Speaker 1: Welcome back to another episode of Big Money Energy, the
Speaker 1: greatest podcast in the history of the world, where we
Speaker 1: talked to inspiring entrepreneurs to find out how they went
Speaker 1: from nothing to something, What are their thoughts on money,
Speaker 1: what are their thoughts on entrepreneurship, and how do they
Speaker 1: build the company that they built? And today we have
Speaker 1: note other than Jenny Flice who co founded a company
Speaker 1: that you probably have heard of called Rent the Runway.
Speaker 1: I know me in New York City when Rent the
Speaker 1: Runway started, all of a sudden, every woman around New
Speaker 1: York had like these new dresses everywhere. There are on
Speaker 1: Instagram wearing their stuff. I'm like, damn these women into
Speaker 1: buying all this clothe They know they're not buying it,
Speaker 1: They're renting it because the company got invented by these
Speaker 1: two amazing women that connected fashion to technology and changed
Speaker 1: the world of fashion forever, changed the paradigm of how
Speaker 1: people think about owning or not owning clothes for the
Speaker 1: rest of time. She is a tastemaker, a trend setter,
Speaker 1: and an all out total mogul who's now a better
Speaker 1: capital listen our own right investing tech companies around the world.
Speaker 1: I am super excited. Let's go, Jenny Flice, Welcome to
Speaker 1: a new episode. I'm a huge fan and I followed
Speaker 1: your entire career for a really really long time. And
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan too of female founders rent their
Speaker 1: one way and we can get to that, but it's
Speaker 1: obviously huge. Every single woman in this entire office that's
Speaker 1: ever worked for me has used it. Of my company
Speaker 1: is women, and they've all they've all experienced it, they've
Speaker 1: all gone through it. But then you left. You went
Speaker 1: to Jet Black with Mark, who we know, and so
Speaker 1: I'm glad he was able to make this introduction UM,
Speaker 1: and now I am waiting for you to tell us
Speaker 1: all live what's your next company is. There's some stuff
Speaker 1: in stealth mode. Okay, this isn't public. Yeah, okay, So
Speaker 1: first off, I do a lot in the investing side,
Speaker 1: right I'm at a growth equity fund called Volition Capital,
Speaker 1: so I touch a lot of different businesses and founders.
Speaker 1: So I'm lucky to see like the full ecosystem of
Speaker 1: all the exciting things going on right now. There is
Speaker 1: a team that I'm super excited about that I've been
Speaker 1: helping to form a product um and it's in the
Speaker 1: customer service space, um, and so it's not fully ready
Speaker 1: for prime time, but that is also somewhere where're going
Speaker 1: to spend some time. I think customer services this like
Speaker 1: forgotten industry that people are so focused in the digital
Speaker 1: world of like reducing the amount of customer service interaction
Speaker 1: because it saves you money and cost. But it's this
Speaker 1: amazing opportunity to sell, to understand your customer, to have
Speaker 1: that touch point, which is so rare in a digital world.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of flipping that on his head and said, like,
Speaker 1: what if we actually deliver like a best in class
Speaker 1: customer service experience, use that as a differentiator, funnel the
Speaker 1: data back to make your product and your company even better,
Speaker 1: and use it as like a third party service so
Speaker 1: it could be plugged in play for the next digital
Speaker 1: startup to just kind of outsource their customer or service
Speaker 1: and have it be best in class customer services. My
Speaker 1: whole business. I was gonna say, you definitely understand this
Speaker 1: right between the businesses that we have here. It's it's
Speaker 1: a lot of our business and then we have an
Speaker 1: education tech platform and we've been hiring customer service people
Speaker 1: left and right, and that's a big way that that
Speaker 1: business grows and salespeople join us is because it just
Speaker 1: doesn't exist anywhere, and they email us and we email back,
Speaker 1: or they call us and they have a question about
Speaker 1: a deal or anything that we're doing, and we respond,
Speaker 1: and then they talked to another agent and that person
Speaker 1: joins and so on and so forth. It's probably next
Speaker 1: to content um those two c's, right, content and customer
Speaker 1: service almost go hand in hand and your ability to sell. Well,
Speaker 1: if you think of like the initial businesses like Zappos
Speaker 1: on the Internet, they had this deep understanding of how
Speaker 1: important customer service was and not just like let's fix
Speaker 1: your problem, but the idea of having a human touch
Speaker 1: point right, So Zappos mantra was like call the number,
Speaker 1: it's plastered up on the screen, they'll talk to you.
Speaker 1: There was no limit, they're not measuring the time you
Speaker 1: can talk to you all day, and that was the
Speaker 1: cornerstone of their business. So this realization of people like
Speaker 1: the further you go into the digital world of making
Speaker 1: things fast and easy and transactional, the more important it
Speaker 1: actually is to have that in person kind of touch
Speaker 1: pointed to feel like there's an entity behind the business
Speaker 1: and the product you're buying to answer your questions and
Speaker 1: what have you. And I think we've really lost that.
Speaker 1: So I think it's a hidden opportunity. We saw it
Speaker 1: with jet Black, So jet Black personal shopping over text
Speaker 1: message I worked on with Mark Lore at Walmart U
Speaker 1: and versus an Amazon where you're thinking, like, this is
Speaker 1: a transactional, glorified search bar, Like, what is the ability
Speaker 1: to differentiate it's in these like touch points, these human
Speaker 1: more human feeling touch points. What was something you were
Speaker 1: super naive about in your early days building rent runway?
Speaker 1: I mean, just one thing. Um, So, first off, I
Speaker 1: think that like being naive is one of the greatest
Speaker 1: gifts of being a first time entrepreneur ignorance. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: had you ever known how hard it was, you would
Speaker 1: have never tried. Um. And so a couple of examples
Speaker 1: come to mind. You know, one is Jen and I
Speaker 1: built a fashion technology business with no fashion background and
Speaker 1: really no technology background either. But would you have built
Speaker 1: it had you had either of those backgrounds. I think
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have had the same fresh lens on the
Speaker 1: fashion industry that we were able to really disrupt that industry.
Speaker 1: And I think on the technology and logistics we would
Speaker 1: have been probably too intimidated by how complex what we
Speaker 1: were doing was that it would have just been too
Speaker 1: daunting to go after it. But with technology, we thought
Speaker 1: we could like outsource tech, you know, we like put
Speaker 1: our request for proposal out. We found like what we
Speaker 1: thought was the best engineering team, and we're kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: like see you in two months with our tied with
Speaker 1: the bow package of a website that will like launch
Speaker 1: and nothing like that. Nothing works like that right in
Speaker 1: the world. It's like anything that's mission critical you need
Speaker 1: to have your hands on, you need to own. So finally,
Speaker 1: like flying to Canada where this team was and realizing
Speaker 1: there was really not a team and the product was
Speaker 1: so far from where it should be. Was this like
Speaker 1: very naive moment of hey, we got to figure this
Speaker 1: part of the business out and be much more hands
Speaker 1: on and logistics to write like the amount of dry
Speaker 1: cleaning you have to do. I mean, so I ran
Speaker 1: logistics for about four years of my time. It rent
Speaker 1: the runway. I joked it was like the last straw
Speaker 1: drawn because just it was hard to hire for, it
Speaker 1: was complex, it was a lot of work. We initially
Speaker 1: used our local dry cleaner company called Slate in the
Speaker 1: West Village, and it was like I was asking him
Speaker 1: about dry cleaning to learn and to understand the pricing,
Speaker 1: and then I was like, hey, you have some empty space,
Speaker 1: like could we store our dresses here? So for a
Speaker 1: while we had like a free warehouse essentially, but we
Speaker 1: gave them all of our dry cleaning business, and pretty
Speaker 1: soon it was enough money that we were spending and
Speaker 1: we were busting at the seams from this dry cleaner
Speaker 1: that we needed to create our own facility. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like Coca Cola on the bottling yeah yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so we have our own facility. It's actually the largest
Speaker 1: dry cleaner in the US, possibly the world, that's debatable,
Speaker 1: but we have New Jersey and now we have a
Speaker 1: Dallas facility as well. A lot of people that I
Speaker 1: speak to, and a lot of people who listened to this,
Speaker 1: are either like one or two spots. They have an
Speaker 1: idea that's germinating that they want to do something with
Speaker 1: and so they find inspiration from your story and your
Speaker 1: multiple stories, or they're starting something and they have pain points,
Speaker 1: right and they're trying to figure out like, Okay, is
Speaker 1: this real? Is it not real? Or I'm trying to grow,
Speaker 1: trying to get to that next spot. What was a
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there's thousand of them, But what's a
Speaker 1: pain point that sticks out to you today that someone
Speaker 1: might encounter now in the ties kind of post COVID,
Speaker 1: Like you just talked about customer services, something that maybe
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have thought about so intently in two thousand eighteen,
Speaker 1: but now is a big, big deal, especially digitally. So
Speaker 1: I actually think ironically in customer services one example, the
Speaker 1: rise of digital and the efficient transactions that it enables
Speaker 1: has created all these I call them like taxes of
Speaker 1: of e commerce. So for example, the idea that we
Speaker 1: have everything in our fingertips now is actually really time consuming.
Speaker 1: Like you used to be walked into a store there
Speaker 1: was five types of shampoo or whatever it was, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you can literally get access to
Speaker 1: thousands international options and it creates this like analysis proalysis,
Speaker 1: this rabbit hole where then we have to do the
Speaker 1: research of which is the best and we can easily
Speaker 1: spend like an hour of our time, which is our
Speaker 1: most valuable commodity trying to decipher from this like all
Speaker 1: these options, which is the best. Um so That's one
Speaker 1: area that I think about. Another is like these hidden um,
Speaker 1: these hidden costs of your time and things like returns.
Speaker 1: So obviously, if you're not trying something on, you're not
Speaker 1: going to the store in the first place, the odds
Speaker 1: that you're going to get it right are a lot smaller.
Speaker 1: And that could because it doesn't fit, or it could
Speaker 1: be just because like you didn't actually like the product,
Speaker 1: the quality wasn't good, it was the wrong you know,
Speaker 1: the wrong color what you know, it's harder to tell
Speaker 1: online and the process of returns right now takes a
Speaker 1: lot of time and energy printing a label, going to
Speaker 1: the hub spot to deliver and return the item. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's like quite a few examples of these hidden
Speaker 1: costs of time, even entering your credit card information and
Speaker 1: your details right that that we all kind of encounter
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. What was a career highlight for you, Well,
Speaker 1: definitely co founding rent the Runway has been like this dream.
Speaker 1: The day that we launched, um, we were covered in
Speaker 1: the front page of the Tech section of the New
Speaker 1: York Times, and it was when most people still had
Speaker 1: physical New York Times delivered doorstep that moment, Yeah, where
Speaker 1: I went to my own doorstep and saw it and
Speaker 1: we were right there on the cover. And then you know,
Speaker 1: going into the office that day, because we all went
Speaker 1: into the office also at that moment in time and
Speaker 1: like being able to jump up and down with the teammates,
Speaker 1: my co founder and celebrate that special moment because a
Speaker 1: lot of hard work goes into that that moment um.
Speaker 1: So that that for sure was one. I mean, getting
Speaker 1: our term sheet from a venture capitalist for Rent the
Speaker 1: Runway was another. Getting a film before after that came
Speaker 1: before the New York Times. Yeah, and you had a
Speaker 1: publicist who helped you get that article. No, Actually it
Speaker 1: was really fun entrepreneurial story where we had about thirty
Speaker 1: customers when we launched Rent the Runway in like a
Speaker 1: private beta launch and one of those emails natural organic Growth.
Speaker 1: We were hustlers, like we got those email addresses through
Speaker 1: our friends, our family, We hosted, like we would throw
Speaker 1: parties for our friends if they gave us like the
Speaker 1: most email addresses. We would go to the movie theater
Speaker 1: lines of relevant movies like Sex in the City movie
Speaker 1: and get with the clipboard like collect email address it.
Speaker 1: Like we did whatever we could to get that email list. Um.
Speaker 1: So when we launched to this initial group, there was
Speaker 1: someone and then people started chattering and shared it as well.
Speaker 1: But there was a New York Times email address on
Speaker 1: the list. And we noticed this because you're kind of
Speaker 1: if you're a good entrepreneur early on, you're paying attention
Speaker 1: to like every customer and every piece of information. Um.
Speaker 1: And so we reached out and we're like, listen, we're
Speaker 1: psyched that you're a customer, Like, let us know if
Speaker 1: you ever want to chat and lo and behold like
Speaker 1: she did. And it was a young Newish reporter at
Speaker 1: the time who came to our office and wind up
Speaker 1: covering the story. Um, so yeah, it was she was
Speaker 1: a customer. She was a customer, one of her first customers.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, it was incredible. And you know, we
Speaker 1: then of course realized that if we she was a
Speaker 1: tech reporter. So we saw that also and we're like, well,
Speaker 1: there really aren't many women in tech, Like this was
Speaker 1: a very to have a fashion article in the tech section.
Speaker 1: I think also from like a strategic buy, were like,
Speaker 1: this could be really interesting, and so we were like,
Speaker 1: do you want some photos, like come to our warehouse
Speaker 1: and we wore like these fun dresses and stood up
Speaker 1: on ladders in the dry cleaner warehouse. I think we
Speaker 1: had enough of the strategy ourselves, combined of course, with
Speaker 1: some luck and you know, proactivity to just make this happen.
Speaker 1: Were you spending marketing dollars yet at the time? Not really.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that for for rent the Runway,
Speaker 1: up until a few years ago, we were like plus
Speaker 1: organic word of mouth. The big insight for us was,
Speaker 1: you know, when you're at an event, the natural conversation
Speaker 1: started for a woman is you look great? What are
Speaker 1: you wearing? Right? That's how most women start, like break
Speaker 1: the ice. If we could own that moment and have
Speaker 1: someone say thanks, like I rented the runway, that would
Speaker 1: be everything. You would answer a questions like what's round
Speaker 1: the runway? How does it work? What if I spill wine?
Speaker 1: What if it doesn't come or doesn't fit? And because
Speaker 1: it was such a new behavior at the time, we
Speaker 1: needed that trust and that you hear it from a friend, right,
Speaker 1: you hear it from someone at a party. And so
Speaker 1: we really invested in our brand. If anything, um so
Speaker 1: not the traditional digital marketing, but yeah, making sure they
Speaker 1: are packaging our website looks beautiful and aspirational, that we
Speaker 1: had beautiful designer addresses, yes, and that the customer experience
Speaker 1: was really good. So our customer service team, I mean
Speaker 1: initially was us answering the calls and stuff, but we
Speaker 1: tried to just nail that customer experience and you also
Speaker 1: really nailed and you might tell me I'm totally wrong
Speaker 1: with this and said, no, Ryan, that was a massive issue.
Speaker 1: But like I don't ever remember when you started, um
Speaker 1: there being an issue with the fact that people were
Speaker 1: renting dresses and not owning them. Like there wasn't a
Speaker 1: social issue, right, there was. There was no ego attached
Speaker 1: to it, because like if you think about it now,
Speaker 1: if you go twenty years ago and you're gonna pitch
Speaker 1: that idea, it's like, no, I want to own my clothes, right,
Speaker 1: that shows that I make enough money to be able
Speaker 1: to do that and bypassed that wall. That wasn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not a given and was something we were
Speaker 1: nervous about and that the designer partners we worked with
Speaker 1: were also nervous. And I'm sure because at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, we launched two thousand and nine, many designer
Speaker 1: brands were just starting to sell online let a interest
Speaker 1: someone else to rent their products, pre owned products, and
Speaker 1: so that was a lot to triangulate, and we definitely
Speaker 1: didn't know if customers would think this was like ikey,
Speaker 1: like how would they perceive it? Um. I think the
Speaker 1: tail ones have really been at our favor and we
Speaker 1: were kind of a little bit ahead of the game
Speaker 1: and able to be a part of adjusting consumer behavior.
Speaker 1: Sustainability has been a big piece of this mix too.
Speaker 1: Write like, we've always been a sustainable concept, the idea
Speaker 1: that if you rent and you buy less, it makes sense,
Speaker 1: you know, it saves waters so many pieces from a
Speaker 1: sustainability perspective, but customers really care now and when we
Speaker 1: ask the main reasons people rent, that's now one of
Speaker 1: the top three reasons. Yeah, Like because there's there's stat
Speaker 1: that at least half the stuff in your closet you
Speaker 1: really don't wear more than once or twice. And then
Speaker 1: I feel bad for my clothes that I don't wear.
Speaker 1: They're not getting a turn. I do feel all that.
Speaker 1: I feel like we all kind of feel bad, right
Speaker 1: Like I have I have like seventy suits. You don't
Speaker 1: need that many suits. You would think I don't, um,
Speaker 1: but I do. I do have a lot of suits,
Speaker 1: and I built a new house around our closet. Um.
Speaker 1: That was like the one thing we designed first, right,
Speaker 1: it was to have like the greatest closet. You're such
Speaker 1: a close I'm not really, I just wear a lot
Speaker 1: of suits, um, and so I and I do feel bad,
Speaker 1: like if I walk by a suit I haven't worn
Speaker 1: in a little while, Like sometimes I'll whisper and say, like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, going to give it a spin. Yeah kind of.
Speaker 1: I think that's so so true and right, And I
Speaker 1: think that in my head, Yeah, I hear you, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I don't know, maybe because I saw a toy
Speaker 1: story like a long time ago, and I'm like, I
Speaker 1: wonder if my suits talk to each other, and like Ryan,
Speaker 1: it's aware us anymore. Like the coloring is so cute
Speaker 1: and so funny, and like, you know what in your industry,
Speaker 1: clearly like presentation is first impression, impression if you're not
Speaker 1: carefully And so that was actually a big piece of
Speaker 1: Round the Runway in the sense that like we know
Speaker 1: that as women, the way you look determines how you act,
Speaker 1: how you feel, like the brand that you put out there.
Speaker 1: When we launched social media was hotter, you know, I
Speaker 1: mean now it's hotter than ever, but it was very
Speaker 1: much on the rise. So the idea that you are
Speaker 1: also putting a photo out there into the world that's
Speaker 1: going to be this forever indelible like print of who
Speaker 1: you are. You're sharing your brand. But then the way
Speaker 1: it makes you feel, right, You're like I can take
Speaker 1: on the world. And the brand that we built for
Speaker 1: in the runway was around female empowerment and self confidence,
Speaker 1: the idea that, like, your dress is not just an outfit,
Speaker 1: it's how you feel and how you're going to take
Speaker 1: on the day. So New York Times article comes out,
Speaker 1: Were you prepared for the rush that came right after that? Lost? No,
Speaker 1: But we knew enough to think about. We were always
Speaker 1: going back to the customer experience, right, and so we
Speaker 1: knew as customers ourselves, right, we were women in our
Speaker 1: twenties launching the business. If we came to that site
Speaker 1: and there wasn't a great selection of dresses of product,
Speaker 1: that it would be a terrible experience. So we knew
Speaker 1: that couldn't happen. And so what did we do. We
Speaker 1: paid a lot of attention to waiting to launch until
Speaker 1: we had a great beautiful website, great designer dresses in
Speaker 1: enough sizes, some amount of quantity. And then we put
Speaker 1: up a gate on our website, meaning that we only
Speaker 1: let a certain number of people in, which really let
Speaker 1: us control the traffic and demand. It also created took
Speaker 1: away from the like rental could be down market. It
Speaker 1: made it more like an exclusive thing. Yeah, and we
Speaker 1: were coming up the tail winds of Guilt Group, who
Speaker 1: who did the same thing. They had like this gated site.
Speaker 1: They made shopping at a discount cool and exclusive and luxury.
Speaker 1: So we drafted off of that and it let us
Speaker 1: really control the experience customers had. So we stopped letting
Speaker 1: people in. You know, we let in some every day,
Speaker 1: but we tried to do it in a way that
Speaker 1: we could manage. Um, and we were still figuring out
Speaker 1: kinks and bugs as we grew. Um. There was the
Speaker 1: second day we had the idea that you could get
Speaker 1: a second size for free. So we didn't know we
Speaker 1: knew people would have concerns oversizing, and so we're like, okay,
Speaker 1: if you rent a size six, you get a size
Speaker 1: eight for free. Like as we let customers do that,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden we saw no one was
Speaker 1: renting a second size. We're like, it's free, Like why
Speaker 1: wouldn't people do this? And we dug into it and
Speaker 1: our chech was broken around like enabling you to show
Speaker 1: move someone did this, and so what do we do?
Speaker 1: We called everyone who had rented, because a couple hundred
Speaker 1: people and it's not that it's not possible, and we're like, hey,
Speaker 1: so excited, you're one of our first customers. Just want
Speaker 1: to confirm the details of your order. And so it's
Speaker 1: moments like that where you're kind of like drinking from
Speaker 1: a fire hose. You're just trouble to figure it out.
Speaker 1: You cover your ass, like yes, you figure it out.
Speaker 1: And there was so many moments like that where, you know,
Speaker 1: photographing our first stresses. It was like a week before
Speaker 1: launch and the developers are like, okay, now we need
Speaker 1: to load the photos and I'm like okay, great, Like
Speaker 1: the designers give us photos and it's like no, no,
Speaker 1: like we have to run a photo shoot. We're like
Speaker 1: we have to run a photo shoot, like and then retouching,
Speaker 1: like we had never done this. We didn't know what
Speaker 1: this was. We didn't have a placebook, and so you
Speaker 1: pull all this stuff together in like forty eight hours. Right,
Speaker 1: another example of you knew how hard and all the
Speaker 1: things you had to do, like you probably wouldn't have
Speaker 1: done it, and you started with a co founder, yes,
Speaker 1: and relationships are always hard, yes, right? How was that
Speaker 1: kind of doing it together at the beginning, And it's
Speaker 1: the two of you where their struggles as you grew
Speaker 1: and as it was like Okay, I'm gonna handle logistics,
Speaker 1: but I don't really want to. Could you do this?
Speaker 1: And then the company grows and grows and grow. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think it's first off, a lot more fun
Speaker 1: like doing something with a team or co founder. It's
Speaker 1: just more enjoyable how you spend your day to day. So, um,
Speaker 1: it helps in terms of the complement of skill sets.
Speaker 1: And for sure Jen is big picture strategic visionary thinker
Speaker 1: much in the way Mark Laura is as well. Um,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, how do you get from point A
Speaker 1: to point B? So we recognize and respected in one
Speaker 1: another those skill sets, and so I think the same
Speaker 1: is true of when you you know, you pick your
Speaker 1: partner and your spouse, when you pick your co founder,
Speaker 1: it's like, as long as you respect them, and like,
Speaker 1: I think so highly of them, it's hard to go wrong, right,
Speaker 1: So the pieces of the business that she ran, it
Speaker 1: was always like she is the best person to run
Speaker 1: those parts of the business. And I think likewise the
Speaker 1: pieces that I ran, That's how she thought of it
Speaker 1: as well. So we reach doing so much and working
Speaker 1: so much and so clearly like bought in that it
Speaker 1: wasn't really a question of like who gets to do
Speaker 1: this or who gets to do that? There was way
Speaker 1: too much to do. It was just like if you
Speaker 1: you know, if could take it on your plate. So
Speaker 1: we didn't sink is what it felt like you would, um,
Speaker 1: but the foundation of respect, a ton of communications and
Speaker 1: just like then realizing, yeah, we're having more fun doing
Speaker 1: it together. So there was never a tough point. There's
Speaker 1: always tough points. I mean there's tough points with like
Speaker 1: any relationship. And I think at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: like forcing yourself to have sometimes weekly conversations whether there's
Speaker 1: anything good, bad or otherwise going on, to like keep
Speaker 1: the dialogue going and then you just be like super
Speaker 1: candid honesty. But like we lived through so many moments
Speaker 1: and experiences. I'm jen still running the business. She CEEO
Speaker 1: of the business I'm still on the board of the business.
Speaker 1: We still talk both as friends and as business partners,
Speaker 1: like at least weekly, if not, like I probably text
Speaker 1: with her daily. Right, So I think this underlying like
Speaker 1: respect these moments that you've been through, um, Like she
Speaker 1: is the best, but she's always been CEO. I've always
Speaker 1: wanted her to be CEO because that is how our
Speaker 1: business will be the best business. Like, That's how highly
Speaker 1: I think of her. And there's many things I know
Speaker 1: She's thought that I was the best person to handle
Speaker 1: in the company as well. How is she living without you? Well,
Speaker 1: we do still interact a lot. Um. I didn't leave
Speaker 1: until I really felt like I had built an amazing
Speaker 1: team around her. Sum, I don't think. I mean, first
Speaker 1: of all, from a financial perspective, when I went and
Speaker 1: joined Mark at Walmart, Um, I you know, I would
Speaker 1: have never felt good about leaving, but that I knew
Speaker 1: the company was in a good place and that she
Speaker 1: had the right team around her. So I just helped
Speaker 1: her hire like three really strong people in the leadership team,
Speaker 1: and things were ticking and cranking, and I knew it
Speaker 1: would be fine. Right. Can you tell me about that
Speaker 1: moment though, deciding oh my gosh, to go do something different,
Speaker 1: and that first conversation or was it something that was
Speaker 1: kind of like, once I get us to this point,
Speaker 1: I'm going to build something else. Well, So one thing
Speaker 1: I think that helped was throughout the life the business
Speaker 1: when we had we would have often conversations on our
Speaker 1: life goals or ambitions, our aspirations, including from the beginning
Speaker 1: when Jen was like, I really want to be CEO
Speaker 1: and I was like, great, I think you'd be amazing
Speaker 1: and SEEO right, And so she very much knew and
Speaker 1: we would talk about the fact that I had this
Speaker 1: serial entrepreneur tendency, meaning that like I always loved like
Speaker 1: ideating starting new things, and so that at some scale
Speaker 1: of the business it might not be my forever thing,
Speaker 1: where Jen was like, I'm in this forever, like this
Speaker 1: is my lifelong child like passion, you know. And so
Speaker 1: we had that understanding behind the scenes for a long time.
Speaker 1: Now what we were able to do is I laded
Speaker 1: business development for a period of time at the business,
Speaker 1: which meant that Jen was running the day to day
Speaker 1: and I was like, what's coming next? Kind of what
Speaker 1: Mark was doing for Walmart right, especially with the incubator
Speaker 1: that we set up store number eight. It's like you
Speaker 1: have the day to day and then if you have
Speaker 1: a pot of people who are thinking about the next steps.
Speaker 1: And so through that business we launched our retail stores UM,
Speaker 1: and we launched our subscription service through that business development.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of running like a mini startup
Speaker 1: focused on the future with and Rent the Runway for
Speaker 1: few years, UM. And I think because we would always
Speaker 1: just talk about, honestly, like what our natural skill sets
Speaker 1: and passions were. It wasn't a huge thought shock. It
Speaker 1: was a conversation around like what was the right timing
Speaker 1: so that like I could do what I wanted, but
Speaker 1: also so it was the best thing for the business.
Speaker 1: You are so positive, Um, what is what I was like,
Speaker 1: can you talk to me about like a low day
Speaker 1: Rent the Runway. It's still everything's great and it's awesome,
Speaker 1: but there was just a tough COVID is hard, right,
Speaker 1: COVID run the Runway and for your business, Like those
Speaker 1: are hard moments, UM. I think you know. So this
Speaker 1: was not that long ago. I was dealing with it
Speaker 1: as a board member and as a friend and something
Speaker 1: last big skin and really hard for the team. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the flip side positive of that is if
Speaker 1: that team can live through COVID, it's like you can
Speaker 1: live through anything. If that business can survive COVID, then
Speaker 1: you can. Like we were literally running a business that
Speaker 1: was based on getting dressed for special events in a
Speaker 1: moment when people didn't even need to get dressed, let
Speaker 1: alone have events. So it's like, if you could live
Speaker 1: through at it's like all those things that you thought
Speaker 1: were problems like falls by the wayside, and so I
Speaker 1: see it now on like a weekly basis, issues that
Speaker 1: I think would have stressed Jena, would have stressed the
Speaker 1: team out, roll off your back, and it's like that's
Speaker 1: what I say about having kids too. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like you learn not to sweat the small stuff and
Speaker 1: like to like funnel up where you want to spend
Speaker 1: your time and your energy. Um, but that for sure
Speaker 1: was a hard period of time. I mean I think
Speaker 1: that like for UM, for jet Black and the business
Speaker 1: we started for Walmart, like hard that they decided not
Speaker 1: to keep the consumer facing part of that business. So
Speaker 1: the text platform that we built to enable text based
Speaker 1: commerce is something that they leverage and so from a
Speaker 1: impact on the world in Walmart. I feel great about that.
Speaker 1: I feel like shopping over text and conversational commerce is
Speaker 1: like the future. Um, but there were really pieces that
Speaker 1: I feel like we're delivering to a consumer that I
Speaker 1: miss on a daily basis as a consumer, and that
Speaker 1: I hear from our customers all the time that they
Speaker 1: miss So that like it feels a hard moment or
Speaker 1: like an itch that I just need to scratch. And
Speaker 1: I try to think of it that way that it's
Speaker 1: not like it's not as much of them sad about
Speaker 1: it is just like something I yet to tackle in
Speaker 1: my career. What is a just thinking about this? What's
Speaker 1: a good piece of advice that someone gave you not
Speaker 1: to do where you follow the advice and thank god
Speaker 1: they gave it to you. Okay, So two things that
Speaker 1: come to mind. One is don't give up. So you know,
Speaker 1: the first meeting that Jen and I took with the
Speaker 1: designer was Diane fon Furstenberg hated our concept. I left
Speaker 1: that meeting like, well that was fun for a few days.
Speaker 1: Like the business. We we barely just started talking about
Speaker 1: it and Jen was like, no, she just told us
Speaker 1: all the things that were wrong, and now we know
Speaker 1: how we need to reframe our sales pitch and go
Speaker 1: back to the table, right and so like this no, no,
Speaker 1: it means not right now or just you know again
Speaker 1: the reframing, like I said, you know, I get to
Speaker 1: be a mom or like hey, we get to receive
Speaker 1: this amazing feedback from this really famous fashion designers and
Speaker 1: now we can build anything stronger, right, Like I think
Speaker 1: that lens has been really important. Um. You know another
Speaker 1: thing and I now give this advice is not to
Speaker 1: hire someone unless you feel super psyched about it. And
Speaker 1: it's often so right, so tempting when you feel a
Speaker 1: hole in your organization or you need to let someone go.
Speaker 1: What I mean logistics at Runt the Runway, we needed
Speaker 1: to let two key people go and we had no
Speaker 1: one else to run the business. And we were like,
Speaker 1: that's how I wound up running logistics. So for better
Speaker 1: or worse, I think it was the best and I
Speaker 1: know it was the best answer for our business. It
Speaker 1: can be painful sometimes, but like you need to find
Speaker 1: the right people. You need to like fire when you
Speaker 1: know they're not right, and you need to wait to
Speaker 1: hire until you're so excited about the person, and then
Speaker 1: everyone has to be excited about them, right, everyone should
Speaker 1: be yes, especially early on. I mean at some point,
Speaker 1: however big the company is not everyone can know them.
Speaker 1: Or you have different cults. You know, we have somewhat
Speaker 1: of a different culture in our warehouse and logistics versus
Speaker 1: our customer service versus the home office versus our retail stores.
Speaker 1: Like so it starts to change a little bit. Where
Speaker 1: do you see opportunity the future? Right as somebody who
Speaker 1: because you you change the world of fashion right totally.
Speaker 1: You brought fashion technology together in a way for women
Speaker 1: people now that have never been there before renting clothing.
Speaker 1: So two areas that I find really exciting. One is
Speaker 1: what i'll call like infrastructure enablement. This idea that there's
Speaker 1: certain parts of your business that are going to be
Speaker 1: like the differentiating thing, the most important thing of your
Speaker 1: business that like that is the core of what you
Speaker 1: need to get right. Sure, there's a lot of other
Speaker 1: things that like you can plug and play, you can outsource,
Speaker 1: you can buy from someone else. That ecosystem is getting
Speaker 1: better and better of the pieces you can plug in.
Speaker 1: So think of Shopify for example, Like you can get
Speaker 1: a website up and running in an hour. It's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Now to shop by apps that like you can plug
Speaker 1: in to do more and more things and customize it
Speaker 1: more and more. The pace at which everyone is moving
Speaker 1: because of these tools like requires you to have more
Speaker 1: and more of them. So you know this company I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, Cube Financial, it's like a financial budgeting planning tool.
Speaker 1: Um that like it's much more plug and play than
Speaker 1: like Microsoft Excel in terms of just letting you get
Speaker 1: up and running more quickly. Right, you should have um
Speaker 1: you have Carter who's helping you do like legal share management.
Speaker 1: So these like infrastructure enablement, plug in play solutions is
Speaker 1: one area I find particularly exciting, and that one also
Speaker 1: I think is fun because it lets you as a creator,
Speaker 1: like this whole world of influencers, Instagram, etcetera. Being a
Speaker 1: creator if you wanted to start a business. You know,
Speaker 1: Emma Chamberlain started a iced coffee business, right like she
Speaker 1: can just go on Shopify. I think more and more
Speaker 1: the supply chain of like how do you make icce coffee?
Speaker 1: Like she needs to be good at what she's good at,
Speaker 1: like her brand, how she talks about it, how she's
Speaker 1: going to market it, but all the pieces around it,
Speaker 1: like she can now build a whole business off that
Speaker 1: platform and doesn't really have to do much except for
Speaker 1: what she's uniquely good at. Right, So so that's part
Speaker 1: of why I love that that infrastructure enablement. Then another
Speaker 1: one that I find interesting is just old school, like
Speaker 1: viral marketing and brand marketing. Paid marketing, paid acquisition has
Speaker 1: gotten so expensive, especially recently with like the changes and
Speaker 1: the stands around privacy, like and it's like there needs
Speaker 1: to be a different way, And so we saw that
Speaker 1: with run Through one Way, Right, I gave you the
Speaker 1: example of just like the viral word of mouth marketing
Speaker 1: is being so much more powerful, authentic, it cuts through
Speaker 1: the clutter. We were also marketing for our designers, so
Speaker 1: the idea of wearing a dress from a designer, having
Speaker 1: that experience talking about it actually helps the customer eventually
Speaker 1: buy from that brand. So I think finding these authentic
Speaker 1: different ways to market college campuses, how bumble started right,
Speaker 1: Like that tap tap into this conversation. Starters are the
Speaker 1: most powerful, and like, that's what I look for in
Speaker 1: a lot of businesses. Did you ever think about affiliate
Speaker 1: partnerships with those designers that if that customer then comes
Speaker 1: back and buys at another store, somewhere right that that
Speaker 1: name is attached and you own that client. Yes, so
Speaker 1: we we have. Um. I even at one point was like,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to capture it because someone might buy
Speaker 1: the store and as you're seating, I was like, can
Speaker 1: they bload a receipt and maybe they get a site credit? Yeah, indirectly,
Speaker 1: you know, we've done click through partnerships. We do have
Speaker 1: an affiliate program UM where you can kind of I
Speaker 1: don't think we're capturing all of it, but these brands
Speaker 1: are seeing enough of a feedback loop in terms of
Speaker 1: the performance of their products, what customers are saying, as
Speaker 1: well as a lift in their sales, as well as
Speaker 1: real revenue that we're driving. So it exists. It's it's
Speaker 1: hard to track. I wish it was easier to track,
Speaker 1: but it was somewhat of a line item. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and something we've iterated and talked about a bunch, right,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. Yeah. I have one last question for you.
Speaker 1: Can you describe for me your best day two years
Speaker 1: from now? Um? So, the best day two years from
Speaker 1: now is this business that Stealth business is raising not
Speaker 1: only like maybe their Series A, but you know, first
Speaker 1: of all, hopefully they don't have to raise a series
Speaker 1: be raising money isn't always great, but it's just like
Speaker 1: rocking and tacking along and it has a ton of
Speaker 1: customers and is making millions in revenue and it's like
Speaker 1: a party, just crushing it. Yeah, we're doing a big
Speaker 1: party for them. I'm taking actually the founders out tonight
Speaker 1: to celebrate because we just closed the initial like seed
Speaker 1: funding and they worked for me before, so like part
Speaker 1: of it is just I'm so proud because like I've
Speaker 1: seen them in own them for years and they gave
Speaker 1: so much to me to be able to try to
Speaker 1: pay it forward and to see the success for them
Speaker 1: now and like you know how exciting it is when
Speaker 1: you get that first term sheet and funding and to
Speaker 1: be like leaving a job at a big corporation to
Speaker 1: take the sleep of they can risk and it's real
Speaker 1: and it's happening for them, and so it's like, in
Speaker 1: this weird way almost like more rewarding seeing it for
Speaker 1: someone else. Um. So yeah, I just right now, I
Speaker 1: think I'm pretty focused on getting them to their next
Speaker 1: stage of success. One thing I say to entrepreneurs is
Speaker 1: and like create an email address that's just like memories
Speaker 1: that Rent the Runway dot com memories, is it right,
Speaker 1: and just copy it on stuff like like moments right
Speaker 1: that you have no time, Right takes you no time.
Speaker 1: You can send photos, you can just copy it. When
Speaker 1: you're sending something to someone else, you're sending a board
Speaker 1: update with the key milestone, a partnership meeting, and like
Speaker 1: emailing with Dan Dan when person and then like, at
Speaker 1: some point you'll go back and look at that. In
Speaker 1: the moment, it is so hard to realize and appreciate
Speaker 1: the amazing stuff that's happening, and so like, now if
Speaker 1: that lends looking back a Rent the Runway, it's like
Speaker 1: one thing I tell all founders what's to do. Big
Speaker 1: Money Energy is hosted by me Ryan Sirhant. It's produced
Speaker 1: by Mike Coscarelli and Joe Loreesca and executive produced by
Speaker 1: Lindsay Hoffman. Find more podcasts like Big Money Energy on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.