We were lucky to catch up with Kritsida Adisakkitti and Amanda Kollbeck recently and have shared our conversation below.

Kritsida & Amanda, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?

We are fortunate enough to have family and friends that have shown their love for AKA Swimwear from the beginning. As we continue to grow our brand, we still feel and see the support in many ways whether it’s purchasing an item, promoting on social media, or word of mouth, etc. We believe you should never stop working on your dream regardless if you have a strong support system or not.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

AKA Swimwear began with two best friends/ ex co-workers in the summer of 2019 when we both were looking for swimwear that would flatter our features, but yet versatile enough to wear from day-to-night. One of our main focuses is quality, which is why we source and produce our products in Los Angeles so we can look over our production closely. We want to make sure our styles are supportive, comfortable, but most importantly, make women feel confident in their skin. We want women to feel their best regardless of what they’re wearing.

We have now branched out into creating sweats, loungewear, and accessories since we have had women and men asking us for more. We are excited for what’s to come and it’s been a blessing to meet all the amazing people along the way!

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Amanda moved from New York to Los Angeles in 2016 when she met Kritsida working at a luxury shoe store in Beverly Hills, CA. What started as co-workers/friends now became business partners/best friends. Both of our backgrounds were in luxury fashion and we shared a vision of owning our own brands someday. During our time in retail, we admired each other’s strong clientele and the ability to create unique looks with the products. With Amanda’s background in Fashion Merchandising and Kritsida’s in Marketing, we knew we wanted to start this journey together. Most people don’t know this, but ‘AKA’ is actually a combination of our initials!

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

We both started aggressively saving as soon as we knew we wanted to start this business. Our initial investment was around $3,500 each to get our first collection launched. As a small company, we stress on being strategic with our finances. We don’t take out a salary, and both continue to work full-time jobs so we can have the financial flexibility to grow the business. Fully self-funding the business is tough, but rewarding never the least. At the end of the day, we only have ourselves to answer to and we know we have complete autonomy over our business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://akaswim.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akaswimwear
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AkaSwimwear
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@akaswimwear

Image Credits
In the 4th picture (Stephanie Yaen) 5th photo (Quinn Schlatter) 6th photo (Danileigh) 7th photo (Jadine Salvador)