How Persistence and a Plan B Built a Multi-Million Dollar Business

Alexa Suter‘s journey to becoming an entrepreneur wasn’t driven by confidence so much as it was equal parts excitement and terror.

“I knew I was a creative. I knew that I wasn’t meant to fit in a square box,” she says. “But I was also afraid that I was unemployable. I didn’t think anyone would hire me.”

She wanted freedom and creativity but also looked at other people and thought they had it all together while she didn’t. So she tried to force herself into the box anyway.

At 20, she was at university while also working part-time at a real estate office. When the opportunity came to get her license, she left school.

At 21, with no contacts and no property of her own, she hustled, working open houses for free on weekends, knocking on doors, and eventually she joined a real estate team as a buyer’s agent.

Around the same time, Alexa was given a chance to become a freelance writer in the real estate space. A lover of the written word, she jumped at the chance and started doing both. She’d get to the office at 5 a.m. to write articles, then switch to selling real estate.

For all intents and purposes, Alexa appeared to be crushing it (“I was really successful”)… but something felt off. Her mind started to wander back to the idea of travel. (“It’s almost like I needed to prove to myself that I was unhappy in that role, not because I wasn’t succeeding, but because it just wasn’t for me.”)

So she quit and moved to Budapest.

For six months, Alexa lived in Hungary on a shoestring budget, writing blog posts for $10 per 500 words. She bought a sewing machine and started making clothes based on YouTube videos while learning photography and building her Instagram following on the side. By the time she returned to Vancouver, she had a portfolio of skills she could commercialize.

She started Studio Media, a digital marketing agency that eventually worked with brands like Jack Daniels, L’Oréal Professional, and Westin Hotels & Resorts.

“I think that’s where I really got my business 101 degree,” Alexa says. “Running marketing for lots of different businesses, having to understand how they operate, how they acquire customers, how it all works.”

She also signed up for a youth business program through the YMCA that offered $3,000 to participants who could write a business plan and bring it to life. Her idea focused on silk skirts.

“I published the e-commerce store and I got one order. I was ecstatic. And then I didn’t get anything for weeks and weeks. Every day I’d be checking, and just nothing,” she says.

“It was pretty heartbreaking because you put all of yourself into [an idea], and you have to be so vulnerable, showing up online and talking to everybody you know about what you’re doing. [A business failure] feels more public than you think it is. In your head you’re like, ‘oh my God, everybody knows,’ but really, nobody even cares.”

Once again, Alexa pivoted. She returned her focus to managing her marketing company and the increasing demand for her social media and photography skills. She was busy and once again thriving. But like her life in real estate, Alexa began to feel the itch to do more; she wanted to launch another product line. Only this time, she knew she’d do it differently.

She learned from past mistakes. (“I realized I rushed it. I didn’t validate the product. I didn’t listen enough to what people actually wanted,” she says. “And I put all my eggs in one basket, which meant when it didn’t work, I had 100 silk skirts and no plan B.”)

She did a lot of research. She started talking to potential customers. She looked for a problem to solve. That’s when she noticed the number of women complaining about their discomfort with conventional underwear, particularly irritation.

And that’s how Huha, a line of underwear made with natural, mineral-infused fabrics, was born.

It launched in May 2020 and on opening day, Alexa received 30 orders (“Imagine the excitement of cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching”), and the business grew from there. There was a viral TikTok video that brought thousands of orders in over one weekend. And then Dragon’s Den and an eventual partnership with Arlene Dickinson.

“Now we’re at this point where we’re really growing up as a business,” she says. “We have more support. We have a great board. We have great advisors. We have capital. We can be smart and strategic and sophisticated in this next chapter.”

People often ask Alexa where to start as an entrepreneur, and she gets it because starting anything is often the hardest part – especially if someone doesn’t have a business degree or know the right people.

Her advice? “Just start where you can because everybody’s journey looks very different. You don’t need to have a business degree. You just have to be willing to work and commit to continuous learning.”

She also pushes back on the advice to quit your job and go all in on one idea. “Don’t quit your job. Keep your job and start the thing, and work really, really hard for a while, but keep your options open because when you go all in on something and cut yourself off and burn bridges, then you’re so dependent on one thing working out. It works for some people, but I think for people like me, it doesn’t work because I always need to have a plan B.”

The other thing she’s learned is how to be comfortable with what she doesn’t know. “You need to have that internal trigger that goes, ‘hmm, I have a gap in understanding here,’ and then you need to find the experts, or find the information to help round that out.”

When Alexa was named a winner of the 2026 RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards, she says the recognition felt surreal. “I think my younger self would just not believe it. No matter the success I’ve had, I’m still the same person. I don’t forget where I come from. Even just sitting down for dinner with Arlene, I can’t even believe that. It’s a pinch me moment.”

What’s grounded her through all of it is realizing that everyone struggles with the same things. “Nobody is exempt from the confusingness of life, the tragedy of life. We’re all in it together, and even somebody who looks like they’ve got it all together, you sit down and have a conversation with them, and you realize, ‘oh, you struggle with the same things that I do.’ It’s really nice.”

As for what’s next? “The future excites me because anything is possible. Ten years ago, I was dreaming about where I am today, so now it’s about dreaming again, and where I want to be 10 years from now.”