She Started an 8-Figure Business After Near-Death Experience

“I always wanted to make a difference,” Emily Hikade, founder and CEO of luxury sleepwear and home company Petite Plume, tells Entrepreneur. “I wanted to make a change. I wanted to do something that meant something.”

Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume. Emily Hikade.

Growing up in Central Wisconsin, Hikade was curious about the world from a young age. She biked to the library to teach herself French before high school. At 13, she convinced her parents to let her do a summer exchange program in the South of France — and returned home fluent.

Hikade went on to attend the University of Notre Dame, where she continued to study French alongside German and international relations. As her undergraduate career came to a close, Hikade accepted a job at the White House.

Related: He Started a Multimillion-Dollar Business That Brought Back the Espresso Martini — and Has Some Advice to Save Other Entrepreneurs Time and Money

In Washington, D.C., Hikade passed the foreign service exam and worked at the State Department’s Operations Center, where she got an up-close look at the White House’s Situation Room and navigated high-stakes calls with global leaders. Then another life-changing opportunity presented itself.

“Lights went out, people were screaming. All I could see were the faces of my three little boys.”

“I got a tap on the shoulder to head over to the dark side [to the CIA], as we say,” Hikade recalls. “I had the perfect cover because I really was a state department officer. I really did speak three languages at that point fluently. I really did take the foreign service exam. I could talk the talk.”

Hikade joined the CIA and added Russian and Arabic to her language repertoire. She worked as an officer specializing in counterterrorism for more than 10 years. However, during her time at the agency, a near-death experience would set her on another course.

Related: 2 Phrases I Learned From a Senior CIA Officer That Changed My Leadership Style

Hikade was flying to a meeting when the plane spun out of control and toward the water. “Lights went out, people were screaming,” Hikade says. “It was a commercial flight, a small puddle jumper, as they say.”

Hikade thought of her three sons at home; her youngest wasn’t even a year old.

“As I was bracing for impact, all I could see were the faces of my three little boys,” Hikade says. “And I had this profound sense of sadness — that my kids were going to grow up without a mom.”

Fortunately, the pilot was able to regain control of the plane, but the pivotal moment stuck with Hikade.

Hikade started thinking about what else she could do — and the answer, somewhat surprisingly, was pajamas. When she lived in France, she’d walk into the grocery store and see classic pajama sets with buttons, and she wanted to buy them for her sons. But she couldn’t find a similar product in the U.S. “Everything had gone toward Hanna Andersson, that sort of tight-fit style,” Hikade explains.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume

“I knew how to negotiate. I have a higher risk tolerance than most.”

So, while stationed in East Africa, Hikade decided to create the product herself — and give entrepreneurship a shot. She calculated how many pairs of pajamas she’d need to outpace her government salary (“and that number was not high”). The plan was never to start a multimillion-dollar company but to see if she could start a business.

“It was like, Okay, if I sell this many pajamas, I will be safe for my kids,” Hikade recalls. “And I had lived in all these different countries. I knew how to negotiate. I have a higher risk tolerance than most.”

Related: How Taking Calculated Risks Can Grow Your Business

Like most first-time entrepreneurs, Hikade had to overcome a fair amount of challenges along the way. However, one of the first and most significant emerged during the product development phase.

Hikade set out to make Petite Plume pajamas out of 100% organic cotton, but in the U.S., children’s pajamas must be able to withstand a direct flame for three seconds without igniting — which means cotton has to be blended with other materials or coated with flame-resistant chemicals.

“So we blended it with an inherently flame-retardant fiber; think of it like a tweaked wool,” Hikade says. “And that allowed us to pass all the strict Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) regulations without using chemicals.”

“We hit a niche.”

What’s more, the business’s launch “was all done on the cheap,” Hikade says. Once the product was ready, Hikade set up a Shopify site and had the factory ship directly to a 3PL in the U.S. Petite Plume officially launched in 2015, and despite lacking investors or deep pockets, managed to be profitable from the start and enjoy consistent growth over the years.

Related: 10 Growth Strategies Every Business Owner Should Know

Now, the company has evolved into a complete lifestyle brand with eight-figure annual revenue; its products are available in nearly 500 stores nationwide, including Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus. In addition, Petite Plume’s ecommerce business has grown 70% year over year, while 2024 sales-to-date are up 50% compared to last year.

“We hit a niche,” Hikade says by way of explaining the brand’s ongoing success.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Petite Plume

“I’m really proud of the company we’re building and [its] core values.”

A few years ago, someone asked Hikade what was harder: working at the agency or being an entrepreneur? She really had to think about the question, Hikade admits. As dangerous as her time as a CIA officer was, stress levels came with a degree of predictability, peaking during high-stakes meetings or operations and then coming back down, she explains.

When you’re building a company, those day-to-day highs and lows tend to be more erratic, Hikade says. She notes that your best and worst moments in business might even occur within the same 24-hour period.

Related: Starting a Business: How to Start a Business in 12 Steps

Despite the challenges of entrepreneurship, Hikade is all in on the business — and remains committed to building one that improves the lives of its customers and employees.

Petite Plume gives parents on its staff the flexibility to care for their children along with parental leave and offers healthcare, 401ks and profit sharing. “We have leaned into this 21st-century workforce,” Hikade says. “I’m really proud of the company we’re building and [its] core values.”

Hikade might have a higher risk tolerance than most, but any aspiring entrepreneur, whether transitioning from counterterrorism, finance or any other field, would do well to take her simple but essential piece of advice: There’s never a good time to start a company or make a change — so you just have to do it.

“Somebody said, ‘You get the business cards, and you put the CEO and founder on it early on, so it really defines who you are,'” Hikade says. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So don’t wait for that perfect time because it’s never going to come. Carpe diem.”