She Sold for $2.3 Billion: “He Asked for a Divorce the Morning My Company Shut Down"

What would you do if your business failed in front of the entire world and your marriage ended the same day, and everyone in your industry doubted if you would ever make a comeback? My guest today didn't just come back, she built a billion-dollar company in her 50s and became the 23rd woman in history to take a company public. What's up, you guys? Welcome back to Makeshift Happen. This week's episode is absolutely insane. We have Julie Wainwright with us, who is the founder and former CEO of The RealReal, the luxury resale giant that reshaped how people buy and sell high-end goods. She's been named one of Entrepreneur's 50 Most Daring Entrepreneurs, Fast Company's Most Creative People, and has graced the COVID of Forbes alongside Kamala Harris and Shonda Rhimes. And she's here to take us behind the scenes of her boldest chapter yet. In this episode, we talk about how she turned the ashes of Pets.com and a dissolved marriage into her greatest personal reinvention, the surprising moves that made The RealReal a billion-dollar success story, and why she built it differently in her 50s than in her 40s, what really happens after you ring the NASDAQ bell and take your company public, and the truth about being the only woman at the table when raising millions in capital. We also get Julie's unfiltered opinions on why she believes every woman must make her own money and how to own your ambition at any age without apology. This is not just a story about female entrepreneurial success or business. It is a masterclass in resilience, reinvention, and proving it's never too late to create your boldest chapter yet. If you have dreams so big you sometimes feel insane, this episode is for you. You guys are going to love this one. Without further ado, let's get into this episode and welcome Julie to the show.

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I'm your host, Samantha Daly, entrepreneur, life coach, and your no BS bestie, here to bring you all things mindset, manifestation, and personal development.

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Welcome to the show, Julie. I'm so excited that you're here, and I know the women who listen to Makeshift Happen are going to be obsessed with all of the wisdom and experience and knowledge that you bring to this conversation. As I was just telling you, going over your career, your accomplishments, your journey, like, there are so many things that I was fascinated about you for and wanted to ask you. So I'm even interested to see where this interview takes us because I have a million things that I could ask you about. But I wanted to start with kind of showcasing this really dynamic career that you've had, you know, leading multiple companies. Building The RealReal into a billion-dollar brand and, you know, now launching something completely new with Ahara and writing a book. But before we get into all of that, I'd really love to go back a little bit and just take us back to kind of the moment when you first felt the pull to become a founder and what was happening in your life or career at that point. And if you could have ever imagined this kind of path that you were embarking on at that time?

Well, I was a CEO to hire in the tech world. First of all, thank you. Let's back up. Thank you for having me on. I know we already had a little chat ahead of time, so, and I am one of those people, I just jump in, but thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. And I am excited to talk about my book, Time to Get Real. So, you know, we'll, I'm very excited about it. Well, but to that question specifically, Specifically, I was a CEO to hire in startup companies. So they tended to be, when I ran Berkeley Systems, it was $30 million, $25 million, and sort of moving downward. They were having a struggle and turned it around. When I went to reel.com, which was the first site to sell movies, it was only about $5 million. In revenue. And then I was hired to run Pets.com when it was about $100,000 in revenue and to take that. So I had had this long experience and I joined a startup in my early 20s of working with founders and being part of the startup environment. And I loved it. I honestly loved it. What happened is And I love, well, I'll tell you why I loved it for, there's so many reasons. One is it's innovative, it's collaborative. I love technology. We were doing really cool things, working with smart people. And it was especially in the '80s and '90s, it's still a great industry, but in the early '80s, it was more of a meritocracy. There were a lot of great women in tech doing things. So, I mean, it was fun. I worked very closely with the founders when I was the CEO because the companies were small. The founders were still in the company. And it's one of the most exciting things to see one, someone take their idea and then create a business, even though some were in different stages. These people had real vision. And, you know, I'm always one of those people where once you start getting jealous of something, you're like, then you have to do it. That means you're not recognizing your own potential. So I always honored the founders, but I was also jealous of them. I'm like, they had this great vision and they've done these things. Now I came in to help them, but it was their vision I was executing. So that, um, that was a great way to like sort of dip your toe in without the, all the risk. Having said that, when I ran Pets.com, it didn't do well. And I had this sort of big failure on my shoulder. It was really too early. We couldn't raise the other rounds, but it was viewed as a failure in the software industry and in the tech industry in general. It sort of became the poster child for the dot-com explosion. That was 25 years ago. And my career just sort of ground to a halt. And I was in a position where I had to make a decision that either I start my own company or I just get out of town and do something completely different. Um, and that company I started was The RealReal. So I would say I had run my course in being a gun to hire, um, and in the tech world. And I was really at a crossroads, and I decided to bet on myself.

Yeah, and it, it really worked out, which we'll, which we'll talk about, um, because that's a very cool story too. But in your book, Time to Get Real, there is this kind of emphasis on transforming failure into that launch pad for reinvention, as you were just speaking about. And you've had to reinvent yourself so many times. I think this is, uh, the case for a lot of people, but I think especially women in these creative endeavors, like, and, and with marketing in you have to continue kind of becoming these new versions of yourself in order to stay relevant and adapt to the times and shift to your own internal evolution of who you are and like what you want to bring to the world. So when you, when women like say, cause there'll be a lot of people listening to this podcast that are entrepreneurial, ambitious women, maybe they want to build something, whether it's big or small, but, um, they have these dreams to build something of their own, but they might be like, I'm afraid. Of failing. What would you say to those people, being someone who's walked through that fire and come out the other side? What is your kind of perspective on that now? Okay, so I have something I think you're really gonna love, and your business is gonna love it even more.

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Well, I think the first thing is I was afraid of failing, and when I look back why I didn't start my own company prior to The RealReal, And failure really was out there. And it was also, it's a big deal. It's an act of faith to start your own company. I've always been the big earner. I've taken care of a lot of people and my family at different times. And to just say, no, I'm going to do this and I'm going to make money and it'll be fine. And if I fail, it'll be fine because it'll be learning. That wasn't in my DNA. So that, so I, when I had the big failure with Pets.com, it oddly wiped out my fear of failure. I didn't know that till later, but having that, having gone through it, it was a public failure. I mean, there were a lot of negative articles or negative articles on me. There was some public ostracization because everyone was upset about the dot-com explosion. Oddly enough though, coming out of it, I'm like, okay, I just walked on hot coals and yes, it burned, but I didn't die. And not only did I not die, I know myself better now and I'm stronger than I've ever been. And that wiped out my fear of failure. Now, if you would've told me that was gonna happen, I wouldn't have bet that.

Right.

But it did wipe it out.

And you still probably wouldn't have chosen it cuz no one wants to say, give me the biggest public failure of my life so that I can conquer my fear of failure.

You're a failure. No, no, you wouldn't. I mean, there's, you know, but there you go. I wouldn't have picked that problem out and say, oh, I'll own that one. But it worked. It worked. I mean, it was a little more difficult because whenever I talk about it, my marriage also fell apart during that time. And that had another emotional charge to it. Oddly enough, I didn't view that as a failure, just the business side. Um, and, and that's because so many people. Have, you know, never, you know, marriage is hard and so is business, but I cut myself slack on the marriage part. I didn't on the business side and I beat myself up for way too long and it didn't work. And here's the other thing, you know, I'm beating myself up, but there were something like 1,100 companies that also shut down during this time, one of which was And one of which was a company called Webvan, which is the precursor to Instacart and even DoorDash to a lesser degree. They burned through like $1.2 billion of cash. Pets.com was the precursor to Chewy.com. So really it was a timing issue, but the guy running Webvan was back working in a blue chip company in 18 months. Nothing. It's like he didn't, he seemed to, I have never talked to him. I did talk to him during that time, but I haven't talked to him since, but it didn't seem to faze him. And yet I was taking on all of this issue, this public failure and feeling bad and what a waste. And I let it go too long. What a waste of energy. And when I read about how women deal with failure versus men, we do tend to shoulder more. Men have— do tend to brush it off. I think we can learn a lot about that. That doesn't mean you don't learn from it. It does mean that, you know, that's what life is about. If you're not taking risks, you're not gonna— if you don't take risks, you're not going to fail. But failure happens even when you don't take risks. So, you know, you've just got to treat it as a learning experience.

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask about, that if you felt like the, the difference between the way you both kind of handled that was, had anything to do with the fact that he was a man and you're a woman. And, you know, women often tend to take things a lot more personally, whereas men can kind of, you know, I don't know, keep that in a separate category in their brain in some way.

Um, which is so healthy. I mean, it's healthy until it becomes arrogance, right? But it's a healthy way to go through life to say, to assess and say, this worked, this didn't. I can do this differently next time. In this case, all funding left the building. So I don't know if I could have— I would have— I'll tell you what I would have done differently though, because you always have to assess. I did shut Pets.com down to give money back to shareholders. I shouldn't have done that. I should have played it out and taken it to bankruptcy. And the reason being is I shut it down because I felt like I wouldn't be able to get funding because the markets had shut, the window had shut. I needed more money to get to profitability. I could have been wrong. Uh-huh. You know, I could have been wrong. I wasn't wrong, but I would say it was 50/50 I could have been wrong.

And do you think that there was an element there of your care for the shareholders?

Yes.

Of wanting— that maybe a man would have been like, well, I'm going to ride this out because they didn't have as much of that, you know? Care for like all, but we got to take care of these shareholders?

Well, I don't know how— I, I know mine was. I can't talk to the other side of the equation. I know mine was an ultimate care for the shareholders, but I could have done it wrongly, you know. I, like I said, if I had been wrong, then I shortchanged them. Since I was right, the early investors all made money.

Right, right. And do you— to kind of go back to this this, um, you know, chapter of your life. Do you think that there, looking back, was there any correlation between that, um, loss and failure with Pets.com coinciding with the dissolution of your marriage? Was there, uh, oh boy, that affect your personal life?

Of course it did. Yes. I mean, he literally asked me for a divorce the morning I was shutting down Pets.com.

Ah, you're kidding.

No. So yes, it was a, uh, when you start a business, or in this case, I took a business from like $100,000 to, I think I got it to like $25 or $26 million in a year and a half. But when you do that, it takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of focus. And if there's cracks, because there were cracks in our relationship, they're unattended. Um, and You know, things don't heal on their own, maybe in some miracle way they could, but in general, you need to put energy into something that's not working to get it back on track. So I would say yes, it made things worse now, or I'm gonna give you another perspective, or that was gonna end anyway. So that pressure actually ended a marriage that should, should have ended when it did end. As opposed to being in it another 8 to 10 years, which might, which people do fall into that because many re— and we didn't have children, so we didn't have that pressure to stay together. But I know a lot of people that stay in the marriages assuming that, you know, it'll get better, or maybe it's not that bad, but they're not that happy, or they just don't want to face the fear of being alone. So, you know, maybe it was a good thing. It put pressure on it and we couldn't, the differences were too great. And it, I mean, it was hard at the time because when I went home, that was terrible. Cause I went home that night, I had no company and no husband. He wasn't in the house. And then I had press at my door the next day. So it was just a lot, but, you know, looking back. It's probably better that the marriage ended sooner rather than another 8 or 9 years. Life is so short. Now I was, I was 42. I had time, you know, on, I had a, like a long, when you're 40, I remember looking back at old pictures of myself thinking, oh my God, I'm so old. I was so hot. I wasn't old. I was like on it. And I'm like, oh, you know, but when you're in it, it feels like it's not that. And so, you know, but life is short and, and it, it gave me an opportunity to grow in other ways. How's that?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of women will relate to this, you know, reality that you spoke to of sometimes when you're building something like that, when you have an ambition so big or a goal so big or a vision so big, it, there, there is a reality of your time being limited of where you can allocate that resource. And sometimes there are things that get put on the back burner. And for a lot of women who are highly ambitious or are founders or have these big visions, sometimes the thing that gets put on the back burner is relationships. And as you said, if there's cracks there, then it might reveal them faster, or things might break down that, that may have been a good thing had you had the time to nurture it. What have you learned in your journey of, you know, being someone who's accomplished so much and had to divert a lot of, you know, time, attention, and energy towards your career and these businesses that you are helping build, and then your what's your perspective now on that kind of balance that is, you know, so elusive when it comes to nurturing relationships versus really going hard on your vision and your dream?

You know, there's no such thing as balance in life. There's just not. And I think the key is to check in with your values, check in with your priorities and then align your actions with those things. And the reason I say that is tending to children still falls mostly to women. So if you want to have children, then you need to build that into your, you know, it better be a priority and you better align your actions with that. Caring for your parents in many ways can fall on the woman also.. And that is something that if that's important to you, then you better align your actions with that. And here's what I would say, that if you're true to your priorities and your values, it's never too late to start a company. Right? And meaning that I started The RealReal when I was 52. So the decision to have children, which I didn't, was made. All right. I had to make it. I went through a period where I had to really decide when I was 42 years old, when we got, I got a divorce. And in doing that and getting a divorce, then I knew, you know, I saw, I really went through about 2 years of, should I adopt? Should I, you know, just have a child on my own? It was really intense. And then once I decided that that was done, So I would say, you know, take care of your priorities and your values. And then if you start a company later in life, great. You know, it's not— now I had had a big career before I was, you know, 52. I had a lot to build on, but you always have a lot to build on if you're engaged in something. You always have a lot to build on. And then you just have to, again, align your values. But it's not too late at all. And here's the other thing. When you're asking, I kept thinking I had a lot to learn. I kept thinking because I started my career at Clorox, I learned all about P&L management and large big brand management. And then I went to the tech world. I felt like, oh, I have a lot to learn about technology and how it looks and the shifts and how technology is evolving. In the meantime, a lot of young men around me were like, I'm going to learn it on the job. I'm going to start this company and learn it as I go. And both are valid, by the way. But I do see more women always thinking, well, I have a lot to learn before I start my own company. And I have never heard those words come out of a man's mouth. And I've been in pitch meetings with young entrepreneurs over and over and over again. And they never ever think that way. I'm sure there are some, you know, there's always exceptions. I haven't heard it. I've heard it consistently from women. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's so real. This feeling of not enoughness in a sense of like, I need to learn more. I need to have more experience. I mean, there's so many statistics about even just women applying for jobs and how ruthless they are with themselves of, you know, I have to meet all these requirements that are in the job description before I feel like I'm even qualified to apply. And a man is like, sees one one bullet point that he's like, I kind of know how to do that. And he's like, applied, I got this, I can do this. And I think we can learn, we can learn a lot from that. And, and, and I don't know if it's delusion or if it's confidence or it's a mix of both, but I would argue that those are helpful traits when you want to be a visionary and someone who's highly successful.

I think those are. And then you learn a lot from sports too. I'm really an advocate of, of young you know, males and females getting into sports when they're younger because you learn that, that's where you learned failure. You learn like, okay, we lost the game. What are we going to take away? Because we're going to win the next game. How do we get better? So, those attributes are really critical for life skills. And learning how to play in a team is also critical. Because at the end of the day, most things you do are a team sport. So learning that is also critical. So there's just so many things, but I agree with you completely. I, you know, learning, we have a lot to learn from how men handle things. Um, but sports also teaches us quite a bit and some of the same talent. Yeah. You know, that's, you know, it actually builds your talent and your resilience.

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Yeah, I think there's a— now that you say that, there's a lot of dynamics of team sports that are, you know, valuable for not just business or building a business, but even like parenthood. That's a team sport, right? And like sometimes, sometimes you're going to be the A player and sometimes you're not. And like you have to deal with that dynamic of, you know, supporting the person that's the weakest link and, you know, not getting overly frustrated that, you know, everyone on your team isn't the high performer, or like trying to lift people up. There's so much there. Um, so I think that's a really good analogy as well. But you did mention you know, starting The RealReal in your 50s. And I'm curious what you decided to do differently, if anything, at that point in your life, because you had learned so much in your career already. But this was like a new endeavor. As you said, you were done being, you know, the, the insert CEO and you were like now going to be the founder. What did you do differently in your 50s than you did in your 30s or 40s, even if it was just like a mindset or how you approached conversations or things like that?

Well, I knew a couple of things. I had a big failure and I knew I was going to be going back to the tech world. It's the RealReal is basically a tech-enabled business. So I knew I had to get the model and the revenue at a certain level before I went into that world to try to raise capital. So normally when you start a business, you're pitching a concept, you have a little bit of traction. It's hard to just get an idea funded. I mean, there may be in the early days, but everyone wanted traction then, certainly does now. So I got the business to $10 million before I raised a real round of venture capitalists. And I felt like the business model had been proven to some degree. So that was, and it was a lot of work and I did raise some outside capital, which I talk about in the book. Um, but even that was like, you know, $25,000 here, $50,000 here, really working, really bootstrapped. And, uh, that was a whole new mindset. So getting it to that level, I thought, well, the success is undeniable then. But having said that, it was always hard to raise capital. It's always hard. So it was undeniable to me, but it wasn't, I had to convey that to every investor and then deliver. Other than that, I would say everything was easier in your 50s because you know what you need.

That's good. That's good news.

Well, I mean, I knew what I needed to do. I needed the timeline. I knew I could draw on the experience. I also knew how to read. Was I believing my own PR? Were things going well? So I knew how to iterate fast. I would say I knew how to hire for my weaknesses, but, you know, I wasn't trying. I mean, obviously at the beginning you're doing everything and I mean everything, but the first employee was a woman named Rati Lebec, who's now the CEO. And she was, I needed a merchant. I needed to help people understand that wearing resale was cool and I needed to make it look cool. And I knew I couldn't do that job. So I knew, I knew like that person was going to make a big difference. But I also needed that person to be a jack of all trades and clean it. You know, like we were taking out the trash and calling UPS and answering customer service and doing emails. So it, you know, luckily my first employee was great. She had the talent, she had the skillset I didn't, but still rolled up her sleeves and got things done.

That's so cool that she's now the CEO.

I know.

What a cool, what a cool story. I love that you mentioned, you know, raising capital and you've obviously navigated the power dynamics of being in, in those rooms that are often dominated by men and money. So I'm interested to know what kind of tactics or mindsets helped you hold your own and still like lead with authenticity and, and be yourself and also be an advocate for the vision. Cuz this at the time is like a, a totally new concept. It's a new category. And it's fashion. And so I don't know if you felt like there was this perception of not understanding what you were trying to create or seeing the vision, but what would you say to women in terms of like navigating those power dynamics with men and money?

So everything you said was true, and let's just say men didn't get it. So in the book, I have a couple really funny stories, which was one I'll share with you. Well, and I was at a venture capital meeting and normally you meet with a young associate. If the associate likes what you say, they pass you on. Most associates are men and they're usually men in their late 20s, sometimes early, you know, mid-20s. So in this case, I got a warm introduction. So I went to a young partner, a relatively new partner. He put his— so you have to pitch before you pitch and then you pitch again. All right. So you pitch, you're pitching all the time, but usually you meet with someone, then you meet with a partner, you meet with an associate, either go or no-go. Then you meet with the partner and then you get to pitch all partners in a Monday. Almost all meetings in the Valley happen on Monday morning. So you go there with your deck and your team and you pitch. And if you get past that, usually get a term sheet. All right. So, but the goal of these first people is to get rid of, get rid of people, right? Basically, because everyone has a quota or they don't call it a quota. Everyone answers to someone. So they want to make sure they're getting the deals that they need and they're getting deal flow and they fill out deal flow for their LPs to understand. So they want to make sure they say, oh, we looked at this, we looked at that, we passed for this reason. All right, so you're going to get chances, are you going to get past? But this guy was the partner. He put— we come in, I give him the story and he put his foot on the table and he had this ugly shoe and he said, see this shoe? As if I couldn't see his foot on the table. I said, yes. And he said, I've had this for 5 years and, you know, I have no interest in buying other shoes. What do you think of that? As if The RealReal was about shoes. I said, I don't think you're my customer. And this meeting is pretty much over. And that was it. That was, you know, that's sort of what the power dynamic, someone basically shooting down the idea and not, and negating the data because he didn't buy into it. And this is an early stage problem, by the way. So, you know, but the company was already at $10 million, didn't buy into it, didn't buy into the concept. And, you know, wanted to tell me from his perspective, and it was a silly perspective. It was demeaning. But I mean, I sort of, I don't think he laughed, but I know I laughed when I left. I don't think he was probably put off. I would say that The only reason The RealReal got its first round of venture capital is there was a female venture capitalist at the table who actually understood. And there was a male who was a European male who understood. And the combination actually helped because this was a nascent business. I know $10 million may seem like a lot, but when these guys are looking at businesses that can get to a billion. Which The RealReal did and is. But, you know, at the time it's a $10 million business with like 6 people working really hard and trying to make it work. And you're asking them for a $10 million investment. So they have to buy into your vision. They have to love the idea of it because they're going to be with you most likely 8 to 10 years. Investments go on a long time. And if we didn't have a woman at the table and a European man and another venture capital firm, it wouldn't have gotten funded. It's really simple as that because the people I was meeting with loved eBay. They're like, eBay is fine. This is great. And it's like, no, you know, it was for them. And many of them came from eBay. So they're, and they didn't found eBay. They weren't founders. Most of the people you're meeting with haven't founded anything. They're just, they're just, they're numbers guys, or they think they're risk takers, but they're not. They tend not to be operators and they tend not to be founders. There's always exceptions, but that's the, that's really where they, they come from a financial background.

Yeah. And I think the, you know, challenge that you had was obviously this is, this is a category-defining brand. It's kind of creating something completely new. In the marketplace. I mean, The RealReal really changed consumer behavior. It was like the first thing that normalized resale for luxury fashion. For anyone who's listening that might not be familiar with The RealReal, can you kind of explain what the vision for it was and what it is now?

It's not much different. The RealReal— the goal was to provide a marketplace marketplace where people could sell their luxury goods, only, you know, luxury and high-end and focused on fashion. So it would be clothing, handbags, fine jewelry. We then expanded into a little bit of art, a little bit of home, but all clothing, shoes, fashion, handbags, fine jewelry, and provide an opportunity to have the world's largest marketplace for these luxury goods, an opportunity for people to experience this in a way where it's authenticated for them. And for a consigner, The RealReal did all the work, still does. I mean, they'll come to your house, they'll pick up the goods, they ship it to an op center. It's actually authenticated. The copy's written, pictures are taken, it's picked, packed, and shipped. I think there's 38 million members now at The RealReal, probably more. But so you've got this large group of eyeballs looking at your product., and it gets the optimal price and things sell pretty quickly. But no one had thought about this before, you know, and eBay was really one size fits all for everything, was sort of brilliant. eBay was a great proof point. They were doing luxury goods there, but they weren't doing— the luxury goods were never shown in a way where, um, it felt like a luxury experience. No, it usually— most of them were on the back of a closet further. I mean, the RealReal, when I was there, employed the most gemologists in the world. So, you know, to really resell jewelry, it needs to be evaluated by gemologists. You need to be able to stand behind it. To resell handbags, they need to be authenticated. They're too expensive. Same thing with clothing. So setting up that trust factor and then doing all the work and then showing how relevant it is. I mean, these items are amazing. You can look up there today and, you know, right now, and there's stuff on there that's in the stores because we have a lot of people at The RealReal when they would consign, they'd wear it for 6 months and they were over it. And, you know, and it would still be in the stores. And when it comes to things like shoes, shoes don't change that much at all. And even classic handbags are still incredibly valuable. And let's just say a Cartier a diamond or Cartier bangles or Cartier watch is still a Cartier watch, and it's highly desirable, among other things. Same thing with the Rolex. So you've got this beautiful heritage of these fine goods, and The RealReal is the only company that does all of that. So it was a big vision. It was always that vision. It was always to make it really easy for people to consign by sending someone to your house and consulting on prices and doing the pickup. And then for the consigner to make sure that there's trust and authentication. What wasn't on the roadmap at the time was doing a brick-and-mortar store. And that was a test that we did in like October, I think of, I'm going to say 2017, and in SoHo. And it did so well that then we really wanted to get our first store launched as fast as possible. It might have been October of 2015. Anyway, it's in the book. It's in the book. Cause I had, you know, the beauty of having your iPhone is I took so many pictures of everything. So I knew exactly when everything happened from the first really crunchy bad warehouse to this mega 1 point, we had about 1.5 million square feet of warehouse space when I left.

I know it's so true. I just keep paying for more and more iCloud storage. Cause I'm like, this is the vault that I need to remember when things happened in my life. The camera roll is like, you just go back and you're like, okay, that now it's clear, but I'm so I'm curious, like this, this obviously was an incredible idea for The RealReal that you had. How did it come to you? Were you someone who loved luxury goods and you just started thinking like, there's a lot of people that would get use out of this stuff, that this luxury bag that I've had forever that I don't want anymore. Was it your idea? Was it someone else's? Like, how did this come to you?

No, it was my idea. No, it was my idea. So first, Diana, look, I have an analytical brain, so I wanted to create a large business and I knew I'd have to compete with Amazon. Amazon. So I wanted something that they couldn't do. I mean, I wasn't thinking small, let's just put it that way. So I wanted to do something that Amazon couldn't do. And I had— and luxury was one that I didn't believe they could do, and they still really can't do it at all. So the luxury market was one area they couldn't go into. And then I thought, well, I'm not going to do a luxury brand. So I had this matrix of things they couldn't do well, things that I had an interest on, and I had values attached to it too. I wanted to do something that was going to leave the world a little better than it was before. So I did have a value statement there. I was looking at even getting back into the packaged goods world where, because at that time the detergents, the biggest one was Seventh Generation that was actually the most eco-friendly. And because I had had experience at Clorox, I knew the environmental impact of some of the products. So I thought, well, maybe I can also go in that direction. But I had this, so I had a lot of ideas and I had no, I had a lot of categories, no ideas, but they were in my head. So I'm shopping with a girlfriend in November and I remember this clear as day. Were in a little boutique in Menlo Park, California, full price product. In fact, it was shoes. It was luxury shoes in the front, full price product in the front, back of the store. The store owner had a little area she called the vault, and that was all consigned goods and beautifully displayed. That's where my friend shopped. My friend, by the way, then and now is a multimillionaire. And she spent her money buying pre-owned goods. I had been shopping with her many times before. Um, when we walked out, I had so many questions about like, what just happened there? Have you ever walked into a consignment store? She said she never would. She does too many. They don't, she didn't like the way things look. She didn't like to want to sort through things. So would you ever shop on eBay? She said, no, I wouldn't. Too many fakes. I just don't want to do it. Have you ever consigned? She goes, never. I said, but You just bought consignment. And she said, Julie, I bought Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Gucci at a great price. Who cares if it's previously owned? And I trust the owner that it's authenticated. That was it. I went home that night. I researched the luxury market. I looked at my own closet to see what I had that I could sell. I had like over 60 things. I started going to consignment stores. I called the owner of the store who was a former tech exec and said, hey, do you want to talk about this? I think this should be on the internet. It makes more sense. And she said, sure, we'll set up a meeting. But her priorities weren't there by the time she got back to me. And it was the holidays. So she got back to me in March, but I already had put some money in it, had an idea, had a name, had the whole concept fleshed out, and was meeting with seed investors to try to raise some more money in March of 2012. And we launched that year in June. And I was out looking for my head of merchandising because I knew I couldn't do it. All of that happened so quickly because I knew once I had that idea, I better run with it. Because here's something else, which I fully believe. If you're picking up something, it's sort of in the atmosphere and it, maybe it's a big idea, someone else is too. And then it comes down to, do you execute it? And not how well do you execute? Where, you know, are you differentiated? Are you offering real value? I literally, I've had I've had hundreds of people come up to me and said, oh, I had the idea for the RoRo. And if I'm feeling snarky, I'll go, but the difference is you didn't do it. And that's the difference for every entrepreneur, you know, where people sit there and say, oh, I had that idea. And it's like, okay, ideas are great, but unless you execute it sublimely, that's all, that's where you leave it, having that idea. So that, um, So that's the story. It really was sort of laying the— I knew I wanted to get back into e-commerce, laying the groundwork in my head, then recognizing that this is my luxury opportunity, doing more research. I tested all these different ways and then running as fast as I could and making it happen.

Yeah, I mean, as they say, money loves speed. And I don't know if you've ever read the book Big Magic by Liz Gilbert, she talks about that idea that ideas are these sort of energetic entities that are looking for a way to be birthed into the world, and they come and they visit people, and if you don't capture it and start to actually be the vessel for that manifestation to become a real thing in the world, they will float off and find someone else. And so there's all these crazy stories of how people have had quite literally the exact same idea for the exact same book, like titles and character names and all the things, and it's just again to prove that concept that you were speaking to, which is like ideas want to be born into the world, and if you are not going to move on them, they will find another vessel. They'll find another way into the physical.

Well, just to give you, I didn't read the book, but I have read her other books, so I will put that on my list. But I have to say, look, my experience, Pets.com, Pets.com was the first pet site funded. 7 more were funded after that. The RealReal, the first luxury consignment. There was a company called Threadflip, also similar idea. It's gone. They didn't focus on supply. They didn't have— they didn't do all the work for the consigner anyway, but same idea. Got funding. Poshmark was out raising capital when I was out raising capital. So again, thinking differently than eBay. Um, and then, um, the guy who put his foot on the table ended ended up funding ThredUp, all right, which is, you know, a low end, does all the work for someone, but a low end. So, you know, you look at it and it is, when you tap into something, it is there. There is no doubt about it. I've seen it time and time and time again. And you do have to move fast, but you also have to execute beautifully.

Hmm. Yeah. I wanna talk about the moment that the company went public. It was obviously a massive milestone with a valuation of, I think, $1.6 billion, if I'm—

I think it was, went up to $2.1 at one point.

Awesome. So huge milestone, but something that no one really talks about, which is a conversation that I've heard other founders speak to in, in certain spaces on social media and things like that, is kind of of what happens emotionally for the founder after the IPO. So I'd love to know your experience of what it felt like behind the scenes. You know, you work so hard up to that moment, and it's obviously a huge milestone, but was there a, like, like a crash after that? Was there a disillusionment of feeling like, now, you know, I have to find something else to pour my purpose into? What, what was your experience?

Honestly, it was great. Okay, period. Period. It was great. I was the 23rd woman to ever take a company public. When I walked into NASDAQ, they have the fraternity row of all the other people that have taken on their platform. There was not one woman's picture up there. I made sure that my investors had liquidity and they got their money back. It was a long journey for them. Some had had their money in for 8.5 years. That's a long time. Some employees were then, they had a better chance at a better life. Everyone in the company had stock. So employees had a better chance. It felt like, you know, when you take money, you have to get it out. There's only two ways. You either merge with someone or you go public. So I felt like it was the life's, it was a big change and the business was was really doing well. So I felt like we had this predictable business on the path to profitability. And then all this shenanigans happened, which again, I write about in the book, that really started messing with the business. And then COVID hit. So it went, so it, I would say it was great. I'm really, it was great. It was nice to see. I mean, people could buy a condo, the early employees. I used to say to the earliest employees, because everyone's like, oh, I want more money. And of course, we didn't, we couldn't pay people that much money at the beginning. I'd say, why don't you ask for stock? Why don't you really come on, ask for more stock? Almost universally, they didn't. And what a shame. And you know, the first, the person that gave me that first $50,000 check, if they would, they could sell right during the IPO because they weren't part of the insider group, they would have made $1.5 million from that investment. I don't know if they ever sold. You never have visibility, but you know, that makes you feel good. You know, it's like, good, this is great. It's great. It was great. I, you know, it was great. It was really great.

What was the experience like when you got your— when you were able to cut your check from that?

Well, you know, you're limited, um, because you are an insider, and, um, so you have to— you just file all these things with the SEC. You file your selling plan. It's, uh, great. It's a life changer. It's great. I mean, one of the things firmly believe is women should have money to chart their own destiny. They should make their own money. So you're not making decisions for the wrong reason. And I've seen that time and time again, and it doesn't get easier. This is what doesn't get easier when you're older. If you didn't have that mentality of, I need to be able to make my own way, make my own money, not rely on another person for my money. And then something happens, either death or divorce, um, and then they're, they're lost. This is, it's all bad. And there's, it's all bad. And so then what happens? Well, they're looking for another, a wealthy person. They're compromising their values. You get into compromises that are that are probably right at the time and may be necessary, but it's hard to live with yourself if you compromise your values. However, if you view making your own money and having your own money, it gives you freedom and hopefully you're going to come to the table with pure intentions that aren't compromised unless you become a megalomaniac, then you got another issue. But that doesn't happen to many people.

Yeah, I mean, I think money gives you choices, right? And so what you're saying is when you have all the choices and the ability to support yourself, you don't have to sacrifice or, you know, compromise on a value or get yourself into a situation that you wouldn't naturally choose to be in because you need, you know, this person to support you or because you need your parents or because you need, you know, this man's money or whatever the situation is. And I think that's, that's really real. Um, and important for women now that we have the ability to make our own money, and lots of it. Like, what a privilege and a beautiful experience to have that freedom so that everything else in your life gets to be this kind of extra. And it really does get to be the cherry-picked experiences of how you want to live your life, because you're not relying on someone else's path or purview or how you need to follow their rules because you need them financially. I think that's really, really important and beautiful wisdom for women everywhere, just to empower them that, you know, even if you don't want to be a business owner or the breadwinner or the provider for your family, it's still a good idea to make your own money and find ways to create that little sense of freedom and independence and power of choice for yourself. Absolutely.

So, you know, I do want to say one thing though, this is, which is, I have everything you said is absolutely spot on. I love it. We're also, and I think about this quite a bit, I'm also feel lucky I was born in the US. And while women are still way behind and women get less than 2% of all venture capital in the world, I know less than 2%, it was 2.1, now it's below, but it's rounding error at that level anyway. Still, you know, we have, still you can do it here. You know, you can still do it here. And I think about, I mean, that's just luck being born here. I mean, we're all from immigrants, right? We're all, you know, my father's mother and father are first generation. So his parents met on the boat over, one from Norway, one from, you know, England. And my mother's family came over in the 1600s, so they'd been here a long time. But, you know, it's luck, to be honest, that we're born here and we do have opportunities and they're amazing. And regardless of your age, regardless of your income, I didn't graduate from Harvard or Stanford and I'm sitting in the room, most of the people when you're pitching money in my world, they're MIT, Stanford, or Harvard. And they're They're very confident, I think, is the probably the best way to say it. But so what? They also don't have vision, otherwise they wouldn't be doing what you're doing. You know, if you've got vision and you can execute and, and you're resilient and good things can happen.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think that's beautiful, like to think of that perspective of how lucky we are. I mean, I think they say it's a 1 in 400 trillion chance that you're even born as a human. So then to think about, you know, the chance that, you know, you are— have all these other privileges that you've had and look at that as this amazing opportunity of like for us to not squander it. I mean, it's wild. And you've obviously been one of those individuals who really like— you took that potential and that privilege and you optimized it and you ran with it and you've created a lot of opportunities, a lot of jobs, a lot of money for a lot of other people. In the world, and you've inspired so many people. And now with the book, you know, getting this type of knowledge and wisdom in people's hands, I mean, the ripple effect of that is so real. And I think sometimes we can have this perspective that pursuing wealth or these business ideas can be a selfish game. And while of course there are selfish things that we get out of it, there's also a much bigger picture that lies on the other side of, of the people that you're impacting, the jobs that you're creating, you know, the wealth that you are circulating and putting out into the world, the ideas that are inspiring people. People, even just working under you or alongside of you. I'm sure there's people that you don't even know how much you've inspired them or impacted them or, you know, made them want to dream bigger or go out there and start something of their own. So it really is this, this beautiful ripple effect that we get to create in owning our ambitions and choosing to take the privilege and the opportunities that we've been given and actually make something of it, right?

You are so right. And I have to say, that's why I did write the book. Because when I was a young girl, I only had a few role models, and one of them was fictional. One of them was called Nancy Drew, who I don't know if you've ever, you know, Nancy Drew was living large as a detective riding that convertible, solving crimes in the Sierra, you know, and I thought, Nancy Drew is awesome. I wanted to be Nancy Drew. And, um, but, and I had Gloria Steinem later on. I had, um, other people like Diane von Furstenberg who was on every magazine doing amazing things. Um, but the role models weren't around me to see what was possible. And all the stats have said, if you have someone that you know of that can do it, it actually does help you envision yourself. Yourself, either in your community or in touch or in business. If you see someone breaking the mold, for some reason it unlocks possibilities. And if you don't, it's harder. Then you have to dream harder and you have to really believe in yourself. And you still do anyway, but just knowing that one person can do it, It's like, oh, I, look, I went to Clorox as the second undergraduate they ever hired. I didn't get my MBA. I talked my way into it. Now, luckily the first one worked out, but I was the second one they hired and it never occurred to me I was going to fail there. Never occurred because, you know, that other guy had done it and I'm like, he's, yeah, he's smart. It was a guy. Yeah, he's smart, but is he as smart as me? I don't know. You know, I was pretty cocky back then. It was the, it was the youth. And also my professor had told me I was the best consumer marketer he'd ever met and ever at when I was at Purdue and he was visiting from Harvard and he helped me get the job. But I just look at, you know, what, what we can do. And I think we're all role models and, you know, women are still underrepresented everywhere. And so if we see someone do it or beating the odds or coming up again, you know, look at Martha Stewart. I, I mean, I didn't relate to Martha Stewart. I'm not a house person, you know, I'm not a person that is a homemaker, but look what she did. I mean, she took Martha Stewart for perspective. If my mother was alive, Martha Stewart's 4 years younger than my mother would have been. And my mother never even would have dreamed this big, but Martha Stewart took a category, making homes beautiful. And made it a business. No one had done that before, and she made it look easy, and she gave people systems. And I mean, what a rock star. When I think of if my mother would've seen Martha Stewart, my mother would've been able to like maybe think differently. My mother had health issues, but still, you know, we just don't have that many people doing remarkable things. And dreaming differently. So I love that she's still out there doing it. I love it. I love that she's out there. She's reinventing herself. She's still doing what she does. And that's amazing. I think she's what, 84 or 85?

Yeah. I just watched her documentary recently and I, it was illuminating for me too, cuz obviously when I was growing up, she was already very like a household name. So to kind of see that backstory and really see her climb and how much of an innovator and, and truly like, you know, an inspiring woman that she was to have such, as you said, such a big vision when she probably didn't have the expanders. She probably didn't have as many women that were out there showing her the way. And that's kind of your point of what you were saying, is it's like the 4-minute mile. Everyone— something that everyone thinks is impossible until someone does it, and then that creates the belief that, well, if they can do it, maybe I can do it. And then suddenly all these people are doing it. And that's what you're doing. That's what women everywhere are doing that are following, you know, this pull for their, their visions and these ambitions, is they are becoming these expanders, and we can, you know, we can believe things before we see them. But as you said, it takes a lot more work to do that. When you can see something to actually believe it, it makes it so real, it makes it so factual. And they say like the retina is the first point of process to the subconscious mind. And so if you actually see something as real in the world, your subconscious can immediately get on board that this is available, it's possible. If they can do it, I can do it too. And that just makes those wheels turn so much faster and allows even more innovation and more creations and more beautiful things to be into the world. So I think it's so important for, yeah, women to be these, these expanders and sharing their wisdom and their knowledge, whether it's through books or social media. But we have so many cool ways to do that nowadays. So I'm excited that, you know, you're doing that. And I think it's inspiring to see you at your age, you know, still wanting to put things out in the world to continue to be that expander. I was curious, you know, to ask you this question because I'm sure you have an interesting response, but some people might think think, okay, your company IPOs, you know, it's valued at billions of dollars. Obviously there's a huge payout there. Why not retire? Why not go and like live this, you know, soft rich girl life where you can give yourself everything that you need and you can finally relax? Because I think that is this dream or false reality that people have, is like the dangling carrot of like, well, once I get there, then I'll be able to be at peace, then I'll be able to relax. So what's your perspective on like the purpose and what that brings you in wanting to keep going?

I think purpose changes over time. All right. And look, I'm, I have a lot of energy. I'm luckily I have great health. So energy, health, I think for me, really my next phase is figuring out how I can continue to give back and, and inspire people and provide a bigger platform for it because I'd love to see more female entrepreneurs, by the way. I'd love to see more entrepreneurs in general. I'd love to see more female entrepreneurs. And things change over time. I think once you check out of life, you're sort of, I don't know where you go there. I mean, I don't really, I'm not going to go play golf or something. I know people love the sport. It's really not my thing. I mean, but, and honestly, did you ever think about it? Did you ever think about like not starting another company or just like, you know, no, no, because look, I have a role model and that was my father and he had his own art and design company and he loved it. I mean, what a gift to have a parent that loved what they did, loved it. And then he ended up selling that. And then he became an artist to hire and did some weird things. One of them, he did Anheuser-Busch's beer steins. He came, conceptualized them, in some cases carved them. They used to have a beer stein division in their company. He became their best-selling beer stein artist of all times. He went around, he went around to different places and signed his beer steins. And then I know it's still, and then after that, he went to work for a little regional shoe company out of St. Louis and he designed women's shoes. So he just kept reinventing himself and he was always, he said it was the weirdest thing. He's going through all the magazines because, you know, to get inspired like Vogue and Elle and any fashion magazine. And then he'd come across the RealReal. He goes, we ended up in the same place. In the same world. I'm like, well, you're not, you know, he's like, no, I'm doing, you know, luxury shoes.

I'm like, oh, I think you're like, you're not as luxury as me, but it's okay.

Yeah, exactly. So, you know, having, but he loved what he did. And I think, you know, as long as, again, what are your values? How do your actions meet your values? And, um, as long as you can make a difference, why not keep trying? I mean, that's why I am. I mean, there's things that happen. Certainly health things could derail that. But like I said, I feel like I've got a gift. I've got a gift of energy, a gift of great health, and I have a lot of work to do. So it's fun. And it's fun to me, you know, creating something's fun. Writing a book was fun. You know, people, have you heard people talk about it? Was it? Oh my God. Well, it was, I mean, I would say 90% of it was fun. Um, and then the, you know, I, I'm really honest. Honest about some of the dark days. And then we sort of have to relive it. And well, you do relive it when you write it, not sort of. And then that required wine and that wasn't fun. And the nights, you know, if you drink wine before you go to bed, not great. So, you know, you, you just have disrupted sleep, sometimes nightmares, not fun. But at the end of it, yes, writing Time to Get Real was fun and I felt very happy. Happy with it. And, um, and then, you know, you work with— you have to work with other professional people that add value to get it out. But yeah, but the writing part was fun, mostly fun, slightly traumatic. But oh, I did have that. It did have the dark— I mean, look, and that's the other thing I thought, if I'm going to write a book, I have to be honest about things that aren't great.

Um, and also if the title of the book is going to be Time to It has to be real.

It has to be real. Um, and, and it's not really healthy to live in the past and, and go back and replay all this negativity. And I kept thinking, well, what's the benefit here? And I'm like, well, the benefit's bigger than me because the other thing is I haven't read a lot of books, um, business books that are that honest. They feel like they're more memoir-like nice. They're glossing over things, and that's not really helpful because business is hard and it does impact your life and it impacts other people. So it's hard. So I think writing these things down and the emotion, the people element, hiring, and then if you're running the business, hiring's hard. How do you get the right people with the right phase of your business? How do you get the right board members? I mean, I write down all the mistakes and, you know, really where I should have done things, what we eventually did, because the business formula worked, but businesses don't run without great people. And that's really when you're scaling, that's usually when it gets hard. It's like, can I get great people around me? And are they the right people for the right time in the business? Because That's the other thing that if you're scaling, the people that were great maybe at $10 million weren't great at $500 million.

Yeah.

You know, so how do you keep adding talent? But then the people that are great at a billion, maybe they're not as creative. Maybe they're not risk takers. You still need that risk taking and innovation in a business. Maybe they're just really not great critical thinkers because what they've been doing in their other job was pretty much they'd done it for 20 years, they understood it, and they didn't really understand how to come into a different environment. So, you know, there's just, it's always a little bit of treachery. And when you're hiring and I walk through, and there's a lot about hiring and people and hiring people and recommending people that have aligned values, really critical. And I didn't always do that. I did it with experience, but not always aligned value. So, you know, it's sort of taking what I did and taking it to another level.

Yeah. I mean, this book is going to be a massively value road— a massively valuable roadmap for so many women, not just on, you know, the tactical kind of side of being able to see the real real of someone's business journey and the mistakes and the corrections and all of that, but also on that like emotional element, like you said, of understanding the ups and the downs and not feeling so alone in those experiences of the isolation of entrepreneurship, the challenges, the frustration, you know, the failures, all of that. So I'm so excited. We are gonna give away 5 copies of Julie's book. So if you guys go and comment under the trailer for this reel, just comment the word Julie. We're gonna pick some winners. We are gonna send you this book. I'm so excited to read it. I can't wait to get my hands on it. I've been researching everything about you and I'm truly fascinated and so grateful that you came to Make Shift Happen to share your journey and your insight with us. Thank you so much, Julie. Can you let everyone know where they can connect with you online? Where's the best place to find you?

Sure. I'm @realreal on Instagram. That's the best. @realrealjulie. @realrealjulie on Instagram. And honestly, when you read the book, it's like you have the pictures too, right there. Because I've posted— I didn't have to do much of an edit off of that post. Because I'd been posting for a long time on there as The RealReal progressed. So it really, the story of The RealReal is woven in there, but it's not as deep as the book obviously, but you know, it's good. But I'm still very active at RealReal. Julie DM'd me. I'm getting DMs every day from female entrepreneurs, which is fun. It's really fun. And then it's always tricky. It's like, ooh, 'cause a lot of the ideas aren't great. Great. So then you have to ask them like, what's your— what the hint— here's a hint. If you want me to comment on your idea, then you should ask, then you should actually tell me what you want to know from me because I'm doing this regularly. Because left alone, I'm going to come back and say, what do you want me to comment on? Because I have strong points of view on a lot and I don't want to break somebody's dream if they're— because dreams are Dreams are great, and I may be wrong, but I am helping women through the— through reviewing their businesses too.

So cool. All right, you guys, make sure you send Julie a DM on Instagram. Ask her a specific question if you want feedback on something. That's so, so fun, especially if you listen to this episode and you loved it. Shoot her a DM, let her know that you found her through Makeshift Happen. And don't forget to comment Julie on the trailer so that we can send you a copy of her book. We will link everything in the show notes for you guys that you can find it. You can go purchase the book, you can follow Julie Instagram. Thank you so, so much. If you loved this episode and you know another female founder, entrepreneur, ambitious woman who would love to hear this episode, copy the link, send it to her in a message, let her know you were thinking of her. And we will talk to you guys next week. Bye!

If you loved this episode, make sure to check out the show notes where I've linked a few similar episodes I know you're also going to love. You'll find them under the similar episodes section in the description down below with direct links so you can dive in and start listening right away. Away, or add them to your queue for later. Binge away for even more growth, expansion, abundance, and fire motivation.