September 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Julie Wainwright’s career (and personal life) is a masterclass in resilience and reinvention, having seen Pets.com collapse on the very same day her marriage ended. On this episode of She Pivots, Julie opens up about the highs of leading companies at the forefront of the dot-com boom, and the devastating lows of reaching a personal professional rock-bottom on the same day. Rather than letting failure define her, she rebuilt from the ground up, ultimately founding The RealReal and taking it public—becoming one of the few women to lead a company she created all the way to IPO. Julie reflects on what it means to move through public scrutiny, personal heartbreak, and professional betrayal, and how each so-called failure became the launchpad for her next chapter. Now, with her latest venture AHARA and her memoir Time to Get Real, she is proving once again that reinvention is not only possible but powerful.
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She Pivots was created by host Emily Tisch Sussman to highlight women, their stories, and how their pivot became their success. To learn more about Julie, follow us on Instagram @ShePivotsThePodcast or visit shepivotsthepodcast.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Julie Wainwright (00:00):
Welcome back to She Pivots. I'm Julie Wainwright.
Emily Tisch Sussman (00:13):
Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman. Today's
(00:35):
episode is all about the myth of failure and how
what we perceive as a whole we may never get
out of can be the launching pad for something even greater.
Here today to share her story and bust this myth
is Julie Wainwright, the founder and former CEO of The
Real Real, turned author and now CEO again of her
(00:56):
new company, Ahara. Julie was at the helm of the
very beginning of the dot com startups after starting at
Chlorox and building a reputation for herself. She was a
known leader, builder and problem solver.
But while she jumped.
From success to success in the c suite, everything came
crashing down when pets dot com crashed under her watch.
(01:17):
At the time, it was one of the most high
profile casualties of the dot com bubble, and not only
did her professional life implode, so did her personal life.
Her husband filed for divorce the same week the company
went under, and Julie was left devastated. For many people,
that double blow might have been the end of their
(01:37):
career in the spotlight, but Julie's story is not one
of defeat. It's of reinvention. Instead of letting failure define her,
she used it as fuel. She spent the next decade reflecting, recalibrating,
and eventually redefining not just her own path, but an
entire industry. In twenty eleven, Julie founded The Real, Real
(02:00):
you Know It Heaven on the Internet, the place where
you can find incredible designer goods at a fraction of
the cost. She paired consignment with technology at a scale
no one had attempted before. Under her leadership, the company
grew to millions of users, attracting nearly three hundred million
in funding, and went public in twenty nineteen, making Julie
(02:21):
one of the very few women to take a company
that she founded all the way to IPO. But even
that chapter didn't end the way she might have hoped.
In twenty twenty two, Julie was pushed out of the
company she built. Another painful moment that many might have
considered a failure. Yet once again, she refused to let
it define her. She turned that ending into a new beginning.
(02:46):
Her journey is a reminder that success isn't linear. It's
shaped by resilience, by learning from failure, by the courage
to start again. Today, Julie continues to innovate with her
latest venture in personalized health and nutrition with her company
at Aha, and she's sharing her story more openly than
ever in her new memoir, Time to Get Real. We
(03:08):
cover it all and more so, without further ado, Welcome, Julie.
Julie Wainwright (03:16):
I'm Julie Wayne Wright, and I'm an author and entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Perfect okay, great, So tell us about your childhood. What
was it like? What were your siblings like? Like were
your parents like?
Julie Wainwright (03:29):
So? Both my parents graduated from the Art inst well,
my father graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, but
he started at the Academy of Arts and it was merged,
so he was more interested in being a not a
not a fine artist, more of a commercial artist. And
my mother dropped out to maryfy Father, as women did
then occasionally, and she was studying fashion illustration, which used
(03:53):
to be a thing. So they ended up getting married.
They had me about eleven months later, and then things
went awry in their marriage and they separated. They got
back together and had four more kids. And by this
time my mom was twenty eight, so just to give
an age of you know, this was the era when
(04:14):
women tended to have children, a lot of children very
quickly at that age. She was hospitalized after about eight
months after she'd given birth, and they said she was dying.
So she didn't die, but she was misdiagnosed when they
said the hospital, the doctor said she was dying. They
(04:34):
thought she had encephalitis. And my dad turned to me
and said I had to step up and help take
care of my sisters and brothers. I was eight. Now
this sounds kind of grim, but the truth is we
still had a lot of fun, which doesn't really make sense,
and I think it does if you understand the fact
(04:58):
that when your parents both parents are creative people, and
my dad was very sporty, so there was always some
great creativity going on. So I'm the oldest of four.
Then I have a sister or brother or sister, who
are you the youngest ones eight years younger than me.
But we had motorcycles, we had go carts we took
(05:19):
because my dad loved fish fishing vacations wasn't really my
favorite thing to do, but being out in the water
was fun. So it was this mixed thing of sort
of looming sadness with my mother but also a lot
of fun the other thing. So you have to go
way back. But you know, child actors weren't really a thing,
(05:39):
especially for ads, so that meant anyone in the neighborhood
was fair game to be on the package of Flintstone
vitamins on ads for cars, we did a remember shooting
believe it or not, Studabakers of all things. They're new
line of cars, and every kid in the neighborhood was
asked to come out. They literally had their parents bring
them to the so they could be part of the shoot.
(06:02):
So it was this neighborhood thing where anyone could be
a star. My brother, my sister and I were all
childhood models for whenever they needed money, he had. You
know this, We worked really, really cheaply.
Emily Tisch Sussman (06:17):
Eventually, Julie enrolled in Purdue University and quickly got engaged.
Julie Wainwright (06:23):
I got engaged at the age of twenty. It sounds
like something my mother did, dropped out of college because
he was finishing his graduate I riveted bumpers on the
Monte Carlo rear line in Anderson, Indiana, in a GM
factory because his dad was the general manager for this factory.
(06:44):
So I was a bumper riveter when I was twenty.
Emily Tisch Sussman (06:48):
A bumper riveter is basically an assembly technician for cars.
Julie Wainwright (06:52):
I started in the summer and went until I think November, well,
I know it was until November, and his dad would
explained they were automating the factory and they were having
lots of issues, and so his dad would always like
talk about what the issues were, how they were solving it.
And I was on the line, so I knew there
were problems because the line was running stop and start,
(07:14):
and so I got sort of this masterclass and operations,
which was unexpected. Anyway, I called up the wedding. Five
weeks before the wedding, I couldn't put the invitations in
the mailbox. I kept walking them to the mailbox and
I couldn't put it in. Called it off, re enrolled
it Purdue into business.
Emily Tisch Sussman (07:33):
Julie graduated with the bachelor's in business and set off
to make it big, becoming one of the first undergraduate
hires for Chlorox, which meant she had to prove herself
among a sea of MBA's.
Julie Wainwright (07:46):
Because you know, it's a little intimidating because it was
heavy duty work and a lot of number crunching. They
really sort of wanted to wear you out to see
who made it through the filter. But anyway, so that
was intimidating. But I made it. I got promoted once.
I'm like, okay, maybe I'm okay now. And then the
guy in finance brought in his this was remarkable, his
(08:07):
Apple to computer from home and he smuggled it in
because all of our p and ls we were doing
more hand calculated. We would fill an eight x ten
room with what IF's, what ifs, what ifs. He brings
it in and he's like, Julie watched this and it
was I think it was probably vis account, one of
the first spreadsheets. I'm like, this is the future. I mean,
(08:29):
I was so excited. Then I got a call to
join a tech startup and it was my former boss's
wife who had joined this tech startup. He had left Clarox.
He was the brand manager of Clorake's liquid. He left
to do something else. She thought, oh, it's fair picking.
I'm going to come and get her. And I joined
(08:52):
a very small startup called Software Publishing Corporation.
Emily Tisch Sussman (08:56):
Wow, what was that like to leave it a stable
job at a legacy company and take a risk at
a startup before startups were even really much of a thing.
Julie Wainwright (09:06):
Well, when I left Clorox, the GM of the floor
general manager of the division I was in, literally called
me into his office. It was one of those offices
that didn't have door handles. They had the this is
really creepy, but you had the buttons under his desk
where he can control who came in and came out,
which you know wouldn't fly today for multiple reasons. But
(09:28):
he locked me in and he said, I want you
to know you'll never ever be with such smart people
again in your life. And I can raise the price
of bleached buy half a penny and make more money
than that company you'll ever make. And I'm like, okay,
but you know I was I told him I was young.
I think I was twenty five maybe or going on
(09:48):
twenty five. I was young. I was happy to take
the job. He goes, kind, they're giving you more money,
I said, in fact, they're asking me to take half
my salary because they can't pay me, and I'm all in.
I ran down to the valley started in product management.
The company Software Publishing is best known for inventing presentation graphics.
(10:09):
They came up with a product called Harvard Graphics that
then Microsoft had PowerPoint as the equivalent. But Microsoft bought
that product and it was a copycat of Harvard Graphics,
but they invented the presentation graphics products. I was working
in product management and they wanted to start international, and
(10:30):
I put my hand up to go overseas to run international.
I had a boss, two of us went over to London,
and our territory was anything outside the US. Back then,
you needed a partner in order to localize, and you
had to worry about printer drivers. You had to worry
about a lot of things. And he got fired and
so I ran international out of a small office in
(10:50):
London and German Street, which meant and I was twenty
seven maybe, which meant that I was in Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Paris,
m Munich quite a bit, Barcelona less, Milana little less,
but every month, sometimes twice a month, three times a month.
And then I was in Brazil every four months. I
(11:12):
was in Australia and New Zealand every four months, Hong
Kong and Singapore every three months. So I was traveling
the world doing deals in my twenties, showing up and
of course, you know, it's a new industry. The people
embracing it are new, no women, so every time I'd
show up, they'd be like, who are you? But then
(11:33):
everything settled down. So did that and then joined US.
I mean, this is a lot big resume, but I
think the bottom line is what I learned. There was
incredible skill, which was to set my priorities and set
my own goals really tightly. Because the company didn't have
just one product, had multiple products, so I had to
(11:53):
pick my partners, pick my products to be localized, help
them market it, get it out in the field, and
make all of that because I was sort of left
alone to do my thing because the main market was
the US obviously, so gave me a lot of freedom,
a lot of responsibility, and a lot of accountability.
Emily Tisch Sussman (12:13):
From there, Julie went on to run and grow a
number of different companies. She was hired as the VP
of Sales and Marketing at a company called Berkeley Systems,
which was on the brink of failing. Soon Julie was
asked to step up and become the president and then
CEO to turn the company around.
Julie Wainwright (12:31):
I got the business too, I don't know between twenty
five and forty million.
Emily Tisch Sussman (12:35):
So we're all of your goals at that point to
run a company, you ended up climbing very quickly and
taking on big portfolios.
Were those your goals or did your goals shift as
you were moving up.
Julie Wainwright (12:46):
I didn't really have that as a goal. My goal
was to First of all, I loved the tech world,
and I love consumer tech, and I am by nature
an accountable person, so I loved making things happen. When
I was promoted to CEO, I didn't turn the opportunity down,
but I wasn't aiming for it. Now. The interesting thing
(13:08):
about it, Once I started doing the job, it felt
like a relief because I knew what to do, and
I knew the company needed to move quickly to fix
the problems they had, and I didn't have to fight
everyone to do it. So I felt like, to be honest,
if I wouldn't have gotten that job, the company probably
(13:31):
wouldn't have been there because they had no or they
would have had to bring in another candidate to turn
it around. It was in trouble. So it just felt like, no,
I can make I know I can turn this company around,
you know. And of course I was conscious of if
a if someone else turned and came in and didn't
turn around, this would be better. It was like my
(13:52):
first big job after moving back from London. And secondly,
if I didn't do it, my career would be in trouble.
So I felt like this was a I did recognize
it as a pivotal moment for my career, but it
wasn't necessarily my goal. But I turned it around, and
it wasn't just me. I had a really good CFO
I was working at and we just lockstep did the
(14:14):
right thing, and the board of let us do it.
Emily Tisch Sussman (14:17):
Was there any conversation at that point you mentioned that
there were no other women, especially when you were working internationally,
but it was just not a space that there were
a lot of women in executive roles. Was that any
part of the conversation and making you the president and
then CEO or it just wasn't even discussed.
Julie Wainwright (14:31):
No. Never, But I have to say, here's the interesting thing.
Software publishing my first venture into tech was full of
amazing women. There was a male founder, his name was
Fred Gibbons, but at that time there were tons of
women on the very very early stages in tech. And
(14:51):
as the businesses grew and became more substantial, the software businesses,
especially the business to business, more and more men came in.
More and more. In fact, yeah, more and more men came.
People from IBM started coming. So in the early eighties
when I joined, which was about eighty four eighty five,
(15:12):
it was really a lot of women doing cool things.
And then by now I'm at Berkeley Systems almost no women.
So it happened quickly. I would say that as the
business became more solidified and venture capital was also getting
more solidified, the opportunities did go to more men.
Emily Tisch Sussman (15:32):
And I always just sort of like to pause and
dual track to the personal. As you were rising up
in your career and now you've become an executive at
multiple companies. You had mentioned that you had married previously
when you were in London then moved back over to
the US. What was give us an update on the
personal side as you were rising through these companies.
Julie Wainwright (15:53):
Well, I did do another stint with another company overseas
from ninety to ninety three, and that's when I met
my future husband over there. We ended up moving back
to the States. So first of all, he was still
acclimating to being in the States and the UK, the
(16:14):
world he grew up in. He went to public school,
which went private school. He was considered an upper middle
class guy. He did a lot of work there that
he felt he had to requalify in the States. So
we had an extra problem with him just coming to
the States, which he was excited to do, but the
culture was harder for him to adapt to. He felt
(16:37):
it was way too money driven, and so we had
that so it was hard. And then you know, when
you're running a company and you're turning around a company,
it takes a lot out of you. So I would
say we were married eight years and moved to the States.
Was harder than we both anticipated.
Emily Tisch Sussman (17:00):
Julie had proven herself as a leader and a fixer
in the tech world, and soon she was tapped to
run another company that was on the brink of collapse.
When we come back, Julie talks about pets dot Com
and how that experience impacted her professionally and personally.
Julie Wainwright (17:34):
And then I was asked to run a company called
pets dot Com. First of all, I was very conscious
there was a bubble, by the way, so I think
we all were at that time. But I mean, the
pets category is huge. It felt like a good risk.
It felt like something Amazon wasn't going to get into
right away. Amazon gave us a lot of capital. We
(17:58):
thought maybe we could actually get the business going and
sell it to Amazon. Drugstore dot Com was doing a
similar strategy. I knew I could do it. I mean,
I've already been in the e commerce space very early.
I knew I could put together a team and build
a great business. I love pets, by the way, and
the venture capital from hummerwind Blood came with a lot
(18:19):
of money. Amazon also backed us, and I thought, oh,
this is good. I mean, I was conscious of a
bubble though that money would possibly dry up. However, we
did raise a lot of money. There were I think
six other pets companies funded at the exact same time,
which is insane, but it shows you the lemming nature
(18:42):
of venture capital. And also, I always believe this there
was something in the collective conscious that people are like, oh, pets,
you know, because it wasn't it's not just a BC's
being lemmings. It's also people are absorbing this opportunity and
saying this is a huge category, and a lot of
companies were funded. So took it public, by the way,
(19:04):
got it again, took a public really early, got it
to about twenty five million when we were on the
road show twenty five heading to fifty because we were doubling.
We were on the road show, Amazon announced their nineteen
ninety nine earnings and they had lost almost a billion
dollars and people were shocked. They weren't expecting that sizeable loss,
(19:28):
and our meetings for investors started shutting down on the
road show. So we got the deal done. The stock
did not perform well on its first day, so there
was you know, lots of fun press there or something
like oh you know, the dogs didn't need the dog
food and blah blah blah. And then honestly, the window
(19:50):
of financing shut. So instead of like celebrating the IPO,
the first thing I did is come back and cut
staff and say, look, it's going to be a rough
ride here because we've got to make our money last.
So funding dried up, and a year later I shut
the company down to give money back to shareholders, which
I would argue was wrong now, and it was wrong
(20:15):
because with the information I had at the time that
the window for funding wasn't going to open up again,
and that this was the prudent thing to do for
the investors, that we would never make it. I couldn't
cut my way into success. I really needed to raise
more capital to fund this e commerce business, and the
(20:38):
premise was the window would not open up for another
two years and then we'd have to declare bankruptcy and
everyone would lose. But we had a window of opportunity
where I had a net positive work to give money
back to shareholders. The SEC has never seen this happen,
so we had to work with them. So I shut
it down and gave money back to shareholders, and gave
employees a off ramp with a little bit a severance,
(21:00):
and held jod fares. Everyone reported that I ran into bankruptcy.
I didn't, but I should have, and I'll tell you
why I should have. I could have been wrong. Everyone
could have been wrong. The funding window could have opened up.
And what had happened was, while there were six original
companies competing with pets dot Com, all of those were
falling by the wayside very quickly or being asked us
(21:25):
to fold in. So I could have been wrong, and
I should have played it out. But because I shut
it down and I was sort of the barometer of
the pets dot Com bust, it became sort of a
huge prece event that was incredibly negative, which I didn't anticipate,
but I guess I should have.
Emily Tisch Sussman (21:45):
Well, But so that was probably sort of a second shock.
I mean, taking a company to shut it down is
I can imagine difficult, both from a business perspective andrew emotionally.
To feel like, you know, you've worked so hard to
build it up, to keep it going, and now you've
the decision to shut it down, and then to be
really second guessed and kind of vilified in the press
must be like a whole second wave.
Julie Wainwright (22:08):
It literally my husband asked me for a divorce the
day I was shutting down pets dot Com. My career
blew up and my marriage blew up. Then I had
that moment, oh no, now I've really got to figure
out the kids thing. And I was forty two going
on forty three. So look, it was really, really, really dark,
(22:29):
and it just it felt unbelievable. Clearly there was tension
in the marriage and we had done counseling, but it
just felt unbelievable. I saw him, really didn't see him
again for about five or six years. We didn't have kids,
so it was more the divorce proceedings were handled through lawyers.
(22:51):
We talked, but not nicely.
Emily Tisch Sussman (22:56):
Despite it all, it wasn't the breakdown of her marriage
that weighed on her. Then it was pets dot Com.
Julie Wainwright (23:03):
But what I did take on, and I'm sure they're interconnected,
was the failure of pets dot Com. I sort of
wore that longer than I did my failed marriage, which
is I'm sure they're entertangled. But I was constantly being
told what a failure I was for pets dot Com
in social settings and weird things that reporters were still
(23:27):
asking me about it a year later, and no one
wasn't asking me about my failed marriage. So you know,
I was constantly getting reinforced on the pets dot Com thing,
which was really hard, and I bought into being a
failure totally. I just owned it, and it sucks that
I did that, but I did. And then at some
(23:50):
point I took stock that I was just bringing my past.
It took a long time, but I was really bringing
my past into my current and it was going to
ruin me.
Emily Tisch Sussman (24:01):
Do you remember the moment that helped pull you out
of that place?
Julie Wainwright (24:05):
I would say the baseball game, watching my friend do
stats and realizing that the best hitters missed sixty five
percent of the time. I'm like, but I've only missed once.
You know, I've got to stop this. And also when
the recruiter, I took some bad jobs and I was
only offered dregs, and the recruiter said to me, no
(24:27):
one's going to offer you a good job. You have
pets dot Com looming large, and you have you know,
you haven't really done much since it, and you're just,
you know, really, basically your career in Silicon Valley is
basically over. And that, oddly enough, was such a good
wake up call. It was sort of the final straw,
you know, even though I'd been eking my way out
(24:48):
toward a healthier mentality for a while. And that's when
I thought, you know, screw you. First, I thought what
he said was valid, all right, I thought he's right,
But screw everyone. I know what I'm made of more
than other people. And I'm going to either start my
own company or I'm going to have a plan B.
(25:10):
But I think I can do this. I didn't know
what I was going to do, but I mean, look,
it was way. I lived in that negativity too long.
I really beat myself up too long. And look, every
time I turned around, someone else was reinforcing it. Even
at social events. You know, this person came up and said, oh,
I heard you're the CEO of pets dot Com, laughed
(25:31):
in my face and said, what were you thinking? You know,
so it was like you just felt like you had
to pull in or leave, and I don't know, it
was bad.
Emily Tisch Sussman (25:42):
Julie picked up the pieces and started to move on,
working with various companies for the next decade or so
to make ends meet. After the break, we talked with
Julie about what eventually led her to found the Real
Real Stay Tuned.
Julie Wainwright (26:10):
And then with the Real Rail. It really I was
down to two years of cash in the bank. The
divorce really hurt my financial future, as it does many people,
and I had two years of capital. I had the house.
I had the house which was paid for, but I
thought I needed to put it on the market and
I took out a lean against it to get started,
(26:30):
but I gave myself two years to have a success.
I knew I wanted to get back in e commerce
because it was easier now and cheaper to try things,
much cheaper to try things. The world had evolved technically
on every level, and I knew I wanted to do
something Amazon couldn't do. So I had mapped out the
(26:51):
I knew them very very well. I'd mapped out their
strengths and weaknesses. I knew they would never be able
to go into luxury. And then when I was shopping
with a girlfriend and she bought luxury consignment in a
full price boutique that was selling shoes in the front,
had a little bit of luxury consignment in the back.
That's when the light bulb went out. And when it
went on, it was so hard. And I questioned her
(27:12):
when we got out about eBay and shopping, and I
knew she didn't shop another consignment source. I'm like, what happened?
Why did you do this? What's this? What's that? And
I remember I was so excited, like this is the answer,
this is it? Yeah?
Emily Tisch Sussman (27:27):
What was it?
Julie Wainwright (27:28):
Like?
Emily Tisch Sussman (27:28):
What was the unlock for you?
Julie Wainwright (27:29):
Oh? My gosh, what was luxury? Right? It was luxury,
and it was luxury I could actually resell myself. Then
I just had to figure out this why she shopped there.
All good information. She shopped there because she trusted the
owner that it was authentic, because the owner knew the
person I dropped it off. She loved they were high
(27:52):
end products, so it was like Gucci product Louis Vuitton
loved it. Great condition, they were beautifully displayed, beautifully merchandise.
So she wasn't walking into a consignment store. She's walking
into a beautiful, full price shoe store at the beginning.
And then this in the back. She had never consigned before,
would never shop a debate, felt there were too many fakes,
(28:12):
never walked into a consignment store. Yet in the right environment,
that was her choice. And by the way, she had
a lot of money she still does. She didn't need to.
It wasn't a financial decision. It was a value decision.
She's like, everyone loves a good deal and who cares
if someone else wore it? All? Right? Who cares? And
(28:33):
I'm like, this is the answer. Then I had to
solve the supply problem. That I went home. I mapped
out the whole business. Knew it would be a supply issue,
not a demand issue. I knew it had to keep
I call it the romance of the brand alive. It
had to keep that alive. It had to price set
a good value. And I had to make sure that
(28:56):
we learned how to authenticate everything because we had to
build that trust for the consumer. We had to authenticate
for the consigner. We had to offer a service. She's like,
I don't have time to drop things off and sort
through them at a consignment store, And I thought, yeah,
I don't either. In fact, I never thought about consigning,
and I had stuff in my closet, so that's what
(29:17):
I used to test out different models that and I'm like, no,
I can do this. I can build. We have to
come to your house. We have to focus on luxury.
That's where the demand is. I had sized the market
the best I could, and I just got started that night,
and that was the beginning of the real reil. And honestly,
(29:40):
I knew it would be hard to raise money because
I still had the puppet on my shoulder sitting there
going You're a failure, not in my mind, but in
other people's minds, and so I knew I had to
figure out how to get the business model completely sussed out,
and I got the business to ten million before I
did my first round a venture capital.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:03):
Get ready to become obsessed with the real reel because
there's always new pieces from Praduct, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and more.
Julie Wainwright (30:10):
The real reel is actually killing it right now. So
let me just give you the highlights. We may have
done a little bit of shopping on the reil rail,
so let me show you what I got a little
crazy on the real road. This is just part on.
First off, we have this stunning sale.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:27):
The real reel could be poised to make a killing.
This has a powerful.
Concept that I think the department stores should have adopted
ahead of it.
Julie Wainwright (30:36):
And you know, the business went ten like ten. It
really went ten. We sort of skipped but let's just
say it was twenty five, but we sort of skipped
over it because it was a half year. So then
to fifty to one hundred to two fifty to five
hundred and sev fifty to public get a billion.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:55):
After it went public, Julie had once again proven herself
as a leader and builder, and she created an entirely
new industry, but the road bumps weren't over quite yet.
As she details in her book Time to Get Real,
Julie was suddenly and quickly pushed out of the real real.
Julie Wainwright (31:14):
So then, let me just say, I am not a
political person. I'm a person that gets stuff done. This
is the beauty of doing startups is it is more
of a meritocracy. It has to be because everyone counts.
So I don't understand politics. I've never wanted to be
in a company where politics move the needle. And what
(31:37):
I didn't realize is one of the This is my hypothesis,
by the way, because I was never given a real answer.
But my hypothesis is the board member, the last money
in guy didn't get his money out when the stock
was big, and he could have, but he didn't. You
had to get off the board to do it. So
he didn't get off the board to sell opportunistically. You
(31:59):
had to get off the board because the company was
public and there's sec laws. Everyone else, all the other
early investors got off there all yay, we made a
lot of money. He didn't, and the stock fell, and
it really fell during COVID for COVID reasons, and my
theory is he was working against me because he thought
he could run the company better and they wanted to
(32:19):
bring in someone that would be told what to do,
and I wasn't aware of it. And then I didn't
help myself because I did use some very choice and
all my board members were pretty much new too, because
all my original board members again that knew me, had
gotten off to sell their stock. So I had some
new ones. I made some really I would say, unfortunate
recommendations for the real real board. I think it was
(32:42):
a value and experience miss online. They had sector experience,
but they'd never worked with the founder, they'd never seen
high growth in a company. They weren't tech backed, so
big mistake. And during COVID, the business was really struggling
and we did a lot of extraordinary things to keep
it going, and he was working. I had a new
(33:03):
CFO and he's like, hey, he's working against you. He's
got there's a little Troy cup forim. I just feel it.
I feel it, And I did let loose in a
board meeting and because he was lying, and I just
and I used a lot of cuss words, which everyone
was shocked. The women on the board who were all
corporate women were shocked, and one of them told me,
(33:23):
I was I didn't know how to be a good leader,
and so let's just say it all went downhill, and
four months later I was fired. Now, when they fired me,
they said it's because I didn't hit my number just
during COVID. But the person they brought in was a
had been a employee that had never been a CFO,
I mean CEO ever, never run a public company. He
(33:46):
used to work for one of the board members and
a department sort that subsequently filed bankruptcy, and luckily he
didn't last long. This is my perspective. He was let go,
and Rochie Levac, who was the first employee who in
its succession planning would have been my recommendation, is now
running the company. So it was treacherous to get fired
(34:10):
from your own company. It was a big betrayal, I think.
But I mean, like I said, I didn't help myself.
And honestly, I'm objective enough. If someone wanted to have
the dialogue about do you think it's time to move
on Tessasar, I would have said no, But I would
have had an open dialogue and laid out a succession plan.
But I think this guy had turned the board against
(34:30):
me and there you go.
Emily Tisch Sussman (34:34):
Wow, So now you had to overcome yet another huge
career change.
How did you move on from it?
Julie Wainwright (34:41):
So, you know, the first six months after getting fired,
I visualized horrible things happening to every board member. I
had a visual voodoo doll, and that gave me a
lot of satisfaction. And then it didn't. Then it felt
like a bad use of my time. And you know,
not getting any younger, I don't want to spend my
time thinking about that. And like I said, I mean, unfortunately,
(35:03):
people were calling me telling me stories about the new CEO,
which I sort of relished and I sort of didn't
want to know because I couldn't do anything about it.
But they weren't good stories. Obviously. They weren't calling me
saying like this is the best person, and you know
who knows I wasn't on the inside. So that's the story.
You got to get over it. I mean, life is short.
(35:25):
But I'll tell you what I wrote about all of
this in the book, and I'll tell you why. Very
seldom do women write books and men where they talk
about their mistakes, what they would have done differently, and
things that aren't always positive, so I think, you know,
my biggest mistake was I couldn't have helped this guy
(35:46):
and get off the board and not sell a stock.
He made bad choices, But I did have people on
the board that weren't aligned really with They should not
have been. I recommended them. They had to be voted
by the public, but they were not recommendations for the
type of company. It really should have been tech people
that had some startup experience, that understood to move the
company forward. It wasn't them. And then someone said to me,
(36:09):
this is really important for women to hear someone recently said,
and I thought, oh, that's probably true too. Women hire
people they think will add value to the company, and
men hire people that will support them. And I think
that's probably true too. But I have to say the
real real was it is a great company. I love
(36:29):
that we brought sustainability forward. I love that the business
is now being run by Rati, and I love that
I founded it.
Emily Tisch Sussman (36:40):
What is one thing?
It could be something we've talked about already, or something different,
something that at the time you saw is really a
low point and now you see it as having really
launched you to who you are today.
Julie Wainwright (36:52):
Well, there's more than one. I think. Look, everything I
went through as a kid prepared me with phenomenal resilience
and that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but it is.
It built my character. And also I did come from
I would say my dad helped, and my mother helped
(37:14):
when she could help. I did have like supportive parents.
But I mean, there's been a lot of dark times.
I don't think. I think you know, the thing is
you can escape things when they go wrong. You just can't.
Things are going to be bad, you know. I felt
like I had a big scarlet a on me or
how about a big scarlet pe for pets you know
when I left. So yeah, and the fact that people
(37:36):
still love talking about. But I mean there's a whole
generation that don't even know what it was. So I
would say, if I can come through it, anyone can
come through it. And you just can't let other people
define you. And you only have one life and they
don't know what you're capable of, only you do. So
then it becomes if pets dot Com wouldn't have failed,
(37:57):
I wouldn't have started the real real Even though it
took a long time, it was honestly, it's such a
great company. It's so good for the environment. It was
so much fun, and it was so much fun, and
it was I was excited every day, you know, I
said my dad was excited every day. I was excited
every day to go in the office. And when you
(38:18):
ask people about it that were especially there in the
early days, COVID was hard on the company and hard
on everyone personally, but they were like, I have never
left that hard and had so much fun and had
so much success, and that was sort of the vibe
in the company.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:35):
That's the dream it was. Well, thank you so much
for sharing all of that with us, Julie. It's really
incredible to have you on.
Julie Wainwright (38:42):
Thank you.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:42):
I love hearing all the stories behind it.
Julie Wainwright (38:44):
Thank you, Oh Emily, thank you so much. I really
loved your podcast. I sort of got addicted to it.
I couldn't stop listening. I'm like, I got to stop this.
Oh no, So was I going to tell you? You know,
I listened to usually music when I work out, but
I'm like, no, no, I didn't want to stop the podcast.
So thank you for doing what you're doing.
Emily Tisch Sussman (39:01):
Oh I love that so much. Oh, thank you.
Julie is focused on sharing her latest book, Time to
Get Real, as well as building her new company, Ahara.
To keep up with Julie and all her billion dollar ideas,
you can follow her on Instagram at Real Real Julie.
Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this
(39:24):
episode of she Pivots. I hope you enjoyed it, and
if you did, leave us a rating and tell your
friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow
us on Instagram at she pivots the Podcast, or sign
up for our newsletter where you can get exclusive behind
the scenes content on our website at she pivots thepodcast
dot com. This episode was produced and edited by Emily Atavelosik,
(39:51):
with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock. Audio production
and social media by Hannah Cousins, Research by Christine Dickinson
and legit Sticks, and planning by Emma Stopic and Kendall Krupkin.
She Pivots is proud to be a part of the
iHeart Podcast Network.
Julie Wainwright (40:08):
I endorse she Pivots.
Welcome back to She Pivots. I'm Julie Wainwright.
Emily Tisch Sussman (00:13):
Welcome back to She Pivots, the podcast where we talk
with women who dare to pivot out of one career
and into something new and explore how their personal lives
impacts these decisions. I'm your host Emily Tish Sussman. Today's
(00:35):
episode is all about the myth of failure and how
what we perceive as a whole we may never get
out of can be the launching pad for something even greater.
Here today to share her story and bust this myth
is Julie Wainwright, the founder and former CEO of The
Real Real, turned author and now CEO again of her
(00:56):
new company, Ahara. Julie was at the helm of the
very beginning of the dot com startups after starting at
Chlorox and building a reputation for herself. She was a
known leader, builder and problem solver.
But while she jumped.
From success to success in the c suite, everything came
crashing down when pets dot com crashed under her watch.
(01:17):
At the time, it was one of the most high
profile casualties of the dot com bubble, and not only
did her professional life implode, so did her personal life.
Her husband filed for divorce the same week the company
went under, and Julie was left devastated. For many people,
that double blow might have been the end of their
(01:37):
career in the spotlight, but Julie's story is not one
of defeat. It's of reinvention. Instead of letting failure define her,
she used it as fuel. She spent the next decade reflecting, recalibrating,
and eventually redefining not just her own path, but an
entire industry. In twenty eleven, Julie founded The Real, Real
(02:00):
you Know It Heaven on the Internet, the place where
you can find incredible designer goods at a fraction of
the cost. She paired consignment with technology at a scale
no one had attempted before. Under her leadership, the company
grew to millions of users, attracting nearly three hundred million
in funding, and went public in twenty nineteen, making Julie
(02:21):
one of the very few women to take a company
that she founded all the way to IPO. But even
that chapter didn't end the way she might have hoped.
In twenty twenty two, Julie was pushed out of the
company she built. Another painful moment that many might have
considered a failure. Yet once again, she refused to let
it define her. She turned that ending into a new beginning.
(02:46):
Her journey is a reminder that success isn't linear. It's
shaped by resilience, by learning from failure, by the courage
to start again. Today, Julie continues to innovate with her
latest venture in personalized health and nutrition with her company
at Aha, and she's sharing her story more openly than
ever in her new memoir, Time to Get Real. We
(03:08):
cover it all and more so, without further ado, Welcome, Julie.
Julie Wainwright (03:16):
I'm Julie Wayne Wright, and I'm an author and entrepreneur.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Perfect okay, great, So tell us about your childhood. What
was it like? What were your siblings like? Like were
your parents like?
Julie Wainwright (03:29):
So? Both my parents graduated from the Art inst well,
my father graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago, but
he started at the Academy of Arts and it was merged,
so he was more interested in being a not a
not a fine artist, more of a commercial artist. And
my mother dropped out to maryfy Father, as women did
then occasionally, and she was studying fashion illustration, which used
(03:53):
to be a thing. So they ended up getting married.
They had me about eleven months later, and then things
went awry in their marriage and they separated. They got
back together and had four more kids. And by this
time my mom was twenty eight, so just to give
an age of you know, this was the era when
(04:14):
women tended to have children, a lot of children very
quickly at that age. She was hospitalized after about eight
months after she'd given birth, and they said she was dying.
So she didn't die, but she was misdiagnosed when they
said the hospital, the doctor said she was dying. They
(04:34):
thought she had encephalitis. And my dad turned to me
and said I had to step up and help take
care of my sisters and brothers. I was eight. Now
this sounds kind of grim, but the truth is we
still had a lot of fun, which doesn't really make sense,
and I think it does if you understand the fact
(04:58):
that when your parents both parents are creative people, and
my dad was very sporty, so there was always some
great creativity going on. So I'm the oldest of four.
Then I have a sister or brother or sister, who
are you the youngest ones eight years younger than me.
But we had motorcycles, we had go carts we took
(05:19):
because my dad loved fish fishing vacations wasn't really my
favorite thing to do, but being out in the water
was fun. So it was this mixed thing of sort
of looming sadness with my mother but also a lot
of fun the other thing. So you have to go
way back. But you know, child actors weren't really a thing,
(05:39):
especially for ads, so that meant anyone in the neighborhood
was fair game to be on the package of Flintstone
vitamins on ads for cars, we did a remember shooting
believe it or not, Studabakers of all things. They're new
line of cars, and every kid in the neighborhood was
asked to come out. They literally had their parents bring
them to the so they could be part of the shoot.
(06:02):
So it was this neighborhood thing where anyone could be
a star. My brother, my sister and I were all
childhood models for whenever they needed money, he had. You
know this, We worked really, really cheaply.
Emily Tisch Sussman (06:17):
Eventually, Julie enrolled in Purdue University and quickly got engaged.
Julie Wainwright (06:23):
I got engaged at the age of twenty. It sounds
like something my mother did, dropped out of college because
he was finishing his graduate I riveted bumpers on the
Monte Carlo rear line in Anderson, Indiana, in a GM
factory because his dad was the general manager for this factory.
(06:44):
So I was a bumper riveter when I was twenty.
Emily Tisch Sussman (06:48):
A bumper riveter is basically an assembly technician for cars.
Julie Wainwright (06:52):
I started in the summer and went until I think November, well,
I know it was until November, and his dad would
explained they were automating the factory and they were having
lots of issues, and so his dad would always like
talk about what the issues were, how they were solving it.
And I was on the line, so I knew there
were problems because the line was running stop and start,
(07:14):
and so I got sort of this masterclass and operations,
which was unexpected. Anyway, I called up the wedding. Five
weeks before the wedding, I couldn't put the invitations in
the mailbox. I kept walking them to the mailbox and
I couldn't put it in. Called it off, re enrolled
it Purdue into business.
Emily Tisch Sussman (07:33):
Julie graduated with the bachelor's in business and set off
to make it big, becoming one of the first undergraduate
hires for Chlorox, which meant she had to prove herself
among a sea of MBA's.
Julie Wainwright (07:46):
Because you know, it's a little intimidating because it was
heavy duty work and a lot of number crunching. They
really sort of wanted to wear you out to see
who made it through the filter. But anyway, so that
was intimidating. But I made it. I got promoted once.
I'm like, okay, maybe I'm okay now. And then the
guy in finance brought in his this was remarkable, his
(08:07):
Apple to computer from home and he smuggled it in
because all of our p and ls we were doing
more hand calculated. We would fill an eight x ten
room with what IF's, what ifs, what ifs. He brings
it in and he's like, Julie watched this and it
was I think it was probably vis account, one of
the first spreadsheets. I'm like, this is the future. I mean,
(08:29):
I was so excited. Then I got a call to
join a tech startup and it was my former boss's
wife who had joined this tech startup. He had left Clarox.
He was the brand manager of Clorake's liquid. He left
to do something else. She thought, oh, it's fair picking.
I'm going to come and get her. And I joined
(08:52):
a very small startup called Software Publishing Corporation.
Emily Tisch Sussman (08:56):
Wow, what was that like to leave it a stable
job at a legacy company and take a risk at
a startup before startups were even really much of a thing.
Julie Wainwright (09:06):
Well, when I left Clorox, the GM of the floor
general manager of the division I was in, literally called
me into his office. It was one of those offices
that didn't have door handles. They had the this is
really creepy, but you had the buttons under his desk
where he can control who came in and came out,
which you know wouldn't fly today for multiple reasons. But
(09:28):
he locked me in and he said, I want you
to know you'll never ever be with such smart people
again in your life. And I can raise the price
of bleached buy half a penny and make more money
than that company you'll ever make. And I'm like, okay,
but you know I was I told him I was young.
I think I was twenty five maybe or going on
(09:48):
twenty five. I was young. I was happy to take
the job. He goes, kind, they're giving you more money,
I said, in fact, they're asking me to take half
my salary because they can't pay me, and I'm all in.
I ran down to the valley started in product management.
The company Software Publishing is best known for inventing presentation graphics.
(10:09):
They came up with a product called Harvard Graphics that
then Microsoft had PowerPoint as the equivalent. But Microsoft bought
that product and it was a copycat of Harvard Graphics,
but they invented the presentation graphics products. I was working
in product management and they wanted to start international, and
(10:30):
I put my hand up to go overseas to run international.
I had a boss, two of us went over to London,
and our territory was anything outside the US. Back then,
you needed a partner in order to localize, and you
had to worry about printer drivers. You had to worry
about a lot of things. And he got fired and
so I ran international out of a small office in
(10:50):
London and German Street, which meant and I was twenty
seven maybe, which meant that I was in Paris, Barcelona, Munich, Paris,
m Munich quite a bit, Barcelona less, Milana little less,
but every month, sometimes twice a month, three times a month.
And then I was in Brazil every four months. I
(11:12):
was in Australia and New Zealand every four months, Hong
Kong and Singapore every three months. So I was traveling
the world doing deals in my twenties, showing up and
of course, you know, it's a new industry. The people
embracing it are new, no women, so every time I'd
show up, they'd be like, who are you? But then
(11:33):
everything settled down. So did that and then joined US.
I mean, this is a lot big resume, but I
think the bottom line is what I learned. There was
incredible skill, which was to set my priorities and set
my own goals really tightly. Because the company didn't have
just one product, had multiple products, so I had to
(11:53):
pick my partners, pick my products to be localized, help
them market it, get it out in the field, and
make all of that because I was sort of left
alone to do my thing because the main market was
the US obviously, so gave me a lot of freedom,
a lot of responsibility, and a lot of accountability.
Emily Tisch Sussman (12:13):
From there, Julie went on to run and grow a
number of different companies. She was hired as the VP
of Sales and Marketing at a company called Berkeley Systems,
which was on the brink of failing. Soon Julie was
asked to step up and become the president and then
CEO to turn the company around.
Julie Wainwright (12:31):
I got the business too, I don't know between twenty
five and forty million.
Emily Tisch Sussman (12:35):
So we're all of your goals at that point to
run a company, you ended up climbing very quickly and
taking on big portfolios.
Were those your goals or did your goals shift as
you were moving up.
Julie Wainwright (12:46):
I didn't really have that as a goal. My goal
was to First of all, I loved the tech world,
and I love consumer tech, and I am by nature
an accountable person, so I loved making things happen. When
I was promoted to CEO, I didn't turn the opportunity down,
but I wasn't aiming for it. Now. The interesting thing
(13:08):
about it, Once I started doing the job, it felt
like a relief because I knew what to do, and
I knew the company needed to move quickly to fix
the problems they had, and I didn't have to fight
everyone to do it. So I felt like, to be honest,
if I wouldn't have gotten that job, the company probably
(13:31):
wouldn't have been there because they had no or they
would have had to bring in another candidate to turn
it around. It was in trouble. So it just felt like, no,
I can make I know I can turn this company around,
you know. And of course I was conscious of if
a if someone else turned and came in and didn't
turn around, this would be better. It was like my
(13:52):
first big job after moving back from London. And secondly,
if I didn't do it, my career would be in trouble.
So I felt like this was a I did recognize
it as a pivotal moment for my career, but it
wasn't necessarily my goal. But I turned it around, and
it wasn't just me. I had a really good CFO
I was working at and we just lockstep did the
(14:14):
right thing, and the board of let us do it.
Emily Tisch Sussman (14:17):
Was there any conversation at that point you mentioned that
there were no other women, especially when you were working internationally,
but it was just not a space that there were
a lot of women in executive roles. Was that any
part of the conversation and making you the president and
then CEO or it just wasn't even discussed.
Julie Wainwright (14:31):
No. Never, But I have to say, here's the interesting thing.
Software publishing my first venture into tech was full of
amazing women. There was a male founder, his name was
Fred Gibbons, but at that time there were tons of
women on the very very early stages in tech. And
(14:51):
as the businesses grew and became more substantial, the software businesses,
especially the business to business, more and more men came in.
More and more. In fact, yeah, more and more men came.
People from IBM started coming. So in the early eighties
when I joined, which was about eighty four eighty five,
(15:12):
it was really a lot of women doing cool things.
And then by now I'm at Berkeley Systems almost no women.
So it happened quickly. I would say that as the
business became more solidified and venture capital was also getting
more solidified, the opportunities did go to more men.
Emily Tisch Sussman (15:32):
And I always just sort of like to pause and
dual track to the personal. As you were rising up
in your career and now you've become an executive at
multiple companies. You had mentioned that you had married previously
when you were in London then moved back over to
the US. What was give us an update on the
personal side as you were rising through these companies.
Julie Wainwright (15:53):
Well, I did do another stint with another company overseas
from ninety to ninety three, and that's when I met
my future husband over there. We ended up moving back
to the States. So first of all, he was still
acclimating to being in the States and the UK, the
(16:14):
world he grew up in. He went to public school,
which went private school. He was considered an upper middle
class guy. He did a lot of work there that
he felt he had to requalify in the States. So
we had an extra problem with him just coming to
the States, which he was excited to do, but the
culture was harder for him to adapt to. He felt
(16:37):
it was way too money driven, and so we had
that so it was hard. And then you know, when
you're running a company and you're turning around a company,
it takes a lot out of you. So I would
say we were married eight years and moved to the States.
Was harder than we both anticipated.
Emily Tisch Sussman (17:00):
Julie had proven herself as a leader and a fixer
in the tech world, and soon she was tapped to
run another company that was on the brink of collapse.
When we come back, Julie talks about pets dot Com
and how that experience impacted her professionally and personally.
Julie Wainwright (17:34):
And then I was asked to run a company called
pets dot Com. First of all, I was very conscious
there was a bubble, by the way, so I think
we all were at that time. But I mean, the
pets category is huge. It felt like a good risk.
It felt like something Amazon wasn't going to get into
right away. Amazon gave us a lot of capital. We
(17:58):
thought maybe we could actually get the business going and
sell it to Amazon. Drugstore dot Com was doing a
similar strategy. I knew I could do it. I mean,
I've already been in the e commerce space very early.
I knew I could put together a team and build
a great business. I love pets, by the way, and
the venture capital from hummerwind Blood came with a lot
(18:19):
of money. Amazon also backed us, and I thought, oh,
this is good. I mean, I was conscious of a
bubble though that money would possibly dry up. However, we
did raise a lot of money. There were I think
six other pets companies funded at the exact same time,
which is insane, but it shows you the lemming nature
(18:42):
of venture capital. And also, I always believe this there
was something in the collective conscious that people are like, oh, pets,
you know, because it wasn't it's not just a BC's
being lemmings. It's also people are absorbing this opportunity and
saying this is a huge category, and a lot of
companies were funded. So took it public, by the way,
(19:04):
got it again, took a public really early, got it
to about twenty five million when we were on the
road show twenty five heading to fifty because we were doubling.
We were on the road show, Amazon announced their nineteen
ninety nine earnings and they had lost almost a billion
dollars and people were shocked. They weren't expecting that sizeable loss,
(19:28):
and our meetings for investors started shutting down on the
road show. So we got the deal done. The stock
did not perform well on its first day, so there
was you know, lots of fun press there or something
like oh you know, the dogs didn't need the dog
food and blah blah blah. And then honestly, the window
(19:50):
of financing shut. So instead of like celebrating the IPO,
the first thing I did is come back and cut
staff and say, look, it's going to be a rough
ride here because we've got to make our money last.
So funding dried up, and a year later I shut
the company down to give money back to shareholders, which
I would argue was wrong now, and it was wrong
(20:15):
because with the information I had at the time that
the window for funding wasn't going to open up again,
and that this was the prudent thing to do for
the investors, that we would never make it. I couldn't
cut my way into success. I really needed to raise
more capital to fund this e commerce business, and the
(20:38):
premise was the window would not open up for another
two years and then we'd have to declare bankruptcy and
everyone would lose. But we had a window of opportunity
where I had a net positive work to give money
back to shareholders. The SEC has never seen this happen,
so we had to work with them. So I shut
it down and gave money back to shareholders, and gave
employees a off ramp with a little bit a severance,
(21:00):
and held jod fares. Everyone reported that I ran into bankruptcy.
I didn't, but I should have, and I'll tell you
why I should have. I could have been wrong. Everyone
could have been wrong. The funding window could have opened up.
And what had happened was, while there were six original
companies competing with pets dot Com, all of those were
falling by the wayside very quickly or being asked us
(21:25):
to fold in. So I could have been wrong, and
I should have played it out. But because I shut
it down and I was sort of the barometer of
the pets dot Com bust, it became sort of a
huge prece event that was incredibly negative, which I didn't anticipate,
but I guess I should have.
Emily Tisch Sussman (21:45):
Well, But so that was probably sort of a second shock.
I mean, taking a company to shut it down is
I can imagine difficult, both from a business perspective andrew emotionally.
To feel like, you know, you've worked so hard to
build it up, to keep it going, and now you've
the decision to shut it down, and then to be
really second guessed and kind of vilified in the press
must be like a whole second wave.
Julie Wainwright (22:08):
It literally my husband asked me for a divorce the
day I was shutting down pets dot Com. My career
blew up and my marriage blew up. Then I had
that moment, oh no, now I've really got to figure
out the kids thing. And I was forty two going
on forty three. So look, it was really, really, really dark,
(22:29):
and it just it felt unbelievable. Clearly there was tension
in the marriage and we had done counseling, but it
just felt unbelievable. I saw him, really didn't see him
again for about five or six years. We didn't have kids,
so it was more the divorce proceedings were handled through lawyers.
(22:51):
We talked, but not nicely.
Emily Tisch Sussman (22:56):
Despite it all, it wasn't the breakdown of her marriage
that weighed on her. Then it was pets dot Com.
Julie Wainwright (23:03):
But what I did take on, and I'm sure they're interconnected,
was the failure of pets dot Com. I sort of
wore that longer than I did my failed marriage, which
is I'm sure they're entertangled. But I was constantly being
told what a failure I was for pets dot Com
in social settings and weird things that reporters were still
(23:27):
asking me about it a year later, and no one
wasn't asking me about my failed marriage. So you know,
I was constantly getting reinforced on the pets dot Com thing,
which was really hard, and I bought into being a
failure totally. I just owned it, and it sucks that
I did that, but I did. And then at some
(23:50):
point I took stock that I was just bringing my past.
It took a long time, but I was really bringing
my past into my current and it was going to
ruin me.
Emily Tisch Sussman (24:01):
Do you remember the moment that helped pull you out
of that place?
Julie Wainwright (24:05):
I would say the baseball game, watching my friend do
stats and realizing that the best hitters missed sixty five
percent of the time. I'm like, but I've only missed once.
You know, I've got to stop this. And also when
the recruiter, I took some bad jobs and I was
only offered dregs, and the recruiter said to me, no
(24:27):
one's going to offer you a good job. You have
pets dot Com looming large, and you have you know,
you haven't really done much since it, and you're just,
you know, really, basically your career in Silicon Valley is
basically over. And that, oddly enough, was such a good
wake up call. It was sort of the final straw,
you know, even though I'd been eking my way out
(24:48):
toward a healthier mentality for a while. And that's when
I thought, you know, screw you. First, I thought what
he said was valid, all right, I thought he's right,
But screw everyone. I know what I'm made of more
than other people. And I'm going to either start my
own company or I'm going to have a plan B.
(25:10):
But I think I can do this. I didn't know
what I was going to do, but I mean, look,
it was way. I lived in that negativity too long.
I really beat myself up too long. And look, every
time I turned around, someone else was reinforcing it. Even
at social events. You know, this person came up and said, oh,
I heard you're the CEO of pets dot Com, laughed
(25:31):
in my face and said, what were you thinking? You know,
so it was like you just felt like you had
to pull in or leave, and I don't know, it
was bad.
Emily Tisch Sussman (25:42):
Julie picked up the pieces and started to move on,
working with various companies for the next decade or so
to make ends meet. After the break, we talked with
Julie about what eventually led her to found the Real
Real Stay Tuned.
Julie Wainwright (26:10):
And then with the Real Rail. It really I was
down to two years of cash in the bank. The
divorce really hurt my financial future, as it does many people,
and I had two years of capital. I had the house.
I had the house which was paid for, but I
thought I needed to put it on the market and
I took out a lean against it to get started,
(26:30):
but I gave myself two years to have a success.
I knew I wanted to get back in e commerce
because it was easier now and cheaper to try things,
much cheaper to try things. The world had evolved technically
on every level, and I knew I wanted to do
something Amazon couldn't do. So I had mapped out the
(26:51):
I knew them very very well. I'd mapped out their
strengths and weaknesses. I knew they would never be able
to go into luxury. And then when I was shopping
with a girlfriend and she bought luxury consignment in a
full price boutique that was selling shoes in the front,
had a little bit of luxury consignment in the back.
That's when the light bulb went out. And when it
went on, it was so hard. And I questioned her
(27:12):
when we got out about eBay and shopping, and I
knew she didn't shop another consignment source. I'm like, what happened?
Why did you do this? What's this? What's that? And
I remember I was so excited, like this is the answer,
this is it? Yeah?
Emily Tisch Sussman (27:27):
What was it?
Julie Wainwright (27:28):
Like?
Emily Tisch Sussman (27:28):
What was the unlock for you?
Julie Wainwright (27:29):
Oh? My gosh, what was luxury? Right? It was luxury,
and it was luxury I could actually resell myself. Then
I just had to figure out this why she shopped there.
All good information. She shopped there because she trusted the
owner that it was authentic, because the owner knew the
person I dropped it off. She loved they were high
(27:52):
end products, so it was like Gucci product Louis Vuitton
loved it. Great condition, they were beautifully displayed, beautifully merchandise.
So she wasn't walking into a consignment store. She's walking
into a beautiful, full price shoe store at the beginning.
And then this in the back. She had never consigned before,
would never shop a debate, felt there were too many fakes,
(28:12):
never walked into a consignment store. Yet in the right environment,
that was her choice. And by the way, she had
a lot of money she still does. She didn't need to.
It wasn't a financial decision. It was a value decision.
She's like, everyone loves a good deal and who cares
if someone else wore it? All? Right? Who cares? And
(28:33):
I'm like, this is the answer. Then I had to
solve the supply problem. That I went home. I mapped
out the whole business. Knew it would be a supply issue,
not a demand issue. I knew it had to keep
I call it the romance of the brand alive. It
had to keep that alive. It had to price set
a good value. And I had to make sure that
(28:56):
we learned how to authenticate everything because we had to
build that trust for the consumer. We had to authenticate
for the consigner. We had to offer a service. She's like,
I don't have time to drop things off and sort
through them at a consignment store, And I thought, yeah,
I don't either. In fact, I never thought about consigning,
and I had stuff in my closet, so that's what
(29:17):
I used to test out different models that and I'm like, no,
I can do this. I can build. We have to
come to your house. We have to focus on luxury.
That's where the demand is. I had sized the market
the best I could, and I just got started that night,
and that was the beginning of the real reil. And honestly,
(29:40):
I knew it would be hard to raise money because
I still had the puppet on my shoulder sitting there
going You're a failure, not in my mind, but in
other people's minds, and so I knew I had to
figure out how to get the business model completely sussed out,
and I got the business to ten million before I
did my first round a venture capital.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:03):
Get ready to become obsessed with the real reel because
there's always new pieces from Praduct, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and more.
Julie Wainwright (30:10):
The real reel is actually killing it right now. So
let me just give you the highlights. We may have
done a little bit of shopping on the reil rail,
so let me show you what I got a little
crazy on the real road. This is just part on.
First off, we have this stunning sale.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:27):
The real reel could be poised to make a killing.
This has a powerful.
Concept that I think the department stores should have adopted
ahead of it.
Julie Wainwright (30:36):
And you know, the business went ten like ten. It
really went ten. We sort of skipped but let's just
say it was twenty five, but we sort of skipped
over it because it was a half year. So then
to fifty to one hundred to two fifty to five
hundred and sev fifty to public get a billion.
Emily Tisch Sussman (30:55):
After it went public, Julie had once again proven herself
as a leader and builder, and she created an entirely
new industry, but the road bumps weren't over quite yet.
As she details in her book Time to Get Real,
Julie was suddenly and quickly pushed out of the real real.
Julie Wainwright (31:14):
So then, let me just say, I am not a
political person. I'm a person that gets stuff done. This
is the beauty of doing startups is it is more
of a meritocracy. It has to be because everyone counts.
So I don't understand politics. I've never wanted to be
in a company where politics move the needle. And what
(31:37):
I didn't realize is one of the This is my hypothesis,
by the way, because I was never given a real answer.
But my hypothesis is the board member, the last money
in guy didn't get his money out when the stock
was big, and he could have, but he didn't. You
had to get off the board to do it. So
he didn't get off the board to sell opportunistically. You
(31:59):
had to get off the board because the company was
public and there's sec laws. Everyone else, all the other
early investors got off there all yay, we made a
lot of money. He didn't, and the stock fell, and
it really fell during COVID for COVID reasons, and my
theory is he was working against me because he thought
he could run the company better and they wanted to
(32:19):
bring in someone that would be told what to do,
and I wasn't aware of it. And then I didn't
help myself because I did use some very choice and
all my board members were pretty much new too, because
all my original board members again that knew me, had
gotten off to sell their stock. So I had some
new ones. I made some really I would say, unfortunate
recommendations for the real real board. I think it was
(32:42):
a value and experience miss online. They had sector experience,
but they'd never worked with the founder, they'd never seen
high growth in a company. They weren't tech backed, so
big mistake. And during COVID, the business was really struggling
and we did a lot of extraordinary things to keep
it going, and he was working. I had a new
(33:03):
CFO and he's like, hey, he's working against you. He's
got there's a little Troy cup forim. I just feel it.
I feel it, And I did let loose in a
board meeting and because he was lying, and I just
and I used a lot of cuss words, which everyone
was shocked. The women on the board who were all
corporate women were shocked, and one of them told me,
(33:23):
I was I didn't know how to be a good leader,
and so let's just say it all went downhill, and
four months later I was fired. Now, when they fired me,
they said it's because I didn't hit my number just
during COVID. But the person they brought in was a
had been a employee that had never been a CFO,
I mean CEO ever, never run a public company. He
(33:46):
used to work for one of the board members and
a department sort that subsequently filed bankruptcy, and luckily he
didn't last long. This is my perspective. He was let go,
and Rochie Levac, who was the first employee who in
its succession planning would have been my recommendation, is now
running the company. So it was treacherous to get fired
(34:10):
from your own company. It was a big betrayal, I think.
But I mean, like I said, I didn't help myself.
And honestly, I'm objective enough. If someone wanted to have
the dialogue about do you think it's time to move
on Tessasar, I would have said no, But I would
have had an open dialogue and laid out a succession plan.
But I think this guy had turned the board against
(34:30):
me and there you go.
Emily Tisch Sussman (34:34):
Wow, So now you had to overcome yet another huge
career change.
How did you move on from it?
Julie Wainwright (34:41):
So, you know, the first six months after getting fired,
I visualized horrible things happening to every board member. I
had a visual voodoo doll, and that gave me a
lot of satisfaction. And then it didn't. Then it felt
like a bad use of my time. And you know,
not getting any younger, I don't want to spend my
time thinking about that. And like I said, I mean, unfortunately,
(35:03):
people were calling me telling me stories about the new CEO,
which I sort of relished and I sort of didn't
want to know because I couldn't do anything about it.
But they weren't good stories. Obviously. They weren't calling me
saying like this is the best person, and you know
who knows I wasn't on the inside. So that's the story.
You got to get over it. I mean, life is short.
(35:25):
But I'll tell you what I wrote about all of
this in the book, and I'll tell you why. Very
seldom do women write books and men where they talk
about their mistakes, what they would have done differently, and
things that aren't always positive, so I think, you know,
my biggest mistake was I couldn't have helped this guy
(35:46):
and get off the board and not sell a stock.
He made bad choices, But I did have people on
the board that weren't aligned really with They should not
have been. I recommended them. They had to be voted
by the public, but they were not recommendations for the
type of company. It really should have been tech people
that had some startup experience, that understood to move the
company forward. It wasn't them. And then someone said to me,
(36:09):
this is really important for women to hear someone recently said,
and I thought, oh, that's probably true too. Women hire
people they think will add value to the company, and
men hire people that will support them. And I think
that's probably true too. But I have to say the
real real was it is a great company. I love
(36:29):
that we brought sustainability forward. I love that the business
is now being run by Rati, and I love that
I founded it.
Emily Tisch Sussman (36:40):
What is one thing?
It could be something we've talked about already, or something different,
something that at the time you saw is really a
low point and now you see it as having really
launched you to who you are today.
Julie Wainwright (36:52):
Well, there's more than one. I think. Look, everything I
went through as a kid prepared me with phenomenal resilience
and that I wouldn't wish on anyone, but it is.
It built my character. And also I did come from
I would say my dad helped, and my mother helped
(37:14):
when she could help. I did have like supportive parents.
But I mean, there's been a lot of dark times.
I don't think. I think you know, the thing is
you can escape things when they go wrong. You just can't.
Things are going to be bad, you know. I felt
like I had a big scarlet a on me or
how about a big scarlet pe for pets you know
when I left. So yeah, and the fact that people
(37:36):
still love talking about. But I mean there's a whole
generation that don't even know what it was. So I
would say, if I can come through it, anyone can
come through it. And you just can't let other people
define you. And you only have one life and they
don't know what you're capable of, only you do. So
then it becomes if pets dot Com wouldn't have failed,
(37:57):
I wouldn't have started the real real Even though it
took a long time, it was honestly, it's such a
great company. It's so good for the environment. It was
so much fun, and it was so much fun, and
it was I was excited every day, you know, I
said my dad was excited every day. I was excited
every day to go in the office. And when you
(38:18):
ask people about it that were especially there in the
early days, COVID was hard on the company and hard
on everyone personally, but they were like, I have never
left that hard and had so much fun and had
so much success, and that was sort of the vibe
in the company.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:35):
That's the dream it was. Well, thank you so much
for sharing all of that with us, Julie. It's really
incredible to have you on.
Julie Wainwright (38:42):
Thank you.
Emily Tisch Sussman (38:42):
I love hearing all the stories behind it.
Julie Wainwright (38:44):
Thank you, Oh Emily, thank you so much. I really
loved your podcast. I sort of got addicted to it.
I couldn't stop listening. I'm like, I got to stop this.
Oh no, So was I going to tell you? You know,
I listened to usually music when I work out, but
I'm like, no, no, I didn't want to stop the podcast.
So thank you for doing what you're doing.
Emily Tisch Sussman (39:01):
Oh I love that so much. Oh, thank you.
Julie is focused on sharing her latest book, Time to
Get Real, as well as building her new company, Ahara.
To keep up with Julie and all her billion dollar ideas,
you can follow her on Instagram at Real Real Julie.
Talk to you next week. Thanks for listening to this
(39:24):
episode of she Pivots. I hope you enjoyed it, and
if you did, leave us a rating and tell your
friends about us. To learn more about our guests, follow
us on Instagram at she pivots the Podcast, or sign
up for our newsletter where you can get exclusive behind
the scenes content on our website at she pivots thepodcast
dot com. This episode was produced and edited by Emily Atavelosik,
(39:51):
with sound editing and mixing from Nina Pollock. Audio production
and social media by Hannah Cousins, Research by Christine Dickinson
and legit Sticks, and planning by Emma Stopic and Kendall Krupkin.
She Pivots is proud to be a part of the
iHeart Podcast Network.
Julie Wainwright (40:08):
I endorse she Pivots.
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