Published on Show Me Mizzou April 24, 2025
Story by Mara Reinstein, BJ ’98
Lindsay Mullenger turned a personalized trunk into a multimillion-dollar business.
Mullenger, BS BA ’10, founded Petite Keep, an online retailer specializing in custom-made, hand-crafted chests to store sentimental mementos from weddings, births and other major milestones. In more than 5 years, she’s grown her startup from a buzzy social media curiosity to a $10 million-a-year powerhouse.
Mullenger also has lured in some big fish along the way. On January 24, she appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank and secured a rare three-person investment from Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran and Jamie Kern Lima.
“I am obsessed about the business,” Mullenger says from her home in suburban St. Louis. “I feel so strongly about what we’re doing and the pure joy that we’re bringing to people’s celebrations. We’re a part of the highest moments of their lives, and that’s so fun.” The married mother of five adds that the company “is my sixth baby.”
In 2018, pregnant with her second daughter, Mullenger struggled to find a personalized keepsake box. “I talked to my friends across the country, and no one had a great solution,” she says.
The entrepreneurship skills she honed at Mizzou’s Robert J. Trulaske, Sr. College of Business kicked in. Despite working full time at Procter & Gamble with little product development experience, she poured her energy into Petite Keep. “It was like a Rubik’s Cube trying to figure everything out,” she says. “I listened to a lot of business podcasts and did a lot of Googling.” She also happened to launch at the start of the pandemic in early 2020. She benefited from customers craving new at-home to-dos that led them to discover her colorful trunks on Instagram.
In those early days, Mullenger and her husband set up shop in the attic and worked nights and weekends. She got help from her parents: Her mother, Dotti (Heiman) Durbin, BS HES ’82, wrote every gift card, while her father, Mike Durbin, BA ’82, handled packing and shipping. “It was a very bare-bones endeavor before it grew,” Dotti says. In just one year, the company produced six figures in revenue.
Mullenger first applied for Shark Tank a few years ago and waited it out until she got the call. She taped last September. “I was really nervous, but I realized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” she says. A confidentiality agreement precludes her from sharing details, but viewers surely made note of her moxie. She negotiated for 15% of her company in exchange for $400,000 — and she made an enthusiastic plug for her education at Mizzou. “I’m so happy it wasn’t edited out!” she says. While at Trulaske, Mullenger was accepted into the Cornell Leadership Program and attended its first Tigers on Wall Street corporate trip in 2008. “It was an incredible experience because I saw a window to the world,” she says. The program also “had an emphasis on leadership, which I have definitely taken with me.”
She currently runs Petite Keep out of a warehouse in St. Louis. Teams across the country take on the fabric and sewing responsibilities. With her parents no longer serving as makeshift employees, they can marvel at her accomplishments. “We always had confidence in her,” Mike Durbin says, “and knew that whatever she did, she was going to make it a major success.”
Indeed, Mullenger encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to go for it. “A lot of people told me that it was crazy to start a business when I was building a family and had a steady career,” she says, “But there’s never going to be a better time than right now.”
To read more articles like this, become a Mizzou Alumni Association member and receive MIZZOU magazine in your mailbox. Click here to join.
