Today, we’d like to introduce you to Laura Stern. Laura was introduced to us by the brilliant and talented Erika Opalski.
Laura, can you walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up I was fortunate to have a Mom who was an artist herself. She was always painting in our house, taking myself and my two brothers to museums and galleries, and encouraging us to work hard and follow our passions. She was also always volunteering in our community, so giving back was ingrained in me in childhood as well. My dad owns his own business in Cincinnati, so growing up in an entrepreneurial household I saw the hard work, but also the benefits of forging your own path in life around the things you value.
I attended Boston University and received my BFA in graphic design and painting, with minors in printmaking and western art history. When I graduated I started working as a designer for sports apparel companies sometimes as an apparel designer and other times in marketing. I worked for brands such as New Balance, York Athletics, Life Is Good, and Travis Mathew. Bouncing between these roles taught me a broad range of skills, from being able to design graphics and tech pack them for factory production, and also the ability to brand, strategize, and create digital design work for promotional and advertising purposes. This now allows me to help with all sides of the FourFour Co. business, which is incredibly important when you are only a two person self funded startup. You need to be able to do what is needed and it is not always what you are best at, so I feel lucky to have this varied experience to pull from.
Working with larger companies made me realize that there is often a disconnect between what a company says their purpose is, and how they actually operate. It felt very much like someone asking you to look at the shiny object, and
to ignore reality. I consider myself a bit of an idealist and so this kind of disconnect did not sit well with me. I knew I wanted to have my own company at some point, and I knew I wanted it to operate for good and be grounded in positivity and improvement. I think there is always more that can be done and you only do your best, iterate on, until eventually have something great.
I have always been interested in sustainability and the environment. My Thesis in college was all about saving the coral reefs and raised money that was all donated to reef nurseries. Erika already had the Give.One.Back™ idea to donate money to our local Orange County CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) to help give back to children in foster care. I added to our mission to Give.One.Back™ by saying we should work towards sustainability and being as green as possible. Our collection of 100% Cotton, hand dyed beach bags and blankets are our first step towards reaching this goal. It is an especially cool part of the brand because every piece in this collection was also hand made by myself and Erika.
Now with our company the goal is to grow so we can create better and better products that service people who love to travel, love this community, and love our Globe. And so we can we can make our Give.One.Back™ mission bigger so we can positively impact the lives of children in the foster care system through our partnership with CASA. Right now we are designing our 2nd collection, sourcing recycled materials, and looking for opportunities and places that want to sell our products.
Please tell us more about your brand, FourFour Co
We are a female owned, self funded startup that creates travel bags and accessories for Women that need functional products and do not want to sacrifice on style. Inspired by our Southern Californian roots, our laid back coastal style meets modern travel needs to create a collection of classic travel bags that make traveling a breeze, so you can focus on the good times. Every one of our modern travel bags have been carefully made with features that keep all of your belongings in place, so you can move easily between your house, work, the gym, and off on your next big adventures without missing a beat, or misplacing your wallet. Our bags are unique to our competitors because we design them to be multifunctional. they are large enough for travel, but also practical enough for everyday use, so you do not have to have a bunch of different bags for all of your varied activities. We also use all vegan materials, and offer features such as rear luggage slips on all of our bags, not just our duffels, for easy movement on-the-go. And we don’t skimp out on design in our interiors. Each interior is thoughtfully designed with a custom pattern, and made with plenty of organizational spaces for things you want to keep separate, such as a laptop compartment. But what really sets us apart from our competitors is our Give.One.Back™ mission and our partnership with CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates For Children) We donate 4.4% of every sale to our local Orange County CASA so that they can help empower and give a voice to children in the U.S. foster care system. We even named our company after our give back mission. The name FourFour Co after a statistic from 2020 that stated approximately 4.4 children enter the foster care system every day in the U.S. In order to keep our mission front and center as we grow, we decided to name ourselves after this statistic to be a constant reminder to why we created this company.
Erika Opalski and FourFour co have been great to us and I know you’ve got a great relationship with them as well. Maybe you can tell our audience a bit about Erika Opalski and FourFour co and your experience with them.
I knew Erika from a previous design position at Travis Mathew. I immediately was drawn to Erika because we both have the same can’t sit still energy, but she is also incredibly caring, honest, and hard working. She had told me about this travel bag idea back in 2019. At this point this had been something she had been thinking about for years. I loved that the business was rooted in the idea of giving back to the local community, and that it was focused on items for women who travel, as a passionate traveler myself. But it wasn’t until the spring of 2020 that I became business partners with Erika and FourFour Co. was born. Since it was the pandemic, we would have meeting in the park. Sitting 6ft away from each other on picnic blankets, using our phones for internet, we discuss products, colors, design, target audience, materials, everything.
Erika is the most giving person you will ever meet. She cares endlessly about other people and truly believes in the power of positivity and hard work to make good things happen. She will work as hard and as long as it takes in order to get something accomplished and it is this endurance and grit that makes her a good business partner. I think Erika brings a lot of the heart to the company and is a big dreamer in an industry filled with people only focused only on the bottom line. Working with Erika means working with someone who is my friend first and business partner second. When we have meetings we always check-in with each other first before we dive-in on the business side of things. Erika loves to explore more than pretty much anyone I know so it is very fitting that she owns a travel bag company. When she isn’t working on FourFour Co Erika can be found snowboarding with her kids at Mammoth, camping, or relaxing with the rest of her family in Huntington Beach.
Website: fourfourco.com
Instagram: fourfourco
Linkedin: FourFour Co
Facebook: FourFour Co
Image Credits:
Laura Sloneker Stern
