35-year-old took on $20K in debt to launch a business from her dining room—now it brings in 8 figures a year

Set Active CEO Lindsey Carter used to lose sleep, cry to her friends and struggle to be present in her personal life after a rough day at work. It's not that she expected entrepreneurship to be easy. Carter took on $20,000 in personal credit card debt and filled her Los Angeles home with inventory when she started the athleisure company in May 2018, she says. Yet years of obstacles — familiar to many an entrepreneur — followed as she tried to break Set Active into a crowded activewear industry. It took her time to figure out how to separate her professional stress from her personal life. "I started understanding that struggle wasn't necessarily a sign that something was going wrong. Sometimes it's just the reality of building something ambitious," says Carter, 35. "And if I was going to let every setback rob me of my happiness, I'm going to be spending a very long time being unhappy." Set Active is no industry giant, but it brought in eight figures in 2025 net sales and is profitable, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. That comes as growth in the broader activewear market has slowed: Women's activewear spending in the U.S. increased 2% between October 2025 and September 2026, down from 7% over the preceding 12 months, according to data from market research firm Circana. Activewear still makes up 30% of U.S. apparel spending, says Circana apparel industry analyst Kristen Classi-Zummo. Shoppers these days particularly gravitate toward casual outfits and loungewear, like sweatpants and sweatshirts, over more active items like leggings and sports bras, Classi-Zummo says. That's good news for Carter, who sells color- and pattern-filled clothing sets that aren't solely intended for workouts. Set Active's Instagram posts feature women sitting on pickleball courts or the banks of the Seine in Paris. Before launching Set Active, Carter ran her own social media company. While shopping around Los Angeles, she struggled to find matching sets of workout clothes she could wear while running errands, meeting a friend for coffee or working from home. "Everything was like yoga poses and upside-down headstands, and I was just like, 'That's not me,'" she says. Her business idea became more real when an associate connected her with a production professional, she says. She decided to order some samples, collected feedback from friends and drew directly on the products with a permanent marker at her dining room table before sending them back to the manufacturer's designers, she says. Going into debt to officially launch the business was just the first among many obstacles while growing Set Active. Some were personal: Carter had two children after starting the company and has never taken maternity leave. She now calls that decision "probably one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made." She experienced what she describes as symptoms of postpartum depression in 2023, and felt like "a horrible version of myself" while simultaneously running the startup. "I let people down. I let friends down. I let employees down and I just wasn't my best self." Other challenges have been professional. In 2026, Set Active has struggled to consistently deliver orders to customers on time, says Carter. The reasons are varied, she says, declining to go into detail, and the stakes are high approaching the holiday shopping season. On Oct. 19, Carter wrote on Instagram that Set Active would cancel its Black Friday and Cyber Monday product launches until further notice. The company won't "drop" any clothes until the products arrive in the company's Los Angeles warehouse, putting a projected $10-plus million in sales during the most popular shopping days of the year at risk, she wrote. "I'm walking away from a hefty revenue number," Carter now says, adding: "But at the end of the day, I built this brand on transparency and community, and the customer comes first to me always. And I'd rather make it right with the customer than hit a revenue goal." A hard workday can still make her toss and turn at night, but she's learned how to return home to her family feeling grateful, she says. She gets satisfaction from solving problems and doing a job she believes in, she adds. "I just take things day by day with the mindset that challenges are opportunities, and I don't really see them as the enemy," says Carter. "I think that when you sign up to be an entrepreneur, you're signing up for what that journey is going to bring."