Thinking inside the (keepsake) box: Trulaske alumna sees big boom in her startup business

By Stephen Schmidt

By nature, Lindsay (Durbin) Mullenger, BS BA ’10, is usually risk averse. So it was very much an oddity when she decided to end her corporate career in the summer of 2021 to focus her attention on her startup online retail business, Petite Keep.

It was to be a side project for free time on nights and weekends. That changed, though, when she realized how much income and interest her business could draw in a relatively short amount of time.

"We realized there is a fit for this business,” said Mullenger, who runs Petite Keep out of her St. Louis-area home, not far from where she was raised. As a former military spouse, she is a seasoned veteran in working remotely, having done so in different capacities since 2013.

Established in January 2020, Petite Keep has emerged as a leader in the keepsake industry by offering personalized trunks, tuffets and other items that are meant to store mementos in an aesthetically pleasing and organized manner. The trunks, which can have initials embroidered into them, come in a variety of colors, but the most popular are the white and pink ones, Mullenger said.

After graduating from Trulaske, Mullenger spent a majority of her time working in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, in which she interacted with the buyers who represented large box stores, such as Costco, as a representative of Procter & Gamble. Connecting directly to the customers through her online business has opened a new portal of customer service to her.

"The direct-to-consumer space is a really special space, because you own that direct relationship with your customers,” she said. “I'm able to speak to my customers and hear why they're coming to us and why they're returning back to us.”

Usually, customers turn to Petite Keep for commemorating their major life events, such as weddings and births.

"Customers have brought us into some of the most important moments of their lives,” Mullenger said. “They're bringing us into these very pivotal moments, and we want to bring them solutions that deliver on those moments.”

Creating a solution

Mullenger first had the idea for what would transform into Petite Keep in 2018 when looking for a keepsake box for some items for her oldest daughter — she and her husband, Charles, now have three daughters — who was 18 months old at the time.

"I was looking for a nice keepsake box,” she said. “I'm not an overly sentimental person, but I do like to keep a couple nice things, and I like to have them organized in a place. I couldn't find anything that was elevated to the aesthetic I wanted for the room.”

With the support of her husband and the help of a local sewing expert, Mullenger created prototypes of the trunks that would become the company’s most popular items. Along with the help of her parents, Mike Durbin, BA ’82, and Dorothy “Dotti” (Heiman) Durbin, BS HES ’82, Mullenger and her husband fulfilled the orders until the end of 2020 from their collective homes before branching out to enlist the resources provided by a warehouse outside of the metro area.

The company produced six figures in revenue in 2020, and expected to experience a significant uptake in revenue and sales in 2021.

“We wanted to make sure that we could build out an operations team that would be able to support growth when we started driving demand,” she said.

From the beginning

Although Mullenger comes from “a family of Tigers,” including her parents and her younger brother, Nicholas Durbin BS ChE ’15,  she was not completely sold on being a legacy student at Mizzou until she met with Mary Beth Marrs, the director of the Cornell Leadership Program (CLP), during her senior year at Kirkwood High School.

At the time, the CLP was just getting off the ground, so Marrs could only sell Mullenger on the potential of what could happen — as Mullenger had one foot in the door of another university.

“It was in its inaugural year. She said what a boutique experience it would be within the business school,” Mullenger said of CLP. “ It really was. It was everything she told us it would be.”

Mullenger would go on to attend the first Tigers on Wall Street corporate trip in 2008, while looking to Marrs as a “strong female leader” and role model.

“She did it in a very approachable manner,” Mullenger said of Marrs. “I really looked up to her throughout the process."

“Lindsay had an insatiable curiosity about everything that was only matched by her optimism and determination,” Marrs said. “She is absolutely fearless, and was a joy to have in class. I am confident these attributes will ensure her success as an entrepreneur.”

Reflecting on her own memories of being a Mizzou student, Mullenger immediately thought about the special events that she shared with her sorority sisters at Gamma Phi Beta, where she served as house manager at one point.

She also conjured up the experiences of studying abroad in Sevilla, Spain, for a semester when she was a junior.

Still, she admitted that as a student she “didn't even touch the level of all the opportunities that were available,” which leads to a bit of advice to current students.

“Take classes you're interested in, but also don't put too much pressure on yourself to decide exactly what you want to do in those four years,” she said, “because there are a million ways and times and outlets on how to reinvent yourself."

And your company. Although she is not at the liberty of unveiling too many details, Mullenger said that ultimately it is the goal of Petite Keep “to be a keepsake destination,” by offering accessories that could easily accompany — and fit inside — the trunks and tuffets themselves.

"We want to build out other offerings for customers on the things they're looking for,” she said. “They've been very vocal in what they're looking for, so you'll see continued depth around the keepsake space."