The Mindset Shifts That Built a Billion Dollar Brand — TheRealReal's Julie Wainwright on Reinvention & Leadership

I had to completely change my mindset. I had to say, I am not going to let that define me or let others define me.

How do you rebuild after public failure and then find the courage to bet on yourself again? Welcome back. Or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I AM your host, Dr. Michael Gervais. By trade and training, a high performance psychologist. Now, now, the idea behind these conversations, it's really simple to sit with the extraordinaries to really learn about how they work from the inside out. And this week's conversation is with Julie Wainwright, a trailblazing entrepreneur who built the RealReal from her kitchen table into a publicly traded company valued at over $1 billion. And she started all of this in her 50s, breaking through a male dominated industry and then navigating both sexism and ageism to build something the world has never seen.

I was at that point where a recruiter had told me, no one's going to hire me and I'm too old. Pets.com is a big failure. I hadn't done anything compelling since then.

How old were you?

52.

52. At the time that you were pitching Real. Real.

Yes.

We talk about what it takes to lead through public failure, how to scale with clarity and how to keep showing up when the odds are stacked against you.

Chanel personally bullied me and they were.

Trying to make the point that you can't resell their bag.

They were relentless, including planting fakes in the railreal of which some did get sold.

How about that? If you're in a season of reinvention or you're searching for a clearer path forward, this conversation delivers hard earned insights I think you're gonna wanna take with you.

I had no fear of failure with the rail. Rail.

You faced it.

I had none. Failure is part of your learning.

So with that, lets dive right into this week's conversation with the one and only Julie Wainwright. Julie, I have wanted to sit with you for a very long time. I've been. My family, my wife and I have loved what you've built as a business. It's been a great tool for us. And the main reason I want to sit with you is because I, I see your high art as how you work with people to build businesses that make a difference. And so I'm really excited to sit with you because the life you've lived and how you've expressed that through businesses. So thank you so much for coming in.

Wow. Well, it's an honor to be here.

Yeah. Very cool.

Thanks.

Yeah. Okay, so first, let's introduce Poppy.

Yep. This is Poppy. She's probably almost five. My little rescue dog.

Rescue.

Wait. Yeah. Her dad was a pit bull, and her mom was, as I can tell, a Chihuahua.

Okay, that makes sense.

Pomeranian. German shepherd. As far as the DNA test.

Precocious little thing that runs and is already kind of owning the mastery lab here. So it's great.

She's left her mark everywhere.

So sweet. Okay. I think. I don't know if our community knows that we love animals, like, and so it's.

Oh, And I really appreciated that.

Yeah. So I love that. Okay. All right, Julie, let's start. You. You're one of the 23 women to take a company to an IPO at the time.

There's been more after, but, yes, I was one of only 23.

And there's somewhere, like, at that time, there's like a couple thousand probably at least, you know, so the percentage here is dismal.

It's dismal. So, I mean, you know, you feel good about that, but you feel more. I felt really terrible, however, and I should go over and check. I did ask NASDAQ to put me on their fraternity board, because when you walk in and they have all the. We went public on their platform, and they have all the pictures of the CEOs, and there wasn't one woman there. So I said, please put me up on the board. I don't know if they did. I'll have to go check.

Okay, good. Send a picture. I'd love to have some evidence, because you should.

I should be. I think there's been at least four or five after me, and they should. Whether it was on the New York Stock Exchange or nasdaq. I hope they're all. I hope they're all there for future people to see.

What is your take on why women entrepreneurship at the radical level of success that you've had. Have been so far and few in. In between?

There's so many reasons. I think, first of all, women, there's a mindset shift that you have to. You really have to. To create something big. You have to think that you can do that, and you have to really think that I can do what those other people do, because I. I counsel women entrepreneurs quite a bit, and most of the time, they're not thinking big enough. So you have to think big, Bigger. There wasn't. It's a little better. But there isn't a great infrastructure to support women entrepreneurs. And a lot of women entrepreneurs do Businesses that are geared toward women and most people with money are men, and they really don't understand those businesses, so they're not necessarily getting funded. And then in my world, which is more the tech world, it does help if you have a degree in engineering or you have in computer science and something in the tech world and there aren't a lot of women. There's so many reasons. There's no one answer. But I would love to say we're making progress, but it slipped post Covid. Actually, things are getting worse. So it's now it was barely 2% of all money went to women. Now it's now. I don't even think they're reporting it. It's below, way below 2%.

And when you're talking about most, like men have most money, you're talking about venture capitalists or private equity or like bankers that are funding businesses.

That's right.

Not spending on the products, but that are making the business kind of go from, I don't know, starting. Starting gates into what you know. Okay, all right. Why entrepreneurship for you?

Well, I would say, first of all, I'm going to go way back, but my dad started his own company when he was 29. He started his own art and design company.

How old were you at that time?

I was eight.

Okay, and where in the world are we?

South Bend, Indiana.

Okay. And what was the breakfast table or dinner table like?

It was more at night. And he. Well, I'm gonna. I'm giving you two pieces of data when he started the business. Shortly thereafter, my mother was diagnosed with something she didn't have. But they said she was dying, but she didn't die. She had multiple sclerosis. It was misdiagnosed. My mom was only 28, so it was sort of this weird time. But he had just started his business. But between 29 to 36, he was really building the business and. And continued. And he loved it. Loved it. So he started in our house, and then he got an office and he got a partner. And just every night he would come home, look what we're working on. It's so exciting. We just got this account today. We're. We would visit him in the office and, you know, everything was. This is when artists had boards. So it was like, this is what's on the boards. Cause it literally had drawing tables. And they would mock everything up with usually magic markers to take it in some watercolor magic markers. And so he was always, always excited about what was happening in the business. And his clients went from a buyer which at that time was Miles Laboratory. So Alka Seltzer, Flintstone vitamins. He did some Chevrolet, did some Studebaker to also Notre Dame. But when he was doing the more commercial ads for people, everyone in the neighborhood was a potential actor in this. It was so much fun. So all of my kids that I grew up with were in some kind of ad or on something not television, but they were there, including all of us would do shoots in the park for the new cars. So it's like, okay, we're going to do a shoot. So we were very involved in the business and it was fun.

Okay, so you're hitting on something really important is that entrepreneurship. There's risk involved, there is stress. That's high. I think about entrepreneurship as cold air on your skin. Like you've got to be able to tolerate that. And somehow your dad created a vibe that it was excite, that was exciting, that was fun. There was an energy about it. There was a hub for your friends and around the dinner table and whatever. That energy. Yeah, there was a pull towards. So you're watching going, oh. So when I adult, I could entrepreneur and I could have a lot of fun doing it.

So it wasn't. I don't think. Well, the other thing is I took an amazing class at Purdue through an entrepreneurship. But I was still afraid to do it, to go out on my own. But I'll tell you what, I. Why I didn't probably. I'll tell you. Well, exactly. I know exactly why, but I think it was more fear masking. But I kept thinking I had a lot to learn and I really wanted to learn before I went out on my own. So working. When I graduated from Purdue, I was the second undergraduate Clorox had ever hired in brand management. And I learned so much there. I was there three years and it was. So they had very structured learning programs for how you market packaged goods. So it was really good. Then I got a call to join a startup. My boss at Clorox had left and his wife had called me to join a startup in Silicon Valley called Software Publishing. And I was 20, probably, gosh, probably 25. Going to be 25. And this is funny, I even remember how much I was making.

I.

So I was making 50,000 a year at Clorox because they were trying to equalize, because I'd come in cheap because I was an undergraduate. They were trying to. Once you got promoted, they were trying to raise you up to the people at mba. And I looked above me. There were no women above me. One of the people who was a woman in brand management got promoted into hr. That wasn't something I saw myself doing. I got this call to join this startup, and they said, well, look, we don't really have a lot of money. You'd have to take half your salary. And I'm like, I'm all in. And it was. I was living in the city. It was down in Mountain View. But before I quit, I had to meet with the manager of the division I was in at Clorox. And he had a big office and ready for this. No handles on the door. He had a button. Talk about power. He had a button under his desk where he could either let you in, keep you in, or let you out.

Oh, God.

Which is really creepy. Yeah, but I mean, that was then. So he sat me down and he said, so you've accepted another job? And I said, yes. And he goes, and what's the revenue? And I don't remember. It was really small, like 3 million. He said, I can raise the price of liquid bleach by a half a penny and make more than that company will ever make. Why are you doing that? And I said, well, it looks like this is the future, and I'm young, and if I don't take a risk now, I won't. And then he's like, okay, you can't come back. And then he said something that was really funny. He goes, you know, when you leave here, these are the smartest people you're ever going to work with. Which I have to say, the people at Clorox, besides the fact it was sexist, but that was then. But the business did have integrity, so that was true. And I still have very good friends from there. And also, you were in boot camp, so when you go through something that intense. And we were working, you know, gosh, six days a week, 12 hours a day, because everything was trying on purpose, trying to make it hard. But I remember, I never forget the fact that he said, I would never work with these type of smart people again. And of course, I worked with people that were brilliant, brilliant, brilliant after that. So I think, you know, for me, it was like, I kept thinking I had something to learn. And then software publishing was fantastic. I mean, we introduced the first graphics package. So it was called Harvard Graphics, which was the precursor to Power. And I was there working on the product team. But this is also insane. They basically said, who has a passport and wants to set up Europe? And so two of us were like. So I ended up moving to London in my twenties. Running. I had a boss who got fired so it was just me running international all over the world, based out of London in my 20s and I lived there for three years so it was like I was on this function growth exciting time for so long.

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So it's fascinating because working in the tech world, you're around people that think differently. And so I've been able to gauge myself, and I would say I'm pretty good about five years out. One of the guys on my board when I started the RealReal Caval Desai, is probably about 12 years, 12, 14 years out. And I've worked with him long enough to know that, like, he's not crazy. He was right at first. You're like, wow, that sounds a little out there. But I'm pretty good with five years. I think for me, the key is taking in lots of information, cultural information, understanding technology, where that's going, understanding. And this has almost become part of my brain cycle now. But also understanding what could possibly stop that from evolving? And it's also, when you see it, you know it. But I'm pretty good about five years out, sometimes six. But I have been with people that are much further out there, and the issue with them is it's hard when you're sitting around a table dealing with what is now and what. Where we're going in four or five years to then have someone at the table that's like, well, look, this is really where we're going to be, because they sound crazy.

Okay, so how do you do that? Like, can you make it concrete? Like maybe when you're starting real real or anything?

All right, well, yeah, the real real's a good example. Once I got the idea, I knew that. So I have this. I have this idea about ideas.

Okay. Before you shared the idea of ideas, what was the idea of real real. Before you say this, actually, sorry to interrupt. I loved your book. You wrote it. I asked you. This is just to share for the listener is I asked you beforehand, did you write this? And you said, yeah, I really Appreciate how you wrote, the intimacy of the book, the honesty, the way that you walked through, how you took bold steps, and some of the dark side that comes with it. Well done on the book. And I think it's a very helpful guide for people on their journey to figure out, you know, how to design their life in a way where they. They really want to meet the moment of entrepreneurship or taking risks or designing life that feels aligned. And so this is me saying congratulations. I really enjoyed it. My. My wife enjoyed the book and, and we've both, like I said earlier, enjoyed the. The business that you created. Like you solved something that was important for people.

Thank you. I did write. I mean, I wrote the book because I didn't think anyone else could tell my story.

Yeah, I think you got that right. And anyway, okay, so the idea of the real real was. And then we come back around to what the idea about ideas are.

So when I decided I needed to start my own company, I knew I wanted to go back into commerce and E commerce and the world. I had been the CEO of pets.com. it was a very. That was in the year 1998. It was very hard to get a commerce site up during then. Now you fast because you had to build every bit of the code. You needed real physical servers to keep them warm. You needed, you know, almost $5 million to open your door where, you know, the world had changed. It's now 2010. And I thought, okay, you can actually get a business going for about $100,000 now. An E commerce, an E commerce business. And what I did is I mapped out what Amazon was good at and what they were bad at, because I knew no matter what you do, you're gonna compete with Amazon. And one of the things I knew they couldn't do was luxury. However, I also immediately thought, okay, they can't do luxury, but I'm not gonna do a luxury brand. But I had it in the back of my mind. And then I was shopping with a girlfriend at a boutique that had a little bit of consignment in the back. And this is a venture capitalist. Her name's Anne Winblad. We're good friends. We love shopping together. And she bought previously owned goods in that boutique. And I said, wait, you've never walked into a consignment store? Once we got out, she goes, nope, would never shop in one. And I said, but do you shop on ebay? She said, no, I'd never shop on ebay. I said, you just bought consignment. And she said, Julie, I bought beautiful brands at a reduced price. Who cares that they were worn by someone else before? And that was. That's it. And it was because I had that framework in my brain, I'm like, that's my luxury play against Amazon. It clicked right there very fast.

So I see how you're working, like you're looking for the gaps to solve a solution. You ruled things out because of. No, no, no, no. And then you came back around. So you're open to revisiting an idea that you had maybe closed off. It was a different version, like build my own, you know, Julie brand, or where you started. But you came back around like, wait, hold on. Consignment is interesting. You add. You added one more thing in your book, which was, I can't remember how you got to it, but she trusted the place.

Oh, she trusted it, yes. So there were multiple things. I'm like, so why wouldn't you shop on ebay? She didn't trust it. Why do you shop the. Why do you. Why do you trust this? But she goes, I know the owner.

Yeah. I trust, I trust, yeah.

And she knows who gave her these goods.

So this is the thing that you somehow crack that I really want to understand is that the real. Real is. So describe the business in like two seconds.

So it really is a full service luxury consignment business. So for the consumer, everything's been authenticated, it's priced at an optimal price, and the only certain brands are taken. So it's a curated, although large curation selection of luxury goods previously owned that have been authenticated. And it's mostly sold on the Internet, but there are brick and mortar stores, and for the consigner, it's full service. We come to your house, pick up your things, we do all the work. So we photograph it, price it, sell it, and you just collect a paycheck.

So the point that I wanted to make here is that when my wife would buy something or sell something, there's a trust that it's a credible thing that's being purchased or what we're selling or what she's selling, because she's kind of done with the product that you're saying, yeah, yeah, that's the actual design or whatever. And so you created a trusted ecosystem.

It had to be. Yeah, and full service, too.

But the trusted bit is really important. Like, am I getting what it was advertised?

And on ebay, you never know.

And the, the dupes and the. Whatever they're called are so many things, so many counterfeits. Yeah, it's. It's wild how.

Yeah, it's wild. It's such a weird business.

Okay, so. All right, now let's go back. So you had an idea and it happened magically, like, bang, through your friend.

Right.

And you said, I'm gonna go do that.

Right.

So is that how things work for you? Like, lightning bolt, Lightning bolt.

But you know what? I also have this premise when we have an idea about ideas.

Yeah.

So I figured if I'm getting this idea right now, it's up there somewhere, which means somebody else is also getting it. So I really felt like, yes, I had a framework in my head and I'd done some homework ahead of time, but I always feel like if I'm tapping into it, other people are.

So is that like a collective consciousness?

Well, that's how I talk about it.

There's like a stream of ideas that are in the world.

They're out there.

Yeah. And so the idea is not the rare thing. It's the action on the idea.

It's actually what you do, how you execute the idea. And in this case, I was absolutely right. So there was the real rail, focused on luxury, got funded eventually. But there were about four or five other companies that were trying to do the same thing at the same time. And one of them was Thredup, which is still there, which is more low end. The other one was called Poshmark, which was self posting, and they were saying they were being social shopping, which I always thought was a bit obscure. And then there was a company called Thread Flip, I'm talking about at the genesis. Other ones have come Thread Flip, which was sort of in our positioning, but not really. It wasn't full service and they. They didn't really think about authenticating. And the real, real. All of us were out raising capital at the same time. So five of us all meeting with the same venture capitalists. You're meeting with the same ones because it's a small group.

So your plan needs to outperform or make more sense than the other people's plans.

Yes. To get the person you're pitching.

And they're in this case, were they were your competitors, men or women?

All of them were men, except Tracy was a woman.

Okay. So there's that bias that we alluded.

To earlier, was the bias, plus they were all self posting, which is an ebay, so meaning the user did all the work still. And mine had all this backend infrastructure which people are like, oh, that's too much work. It'll never make money. It's too hard. But in fact, that's the moat. I never understood how they were going to differentiate their product, to be honest, because, you know, if I just break them down, I'm like. And Thredup pivoted, so they. They're sort of a different thing. They started someplace else and then they. You had an infrastructure and they pivoted to full. They do everything the RealReal does except authenticate, but for $39. So that I never understood. Thread Flip sort of had a hybrid model. Like, we'll do some of the work, but you can self post. But they weren't going to authenticate. And I thought, well, okay, then they're going to. I don't know what's going to happen to them, but they're not clearly in our space. Poshmark had a whole. Oh, this is social shopping. Everyone's going to be doing social shopping, which is true. Social shopping is a thing, but it's a thing on Instagram, not necessarily a resale platform. But they felt like. Oh, and they were going to be on fashion, but they felt like a segment of ebay for fashion. But nothing different than ebay to me.

So.

So then I had to sell the differences. Why our category was different, why our approach to the customer was different, and why the company would get to profitability.

And you said moat, meaning a defensible moat, that if we had this software algorithm and the authentication of the brand.

Oh, it's bigger than that because, you know, if you do all the work for someone, we have a sales team out in the field. So we had people picking up the right products, then shipping to central locations to be processed. Rows and rows of photographers taking pictures. The authentication using AI and machine learning came much, much longer. It was a slower build process. So we started with just people, people, people doing every task. And when I left the company with 1.5 million square feet under for ops centers underway with about 30, I think they still have the same number, about 3,300 employees.

And you started on your living room table. I did, yeah. And. And if I have it right, the sequencing right, maybe one of the. Okay, let me do two parts to this. You smile when you speak.

I know. It's so much fun, right?

Yeah.

Like there's only when I'm happy.

Yeah. So the. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Right. But there's an energy about how you think about ideas. So we gotta come back to that one more time. But also there's a dark side to kind of going all in. So this compelling idea that you have this compelling future that you're working towards for you to find the gap analysis, to create a moat, to understand your competitors, to pitch this compelling future to sophisticated business people, to be vulnerable in that and to take the risk of moving from a safe, cushy job to, like, I've got to go do this thing.

Oh, but see, I didn't have a job. So that's the other thing.

Oh, that's right.

Pets.com had failed. And then, you know, I was at that point where a recruiter had told me, no one's going to hire me, you know, and I'm too old. I had too many. I had. Pets.com is a big failure. I hadn't done anything compelling since then. So I had to make a decision, just sort of throw in my boots and, like, pack my bags and, you know, move away. Or were you at the 52.

52 at the time that you were pitching? Real. Real. Yes. Okay. And how did you not let the expert. How did you not let them leave a stain on your esteem, your worth, your value, your confidence, your efficacy, your. Those are fancy words for, like, how you felt about yourself.

So after pets.com's failure, I did let him. I mean, it was in the press. How. What a failure it was. It was. I mean, weird things would happen.

What just happened to your voice?

Well, because I'm reliving it. I sort of relive it when I talk about it.

And where is it?

Well, it's a hard. It was a dark, dark time. It was sort of like I had the biggest Scarlet A on my.

You did?

I did. I mean, even when. I'll tell you, I was thinking about in prep for this, I was thinking about. I remember going into a class in a bookstore that was having a writing class, and the teachers saying, oh, well, what did you do? I just need to understand a little bit of background. When I said I was the former CEO of Pets.com, she basically wanted me out of the class. So it was sort of this social stigma layer.

And when you were just.

But that was a small example.

That's a small example, but it's still.

Oh, it's still alive.

The pushing out, the not good enough feeling, the.

Well, it's a little bigger because I didn't. I mean, I came from a family that you sort of, you know, you got to. You got to kill something to eat. You know, you said, basically, you got to make your own way. It's not like I came from. In fact, my dad used to say, if I make a lot of money, I'm going to spend it. So you guys better do well.

Okay, thank you, dad.

But so, yeah, so I mean I was like, I had to figure out my life after that, but I bought all that negativity. I embodied it. When I look at pictures back then, my shoulders are down and then at some point and it really took a while. I had to, it took a long time, way too long. But it doesn't matter because I can't go back. But I had to say, wait a minute. I had a big life before that. I had a lot of success. I'm healthy, I love solving problems. The tech world had been my world for a long time and I'd done well. And I had to completely change my mindset. I had to say, I am not going to let that define me or let others define me. And it was almost, and it, you know how it was almost like I had had enough and I stopped.

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Sure.

Which is like, don't go there because it'll be too much. You're a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs don't cry. I'm making things up. Women need to look strong. And I don't wanna be the one that looks, quote, unquote, weak by being in touch with emotions. I disagree with that flat out.

But no, none of that. I think what it is, is it was. By the way, the press still asks me about it. So it's one of those things that never goes away. And.

And they ask about the.

They just did. Because it was the 25 year of the dot com bust. So they wanted to talk about pets.com.

Okay.

And they said it. And honestly, I don't think I have it still, Michael. But someone in. Was trying to be nice to me. But they did a whole. Which wasn't nice. They did a whole press thing. Of all the negative press on pets.com, literally, it filled binders about this tall all over the world. Because it was emblematic of a dot com explosion, which actually, in 25 years later, it was the precursor to all these other businesses. Timing wasn't right. Timing could have been right. It was really. Access to capital dried up because you know what other companies started then? Netflix. And he never stopped getting capital. And his business also went through a period where, you know, no one else was getting funded. He was still getting funded. So he had the right team behind him that wouldn't give up. But these are, you know, they're older businesses. I mean, it's phenomenally successful. But I remember when everything was busting, it's like, nope, he was still quietly going along and he had the right VCs behind him. But the world, the funding world stopped. I would say my biggest issue with it, when I go back, it's multiple things. One is other companies lost more money than me. A lot more money. And yet if you go anything, the puppet's still out there. Everyone still uses it. Now, people, what's the puppet? Oh, the pets.com puppet was a big symbol of the dot com.

Okay, got it. Yeah.

And so people. It's a little sock puppet, was really cute and it had a good brand following. But companies like webvan lost over a billion dollars. Shut down. It was the precursor to DoorDash and Instacart. But no one Talks about Webvan when they. No one. They probably can't even find the CEO. But no one scrutinized him. But they all scrutinized me.

Yeah. Does it say in the military, those that lead bleed? And you were leading?

I was leading. And I also, in this case, it's not about. I think because I was a woman, it didn't help. Oh, all right. So remember, women CEOs are rare. I don't think it helped. And I had a couple people tell me that in the media. It's like, you know why they're doing this? It's because you're a woman. So I don't think it helped. But it was so dark that I still get a little angry. I'm very sad. The other thing is, I'd been married, but our marriage was under duress when the pets. The day I had to shut down Pets, he literally said, and he knew it, it was a public company. So I've taken a company public twice. He said, I want to leave. So he ran away. And so then if you think about, okay, I'm shutting down Pets, I'm going to go home that night, he's going to be gone, and I have weird press showing up at my door. And let's just talk about. I mean, I'm woman, so 42 years old, married during the big childbirthing age. Like, we didn't try not to have kids, but we didn't do anything extraordinary. And I'm like, okay, now I've got. So you have to think about. At that time, I didn't think my career in Silicon Valley was over. I just thought I had to shut it down. The press was terrible. I had to get my life figured out. And the press never really stopped. But it was so dark and it was like everything piled up together. And when it went on past the norm, it took about a year, about nine months to shut the company down. When it kept going on, and I would say that's when I bought it. That's when I bought Swallow into the negative. Negative. I could. It was sort of like too raw. It was too much and. But a combination of like, this isn't me. Like waking. It was like a waking up. And also, I just remember sitting at a baseball game and I was with a friend who really loves stats. I mean, records all the stats. She's really like a little probably on the spectrum, a little weird. Anyway, she had to get all the stats all the time, knew all the stats of all the baseball players. And I'm more of a Basketball, football, person. But it's really fun to go to baseball, but I'm not knowledgeable about that as much as I am about basketball and football. This is called growing up in Indiana, by the way. And I thought, oh, my God, look at those batters. This one, she's so excited about. This guy, he fails 67% of the time. And I kept thinking, I failed once, and I'm doing this to myself. And I kept. And then I. I mean, and I knew this, too. This is the thing when you know something. I knew if I was that negative, felt that bad every day, I'd bring that forward, you know? And it's sort of like every day if you're. If you're feeling bad about. You're still bringing it forward, even though you think maybe you're not. And I'm like, I have to stop this because I'm creating my own future by living in. In the past or actually taking on how other people define me. And it took a lot.

What were you saying?

There were a lot of distractions to keep me from really focusing on myself. Because shutting the company, the divorce. Yeah.

So in that. All of that rawness and the emotions that come with that, I'm imagining that when you say dark, it was depression.

Well, it was, but it wasn't like, I'm gonna throw myself off a bridge.

Not suicidal.

No. But it was like, do I really wanna go on that high? Kind of. Maybe I should just stay home. You know, Do I really wanna go to that event? Cause I had also gone out to a couple events where, like, I'd gotten chastised publicly from people at the party. And so it became like, some anxiousness that was. And also just like, why do it? So it became more pulling in and.

So lonely, isolated, malignant.

Well, it wasn't. It was more isolated. But, I mean, I had good friends, so it wasn't like. In fact, even when my husband moved out, a good friend moved in. Because I said, ken, this is bad, because these people are. The reporters are showing up at the house, and here I am trying to sort out my life and not wanting them. They were literally knocking on the door. It only happened twice, but it needed to happen once. And so I had a friend move in with me for a while just to. So luckily, I do have really good friends.

Yeah. And there's a survival, a thriving instinct that you have, which is like, I. I need to be around somebody that I trust and can help me.

And, you know, but it is a pulling in without it, without a doubt. Your circle gets smaller.

Smaller, yeah. Probably a healthy response. What would you say to let's just do women right now. What would you say to women who are struggling with the external narrative about who they are, what they're capable of, how worthless they might be, and that they've adopted it at some point? And the way that they speak to themselves is dark as well, and sad and depressing and full of anxiety. How would you speak to that? Wow.

I wish I would have spoken to myself this way. I mean, at the end of the day, you only have one life. And actually, if you let other people define you, you'll never be able to live your own life. And I would say most people that actually, whatever they did to me, it's really more a reflection of themselves, not of you, and you need to separate it. I think your friends and your lovers and your loved ones do matter. I mean, it matters a lot. So, remember I talked about some of the people at Clorox had a lot of integrity. Some of those people were there to when. So I did develop really close friends and still have really close friends. And those people know you and they can carry you, and they're sort of your life witness, and nothing else sort of matters, to be honest. It really comes down to you only have one life and you need to take stock. I mean, you see it. I see it in people all the time. I work with an entrepreneur who should have launched her business a year ago, and she just won't do it. And I'm like, you've got to do it. I know this has to be. What do you think it is? What do you think is going? I think I know what he. And she goes, I think I'm afraid. I said, but you love solving problems once you launch things, right? And she goes, yes. I go, why don't you think of it as you're going to learn? You're going to get it right? I said, I think you're a perfectionist, too, and it's not going to serve you because you don't have feedback. Why don't you just say, I'm not going to fail when I launch it? I'm going to be on a learning ground. But you see it. It's like we're. That's. I think fear and buying into other people's agenda is your biggest stopper in life. Oddly enough, when I started the RealReal, I wasn't afraid.

So there was not a risk involved in starting.

There was a huge risk, but.

But you were not afraid.

I wasn't Afraid. And also once I got the idea, which was November of 2010, I launched in June of 2011. And as soon as I launched, I knew. I'm like, this is gonna go. I knew right away. And I knew exactly what I had to do. And then it was like, then it was just getting it done. But I mean, we had scary moments then because I kept thinking, we're gonna run out of product. And so you have scary moments, but then you put a plan in place to address it.

Ooh, okay. Because it was. One of the questions I had is that you put your house up against the.

I did, yeah.

Which is a huge risk, you know, And I wanted to know, like.

But it felt like a, it felt like a plan.

Right? Because the vision was so clear and your belief in the potential outcome that you were working towards felt like it was within arm's length. Wasn't. It wasn't too far away.

Right, Right. Yeah, Well, I, I figured I'd know right away. How's that? And I knew right away, meaning if the first sale failed, if the sell through was so aggressive. So then the question is, my whole premise was this is going to be a supply problem, not a demand problem.

So was there enough product?

Did you have enough of the right product on a regular basis? If I was wrong in the demand, then it would have been a complete failure. But I was so right on the demand because my whole focus had been, I've got to solve this supply problem. The demand will take care of itself.

And the demand was, I would like to buy something that is already used, that is of high quality and I can trust it. There's plenty of buyers out there.

Yourself, Right. And when we sold through everything we put up on the market, right away I'm like, oh, there's a voracious demand. So I was right. So I was solving the right problem.

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So I really knew I had to change people's behavior and view of wearing previously owned things for the business to do well. And the only way to do that was to make it cool. Make wearing previously owned things cool. Not like a consignment store.

It's not like you, you couldn't afford the thing. It's like you chose.

Yeah, you chose and it's cool and it's unique and it's on trend now you are on trend by. So I wanted to, I always call it, I didn't want to break the romance of the brand so I had to change a perspective. So I knew that I also knew I couldn't do that because I'm not the fashion person. So I had to really hire a merchant who really believed what we were doing and could actually translate that into something cool and, and you know, fashiony. I'm not fashiony. And so that was my first idea. It's like, I need a great merchant. I need a great merchant. So then it became someone who. And my first employee was a woman named Rati Sahi who's now Rati Levesque. She's married and is the CEO, but she was a merchant. She had been written up and some of the online sites about being very progressive. She had a little bit of consignment in her store. She was young, she was willing to take risks. She had worked really hard to actually build up the store. She clearly was stylish where I wasn't. And I would say when I met her, I'm like, so what did I, what was I looking? Someone look hard, work hard, not get paid very much, buy into the vision and, and ready to really just do everything. Meaning build the desk, empty the trash if you have to take the pictures because the photographer was quitting all the time, edit the photos, just do it all. So I was looking for someone who wasn't going to had a skill set. She clearly had a skill set as a merchant, but wasn't afraid to do everything else and work hard.

Do you hire for skill or do you hire for scrappiness?

In this case. I was looking for both.

Both? Yeah. Right. Well, you're an independent thinker, so I see how that would be really important.

For you as well. It's really important in a startup because you'll like, for instance, and we hired this woman named Maria who I write about in the book. And she had. She'd worked for. She had a good salary. She'd been with the company like 14 years. She's like, no, no, no, I want to get into fashion. I'll do anything. I promise you, I'll do anything. So she did customer service, she did shipping. She did. I'd be like, can you just figure out how we can get the best rates and if we're working with the best carrier? She goes, yeah, I'll figure it out. She didn't know anything about shipping. So you want people that problem solve, that have a good skill set of problem solving and will make it happen. When you give them a problem, they don't say, well, I don't know how to do that. They're like, yeah, I'll figure it out. So that attitude, especially in the startup, is brilliant, Absolutely brilliant.

You know, there's. When we were doing selection at the Seattle Seahawks, Coach Carroll, the head coach of the Seattle Seahawks, one of the framings that he would have about fit. They had to obviously be physically, technically, mentally great. But the final kind of touches of who to bring on the roster. There's only 53 athletes, right? Was what I like playing pickup basketball with this person. And so he loved pickup basketball. So it's like, would I like to hang out in the backyard, you know, like, and play a competitive game? And that there's something undervalued about the appreciation of wanting to spend time with people too. You know, great problem solver, ambitious, scrappy, all of those things. Skill, if you get it, is great. And then do I like the quality of the person, the way the person feels? Is that an important.

Oh, so important. And you know, I'm still working with. There's a woman that was working in our finance department and she said for the first five years that I was there, we laughed so much. It was so much fun that I never thought about going to work. Because see, the other thing is we were all aligned on trying to build this business. And resell is a weird business. There's funny things that happen. There's funny things that happen at startup all the time anyway. And they're. And we would literally at points, there were times when I couldn't stand up. I was Laughing so hard.

What a great culture.

It was so much fun. It was so much fun. So I think built so again, fun. So I would say, if anything in my life I've craved, I always wanted to make my own money. Cause I saw too many women who made bad choices as a young girl by not having their own independence and their own money.

Oh, so that's. That was a.

That was another big reference point for you. Big reference. So here you see, like my dad and his friends having fun at work. And then you see women making choices of his age that for money or for the lifestyle. And that the contrast was so vivid. And it's still vivid. Having your own money, I think is really important, but that was important. And then creating businesses and creating is fun and creating that and making sure people join a company because they actually do have a passion for working hard and making it fun. It's so much great. So let me. I'll tell you a funny story about Rachi. We literally were joined at the hip, did everything. And she's, gosh, a lot younger than me, which was great too. But I think, I know I had more energy than her. I still do. But anyway, so not that you're competitive about. We're always competitive. But at one point, and it was probably two and a half years in, she said, we have to have a talk. And I'm like, okay. She goes, I can't work Sundays anymore. I'm like, what, are you kidding me? She's like, I'm like, oh, my God, you're such a millennial. She's like, I can't do seven days a week anymore. I'm like, all. I guess, if you have to.

But anyway, if you were to advise a startup now, would you say seven days is required to get it going, or would you say there's a different balance that's required?

I think people fool themselves that they think they're going to do something big and work part time. And I would say part time in a startup is not seven days a week. And I can tell you, especially when you're the founder, even when you're not physically there, you're working all the time and you have to.

How do you manage that? That insatiable drive with teammates that are more interested in maybe the work life balance or the.

Well, those people came later. And it was always hard to be honest, but at the beginning, it really was people, I would say until we got to pretty far, probably about almost 500 million in sales because the company went 10 to 25 to 50 to 100 to 250 to 5. And it was sort of people that were all in and then it was always hard to find people were that committed and look you have to people I understand people need a life and I wasn't working seven days a week. Well I probably was but I didn't expect other people. I wasn't one of those people that set missives at 2am and expected someone at answer at 5am I always respected people's boundaries but then I just wanted complete accountability so I had to switch because to you have to be then accountable for the decisions you make.

Cold air on your skin.

And if you are accountable and you can get the job done in a shorter time then that's fine.

And so create whatever lifestyle you want. You're accountable to these numbers.

You're still accountable. Right. And the only risk with that and it and was always a risk it can result in a lack it becomes a process driven company, not an innovation driven company.

Yeah.

And so then you we had to figure out how to balance that. So the innovation was still coming from Rachi and I talking regularly on a regular basis. And so but that's not a scalable solution. So it's so the innovation can get sidelined in that way.

Yeah, this is a rich insight. And also number hitting is a lagging indicator.

Exactly.

So to be able to pivot quickly. There's a problem to innovation and there's a problem to agility. If it's about numbers and the only time you look at numbers is let's say quarterly.

Well no, we had it daily. We had it Look, I mean I had everything scaled where I had I knew what was happening every 20.

I need that.

I had it.

I really need.

Oh I had it set up so literally by let's say 9am I could tell you what the day say it was going to be on because I had complete pattern recognition without a bi department. I mean so did all of us at the beginning. I'm like okay, we're not. This is failing. We're going to have to do this so but everything the business was real time in commerce. It's easier in real time. But you know there is a really especially with a company that has a lot of processes and put technology in place to scale. Having someone focused on that process is really critical. Having someone focused on innovating is also critical. And when I left the company I would say there isn't anyone there doing that now. Do they need it right now? No. But will they need it? Yes. And it's harder for an out outsider to come in because chances are their knee jerk reactions or their ideas is something that was 10 years ago or five years ago and maybe tried or rejected out of hand.

Right?

So it's a harder thing. But keeping that alive. Think about Apple and when Steve Jobs died, everyone's like, innovation's dead. Well, I mean everyone. I've. Tim Cook has been amazing. He's been amazing at process and building a company much bigger and more value than Steve. Not that they're mutually exclusive, but they haven't innovated for a long time. And so the key is, do they have that in their DNA still and where do they go? I don't know. I can tell you that an innovator's life within a larger company that has to hit their numbers every quarter and report their numbers is a harder life. And it's harder to keep that alive. You almost have to shell it off, but you don't want to disconnect from the company because if it's too disconnected, it's like what those strange people are doing over there. They're not integrated. It's a tough challenge. That's why companies end up buying a lot of innovation, because they don't have it internally and then they can kill it. You know, they can kill it if a lot of them kill it because they don't have the mindset for the innovation.

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Oh, yeah, okay.

Like, and, and I'm aware that there might be some tiptoeing around this that you need to be for, for maybe legal reasons or whatever. And also like, what are the most difficult parts of building a business? Can. There's two parts of dragon slaying in there. So can you, can you hit the Chanel thing? And the reason I bring this up is because you're charging, you're surging, there's an energy, you're building. And then you've got a titan that Chanel that is backdooring, that is blocking, that is demonstrative, demonstratively pulling you away from growing and bigger opportunity. Because they saw a threat right in the resale market.

That's right in the real real. No, they saw it specifically the real real in the real.

That's how you know you're actually like when the big ones are like, hey, this one's a problem. Which is you and the real real. So how did you deal with that bit? And maybe you can open it up in a story to demonstrate your point.

So look, the Real. I mean the realreal is a disruptor in the fashion industry. And I would say it's probably true that none of the big brands, whether it was LVMH or even Kering who was a little more open or Chanel wanted us to exist. But Chanel was the most active and they were active early on in the business because we had a relationship active in blocking and blocking us. We had a relationship with Saks and Neiman Marcus which at that time were two separate companies. And the goal was to encourage people to consign their closet then come back and shop at their stores. And Chanel absolutely blocked Neiman's and Saks from working with us. Now they did it about. We had executed with Neiman's about nine or 10 months. So it actually did help build the brand. But here's what I knew and here's why I knew they wouldn't succeed. Although they kept hammering away and hammering away. My business was business to consumer and if a consumer bought the product, they had the right to sell it. So they couldn't legally stop me. They could slow it down. They could, you know, and they did. They used a lot of tactics. But I knew that if I was meeting my keeping my consignors happy and my consumers happy, Chanel would lose. So I focused on those things. Now Chanel personally bullied me. They, which was so, I mean it was childish. Personally bullied me. It was like they brought me into a conference room to basically denigrate my business and me. And I thought, I mean it was like who it was. I mean it was rude and it was really rude. Cause it was 8am in the morning. I was living on the west coast so it was 8:00am East coast time at their headquarters with a senior leader.

Senior leader had a three minute conversation with you.

Left, exited to leave me with his IP lawyer who just basically. And I said, oh, we had just opened a pop up in SoHo. And I said, have you seen the store? And she's like, why would I? It's resale. And then it went downhill from there. And it was, you know, including. She goes, would you like some coffee? And I'm like, I'd love some. She goes, get it yourself. I mean it was just.

And you didn't move?

No, I didn't move because it's so rude.

It's really rude. And you know what I love? Share with the listener who hasn't read your book yet. What you did, how you ended that meeting.

I just got up and walked out. I'm like I don't need this kind of abuse. It was abusive.

Were you pissed? Were you graceful?

No, I wasn't graceful. I just said, you know what? We're done here. I was mad. I'm just like. In fact, I might have said, you are so rude. Yeah, I mean, you're just rude.

Yeah, I mean, that's. That's a. So your most precious asset is your time, always. They clogged up your time. The senior leader didn't even clog up his time.

No, he left. No, he set me up. He set me up for, like, some confrontation with this person. He's just a, you know, nasty person.

And they were trying to make the point that you can't resell their bag because when they sell it to the.

Consumer, well, that's what they would have liked.

Yeah, that. But what is it, like, Porsche or maybe Ferrari that says, like, Ferrari, you can't sell your car within one year or two years, whatever.

Yeah, and which is illegal in the U.S. it's mine.

I do whatever I want.

Yeah, but I think if you ever wanted to buy another Ferrari, then they're.

Like, no, like, you're. I see what you're doing. You're flipping the cars. You're, like, hurting our business. Like, okay, so that's what they were trying to do. And they.

They thought the real. In fact, she said, you're my biggest threat. You're my biggest, you know, biggest fear. And I'm like, oh, here you go. But I knew she. Look, they kept at it. They were relentless, including planting fakes in the realreal, of which some did get sold.

How about that? Well, that's illegal because that really hurts your credibility because now you're moving a fake Chanel bag.

Right.

And they're like, look, that's exactly what they do. Look what they're doing. Yeah. And that. You're saying that is illegal.

No, it's not illegal.

They can.

They can implant fakes. No, I mean, look, it's up. Yeah. I mean, anyone can do it if they. If they wanted to. But I mean, you know, is the. Was. The real world's 100% foolproof. Nothing can be right. When I left there, they were at 99.98 or something percent and if anyone had any question about authenticity, we just take it back, you know? So. Yeah, I mean, Chanel tried to block it, but I thought their personal attacks on me were kind of surreal.

Well, there's another one you shared where they. So there's your. I don't know. I'm gonna make it up like a 20 foot image of you being celebrated amongst some titan entrepreneurs.

Oh, no, that was wwd, which is the Women's Wear Daily. It's sort of the biggest event. And they were honoring Karl Lager, who was the creative director, one of the greatest ever, ever for Chanel. But they were also honoring me for the real rail. And then they were. And the other, the head of Gucci. The head of, Gosh, Patagonia for sustainability.

Yeah, Yvonne.

And we're at a table and I look to my right and I look at the name tag and it's that head of Chanel. North America is now sitting right next to me. And Carl's at another table and we're all going up, getting our waters.

Did you get to meet Carl?

I didn't. I thought he would probably hate me and I wasn't in the mood to get beaten up by him, but. And then he died a few years later. But he, he actually was very entertaining. So the, I guess the story about Carl, which I kind of love, he just made everything up. He, like any stories he told about himself, it was sort of everything was whimsy. So you really had to dig for the truth. You know, he'd tell a child of his childhood. And of course he was really old, so I mean, it was just. And I said, oh, no, he just made stuff up all the time. Nothing like the veracity level. And his own stories when he was interviewed is like probably at 10%. So I've got the head of North American, you know. And I said, oh, you're going to have a bad night sitting next to me. And he said, no. I asked you and I said, I bet you did. He goes, oh, anyway, it was, you.

Know, I mean, and that person was sabotaging.

They had. When he left the table, WWD exec said they tried to get the award. He personally tried to get the award pulled and he moved the name tag so he could sit next to you. So, I mean, I mean, so what, what kind. It's like a physical power move or something. Was he like trying to psych me out?

100.

I mean, but come on, that's just so silly. It's child's play.

Well, for people that you're playing a different game, if you're trying to play a power game with that person, they've got a lot of power and they were trying to flex it in physical ways, in financial ways, in resource ways. But you were playing a different game. You were not interested in power. You were interested in building something bigger than you. Right.

Period. It wasn't about me, so even.

But you've got a 20 foot, you know, like image of you.

I know, I know. That was. Well, it was Carl and then me, which I bet you someone did that on purpose. So you first walked past Carl, then I was right there and then all the other CEOs.

But those are massive.

Oh massive.

They were like Yvonne Chouinard from Patagonia is like a, an entrepreneur hero of mine. I've never met him but like what he stands for. Purpose Sustainability. Yeah. So for you to be up in that.

High altitude and you know, we were oddly when you do these things and you get awards, there seem like okay, an award. But that one sort of did matter. It was like, okay, we're here. Yeah, you know, we're absolutely here. And it was a really special night. And because sometimes you get these awards and there's like, okay, you had to buy the table, you know, to get the award. And this wasn't one of those things. It's like, yeah, we'd love to give you this award and it will only cost you $50,000 and you have to.

Bring all, all of your people. Yeah, right.

Do you want two of them, you know, in your life?

What am I doing with my life?

But that wasn't one of those.

Very cool. What would be. This is Dragon Sling again. What would be some of the most or the most be, you know, provocative for a minute important decision that shifted your trajectory.

Well see, once I took venture capital money in then that was the. That's where I was and I knew I was going to need it. So it really came down to just feeding the beast with money and getting going. IPO was a big shift. It was great. Some people forget when you take in venture capital money they have to get it out. There was no natural buyer for the railreal. Some of my investors had put their money in for eight years and then kept funding us as we went along. So taking the company public, being able to have a financial reward for the investors and the employees was pretty remarkable. I would say what shifted the business was the most and it was probably the biggest mistake I've made since forever was when I recommended new board members for the real rail based because my other board members got off to sell their stock. Except for one guy and I blew it. And I'll tell you how I blew it. I naively did not consider a value driven axis when I looked at adding board members new or recommending you don't really add them when you're Public you recommend them. And I looked at their experience of what they could add an experience and didn't consider a difference in values. And I would say that people coming from a corporate world being on a. And it was heavily loaded with corporate people after being on a company that was entrepreneurial in nature, that was collaborative in nature, that had high growth, that had technology as an underpinning, that tends to create a more collaborative, fast moving decision making as opposed to hierarchical. And I just. I really blew it. So I would say the board members that I recommended were the wrong board members. And then someone told me this which I think is interesting. Someone told me, a guy told me, he said, you know, the problem with what you did is women tend to recommend who they think will be add the best to the company and men tend to put on people that will always support them. And it never occurred to me. So I brought on people that I would say ideologically I was not aligned with. And I don't even like them, to be honest. I don't like them as people and I didn't know how much I didn't like them. So that ended up being bad for me. And I don't think served the company to be honest because what I had was one guy on the board who is the last money and didn't get his money out. And the stock fell pretty aggressively during COVID It was a big fight out. In fact it really. I don't know what it where it. Last time I looked it was pretty much below when I left. Still low. It's popped up and around but it's been really low. And that person basically was undermining me. And he had. And I sort of. And then I handed him a board that had no allegiance at all to me. To me. And we were coming out of COVID which was very demanding and I was really heads a new CFO and I.

Was motivated to make money. He.

I'm sure he had a lot of pressure because he blew it. He blew it personally. Let's just say that guy could have gotten off the board and sold his. And he didn't. So he lost money for his investment.

So he swayed the board.

I don't know that for a fact, but I. That's what I. I was into it.

So you got.

And then I didn't help. I got pushed out and I didn't help myself. I lost, you know, because it didn't help my. Let's just say he probably created a story about me and then I just fed into it because I just yeah, yeah. And also, I mean, meaning I just called him on stuff very publicly and people thought it was a terrible thing to do for your ex. My new board members thought I was horrible, and then I didn't. Anyway, it just degraded within a few months after that.

But, I mean, there's a sadness here.

Well, it was very sad because. Oh, no, it was terrible. I would say it was really bad. And I will also say, which I say in the book, look, I was also really tired. Covid was hard on the business. We had to do a lot of weird maneuvers to get around shutdowns to get the product out. The business was growing 40% before COVID hit. Within five weeks of shutting it, shutting everything, shutting down, it dropped. So it was 40% versus a year ago. So it was an 80 point swing. We had to do a lot. We had people freaked out. We had people in the op centers who we had to furlough, people we had, you know, the whole spraying, the thing. No one really understood it. I was worried about kids, people dying. And then my top cto, who was great, said, I'm leaving. I'm going back to Sweden. So he quit. And then I had to fire a sale. So it was just, you know, I don't know if you say these words on your show, but it was a shit show. It was a shit show. It was trying to hold everything together and hire new people. So it was a bad time. And, you know, and I had a new board, so it was bad.

Lesson learned.

Yeah. Well, I would say that it all comes down to values. You know, it's all about values, aligning, aligning values. And also, I couldn't. I mean, the people that had been on the board were with them with me forever. So I couldn't say, stay on and don't cash out on your investment. And I Honestly, I wish. And none of them were that experienced at this either, but I wish my old board members would have actually advised me. But I think they did the best they can. Most companies, most venture capitalists don't have companies that go public. It's more of an M and A world. So I would say I wish I would have asked their advice, but honestly, I was asking them advice on things that were going on. The craziness that happened after we went public. And most of them were like, we've never seen this before. So, you know, there's probably. I probably could have reached out more, but I also felt like I was keeping the company alive, doing everything I could.

I totally see why you're Successful, you have, you have a shift, sharp spark and a, a appreciation for that when hard times come, that you know what that means and that you'll navigate through that again. Like, I, I definitely understand your ability to see a vision, your ability to inspire other people to lead with a work ethic of value and a, a passion to be part of something bigger. And it's great that you're going to make a lot of money along the way. Like, I totally see the attraction to be able to be led by you and your frames of reference, both from early childhood all the way forward that help you make bold decisions along the way that are backed in a plan. You're a systems thinker that allows, that also allows yourself to have that intimate connection with your people.

Oh, absolutely.

You mentioned purpose earlier, like being part of something bigger. What are your most important practices? To be connected or to stay connected to purpose.

I think it's really understanding your own values and then just keeping yourself aligned all the time. And it's. Yeah, it's a weird time now too, just with all the politics. So it's hard. There's a weird environment that we haven't, I haven't experienced as an adult, but I would say I'm very conscious about it, very conscious about how I spend my time and what I do. And yes, it becomes being more conscious, Julie.

I mean, it's so much fun. Like, thank you for sharing your expertise to going into hard places in the conversation and allowing me to feel like that sharp spark of brilliance that sits right underneath in your heart behind your eyes that I think is a signature that I will not forget of how you created what you created and how you went about doing it with your people.

Well, thank you very much and thanks for letting Poppy come.

Poppy. Yes. And I'm holding the book. And for audio listeners, the name of it is Time to Get Real How I Built a Billion Dollar Business that Rocked the Fashion Industry. Great read. You know, full of insights. It's warm, it's thoughtful, it's directional. I hope you feel really good about it. I think this is going to help a lot of people on their journey, you know, to figure out how to, how to build something that matters to them. And before you go, what do you think of the fashion? You said three. Would you say five to six years out is kind of a sweet spot for you?

Oh, you know, it's going to be fascinating because they're really in trouble. The luxury brands are in trouble and the really low end brands are full of plastic. So like the Sheens. They've actually now in the, looking at the Ocean Water, sampling it. 35% of all microplastics which are now in our food come from fast fashion. So we've got this high end area that's really inaccessible except at something like the real rail for most people and the low end which is doing phenomenal damage to the planet. And in the middle everyone's suffering. So I would say luxury brands are going to continue, they'll continue, but they're not going to see the growth they've seen in the past. So they're going to struggle. I would say that fast fashion personally is not going to go away, but it does need tariffs because it's in trouble. So I would say it's ripe for innovation with young designers who are thinking differently, but they're going to have to be really scrappy because their money isn't going to be there. But I do think it's ripe for individuals, smaller brands, but it's going to be in trouble to build something that.

Is not fast fashion, plastic based.

And there's people doing it in New York and they just have to figure out how to scale. See, this is the other thing. There's some people doing great, great things but they don't want to give away, they're afraid to give away their business and they've got a nice little business at 10 million and that's fine. They're barely profitable though and they're working themselves to death. So it's going to be new and fresh. I think it's ripe for. It is in a disruptive state.

If there was one or two or three mindsets that you think are critical for being great in this new way of living, right? The, the new world with AI and the speed and da da da da. What would, what would you name those mindsets?

You have to be really curious always. So you know, you have to operate out of that and learning, not fear. Look, I mean whenever there's something new that comes in, fear can actually. Fear is the worst mindset. So curiosity, keep the learning. And if you find fear, you have to actually put it away, put the fear away. The other thing is, and it's a big shift and once you make the shift, everything will change. Failure is part of your learning. So I would say again, you have to be a risk taker, recognizing the downside, but the downside isn't as down as you think. The weirdest thing happened to me after I failed when I failed@pets.com, and this is probably why the realreal worked. I had no fear of failure with the realreal.

You faced it.

I had none. None. I'm like, okay, did that. Lived through it. It was a bad time, but we're good now. I'm like, it may fail again. I may fail again. We'll take it from there.

Julie, thank you. Poppy, thank you for taking a nap. You know, again, thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks.

That was so refreshing. I mean, there's so much insight in there. Emma, who do we have next in the Finding Mastery hot seat?

Right. She was starting. Wait. I'm not sure I'm allowed to say that.

Yeah, you just did.

Okay, moving on. Next up, we're switching gears as you sat down for the second time with the myth, the legend, the one and only Alex Honnell.

I mean, what do you say about someone who free soloed El Capitan? No ropes, no support, like he's climbing 3,000 sheer feet on his own. He's on another level, mentally, physically, emotionally. This was really a fun one where we were able to reflect back on our previous conversation that we had back in 2018, which for Alex was pre marriage, pre fatherhood. And we're able to directly compare his answers then to now. Post marriage, post fatherhood. We talk fear. We talk risks and values and focus and legacy and what mastery looks like when your life is quite literally on the line. If you've ever wondered how to manage fear or reimagine what's possible, this one's for you. All right, thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest, no cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on our Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Hunch over to findingmastery.com newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors, and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals@findingmastery.com sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend, and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional, so seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring. Come on.