By the time Jenni Lee was in high school, she knew she was destined to become an entrepreneur. “I remember telling my mother I wanted to be the Asian Martha Stewart,” she says with a big laugh. “I didn’t bake or anything, but I saw Martha’s face everywhere—on bedding, on cleaning products, on the cover of her own magazine. I was like, ‘Why not me?’ ”

The Arizona native set forth to figure out how. Only a few years out of college, she found a foothold in the start-up world, as one of the first employees of Harry’s, the direct-to-consumer shaving company. While working on the company’s marketing team and learning the ins and outs of launching a business, Lee dreamed of finding her own category to disrupt. It occurred to her that women’s socks could benefit from a little shaking up. Not pleased with the options on the market—the athletic and stocking pads on offer were not chic enough— she often resorted to buying men’s dress socks. Last year she launched Comme Si, a direct-to-consumer purveyor of lovely, ultra-luxurious Italian-made socks, with an array of covetable colors available in Egyptian cotton, cashmere, silk, and Merino wool. Less foot coverings than they are foot candy, Lee’s designs pair beautifully with high heels and clogs, and have strong fan bases in coastal cities as well as enclaves of New Mexico. “I can absolutely picture my customers there,” she says. “They’re strong, awesome women who make art and wear cool caftans.”

Initially working out of her Fort Greene apartment, she has moved operations to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in an industrial high-ceilinged co-working space that her tiny team (including her husband Tyler Sgro, whom she met at Harry’s) shares with a filmmaker and a creative branding group. Sgro has a background in finance, but he cedes all the credit to Lee. “She’s the creative but she’s doing the coding, marketing, fundraising,” he says. Indeed, the morning we visited Lee at her light-soaked studio, she had been up until 1 a.m. coding an email. You wouldn’t have known it to watch her, though, as she animatedly volleyed back and forth about start-up life and sock flair.

Most days to work I wear…

Cashmere sweater with jeans (sometimes leggings or cashmere sweatpants).

My breakfast of champions is…

Coffee and bacon egg and cheese on an onion bagel.

The best work lunches are…

Eaten outside or facing a window in direct sunlight.

My guilty procrastination is…

Watching music videos and movie trailers. There’s something weirdly satisfying about watching things that complete in a matter of minutes.

My work wives are…

The Chain Gang. It’s a group of women who have all at one point worked together over the last 10 years. We’re all on a text chain (hence the name “Chain Gang”), and we all work in brand/marketing/comms, so they’re my go-to for all questions whether it’s work-related or not (most of the time, not)

I chose the name Comme Si for my company because…

It’s a commonly used conjunction in French that means “as though, as if, like”. Conjunctions are like the glue that holds sentences together, and socks are like the glue that pulls an outfit together.

The hardest thing about running a company is… feeling isolated. Real talk – being an entrepreneur can be lonely at times. It’s important to surround yourself with people you trust implicitly and to remember to ask for help.

When I need design inspiration I like to…

Go to a museum. Seeing art and learning about the people who created it thousands of years ago is simultaneously humbling and inspiring.

My three favorite Instagram accounts to get inspiration from are…

@doan_ly, @tmagazine, @17.21women.

Socks are fun to think about because…

Most people wear them every day, but not enough people really think about them – how they look, what they’re made of, how they make you feel. I want people to appreciate and consider socks as they would anything else they put on. It can really upgrade your outfit.

A fancy foot is….

Deserving of fancy socks.

The most misunderstood thing about socks is…

That they should be cheap (it means they’re cheaply made).

The best piece of “sock flair” advice I’ve ever received or given is…

Try wearing a bold colored sock with a neutral or monotone outfit.

Before I started Comme Si I worked as…

The head of marketing for Harry’s, a men’s grooming brand.

I’m proud to be a female entrepreneur because as a group we…

Are inspiring the next generation of women to become entrepreneurs.

I knew I wanted to launch my own business when…

I was in high school. I used to tell my mom I would be the “next Martha Stewart”

Growing up I wanted to become a…

Neurosurgeon. It’s true! I spent summers interning at a brain research laboratory.

My best work gets done when…

I’ve had a cup of coffee, been outside, and worked out.

If I weren’t a designer I would be…

Thinking of a new business idea.

The tools I can’t live without are…

My Hay scissors, my pen, my Zojishuri coffee mug. I drink a lot of coffee.

My advice to entrepreneurs…

You should go for it! Also, ask people you admire to meet with you and give you advice. People are very generous with their time.

The words I’d use to describe my office…

Bright, raw, creative, warm, second home.

The woman who inspires me to embrace ambition is…

My mom. She sacrificed her own ambitions and moved to a new country so that her daughter could have more ambition, and fully embrace it.

I embrace ambition by…

Not feeling guilty about being ambitious.

We at Tory Daily are inspired by smart, passionate women who #EmbraceAmbition and find ways to make their communities stronger. For information on the Tory Burch Foundation, which empowers women entrepreneurs to #EmbraceAmbition, click here.