entrepreneurs in this space, I always say you have to dominate a hero product and gain the trust of your customer. Then, when you put something else out there, they trust you, and you have that retained customer and that loyalty to continue to buy from you. 

For example, we're called Set Active, but we've put out categories that have nothing to do with active, and our customers buy it because they know that we've dominated the active part of what we sell, so they're willing to try new categories because we've built that customer trust.

What product would you recommend to a first-time customer?

I’d probably recommend AirLuxe. It's our most technical fabric. It's anti-microbial, which is great for super sweaty workouts. It's also the perfect mix of lightweight with a little compression, and it’s comfortable enough to be in it all day. It's quickly becoming a top-selling fabric. Or I’d recommend our lightweight sweats, which are just the yummiest fabric. I also think our sleep is some of the best sleep on the market. I'm a hot sleeper, and our sleep feels like air conditioning on your body at all times.

How would you describe Set’s brand identity?

I would say that Set is for the everyday girl. Like I said, I lost my mom. I don't know what I believe in in terms of the other side, but I did see a medium a couple of months ago. I had my assistant book it so the medium wouldn't know who I was, and she said to me, “You're doing something. Your mom is really proud of you because you're doing something for the everyday girl, because the everyday girl has the heart of an athlete, and your mom sees that.” That's what we're focusing on as we go into 2025. Set is for the girl who has the heart of an athlete. At the end of the day, whether you're a teacher, you're a mom, you're a CEO, you work a nine-to-five, you have to wake up and have your mind right. 

What can we expect from Set in the future?

We’re going to continue to find ways to simplify the way you get dressed. A big goal of mine for 2026 is to separate Set and Set Active. We haven't totally built that out, but I'm excited that next year we're leaning into how technical our fabrics can get and the storytelling. I'm excited about every single campaign. We have it all built out through the end of the year, so I'm really excited to watch that come to life.

Feel put together for every occasion with Set.