Morgan Smith is the founder of minnow, a family lifestyle brand inspired by her upbringing in Laguna Beach and her love of the ocean. The idea for Minnow was sparked during a family trip to the Amalfi Coast, when Morgan struggled to find stylish, well-fitting swimwear for her 14-month-old son. Determined to fill this gap, she created a swimwear collection defined by timeless design, thoughtful details, and high-quality craftsmanship.
With no outside funding, Morgan grew minnow into an eight-figure business, now celebrating its eighth year. Loved by customers and celebrities alike, the brand has expanded beyond swimwear into a full lifestyle offering. Morgan’s journey highlights the power of persistence and creativity, as well as her commitment to mentoring and supporting fellow entrepreneurs.
In this Faces of Entrepreneurship profile, Morgan reflects on her path to building minnow, the challenges she’s faced, and the values that guide her work.
What does “entrepreneurship” mean to you?
Morgan Smith: Entrepreneurship is about taking a risk, pushing past your comfort zone to launch a product, build a company or create a service that provides authentic value to the world. It’s turning your passion or idea into a reality and driving creativity and growth.
Tell us about your first experience with entrepreneurship.
MS: For as long I can remember I have had this innate ambition. I started babysitting at 11 years old, then requested to get a working license early at 14 so that I could be a hostess at the local diner where I would ride my bike to after school. I then went on to work retail through high school, getting recruited boutique to boutique where I started making commission. I’d often skip out of 6th period my senior year to work. I worked retail all through college, as well, and then went onto internships and a more corporate career. I felt such a drive working – it gave me a sense of freedom and choice. I dreamed of what I could drive if it were my own passion.
What is your company’s origin story? What is the biggest reason you started your business?
MS: When my first son was 14 months old, I was consulting at the time and decided to take advantage of the flexible work scenario. We embarked on a home exchange in London. While there, we took a weekend trip to the Amalfi Coast. Before our travel, I searched London (a city with a large children’s clothing offering) in mid-July for boys’ swim options, yet I was disappointed with the assortment. I just wanted clean, simple, high quality, with a great fit. It got me thinking about where I had found my son’s swim options back home, and how it always felt like this “find” – either I would buy the shorts way too small for him or find a vintage pair off Etsy so they would hit above his knee. I didn’t know of a company on the market with a full offense for children’s swim. When I got home from our house swap, I went to work on the first style, the minnow boardies for my son.
What did those early days look like and teach you?
MS: In the early days, when I was wearing all the hats, the majority of my time was spent in production and the manufacturing of swimsuits. Production was not my background, so this involved piecing together research, asking friends in the industry for suggestions, then getting referrals from vendors, going from one clue to the next. I was pregnant with my second child at the time, physically dropping off the fabric at the cutters, then on to the sewers. In LA the clothing production process is very piecemeal – it can take 6-7 vendors to make a swimsuit. The factory was only 25 minutes from my house. This really allowed me to learn the process, from fabric education, quality control to negotiating. As our team grew and their expertise far exceeded mine, I am grateful I have been able to work and understand every position, to really know the business.
What do you wish you knew when you started? Is there anything you would do differently?
MS: I waited a while before hiring help, wanting to be very cash efficient. The hesitation is a theme throughout my journey at work and home, always an inner dialogue if I can do it myself but I have realized that an over functioning mentality does not always serve the business or home. Over time, I have put more effort and value into self-preservation and care.
What is your superpower as an entrepreneur? What is your proudest and darkest moment so far?
MS: I would say my superpower has been my ability to keep going, roadblock after roadblock. The word “no” just meant I had to figure out another way. This resiliency in many ways caused me to get to where I have been able to with this business, but now I am at a place where I also need to learn the art of letting go and surrender in some aspects in order for the business to continue to grow. It’s that constant evolution, as a person and a business especially, going from a solo founder to a CEO who manages people, that takes an entirely different skill set.
Being a solo entrepreneur can at times feel incredibly lonely, you carry a heavy weight and pressure to not only sustain a healthy business, but also to be inspiring, constantly creative, to be put together, to show up every single day – and when you also have a family and small children at home it’s a lot to hold.
My proudest moment is in connecting families and preserving these special core memories they create with minnow.
What are your personal driving principles, your top values?
MS: Integrity – a balance of evolving and pushing things forward but always staying true to who we are.
How have your personal principles and values shaped your company’s values and principles?
MS: Accountability, Curiosity, Optimism, Collaborative, Attention to detail
What’s it like to work alone or with your partners?
MS: I have been a solo founder, and there were many times I wished I had a partner (especially right after I had babies). Yet, on my own, I was able to move quickly in the beginning and be nimble.
What role does mentorship play in your world (as a mentor or mentee)? Tell us about what makes mentorship valuable to you and your business.
MS: This is an area I feel incredibly passionate about. As a boot-strapped company, it really was my mentors as guiding lights even before I had a team. It was a critical sounding board and place to keep myself doubt in check.
Can you share some insights into the market or industry you operate in? How have you navigated challenges and changes in the market landscape?
MS: [I faced] many challenges over the course of my journey as an entrepreneur. It really is a constant series of new obstacles. Specifically for the swim business in a DTC landscape, it’s been managing cash flow with no outside capital to the seasonality in the business. Of course, Covid was a big curve ball for all of us. We moved our production from US to overseas during 2020 because of factory shutdowns in LA, production hiccups and delays, and then trying to chase into inventory as 2021 exploded. Then you had the IOS update that affected performance marketing spend. Through it all, evaluating inventory funding options, growing and building a team with limited capital, and finding the right operator to support the growth.
Many entrepreneurs continue to perfect their daily routines to support their work and greater vision; would you mind sharing your morning routine or a regular ritual that grounds your work each day?
MS: I would love to say it’s 10 minutes of meditation, but with three young children I am up on breakfast duty and packing lunches to get them to school by 7:20am. I do get 45 mins -1 hour of down time before I head to the office, so that is when I will often book a spin class or go on a golf cart ride to grab an iced coffee for myself.
How do you manage the work-life balance as an entrepreneur? What strategies have you found effective in maintaining your well-being?
MS: A few years ago, I made my self-care very deliberate. I will build in what I need into my schedule and I truly believe it’s for my well-being, which supports the way I show up at work and home. It’s usually alone time – that’s how I recharge. In the position where you take care of so many people at work and home, I need to be alone to gain back my strength. I also journal multiple times a week – lots of self-examination, which is really helpful for me. I read books, exercise, listen to a podcast, go on a walk while listening to music, explore someplace new, and schedule in coaching/therapy.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
MS: Travel, I feel most alive and thriving when I am out and about in the world
Building and sustaining a business often involves overcoming various challenges. Can you share a specific moment where your entrepreneurial resilience was tested, and how did you navigate through it to ensure the sustainability of your business? What lessons did you learn from that experience?
MS: 2022-2023 was an inflection point for the business, with growth we needed to expand leadership experience. We also wanted positions to be hybrid at our Charleston office to work together in person, and so there were team changes. Naturally, when you instill a shift, anything that is not in alignment with that shift will fall off. This was no doubt the hardest part for me, when changes involved people, doing what I believed was best for the business still took an emotional and heavy toll on me.
Do you have a favorite quote, mantra, or words of wisdom to get through the tough days?
MS: Whenever I am feeling defeated like something is just not working and I’m exhausted from wanting it to, I say “may it be this or something better” we never know what is in store for us or the business.
What is a problem that keeps you up at night?
MS: Am I doing this all right?
How do you think about helping others through your work?
MS: I mentor a handful of young entrepreneurs with monthly calls and I participate in female business groups. At minnow we do quarterly enrichment speakers. For example, last quarter it was AI education and, coming up, we are having someone speak on investing to educate and motivate our team of mostly women on their investing opportunities. Next year, minnow is partnering with an non-profit organization dedicated to children, to use our platform to help families and ignite positive change.
What advice do you have for fellow (and aspiring) entrepreneurs building and leading teams?
MS: Leaders are not born, they are made. Lean into coaching, mentors, and a support group of fellow founders. It’s taken a village to help guide me along, even though your intuition is leading the way sometimes we need help listening to that voice.
What kind of an entrepreneur do you want to be known as – as in, what do you want your legacy to be?
MS: Resilient, authentic, honest, and compassionate
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