Samantha Gold: Founder & CEO of Motette

Episode 733

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, I’m joined by Samantha Gold, Founder and CEO of Motette—the fast-growing children’s clothing brand redefining modern parenting with stylish, ultra-soft bamboo essentials and built-in sun protection. In less than a year, Motette has scaled 300% month-over-month, landed in more than 35 U.S. boutiques without a showroom, and earned features in Forbes, Fox News, and countless “editor favorite” roundups.
Before launching Motette, Samantha served as CEO of Elizabeth James the Label, where she grew the women’s clothing brand into an eight-figure business. Today, she’s bringing that same scrappy, strategic mindset to Motette—building with lean systems, intentional growth, and a focus on redefining what’s possible in children’s fashion. She opens up about the hidden costs of scaling, how she decides what not to do, and the mindset shifts that keep her moving forward as a founder.
Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur or someone curious about what it really takes to build a fast-growth brand from scratch—this episode is packed with valuable lessons and tons of inspiration. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up, that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control, control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show today. I’m super excited to be joined by Samantha gold who is the founder and CEO of an incredible, fairly new brand called Motette, and it is a fast growing children’s clothing brand redefining modern parenting with super stylish and Ultra, not just Ultra, but ultra, ultra soft, bamboo essentials and built in sun protection. So in under a year, she’s grown Motette 300% month over month, landed in over 35 US boutiques without a showroom, by the way, and scored major features in editor favorite roundups across many incredible publications. But before launching Motette, Samantha was the CEO of an incredible another incredible brand called Elizabeth James, the label where she scaled the women’s clothing brand into an eight figure business. So now she’s gone back to ground zero and applying what she knew, but has been forced to get a little scrappier and starting her own brand from scratch, and doing it so so well. So I can’t wait to dig into the journey and what she’s learned, and also talk about the brand, of course, but Samantha, welcome so excited to have you here. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. Very, very excited. So okay, so for someone who’s hearing about Motette for the first time, how would you describe it?

Samantha Gold 2:18
I would describe it as a brand for moms that are tired of cheesy prints and want a style for their babies and toddlers that reflect their own. Actually, just yesterday, we launched mommy and me as well, so we are expanding into women’s and so moms can truly match their little ones and wear elevated prints and timeless styles that is a true reflection of their own style.

Kara Goldin 2:47
I love it. Well, they are such beautiful prints that you’ve launched with, so I can I’m so excited for this new collection that you’re talking about. So what was going on in your life the days leading up to the decision to actually launch Motette.

Samantha Gold 3:02
So I was, as you mentioned, the CEO of Elizabeth James the label. And prior to even taking that role, I was exploring starting my own business. I feel like I’ve had this desire to do this, this urge from such a young age, just wanting to create something that was truly my own. My career actually started out in tech and consulting, so I spent many years at Salesforce, really working my way from the ground up, and then ultimately leading different sales teams. And then that transitioned into various consulting opportunities, where one of those I was consulting for Elizabeth James, the label, and ultimately that led to me becoming the CEO. But you know, when they’re the CEO, you’re still working with a founder who might have, you know, different perspectives or ideas on where they want to take the brand. And I knew that, you know, I wanted to build something from the ground up that was my own. And after the birth of my two kids, I have a three and a half year old daughter named Blair and a son, Wesley, who’s two. They’re 19 months apart. I just felt like as a mom, there was this gap in the market in terms of, you know, prints and styles for kids that that really had that sophistication, and so I incorporated my love of interior design into the brand and launch Motette using, as you mentioned, the Ultra Soft bamboo fabric that’s hypoallergenic, great for kids with skin issues, if any little ones are suffering from things like eczema, also any sensory challenges, everything is tag free. And so I truly built a brand that, as a mom, I wanted for my own children.

Kara Goldin 4:44
I love it. So when you were looking at launching the company, I read all about some of the offshore tactics that you’ve used in relationships. Can you talk about that and kind of how that. Has really helped you to not only launch but also grow your company pretty efficiently,

Samantha Gold 5:05
definitely, and so honestly, very early on, I decided to lean on offshore support, and now I’m helping other female founders and product based businesses do the same. But ultimately it came down to the fact that I was completely, and I am completely self funding Motette, and so I didn’t have a big budget to bring in an agency or even hire someone. You know, I’m the only, still the only full time employee for Motette, but I needed help, right? I think as a founder, you’re wearing all of these hats, and that’s just not scalable. And so I needed help at an affordable price point, and that was where I turned to offshore support. Fast forward to today. I now have eight women in the Philippines who are all moms, who work part time for me and really like kind of soup to nuts, helped me with every aspect of the business, whether that’s meta ads, email marketing, you know, website updates, all of my PR outreach, my wholesale outreach, truly, they help me end to end. And I’ve been able to build, you know, processes and onboarding documents, you know, really, anything that’s a repeatable process. I’ve been able to build, you know, standardized, operating procedures around to make sure that they’re successful and supported. And that is truly how I’ve been able to grow Motette, as you mentioned, 300% month over month, and get into over 35 boutiques in less than six months.

Kara Goldin 6:35
That’s incredible. So how many SKUs Did you launch with? So I

Samantha Gold 6:39
launched with 16 prints across both babies and toddlers,

Kara Goldin 6:43
and then sizes with all of them. Yeah, about 125

Samantha Gold 6:49
skews in total.

Kara Goldin 6:50
That’s incredible. How did you know what to do there? Because it wasn’t like, I mean, obviously you, you had been working for another apparel company, but it’s, it’s different, right? Like it’s baby and, I mean, how do you figure all of that information out?

Samantha Gold 7:08
Yeah, I think you just start and you start testing, and you start having conversations with different people. I mean, I truly, you know, yes, as you mentioned, I came from this background, but in terms of, you know, factories and manufacturing, my connections were all in the women’s apparel space, and so I was starting with zero connections, honestly, and just doing research online and trying to find a factory that I thought would be a great partner for me. I first started with, you know, looking at Alibaba. I didn’t have a great experience. If anyone is listening and curious about starting their own brand, I made the mistake of making way too large of sample orders to start. And I would see these photos online that were beautiful, and I was like, Oh, this leaves, like a great fit, and then you get the product and it doesn’t match the photos or the quality that you’re looking for. And so just start with start small. I think this process is going to take longer than you imagine. For me, the whole factory discovery process took at least about six to nine months, honestly, of going back and forth in different iterations and trying to figure out who was going to be the right partner. I found my partner. Someone gave me this tip on importyeti.com and so I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but if there’s a brand that you admire, import Yeti tracks imports into the United States, and you can often see information like factories. And so I was able to go to a brand that I truly admired in terms of the quality of the pieces, and figure out who their factory was, and then did some more Google researching and was able to source their contact information and sent them, you know, a WhatsApp message to this person in China, and that is, you know, the beginning of my relationship with my factory. But again, you know, you just have to start, and you have to start somewhere, and know that it is going to take time and resources. And we were fortunate enough that we were living in Charleston, South Carolina, and we had sold our home, and I basically put the proceeds from the sale of the home into funding. MOTAT,

Kara Goldin 9:07
I love it. So when you first launched, you were, were you primarily going into stores, versus versus D to C, or how were you actually, what was your go to market strategy.

Samantha Gold 9:20
My go to market strategy was actually D to C to start. Something happened really organically. About six months prior to launching the brand, I started building it in public. And so what I mean by that was I started my Instagram, and I started sharing day to day what I was working on behind the scenes, and ultimately what unfolded, which I still have today, and is kind of the foundation of the brand. Is something that I call my inner circle, and right now it’s over 3500 moms that truly weigh in on every decision related to upcoming collections like prints, print names, styles, and they share with me what they want to see. Me. And essentially what I do is I add them to the close friends feature on Instagram, and then I create polls on a daily basis based on what I’m working on, and get their feedback. And so ultimately, what happened was 80% of my sales on launch day, and we almost sold out our debut collection came from the moms in that inner circle who had truly been, you know, alongside for the ride, helping me build this brand. And it was moms in that inner circle that said, hey, you know, I have a child with sensory issues. Have you thought about tag, free labels? And I’m like, No, that’s a great idea. So I did, you know, heat labels instead of an actual tag, they helped me. I had some challenges with naming the company, where the original name ended up not being a viable trademark option. And so I went back to the drawing board, and I was sharing with them the different ideas. And, you know, the background behind them, and Motette is basically a made up word off of petite motifs, and everything is based on these tiny prints. And so that was the one that the majority liked. That was the one that I went with. And so my strategy from launch day was truly direct to consumer, and that it was these moms in the inner circle, and I continue to also reward them too for being a part of this. And so, for instance, we launched women’s yesterday, and the first 25 moms in my inner circle that purchased from the women’s collection received a $25 gift card towards their purchase, and that’s just a thank you for all of their help in helping me co create the collection.

Kara Goldin 11:30
I love it. Well, I think nurturing a community for any brand is so critical today, and it’s it’s not just, I think gone are the days where you can just ignore social media altogether, because I think so often the consumer wants to know what’s behind the brand, right? And I feel like you know you’re just a testament to

Samantha Gold 11:56
that. And one thing that I’ll add on that point is meta had a stat for 2024 that said that DM so direct messages on Instagram convert six times more than any Instagram post or real and so I have someone on my team that sends 100 to 150 direct messages to women on Instagram or moms that fall within my target demographic on a daily basis. And I like the ROI on that is so much higher than even my meta ads. And so if you haven’t thought about that, or you know, someone listening that has a brand, I’d really recommend, you know, looking at that strategy in terms of community building, but ultimately driving sales,

Kara Goldin 12:35
that’s awesome. And so did you find that not just on Facebook, but on Instagram as well, or on both of them?

Samantha Gold 12:43
Yeah, on both of them. And what I do is I’ll go to other brands that you know are in a similar category, and I’ll look at their followers, and I’ll message moms that have you know babies or toddlers in their photos. And I it’s a manual process, for sure, but when you’re paying offshore support to do that. It’s super cost effective. And when you look at the customer acquisition costs on something like meta, if it’s like $20 for a new customer, it’s so much lower to send a direct message that takes two minutes, right?

Kara Goldin 13:14
That’s so, so interesting. So you were previously CEO of Elizabeth James, how did that experience prepare you for launching and scaling Motette, and in the way that you’ve seen today,

Samantha Gold 13:29
I learned so much at that company, like I truly would have probably taken an unpaid internship, and because it was my, it was my first experience in, you know, really, In retail, which, honestly, I think a lot of people are like, Well, did you feel like you didn’t have that background and that hindered you in that role? And I actually felt like it was almost an advantage, because I came from, you know, I approached it with an outside perspective, and so I was challenging the way that things were done. And some members of my team would be like, Oh, we don’t do things like that. And I’m like, Well, why not? Let’s look at, you know, changing this process in a way that’s just more effective. You know, I truly learned so much about, you know, communicating with the factory, what that looks like, the going back and forth, the timelines of, you know, you’re, you’re truly designing six to nine months in advance, right? Things don’t happen right away. You have to get samples before you place your bulk order, also, you know, just end to end from a marketing perspective, whether that’s direct to consumer or wholesale, I hadn’t had any experience with wholesale, and so that was just, again, a great introduction into what it what it looks like to actually manage these retailer relationships. Did I want to go down the showroom route? Did I want to bring someone in who was a rep internally? And so understanding the different ways that I could approach wholesale was definitely something that I learned as well during my time at Elizabeth James.

Kara Goldin 14:54
I love it. So tariffs are such a huge topic of conversation. Uh, today and in the US for brands that are selling into the US. So how has that kind of changed your your company? I guess you started in the middle of this conversation, so it wasn’t like you had one price out there and then you’ve got to totally adjust that in some in some way. But how has that as a founder, as a CEO, how have you had to think about, you know, it’s kind of an unchartered territory for many, many CEOs to sort of have to think about and act on,

Samantha Gold 15:35
yeah, and so I think the biggest thing there is not being overly reactive and impulsive. I think with the tariff conversation and everything that’s coming out, there have been a lot of changes, a lot of fear around it, but truly sticking with Okay, faith that everything’s gonna work out exactly as it’s meant to having open conversations with my factory in terms of how they’re handling this, what I can expect my factory delivers duty paid, and so DDP and so that means that they’re actually the ones that are paying those tariff fees. But I knew ultimately, if those were going to be increasing, then that would probably impact my unit pricing as well. So far, it hasn’t. I was basically, I mean, you know, luckily, outside of that window where there was that big spike, I had actually had my bulk order already delivered, and so I wasn’t directly impacted by it. But I think again, it’s, it goes back to that fear, right, of like, what does this mean? You can go straight to, this is catastrophic. I need to shut everything down. My business is not going to not going to be sustainable. But really not, you know, just pausing, and I think in waiting for all the information to come in before we make a decision, that’s what’s important. And then again, like not being afraid to have those conversations with my factory in terms of, hey, you know, there’s a lot that’s being said. What are you seeing on your end? How is this going to impact my pricing? And just being upfront about it and getting all the information before I make a decision, so far, it hasn’t impacted my pricing.

Kara Goldin 17:09
That’s That’s incredible. So when you think about your SKUs, your products, and the details about Motette that you think are really helping you to stand apart. What do you think is the key thing that maybe other baby manufacturers or baby apparel manufacturers are not doing that you’re doing that potentially could have, you know, people knocking you off, I guess, along the way. And it’s, it’s, I mean, the tags you talked about that already, but what do you think you’re doing that is, is so unique that is kind of makes you stand out.

Samantha Gold 17:56
I would say, you know, going back to my inner circle, it’s about listening to my customers. And so the other benefit of the inner circle is that I’m not placing orders without having customer insights. And honestly, there are times when I think, oh, this print is going to perform amazing, and I put it up and I run a poll and it doesn’t. And so that prevents me from making a decision on a colorway or a print that’s not going to resonate and is ultimately going to lead to low sales, right? And so I get that information that really helps me reduce risk from an inventory perspective, in terms of making smart decisions. And I would say I haven’t seen another brand out there that’s doing that. And I think the other thing it’s like, again, leveraging offshore support. I have people on my team that are sending, for instance, my PR Support Assistant is sending 20 to 30 pitches a day to editors. I’ve been featured in Forbes on Fox News. We have upcoming features coming out in different magazines, other news appearances, and so again, I’ve just leveraged my background in sales. I write these pitches, I update them. You know, we’re sending a sequence of three to five emails each time we’re hitting them up on LinkedIn, on Instagram. I don’t see other companies that are kind of hustling this hard, especially in the E commerce space. And I’m leveraging my background where, you know, I worked at Salesforce, and I led a team in this fortune 500 company where, you know, Salesforce truly provides kind of the MBA of, you know, a sales background. And so bringing that to the retail space, I think, is super unique. And that’s how I’ve been able to get that visibility from a PR perspective, but then also grow wholesale. And so, you know, I’ve been reaching out to, you know, boutiques around the United States that are all a little bit more high end children’s boutiques, and so far, we’re in 35 but again, that doesn’t happen just by sending one message or one email to those people that. Students from following up aggressively, I actually have leveraged my inner circle. So I posted, you know, where do you shop locally for your children’s clothing, and then getting their feedback, and then reaching out and saying, you know, so and so, suggested that we’d be a great fit for your boutique. We’d love to have a conversation. And so thinking about it, you know, I think from a way that’s super innovative, and leveraging all of those resources and connections, like even followers on Instagram that you, you know might not think, might be able to help you, but they truly can, if you leverage that in the right way.

Kara Goldin 20:33
Yeah, definitely. We’ve, we’ve had some other founders on here who have said exactly the same thing. I mean, everything from doing crowdsource fundraising to, could somebody help me get into certain retailer? I mean, you just had never know who’s actually listening, right? And I think it’s so powerful. I

Samantha Gold 20:55
was just going to add, you know, leveraging our, leveraging your network. I’m a part of. I don’t know if you’re familiar with entrepreneur, but it’s a group of women, female entrepreneurs. And so just like you said, like putting it out there, hey, does anyone have a relationship at Bloomingdale’s or Nordstrom? I have a call with Bloomingdale’s next week from a woman that I met who has a connection there within the entrepreneur community. And so, you know, joining these communities and asking for help, like, I think people are often afraid to do that, but there’s so many people out there that want to help. And so just, just put it out there. What’s, what’s the worst that can happen? You know, somebody doesn’t respond, or somebody says, No, it’s like, okay, you know, move on.

Kara Goldin 21:40
What’s the decision you made early on that, you know, was really scary, but, but became a turning point for the brand.

Samantha Gold 21:51
I mean, I think, honestly, like, just quitting my job was so scary and just starting right, like, I have a husband and two kids, and we have a pretty expensive lifestyle, and, you know, I’m a 5050, contributor in my household, and so there truly was no plan B, and risking it all in terms of this investment that we had made that really paid off our home in Charleston, and the sale of that and putting that towards, you know, Funding Motette. I mean, that was probably the biggest risk, right? It’s really betting everything on this business, but I just know that I’m someone that loves a challenge. I have so much grit and hustle, and then I just was going to put everything I could into this brand to make it successful and really make sure that I understood my target market and had those, you know, compelling differentiators that were going to set us apart. But yeah, I think it really just started with, yeah, making that, making that leap, taking that leap of faith and taking that risk. I love it.

Kara Goldin 22:55
Early on, you were, I’m sure, beyond your community, you were networking with people through, whether it’s entrepreneur or other people, on how to actually get Motette launched and what the next things you needed to focus on, all of these things, what’s a piece of advice maybe you ignored early on that You think back on that now you’re glad you ignored it. And like people for me, when I started hint, people told me, Oh, you have to hire people with lots of experience and and so we actually spent a ton of money in or a lot of money to us since we had we were self funding it initially, but those were decisions that I look back on. And you know, I think in the early days of any business you you need a little bit of a blueprint. But, you know, most people can do a lot of things without having the experienced ones in the door. And what does that really mean, especially when you think about starting a business, right? That you almost need to hear from other founders more than anything else about you know, where are the landmines and and how do I do what I need to get done?

Samantha Gold 24:18
Yeah, and I would say along those lines. And I can totally relate to everything you just said, you know, I had people saying, Oh, you need to hire someone for this and this, and it gets so expensive. And then I had a friend, honestly, who was an entrepreneur herself, that said, you know, Sam, someone gave me this advice, like, learn everything yourself first before you outsource it. And that has probably been the best piece of advice that I’ve gotten, because doing that, and I when I realized, like, why in the beginning I was not doing that, it all came back to fear, right? Fear of not knowing what I was doing, fear that if I did it myself, it wasn’t going to turn out exactly how I wanted it to, this need for perfection. Yeah, but at the end of the day, it’s progress over perfection, right? And sometimes it’s better, it to just get it done and learn along the way. And you can always, and I continue to do this, you know, iterate and make changes and evolve. But learning it myself first has been so powerful, because then I know what it takes to get the job done. And so I was able to then, you know, bring in these offshore support and, you know, train them, hire these experts, but also train them in the way that I wanted it done for Motette, that was truly going to allow me to scale and take something off my plate so that I can focus now on the strategy, and they can focus more on the execution. But in the beginning, I did wear all of the hats, and that allowed me to spend my money a lot more wisely. Most of the funds and investment has gone towards inventory and product costs, as opposed to, you know, PR agencies or marketing agencies, and all of those costs that like truly add up so quickly. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 25:58
no, absolutely. That’s really, really good advice. So last question, when you think about the future of Motette and what’s the next big thing that you’re super, super excited about,

Samantha Gold 26:13
I am so excited about women’s for me, honestly, as a mom, I’ve never been into matching Mommy and Me pieces with my kids, but that’s because it’s mostly been really cheesy prints that I would never gravitate towards. And so I’m really excited to be launching this from the perspective of I want pieces that women, in general, regardless of whether they have kids, are drawn to and think are beautiful and want to wear. It’s just an added benefit that they could potentially match with their little one. And so I’m super excited to explore women’s further. We’ve only just launched sleepwear, but I would love to move into robes or Home wear, especially things like sheets, especially if women are going through perimenopause or menopause, or even postpartum, where you’re suffering from night sweats with bamboo. It’s moisture wicking, temperature regulating. It’s what has all of those benefits that are perfect for women’s and then I’d love to see it, you know, in the hands of more women, and expanding our wholesale sales strategy and getting into bigger retailers, that’s definitely on the horizon, and the next big focus for me,

Kara Goldin 27:23
I love it well. Samantha, thank you so much for joining us today and definitely excited about everything you’re doing at Motette, and congratulations on all the fast growth. I mean, you’re really showing everyone what you can what you’re capable of, not you, but what anyone is capable of, not anyone, but people who really have a passion for building something. And you don’t need years and years of experience in launching companies. You need to really be able to focus and and just go and get it done and think about things. And I think the fact that you’re sort of living in this world, and what you saw the problems and you provided a solution is just something that great entrepreneurs do. So I absolutely love it. But shop, Motette.com, is where you can find the beautiful things that they’re doing at Motette and also in many, many high end boutiques across the US and I’m sure more to come. So thank you again, Samantha, really appreciate it, and thanks everyone for listening. Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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