HOW IT ALL BEGAN
This is a personal story from the Co-Founders, Karen and Sara. Slime came to us at a really difficult time of our lives. We were both dealing with loss and in mourning. Life was very stressful as it sometimes is. Karen’s friends Melissa and Mike visited her with their then ten-year-old daughter, Mattie. Mattie had ingredients to make slime with her. She thought she would be hanging out by herself and it turned out, it was Melissa and Mike who were left alone while Karen and Mattie slimed for hours.
“I felt like I was me at 8,” Karen remembers, “I loved slime the first time around, in the 70s, and this moment brought back my old childhood joy.” Karen grabbed Mattie as she was leaving and said,“Mattie! I had my first smile in over a year. I need more slime! Where do I get the good stuff!” That was the beginning of her addiction.
Sara and Karen started using slime as way of relieving stress. They would sit on the floor of Sara’s apartment, playing with Sara’s daughters, every weekend. “We knew we had to bring the magic and joy of what this was to the world,” Sara says.
They hit the slime trade show circuit and were taken by the open minded, inclusionary nature of the slime community. Thousands of slimes, brainstorms, and experiments later, they launched Sloomoo Institute, their happy place.
CO-FOUNDER
KAREN ROBINOVITZ
Karen Robinovitz is a media veteran who launched Digital Brand Architects (DBA), the first talent management agency for social media personalities. Largely credited for creating the social media influencer market, Karen has been listed as one of 80 Women of Power by Variety and Forbes has called her one of the best-branded women in social media.
Before DBA, she created integrated social media communications strategies for global brands such as Tiffany & Co., Tory Burch, Coach, and Estée Lauder Companies. She spent a decade as an accomplished journalist, contributing to the New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, and Marie Claire, amongst others, and was on-air talent on VH-1, E!, MTV and morning shows across the country. She has authored three books, all of which went into over seven printings, one of which was optioned by Walt Disney Productions for a feature film.
She turned to slime, her favorite toy as a four-year-old (when slime first launched as a consumer product), when she hung out with Mattie, her friend’s daughter in the summer of 2018 during a difficult time of her life, filled with grief and loss.
“When I made and played with slime with my friend’s 10 year-old, I was immediately brought back to a childhood happiness I hadn’t felt in a long time.” She and friend, now co-founder, Sara, began sliming together and the rest is history.
Karen is also an avid art lover and along with Sara, she is on the Board of Advisors of the Brooklyn Museum.
CO-FOUNDER
SARA SCHILLER
Sara Schiller is credited for re-inventing the “meetings business" with her company, Meet, which launched over a decade ago. With three curated venues, each filled with contemporary art, evocative design, and high technology, Meet revolutionized how corporations gather for offsite brainstorming sessions, focus groups, pitch meetings, and launches. Her clients ranged from global brands, from Chanel to LEGO.
Like her partner, Karen, Sara is an avid art collector and was behind the world’s largest blog dedicated to street art - Wooster Collective. In 2006, Sara and her husband opened a critically acclaimed street art pop up in Soho, 11 Spring. Together, the couple authored multiple books, including one of Taschen’s best sellers, “Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art.”
She previously worked for Starwood Hotels and earned her MBA from Stern School of Business. She is a slime-making mom to two girls, Sloomoo’s Chief Creative Kids.
In 2024, Sara (and Karen) were featured as number six on the prestigious INC Magazine Female Founders 250 list.
The duo still play with slime with Sara’s family!
FOUNDING PARTNER
TONI KO
Toni Ko is a serial entrepreneur with a track record in developing and building successful brands. At the age of 25, she founded her first company, NYX Cosmetics, which was acquired by L’Oreal in 2014. By the time of sale, NYX had a revenue growth of well over 100 million dollars and is currently available in thousands of retailers in over 70 countries. April 2016, she launched her second company, Thomas James LA, to fill the market need for accessibly priced, well-made sunglasses.
Toni has received numerous awards, including being honored at the National Women’s History Museum’s “WomenMaking History” brunch. She was named Entrepreneur of the Year by ABA, received the 2015 Leadership Award from NAWBO, and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Beauty Bus Foundation in 2013. She was featured on the cover of the Forbes annual “America’s Richest Self-Made Women” issue.
In 2014, she started the Toni Ko Foundation, where she lends support to organizations that help women and children. Toni is a member of the 2019 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. She lives in LA with her dog, Bruce, and pet chickens.