Sara and Erin Foster achieve success in fashion and film

Asking Sara and Erin Foster what they do for a living is a complicated question.

"I’m a podcaster, venture capitalist, producer and founder," Sara explains. "It’s going to sound like I’m bragging, but I spent way too many years dimming myself down, wishing I had something to talk about. So now I try to go, ‘No, we’ve done a lot.’"

The sisters are multi-hyphenates in every sense of the term, straddling disparate industries and projects, but ultimately nailing each endeavor, seamlessly adding it into their repertoire before embarking on the next.

As we connect for our interview over Zoom, Erin admits that she’s multitasking – a common occurrence, given how many projects are on her plate at any given time.

"I didn’t want to alarm you, but I have foils in my hair and I’m breastfeeding," the new parent to daughter Noa tells The CEO Magazine. "Listen, this is what CEOs have to do right? There’s a quote, ‘If you want to get something done, ask a busy mom.’"

The daily juggle

The juggle between the personal and professional is something that both Erin and Sara – who also has two daughters, Valentina and Josephine – are constantly navigating.

"There’s no perfect way to do it," Erin, 41, concedes. "It’s about knowing there are going to be times you disappoint the people you work with, and times you disappoint your kids."

But, as 43-year-old Sara adds, she’s also proud to model being a working mom and all that entails – the good and the tough – to her children.

"Our daughters are watching, and they’re proud of us," she says. "They see that we work hard and what we create from thin air."

Growing up in Los Angeles, Sara and Erin had creativity in their blood. Their father, David Foster, is a 16-time Grammy-winning music producer and their mother, Rebecca Dyer, a successful model. As a result, Sara and Erin spent their childhoods rubbing shoulders with A-listers, but were always encouraged to work hard and earn their keep.

"We had two parents who really tried to shield us from becoming Hollywood kids. There were no DUIs, teenage pregnancies or rehab," Erin says.

"We stayed out of trouble and were able to focus on trying to turn into responsible adults. I think for a long time we tried to hide from our upbringing and not draw attention to it."

Art imitating life

That all changed in 2015, however, when the sisters joined forces professionally for the first time.

"We were both in the entertainment business," Sara says, who started modeling at 16 and went on to pursue acting.

"Erin was writing on a Ryan Murphy show and I was acting on a TV show, and we were both thinking about what was next," she recalls. "I don’t want to speak for Erin, but I think maybe we were not feeling 100 percent fulfilled."

The result was the creation of a satire mockumentary series called Barely Famous, which saw Sara and Erin play versions of themselves in a reality TV send-up reminiscent of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

"At the end of the day, you can try your hardest to manage the optics around you, but sometimes you just have to accept the truth, lean in, take full advantage of it and be able to control the joke instead of being the butt of the joke," Erin says. "And that’s really what that show was for us."

The series was a runaway hit, and in many ways solidified the personal brand of the Foster sisters – one of self-deprecating humor, razor-sharp wit and unbridled honesty.

Big bumble business

Since then, they have amassed a loyal legion of fans across multiple platforms who are drawn to Sara and Erin’s candid and authentic style.

It was also noticed by Founder of female-centric dating app Bumble, Whitney Wolfe Herd. She appeared on a panel with the sisters, and was instantly impressed by their charisma, chemistry and clever approach to doing business.

So when Wolfe Herd was looking to launch Bumble BFF, designed to foster new female friendships, and Bumble Buzz, for professional networking, she knew exactly whose help she wanted to enlist.

"She was like, ‘You guys are perfect – you can creative direct, help with marketing, show up to events, talk to women, normalize and destigmatize meeting a friend or coworker on an app,’" Sara says.

"I didn’t think we could do it. I said to Erin, ‘We are finally, after all of these years, being taken seriously as comedic actresses and writers, and now we’re going to take this corporate position?’"

The next three years, from 2017 to 2020, as Bumble’s Co-Heads of Creative, saw both commercial success for the business, as well as huge professional growth for the sisters in an industry previously foreign to them.

"Whitney was instrumental in telling us that there’s no reason why you can’t do it," Erin explains.

Foray into fashion

Then, in 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, another opportunity presented itself. After creating a sell-out capsule collection with T-shirt company SubUrban Riot in 2018, which saw the slogan ‘Favorite Daughter’ emblazoned across hoodies and tees, Sara and Erin were approach by Centric Brands with a proposal.

"They reached out about starting a fashion brand around the name Favorite Daughter," Erin recalls. "When you ask what I’m most proud of, it’s partnering with the right people and knowing when to not be greedy and think that you can do everything, because we could not run Favorite Daughter alone."

Boasting polished basics and elevated classics with an emphasis on high-quality materials and tailoring but at a mid-range price point, the brand crucially fills a necessary gap in an oversaturated market.

With a range of apparel spanning shirts and blazers, summer dresses and jeans, over the past four years Favorite Daughter has become a go-to label for influencers and celebrities alike. Kate Bosworth, Gigi Hadid, Jennifer Aniston and Olivia Palermo are all regularly photographed wearing the designs.

The sisters explain that the initial inspiration came from feeling like relative outsiders among the fashion pack that they were socializing with. They were determined to create pieces that looked and felt like luxury designer clothing, but without the exclusionary price tag. Today, that mission remains the same.

"High fashion women who are buying Celine trousers are buying Favorite Daughter trousers, too," Sara says. "So that’s the greatest compliment."

Erin adds: "The intention when you start a business shouldn’t change. Because regardless of the changes in our lives, we still continue to be people who don’t want to spend $2,000 on a pair of pants. I don’t care how much money I have, I will never – and you shouldn’t have to!"

That end goal is clearly paying off, with Favorite Daughter looking to make upwards of US$50 million in 2024. Nordstrom, the brand’s first retail partner, now stocks their collections in 40 locations, and online distributors include fashion giants Moda Operandi, Shopbop and Revolve, with a 40/60 split between wholesale and direct-to-consumer.

Continued expansion and diversification of the brand is on the cards, too, given the concept of Favorite Daughter is ‘limitless’, according to Sara.

"The name lends itself to every category," she says. "Accessories is going to be the next area that we really push."

Pop-culture productions

Engaging their audience in yet another way (and on yet another platform), Sara and Erin launched The World’s First Podcast in 2021.

With guests including actors such as Courteney Cox, as well as business founders and health and relationship experts, no topic – even sex, infertility, birth and burnout – is off-limits, with Erin and Sara directing open conversations and sharing stories from their personal lives.

While it could be confronting to be vulnerable in such a public domain, the sisters instead see it as an opportunity to connect on a deeper level with their audience.

"Our social media is tongue in cheek, Barely Famous was scripted," Sara says. "Whereas the podcast … we’re very much ourselves on there."

In a return to the small screen, the Foster sisters have also created the recently released Netflix series Nobody Wants This. With Sara as Executive Producer and Erin as Creator, Writer and Showrunner, the clever rom-com has truly been a labor of love for both sisters.

"It was an idea that we sold four years ago, inspired by me converting to Judaism when I met [my husband] Simon," Erin explains.

"It’s really common to develop something and it go nowhere, so for this to be something that we were able to get Kristen Bell and Adam Brody to star in and have Netflix pick it up for 10 episodes … I don’t know how we got this lucky, but it has been awesome."

Doing things differently

Last year, perhaps as a by-product of cutting their teeth in the corporate world at Bumble, Sara and Erin created Oversubscribed Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to raising funds for brands that resonate with the sisters.

"We didn’t sit down and go, ‘Oh, let’s be venture capitalists,’" Sara admits. "Really, we had a problem – that we did not have enough capital [while angel investing] to write checks into allocations we were getting.

"The solution was to raise money. So now we’re in a position where we can write meaningful checks and have real ownership in these businesses."

In the same way that their podcast offers advice to their listeners and Oversubscribed Ventures provides tangible financial help for startups, Sara and Erin are huge advocates for supporting new creators and founders, and perhaps inspiring those who might be doing things a little differently from their peers.

"I used to feel self-conscious when friends who were in a corporate job would say, ‘Well, what’s your 10-year plan? Whose career do you want to mimic yours after?’" Erin says. "And I felt like I was messing up because I didn’t know. So I used to think, ‘Oh, maybe I’m aimless.’

"But the truth is, I didn’t see just one thing that I was trying to aim toward. I was trying to not put those limitations on myself. And that ended up working out, because I feel so inspired by all of the different businesses that we’re involved in."

A beautiful chaos

While Sara confesses in her characteristically frank way that she experiences imposter syndrome every single day, she is increasingly learning to celebrate the wins.

"I feel really proud that we’ve cultivated an audience of women who trust us," Sara says. "That trickles into all of it. They want our advice on how to dress, they want our advice on the podcast on how to be a better person, on all these things. I think it’s an overarching concept that I’m the most proud of."

And of the unique path they’ve carved out, and the diverse portfolio of projects they have put their names to, Erin is clear that even if life feels chaotic, that’s precisely the way they both like it.

"Sometimes I’m pulled in so many different directions that I feel like I’m going to lose my mind, and that I’m doing a bad job at all of them," she says.

"Then other days it feels so exciting. This morning we had a breakfast meeting for our fund, then came home and did a podcast episode about ‘love bombing’. Now we’re sitting here doing an interview while I get my highlights done. What a great day."