In 2019 my university friends Dima and Dasha and I launched UTRO. The idea was mine. I'd been working at a clothing brand, so I knew how textiles and sewing work, and I saw a gap: people use bed linen every single day, yet nobody really pays attention to it. I wanted to make everyday comfort — simple, honest things with good quality and design that you end up appreciating at home. We set up production in Orenburg, where my partners lived, and I ran product, brand, website, and design from Saint Petersburg. UTRO is still going; I stepped away in 2025 to focus on Tray.
Product
It all came down to the fabric. Most competitors sold sateen, but we wanted something matte, dense, non-slippery, and breathable. We spent three months touching samples and finally found 100% cotton percale in Turkey. Shoppers knew it less than sateen, but it looks cozy even without ironing. We kept the colors solid so they wouldn't get old and would fit any interior. The basic set became the backbone of the brand and brought in most of the sales.
Made to size
Custom sizing became our signature. Usually that's tailor territory: slow, pricey, and lots of back-and-forth. We made any size at no extra cost, using the same process as standard sets. So customers didn't have to talk anything through with a manager, I came up with a calculator: enter the sheet, duvet cover, and pillowcase sizes and see the price right away. It was tailor-made, just streamlined and automated. The wide size range became one of the brand's key differentiators.
Brand and packaging
We changed the name three times before landing on UTRO (Russian for “morning”): short, simple, with the right vibe. We picked the logo out of about fifty options, going for something minimal that wouldn't age. I treated packaging as part of the product: the set comes in a branded tote you can later use for storing linen or grocery runs, the tote goes into a kraft box, and inside there's a care guide plus swatches of other colors so customers can see them in real life.
Website
We built the first site ourselves on a website builder and launched in fall 2019. The mistakes were classic: we crammed it with info that felt important to us, and the content was weak. Once the builder started holding growth back, I kicked off our own site together with a rebrand. A designer drew the concept under my direction, developers built it from my spec, and I made the calls on structure, design, and logic. In the cart, a set unfolds into the sheet, duvet cover, and pillowcases, each with its own size and quantity, and a progress bar shows how much is left until free shipping. The site became the brand's main sales channel.
Launch and growth
For the first few months we were getting just a handful of orders a month. We tried running ads ourselves, hiring targeting specialists, Yandex Direct, and influencer barter, and nothing paid off. Then in spring 2020 everything clicked: the season, the first reviews, and lockdown — offline stores closed and lots of online shops had their supply chains break. We kept sewing and shipping, and sales grew several times over. After that my partners opened their own workshop, the range expanded to throws, towels, and loungewear, and the brand grew into a stable business.
Where it ended up
Today UTRO has its own production and about fifteen categories of home textiles. UTRO got noticed beyond social media too: the brand was featured in a New Year segment on Channel One, Russia's main TV channel, where I was introduced as a co-founder. In 2024 I started Tray, a different format with a different range, and a year later I handed my UTRO responsibilities over to my partners to go all in on the new project. The main thing I took away: a brand holds up for years when you nail not just the product but how it's presented — how it looks, how it's packaged, and the site that sells it. At UTRO, that was exactly my side of things.
