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“This activewear startup backed by Michael Jordan's son is ready to take on Nike and Lululemon.”
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Bought Out: Live
Co-Founder2020–2023Portland, ORäktiiv
A women's activewear startup pioneering plant-based bio-polymers to replace nylon, polyester, and spandex.
Overview
äktiiv is a women's activewear startup pioneering the use of next-generation plant-based biopolymers to replace nylon, polyester, and spandex in high-performance activewear.
Using plant-based raw materials and material science, äktiiv is reimagining how activewear is made, enjoyed, and discarded, for the good of the planet.
Responsibilities
- Brand Design & Positioning
- Performance & Brand Marketing
- Website Design
- Messaging
- Customer Experience Design
- Customer Acquisition
- Content Ideation & Creation
- Fundraising
- Financial Planning & Cashflow
Pre-launch results
Five months. Five numbers.
Results from running the äktiiv pre-launch from February to May 2023.
$97K
Pre-order revenue
+52,902
Email subscribers
+14,500
SMS subscribers
+24,635
Instagram growth
3.1×
ROAS
Featured content
If your activewear were oil, would you still wear it?
We needed a way to show, not tell, the difference between plastic activewear and äktiiv. So we shot a campaign with oil dripping off the model's leggings.
It got the message across in a way that turned heads, while quietly educating consumers that most activewear is derived from petrochemicals.
Performance creative
One ad. Six points of CTR.
A single creative variation carried our pre-launch funnel for three months. Proof that the message was the unlock, not the platform.
5.7%
Click-through rate
Sustained over 3 months
$1.91
Cost per pre-order signup
Each signup worth $7.42
Web design
A site designed to be remembered.
The äktiiv site was built as a pre-order funnel, but the goal was to be visually stunning first, conversion-engineered second. The design walks visitors through a discovery journey, then asks them to sign up for an invite.
After signup, each prospect entered a 10-day, 7-touchpoint sequence across email and SMS, ending in a single-use code that unlocked a 3-day pre-order window.
Material development
Proterra. Two years in the making.
Proterra is the plant-based fabric we built äktiiv on. Two years of development with material scientists in Asia, dialed in the wash, hand-feel, and four-way stretch to match the best petroleum-based competitors.
Within weeks of pre-orders shipping, hundreds of customers were wearing it. The numbers are gone but the proof of concept isn't.
Sugarcane shipping pod
Packaging that's as honest as the product.
We hated plastic. Sending a planet-positive product in a plastic mailer would've been a lie. So we designed a custom shipping pod made from sugarcane pulp, prototyped in 2022 in partnership with LVXIN.
- Carbon positive
- Biodegradable
- Compostable
- Algae-based ink
- Compostable bio-stone label
Plant-based garment bag
Hot-water dissolvable. Yes, really.
The standard polybag inside every shipped garment was a problem we couldn't ignore. So we sourced a new kind of garment bag that dissolves in hot water. No microplastic, no landfill.
- Dissolves in hot water
- Non-toxic
- Biodegradable
- Home compostable
