Julie Wainwright
Appearances
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And they would leave them in the cart for hours. And we're like – and especially – so it's still a problem. You still don't want that to happen, obviously. But in the beginning – we were running sales three times a week with only 60 or 70 products.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That was by necessity, not by design, because we didn't have enough product. We wanted to aggregate the product under themes and make sure that we actually had enough product to execute on that theme. And so if people come to the site, and there's no product to buy, everything's on hold, then you don't have customers.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So right away, literally within one day of doing it, I'm like, we got to put a timer on that cart. And it never changed.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So we're like, we will never have a sale. But then they hoard everything. Then the customers were gone and they buy one thing. We're like, oh, this is not good.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Never worried about you guys at all. And there's so many reasons for it because everyone thought they were a competitor. No one was doing what we were doing. So no one was taking possession. No one, the company at one point, I don't know where they are now, under me, we had 450 people in the field picking up products. No one had the capability to open stores because you didn't take up possession.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
No one was really doing the level. Fine jewelry and watches were a key component of the business. About 34, 35 percent of the sales. You cannot authenticate a piece of jewelry online and nor can you understand the jewelry, nor can you really authenticate a watch. And if you think you can, you're probably selling fakes. So our product mix was different. Our service level was different.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, hi, Tracy. It's good to see you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Our ability to market via our stores was different. And I always thought I was in competition with ourselves and it was a capital intensive business. And how do I actually continue to raise capital to keep the business going? Yeah. So was not thinking about the competition a way that you operated throughout your career? No, not at all. This was a unique offering in a unique space.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
You have to be aware of the competition, but we had a moat around the business and it was, it was always ours to lose.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I'd have to add it up, but it was in the hundreds of millions.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I think when we did it, an executive at NASDAQ said, you're the 23rd woman founder to take a company public ever.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, I think you're going to have to wait for the book. The book's coming out in June. The book is coming out in June of next year. It's called Time to Get Real.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And it's right now, it's with a publisher in their legal department. And let me tell you, my focus was a little different writing this. I wanted to walk people through this. how the RealReal was built year on year. So it has this sense of urgency. And then I did have to weave in lessons, but I wove in those lessons as I was learning that. So I walked through it, and it's a fast-paced read.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
My favorite book of all times for business is Shoe Dog. And the reason I love Shoe Dog is... I love it. I love it for multiple reasons. One is I thought I knew the story. I didn't.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And you felt the struggle of getting Nike to become Nike. And I felt like I was along the ride. I was in the car.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I hope so. And not until June of next year. It is coming out. There are a lot of stories. I can tell you a fun one because remember we were talking about doing drops. We were doing drops because we didn't have enough products. In the early days, we were in a strip mall that was really a bad strip mall. But I needed to rent a warehouse and I got a railroad card style warehouse.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So you walk in and this crunchy brown carpet that was really gross crunched when you walked on it. into the area where we process goods. And then the middle was the photography area. There were little storage alcoves off of that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But in order to take the right photos on the mannequin, the photographer had to open the one door to the bathroom and step into the bathroom to take pictures of the photos. The back area had a roll-up door and was a proper warehouse with a loft. But the whole thing was maybe 3,000 square feet. And this is how we got started. I thought, well, we have to start somewhere.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I don't know if that's true. I think so. It depends on how you measure it. But yes, I've had success.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And I was floating the money. And I'm like, OK, I'm going to do this. All right, so we get it going. No VC money yet. All right. Just friends and family. No, no VC money. Angel investors. One who was amazing entrepreneur himself. So we're working in this and we realized I had this idea where I need to get to aggregators of products. Who aggregates products? Stylists.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
because they know a lot of people, and those people buy a lot from them. So I went down to LA, developed a stylist program, promoted that, went to New York, found stylists, pulled them together, promoted the program, tried some direct mail, And I'm thinking, this is great. We're going to get tons of product rolling in. And of course, nothing's happening. The program didn't seem to be effective.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
We weren't getting calls. We'd be checking in. What year was this? Around 2011. So no product. And then we're running the sales. It's going into the summer. And I'm like, we are so screwed because everyone we knew had given this product. I tried, we tried some direct card marketing that was percolating in through the post office, literally a postcard. Oh, like explaining the service.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, we did, but we didn't, if someone in LA, we didn't have a team down here yet. We had to fly someone down to get it and drive a U-Haul back. All right. So we're really, it's been scrappy early days. And we get a call from stylists. And I don't think I can mention the celebrity.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I don't think I can because she did not want the sale public when she did it. She subsequently did do public sales on the RealReal. But we get a call. X person wants to clean out her warehouses.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I'm not. We're not going to go through. Did you see the documentary about Celine Dion where she has warehouses of costumes? It turns out. It's a thing in fashion, all right? Not just celebrities. And can you, this literally got the call at three o'clock in the afternoon. Can you be there tomorrow morning? I'll text you the address.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Employee number one, Rati Levesque. At that time, Rati's not. Oh, Rati's now the issue. She's now the president.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
All right, so flew down and with an intern, all right, the next morning. So we had one intern in Georgia. All right, so Georgia and Raji fly down. Rent a U-Haul, which I'm sure Rachi will be mad I say this, but she's not the best driver. At least she wasn't at the time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I could ask you the same thing, but I honestly think it's first of all, you have to propensity to take risks. You have to be able to operate in gray areas. You have to come in with a very strong point of view and execute and then right away iterate if it's not going to work. So you have to come in strong and hot and then say, okay, I was wrong moving over this way.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So her car back in San Francisco was beaten up. I'm like, oh, I don't know about her driving this U-Haul. Anyway, they go to this person's warehouse. And I'm trying to, like, talk to them all day. They're like, yeah, there's a warehouse. This person then decided she wanted to try on everything one more time before consigning. Of course. Of course.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
You can't be sure you want to let go of it until you do a personal fashion show. A pickup that probably would have taken eight hours was now extended to two and a half days. Wow. which meant I had to call the intern, who was a high school girl's mom, and say, do you mind if Georgia spends the night in LA?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
She was a summer break, but she was underage, so I had to get them a hotel room, and I had to, like, and then all of a sudden, they go in, and then I said, do you want me to fly someone down there? Because I'm answering the phone, I'm skewing product, I'm doing everything, I can't leave. Someone's got to be at the office. And remember, this is very early days. And she's like, send someone down.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So I sent my boyfriend down. He's driving it back. All right. It just wasn't that great. So they're calling. It was a total punk. She gets there, opens the U-Haul. Tons of boxes. Tons. But nothing good? Everything was good. Oh. Not a lot of handbags, but everything was, no, she was totally punking me. But here's what happened. And this person's so little, it was like a double zero, zero.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Turns out a lot of people wear that size. It's got us through the summer. That stylist gave us more product from our clients. Another one did. Then we put someone in LA and there it started. We said it's more complicated. Yes, because we were a marketplace. We couldn't just call up a vendor and say, I want more.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
You know, there really isn't that thing. It's a simulation. So that's too bad. I didn't know. Oh, yeah. I mean, look, we were with NASDAQ. We weren't on the New York Stock Exchange. You hit a button, but it's already done. It's like you're doing it. It doesn't really. No, but I'll tell you what's fun. Confetti comes down. So it does make you feel good. That makes it a little bit. Yeah.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And everyone in the company had stock. Anyone that had been with the company five years more were part of the IPO and were there with me, standing with me. And honestly, they said they have never seen an IPO like this.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
In what way? Well, first of all, it was inclusive. All right. So people had their kids there. People had been there for a long time, whether you were in the ops center working an hourly job or you were an executive. Also, I'm sure we were the most stylish. There's no doubt in my mind we were the most stylish.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And I'm like, let's get my picture up there next time I walk in there because there were no women on the fraternity board.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I think you have to recognize what talent is in other people because no one does it by themselves. You have to have the ability to raise capital if you're in the venture capital world. And certainly that's the world I know, which means taking a lot of rejections and not taking it personally and learning from the interactions.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But then there's been women since then. So that's good.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Not lately, but you're right. We had Bumble come out, I think, right after that, and that did well. But before me was Katrina Lake with Stitch Fix.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, all right, let's just take a step back. If you take money from people, which I took a lot of money, you have to have a vehicle for them to get it out. Totally. It's as simple as that. You either have to sell the company or take it public. That's it. You only have two paths. Or if you shut it down, you're sort of in hot water for a long time.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That's a bad end. So I find founders, they don't always understand that you are obligated to actually return money. Once you take it in. So no one was going to buy the real, real. So our path was going public. And my goal was when the company got to at least a billion dollars in top line sales, we should be ready because it was becoming highly predictable. And we were that year.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
We had a billion 2019 with a billion in top line sales. It was predictable.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Except you still report. You still have a board of directors.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
you report publicly the mechanism in my view isn't that different if you're running a company you're still having board meetings preparing financials reporting you better have checks and balances on those financials and you're reporting into the board of directors yes
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Yeah, everyone talks that, but you're right. It's a different, I agree. I'm just being a little cantankerous, but I don't disagree. But look, the RealReal was growing 40%. Pre-COVID. In January of 2020 versus a year ago, same period a year ago. February, same number, 40% versus a year ago. March, San Francisco and New York were early people to force shutdowns.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And March went from first, I think they shut it. In fact, I know they shut it down on March 12th. First 10 days, growing 42%.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It's very good. Very good. Very good. People are in the mood to start thinking about spring and they're thinking again. Soon from that day, that month of March ended at minus 46% versus a year ago.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Even if you learn, I never want to be that person who you just talked to. You have to have a lot of energy. Yes. You also have to decide that's what you want to do. And what I mean by that is there is no work life balance when you're an entrepreneur. If you're doing it, you're doing it. You have to be in. You have to be committed. And you have to see it through.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So you couldn't physically ship product. We couldn't. No, demand dried up. Demand came back in April, but it was bigger than that. We couldn't pick up product. And we were allowed to operate in New Jersey. We're processing at the time was the biggest op center, but we weren't in the Bay area.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
We still had an op center in the Bay area and we weren't, we clearly, if people lived in New York, it was a terrible situation in New York. New York was the single largest market for the RealReal and we couldn't pick up product. When you think about a marketplace, let's just talk about dynamics. When you have buyers and sellers, you're not a way station. You are a way station, not a warehouse.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So if your product isn't selling, then your sellers are unhappy and then you may not have the right buyers. But if your products don't sell for your sellers, they aren't going to give you more product. So you need to have a rhythm. And the real world developed a very specific rhythm through optimal pricing, not best pricing, optimal pricing. Where sellers could expect that.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Within 90 days, 90% plus would sell through.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
COVID stopped that, but it picked up again. And oddly enough, by the end of April, when it was two weeks, then we were like in it, we didn't know how long we'd be. By the end of April, people started buying handbags and shoes and then other things, but a lot of handbags and shoes and jewelry. All right, let's go back to the necessity to keep product flowing through.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So 90% of the product flows through in a quarter, which means by the end of everything, April, May, June, The inventory is being depleted very quickly, but it's not being added back because we couldn't pick up products. In California, really the only states that really acted like COVID didn't happen, Florida, Arizona. Florida was, Arizona, not a great big market for the company.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Florida, good, but not of the caliber of the other states. And a little bit of Newport in California, which wasn't big enough. You had these little pockets where like you walk in and you're like,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
No, they didn't have the shutdown restrictions. So the company was in trouble.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, look, it was surreal because also we had supposedly they were short sellers. So we have one operating op center that's in New Jersey. And at that time, we had a couple in New Jersey, one in Secaucus and one in Perth Amboy. We had the Bay Area one that we needed to leave anyway, the Bay Area, because we'd grown out, but shut down.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
In fact, when we were just trying to move product to New Jersey so we could process it and give people their returns.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
No, the sheriff showed up and put it like, we're going to throw you guys in jail. I'm like, oh, come on. Anyway, we finally got the product.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, no, the whole thing was nuts.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
We had to open a new op center, which we got going in Phoenix. And then we had some odd calls coming into the Perth op center from people saying we were killing our employees, not following protocol, which wasn't true. I'm on the phone with the mayor. I'm on the phone with the head of police in New Jersey saying... walk through, we're following protocols. Are these calls coming on in-state?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Are they coming in or out of state? They were all out of state. So you know it was a short seller.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And what I find fascinating, because I'm just talking to entrepreneurs all the time, if they bring up, I want to work-life balance, I'm just like, why would I give you my money to make your life better? I'm going to give you my money to make more money. So you also have to recognize if you take money, you have an obligation to the investors. Right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Some directly from the brands, because remember, they couldn't sell their product either.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Some directly from the brand, some from people that resell for the brands, a product that couldn't move. So the caliber of the product was great because it never made it on the shelves. Yes. But the margin was horrific. We did the same exact thing during COVID.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
If it didn't sell once, it's not going to sell the second time. This is the beauty of resale.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I got fired by the board.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
There's a couple of different things that happened. In my world, the board of directors I grew up with were the venture capitalists. When I say grew up with the company, the venture capitalists and all early investors except one actually left. And I had to rebuild the board and make recommendations to rebuild the board.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Except for one. And that one never sold.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And the price had gone down. But I would say a couple of different things. And this is really good advice for anyone choosing a board. When you get money from people, and let's say you only have one term sheet or two, the investors sit on the board. So you don't choose your board to choose your money source. Later on, you can make recommendations.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And I always thought it would be great to have key areas of subject matter expertise on the board. It turns out that that's one criteria, but the overriding criteria should have been shared values. And it also should have been more entrepreneurial-focused because The RealReal was still an entrepreneurial-led company and was still a very baby company.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Yeah, for a board member. And I didn't go that way. And I would say that I had one disgruntled board member who didn't sell his stock... who, in my opinion, believed he knew more than anybody else about how to run a company. I also had new members on the board, and there was a huge disconnect, and I was busy running the company, and I would say lack of shared values.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And yeah, they came after me and they fired me. And the rationale was I didn't hit my numbers during COVID. It could have been also because I told one key board member who I believe was out to get me, who had a plan for the company to basically in the board meeting to F off and he wasn't going to ruin the company. And then one of the female board members who they were almost all females and
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
stood up and said, you're not a good leader. You can't talk to a board member that way. And I said, I can't when that board member's lying. And it went downhill from that. So that's what happened. Now, I have to say it was sad. It was very sad. I think the key lesson is values matter.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And it's also a way of operating. So let's just talk about the difference between a corporate citizen who grew up in the corporate world versus an entrepreneur.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So corporate citizens tend to work on politics. If you're a woman, there tends to be room for one woman at the top. So they really aren't necessarily people that you would even want to have a drink with. Politics matters more than results. Let's just say you're working in a multi-billion dollar company and it could be great training for you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Are you, what you do going to make the biggest difference in that company or who you know? And maybe who you suck up to or whose team you get on is going to make the biggest difference. It is very hard to turn. So politics matter. In a startup, it's much more of a meritocracy. You can't hide politics. Your results matter. And hopefully the management recognizes it is a meritocracy.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But at the end of the day, the data doesn't lie. And every person in a startup is so important. And getting the right way to measure their performance is important. And making sure that you get out any bias in the way they're paid. All of that's important. I'm not saying meritocracy doesn't exist in a corporation. It's much harder to find because it's much harder to measure.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
If you have people that grew up in a political world, meritocracy doesn't matter. If you have people that knew structure and they weren't big risk takers and they like things rolling along in a methodical way, that's not what a startup looks like. It's messy. It's meaty. It's risk-taking.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
If you have people that grew up in a world where they wanted to be the smartest person in the room instead of a collaborative person, which my board was collaborative, most successful venture capital businesses are collaborative. It's a hierarchical model in the corporate world. In a great startup, it's a collaborative world. Collaboration makes better ideas.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So think about what I said at the beginning. I didn't want to be the people at Clorox and all of a sudden I have people like them on my board who think they know and they're hierarchical. And it's the same thing. You can't talk to a board member like that because what they're saying is wrong and will hurt the company. And it was a lie.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It's a huge disconnect. And I would say there's two problems. One is it was all corporate except this one person. And I just think it's the wrong thing. I think that we need to look at choosing board members differently. Okay. And I think it's really critical. But if you're raising capital, you get that board member. And that board member may also be toxic. But I didn't have that experience prior.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
The board members, the original investors, except for one, were pretty remarkable. So you had a great board.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And I think that person would have supported. He wouldn't have messed up and gotten off the board. He blew it. Everybody answers to somebody. So I'm sure he messed up. He should have gotten his money out. He didn't.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, it's your story, so you can always talk. I don't think it benefits me to talk that publicly about it. It's in the book, though, of course. How do you think the company is doing now? If you follow the financial results, they're not in a growth mode. Their customer base shrunk by over 9%. Their average order size went way up, which I know they're very proud of.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I think it's dangerous, especially in a bad economy. I'm not there day to day. I would say I really can't comment beyond that. But the stories I know are the stories I know. I still people call me. And I will just go on record, Rati does not call me, but they've fired the CFO who also was the new CFO in the company. And look, I'm not there. So I'm not going to say anything good.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I hope it goes on. It was a labor of love. And honestly, it's a great service. We really changed the fashion world. We got people thinking about recirculating goods. We raised awareness of the issue of unused clothing or really poorly made clothing going to landfills, which is for microplastics. which goes right into your drinking water.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Sure. I think the first thing is I started my career. I'm going to go way back. So I started my career in brand management at Clorox and I was the second undergraduate they ever hired. And I was there three years and I got promoted to Once about ready to get promoted again. And when I looked above me, I didn't want to be those people.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And the fact that these clothes don't break down and they can be in landfills for over a hundred years, just leaching really bad chemicals versus buying good things and recirculating them. And we democratize luxury, which you help do too. So all of those things are great. And honestly, and most of the time it was so much fun. It was just fun.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And recirculate it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That was my goal. I knew when I first launched The RealReal that if I didn't make it really relevant and cool and make sure you look great and really have an image with it, it wasn't going to work.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And so my goal was to change perception. Yes.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And now everyone likes a deal. So they did and didn't. And the other thing is for the first time, People could actually, when they bought something, they had a way to monetize it afterwards in a way that they didn't have to go to a brick and mortar store and drop it off. And the value of the internet, which you know, you can have millions of customers look at it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
The speed of sale is always faster and the price is always the price the market will bear.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That's the marketplace value system.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I am. So it's exciting. So one of my passions has always been nutrition. And I started a company with a medical doctor about two years ago called AHARA. It was pretty clear to me when we got in the market, we've been in the market about one year, that really what people kept asking us for was help with losing weight.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And even we're selling into corporations, they would say, do you have a track on weight loss? We certainly did, but not the track they wanted. So we did. And we still do. We have a metabolic track to how to speed up your metabolism, foods that are best for you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But really what they wanted in corporations and what our customers was telling us, no, we want to understand what's going on in the weight loss drug world. And we want to know how to eat if we choose to go in that route. So like an Ozempic or a Wagamay. And so we launched Ahara Med.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So we spent, I spent a lot of time along with some of the key people working with me, interviewing doctors, groups that are specialized in weight loss and can help someone. Number one, number two. We went to state-licensed compounders because the drugs in the compounding are similar. The active ingredients are the same. So they use the same active ingredients, but they compound them differently.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It wasn't even that. I don't think I was that savvy. I was young. I think it was more about every woman in the brand organization tended to go into HR when they left brand. So none of them were general managers. They just looked like old... grumpy men to me. Think of it, though. I'm like 25 years old, not even 25, because I started early. Remember, I'm the second undergraduate they ever hired.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But the same active ingredients in a Nozempic or a Wegove are compounded. Now, let's talk about the advantage. Do you have a doctor's group?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Compounding means they're made. They're actually made not in mass production with a big brand. They're small batch. And there isn't a drug shortage. There is a delivery mechanism shortage. So the big brands use special pens that obscure the fact that you're putting a needle in you.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It doesn't maybe look like a needle. But what I decided after talking to my investors, that we should own the compounding pharmacies. We should have the relationships with the doctors. And really importantly, we should work with the insurance companies to make sure that we could get nutrition consulting through registered dietitians approved with the insurance companies so we could be there.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
hand in glove with the user and give people dietician consulting when you start on the drug. So we offer dietician consulting, the compounded drugs, which are about 70 to 80% off the retail prices.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So something like an Ozempic equivalent is $200 a month.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That includes having a dietician to help you. One month we're doing it free. Right now, Aetna and UnitedHealth have already said they're covering the expense, and we're just waiting on Anthem and Blue Shield.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So you sign up for a dietitian. I'm calling it complimentary because it is. Your insurance will cover something like 89 million people are covered by those two insurance companies. So you can get dietitian consulting as you start on your weight loss journey. You have a great medical doctor who is...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
really great in telehealth who's focusing on weight loss and a compounded drug from a state-licensed pharmacy. And you get started with $195. And it is absolutely imperative that people combine dietitian consulting with this because, first of all, 40% of the U.S. is considered obese, according to the latest stats from the NIH, 40.3%. Of those, 10% are considered morbidly obese.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
All right, so a huge population. And obese people tend to be malnourished. Also, when you get off the drugs, whether they're compounded or branded, people can gain the weight back because they didn't know how to eat in the first place. They didn't get the guidance. So our goal is to help people along that line. And also, there is muscle loss with this. Help them get the right protein amount.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Check in on their weightlifting exercise. So when they get off the drugs, they...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
don't have a metabolic disorder maybe they can actually get rid of their type 2 diabetes if it was a weight induced i know that it absolutely will go blood pressure will be good it is awesome i'm so excited to offer this yeah i feel like everyone i know who's been on the glp-1s they're like i don't know what to eat i'm not getting enough protein so the idea that they could get a nutritionist for free to help them with that is amazing so let's say you're on it for six months
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And let's say you've lost 40 pounds. Highly possible. Or maybe it took you eight months. But 40 pounds, game changer. You wear different. You feel different. Your blood pressure is probably better. It's just everything gets better. Except the probability of you gaining all that weight back without proper gut is very high.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Unless you learn how to change your diet and eat for your health.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
No, they're not as hungry. It is good to get good nutrition guidance. Micro and macro nutrients are really important. And to get those habits set up while you're on the weight loss drug so then you can continue when you leave.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I'm living in California. In the meantime, my former boss's wife, former boss at Clorox's wife, calls me and says, why don't you join the tech world? I'm I know this is the future because the guy in finance had smuggled in an Apple II and run VisiCalc, the predecessor to all spreadsheets, and did what I was doing by hand in seconds. I'm like, this is the world. This is where I should be.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
All right.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Not great. Not great. No, no. All right. So, you know, yeah. So don't do this, but yes, I've done it. Okay. Ask for a raise. I've been my own boss for so long. I'm always asking for my own. So that means this is another thing. Oh, I have to put it in.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But that's used data on the board, but you use data.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, I got to do this. Whatever this is. Okay.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
To my knowledge, I have never bought a fake bag.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
How many have you bought? More than one, but then I sold them because I did sell them.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I wasn't, you know, my problem is handbags to me are utilitarian and unless you're going out like someplace fancy. So I trash bags and I don't like to change bags because then I always forget something. So I'm a bag and shoe trasher. So I felt like I would never trash a Birkin bag. It's too beautiful and they're handmade and I just sat there in my closet. It made me sad.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I did the same thing. And then I bought another one.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, then I bought more. And then I'm like, what am I doing? And then I'm like, okay, I can't. Okay. Never have I ever signed a prenup. Oh, you know what? I haven't. So what is the thumb going around? But would I, should I have? Absolutely. So that was a mistake. Absolutely. And I wouldn't do it again without signing a prenup if I ever got married again.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, it's good business. It's good business. It keeps everything clean. Never have I ever fought with a family member about money. Oh, my God. So that's a yes. So I just thumb go in. Yeah, that's a problem.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, when I was doing the real, real? Of course I did.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Not only did I max out my credit cards, I also took down my IRA and 401K. Remember? I didn't get VC funding for a while. You went all in. Oh, that's it, babe. You got to do it. And honestly, that turned out.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I would say just, first of all, do not let balances go on your credit card. Pay those off. And wait, two tips. If you are working in a company that has a 401k or an IRA, Put that money in and then forget about it. Let me give you a story. And it's a good story because I told you I really did clean them out, except I had in a small IRA. I and I had.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And by the way, you pay penalties for it was a grim doing it to start the real, real. But in a small IRA, I cleaned it all out and I only had 15.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
three little stocks left and i think when i this is started to begin the real world and those three stocks were worth so think 2011 they were worth twelve thousand dollars i'm like okay i can stop i don't need that twelve thousand dollars today i know it's coming a hundred and fifty thousand dollars because a i didn't look at them all right i just left them there and one of them was facebook
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
One of them was Microsoft, and one of them was Netflix.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Just by the way, if you do take a company public, start actually selling your stock. You need diversity in your assets. Yes. And I did that right away. So even though the stock has never been as high as when I was CEO, they've never brought it back to that level. Luckily, I had diversified enough that it feels very, very good.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
You know what? I'm glad we became friends.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It was exciting. It was the future. And when I looked above me, I just saw men that were most likely going to, as I got promoted, put me in HR. And I'm like, that's great for people in HR. I didn't see myself in that. I saw myself creating something. And that comes from my childhood because my dad ran his own art and design studio.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, that's nice. That was a generous thing for her to say. It's great.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
How do I feel about that? Well, it was a little bigger for me. First of all, let's just go forward. Chewy.com, multibillion-dollar company. Chewy.com is nothing but Pets.com. They don't do anything that Pets.com didn't do. We just did it 20 years. So I would say, how do I think about timings? Everything. So timing's really important. So it was a timing issue.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And I did shut the company down and gave shareholders back their money. I didn't run it to bankruptcy. And sadly, that same day I was shutting down, my husband asked me for a divorce. So it's very emotionally charged for me. But it really is time means everything. And I also think, you know, Webvan was the precursor to Instacart.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
They went through a billion dollars worth of capital, a lot more than Pets.com did. And you never heard about that, did you? Do you think there might have been a little bit of women bashing going on in there? I don't want to say that. I have been told that from other press people that if I was a man, you know, I don't know. I'm not a man. I don't know what it would have happened.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But look, Pets.com was ahead of its time. And it was not pretty. And I had reporters showing up at my house, showing up at my door. You know, knocking to get, and I luckily, after my husband moved out, a good friend moved in and he would answer the door and say, she's not talking to you. And I can call the police because you're on private property now. And how did you come back from that?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I gave myself two years to either start a company myself. I didn't start pets.com. I was brought in to run it. To start a company myself and make it successful. Or I was going to have to leave town and do something else. Put my house in the market. Sell something. I don't know. Go into real estate in Arizona. I didn't know what I was going to do.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It was Arizona real estate or become a yoga instructor. And I wouldn't have been good at either of those things. It would have been a nightmare. So that was my plan B. And, you know, when you get older and you start a business and you recognize that a lot of successful businesses started by mostly men that got funding in Silicon Valley. they're no smarter than you are.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Both my parents were artists and they created products for other people. He did Flintstone vitamins, bottles and packaging, promotional materials, Chevrolet ads, Kohler annual reports, Midwest type of big brand. But we made our own product. So we had this really bad wine called the J&S Wine Line because...
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
There's nothing, there's nothing more that they're doing except they're doing it and taking the risk and they're persistent. And so, you know, and I figured, well, if I start a great business, I'll get the money. And that's why I waited also for a year. I was afraid before I took VC money, I was really convinced that with pets.com was still looming large in my past and,
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And no one was going to give me money unless I proved it in the first year. We did $10 million in revenue for the RealReal. So I knew I had to prove it. And then I would, you know, it's pretty hard to deny a $10 million going toward $25 million the second year. Most companies don't do that, you know, ever. So, yeah, so it had a... It was a massive milestone in my life.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And, you know, you're happy. Is it first show? Second? All right. So also he asked me for a divorce and I was 41. And it was we had sort of been trying to have kids, but hadn't really. And then so then I had to go through and make that decision. Like, am I going to be? I'm going to be a single mom. What should I do?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So it sort of hit at one of those critical, Nazi men don't think this way, but women have to. You really have to plan out if you really want kids. I had raised my brother in my head. And in reality, I did pretty much have to. My mom had MS when I was a kid. So I was the oldest. So I had a lot of responsibility and felt like
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
In my 20s, I just wanted to have fun because I didn't, you know, I had a lot of responsibility from the age of eight until I, you know, went out on my own. And so I didn't have this burning need like a lot of people because I felt like I've raised my kids. But then when you're faced with that decision... Like, oh, my God, I'm 41, I'm 42, going to be 42 soon, not married. What am I going to do?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Then you're really up against it. Like, I did check. I saw a few good eggs running around there, checked with the gynecologist, and I had to make a big decision, and I decided not to. consciously be a single mother. And so I made that decision. I would say that was harder than any decision probably ever to really know. And if I'm really honest, has it made me sad? Sure.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It's made me sad, but it hasn't made me depressed. It's sort of like it wasn't It was a hard decision to make. It was the right one for me at the time, but it didn't come without consequences. Regret? No, not regret. I would just say, you know, you don't live that long and having children is one of those life experiences. And so it's not regret.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It's just a little sad, but it's not like, you know, because I know I made the right decision at the right time, but it's a little sad. But, you know, you always have to, When you're choosing a road, you have to leave something behind. And I wouldn't have probably started the rail rail. I wouldn't have done other things I've done in life if I would have had kids.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And to be honest, it's hard having kids now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It's hard. Close your ears little baby. You may have a perfect child and have no problems, but you're going to have, you know, you know, you've got, there are more challenges with social media. There's more, there's just more challenges now.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And then my dad threw a tennis tournament every year and it was called the Wainwright Invitational and he printed up shirts before it was hard when you had a silk screen and it had a big brand, it had a family brand. So I just came from a place where you were creating And then when I saw that I had an opportunity to create in the future, which for me was tech, I felt I have to go there.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Which is without a doubt been researched, and you probably know this, that that's when women start losing on the financial curve. And there are so many reasons because even though men have gotten much more involved as fathers, it still falls on the woman. And I don't care how old you are, it still falls on the woman, like, or how young you are. No one's that progressive.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And there's always the odd, there's always the exception, you know, where the man's doing or the man's really 50-50, but that's the exception, not the rule. And so statistically, that's where women lose out.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And I would say if you just talk about being an entrepreneur, that's why you really have to understand your tradeoffs and make choices that are aligned with where you are because you can have it all, but it's a serial experience. Yeah. It's an asynchronous experience.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
You just have to be comfortable with your choices. And then you have to really know yourself. And that's not easy. You know? It's not easy.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That's a life journey. That is your life journey to know yourself. But you birthed another beautiful baby.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
You both had amazing outcomes. And Ahara Med is really exciting. I mean, look. 40% of the US is considered obese. Type two diabetes, cardiovascular issues, metabolic disorder, neuropathy. Look, I honestly think my father died at 86 of complications from obesity, and it was a terrible death. And I actually think mentally he was great.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I think he would have had the last eight years of his life would have been really, really great if the drugs were there. And he would have taken them because he had had a heart attack at the age of 72. And instead of taking care of yourself, he actually started gaining 100 pounds. And I think it was a combination of depression, et cetera, et cetera.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But I think he would have had a longer, happier life. Or maybe he would have died at 86, but it would have been a more active, fulfilling life.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, I mean, come on.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
That's the future. And by the way, the people when I joined that company were sort of my age. So we were inexperienced. We didn't know what we didn't know. And we really wanted to be part of whatever was going to happen in the future with the personal computer. So I saw that early on.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I know that was a lot, but I would say my nature is toward taking risks and creating and not being held back by someone else's idea of my success.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Just think about this. You're starting a job and every time you say, oh, I'm going to get promoted to that, but then they're going to want me to go here, but I'm really this person. Do you think it's changed since then?
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, I think Clorox is better, but do I think it's changed? Look, the numbers say it has. Let's just talk about change. It's not linear, all right? It's not linear, but I would say that there is a positive arc, and I'm not at Clorox now, but I would say, in general, change in corporations, change in our laws. Big changes are not a linear thing, but there's more laws to protect women.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
There's more laws to protect women's wages. When I was there, there wasn't even a sexual harassment law yet. It was a long time ago and women were getting sexually harassed and we talked to each other about it and knew who to avoid. But if you went to H.R., nothing was going to happen.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Well, not just me.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
But we knew who the problem people were and we knew how to stay away from them. And we also knew that H.R. wouldn't do anything. So if you just think about the world I entered into, it hasn't changed. Yes, I think it has. Has it been linear? No, it has not.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I would say two steps forward, one step backwards. When I think naively, I thought it would be linear. And when I started, I didn't really realize that women were second class citizens and it was new for us to be in the workforce because I thought, oh, Of course we can do it. We're smart. We're ambitious.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, now you're back in the VC world. When you look at venture capital, the percent of money going to women has actually declined dramatically. And I don't see that changing because there's now a wave that where inclusion or at least the semblance of inclusion has gone the other way and perhaps it's swung too far. Now, the venture capital world is still very male.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It's changed a little bit, but the big funds are still run by men. But, you know. All you need is a couple women doing great things. And then things do change. It's not impossible. Obviously, I raise money. You raise money. I think in my lifetime, I've raised over a billion dollars. I added it up for fun.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It is. If I can do it, anyone can. I went to Purdue. I didn't go to Stanford or Harvard.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
So you are the outlier. That is not normal.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Simply stated, The RealReal is the place where you buy and sell luxury consignment. On a more sophisticated level, the company was set up to provide a lot of service to people for getting their product into. It's not a self-posting site, The RealReal. consolidates products. There's at least three different op centers, at least it did when I was there. I left two years ago.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
And at those op centers, things are inspected, they're authenticated, and the RealReal controls the pricing. And it takes things like fine jewelry and watches, the largest group of gemologists, I think, in the world work at the RealReal, handbags, clothing, a little bit of art and home. And so for men and women, the fashion, that concept was when I introduced it was completely new.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
No one had actually focused on the luxury end of the market. No one had taken possession unless you were in a brick and mortar store. No one had leveraged technology to help set the right pricing. And authentication was an ad hoc consideration.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Yes. Why do you think that was? My vision was different than your vision, to be honest. I had access to capital and I always focused on getting the product in and didn't worry about demand. So focused on getting all the supplies and I built up a big infrastructure. And I do think that the luxury customer and consigner wanted a level of service that your model couldn't deliver.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I know that you think the stores supercharged us. They didn't, didn't. I have to say the stores were, when we first opened a store, which I- By the stores you mean, so the real real- The real heads brick and mortar stores. And we opened our first store in Soho, I think in 2017 after a pop-up. And the pop-up in Manhattan did change perception. Yeah. It did change people's perceptions.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Oh, it was in the data. So the data showed that we changed people's perception. And how do I know that? People that had previously shopped only online and then went into the store, not only did their average order size go up, their propensity to consign and buy went up. So it had a halo effect. Yes. And then the Soho store after the pop up was next. Same thing. The L.A.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
store on Melrose also big boon. So those were local things that happened.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Their average order size went up. Average order value went up. So I think the biggest problem, the company was supply limited. It's always constantly about getting new product. But having said that, their propensity to consign went up. It made it even easier. So we would come to your house, but then you could also drop it off.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
It makes sense. So yes, it did change the economics, but it also costs more money and it created, here's the interesting thing. When you post a thing online, it's also in the store. So it created a technical challenge and, It added another level of urgency, but the infrastructure to get those stores going was not trivial.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
The trade-off wasn't clear when we first got started and the model had to evolve.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Yeah, so that we were trying to solve for that not happening, which doesn't mean we didn't miss ship things. But the goal was if you're paying $400 for something, Or any money, really, that's a luxury good. And you expect to get the right thing at the right time and to make sure it's authentic. The other thing we did, we got people to think about recirculating their goods.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Because if you bought it on the rail rail, you should be able to resell it when you're done with it.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
Depends how long you sit on it and how bad the usage is. But yes. Yes.
Money Rehab with Nicole Lapin
Julie Wainwright (Founder, The RealReal) on Facing the Competition and Taking Companies Public
I want to know why we did that. Why? Well, all right. Another skill for an entrepreneur, you're always solving the most important problems. And one of the things we wanted to see happen were sales. No kidding. And people were hoarding. So literally, they would put – someone would get on the site early, and they would put 60 or 80 things on their cart. That makes sense.