Tell Us Who You Are! 

Hi there 👋🏻! I’m Katie Kitchens, the co-founder, curator, and EIC (that means editor-in-chief!) of FabFitFun. In case you didn’t know, we’re a subscription box company, and we hand-select (full-sized!) beauty, wellness, fitness, and fashion products then deliver them straight to your doorstep. In short, we bring nice things, to nice people, at nice prices. 

That said, we didn’t start as a subscription-based brand. Originally, my background is in content. I was a writer for about 10 years before I started FabFitFun with my two co-founders. We began as a newsletter media brand that gave readers tips and tricks for living their best lives! It was a bit like a digital magazine, and I was writing it all day, everyday. 

After a few years, we realized that we were writing about all these great products—so why not put them on people’s doorsteps? From there, FabFitFun was born. (With a lot of hard, scrappy work and lots of learning, of course!) Our first box sold out in just 24 hours. 

Now? We proudly seasonally deliver both emerging and beloved brands to our millions of subscribers. Follow us on TikTok to stay up-to-date and for hints on what’s in future boxes 😉. 

5:00 AM - 5:45 AM  → Good Morning World 🌎

I wake up really early, even on the weekends. It’s just like an internal alarm clock that goes off! I like being up in the house before everyone else in my family is awake. 

So, I answer emails and Slack messages before the chaos starts while I drink my coffee. (I tried avoiding caffeine for years, but now I’m back down the rabbit hole!) For my early morning skincare, I literally just use cold water and I rinse my face. 

6:00 AM - 8:15 AM → Sweat It Out 💪🏼

I do a lot of Orangetheory. It’s addictive, and honestly, it’s fun. I go in the morning to the 6:00 AM class and then come back, make my daughters breakfast, help them get ready for school, and wrap up the morning!

After that, I’ll do an actual full skincare routine, where I’ll wash my face, use toner, and all that good stuff. (FYI: Right now I’m loving the Innis Free SPF.)  

9:00 AM - 5:00 PM → Get To Work 💼

My husband takes the girls to school and then I head to the office. Our company goes in three days per week, which I think is a really good balance. You get that IRL communication while also giving people the opportunity to not sit in LA traffic and work from home in sweatpants.

5:15 PM - 9:00 PM → Family, Food, & Fun 🍽️

LA traffic is the worst, so it takes me way longer to get home than it does to get to the office. Once I’m home, from around 6:30 to 7:30 PM, I’ll take a break and hang out with the kids. (Right now, we love playing the game Boggle!) Then, we’ll all eat dinner together. 

9:15 PM - 11:00 PM → Computer & Chill! 🧑🏼💻

Around 9:00 PM-ish, I’m back on the computer checking in on the business. (I don’t expect everybody to do that chaotic schedule, but that’s just what works for me.) Around 11:00 PM, I head to bed. I’m working on getting eight hours. But I’ve never been a person that needs a ton of sleep, TBH! 

Let’s be real… How do you actually become a good company leader?

The key is to always want to keep learning and evolving. We think about learning as stopping in high school and college. But if we want to be great leaders? We have to keep learning. At one point, I thought I’d be a writer and creative for my entire life. Negotiating deals wasn’t on my radar, but I had to learn to be flexible and build new muscles. 

On the days when you’re dealing with imposter syndrome, how do you get through it? 

In today’s world, there are good days and bad days. On the bad days, I lean on my amazing support system, which includes my husband, my amazing co-founders, and the incredible team that we’ve built over the years. When I’m not seeing the company vision, they make everything much easier to deal with and point me in the right direction. I also have two young daughters, and they’re my biggest cheerleaders. It’s honestly a huge boost!

How did you navigate becoming a mom while growing a business?

We launched our first box the same year that I had my first child. I was literally in the hospital having contractions and I was texting with my co-founder about a payroll question. But honestly, I was such a nervous pregnant person, that it actually helped me, because it distracted me from the reality of the situation and my fear that something would go wrong. 

In life, we are always shooting for an ideal time to launch a business, get married, have a baby, etc. But life is always going to throw you another curveball and you’re never going to be “ready.” So honestly, my oldest daughter was just raised a lot at the office. We brought her in a little carrier, and she slept 95% of the day anyway. Mothers are the ultimate multi-taskers. We just show up and make it work. Now, my daughters are such little hustlers. They see the hard work pay off. So if you want to be a mom and start a company, you can do it! 

My go-to advice is…

I got hundreds of no’s before I got a very good yes. Keep going and just show up!