Emma Xin Velicky | Source | Founder, CEO, sex educator at Saturday Box

For Emma Xin Velicky, founding Saturday Box represented the convergence of all her life experiences. The 26-year-old author, filmmaker, mobile game writer, and “sexpert” created the company to make it easier for couples to explore their sexual fantasies, something she had long grappled with as she came to terms with her own interest in kink.

Adopted from China into an evangelical Italian-American family, Emma grew up in a community where sex was only ever talked about as a bad thing to have before marriage. Her first stirrings of ‘kink’ came in the form of a recurring childhood dream about being kidnapped by Aladdin’s Jafar. For years, she struggled with what to do with these secret yearnings. In her community, she was branded a Jezebel long before she ever lost her virginity. As she moved away from the church, she began to experiment, but as a sexually submissive Asian woman, it was difficult to be true to herself without encouraging stereotypes. Even when she built up the courage to ask for what she wanted, most of her partners didn’t know how to provide it.

Graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in Computer Science and a minor in Creative Writing, she joined Microsoft as a product manager and published an historical BDSM novel Caribbean Reign on the side (available on Amazon.) Though the job was stifling, she was fortunate to meet her husband Alex in Seattle and embark on a new period of erotic exploration. In marriage, Emma’s kinkiness was able to bloom. With Alex, she felt safe to try new things and make mistakes. With his encouragement, she quit her tech job and devoted herself to creative pursuits, taking a job writing romance mobile games and completing a film program at University of Washington, producing two original romantic film shorts, Til Death and Weaponized Incompetence.

But as much as Emma loved telling stories, she felt called to narrow the gap between fiction and reality. As a "sexpert" to her friends, she knew that questions about "how to get started with kink" and "what to do after you've tied someone up" were more common than you might think. Emma began to explore a “wholesome” way for couples to turn toward each other and see the fantasy in the person sleeping next to them every night. There was an opening for a playful incarnation of kink that could help people love that part of themselves, while avoiding the common pitfalls of bedroom power dynamics.

Tinkering with this idea throughout the Dartmouth Alumni Consumer Startup Accelerator, she emerged the winner at the culminating pitch night. Three months later, in February, 2024, she launched the first Saturday Box adventure, and before the end of her first year in business, she’ll be launching a subscription so that couples can continue to invest in their intimacy. Says Emma, “Good intimacy is serious business– it keeps relationships alive.”