PixieLane’s Co-Founders Danit Benito, Lori Kassar and Kristen Uppal were thrilled to be featured recently in ShoutOutLA. Here is the interview:

Hi Danit Benito, Lori Kassar, Kristen Uppal, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?

The three of us came from very different backgrounds and work experiences, but share an aligned vision for why we launched PixieLane. We are all women who have worked our entire lives, and once we became mothers, we understood the need for work-life balance more than ever. Raising young children, while working, makes you really evaluate what is important. We all enjoy working, but we wanted to create a business where women could set their own hours, be their own boss, and really have the best of both worlds without sacrificing career or family. We also thought about creating a community of women that supports one-another, always willing to share and collaborate, and above all, teach their children–through example– about hard work and working together. PixieLane is really a company that lives and breathes collaboration, which is a value crucial to our mission. Whether a PixieLane consultant is collaborating with her children unboxing new styles or collaborating with others in our consultant community sharpening their business skills and helping each other grow, there’s a clear theme of collaboration. Another part of our vision is to offer boutique clothing that doesn’t break the bank. Kids are constantly growing and new clothes are a necessity so we want parents to be able to buy something that is unique, designed in a limited run, and special. We also wanted to make clothing that is ultra comfortable, inspires kids to be confident, and makes kids excited to get dressed every, single day, Initially, we focused on girls clothing, as we all have girls, and our community quickly demanded that we expand to design boys, babies, tweens, accessories and women’s clothing.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?

At PixieLane, we pride ourselves on being a tight-knit community of women, where consultants support one-another and often collaborate, share ideas and tools. We are not an MLM, but rather a company that affords women the opportunity to be their own boss and make their own hours, running their own business, without having a team to worry about. It’s been almost four years since we’ve launched and we have worked so hard to get PixieLane to where it is today. We have

 learned a lot from past experience in this industry, but a lot of how PixieLane has evolved has definitely been trial and error. None of us had past experience with direct sales, so we did our research, spoke to experts, and just took a leap of faith and learned a lot along the way. It definitely wasn’t easy, but nothing worthwhile is. Whenever you start anything new, there’s always a learning curve. It’s fun not always knowing all the answers all the time. But taking time to reflect and looking back at where we started and taking time to honor where we are, is something that we are so proud of. We have come a long way and PixieLane just continues to blossom. Of course, there will always be hurdles, but when we encounter such hurdles, it’s how we approach them that makes us stronger and wiser. Also, the way we engage in our company and with our consultants is a constant learning lesson for our kids—which is always at the forefront of our minds. We want to show our kids that working hard and persevering is a life skill and that if you put your mind to something and work hard at it, the possibilities are endless.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

Los Angeles is a very fun city, full of hidden gems and exciting attractions. The places we would definitely hit up would be: 

Abbot Kinney in Venice, Santa Monica, Hollywood, Culver City, the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, Griffith Park Observatory to see the amazing views of Los Angeles, Grand Central Market in Downtown LA, and the Farmer’s Market at the Grove. The perfect day would include a morning hike in Runyon Canyon, followed by a yummy breakfast at Huckleberry in Santa Monica, a little bike ride along the beach and shopping on Abbot Kinney, and then maybe dinner at Republique on La Brea. Our favorite places to eat are Gjelina in Venice, Sycamore Kitchen on La Brea, a slice of pizza from Mulberry Pizza, Bavel in Downtown, Felix, Jon & Vinny’s, Sqirl in Silverlake, dessert at the CVT truck and tacos at Tito’s Tacos.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

This whole venture would not be possible without the various people that helped us get here thus far. First and foremost, we’d like to thank our parents for always teaching us the value of hard work and advocating for ourselves. Equally important and crucial to this journey, is our spouses, who take an active role in PixieLane’s success and are always there to present ideas, thoughts, criticisms, a shoulder—anything we need and our children, who inspire us daily to be the best version of ourselves and keep us on our toes in terms of design ideas!

We’d like to thank our consultants for believing in PixieLane and joining this exciting journey with us. Interested in becoming a consultant? Learn more here.

This article originally appeared on ShoutoutLA.