Hardware Podcasts

Serena & Lily: Serena Dugan and Lily Kanter. They Built a $20M Brand—Then One Investor Almost Destroyed It

How I Built This · 3 Aug 2026 · 1h 15m

What this episode covers

Lily Kanter and Serena Dugan, co-founders of Serena & Lily, explain how they scaled a luxury home goods brand from a baby boutique to a $20M enterprise, navigating a disastrous private equity deal that nearly destroyed the company. They detail the 'cash incinerator' nature of their wholesale model, the clever hack of using customer deposits to fund production, and the strategic pivot to direct-to-consumer during the 2008 financial crisis. The founders recount fighting a predatory investor who sued them, forcing a restructuring that involved buying out the hostile party with onerous terms from other investors, before ultimately selling the company to a family office that cleaned up the capitalization table.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Microsoft, Pottery Barn Kids, Babies R Us, William Sonoma, Starbucks, Mavron
Products
Bugaboo
Also
ABC Kids Expo, Kate Spade

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