Amy Voloshin is a fashion entrepreneur, textile designer, and the founder of Printfresh, a collection of sleepwear and lifestyle items inspired by plants, animals and home décor. The daughter of industrial designers, Voloshin grew up with big goals of her own creative career. After following her artistic endeavors and graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design with a degree in textiles, Voloshin honed her design skills early in her career at Urban Outfitters and Free People.

She launched Printfresh Studio, a to-the-trade textile design studio, in 2006 at the age of 25. After 15 years of designing prints for the fashion industry, Voloshin took the leap to create her own lifestyle collection, Printfresh. The Inner Circle spoke with Voloshin recently about her inspiration for starting the company, growing the business during the pandemic, and how she leads her team.

Inner Circle: How did you come up with the idea for Printfresh?
Amy Voloshin: The brand as it is today came from a long evolution over the years. We originally started as a textile design company selling to trade, but shortly started to pivot into more direct-to-consumer ideas as the industry began to change and our Instagram following started to pick up. We saw that there was an opportunity to bring my love of joyful patterns to our community in a more straightforward way. After trying a few different products, like candles and stationery, we followed our path to sleepwear and couldn’t love it more.

IC: What was your time like at the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator?
AV: Being accepted into the Philadelphia Fashion Incubator was a big turning point for me. It was an opportunity to really focus on my business and collection. Having amazing guidance from my peers and mentors was monumental. If I hadn’t joined, I may have not been able to focus my attention on starting a line. The accountability of the group and the selling opportunities that we were given really helped me quickly get up to speed on how to get my brand out there.

IC: How were you able to grow your brand 10x during the first year of pandemic?
AV: Our rapid growth in the first year of the pandemic came after a lot of mistakes and failures. It was a really difficult experience in so many ways, but the timing meant pivoting our brand from a fledgling wholesale business to a consumer-focused one. Altering our business model and fully embracing the online marketplace, when everyone was at home and looking for comfort, came with a lot of successes in the end.

IC: Why go the self-funded route vs. getting investors?
AV: I didn’t really see us as having a business that investors would be interested in. I can be a bit of a control freak, so maybe it was because everything was so new or being relatively naïve in regards to the opportunity that was in front of us, but it was hard to imagine giving up a part of our company when its success was so new. I think I was also afraid to disappoint someone from the outside if it didn’t work out. These days the business is growing so rapidly and we have such amazing customers who have been so supportive and really believe in our company and product. I’m certainly feeling more confident that an investor could be well served in partnering with us, so it’s something I’m becoming more open to.

IC: What’s a lesson that you learned as you built your business?
AV: Stay flexible. The pandemic really forced us to turn our business around very quickly and entirely change its model to suit the new landscape. If we had been more rigid we probably wouldn’t have the thriving business that we have today. Being open to changing the course, and being open to feedback, has really helped us grow.

IC: What challenges do you face as a female founder and business owner?
AV: Female founders have to face a lot of harsh criticism and are held to standards that our male counterparts are not. There are a lot of expectations put upon women in the workplace, and especially as founders to fill certain gender roles that might not always suit us. I’d love to see in the future more discussion around these issues, and more acceptance of women having a more bold and dynamic presence in the workplace that isn’t rooted in traditional views of gender.

IC: What is your superpower?
AV: Hmmmm … probably my relentless work ethic. I’ve always been a hard worker. I’m never the most talented person in the room, but I’ve got exacting standards and I’m very willing to do whatever it takes to get something done. That has had a lot to do with the success of our business.

IC: How would you describe your leadership style?
AV: I’m sure my team could answer this one better than I can! I’m really lucky to have a lot of team members that have been with me for a very long time — who have stuck with me from the first iteration of our business and beyond. I would say that I have a very familial style with my team. I’m a little bit blunt (I love to hire brilliant and talented people so I don’t think there’s a need to sugar coat things), and I try to push them to their fullest potential.