“I've always wanted to make a difference,” Emily Hikade, founder and CEO of the luxury sleepwear and home company. Small feathershows entrepreneur. “I loved make a difference. I wanted to do something that meant something.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume. Emily Hikade.
Growing up in Central Wisconsin, Hikade was curious to the world from a young age. She biked to the library to teach herself French before high school. At 13, she convinced her parents to let her do a summer exchange program in the south of France — and came home fluent.
Hikade went on to attend the University of Notre Dame, where he continued to study French alongside German and international relations. As her undergraduate career came to an end, Hikade accepted a job at the White House.
In Washington, DC, Hikade passed the foreign service exam and worked at the State Department's Operations Center, where she got an up-close look at the White House Situation Room and navigated high stakes calls with global leaders. Then another life-changing opportunity presented itself.
“The lights went out, people were screaming. All I could see were the faces of my three little boys.”
“I got a tap on the shoulder to go to the dark side (at the CIA), as we say,” Hikade recalled. “I had the perfect cover because I was actually a State Department officer. I actually spoke three languages at that point fluently. I actually took the foreign service exam. I could speak.”
Hikade joined him CIA and added Russian and Arabic to her language repertoire. She worked as a specialist officer in the fight against terrorism for more than 10 years. However, during her time at the agency, a near-death experience would set her in a different direction.
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Hikade was flying to a meeting when the plane went out of control and into the water. “The lights went out, people were screaming,” says Hikade. “It was a commercial flight, a little pond jumper, as they say.”
Hikade thought of her three sons at home; her youngest was not even a year old.
“As I was preparing for impact, all I could see were the faces of my three young sons,” says Hikade. “And I had this deep feeling of sadness — that my children would grow up without a mother.”
Fortunately, the pilot was able to regain control of the plane, but the main moment stuck with Hikade.
Hikade began to think about what else he could do – and the answer, somewhat surprisingly, was pajamas. When she lived in France, she would go into the grocery store and see classic button-down pajama sets and wanted to buy them for her sons. But she couldn't find a similar product in the US.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume
“I knew how to negotiate. I have a higher risk tolerance than most.”
So, while stationed in East Africa, Hikade decided to do just that create the product himself – and give the venture a shot. She calculated how many pairs of pajamas she would need to exceed her government salary (“and that number was not high”). The plan never was start a multi-million dollar company but to see if she could start a business.
“It was like, Okay, if I sell this many pajamas, I'll be safe for my kids“, Hikade recalls. “And I had lived in all these different places. I knew how to negotiate. I have a higher one risk tolerance than most.”
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Like most first-time entrepreneurs, Hikade had to overcome a number of challenges along the way. However, one of the first and most important appeared at length product development phase.
Hikade tried to make Petite Plume pajamas out of 100% organic cotton, but in the U.S., children's pajamas must be able to withstand a direct flame for three seconds without catching fire—which means the cotton must be blended with materials others or be painted with flame. – resistant chemicals.
“So we mix it with a natural fire retardant fiber; think of it as a fused wool,” says Hikade. “And that allowed us to pass all the strict Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulations without using chemicals.”
“We hit a niche.”
What's more, starting the business “was all done on the cheap,” says Hikade. Once the product was ready, Hikade set up a Shopify site and had the factory ship directly in one 3 PL in the US Petite Plume officially launched in 2015, and despite a lack of investors or deep pockets, managed to be profitable from the start and enjoy steady growth over the years.
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Now, the company has evolved into a full-fledged lifestyle brand with eight-figure annual revenue; its products are available in approximately 500 stores nationwide, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. Additionally, Petite Plume's e-commerce business has grown 70% year-over-year, while 2024 year-to-date sales are up 50% year-over-year.
“We hit a niche,” says Hikade explaining the brand's continued success.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume
“I'm really proud of the company we're building and (its) core values.”
A few years ago, someone asked Hikade what was harder: working in an agency or being an entrepreneur? She really had to think about the question, Hikade admits. As dangerous as her time as a CIA officer, stress levels it came with a degree of predictability, peaking during high-stakes meetings or operations and then returning, she explains.
When you are building a companythese daily ups and downs tend to be more erratic, says Hikade. She notes that your best and worst moments in business can happen within the same 24-hour period.
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Regardless of the challenges of entrepreneurshipHikade is all about business – and remains committed to building one that improves the lives of its customers and employees.
Petite Plume gives parents on staff the flexibility to care for their children together parental leave and offers health care, 401ks and profit sharing. “We've relied on this 21st-century workforce,” says Hikade. “I'm really proud of the company we're building and (its) core values.”
Hikade may have a higher risk tolerance than most, but any the aspiring entrepreneurwhether you're transitioning from counterterrorism, finance, or any other field, you'd do well to take her simple but essential advice: There's never a good time to start a company or make a change—so you just have to do it.
“Someone said, 'You take business cards and you put CEO and founder at the beginning, so it really defines who you are,'” Hikade says. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So don't wait for that perfect time because it will never come. Carpe diem.”