July 14, 2022 • 31 mins
Sarah LaFleur is the Founder and CEO of MMLaFleur, known for women’s “power casual” workwear.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
(00:30):
Sarah le Fleur is the founder and CEO of M
M Lafleur, known for women's power casual work. Where when
you first started your career, Sarah, you did not intend
to be an entrepreneur. You went into finance and you
were a management consultant. What was the moment that changed that?
The moment I changed that was really because I didn't
(00:52):
know what else I was going to do with my career,
which very much at that point it felt like my life. Um,
I think the way many of us think about our
careers and our in our twenties. But Sam, the way
you just asked that question reminded me. When I was
working in management consulting, we had like a session on
entrepreneurship and there was a partner at the firm came
and said like, well, you know, do you think any
(01:15):
of you are our entrepreneurs? And looked around the room
and I think one person out of thirty our class
was thirty people raised his hand and then he was like, well,
what do you think about the rest of you? And
he was like and someone else said, well, I don't know.
Maybe I'm an entrepreneur, maybe I'm not. And he said, well,
if you're not sure about it, then you're definitely not
an entrepreneur, because an entrepreneur they know in their hearts
(01:37):
that they were an entrepreneur. And I was like, well,
I guess I'm not an entrepreneur then, you know, like
desfinitely like I was, I was like, I definitely don't
feel it. And if anything, my mother being an entrepreneur,
I just saw how hard it was up close. You know,
how much it's spilled into our lives and her life
(01:59):
for like, how much it affected her personally. You know
how difficult the people management side was, and how friends
that she worked with they had falling out and and
I would often see her like I always stay like
I always I would I would see her sipping whiskey
by herself in the middle of the night when I
would come down for a glass of water. So like
I think, having it seen it up close, I was like,
(02:20):
this is not for me. And it was really only
when I left my last job having only been there
for four months, and so I like really kind of
like rushed out of there without a plan B and
you know, I didn't know what I was going to
do next with my life. That I was like, well,
I've always had this idea, maybe I should work on it.
(02:42):
That had to be a tough period of time. What
was it like for you? I think I had been
wandering as I think, you know, I mean, I I
certainly felt that way in my late twenties, um I
had left consulting, I applied to business school, didn't get in.
I ended up taking this job at a private equity
firm that I really respected, and basically one week in
(03:06):
knew that, like this was not a place where I
was going to be successful. The culture was so different
from what I was used to and what I knew
I was gonna you know, be happy in, and so
I felt like I gave it a good try, but
I I was so like miserable doesn't even begin to
describe it. Like I was getting you know, I had
nervous ticks. I would be like shaking in my seat.
(03:28):
I would get you know, kind of anxiety attacks thinking
about having to go to work the next day, and
I really I ran out of there, so, you know,
I would say it was like one of the lowest
moments of my professional confidence, I mean lowest moments of
confidence period. And that was the way that that was
(03:48):
really how MM started, you know, not not knowing what
to do next with my life. It's really hard to
start a business. A lot of people think about it,
like what were the first things that you actually tangibly did.
I kind of started with the formalities, which in retrospect
was somewhat silly, but I think it was important for
me to feel like I was committing to it. So
(04:10):
I um incorporated in Delaware and that somehow made it
seem real. It was La Fleur LLLS and that was
a surprisingly easy process and I was like, Okay, I'm
really doing this. And then I rented a tiny office space,
which I gave up two months later because I realized
I couldn't afford it. But it was when we work
(04:32):
only had two buildings at that point, and I rented
a small five dollar per month space and that actually
got me out of the house every day, So that
was a good thing. And that was actually the first
kind of nearly logistical thing that I did. And then
I just started talking to anybody who I thought knew
(04:52):
anything remotely about fashion design. And I really did not
know anybody in this world of fashion design, and you know,
just to kind of give you a sense of how
much I didn't know, you know, the only way I
could see myself getting connected to someone who worked in
fashion design was through someone who had gone to school
with who had gone on to interior design school at
(05:16):
Risdy And I was like, well, that's that's a little
bit closer to fashion design. Maybe she'll know someone. And
then she happened to know one person who went to
the fashion department and connected me with her, and so
she was like the first designer that I had actually
spoken with, and she ultimately was the one who introduced
me to a head hunter. Um. I knew that I
wanted a co founder from the get go. I wanted
(05:36):
someone with actual design expertise who had worked in the
high end fashion world. That was really really important to
me because I wanted the clothing that we made at
MM to really reflect the kind of clothes that you
would get at a high end fashion brand. And so
a lot of people said, why don't you just kind
of why don't you just design it. Why don't you
(05:57):
just you know, add a sleeve to a a theory
dress or you know, take a I don't know, Georgio
Armani suit, but make it for cheaper. And I was like, no, no, no,
you're you're kind of missing the point, Like there's a
whole gap here in terms of what I'm looking for.
I'm looking for clothing that is not only beautiful. Of
(06:17):
course it has to be beautiful, but it has to
be machine washable and wrinkled resistant and has to be
super comfortable. And I never want to have to be,
you know, pulling at the at the scenes to make
sure things are fitting. Well. I'm really trying to create
something different. And so ultimately was through this head hunter
that I met my co founder of Miaco. And she's
actually also Japanese. I'm half Japanese. And people think that,
(06:39):
you know, we we met through the japan connection, but
but we actually met in the meatpacking district, like you know,
that was we met through a headhunter. So that was
probably like the next tangible step that I took. How
did you convince her to take a leap with someone
who had never been in fashion before? She had had
this illustrious career, been designing for zac pose in she
was entrenched in the fashion war. Old was it a
(07:01):
pitch you had to give her or was she sold
right away? I think she was curious right away, And
I think in retrospect, I really see, you know, it's
it's all about kind of where you are in your life.
And I think if I had pitched pitched it to
her any other time, she she very likely would have
said no. She this was when I initially started talking
(07:21):
to her. This is twenty eleven, so we were kind
of coming out of the recession. But she saw a
lot of her colleagues, um in the fashion world get
laid off. And she also saw a lot of you know,
these fashion brands that you respected go under, And I
think she was really she was going through her existential
(07:42):
her own existential crisis, saying like why should I be
in fashion? Like when everything out there has already been designed?
What is there to make? And I think she also
sensed the enormous waste that exists in the high and
fashion world. You spend months and months putting together these
fashion shows that are you know, over and done in
five minutes, and most of those clothes that end up
(08:03):
on the runway are never to be seen again. And
so when I came to her and said, like, look,
there's this entire group of working women who think that
everything out there right now doesn't meet their needs and
and they want to be comfortable, and it's not like
they want to be fronty. You know, there's this like
I think that when people think of American working women,
you know, immediately it's like, um, working girl like sneakers
(08:27):
and big shoulder jackets and like the last thing you
think is fashionable, right, like that that the American women,
working women like are typically not associated with style. And
I was like, I think there's a real opportunity to
change this, and um, are you interested? And she was like, yeah, okay,
I'm curious. And she always says to me, or she
(08:48):
said to me since then she was like, apparently I
said something along the lines of like, you know, I
don't know, I really don't know anything in fashion, but
I'm not stupid, so I'm confident that I will, I
will figure it out as I go along, and she
was like, okay, like why not, like why not take
a chance on you? And so that that is how
(09:09):
it started. But I think it had to do with
like where she was in her life and being kind
of really curious about what was there a different way
to operate a fashion business? And then how did you
fund the business? Very haphazardly is how I would say it.
So I, um, the first thing I had done actually
talking about one of the first things we did. I
grew up in Japan's I had a bank account in
(09:31):
in Japan that I had been putting some money away
and and I called up my mother and I said,
I want you to, you know, help me transfer it
all into this business account. And she was like all
and I was like yes, all, which I would not
have the guts to do today. But I was twenty
seven and you know, I didn't have kids, no mortgage, like,
(09:54):
no responsibilities. I just had to worry about me. So
I was like, let's just go all in. And I
had thirty six tho dollars saved up at that point,
so it went all in, put that into Loffler LLC.
And then I asked my parents if they'd be willing
to lend me the same amount, so um they very
kindly said yes. So we started with seventy two dollars
in the bank account, and actually that got me through
(10:16):
the first year of of hiring Miaco because her rate
was ten thousand dollars to design a line of seven dresses.
I paid two thousand dollars to my head hunter because
he always took a twenty cut, and I always say
it's the best two thousand dollars I ever spent from
this business. And then, you know, I think we spent
like ten thousand dollars to buy the fabric. You know,
(10:37):
we were going to launch with the line of seven dresses.
And one of the best piece of advice that I got,
and I still say this to um entrepreneurs who are
looking to manufacture things today, is don't hold inventory if
you can. You know, just just have a sample and
get orders against your sample, and then go and place
the order because you never know what's going to sell
(11:00):
or how much of it is going to sell, especially
in the early days, and you never want to be
stuck with that inventory. So what we did was we
bought the fabric, and we brought seven dresses and we
started doing these trunk shows and we took orders based
on that, and then we would place the order at
one of the factories in the garment district. We had
to beg to work with us. You know, it's just
(11:20):
really interesting. I thought like, if you if you were
willing to pay, anyone would take you on. But you know,
no factory wants to take you on because they see,
they see designers come and go, come and go all
the time, and they need consistent revenue. So I you know,
I said, I'll pay extra, so please please please take
white orders. And and and this this Korean gentleman agreed to
manufactually these dresses for us, and then we would we
(11:41):
would turn it around usually in two to three weeks
because we had the fabric. And then we would rent
a zip car remember those, and then drive around the
city and it would be me and my co founder,
my other co founder and a reb She would be
sitting in the passenger seat and we would drive around
and she would jump out and you know, drop off
the dress and then jumped back in the car again.
And then and then we would you know, finish our
(12:03):
day of delivery so like that was that was really
the early days of how we got started. But seventy
thousand dollars actually got me through that kind of initial
phase and it was only after that that we began.
That's not even true the first five years. I think
I was kind of collecting small checks as we went along.
I raised maybe four million in the first five years,
(12:24):
and it wasn't until six So yeah, five years into
the business that we actually closed our Series A. And
it took a really long time just to put a
pin in that because I think, you know, a lot
of people who don't have experience with entrepreneurship, they read
the news and they're like, oh, this company started and
they raised the seed round and then they raised the
Series A, and then they raised the Series B, and
people think there are these like discrete periods of time
(12:46):
between doing that. But for you, it sounds like it
was different. I know for me it's been different. For Sam,
it's been different. But like you kind of just were
always kind of raising as you're growing. I know people
think I'm not. People will say to me, you're raising again,
and I'm kind of like, I never really stopped correct
correct um and it was it was so funny because
(13:08):
I think, you know, there were so many directed consumer
brands that are that were cropping up at that time,
you know, Wrby, Parker, Binovos, Everlane, and they would always
announce these funding rounds, you know, like so and so
closes X round, raises x million dollars. And I was like,
what the hell am I doing wrong? Like because I
was like I was, I had a quote unquote seed
(13:31):
round basically going for four years, so it was it
was incredibly messy. But I think like the piece of
advice that that I've got and I passed on is like,
first of all, all cash is green, and there's something
to be said about a lot of and you say
(13:51):
it's friends and family, but like it I mean true.
I think maybe I have like three true friends and
family on the cap table. Everyone else is like the
friend of a friend of a friend and a lot
of that, a lot of that capital is really um.
In some ways, it's attractive because you know, they're they're
supporters of you. They're not necessarily saying okay, like I'm
(14:13):
expecting a twenty x return within a certain time period.
Like in some ways, it's very flexible capital. So so
I got ample timed. I think actually like make mistakes
and also go slowly in a way that I think
when we got to our Series A, like we were
really late to raise our Series A and we were
(14:33):
told that as much, you know that our revenue was
kind of beyond what would people would typically consider a
Series A round. But you know, I think as a result,
I got to maintain more control of the business. I
think I had better handle what we were doing. So yeah,
it's I think there's there isn't such a formula. And
I think this is especially true of female founded businesses.
(14:55):
If you had to do it over again, would you
have done the capital raising any differently? It's a really
great question. I don't And I have to start by saying, like,
I don't know how I could have done it differently.
Like I was the first time entrepreneur um, most investors
didn't want to touch fashion with a ten foot poll um.
I had a really difficult time convincing vcs that this
(15:17):
was a business worth backing UM. And it really wasn't
until like the revenue started to grow and UM the
trajectory was was obvious that that people were saying, Okay,
you know, I'm willing to take a chance. So also
I would say I was I was young, and I
(15:37):
was happy to live on a I mean happy is
maybe a strong word, but you know, I was paying
myself forty eight K a year UM, and then I
was tutoring on the side, and I did that for
two years to make ends meet, and I couldn't do that.
Now I've got three small kids and a mortgage and
(15:57):
I now, you know, I used to never go to
the doctor a doctor in my twenties, and now I
go like seemingly pretty regularly. So like it's just interesting.
Like now I would say I probably couldn't start a
business without proper funding. And now a quick break. Another
question about kind of the early days, as you really
(16:18):
grew through trunk shows, how did you find the people
to host the trunk shows? A lot of friends, a
lot of girlfriends who helped me, and then a lot
of coworkers. Um. One of them, her name was Lucy
to Land. She was the CEO at Paperless post Um
and now she runs a VC. But she was a
girlfriend from college and I think you know, she also
(16:41):
ran a startup, so she just knew how important your
your friends were and your network is in helping initially
get your business off the ground. Um. So she said,
you know, come post a trunk show in my house.
And her husband, I think, was at business school at
that time, so she invited a bunch of his business
old friends who remained some of our best customers to
(17:03):
this day, you know, almost ten years later. Um, we
did one in Washington, d C. Also hosted by like
three of my college friends, and yeah, it was very
much like friends coming out of the world works to
support me. My very first customer was actually my first
one of my first bosses at beIN UM, the management
consulting from I worked at. And also we you know,
(17:25):
I also talked to a lot of women in their
twenties were saying, I don't love my job. I'm trying
to find the thing I'm actually passionate about. And I say,
I totally understand that. You know, I've been there, but like,
you know, do the best job that you can in
the job that you're currently in, because you know that's
going to lead to something else. And I have I've
really found that to be true. Um. You know that
(17:48):
friends and colleagues from previous places have have really come
to help me start the business. I love that advice
because I think that work ethic is so pivotal. We
always remember someone's work ethic. You don't necessarily remember whether
they were the perfect fit for that job or how
their career trajectory looked, but you do remember their work ethic.
It's great advice for young people. You can shine anywhere, yeah,
(18:08):
for sure. And even if you know, you know, you
kind of know, like, I'm not this is not really
my thing. I'm not really like, this is not me
at my best. But I have found that like just
the connections that you make and hopefully you meet people
you genuinely like and admire, regardless of what your job
you're in, and those relationships have been so important to me,
(18:29):
just like personally but but also professionally and growing. Um,
how have your sales evolved? Is that something that still
keeps you up at night today or does it take
care of itself at this point right now we are
probably online are and we've gone through so many phases.
You know, I would say brick and mortar or just
meeting our customers in person was always a really really
(18:51):
important part of our business. And so even though we
said we were directed consumer, we didn't necessarily mean that
we were e commerce only. Like our our stores and
our we call them show rooms. We have one in
New York City and Brian Park and one in Washington,
D C. But we had had I think nine you know,
prior to to COVID, and unfortunately we had to close
(19:11):
them all during the pandemic. And then we opened Washington
d C. Up in the fall of which ended up
being kind of a catastrophe because we're located two blocks
from the White House and we couldn't even access our
store for like six weeks around the insurrection. I mean,
it was it was madness. Um. So um, it's been
(19:35):
a really really tough couple of years for brick and
mortar retail. But we did open up our Brian Park
show room in fall of twenty one, and then um,
we're looking to open up three more of a zeer,
so we're we're really leaning back into in person um
retail stores. E Commerce is kind of the thing that
(19:56):
kept us going, you know, even through the pandemic. And
we had this really really hard moment in the early
days of the pandemic when you know, we really didn't
understand what COVID was and there was this big decision point.
We had just closed all of our stores, we had
furloughed all of our retail employees, and we had to
make a decision about whether to keep the warehouse open.
And I knew that if we close the warehouse, our
(20:17):
sales would go to zero. You know, we literally wouldn't
be able to ship anything out. We would have to
furload the entire company. Or we could keep the warehouse
going and at least bring any eCOM sales um And
we decided to go with the ladder and tried to
take as many precautions as we possibly could to keep
our our warehouse team safe. You know that that those
were kind of like the real challenges that we were
(20:39):
going through in the early days of the pandemic. And
so Sam to your question about like sales do they
take care of themselves? They never take care of themselves.
I would love to be in a place where I
was like, you know what, there's just like recurring revenue
on a daily basis, But like I, I and the
rest of my team, you know, we're watching their numbers
like a hawk. And um, it's just it's fascinating also
(21:01):
how much what's going on in the world affects your numbers,
you know, Roe v way that decision came out and frankly,
the weekend that followed terrible for sales. And you know,
whenever there's bad news in and the recession is certainly looming,
and so that's that's kind of a real risk that
that we're facing. But I also think like that's actually
(21:22):
one of the fun Maybe too strong a word, but
I think, yeah, I guess I would call it fun.
There there's a there's an element of like, okay, you
always have to react to what's going on, and like retail,
you can actually be quite nimble. You know, you can
come up with new tactics, new marketing pushes, new price changes,
new promotions, like there are actually so many levers at
(21:44):
your disposal. And I think one of the reasons I
never get tired of of um, never get tired is
maybe the right word. I never board, Yeah, never get
bored of running a retail businesses because it keeps you
on your toes constantly, constantly, constantly. How did the pandemic
changes in fashion impact you now that everything has become
(22:04):
more casual. I mean, we saw it in our own
dressing behavior in the very beginning you know, we just
we And then La Flair was very much a company
that was a dressing women who went to the office,
who were in places where they were being seen and
had to look presentable. And I don't necessarily mean just
(22:25):
like people who were lawyers and bankers. I mean I
think anyone really like anyone who had a professional job
who had to dress a certain way. And I mean
I don't even remember this about myself in the early
pandemic days, Like I just stopped wearing makeup. I was like,
who the f cares? Like, I'm just like and you know,
(22:47):
it was the very early days, and and we saw,
you know, consumer demand obviously drop, and there was this
moment where we were like, what is the point of
MM in this new world? Like does our is our
business even relevant? And I think for the first two
to three months I was really unsure. And I think
(23:07):
actually as the pandemic went on, we started to hear
from customers. There were a few things that we did
kind of just at the get go. We we had
these like perfect travel pants. We called them the Colby
Origami suiting pants. But actually I kept on wearing them
in the early days of the pandemic. Because they had
(23:28):
this elastic waste band and they it was like made
from this like super comfortable fabric, and so I was like,
you know what if we named these the Colby Joggers
instead of this origami shooting pants, and sales grew by
eight x just based on that name change, you know,
and and just positioning things differently. Yeah, So that was
really wild, and we just started making small, small tweaks
(23:50):
like that, because I think we were always proud of
the fact that our clothes were meant to be comfortable,
Like even even if they were meant, you know, to
be clothes that you were going to be seen, and
they were always meant to be comfortable. So I think
a lot of it was like could we just reframe
them in a different way? And customers reacted really really
well to that, and I think as time went on,
we said like, Okay, what is actually the new way
that women are going to be dressing? Because you know,
(24:12):
I think to your to my earlier point of like,
you know, what is the point of mm A lot
of the angst that I think women and people in
general feel about getting dressed. It's not as though that
that disappeared with COVID you know. In fact, I think
what we're hearing a lot now is like I have
now gone hybrid, and I don't know what tressing for
(24:32):
a hybrid work environment looks like. Or I have a
lifestyle now where I'm in the office, I'm working from
home in the morning, but then I go into the
office in the afternoon and everyone's saying that we can
dress a little more casually, but I don't actually know
what that means. And so We're getting a lot of questions.
And I think MM was always created to solve this problem.
And I would say, like a lot of it is angst.
(24:53):
You know, we talk about women on average spending two
more weeks per year versus men getting ready in the morning,
which is crazy, right, It's like what would you do
with that two weeks? But it's not as though like
suddenly that two weeks was given back to all women
because of COVID. Like I think, actually, if anything, women
are just as dressed. Um. You know, I'm speaking also
(25:13):
for myself, but like a lot of women put on
weight during the pandemic, and so like like how do
I dress? You know, do I buy new clothes or
do I buy things that kind of like conflex with
your size, and so you know, as a business, the
direction we've been leaning into, we're calling it power casual,
and that's really a lot of customers who were dressing
(25:34):
business casual. We're saying, actually the new look is power casual.
So you know, if you've got business formal being kind
of the most formal way of dressing and suiting, and
then you've got business casual a little more, you know,
dressed down, and then you've got like casual all the
way at the bottom. Then power casual is this like
new things somewhere in between business casual and creative casual
where you want to show that like you're looking, you're
(25:56):
looking ready to get down to business. Your your there
and you're presentable. But it's it's flexible. It's clothes that
you could also be going out to um drinks with
your friends in or picking up your kids from school in.
Like it doesn't look like, oh, she was at the
office and she just like walked over here. So that's
the look that we are pushing forward and really talking
(26:16):
to our customers about and it's really allowed our business
to rebound and grow again. And you know what I'm
focused on for twenty two and beyond and now a
quick break. What was there ever a time where you
thought the business might fail multiple times? Yeah? How did
you find inspiration or whatever you needed to push through
(26:39):
those moments? They're scary. It honestly just felt like one
it's a cliche of one foot in front of the other.
But like I think if I knew if someone had
like like tapped my shoulder and on in like March
twenty and it said like, hey, you know, I know
everyone's saying like this is going to be like a
two week thing or maybe a three month thing, but actually,
(27:01):
like you're not going to even get close to normal
for another two and a half years. Good luck. I
think I would have just been like, well, that's it,
Like I don't have it in me, Like I call
it it quits. But like, you know, this is about
like I think, the human spirit being incredibly resilient, and
when you're actually just like in it day to day,
(27:23):
you're like, well, I just have to keep going like
there is no other option, and so we so we did,
and my I have to say, like I have a
really I have a team that I love. A lot
of them have been with me for a really really
long time. Now, you know we're talking five plus years. Um,
I think the majority of our team has been with
(27:45):
us for five plus years, and so yeah, I mean
I felt like I owed it to them to really
see it through because they were willing to stick it through,
you know. I mean, it's it was such a hot
job market still is. They could have they could have
gotten a job in so many other places, but I
felt like they kept showing up, and so I had
to too. You talked about how clubby the garment center
(28:06):
manufacturing world can be, but fashion is just as clubby.
Has the fashion industry accepted you. I think they honestly
don't know what to do with us, and who's I have?
I think I we have been very lucky to receive
a couple of awards by fashion groups, but whenever we
(28:28):
went to um the kind of award ceremony, they would
be like who are you, Like we've never heard of
you know, where do you sell through? And we're like,
just correct and they're like what's you know? Like you're
not like what departments are you with or like you
know where do you advertise? Like again, like I'm actually
(28:48):
specifically remembering this one award that we got where we
were sitting at a table with like a bunch of publishers,
because that's you know, it's basically the old school network
is like publishers, department stores, and fashion brands. It's like
that's the that's the world that you operated and if anything. Actually,
I remember when I first when we were first launching,
I met I got to meet with an editor um
(29:09):
who had been I can't even remember, but she was
at you know, I can't Harper's Revover, one of those
very well established fashion magazines, and she looked at my
dress and she was like, but that's so boring, Like
what would I what would I have to say about
that dress? And I was I was really hurt by
that comment. But I you know, I think in retrospect,
I understand she was. You know, for with magazines, it's
(29:30):
like they want things that are flash, flashy and I catchy, catching,
and and something being practical. You know, something is like, oh,
it's a sheath dress that's machine washable and wrinkle resistance,
has pockets, just like nah, it's like so not sexy, right, Like,
so I felt like I got written off by the
fashion world where I had you know, I was like, well,
they're not gonna they're not gonna want anything to do
(29:51):
with us, and we're gonna have to just like pave
our own way. And I think to some extent that
is that is um, that's been a fine strategy for us.
I do have this job, this this dream though, and
because now apparently it's all about us manifesting it, I'm
just going to put it out there, which is I
really do want. I want Miako to win a c
f d A one day, and she is someone who
(30:13):
is so deserving of that. You know, she is such
an amazing uh lee talented designer and actually so also intelligent.
She's not just artistic, you know, she's really thinking about, Okay,
what are her problems and how am I going to
try to solve them? And so I'm just gonna say this.
You know, Anna Wintour, if you're listening, I want you
(30:34):
to take a look at Miako Nakamura. Stay tuned for
part two of our two part series with sarah La Floor.
Sometimes we have a guest that just warrants two episodes.
We'll be talking about her infertility issues, her wildly unexpected
childbirth outcome, her parenting journey, and we also give Sarah
some parenting advice on how to manage the three kid
(30:57):
or in Amy's case, four kid juggle. Thanks for listening
to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would
appreciate it if you leave her review wherever you get
your podcasts, and of course, connect with us on social
media at What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with
Sam and Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter
(31:18):
at the Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park
Place Payments at park place Payments dot com. Thanks to
our producer Stacy Parra and our male perspective Blue Burns
I'm Sam Edis and I'm Amy Nelson. Welcome to What's
Her Story? With Sam and Amy. This is a show
about the world's most remarkable women, their professional and personal journeys. Together,
we'll hear from gold medalists, best selling authors, and leaders
of the world's most iconic brands. Listen every Thursday or
join the conversation anytime on Instagram at What's Her Story Podcast.
(00:30):
Sarah le Fleur is the founder and CEO of M
M Lafleur, known for women's power casual work. Where when
you first started your career, Sarah, you did not intend
to be an entrepreneur. You went into finance and you
were a management consultant. What was the moment that changed that?
The moment I changed that was really because I didn't
(00:52):
know what else I was going to do with my career,
which very much at that point it felt like my life. Um,
I think the way many of us think about our
careers and our in our twenties. But Sam, the way
you just asked that question reminded me. When I was
working in management consulting, we had like a session on
entrepreneurship and there was a partner at the firm came
and said like, well, you know, do you think any
(01:15):
of you are our entrepreneurs? And looked around the room
and I think one person out of thirty our class
was thirty people raised his hand and then he was like, well,
what do you think about the rest of you? And
he was like and someone else said, well, I don't know.
Maybe I'm an entrepreneur, maybe I'm not. And he said, well,
if you're not sure about it, then you're definitely not
an entrepreneur, because an entrepreneur they know in their hearts
(01:37):
that they were an entrepreneur. And I was like, well,
I guess I'm not an entrepreneur then, you know, like
desfinitely like I was, I was like, I definitely don't
feel it. And if anything, my mother being an entrepreneur,
I just saw how hard it was up close. You know,
how much it's spilled into our lives and her life
(01:59):
for like, how much it affected her personally. You know
how difficult the people management side was, and how friends
that she worked with they had falling out and and
I would often see her like I always stay like
I always I would I would see her sipping whiskey
by herself in the middle of the night when I
would come down for a glass of water. So like
I think, having it seen it up close, I was like,
(02:20):
this is not for me. And it was really only
when I left my last job having only been there
for four months, and so I like really kind of
like rushed out of there without a plan B and
you know, I didn't know what I was going to
do next with my life. That I was like, well,
I've always had this idea, maybe I should work on it.
(02:42):
That had to be a tough period of time. What
was it like for you? I think I had been
wandering as I think, you know, I mean, I I
certainly felt that way in my late twenties, um I
had left consulting, I applied to business school, didn't get in.
I ended up taking this job at a private equity
firm that I really respected, and basically one week in
(03:06):
knew that, like this was not a place where I
was going to be successful. The culture was so different
from what I was used to and what I knew
I was gonna you know, be happy in, and so
I felt like I gave it a good try, but
I I was so like miserable doesn't even begin to
describe it. Like I was getting you know, I had
nervous ticks. I would be like shaking in my seat.
(03:28):
I would get you know, kind of anxiety attacks thinking
about having to go to work the next day, and
I really I ran out of there, so, you know,
I would say it was like one of the lowest
moments of my professional confidence, I mean lowest moments of
confidence period. And that was the way that that was
(03:48):
really how MM started, you know, not not knowing what
to do next with my life. It's really hard to
start a business. A lot of people think about it,
like what were the first things that you actually tangibly did.
I kind of started with the formalities, which in retrospect
was somewhat silly, but I think it was important for
me to feel like I was committing to it. So
(04:10):
I um incorporated in Delaware and that somehow made it
seem real. It was La Fleur LLLS and that was
a surprisingly easy process and I was like, Okay, I'm
really doing this. And then I rented a tiny office space,
which I gave up two months later because I realized
I couldn't afford it. But it was when we work
(04:32):
only had two buildings at that point, and I rented
a small five dollar per month space and that actually
got me out of the house every day, So that
was a good thing. And that was actually the first
kind of nearly logistical thing that I did. And then
I just started talking to anybody who I thought knew
(04:52):
anything remotely about fashion design. And I really did not
know anybody in this world of fashion design, and you know,
just to kind of give you a sense of how
much I didn't know, you know, the only way I
could see myself getting connected to someone who worked in
fashion design was through someone who had gone to school
with who had gone on to interior design school at
(05:16):
Risdy And I was like, well, that's that's a little
bit closer to fashion design. Maybe she'll know someone. And
then she happened to know one person who went to
the fashion department and connected me with her, and so
she was like the first designer that I had actually
spoken with, and she ultimately was the one who introduced
me to a head hunter. Um. I knew that I
wanted a co founder from the get go. I wanted
(05:36):
someone with actual design expertise who had worked in the
high end fashion world. That was really really important to
me because I wanted the clothing that we made at
MM to really reflect the kind of clothes that you
would get at a high end fashion brand. And so
a lot of people said, why don't you just kind
of why don't you just design it. Why don't you
(05:57):
just you know, add a sleeve to a a theory
dress or you know, take a I don't know, Georgio
Armani suit, but make it for cheaper. And I was like, no, no, no,
you're you're kind of missing the point, Like there's a
whole gap here in terms of what I'm looking for.
I'm looking for clothing that is not only beautiful. Of
(06:17):
course it has to be beautiful, but it has to
be machine washable and wrinkled resistant and has to be
super comfortable. And I never want to have to be,
you know, pulling at the at the scenes to make
sure things are fitting. Well. I'm really trying to create
something different. And so ultimately was through this head hunter
that I met my co founder of Miaco. And she's
actually also Japanese. I'm half Japanese. And people think that,
(06:39):
you know, we we met through the japan connection, but
but we actually met in the meatpacking district, like you know,
that was we met through a headhunter. So that was
probably like the next tangible step that I took. How
did you convince her to take a leap with someone
who had never been in fashion before? She had had
this illustrious career, been designing for zac pose in she
was entrenched in the fashion war. Old was it a
(07:01):
pitch you had to give her or was she sold
right away? I think she was curious right away, And
I think in retrospect, I really see, you know, it's
it's all about kind of where you are in your life.
And I think if I had pitched pitched it to
her any other time, she she very likely would have
said no. She this was when I initially started talking
(07:21):
to her. This is twenty eleven, so we were kind
of coming out of the recession. But she saw a
lot of her colleagues, um in the fashion world get
laid off. And she also saw a lot of you know,
these fashion brands that you respected go under, And I
think she was really she was going through her existential
(07:42):
her own existential crisis, saying like why should I be
in fashion? Like when everything out there has already been designed?
What is there to make? And I think she also
sensed the enormous waste that exists in the high and
fashion world. You spend months and months putting together these
fashion shows that are you know, over and done in
five minutes, and most of those clothes that end up
(08:03):
on the runway are never to be seen again. And
so when I came to her and said, like, look,
there's this entire group of working women who think that
everything out there right now doesn't meet their needs and
and they want to be comfortable, and it's not like
they want to be fronty. You know, there's this like
I think that when people think of American working women,
you know, immediately it's like, um, working girl like sneakers
(08:27):
and big shoulder jackets and like the last thing you
think is fashionable, right, like that that the American women,
working women like are typically not associated with style. And
I was like, I think there's a real opportunity to
change this, and um, are you interested? And she was like, yeah, okay,
I'm curious. And she always says to me, or she
(08:48):
said to me since then she was like, apparently I
said something along the lines of like, you know, I
don't know, I really don't know anything in fashion, but
I'm not stupid, so I'm confident that I will, I
will figure it out as I go along, and she
was like, okay, like why not, like why not take
a chance on you? And so that that is how
(09:09):
it started. But I think it had to do with
like where she was in her life and being kind
of really curious about what was there a different way
to operate a fashion business? And then how did you
fund the business? Very haphazardly is how I would say it.
So I, um, the first thing I had done actually
talking about one of the first things we did. I
grew up in Japan's I had a bank account in
(09:31):
in Japan that I had been putting some money away
and and I called up my mother and I said,
I want you to, you know, help me transfer it
all into this business account. And she was like all
and I was like yes, all, which I would not
have the guts to do today. But I was twenty
seven and you know, I didn't have kids, no mortgage, like,
(09:54):
no responsibilities. I just had to worry about me. So
I was like, let's just go all in. And I
had thirty six tho dollars saved up at that point,
so it went all in, put that into Loffler LLC.
And then I asked my parents if they'd be willing
to lend me the same amount, so um they very
kindly said yes. So we started with seventy two dollars
in the bank account, and actually that got me through
(10:16):
the first year of of hiring Miaco because her rate
was ten thousand dollars to design a line of seven dresses.
I paid two thousand dollars to my head hunter because
he always took a twenty cut, and I always say
it's the best two thousand dollars I ever spent from
this business. And then, you know, I think we spent
like ten thousand dollars to buy the fabric. You know,
(10:37):
we were going to launch with the line of seven dresses.
And one of the best piece of advice that I got,
and I still say this to um entrepreneurs who are
looking to manufacture things today, is don't hold inventory if
you can. You know, just just have a sample and
get orders against your sample, and then go and place
the order because you never know what's going to sell
(11:00):
or how much of it is going to sell, especially
in the early days, and you never want to be
stuck with that inventory. So what we did was we
bought the fabric, and we brought seven dresses and we
started doing these trunk shows and we took orders based
on that, and then we would place the order at
one of the factories in the garment district. We had
to beg to work with us. You know, it's just
(11:20):
really interesting. I thought like, if you if you were
willing to pay, anyone would take you on. But you know,
no factory wants to take you on because they see,
they see designers come and go, come and go all
the time, and they need consistent revenue. So I you know,
I said, I'll pay extra, so please please please take
white orders. And and and this this Korean gentleman agreed to
manufactually these dresses for us, and then we would we
(11:41):
would turn it around usually in two to three weeks
because we had the fabric. And then we would rent
a zip car remember those, and then drive around the
city and it would be me and my co founder,
my other co founder and a reb She would be
sitting in the passenger seat and we would drive around
and she would jump out and you know, drop off
the dress and then jumped back in the car again.
And then and then we would you know, finish our
(12:03):
day of delivery so like that was that was really
the early days of how we got started. But seventy
thousand dollars actually got me through that kind of initial
phase and it was only after that that we began.
That's not even true the first five years. I think
I was kind of collecting small checks as we went along.
I raised maybe four million in the first five years,
(12:24):
and it wasn't until six So yeah, five years into
the business that we actually closed our Series A. And
it took a really long time just to put a
pin in that because I think, you know, a lot
of people who don't have experience with entrepreneurship, they read
the news and they're like, oh, this company started and
they raised the seed round and then they raised the
Series A, and then they raised the Series B, and
people think there are these like discrete periods of time
(12:46):
between doing that. But for you, it sounds like it
was different. I know for me it's been different. For Sam,
it's been different. But like you kind of just were
always kind of raising as you're growing. I know people
think I'm not. People will say to me, you're raising again,
and I'm kind of like, I never really stopped correct
correct um and it was it was so funny because
(13:08):
I think, you know, there were so many directed consumer
brands that are that were cropping up at that time,
you know, Wrby, Parker, Binovos, Everlane, and they would always
announce these funding rounds, you know, like so and so
closes X round, raises x million dollars. And I was like,
what the hell am I doing wrong? Like because I
was like I was, I had a quote unquote seed
(13:31):
round basically going for four years, so it was it
was incredibly messy. But I think like the piece of
advice that that I've got and I passed on is like,
first of all, all cash is green, and there's something
to be said about a lot of and you say
(13:51):
it's friends and family, but like it I mean true.
I think maybe I have like three true friends and
family on the cap table. Everyone else is like the
friend of a friend of a friend and a lot
of that, a lot of that capital is really um.
In some ways, it's attractive because you know, they're they're
supporters of you. They're not necessarily saying okay, like I'm
(14:13):
expecting a twenty x return within a certain time period.
Like in some ways, it's very flexible capital. So so
I got ample timed. I think actually like make mistakes
and also go slowly in a way that I think
when we got to our Series A, like we were
really late to raise our Series A and we were
(14:33):
told that as much, you know that our revenue was
kind of beyond what would people would typically consider a
Series A round. But you know, I think as a result,
I got to maintain more control of the business. I
think I had better handle what we were doing. So yeah,
it's I think there's there isn't such a formula. And
I think this is especially true of female founded businesses.
(14:55):
If you had to do it over again, would you
have done the capital raising any differently? It's a really
great question. I don't And I have to start by saying, like,
I don't know how I could have done it differently.
Like I was the first time entrepreneur um, most investors
didn't want to touch fashion with a ten foot poll um.
I had a really difficult time convincing vcs that this
(15:17):
was a business worth backing UM. And it really wasn't
until like the revenue started to grow and UM the
trajectory was was obvious that that people were saying, Okay,
you know, I'm willing to take a chance. So also
I would say I was I was young, and I
(15:37):
was happy to live on a I mean happy is
maybe a strong word, but you know, I was paying
myself forty eight K a year UM, and then I
was tutoring on the side, and I did that for
two years to make ends meet, and I couldn't do that.
Now I've got three small kids and a mortgage and
(15:57):
I now, you know, I used to never go to
the doctor a doctor in my twenties, and now I
go like seemingly pretty regularly. So like it's just interesting.
Like now I would say I probably couldn't start a
business without proper funding. And now a quick break. Another
question about kind of the early days, as you really
(16:18):
grew through trunk shows, how did you find the people
to host the trunk shows? A lot of friends, a
lot of girlfriends who helped me, and then a lot
of coworkers. Um. One of them, her name was Lucy
to Land. She was the CEO at Paperless post Um
and now she runs a VC. But she was a
girlfriend from college and I think you know, she also
(16:41):
ran a startup, so she just knew how important your
your friends were and your network is in helping initially
get your business off the ground. Um. So she said,
you know, come post a trunk show in my house.
And her husband, I think, was at business school at
that time, so she invited a bunch of his business
old friends who remained some of our best customers to
(17:03):
this day, you know, almost ten years later. Um, we
did one in Washington, d C. Also hosted by like
three of my college friends, and yeah, it was very
much like friends coming out of the world works to
support me. My very first customer was actually my first
one of my first bosses at beIN UM, the management
consulting from I worked at. And also we you know,
(17:25):
I also talked to a lot of women in their
twenties were saying, I don't love my job. I'm trying
to find the thing I'm actually passionate about. And I say,
I totally understand that. You know, I've been there, but like,
you know, do the best job that you can in
the job that you're currently in, because you know that's
going to lead to something else. And I have I've
really found that to be true. Um. You know that
(17:48):
friends and colleagues from previous places have have really come
to help me start the business. I love that advice
because I think that work ethic is so pivotal. We
always remember someone's work ethic. You don't necessarily remember whether
they were the perfect fit for that job or how
their career trajectory looked, but you do remember their work ethic.
It's great advice for young people. You can shine anywhere, yeah,
(18:08):
for sure. And even if you know, you know, you
kind of know, like, I'm not this is not really
my thing. I'm not really like, this is not me
at my best. But I have found that like just
the connections that you make and hopefully you meet people
you genuinely like and admire, regardless of what your job
you're in, and those relationships have been so important to me,
(18:29):
just like personally but but also professionally and growing. Um,
how have your sales evolved? Is that something that still
keeps you up at night today or does it take
care of itself at this point right now we are
probably online are and we've gone through so many phases.
You know, I would say brick and mortar or just
meeting our customers in person was always a really really
(18:51):
important part of our business. And so even though we
said we were directed consumer, we didn't necessarily mean that
we were e commerce only. Like our our stores and
our we call them show rooms. We have one in
New York City and Brian Park and one in Washington,
D C. But we had had I think nine you know,
prior to to COVID, and unfortunately we had to close
(19:11):
them all during the pandemic. And then we opened Washington
d C. Up in the fall of which ended up
being kind of a catastrophe because we're located two blocks
from the White House and we couldn't even access our
store for like six weeks around the insurrection. I mean,
it was it was madness. Um. So um, it's been
(19:35):
a really really tough couple of years for brick and
mortar retail. But we did open up our Brian Park
show room in fall of twenty one, and then um,
we're looking to open up three more of a zeer,
so we're we're really leaning back into in person um
retail stores. E Commerce is kind of the thing that
(19:56):
kept us going, you know, even through the pandemic. And
we had this really really hard moment in the early
days of the pandemic when you know, we really didn't
understand what COVID was and there was this big decision point.
We had just closed all of our stores, we had
furloughed all of our retail employees, and we had to
make a decision about whether to keep the warehouse open.
And I knew that if we close the warehouse, our
(20:17):
sales would go to zero. You know, we literally wouldn't
be able to ship anything out. We would have to
furload the entire company. Or we could keep the warehouse
going and at least bring any eCOM sales um And
we decided to go with the ladder and tried to
take as many precautions as we possibly could to keep
our our warehouse team safe. You know that that those
were kind of like the real challenges that we were
(20:39):
going through in the early days of the pandemic. And
so Sam to your question about like sales do they
take care of themselves? They never take care of themselves.
I would love to be in a place where I
was like, you know what, there's just like recurring revenue
on a daily basis, But like I, I and the
rest of my team, you know, we're watching their numbers
like a hawk. And um, it's just it's fascinating also
(21:01):
how much what's going on in the world affects your numbers,
you know, Roe v way that decision came out and frankly,
the weekend that followed terrible for sales. And you know,
whenever there's bad news in and the recession is certainly looming,
and so that's that's kind of a real risk that
that we're facing. But I also think like that's actually
(21:22):
one of the fun Maybe too strong a word, but
I think, yeah, I guess I would call it fun.
There there's a there's an element of like, okay, you
always have to react to what's going on, and like retail,
you can actually be quite nimble. You know, you can
come up with new tactics, new marketing pushes, new price changes,
new promotions, like there are actually so many levers at
(21:44):
your disposal. And I think one of the reasons I
never get tired of of um, never get tired is
maybe the right word. I never board, Yeah, never get
bored of running a retail businesses because it keeps you
on your toes constantly, constantly, constantly. How did the pandemic
changes in fashion impact you now that everything has become
(22:04):
more casual. I mean, we saw it in our own
dressing behavior in the very beginning you know, we just
we And then La Flair was very much a company
that was a dressing women who went to the office,
who were in places where they were being seen and
had to look presentable. And I don't necessarily mean just
(22:25):
like people who were lawyers and bankers. I mean I
think anyone really like anyone who had a professional job
who had to dress a certain way. And I mean
I don't even remember this about myself in the early
pandemic days, Like I just stopped wearing makeup. I was like,
who the f cares? Like, I'm just like and you know,
(22:47):
it was the very early days, and and we saw,
you know, consumer demand obviously drop, and there was this
moment where we were like, what is the point of
MM in this new world? Like does our is our
business even relevant? And I think for the first two
to three months I was really unsure. And I think
(23:07):
actually as the pandemic went on, we started to hear
from customers. There were a few things that we did
kind of just at the get go. We we had
these like perfect travel pants. We called them the Colby
Origami suiting pants. But actually I kept on wearing them
in the early days of the pandemic. Because they had
(23:28):
this elastic waste band and they it was like made
from this like super comfortable fabric, and so I was like,
you know what if we named these the Colby Joggers
instead of this origami shooting pants, and sales grew by
eight x just based on that name change, you know,
and and just positioning things differently. Yeah, So that was
really wild, and we just started making small, small tweaks
(23:50):
like that, because I think we were always proud of
the fact that our clothes were meant to be comfortable,
Like even even if they were meant, you know, to
be clothes that you were going to be seen, and
they were always meant to be comfortable. So I think
a lot of it was like could we just reframe
them in a different way? And customers reacted really really
well to that, and I think as time went on,
we said like, Okay, what is actually the new way
that women are going to be dressing? Because you know,
(24:12):
I think to your to my earlier point of like,
you know, what is the point of mm A lot
of the angst that I think women and people in
general feel about getting dressed. It's not as though that
that disappeared with COVID you know. In fact, I think
what we're hearing a lot now is like I have
now gone hybrid, and I don't know what tressing for
(24:32):
a hybrid work environment looks like. Or I have a
lifestyle now where I'm in the office, I'm working from
home in the morning, but then I go into the
office in the afternoon and everyone's saying that we can
dress a little more casually, but I don't actually know
what that means. And so We're getting a lot of questions.
And I think MM was always created to solve this problem.
And I would say, like a lot of it is angst.
(24:53):
You know, we talk about women on average spending two
more weeks per year versus men getting ready in the morning,
which is crazy, right, It's like what would you do
with that two weeks? But it's not as though like
suddenly that two weeks was given back to all women
because of COVID. Like I think, actually, if anything, women
are just as dressed. Um. You know, I'm speaking also
(25:13):
for myself, but like a lot of women put on
weight during the pandemic, and so like like how do
I dress? You know, do I buy new clothes or
do I buy things that kind of like conflex with
your size, and so you know, as a business, the
direction we've been leaning into, we're calling it power casual,
and that's really a lot of customers who were dressing
(25:34):
business casual. We're saying, actually the new look is power casual.
So you know, if you've got business formal being kind
of the most formal way of dressing and suiting, and
then you've got business casual a little more, you know,
dressed down, and then you've got like casual all the
way at the bottom. Then power casual is this like
new things somewhere in between business casual and creative casual
where you want to show that like you're looking, you're
(25:56):
looking ready to get down to business. Your your there
and you're presentable. But it's it's flexible. It's clothes that
you could also be going out to um drinks with
your friends in or picking up your kids from school in.
Like it doesn't look like, oh, she was at the
office and she just like walked over here. So that's
the look that we are pushing forward and really talking
(26:16):
to our customers about and it's really allowed our business
to rebound and grow again. And you know what I'm
focused on for twenty two and beyond and now a
quick break. What was there ever a time where you
thought the business might fail multiple times? Yeah? How did
you find inspiration or whatever you needed to push through
(26:39):
those moments? They're scary. It honestly just felt like one
it's a cliche of one foot in front of the other.
But like I think if I knew if someone had
like like tapped my shoulder and on in like March
twenty and it said like, hey, you know, I know
everyone's saying like this is going to be like a
two week thing or maybe a three month thing, but actually,
(27:01):
like you're not going to even get close to normal
for another two and a half years. Good luck. I
think I would have just been like, well, that's it,
Like I don't have it in me, Like I call
it it quits. But like, you know, this is about
like I think, the human spirit being incredibly resilient, and
when you're actually just like in it day to day,
(27:23):
you're like, well, I just have to keep going like
there is no other option, and so we so we did,
and my I have to say, like I have a
really I have a team that I love. A lot
of them have been with me for a really really
long time. Now, you know we're talking five plus years. Um,
I think the majority of our team has been with
(27:45):
us for five plus years, and so yeah, I mean
I felt like I owed it to them to really
see it through because they were willing to stick it through,
you know. I mean, it's it was such a hot
job market still is. They could have they could have
gotten a job in so many other places, but I
felt like they kept showing up, and so I had
to too. You talked about how clubby the garment center
(28:06):
manufacturing world can be, but fashion is just as clubby.
Has the fashion industry accepted you. I think they honestly
don't know what to do with us, and who's I have?
I think I we have been very lucky to receive
a couple of awards by fashion groups, but whenever we
(28:28):
went to um the kind of award ceremony, they would
be like who are you, Like we've never heard of
you know, where do you sell through? And we're like,
just correct and they're like what's you know? Like you're
not like what departments are you with or like you
know where do you advertise? Like again, like I'm actually
(28:48):
specifically remembering this one award that we got where we
were sitting at a table with like a bunch of publishers,
because that's you know, it's basically the old school network
is like publishers, department stores, and fashion brands. It's like
that's the that's the world that you operated and if anything. Actually,
I remember when I first when we were first launching,
I met I got to meet with an editor um
(29:09):
who had been I can't even remember, but she was
at you know, I can't Harper's Revover, one of those
very well established fashion magazines, and she looked at my
dress and she was like, but that's so boring, Like
what would I what would I have to say about
that dress? And I was I was really hurt by
that comment. But I you know, I think in retrospect,
I understand she was. You know, for with magazines, it's
(29:30):
like they want things that are flash, flashy and I catchy, catching,
and and something being practical. You know, something is like, oh,
it's a sheath dress that's machine washable and wrinkle resistance,
has pockets, just like nah, it's like so not sexy, right, Like,
so I felt like I got written off by the
fashion world where I had you know, I was like, well,
they're not gonna they're not gonna want anything to do
(29:51):
with us, and we're gonna have to just like pave
our own way. And I think to some extent that
is that is um, that's been a fine strategy for us.
I do have this job, this this dream though, and
because now apparently it's all about us manifesting it, I'm
just going to put it out there, which is I
really do want. I want Miako to win a c
f d A one day, and she is someone who
(30:13):
is so deserving of that. You know, she is such
an amazing uh lee talented designer and actually so also intelligent.
She's not just artistic, you know, she's really thinking about, Okay,
what are her problems and how am I going to
try to solve them? And so I'm just gonna say this.
You know, Anna Wintour, if you're listening, I want you
(30:34):
to take a look at Miako Nakamura. Stay tuned for
part two of our two part series with sarah La Floor.
Sometimes we have a guest that just warrants two episodes.
We'll be talking about her infertility issues, her wildly unexpected
childbirth outcome, her parenting journey, and we also give Sarah
some parenting advice on how to manage the three kid
(30:57):
or in Amy's case, four kid juggle. Thanks for listening
to What's Her Story with Sam and Amy. We would
appreciate it if you leave her review wherever you get
your podcasts, and of course, connect with us on social
media at What's Her Story podcast. What's Her Story with
Sam and Amy is powered by my company, The Riveter
(31:18):
at the Riveter dot c O and Sam's company, park
Place Payments at park place Payments dot com. Thanks to
our producer Stacy Parra and our male perspective Blue Burns
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