In The Room with Katie Warner Johnson
This week on The Room Podcast, we are excited to share our conversation with Katie Warner Johnson, Founder and CEO of Carbon38. Carbon38 is one of the leading activewear e-commerce platforms, carrying brands like Beyond Yoga, Isabel Marant, Adidas by Stella McCartney and their own line. Katie’s journey to disrupting the activewear industry started early on as a professional dancer from childhood and later, a Physique 57 fitness instructor. After years of being immersed in the health and fitness world, Katie realized that the sports bras and leggings that were being sold were just not meeting the needs of women. She decided to move to Los Angeles and build a business that provided fashion-forward activewear designed by women, for women.
In this episode, Katie talks about the relationship between being a performer and an entrepreneur, serving the needs of her customer, The Boss, empowering women with women-led brands, and the future of activewear.
Season 4 is sponsored by our friends at Silicon Valley Bank and Cooley.
Key Theme 1: Serving the needs of her customer, The Boss
In 2007, Katie entered the world of boutique fitness, a new scene at that point that captured a unique group of womens’ attention. Katie’s first clients were powerful women, and today these “Bosses” as she calls them are still her main Carbon38 customers. From her early experience as a fitness instructor, Katie committed herself to serving this special set of customers. She realized how special that hour of working out is for her customers and capitalized on this specific need.
Key Theme 2: Empowering women and women-led brands
In 2014, Lauren Peters, the then CFO of Footlocker, built a strong relationship with the Carbon38 team that ultimately ended in her 2018 investment in the company. Lauren gave Katie the confidence to believe that Carbon38 could be a billion-dollar business. While men are often asked to talk about upside potential during pitches, women, on the other hand, are often asked about mitigating risks. Lauren gave Katie the confidence to not only believe in the business but herself.
Key Theme 3: The future of activewear
Katie sees activewear taking advantage of the utility of clothes in the future. For activewear especially, this optimization of utility makes sense as these clothes are meant to be used and sweat in.
“I think there’s so many ways to create beautiful things that actually do haul their own weight. And it’s as simple as allowing us to button a button, our shirts, and get in and out of our dresses with ease without needing help.”
Thanks for joining another week of The Room Podcast! The episode is now live on all podcast streaming platforms, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
