For me, entrepreneurship started when I was six years old.
My family likes to tell a story about how we all picked a flat of raspberries at my grandma’s house in Idaho, and I saw my very first business opportunity: I took them off the kitchen counter and sold every last berry on the street corner within 20 minutes.
Actual businesses followed years later when I started a bed frame business, an ice cream business and others. Three years ago, I started Lola Blankets in a very unexpected way.
I was living in Los Angeles at the time and selling pharmaceuticals. My mom had been battling with breast cancer for a number of years but was managing it. We thought everything was OK. Three years into her diagnosis, however, we learned her cancer had spread to other parts of her body, and she was now Stage 4. She went from receiving treatment to beginning chemotherapy and took a blanket with her on every visit as an added comfort.
Her special blanket was never very far away. It became very familiar to our family and even represented her on some levels. She understood that and knew we loved her blanket. It became its own entity, really, an extra fixture in our home.
From Lola with love
Four years ago, my mom passed away. After the funeral, we discovered she had left a gift for each of us in her bedroom. She’d made five replicas of the soft, cream-colored blanket that we all loved, one for each of her children (and another for my dad). With each blanket, she’d included a handwritten note. It said the blanket would serve as a constant reminder of our relationship with her when she was no longer able to be with us. If we were sad, it was our solution: We could use our blankets to feel comfortable and to feel our mothers’ love.
That gesture reflected who she was in so many ways. She was thoughtful and always striving throughout her life to make us comfortable and happy. It’s fitting that she did what she did.
In return, I wanted to honor my mom with a new business venture, one that allowed me to give back to a cause — breast cancer — in remembrance of her. Just like that, Lola Blankets was born, and we borrowed the nickname she’d actually given herself: Lola. That felt right to do.
Because we loved the blankets we’d received so much, we wanted to keep that story alive. She was able to create these blankets in the midst of being so sick.
I kept working my other job, but we started making blankets in L.A. right away. It came with complications. I was living in a tiny, 400 sq. ft. studio apartment when I received the first batch of 300 blankets. Once we moved them inside, there was no room left. Both the refrigerator and stove could barely open, and all additional space was wasted on my bed. Little paths led from the front door to my bed and bathroom. It was an insane time, but we did it. We launched!
Since then, we keep selling out, partly because we’ve done a good job marketing the product and partly because it’s nothing short of a series of miracles.

In the beginning, there were miracles
Because I tried my hand at being an influencer on social media early on and had years of experience in photography, I took on the responsibility of shooting all of our initial lifestyle images. Friends I’d met online, many of whom had large Instagram followings, posed as our models. That allowed Lola Blankets a real jump start, and my connections got our name out very quickly.
Still, even though I could easily decide how the business should look, I quickly realized I was unaccustomed to running its functionality. Lucky for me, my brother was working as a consultant for McKinsey & Company then and was good at understanding how companies should function and scale successfully. I needed help, and he joined me right away.
He’s helped me tackle the biggest challenge we’ve had to date: keeping up with the constant inventory demand. In our first few weeks of business, we received a large order from a company for 500 blankets. Even though we didn’t yet have that many, we just said yes. We stayed up all night helping our manufacturer complete that order. We now manufacture overseas and the process is a lot more streamlined, but we’ve continually had problems meeting demand.
When we started Lola Blankets, I hoped somebody — anybody — would buy even one blanket from us. Now, we can hardly keep them in stock. Our revenue increased seven times between our first year in business and the next. This year, we are on track to do that again.
My mom knew I wanted to have one of my businesses take off. In the letter she left me, she wrote, “Keep dreaming big, but don’t be too impulsive.” It’s fitting that, out of all the businesses I’ve started, the one that has worked the best is actually named after her. We couldn’t do this entirely on our own and haven’t had to. I feel like I’ve witnessed so many miracles, especially in the beginning, and I believe my mom has had a hand in that.
One miracle: within the first few weeks, a lady in Ohio bought our blankets. She had a large online following and started promoting and helping us sell them. That kickstarted the business. Finding our manufacturer so easily was another miracle. My skill set, combined with my brother’s, created an interesting dynamic of opposite but complementary skill sets perfectly poised to run an e-commerce business together — another miracle. So was receiving a $60,000 order in our first few weeks, the people I’ve met along the way, and the models who have catapulted our brand image.
Giving back is part of our DNA
A photo of my mom goes into the box of every purchase made at Lola Blankets. It’s been a healthy practice for us to include that, and it’s even healing. I still consider my mom to be my best friend.
Being able to think about her daily has been therapeutic, and so has giving back. Once a month, I go to the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City, where my mom received her treatments. We do a donation delivery to the breast oncology division. Women who have Stage 4 breast cancer are being treated there, and we make certain they all receive their own Lola blanket. Hopefully, it’s an added comfort to them as they receive their care.
Everything we do at Lola Blankets is in my mom’s name, and I believe she’d be proud of all we’re doing to keep her memory alive. I can’t help but think she’d find it funny, too, that her sons are selling blankets for a living. She was a very humble person and would no doubt feel slightly embarrassed to see her name in lights like it is, but she’d still be thrilled by all we’ve done and are continuing to do.
By that same token, sharing her name with our business serves to drive every decision we make. In the beginning, whether it was deciding the font on the website, the quality of the insert card or what box and tape we’d use for packaging, I knew I could not compromise on anything. Everything we used had to be the best because my mom was the best. When the challenges really got hard, and I even half considered giving up, I always knew I couldn’t. That would be an insult to my mom and her legacy. That refusal to stray from high quality in all we do is why we’ve been so successful.
We see the future
By the time I decided to quit my job in L.A. and do Lola Blankets full-time, there was no reason to live in California anymore. I’d studied at Brigham Young University and was familiar with the area. I also had connections with influencers here, and it’s been a great move for the brand.
Since we moved our headquarters to Utah, our business has continued growing. We’ve added more employees and been allowed to shoot in exotic locations all over the world; shooting in unique locales has been important. Our spring campaign was shot in Tokyo, and we traveled to Iceland for our weighted blanket launch, which was very successful. Visually, we want to be perceived as more than a Utah brand.
Beyond that, our goal for Lola Blankets is to remain elevated. We’re trying to bring a different perspective to the blanket market by pushing the envelope, launching new products, creating new designs, and researching other similar products that make sense in our business. Hopefully, this will allow us to keep growing as rapidly as we have.
There’s still a huge opportunity to expand beyond all we’re doing currently. When you’re in the blanket market, everyone’s your customer. Everyone can appreciate a nice blanket, and we all use them. In that respect, staying focused on blankets will continue, but we’re in the early stages of testing additional products in the comfort home category to see what can be added to the Lola Blankets family.
Never compromise on your vision when you’re starting a business. All those details accumulate, and they matter. Everyone thinks I’m a little crazy with how committed I am to our photoshoots, for example. I’m very on top of what’s going on and how our products look. I obsess over every word that goes out from our team and every image that is produced.
At Lola Blankets, we are always looking for ways to improve. Having the courage and ability to say “no” when needed matters. It’s a lot to take on, and I could probably sit back and let things take their natural course, but I won’t. I don’t. Because my mom’s name is attached to this venture, it’s got to be perfect every single time.
