COVER WOMAN CALL BACK
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES AND PAYING IT FORWARD Leslie Stiba turned the pitfalls of entrepreneurship into a more meaningful career. BY JESS BUGG
cover of Austin Woman. Needless to say, a lot has happened since then. Stiba is the CEO and co-founder of Austlen Baby Co., which specializes in innovative stroller designs. She created the Austlen Entourage, their award-winning stroller, based on her own stroller needs as a mother of twin girls. In 2018, Austlen was in over 100 retailers in the United States, experiencing major growth with direct sales and had just completed its onboarding with Nordstrom. Stiba recounts receiving love letters from parents, gushing about how much they adored the Entourage. Her goal of making life easier for parents was actually coming to fruition. However, as a startup, Austlen relied on a sizable loan from the Small Business Association (SBA) to fund development and operations. The loan came with high monthly payments, and the company struggled. Even though sales were climbing and Austlen’s distribution strategy was a success, it wasn’t enough in those early stages to keep up with the payments. The company needed more time to pay off the loan and began working with a local lender to restructure the debt. This felt to Stiba like a clear path to satisfying everyone involved. There was just one problem: the chief lending officer. “The number of meetings we had to sit through where he mansplained to us how he was going to make this work with or without us was pretty infuriating and, frankly, insulting.” He came to the table with a myriad of bad ideas from liquidation to taking over the entire business himself. Stiba jokes, “Apparently we made this look way too easy.” While she laughs and smiles through speaking about this difficult time for her business, it’s clear by the tone of her voice how painful this setback truly was. It turned out the lending officer’s plans were in direct conflict with the SBA, and once they got wind of what he was doing, they immediately put a stop to it. Unfortunately, the damage was done. Stiba recalls replaying the scenario over and over in her mind but still struggles to understand what happened. “If you’re playing a game and the other person is dead set on losing, how do you play?” Legally unable to share the details with her customers and those who had been a part of the Austlen journey only added another layer of isolation and distress. This period not only came with devastating career setbacks, but personal, family tragedy as well. Stiba was in the process of losing her mother to ovarian cancer, and one of her daughters was diagnosed with epilepsy. “To say it was tough is an understatement.” Stiba has been through major personal struggles before. Her twin daughters, now aged 14, were born at 29 weeks and spent two months in the NICU. Speaking about this time still brings tears to her eyes, but the resilience she acquired through these previous hardships is palpable. She surrounds herself with like-minded people and describes her team as determined but optimistic— the kind of people who can still crack jokes even at the worst of times. While the
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Photos courtesy of Austlen Baby Co. and Lauren Logan Photography.
It was over three years ago, in March 2018, when Leslie Stiba first graced the
