After a tough day at work, Set Active CEO Lindsey Carter found herself unable to sleep, crying to friends and struggling to focus on her personal life.
She didn’t expect starting a business to be easy. When Carter launched her athleisure company in May 2018, she says, she took on $20,000 in personal credit card debt and filled her Los Angeles home with inventory. But as she tried to break into Set Active’s crowded activewear industry, she encountered a familiar roadblock for many entrepreneurs over the years. It took her time to find a way to separate work stress from her personal life.
“I started to understand that conflict doesn’t necessarily mean something isn’t working. Sometimes it’s just the reality of building something ambitious,” says Carter, 35. “And if every setback is going to rob me of happiness, I’m going to spend a very long time unhappy.”
Set Active isn’t an industry giant, but it is profitable with eight-figure net sales in 2025, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. This comes as growth in the broader activewear market slows. Women’s activewear spending in the U.S. grew 2% from October 2025 to September 2026, down from 7% in the previous 12 months, according to data from market research firm Circana.
According to Circana apparel industry analyst Kristen Classi-Zummo, activewear still accounts for 30% of U.S. apparel spending. According to Classi-Zummo, shoppers these days are particularly drawn to casual clothing and loungewear such as sweatpants and sweatshirts, rather than active items such as leggings and sports bras. That’s good news for Carter, who sells clothing sets in a variety of colors and patterns that aren’t just for training purposes. Set Active’s Instagram posts feature women sitting on pickleball courts in Paris and on the banks of the Seine.
Before launching Set Active, Carter ran his own social media company. While shopping in Los Angeles, she had trouble finding matching workout clothes that she could wear while running errands, going for coffee with friends, or working from home. “Everything was like yoga poses and handstands, and I thought, ‘That’s not me,'” she says.
She says a colleague introduced her to a production professional, which made her business idea more viable. She says she decided to order samples, gathered feedback from friends, and drew directly on the product on her dining room table with a permanent marker before sending it back to the manufacturer’s designer.
Taking on debt to officially launch the business was just the first of many obstacles to growing Set Active. Some were personal. Carter has had two children since starting her company, but she never took maternity leave. She now calls that decision “probably one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made.”
In 2023, she experienced what she described as symptoms of postnatal depression and felt like a “horrible version of herself” while running a startup at the same time. “I let people down, I let my friends down, I let my employees down, and I wasn’t my best self.”
Other challenges were professional. In 2026, Set Active is struggling to ensure customers get their orders on time, Carter said. There are a variety of reasons, she says, but without going into specifics, the risk increases as the holiday season approaches.
On October 19, Carter wrote on Instagram that Set Active is suspending its Black Friday and Cyber Monday product launches until further notice. The company won’t “drop” the clothing until the product arrives at the company’s Los Angeles warehouse, putting more than $10 million in sales expected on the year’s most popular shopping day at risk, she wrote.
Carter said he is now “trying to move away from a lot of revenue,” adding: “But at the end of the day, I built this brand on transparency and community, so the customer always comes first for me. And I’d rather do well with my customers than hit revenue goals.”
Although she still sometimes tosses and turns at night after a hard day’s work, she says she has learned how to return home to her family with gratitude. She added that she gets satisfaction from solving problems and doing work she believes in.
“I approach things every day with the mindset that challenges are opportunities; I don’t see them as enemies at all,” Carter says. “I think when you register as an entrepreneur, you register for what the journey will bring.”
