Gwyneth Paltrow
Appearances
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
A long journey of trying to figure it out. And then I started to coalesce around like, I think our unique proposition, which is to curate, that clean beauty was super important to us. We were so early in that space. And at that point, we were curating other people's products before we started to make our own. There was really no more aspirational, efficacious, truly clean, clean beauty.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So we were like, okay, well, we'll make it. Mm-hmm. But the reason why we started to raise money, essentially, was because my biggest investor, he invested in another company. And they were at their board meeting. And they were reviewing the numbers early in the quarter. All of a sudden, say it was customers down here, the customer acquisition count jumped way up.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And then for the rest of the quarter, it was like a really high quality customer. I really, you know, they had come back and back. There was a great LTV. And so your cohorts were banging or they were banging in the other business. They were banging the other business. Got it. Got it. And my investor said, what happened on this day? And they said, we were on this thing called Goop.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
bad thing to happen to him. He's seeing it somewhere else. You didn't even need to tell him. So he called me actually. And that's how I, that's how I first took venture money and how I started to put the plan together of how we were going to do this and create a business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
We had an interim CEO when I was kind of learning. And so, which was really helpful because she kind of, you know, I still have a really hard time asking for money. You do? I do. I don't like fundraising. Really? I don't like it. I just don't, I just don't like it. I just, you are kidding.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Oh, I guess idiocy, naivete. I mean, foolhardiness. I was so lucky to have the acting career that I had. You know, my mom is an incredible actress. My dad made TV shows, so I grew up very much in it. And my mom, when she was on stage, she was like the most whole, synthesized, like a live version of herself. And so I wanted to do that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think, and you know, I think also because when I went out and started doing it on my own, I think it wasn't, it's very, as you know, I mean, maybe not for you, but it was really hard. You know, it was hard to raise money. I think a lot of people took the meeting because their wife was a fan. They wanted a selfie. And they wanted to see you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
They wanted to see me and they weren't serious about the business. And I had so many no's.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
at first I was like, oh, they're so nice. They're going to write you. And then I was like, oh, this is just a selfie meeting. This is a selfie meeting. Fair enough. That's like very, very difficult.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Well, I'm still waiting for that to happen, but more about that later. But, but yes, I mean, I, I, I started to feel that you know, what we were doing also had, like, I think our values are and were so strong. I really believed in what we were doing.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I really believe in, you know, not only clean beauty and clean products, but this idea of like being of service to busy working mothers who want the kind of the best of the best quickly. They want to know how to optimize themselves. They want to know how I'm optimizing myself. You know, they want access to good information. good recipes, like they don't want to waste any time.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I love providing that. As I said, like when I started, that's who I always have been to my friends. And I love being that for the women in the goob community and the men too, you know? So I thought it was a very worthwhile pursuit. And also it's, It's really fun to sort of, you know, when you're an actor, you're kind of waiting for someone to give you a job.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like, you can't really express yourself, you know? It's like, if you're a musician, you can pick up a guitar. If you're a writer, you can sit down and write. But when you're an actor, like, what are you going to do? Go in there and, like, do a monologue in the mirror, you know? No. And it's very frustrating. I never thought about that. It's like you don't have agency.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I think this is why a lot of actors are drawn to become entrepreneurs because it's kind of like a twin spirit, but you can actually execute on something that you can ideate, you can execute, you can put it into the world. It's yours. And it feels like, but it does have that artistic streak running through it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So in the early days, it was really hard. It was really hurtful because, you know, it was coming from the best possible place. And, you know, and also to be honest, I have always been really ahead of the curve. So I would talk about something, write about something, and people would freak the fuck out. And then, and now they're like,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
multiple, you know, it's like, I remember when I wrote my cookbook called It's All Good. And it was because my son had really bad eczema and the pediatrician said, you know, you got to cut out gluten and dairy and sugar. I was like with a toddler, like how? And so I did this book and there was, you know, one headline that somebody should call social services on me, like that kind of thing.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You know, I wanted to be on stage and feel like that power that she was kind of radiating. And I had my heart set on that path and I never really even thought about anything else. I was like, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to do. And I did it. I had a lot of success. I wasn't good at saying no. So I was doing like three movies a year, five movies a year.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And now of course, like gluten-free is like a trillion dollar industry. So But what started to happen was by pattern recognition, I could say, okay, I'm going to say something. I'm going to talk about how I'm addressing an issue, whether it's divorce, whether it's trying to get my kid off gluten for a time being, whatever. And everyone's going to freak out. And then everybody's going to adopt it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And so I, you know, I think I was able to get that perspective, but it didn't mean that it didn't hurt. I mean, luckily it's like all that stuff always does drive traffic to the site. Thank goodness. And one time I did, you know, like a sort of sentiment thing.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And even when, even like if people were like, oh, we don't like Goop this week because like she did some, said something crazy or we don't, you know, it always went up and to the right.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
really suffering, right? I'm getting a divorce. I'm getting separated. I have little kids. And I really believed in what we were doing. It's basically that all started because you know, it was so me, the way I got divorced, I was like, okay, like what is the best way to do this? Like, let me go gather data from everyone who was raised in a divorced family.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And figure out what is the way to optimize for this situation. What is the way to optimize this? It's not what I want. You know, we all want to like be married to the parent forever. Of course. So I was like, how should I do this? And I actually talked to a lot of people who were children of divorce. And the common denominator, what everybody said, it wasn't that their parents got a divorce.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
It was that their parents, it's that a dad would drop them off the end of the driveway and be like, I'll see you next week. I don't want to see your mother. It's that the mother would roll her eyes or say something bad about the father. And that was what had hurt the kids and caused the trauma.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
It's really nice. And it wasn't easy to do. It definitely took a lot of work, but I remember at some point, the therapist that we were working with kind of was talking us through something and I had a penny drop and I thought, you know, we're not a couple anymore, but we're a family. We are a family and we're going to be a family forever.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And let's figure out how to be a family without being a couple. And so that's sort of how it all came about.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I really kind of burnt out. And also it was at a time, I think, I hope Hollywood's a bit better now, but it was a bit you know, sort of sexist culture in certain respects. And I don't know, it's just, I had my daughter and I was just like, I think I need to not do this right now. Like I need a break. I need to put this down. I want to be home.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I don't think about resiliency. I was raised to be resilient. Right. My father really made me stand on my own two feet as a kid. You know, I think the ways in which, you know, we all grew up in a time where, you know, as we were talking about before, it was different, right? And so I think we all had some degrees of adversity in our households, which made us resilient.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Then I chose acting, which is like 7,000 no's. You're not good enough. You're not pretty enough. You're not this. You're not that. And just kept going. And I think it's because it's almost like if you are holding your future...
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
and you believe, like you can see it and you know that it's yours and it's for you and it's coming, you have no choice but to get up and just keep going, keep trying, you know, looking at something differently. What am I doing wrong? Why did I get this hit? Like, is there a better way I can say this or do this? And it's been like one long exercise in resiliency, I think. And I never give up.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I never quit. Like, I think part of that is really intrinsic to me. Like, There are certain circumstances that I've been in where I feel like, you know, it probably would be a lot easier to bow out of this because that's just not me. I'm like one of those things, you know, you punch and they pop back up.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yes. Multiple. Yeah. Multiple moments. I mean, I really thought when COVID happened that we were going to go out of business. Same. Same. I had one sort of period in our history where I had the wrong team and they were not some of them were not putting the goop business first and it almost all fell apart, like in a terrible way. People that you trusted? People that I trusted. I was like, I'm done.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I can't do it. Then I had, all of our money was in a bank that collapsed a couple of years ago. Oh. Remember that? Yeah. Remember that? That little thing. I was like, Okay. Like there have been so many, you know, even, and then even sometimes I think because it compounds, right?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And it's like, sometimes I've had days like that where, you know, I don't know, they change the Facebook algorithm and you can't like get a customer. You're like, what? And you're like, I quit. I just can't do this anymore. I don't know how to make it work anymore. I don't know how. I can't scale this business if they keep changing the algorithm, you know? So, so, so, so, so it's just like,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think it does wear you down. Yes. And some events feel catastrophic, like a bank collapse or when you are like, am I going to make payroll or not? And some of them feel small, but... I think I have them all the time. I think all founders have them all the time.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And at a certain point for me anyway, I was like, when I gave myself permission to let it collapse, I was like, because that was the thing I was holding against myself. Like, if this doesn't work, I am a failure. I am a bad person. Like I am not worth it. And I sort of had to go through the exercise of like, if it fails, I will be okay. Yes. It will fail. It fails.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I will still wake up in the morning. Yes. Like I thought I had conflated it. I thought like, if it fails, I die. I fail.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Luckily I could afford to take a break and not go back to work. And I just kind of took three years and had my kids. And I really started to question why I had decided to act. Did I really want to? Did I still love it? It was like a lot. I kind of gave myself the space to examine it and reflect. And I was like, I just don't know how I feel about it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Right.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You're right.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I mean, it's incredible.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think it does change because now I think what happens is like, I now have the experience and I have, you know, all of the Dharma, all of the work I've put in and I, I keep somehow making it through and I keep getting to new milestones and like, I'm not where I want to be yet, but like, it's been a lot, it's 17 years of this, you know, like,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
even though it wasn't a company at first, but sending out this newsletter. It'll be 17 years. Did you ever think when you started that 17 years later, you'd still be doing this? Never. Never. I just can't imagine. And I still love it. You do? I still love it. I love that you still love it. I love it. It's so hard, but it's so rewarding. And I love the people that I work with.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I've learned so much. Like, That's the beautiful thing about being a founder and an entrepreneur. Like, I don't think you ever learn as much about who you actually are and what you're made of, maybe in your marriage. But those are like, for me anyway, those are the two most revelatory roles I've had in terms of like getting close to myself and understanding myself.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I just wanted that. Yeah. I mean, both. On the way in this morning, I talked to my brother for an hour in the car. I'm very, very close with my family, my friends I've had. My best friend, Mary, we've been best friends since we were four years old. I have people around me who... really have my best interest at heart, my husband, who is so brilliant and he's such a beautiful observer of behavior.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And he asks me questions in such a beautiful way, but that hold me accountable or that asked me to hold myself accountable for things. So I think I've never, I'm really lucky because it's never been my instinct to surround myself with yes people, because I see that a lot. You must. Yeah. And I have never found that interesting.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Not everybody has that. That is hard. And I think, but I approach it like, I am an extremely collaborative leader. And I think sometimes it's actually been to the detriment of the business. And so my work is more around that. being decisive and, and feeling like it's okay if someone disagrees with me, this is what my instinct is telling me. And this is what we're going to do.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like, that's my lesson more than I need to hear the hard truth. You know what I mean? Yes. So that's really what I say is final. And I'm going in that direction. It's so hard for me, Emma. Is it really? No. I want consensus. I want everyone to feel aligned. And I know. That is not what we think about you. I'm going to have to. That is not how I do it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And at the same time, I had been doing movies all over and I had always had this incredible curiosity when I was, you know, filming in Naples or Paris or Toronto, like, where do I go? And this is pre-internet, right? So like, where's the best pizza? Like, is there a good, you know, pajama store? Like, where are all the cool kids going? And there was like no way to find that information.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
But when you've raised money, right, and you're trying to follow the data, you make, you can make data-driven decisions. Like people are coming to you and saying the data is showing us X and you feel that instinctually, why, right? And you're like, okay, I really think we should do this. But like- Give me an example.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
When has this happened to you and you're just like, oh, I can't like- Take the vibrator that we made, right? I remember it. I own it. Okay, fantastic. So this was like, theoretically, a risky product to make. Why would we do that? Look at our customer cohorts. They're into beauty and fashion. Like, why are we going to make something like this?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
We had certain products and wellness that were not our strongest products because, you know, also in retrospect, like I'm not a doctor, I'm not a nutritionist. Like I may think I am, but like... And I may have researched things to that point of being a nutritionist, but I'm not, right? So why is somebody maybe going to buy an ingestible from us more than from a doctor, right?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So certain categories, they had their really loyal people, but it was hard to really acquire customers. Also, the margins and wellness were terrible, so we couldn't really promote them properly. You know how that goes, right? But I felt really strongly that the vibrator was not only a wellness product, it was a movement.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And that until we did our vibrator, sexual wellness products were not on shelves from reputable sources, right? It was like the sex shop on the corner, some gross, right? And it was like, to me, it was like, this is a real statement around the fact that women deserve to not feel shame about their sexuality. Like pleasure is great.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You know, especially if you're like a hard charging corporate woman, like you have to need that. Right. So it was like, should we, you know, I don't know, you know, the sort of customer data shows that maybe that's not the right, you know, and we did it and it was super successful. And it was, I think,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
we started a really important conversation and now like there are vibrators in Bloomingdale's and that merchant says, thank you to me for that, you know? Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yeah, so I think like for the first few years, it was very exploratory. It was kind of like, do we have the latitude to go into this vertical and do it? And certain things worked better than other things. And I think kind of over time- you know, even, even just understanding, like really looking at the data and understanding, like our customer really wants to read what we write.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
There was no like aggregation of information. you know, tips that were resonant for me. And so I would, I would always take notes and I would ask like the cool makeup girls, like what, what bars do you go to? And like, even in Paris, sometimes if there was a really cool looking person, I would stop them on the street and be like, can you give me like your five best Paris things? So,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
They really love our fashion point of view and they really love our beauty point of view. And so until we have so much cash on the balance sheet that we can experiment again, like let's really focus on those three things and on our food vertical, which has been an incredible success for us. This is a food off Oh, good. Oh, I'm telling you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yeah. So very strong in beauty and fashion. That and the food, of course. So we're really like strengthening our strengths. Our beauty business grew 40% last year. Well, it won't grow that as much this year. So don't worry. The economy is not working in my favor. That is the new growth.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Okay. You tell them MSH. I'm going to write that down. And our G-label business grew 50% last year. That's incredible. So we really just want to focus on those things. And also I'm always refining, you know, it's like we've had this great multifashion business, but, you know, as we continue to invest, it's like those, that's a hard business, that marketplace, you know? It's It's so hard.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I mean, I... own it and I pivot. Like, you know, take the multi-brand fashion business, for example. Like, that's how we started. And it's sort of like, you look at a business like that and you're like, okay, well, we're not losing money on the business. Like, there is EBITDA in the business, but is that really the goop of the future? Like...
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Or is there a better way to showcase other brands or the curation which people rely on us for without me buying the inventory, putting it in the warehouse, fulfilling it, dealing with returns, and all the things that are going to erode that already pretty narrow margin? Yes. So I think I'm constantly trying to think about ways to make the business...
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
more profitable and really to lean into what the, like, I'm trying to read the tea leaves of like, what is the customer trying to tell me with her behavior? Like, I know she loves the multi fashion, but is there a way for me to do that in a way that actually strengthens the business? And so that's like, that's something that I'm focusing on a lot right now.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I kept these reams of information. And then at the same time, because I was acting and I earned money before my friends and I bought a house before my friends, I learned to cook before my friends. And I learned to like pick out wallpaper before my friends. So my friends would be like, how do I roast a chicken? Or like, where can I go buy wallpaper? And were you that person at that time?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Right. Especially the way that I've always done it, which is, You know, I was joking with this friend of mine the other day of a celebrity who has a great business and like she just stuck her name. You know, I'm the idiot that's like building brick by brick and trying to find a co-man somewhere and like source raw materials. Like what kind of a moron?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like I did it like the hardest, longest way, you know? And so- Do you regret that? No, I don't.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I don't.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Some really good shit. Right?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yes. And I take that so seriously. And I don't release anything unless... it is the best possible product that I can release. Like I'm relentless. I'm a psycho perfectionist about product. And if you've surrounded yourself with psycho perfectionists. Yeah, I have. I have. I really have. Like, especially, and more and more as we've kind of grown up into a proper company, like
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You need to hire people, I think, who are holding everybody to the same standard as you're holding things. It's like if a fabric is not good enough, they need to feel it and touch it and send it back, right? And that's really what gives me leverage too, is having people who have a high bar for excellence.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I've made so many mistakes and, you know, so many of the mistakes are also like, um, not questioning, you know, especially because I felt like I didn't, I didn't finish, I didn't finish college, let alone go to business school. Like I didn't grow up in a corporate environment.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like, I don't think you ever learn as much about who you actually are and what you're made of.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So a lot of my mistakes were around trusting people who were like, just trust me, not doing my own diligence, you know, to creating the wrong products, to, um, you know, like spending a ton of time on money and money on something that doesn't work. And I think we've had to, you just have to be graceful and admit defeat and refocus.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I was always that person. So finally I was like, maybe I should just like put all this in a website, you know, that was like very new. Right. On the internet. And that was sort of like, that's how basic it was and how heartfelt.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And, but, you know, you just touched on something like when I've had to do reductions in force, that's the hardest thing for me. And- One of my friends works at Goldman Sachs and just every year they just cut the bottom 10%. Just cut. Just cut. Yeah. As a matter of excellence, right?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
They do it everywhere.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I think as women, we struggle to do that. I also think that when we do that, you know, it becomes a much more interesting story in the news than when men do that. Like, I don't read these stories about Google cutting, you know, doing their, you know what I mean? Never. Right.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And they do it all the time.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
No, they don't.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You know, now I feel like I've gotten more clinical about it. You know, it's like, I think it's great to try. I think it's great to take risks. And sometimes the product market fit is just not there. Yeah. And it's not your fault, you know? Or sometimes maybe it could have been there, but you don't have the budget to, you know, like pour tens of millions of dollars into marketing something.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And so you just sort of, have to let it go. And I think it's important to admit defeat early. Like that's something that I've learned too. It's like, if it doesn't, if it's not working, let it go.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
It doesn't get better later.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
That is it. You're in the office all the time. That is it. Well, now I live in Santa Barbara, so I'm here less, but I'm here a lot.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I've been CEO, I think since 2016. So it's been a while. I really do love it. I think I have dreams of like going back to being founder, you know, and having somebody else, especially the parts that are harder for me. Yeah. Like anything that requires math or an Excel spreadsheet. Um, I love the strategy piece. Um, but like, do I need to spend time on logistics and fulfillment?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like I'm getting to the point where I'm like, you know, maybe somebody else, you know, should do that. No doubt. Maybe somebody else should do that. And maybe the business would be, you know, would find like, I don't know, new life if, if, I don't know.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And then I think I had a secret. I was harboring like a secret desire that maybe I could turn it into a business at some point. But of course, I didn't have the authority. I didn't know how. So I just thought, you know, I'll just, this is like, I have such a passion for me. I'm just going to do this. And then I'll see maybe if anything comes out of it at some point in the future.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think that's why I didn't name it Gwyneth Paltrow. And, you know, I really want this business to be a legacy that's bigger than, you know, one person. And, you know, I think what's hard is that I am... a good and a cheap asset. So, you know, so like if, if something's not working, they can throw me in a paid ad and, you know, it's like the ROI is working right here.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
But ideally, I would like to get to the point where I'm less consumer facing and more like the heart, like the spiritual part of the place and less the face of the place.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think I would for a while because again, like I've learned so much about myself and it's so fascinating. Like I love business. It's endlessly intriguing. The stakes are high. It's highly creative. It's also highly quantitative. Like I don't know how else I would ever have exercised all these parts of myself. No doubt. Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think I am, I mean, I guess you'd have to ask the team, but I think I'm a very collaborative leader. I think I'm very warm. I think I'm very inclusive. And I am learning to be, as I said, not only decisive, but I'm learning to articulate my expectations, which has been hard for me. So that's, Like I'm really trying to hold people to KPIs and like have the harder conversations more frequently.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You know, I've never thought about that. But I mean, I think that having been famous for such... I've been famous since I'm like 22 years old. I'm 52. So much more than half my life. And I think you subconsciously or unconsciously adapt to be a very famous person in the world. And I think it's part of, I take it as part of my role to make people feel comfortable and
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
because it can be a destabilizing thing. So maybe there's an aspect to that that I'm not totally aware of, but there probably is.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yes. I think we have a ways to go until I can completely bow out of the sort of consumer facing part, but I know it would work without me.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think the team would know what to do and I think they would figure it out.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Well, do you want to come and run it?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like you could take another job. Oh my God. The lady with the most jobs in America.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I have great ambition around Goop and really growing it. You know, now that we're kind of out of that post COVID, like four year, you know, and now let's see what happens with the economy. But I have a lot of ambition around like getting this business to scale and getting Goop Kitchen and you know, all over America. And also I think it would be great in the UK and in Paris. Yeah, it would.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Do you want a Pret-a-Manger sandwich? Not every day. Do you want your chicken, Brentwood chicken salad?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I want my wraps. Exactly. I want a soggy sandwich.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
No Pret-a-Manger for you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I do. I do. I feel like I wasted a lot of time if I look at it through that lens. On the one hand, I do get quite philosophical and I think everything happens exactly as it should. And it's okay that the business has grown slowly and steadily. And I read once somewhere that there's a Chinese proverb that says, the slowest growing vegetable has the most nutrients.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And so sometimes if I feel like, oh, I've wasted time or it's taken too long, I kind of go back to that idea that like, we're always on the right timeline. Even if we see, you know, friends or competitors do something more quickly, it's like, it's not our timeline and our timeline is what it is. But sometimes I look back and I think like, oh my God, like, why did I do that?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
why did I, you know, why did I get off Shopify in 2015? Like, why did I do, can you explain? Like, why would I do that? I don't know why you did that. I'm still on Shopify. Okay. Why would I get off?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Okay. Well, I got off of it. Someone talked me out of it. They were like, you have too much revenue to be on Shopify. Get out of town. They're the biggest company. I mean, Skims is on Shopify. Well, this was when it was like, you know, right. Exactly. Oh, I need, you know, I need to build it yourself. Right.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And people would stop me and say like, what are you going to do? And what are you going to do with this? And I didn't know. I didn't even know how to think my way around. Like I didn't even know what business models could be applicable to something like this. Right. Because this was like pre, you know, this was really early.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And it's hard when it's you as well. Like, because, you know, again, like the weirdest thing about me, I think is that I'm actually an introvert. I don't like being in front of people. I don't like being in front of a camera. I don't, I hate public speaking. So I think that's also hard for me because my first career was all about that. And my second career is about that to a certain degree as well.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So sometimes I'm like, it's the best thing for the business for me to lean into this, but I don't want to do it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
The most important thing I always say to founders, like, is it going to kill you not to do this? Oh, that's a good question. Because otherwise don't do it. Like you have to know with every fiber of your being that you are alive to do this business. Otherwise, don't. Don't do it. Don't do it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And then I think there are just like certain table stakes things that I wish somebody had told me at the beginning. I mean, luckily I was obsessed with product like you. So I always made the best possible thing that I could make. But sometimes I think people like don't have a high enough standard, you know, especially in a consumer business.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like, you know, you see what happens when it's a one and done thing. Oh, yes. And it's not a business. It's not a business. That's not a business. So like, how are you going to obsess around keeping that customer and keeping them engaged and delighting them? It's like, it becomes a retention process. thing. And how did you do that?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You are. I'm her. Yeah. And I know what I want and my customers deserve that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Are you really?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
No. I was by myself. And you're like... I like learned how to mess around with MailChimp and WordPress. And it was like me and I had an assistant and that was it. And you would just make recipes.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Is it still ongoing in some way? I think... that will be ongoing until the end of my life. Like, I think we all have a core wound. And I think we hopefully know what it is and we work on it. And it's a lifelong pursuit to make friends with that wound and heal from that wound and not make decisions from that wound.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
The other interesting thing is when you cross 40 and then definitely when you cross 50, there's this deepening that happens in your relationship with yourself. And this, at least for me anyway, I've had this sort of like love for myself start to cultivate really post 50.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So, you know, I'm in the past couple of years and I'm sort of shifting away from this paradigm of like, I need to be something such that this, you know, it's like, no, I just need to be me. And that there's so much power in like, befriending yourself and being in integrity and saying what you think, even if it's unpopular or even if you're going to disappoint somebody.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And it's this like incredible blossoming that I feel happening. And so I hope that continues to happen more than like, you know, because sometimes I still have my own personal scoreboard against myself, not against anybody else. And I can be quite punishing, you know, self-punishing. Like I can be very, very hard on myself.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And so my hope is that as I continue to sort of soften into this next iteration of who I am and who I was meant to be, that it will be more of the healthy ambition. It's like, I still want the world. I still want to see things and learn. And I want to taste food. And I want to risk stuff. And I want to do things I've never done before.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
But I don't want to do it because if I don't, it will prove to everyone that I'm a bad person.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Does that make sense?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
It's pretty great. I have to tell you.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like, really, what is it? I mean, so I think... It sounds dumb, but the women who look the best are the women who really take care of what they eat. It's like exercise. It's diet. I know it's, it's true though. I knew you were going to say that. It's like, it's really true. I thought you were going to go, so there's this guy. I know. Well, but there is, there, there is also stuff.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I mean, of course there's a lot of guys. But I do think that in terms of like looking good vitality, like you've got to hydrate, you've got to sleep, you've got to eat nutrient dense foods. Like you got to limit alcohol. You got to, I know you can't smoke. You can't smoke.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
We're done with that. Those days are over. Those were the days Emma.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
The most important thing I always say to founders like, is it going to kill you not to do this? Otherwise, don't. Don't do it. You know, it was so me, the way I got divorced. I was like, okay, like what is the best way to do this? Like, let me go gather data from everyone who was raised. That's the beautiful thing about being a founder and an entrepreneur.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I mean... Because you're like, it happens in private all the time. Yeah. I mean, she'll like take the piss. Like she'll... Like one time I remember I was like, had my to-do book open. You know, I still was like writing down stuff with paper and a pen. And, you know, she must have been like... I don't know, you know, 13 or whatever. And she was like, make more vagina candles.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
She'll like make fun of me all the time. Makes fun of me on social media. She does? Oh my God. Yeah, totally. I bet she's very, very proud of you. I think she is. I think she, you know, I think she... She recognizes how hard I work and she likes that I actually am a bit of a trailblazer. You know, I think she thinks it's cool. No doubt. Absolutely no doubt.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Does it?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I think it does. Yeah, it really does. Like I still... I still care so much. I care about every article and every marketing campaign and every product. I care so much.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I think people from afar, I think people can think that I'm cold. or haughty or something like I get, like people have said that like, oh, we thought you were going to be arrogant. We thought you were going to be, and I'm actually like very warm and a huge dork, like a goofy, you know, like I'm very goofy and warm. You're very warm. Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
That jumpsuit, you remember? I love it.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And this is why I'm where I am. So, because I think as an artist, You create to create. Yes. You create to give some, put something out in the world. And you don't really think, I mean, of course you get a paycheck, but it's not kind of the burning reason why you're doing something. And it's only in business when you start to reframe it and think like, okay, what's the ROI on all my time?
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I do. I love that.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Cuddle my husband.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
That's number one.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And put in my earplugs and my mouth guard and my mouth tape and all the sexy stuff.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Hmm. That's such a good question. I'll narrow it down to one thing. I guess the number one thing and what feels like the most urgent to me is profitability. You know, like it's hard. We're supposed to get like, we have a whole plan. We're supposed to get, but I want to, I want to accelerate. You want to accelerate. I would like to. Yes. I would like to accelerate.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
You know, all these things that were built in order to, for that first model of direct to consumer where profitability didn't matter and it was all top line and exactly like going back and undoing a lot of that stuff, like team size, office size, whatever. All the things. All the things.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Okay.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Hmm. It's such an interesting question because I feel like I'm coming into an era where I've really figured out so much balance and where I don't feel guilty about the things that I do to be restorative and regenerative. But I think what I aspire to is to be out of the grips of this crazy hormonal phase that I'm in. Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I want perimenopause to end. That's what I aspire to. It's bullshit, right? It's bullshit.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So like, you're just going to go.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
What's a book that's changed your life? Oh, there's so many. I always go back to Mary Oliver's poems. She's like going to church for me. And so I have different copies of her different books all over. And whenever I need to sort of reconnect with that feeling of purpose and that the world is so much bigger than me or any failure that I have or any disappointment or any happiness,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And so that was like a slower burn for me. But at a certain point, you know, when I had ended up investing a lot of money in this business. Of course. I thought, you know, maybe I should try to think about how to monetize it and then, And then other people were saying, you know, you've really got something here. You've got a ton of engagement and...
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I read Mary Oliver.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I feel like I still value all the things that I started out valuing. I mean, That is very interesting. Yeah. In itself. I still have that, all those feelings of like, you know.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yes. Having the hard conversations. It's like almost every mistake that I've ever made comes from me not saying what needed to be said in the moment because I didn't want to rock the boat or hurt someone's feelings. Every single mistake. Like when I'm on my deathbed, when I look back at my life, those will have been the mistakes that I made.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Like I didn't have the hard conversation when I needed it professionally, personally.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And so that's when I started to think about how, and I started with some partnerships, basically. It was kind of like a mini media model.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yeah, like brand partnerships.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
It's interesting because, so we kind of had a media model at first and people were paying and sponsoring shoots. And I thought like, this feels fine, but it also feels like the reason that this works and is resonant with people is because it's really... authentic.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And I started to worry that if it was me being paid to talk about things, even though I was super strict, like it had to be a brand that I genuinely loved or used, you know, that makes the aperture really narrow. And also I didn't want to be a content factory and I didn't want like a clicks model and all this.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So I had done this piece, this content piece on the French pharmacy, like all of the great things that, you know, and that like, I go to Paris and it's like all the things. So I did a piece, a content piece on all the things that I loved from the French pharmacy. And it was like, you know, the retin-A cream, the retin-A. Yeah, the embryo release, the cream release, like all the things we need.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Homeoplasmin and all the things, you know. I still use that. Me too. And I was on the street and a woman stopped me and she said, oh my gosh, I love Goop. I love your newsletter. I wait for it every Thursday. I love the piece on the French pharmacy. But she said it was so frustrating because I was spent like three hours on Amazon.fr, like trying to buy the lip balm.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And she said, I wish I could have just clicked to buy it. And I thought, oh my gosh, you know, this could actually be like commerce as a service as opposed to like a transaction. And I was like, this is actually valuable for her if I offer things to buy. And so that's how the e-commerce started.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yes. Absolutely not. There was no model for that. It was really, really early.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
So it's, so I was at actually at a cocktail party in London at a friend's house. And this woman came up to me and she said, hi, I'm, I'm Juliet. I'm a VC. And I was like, what's a VC, you know? And she was like, yeah, I had no idea. English Juliet. English Juliet. I love Juliet.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
It's an honor, honestly.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yeah.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Huge. Huge. And she said, you know, I really love what you're doing and what are you doing and do you want to turn it into a business? And I said, I do, but I don't really know how to do it. And she actually introduced me to my first CEO, a guy named Seb Bishop, whom I adore and I'm still really close. In fact, I just had his birthday party at my house last week.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And he came on board and he helped me start to think my way around how to do this and how to build a team. And he was running Project Red at the time for Bono. And he was ready to kind of go back into e-commerce. And so we started to build a team and started to do collaborations and started to develop a supply chain and build an e-commerce engine on the site, which...
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
We chose the wrong one, but that's fine. And it was like just a slow process of us thinking through how we were going to offer this curation and offer special product to people. And that was kind of like phase one. It was when I was in London, very early stages of goop. I had another CEO. And then I was going to move back to LA or not, you know, move to LA.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And unfortunately, his mother became ill with leukemia. So he couldn't come. And that's when I moved. And I really started trying to run this thing kind of by myself. So it wasn't like a conscious decision.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
still trying to figure it out. I was trying to just get people around me who were really passionate. I had this little team in London, which I knew was going to be really hard to keep while we were in LA. And so I was slowly kind of, I was repatriating the company here and I had this little barn out back in my house in Brentwood.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
And, you know, slowly there was one woman there with me, then two, then three, then there were eight, you know, Then we were starting to build our own product lines and we grew. Oh, you started that early? We started, I think in 2016, we started with our first product lines. Okay, wow.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
Yes, because I think in a way the model is really evolving and it still is. And so I think one of the mistakes I've made subsequent to that is sort of like outsourcing expertise in a way where there's not flexibility. And I find with people who are really passionate, they're like,
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
problem solving, as opposed to like, I was here, this was a playbook, this is how it worked, this is what I want to bring to Goop. That tends not to work for us. So sometimes I think it's difficult to find people who have domain expertise and are really passionate. But I agree with you. I think that passion is what's going to drive the curiosity and the problem solving more than domain expertise.
Aspire with Emma Grede
Aspire with Gwyneth Paltrow: Why Being Early Is Better Than Being Liked
I'm trying to remember what year it was. It was probably, you know, I want to say 2013, 2014, 2015 in there somewhere. That's interesting because that's almost eight, well, six, seven years after you started.
Candace
Harvey Speaks: Harvey Weinstein’s On-Camera Interview
And then I really kind of stood up to him. I told my boyfriend at the time. Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt. We were at the opening of Hamlet on Broadway that Ralph Fiennes was in Hamlet and Harvey was there. And Brad Pitt, it was like the equivalent of throwing him against the wall, you know, energetically.
Candace
Harvey Speaks: Harvey Weinstein’s On-Camera Interview
What he did was he leveraged his fame and power to protect me at a time when I didn't have fame or power yet.
Candace
Harvey Speaks: Harvey Weinstein’s On-Camera Interview
Wow. It moves you. Yeah. It was fantastic.
The Nerve with Maureen Callahan
The Shadow of Diddy Loomed Over the Met Gala, Plus Prince Harry's Performative Whining and Lying
It seems like the best thing in the world. You always think, oh my God, this is going to be so glamorous and amazing and you're going to see all these people. And then you get there and it's so hot. It's so crowded. Everyone's pushing you. Do you want me to be honest? Yeah. It sucks.