Financial Feminist - 150. How to Fearlessly Pivot with Rebecca Minkoff

Episode Date: April 16, 2024

In today's fast-paced world where change is the only constant — the ability to pivot is paramount for success. Today’s guest knows all about how and when to pivot. Meet Rebecca Minkoff — iconic luxury fashion designer, trailblazing entrepreneur, co-founder of the Female Founder Collective, mother of three children under 10, and author of the book: “Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success.”  In this interview, she sat down with Tori for a candid interview about the art of embracing change, seizing opportunities, and overcoming setbacks. Rebecca's candid stories and advice offer listeners a roadmap for embracing change with confidence and resilience. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or someone facing a career crossroads, this episode promises to inspire you to fearlessly pursue your dreams and aspirations, even amongst life's unexpected twists and turns.  Tune in to discover how to navigate change with grace and determination, and unlock the power of resilience in your personal and professional life. Read transcripts, learn more about our guests and sponsors, and get more resources at https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-show-notes/150-how-to-fearlessly-pivot-with-rebecca-minkoff/.  Not sure where to start on your financial journey? Take our FREE money personality quiz! https://herfirst100k.com/quiz. Get Rebecca’s book: Fearless: The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success Subscribe to Rebecca’s Substack: https://rebeccaminkoff.substack.com/ Female Founder Collective: https://femalefoundercollective.com/ Check out Rebecca’s podcast: Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You have to put blinders on, you can't look at social media and you go, what do I want my life to look and feel like and how do I begin to build that slowly? And there is no balance, you know, it's like optimization of what you have. It's some days I'm a great mother, some days I'm a great worker, some days I'm a great friend. I'm not all things all the time. Hi, financial feminists. Welcome back to the show. I am thrilled to see you. Thank you for being here as always. If you are new to the show. Hi, my name is Tori. I fight the patriarchy by making you rich. I teach you how to save money, pay off debt, start investing, start businesses. And we talk about how money affects women differently on this show. It is the number one money podcast for women in the world, which is

so cool. I never get tired of saying it. And if you're an oldie, but a goodie, you knew all that already. Welcome back. Welcome back to the show. Today's episode is a really great one with someone I have admired and whose businesses I have admired for a very long time, and who is very much the definition of someone who just supports women and advocates for women and teaches them how to do what she did. So today's guest is Rebecca Minkoff. An industry leader in accessible luxury, handbags, accessories, footwear, and apparel, Rebecca Minkoff's modern bohemian designs are inspired by strong, confident, and powerful women who are drawn towards a West meets East mentality. Rebecca Minkoff is a global brand with a wide variety of apparel,

handbags, footwear, jewelry, and accessory products. In September of 2018, she established the Female Founder Collective, a network of businesses led by women who invest in women's financial power across the socioeconomic spectrum by enabling and empowering female-owned businesses. She introduced the RM Superwoman podcast in 2017 after hosting sold out table talks out of her NYC flagship Soho boutique. In intimate Cheryl interviews, Rebecca uncovers the many sides of powerful women and learn how they are raising up those around them to make the world a kinder, more inclusive place. In 2021, Rebecca Minkoff became a bestselling published author and simultaneously entered the world of Web3 as the first American female fashion designer to unveil a collection of branded NFTs timed to New York Fashion Week, which sold out in under eight minutes. That's actually where I met Rebecca for the first time was a dinner to kick that off. We talked about the launch of her iconic fashion brand and the highs and lows of running a company and one of the most vulnerable industries that are out there.

We dig into the idea of a customer avatar and why that's such an important part of your business. Something I love about Rebecca is how she is willing to innovate and try new things, even if they weren't immediately successful. So we talked about ways she's pivoted to try things like NFTs and even starting an OnlyFans. We'll talk more about it. We also talk about her book, Fearless,

and her work with the Female Founder Collective. So without further ado, let's go ahead and get into it. But first, a word from our sponsors. Crypto is like finance, but different. It doesn't care when you invest, trade or save. Do it on weekends or at 5 a.m. Or on Christmas Day at 5 a.m. Crypto is finance for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Kraken, see what crypto can be. Not investment advice. Crypto trading involves risk of loss. Kraken's registration details at kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer. This message comes from TD. Getting mortgage advice should be fast and easy, because when you want to buy a home,

who has time to wait? TD Mortgage Direct makes it quick and easy to get the answers you need. Just answer a few questions and get personalized advice from a TD mortgage specialist. And you can get up to $4,100 with a new TD mortgage. Offer ends October 31, 2024. Conditions apply. Visit td.com slash tdmortgagedirect. Truly, and I will say this now that we're recording on Mike, but I would say this to you offline too, it was one of the best events I've ever been to.

It was just like, the connections were so important. Literally I think Karina and I, who's our COO, literally have said to each other, oh, at the net retreat, like probably once a week since we got back. So at least, at least. Yeah. So it was just, it was such a great event and it was so nice to finally see you again and meet the team. And yeah, it was just, it was just great. We loved it. I'm so glad we're talking about another one for again in the fall. So TBD. Okay. Keep me posted. Would love to be there for around two. Yeah, so great. I'm so excited to have you so excited to have this conversation. We typically ask our guests, especially who

are business owners or who are finance creators, what their first money memory is. What is the first time that you remember thinking about money? I thought about money when I was eight years old and I wanted this dress. It was $20. My mom said, no. She said, I'll teach you how to sew instead. And that's when I actually got hooked. So I hated her for it. But then I loved the fact that I could make whatever I wanted

after she taught me how to sew. Yeah, so you were frustrated in the moment and then you were like, all right, but now I can do whatever I want to do. Yes, yes. And then she would sell these things. They're called cast covers. They were like, trendy in the 80s, like almost imagine like spandex for your cast in like neon. And she would sell them at the flea market and I was like, well, I'm going to sell something too. And so I would sell what I made. No one bought anything of mine, but I like got very excited about my little card

table at the flea market with my things that I made. So well, and little did they know that they could have bought something off of you pre pre true Rebecca Minkoff everything and it would have probably been worth a good chunk of money now. That's so fun. I know. Yeah. I love this story. I know I'm not going to buy it for you, but I'll teach you. And like ultimately that is such a parent response, which is great when you're looking back, but yeah, so frustrating when you're a kid, you're like, no, I just want this right now.

Well, I do it now to my kids and I hope it sticks. Always saying no, always. I'm like, no, but you can earn it or no, and if I know how to make it, I'm like, you're going to learn how to make it. My next question for you is when did you become interested in fashion as a career path? But I feel like it started at eight years old, maybe. What was that journey like for you? So the journey was I was eight, I fell in love with sewing. I then hit my teenage puberty years and I was a painfully thin, very awkward, not confident, very tall, gangly girl. And I couldn't find clothing to fit, but what I could do is I could alter it. So I became obsessed with buying stuff at thrift stores, buying fabric, making things

fit my own body. And that gave me a lot of confidence. And it was something I pursued very seriously in a high school. It was a performing arts high school that I went to. And it was like what I got to work on four hours of every day, because that was your elective. And so after figuring out that I loved this and want to pursue it, I said, I have to go to New York.

That's where fashion is. And I moved to New York at 18 with an internship. I want to come back to, and I will round back to what you just said, which I think is so important, which is like tailoring clothes to fit your body and how confident that makes you because I just had that experience for the first time recently. But let's talk about the journey of that. So you moved to New York at 18, and you had some success, but it wasn't really until you developed the morning after bag that things started exploding for you. Can you walk us through the stages

of starting out to launching your business and then to growing to a hundred million in revenue? Yes. So I launched the handbags in 2005. It was one handbag. Things were so much slower then. You could have one handbag in many colors and the appetite for this more and more and more didn't exist yet because social media was non-existent. And with a couple of key publications, Daily Candy, if you're old enough to remember And and a bunch of celebrities wearing the bag like things took off very quickly So we very quickly grew from you know 200,000 to a million to five million to ten and it was this crazy experience to be growing that fast

But what a lot of people don't know is you don't have the money to pay for that growth So we were bootstrapping and my brother was mortgaging his house. He was putting leather on credit cards. We couldn't get a loan because people don't just go loan random people money very easily, as we know. And it's not like we had a prior business that we could show we had great credit. And so when we finally got to a breaking point, that's when we got introduced to a factor, which is a very fashion specific bank that loans on your purchase orders. And then from there, we had a little bit of like, someone's going to help us fund this

thing. And so over the course of 15 years, you know, we grew as high as 115 million. We also shrunk down to 30 million during the pandemic. So we've experienced the highs, the lows, you name it, of what it's like to have this thing pop and then grow and then stabilize and then shrink and then, you know, go back to growth. What was that like for you personally? Cause I imagine your life changed dramatically in a very short period of time.

It changed dramatically in that you are dealing with this juggernaut. But again, because you don't have the funds to keep up, it is very stressful. You don't necessarily have the funds to hire the best in talent. Whenever a CFO would make a mistake and I would freak out at my brother, he'd be like, well, we can't afford someone better, would be, would be his response. Like, the type of person that would catch these things is paid double. You know, he didn't pay himself for the first five years. I basically made enough to like, pay my rent and live, barely. And it was just about investing in the business and investing as we could in people. So it was very stressful

and I feel very lucky that I did not have a family at that time. It was just focus on growth. All I did was work and I loved it, by the way, but that was my baby. Totally. It's very much how I feel about her first 100K. It's like, this is the thing I'm growing and raising and nurturing like a child. Yeah, completely. Yeah. I mean, I give props to women that nurturing like a child. Yeah, completely. Yeah. I mean, I give props to women that can launch a business and have kids. I don't think I could have been one of those people. That's yeah, it's bananas.

And I deeply admire people who can do that. You mentioned that like this was pre social media. Talk to me about the difference of launching a business, but specifically launching a business in fashion, what that was like before social media and how everything's changed dramatically since the popularity of social media. Yeah, so pre social media it was about getting the right placement in a magazine, getting it on a great celebrity, and selling to your wholesale accounts. Direct to Consumer was just beginning, but it's not necessarily a hub, it was more like a static homepage. And so we really just had to focus on servicing our wholesale and making sure

that we could figure out things that engage their consumers and then being friends with editors. And so that was kind of the focus for the first, I'd say, five years. And as social media began to be something that was important. Obviously, we dove headfirst. Often, we were the first to do a lot of things in that space. And now, you see brands popping up left and right. I was at a dinner with a designer the other night who popped up on social media and has these crazy collaborations and has probably never talked to an editor and will never sell wholesale. So it's completely different. Even you just saying like direct to consumer

wasn't really a thing kind of blows my mind to think about. Cause yeah, this is what you said 2004, 2005, like, yeah, I guess direct to consumer is not a thing. And for those who, you know, maybe don't run a business, direct to consumer is just like you selling on your own website, right? It's exactly what it sounds like. Direct to consumer, as opposed to going through a wholesaler, as opposed to is just like you selling on your own website, right? It's exactly what it sounds like direct to consumer as opposed to going through a wholesaler as opposed to going

through, you know, like a middleman company to get there. And now it feels like so many things are direct to consumer, but it's crazy to think that that was not a thing. It was definitely not a thing. And neither again, with social media blogging, I remember very clearly a very big, important, influential president of a huge wholesaler, you know, like department store, sat us down. I was like, you can't talk to these people. You can't engage these lowlifes. Like, we used to have these influencer events at our showroom, and they'd be like, why are you entertaining these people and feeding them?

And like, even at our fashion shows, we had to, the editors would refuse to sit in front of the bloggers and influencers. So we had to stagger where people sat because one could not look across and see the low life of the influencer across from them. It was a very different time. Such a status thing too. I will not be seen with people who I deem not as high a status thing too and such a like, yeah, I will not be seen with people who I deem not as high a status as me.

Not even seen with I will not look at them. I don't want them in my life. That's like Marie Antoinette shit. That's like, yeah, wow. I don't have the experience of running $100 million company. I think most of our listeners do not have the experience of running $100 million company.. I think most of our listeners do not have the experience of running a hundred million dollar company. Neither do I, because I didn't. That's my next question for you is like, talk to me about that transition of again, growing so quickly and then realizing, okay, I need resources, I need capital, I need money, I need the team, I need support. And then eventually, okay, I'm choosing to sell this business.

As detailed as you can be, walk me through all of that in your head, the kind of decisions you're making at every time and when it feels right. Yeah. So my brother was my co-founder and CEO. So when it came time, the mortgage was done, the Amex was fully maxed out, the factor that I mentioned was like, we will not loan you anything more. Right around that time, this was 2012, the private equity world was circling around brands and it became very sexy to be wooed by them.

So that was when we said, okay, we've been doing this for seven years, we've bootstrapped. I think at the time, size wise, we were probably doing 50 to 60 million in sales. And we said, okay, let's sell a quarter of the company, take that cash, fuel the business, open stores, ramp up our e-commerce to really sell, expand categories like shoes, clothing, jewelry, eyewear, you know, you name it. Was it just bags at that point? Was it just bags seven years in? It was bags, clothing and shoes, but shoes and bags were very small because we just didn't have the funds to invest in those categories.

Got it. So we did that. We blew through the money. Then we went back out fundraising a year more, sold 10% more of the company, blew through that money, and then lived again on our own fumes until we had the whole thing sold in 2022. And so I think when you ask, what was that like, it was every emotion on

the map. It was frustration, anger, excitement, opportunity. You hear these things, oh, next billion dollar brand, look at your competition. And then your competition's all IPO-ing. And you're like, we can do that too. Then all of a sudden, the investor sentiment switched and it was like, are you profitable? Because no one cared for a long time if anybody was profitable. And then we got that question. We're like, no, we're not profitable. What's that? And so it was like, you know, okay, let's do the deep work to get profitable. And that doesn't happen overnight. So it's been a wild ride. Entrepreneurship, I think, especially on social, I just taking a deep breath because I'm just

like, it's that's so crazy to think about. I think one of the things I have learned, and I have talked to so many women who run businesses, and I know you feel this way too, entrepreneurship gets glamorized on social media and there's so many incredible parts to it. But then I'm hearing you talk and honestly, I'm just like tired hearing you just explain everything that happened. And I'm just like, Oh man, for me, there's like so much that I've been through in the last just year of running our company at a way micro scale compared to where you know, yours was. And so I like, I just, one of the things I always want to highlight for women who want to be business owners is like, yes,

there's so many incredible things about it. And there's so much impact you can make. And, you know, there's so there's so much money that's often on the table for you. But it's also like, I sometimes dream of a nine to five job. Like there's something about a nine to five now that also just feels very exciting of like, I get to turn my brain off, I get to close my laptop. And what has the experience been like as a business owner? Because you're talking like every emotion, highs, lows, like the highs are so high and the lows are so low. I think the biggest thing is where did we all get the idea that it was going to be easy?

Because we all go in and it's not like it was advertised that it was easy and everyone I know talks about how hard it is, but you still are like, oh, this is going to be easy and then it's not, or it's going to get easier, or I'll reach a point which I put my legs up and lean back and I'm good. I just go like, we have to disabuse ourselves with that idea as an entrepreneur, it's always going to be this thing that you are attached to. It's your baby, it's your love, it's your joy, but it's also your pain sometimes. And you have to almost accept those two things going together or else you're just going to

be disappointed all the time. And I think that it took me a long time to learn that lesson. And I also think as you get older, it's like, I feel trite saying this, but as you get older, you just begin to have perspective like, okay, if I don't answer the emails on the weekends, what happens? Guess what? Nothing. Nothing happens. You know, and so I stopped answering emails on the weekend or like, what happens if I don't write back 6 PM to 10 PM? Nothing happens. So I think that it's like learning to just say, okay, I'm not curing cancer. It's going to be okay if I begin to sort of let myself have some breathing space.

Otherwise you will burn yourself out. In your journey too, I'm seeing a lot of maybe not like full pivots, but a lot of like, okay, this isn't working. So we're going to do this or we're going to do this for business owners listening out there. What tips do you have of like being quick to pivot being quick to make a decision, even if it's the hard one? We have never shied away from testing. And I will take an example. I worked with Intel a couple years ago in their attempt to make tech sexy and appeal to more women and get more female engineers. And so I liked that idea because I was like, there should be more female engineers because then maybe the algorithms won't

be so biased. And what we found was engineers have a very clinical approach to trial and error. There's a failure funnel. If something doesn't work, it goes in the failure funnel and no one's crying about it, and no one's berating themselves or going in like eating a tub of ice cream because of it. I think for us, it was like, all right, that didn't work next,

but we were constantly trying stuff, whether it was trialing in-person events, trying new technologies, testing, you know, A-B testing on our site. And so if we failed, okay, move on. And sometimes those failures were very public. So I think that the bigger company you are, the less inclined you are to take risks, but I think that you should. And I think you just have to say to the entrepreneur, try it, survey it, always be testing and learning because you never know what's going to work.

One thing we've talked about on the show a lot, especially in the last year or so is like, I think a lot of women deem a failure, not as an incident that happened, but as their identity of like, it's not just like this failed, or even the business failed, it's I failed, I am a failure. And what I'm hearing is it's like, no, you have to let go of that personal connection, right? You can't take a failure personally and just be like, okay, that didn't work. We're going to move on and try something else. Yeah, I think you have to disconnect the I from it and just know that you are constantly iterating. Innovation happens only when you're constantly testing and trying stuff. And guess what? Here's some more bad

news. What works for you or someone else might not work for the other. And so you have to figure out what works for you. Even if you're the same two white t-shirt companies, different approaches are going to have different results. Well, and yeah, your market might be different or your price point might be different. It's like something is probably different about, you're a different entrepreneur than the other person. It was making maybe the exact same white t-shirt as you.

Exactly. We talked to Madeleine Pendleton on the show earlier and she works in fashion. And she mentioned that it's one of the most volatile industries to be a part of, that not only is it like super cutthroat, but it's deeply affected by even like really tiny minute economic changes. What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned working in this industry that just feels so combustible all the time?

Communication and relationships. When the wonderful, what was the name of that, boat that got stuck in the canal, the Suez Canal, during COVID. Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about, but I don't remember the name. Hold on, I'll Google it and I'll get back to you. Keep going. Right, that boat, you know,

and all the boats had to go around and our shipping times increased by 30, 60, 90 days. You have got to have great relationships and communication because we were calling all of our stores saying, we know you ordered spring and you wanted it to arrive in January, but it's going to arrive in May. And then those goods aren't going to be trend right or well suited for that time period now. You're making those calls, you're leaning on your relationships and you're saying everyone has to hold hands. And I think that what we have done a good job of over the years is with every big hiccup, overly communicating,

making sure these people felt like we were going to be in it with them and help take care of them. And I think that saved us many, many times. It was the ever given ship. I wouldn't have known it. It's still ever giving. Truly. If you're the person who has been trying to save money and trying to save money and you're listening to this podcast because you're trying to save money, but it seems like your bank account

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That's rocketmoney.com slash FF pod, rocketmoney.com slash ffpod. That's rocketmoney.com slash ffpod, rocketmoney.com slash ffpod. So let's be clear. When it comes to shipping internationally, can I provide trade documents electronically? Mm-hmm, the answer is FedEx. Okay, but what about estimating duties and taxes on my shipments?

How do I find all the- Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a do I find all the- Also FedEx. Impressive. Is there a regulatory specialist I can ask about? FedEx. Oh, but let's say that- FedEx. What? FedEx.

Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. How do you learn to handle the seasonality of like fashion? Are there ways that you prep as a business owner? Because I'm thinking, you know, a lot, we get a lot of questions from people listening who are like, yeah, my business is seasonal or you know, there's a lot of, I can do a great, great month in January, but February, March, April are just

dead. So how do you handle that both as a business owner but also how does the business work to handle? Okay, yeah, we are featured in this magazine or this influencer blew our shit up, but then it's just dry for a period of time. Yeah. So we know that as a leather goods company, our biggest 70% of the year is done September, October, November, December. We have our financial plans and our spend aligned with outside of CapEx. Everything else is aligned to live and breathe on the first eight months of the year being somewhat smaller. And we really know like January, not that much people just got all their gifts.

They're returning them, business is on sale, July, tumbleweeds. And so we just financially plan for those to be the leaner months. And you'll start to see these cycles in your business, go through a year or two, and then you just have to be really smart about financially

planning and setting aside, you know, during the farmer, you know, when they're, it's like farming, right? You're doing the land and then you got to figure out how to live the rest of the winter. And so after 20 years, I hope we figure that out. But it does take a couple of years in business to begin to see those cycles. That is wild to me. So September, October, November, December, you said. So four months drives the whole rest of the year of the business. 70% of the year. Yep.

That's crazy. That's so like when, how long did it take you to figure that out? Oh, pretty. Pretty scary. That's weird. You know, like who wants to buy? Okay. Just put yourself in the customer's position.

Like, yes, we offer some non leather, but it's not the bulk of our business. Who wants to be like sweaty and hot with like a big leather tote in the summertime? Nobody. You know, so it's like, we just began to understand that for the bulk of our goods, you know, there are timely leathers and materials that she likes. Right. Well, actually talk to me about that because you just said, okay, we do other things besides leather. But if leathers the signature, I imagine especially if you're a newer business owner, you're going well, okay, but I need to sell during the other month. So I'm going to do

something else. I'm going to, you know, try to drive this other thing was that successful? Or is it just like, no, we know what we're good at and we're just going to like stay in our lane for the most part? No, we know what we're good at. And we also know that we have a healthy nylon business, we have a healthy straw business. Again, these are things that we have tested and learned. I think, you know, for a minute we tested an athleisure line of gym bags. Didn't sell, not going to continue, but she does like a nylon bag for her computer or her weekend activities. And so I think we're always offering those right type of products during the time that she's going to buy them. We just know that it's never going to be like hundreds of millions

of dollars in sales on those types of items. Right. Because it's what you're known for and what you do well is the leather. Yeah. I have both a personal question for you, but also something that I think the listeners will relate to. So you sold your company in 2022. You also sold your name, right? Like, personally, what was that like for you of like, literally, somebody else? I don't know, somebody else own your name? How did that work? I imagine that that was almost like a morning period of just like, okay, I'm selling not only the thing that I built that I care about the most, but literally my name is attached to it.

So that part of it happened in phases. So in 2012, when we sold our first 26% to the private equity firm, that was when my name sold. Wow, okay. So it didn't feel bad or that I didn't own it because we still owned a majority and we controlled the company and they didn't have hardly any controls. So I could stand my feet around and be like,

this has to be this way and we would get our way. I think it felt really real in 2022 when it was like 100%, well, 97% cause I still own a small piece, right? And it's theirs. And I'll never forget, and I'm still here and I love the company, but I'll never forget when I went downstairs to meet one of the teams that was working on a different project

and my name was all over these things and I was like, oh no, oh no, no, no, like, no, take it off, just take it off, that name cannot be on that, you know? And that was when I had my moment of like, oh my gosh, I really don't own it now. And I can stand my feet and yell and scream, but guess what? Not when you don't have, you know, not when the whole thing is gone. So I definitely remember leaving that day and taking a very long walk around the city and just trying to be like, all right, new phase. How do I look at the positive of this versus always being scared?

Right? Again, I am not my name. So how do I make sure that I can contribute to a better outcome with these partners? And so far, so good. The second question I have related to that is my own personal question is, I don't think I want to be CEO of her first 100k forever. And we're starting. Uh huh. Yeah. And I've actually never talked about that on the podcast, but I'm starting to, you know, if we're doing three, five,

10 year plans, it's becoming clear to me that like, I don't think I want to manage the day to day of the business anymore. And correct me if I'm wrong. I think you stepped back from CEO to creative director, is that right? No, I was never CEO, I was always creative director. But pre-acquisition, I was right there with my brother. So every business decision, every failure, every hole in the boat, I might not be running it, but I'm there like, oh God, oh no, oh no, oh no. And now I'm not in any of those meetings. Now I'm just like, Oh God, oh no, oh no, oh no. And now, right now I'm not in any of those meetings. Now I'm just like, I get to be my best self creative design. Nicole Zichal-Bendis That was my question is, are you moving

from more strategy to creative? And also, I'm literally just asking this for me. How do you let go? Like, how do you let go of the thing that you built and also that is for you, your name? How do you let go of that? I let go of it because after 17 years, three kids, I said, I need to be able to have headspace for something else. At first first I didn't let go. And then I slowly did. And it felt a little weird. And I felt sometimes like, why didn't they include me in that budget meeting or

that P and L meeting or like, why didn't they invite me to that? And then I was like, you know what? I'm more creative. I am more excited and I'm more fueled today than I was when I was bogged down with all those things that would get me in a bad mood or upset me. And I didn't know what to do to then get back into my creative zone. So for me, it's been a blessing. And let me tell you, Tori, like, I'm sure your listeners are not necessarily at childbearing age, but the difference in headspace I have for my one-year-old versus the difference in headspace I had for my first three where I was always stressed and I was always like, oh, go to sleep so I can get back to work versus now I'm just like, well, let's have a leisurely evening. Let's take a bath.

What else do you want to do? It is night and day and I love it. So there's hope for you. And I think you just have to find the right partner. And when you do, it's not a quick breakup. It's a slow passing of the baton. And then you're always there to make sure it's happening. But enjoy that ability to be like, I built something so good and so certain that it can be handed off. Yeah. My biggest fear for me,

especially as the face of the business, and again, your business is your name, that it won't succeed if I am not the face of it. And that's the biggest fear I have is it's like, and I think in some way and capacity, I'm going to have to stay the face regardless, but yeah, it's not just the strategic, you know, or the day to day that I'm doing. It's also like, can this business exist without

me? Like, can I make myself obsolete? No, you are the face. And I'll never forget this influencer that I followed had a media company. And then she started featuring her employees, because she wanted to pull back. And I was like, I don't want to see that chick in your dress. I want to see you. And I was like, uh. And then I watched it happen to another one where she started featuring other people in her business and other things.

And I was like, I'm not interested at all. I just want the one person that I liked and I don't want all the friends of. And so I think that- We tried that and it didn't work. Yeah, we tried it. They want you because you're the magic. But what are the duties that no one is visually looking at that you can sort of begin to handle that I think will make a change and you'll feel better? Right. It's a personal problem. I don't know if there's anybody out here also running a business with their name or their likeness or their face, but you know, it's yeah, it's it's something that we're figuring out. And to your point, like, it is it's not a cold turkey thing. And this is why we're even starting to talk about it is it won't happen for a couple more years, most likely. But it's like, it's very, it's got to be a kind of slow transition. Yeah. kind of slow transition. Yeah. You keep mentioning your customer. You keep calling her her. Yes.

And I love that. One of the biggest mistakes I see like new entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs make is they just don't define their customer or they don't know who their customer is. Tell me why that's so important for a business owner to know exactly who they're trying to talk to. I think that we spend a lot of time talking, getting to know, meeting in real life our customer. And it's made all the difference from a community, a connection point of view. Our aesthetic is always going to be rock and roll, a little bohememian downtown, a little edgy.

Take away New York and Los Angeles and some of the big cities in the middle. We are the edge for our customer. She's like, oh, I want some edge in my life. She goes to us. I think that we've learned her tastes, what she likes, price points, and what our brand promise is to her. And so I think, you know, we paint, obviously, every brand paints the glossy aspirational image for the customer to know, okay, I'm going to close my eyes. And I think of Rebecca

Minkoff, it's edgy rock and roll studs, zippers, dog clips, whatever it is. And then we give you an opportunity to have the really edgy stuff or like the touch because not everyone wants that in full blown. And I think that the more you can get to know your customer, what she eats, what she wears, her perfume, her music tastes, what other brands she shops. It's really great. I mean, good or bad that Cambridge Analytica, the opportunity we had to get to know our customer prior to that scandal was really great. Yeah, I've always said like, you should know the TV shows they watch. Like you should know

what they're watching on Netflix. Yeah, I love the perfume, like what perfume they're wearing. And again, it's not going to be every single person who ever purchases your materials or, you know, uses your goods or services, but it's the person you're appealing to or the person you're trying to, you know, reach. 100%. And your customer is not always going to be who you fantasize it to be. You know, when I moved to New York and I was trying to break into the scene, I fantasized that my customer was going to be the coolest fashion editor and the coolest

influencer. Guess what those women are wearing? They're wearing designer brands that are like Valentino, Louis Vuitton, every high brand. Yes, they'll wear my bag sometimes, but they're at a level of being exposed and being immersed into a different world. And okay, great. Who else is out there? Great. Oh, here's my customer. She loves me. Let's go. And I think you have to get that ego off and just embrace and love your customer, whoever she is. Totally. My favorite little fun fact about you, you launched an OnlyFans account, but for your business. The creative idea behind it, how has it paid off? Like, this is so intriguing to me.

Okay. Well, when we talked earlier about testing and learning, OnlyFans at that time had announced that they were trying to get away from explicit content and really move into the creator space. And we thought, great, this is a new platform, let's try it. And we did, but then OnlyFans came back out and said, JK, explicit content is what pays the bills. And if you've been on my OnlyFans lately, you can see that there is no activity

because I personally don't want to align with the values of that platform. So we tried it, it worked. I was good when it was like, okay, we're going to try this and then their values and mine don't align. So it's done. But again, we learned a lot. So it's almost like a Patreon kind of play. It was truly like fans So it was almost like a Patreon kind of play. It was like truly like fans of the brand, fans of you, not yeah, sexually explicit content. Yeah, right. No, there was nothing sexual on there at all. It was all... It was using the platform to yeah, and testing it, which I love. I think that's great. And they had a good amount of creators, but you know, they couldn't pay the bills. So they had to go back to explicit content. And as a mom and whatever, I was like, that's not my jam. So we're off. Totally. Well,

yeah. And to your point, like I remember when threads really popped off and we actually had a team conversation the other day, we do like monthly meetings about like, okay, what's going on with our partnerships? What's going on with our podcasts? What's going on with our social? And it was really funny because we had a whole slide on threads of like, our threads are still continuing to grow. And I literally had to ask my team, I was like, is anybody still on this? And like half of our team was like, yeah, I am. And I was like, oh, okay. But like, that was that moment that like two weeks that like threads was popping off where it was like, yeah, let's go see, let's go test. And I love that idea of like, yeah, let's figure out what this platform is. And if it's going

to be a big deal. And most of them aren't most of them, you know, okay, cool. I'll sign up our username. I'll make sure somebody else doesn't take it. But like, I'm never going to log back in again. But like it also may be something that's really interesting. So who knows? I think you never know. We did threads, no one cared. And I was like, good, I'm done. You know, we know that our Twitter account or X, whatever you want to call it is mainly a customer service or if we ever get back into NFTs and crypto, a crypto crowd.

And so I think you just have to try stuff. I didn't ever went on Lemonade or whatever. Yeah, I signed up for that. It didn't do anything. Let's talk about your book. Your book, Fearless, goes through 21 rules. Can we talk about a few that stuck out to us? And I would love for you to tell us the subtitles or talk about them too, because when I'm just

going to read them, they sound different than what I think. Of course, when we read the book, you intend. So one of them is Don't Ask for Help. Talk to me about that one. I can't tell you the amount of times you are like, Hey, I need your help. Can I just pick your brain? Can we like have coffee? I can't tell you the amount of times you are like, hey, I need your help. Can I just pick your brain? Can we like have coffee?

I'm like, no, we cannot have coffee and you cannot pick my brain. I need you to tell me one specific thing. I think it's don't ask for help, ask for what you need. I want people to be so specific when they ask for something, whether it's the busiest person in the room or Tori, they get in a room with you and they've got five seconds of

your time. Tory, can you introduce me to block? Tory, can you follow me back? Whatever it is, you have to get so specific. And I think that that helps frame an ask and shows that you know exactly what you want and you have a plan. You're not just this like, tell me your story and how you got started. No, why would I go to lunch to do that unless I needed my ego stroked. And often when you're asking for help from a very, very busy CEO or entrepreneur, they don't have time. And so if we can just handle it for you in a minute or two, that's the best way for you to get what you need and for us to help you. And you're more likely to get a response because I could not agree more with what you just said. The number one question we get asked when it comes to personal finance is how do

I start? The amount of times we get that in our DMs every day. And I literally have a website or a page on my website that says start here. I like can't be more clear about where we start. And also you asking me, this is going to get me riled up. You asking me, where do I start implies that you've done no upfront work on your part to figure out where to go. Like you are asking me who has not only a busy person, but has produced thousands of hours of content for you and a podcast and a book and all of these things. I've produced this for you and you said, Oh no, I'm not

going to do five seconds of upfront work. I just want it handed to me. And I'm like, I can't do that for you. So I just, I love what you just said. Plus one, all of it. Yes. Now those emails, can I just pick your delete? Delete. Delete. Delete. Can I pick your brain? Can I have 30 minutes of your time and I'm not going to tell you what for? No, no, definitely not. All right. The second chapter I want to talk about is create two-way streets. What is the idea behind that? Tell me more. I think that there is a lot on your way up of asking for favors and there's definitely a feeling on your way up that you have nothing to

give. And I learned from my Japanese boss, you always have something to give and you should always show your gratitude. So I'm always of the mindset of if anyone helps me out all along my journey, I'm immediately like, is there anything I can do for you? Even if it's like, no, but you bought them a plant, whatever it is, there's always something you can do, even if you're just starting out. And to keep that two way street going,

because people remember gratitude, they remember your offer. If they come back around in 10 years and they're like, hey, can you do this for me? You're like, yeah, I can. I had a friend, a company that was huge in the beginning of my career and really helped us. But then she lost her way and then came back recently and was like, can you come on the podcast? I was like, absolutely. You were big for me when I started and now I can help you. So I think it's just always keeping that flow open of what can you do for others. Yeah, I think it's always asking, yeah, what can I do to support you? I will literally end this

interview and after I will ask you, what do you need from me? How can I support you? And I think that's so incredibly important. And especially if you're early on in your career or you're a baby business owner and you're like, I don't have anything to offer. To your point, yes, you do. I remember being a college student and thinking, I'm going to ask for an informational interview from this person and I can't give anything to them. And it's like, actually, yes, you can.

Mentorship goes both ways. Partnerships go both ways. You have something to offer this other person, even if you're just out of college, or even if you are in your first year of business, like you have something to offer the people that you're trying to work with, partner with, mentor. What is your favorite thing to do in your first year?

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Imagine yourself in Ottawa, surrounded by thousands of vibrant tulips. And discovering your new favorite micro-brew. Before cycling along scenic bike paths. And wandering through a museum in awe. Adventure awaits in Ottawa from O to A. Plan your getaway at OttawaTourism.ca. My last chapter I want to ask you about is forget about balance. Again, it's another one of those words that our little evil man behind the keyboard or

woman like was like, oh, let's aim this word at women. They're gonna feel like failures and it's gonna be awesome. So there is no such thing as balance. Men have never had it either newsflash, right? We go back to caveman days, they had to go out and get murdered by beasts, right? While we were stirring the fire. So it's never existed for either species or either sex. And what I do believe is life design. You will have different times in your life where you're focused on building different things and you have to test your own boundaries. And I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that like pre-kids I worked as many hours of the week that was possible

I didn't sleep. I had a kid I began to test it and pull back and say what's too much for me? What's not enough? You know When are the times where I'm not gonna see my kid or when are the times that I have to travel overseas and guess? When he's coming with me and that sucks for me, but I'm gonna be able to be with him And so you have to put blinders on, you can't look at social media and you go, what do I want my life to look and feel like and how do I begin to build that slowly? And there is no balance. It's like optimization

of what you have. It's some days I'm a great mother, some days I'm a great worker, some days I'm a great friend. I'm not all things all the time. I needed to hear that first of all. Second, I think, yeah, I'm realizing again in my own life and my own business, it's like, I think there's seasons. Like there's seasons of pushing yourself and the business really hard. Like when I launched my book, I've talked about this on the show, but like that was a season of I am running sprinting to the finish line to get this book out, to have it sell well, to hit the New York Times bestseller list.

And then it was like, okay, so we did that really hard thing and I was willing to sprint for it. I am never willing to do that again. But I did it and now I know. And I also wasn't going to be satisfied if I didn't sprint to the finish, like if I didn't go full out. But then it was the realization of like, okay, so we did that. And for me, I'm never going to do that again. So now where is our focus going to go? And for me this year, it's like taking care of myself because I sacrificed my physical health to do that. So now it's like, okay, I am going to take better care of myself, nurture my in-person community, and yes, continue to show up for the business, but in a different way.

I fully agree with you on seasons and like you, I sprinted and killed myself for the book. And I was like, you know what? The only way I'll ever do this is I am paid like double, triple what my advance was, which was a great advance. I'm not complaining. If I have to work that hard, I'm going to really triple that number. I have never worked so hard in my life for so little money, ever.

I know. Wild. When you amortize the hours you spent for the advance you got, you're like, wow, this is wild. But I do think that if you or I had to do it again, we've learned so much, we would be smarter about it. And I think when you can find that person that works as hard as you or just a little less, but they're smarter and savvier, you know, it sounds dumb. But as you grow, if you want more freedom, you have to find a great bricklayer or many bricklayers. Yeah. And a wise man said to me once like you are paying someone money from your own pocket. They're not making your life easier. They go, right? If they haven't taken a load off, they go there's no like, that she's trying. She has

good intentions, but she means well, uh, that can be your friend. That ain't your employee. So if you want freedom, you have to have good people working with you, or you'll never get out of the rat race. Yep. If there's one thing I learned in the past year, it's like if you are causing me more stress than solving problems, that's a massive issue. That's something that yeah, if you're causing me more grief, then you are making my life easier or making the company better, that's really difficult. Yeah.

Yeah. And you have to like nip it in the bud. It's like, oh, but we just hired them. No, it's been a month. Basta. Well, and your gut knows too. And we've talked about this on a show before. And actually that was one of the most important things I heard at the Net Retreat, which you hosted, was like, what was it? High or slow fire fast?

No, what was it? It was like, I'm trying to remember who said it too. I think it's high or slow fire fast. Yeah. Yeah. It was just like, make a good decision. And then if you know they're not right, and this isn't like, this isn't you making a decision that you haven't thought through or like, you know, the one mistake somebody's out. It's not that it's like, you know, in your gut, your intuition tells you, yes, this this is working or no, it's not. Yeah, I think we need to rely on our guts. I just think that we don't do that enough. And then if you trusted your gut, and it was wrong, or like,, I trusted my gut and I was wrong. But like, there is

a reason why, you know, 90% of the serotonin you make is in your gut. There's a reason why people say that is it is something that you should check in with you, your knowingness, your ability to perceive and begin to trust it. And I think it's like a muscle. The more you do that, you know, the stronger it gets. Yeah. And the more you learn to trust yourself that you are actually capable of making smart decisions and you're capable of doing the things that you want to do. Yeah.

I talked about the net retreat at the beginning and I just would love to talk about female founders collective. Like the goal is to get more female entrepreneurs in a room together. We were talking about like, entrepreneurship is fucking hard and it's lonely and it's like the highest highs and the lowest lows. And one of the things that I have realized now growing this business is it's like, I need support from other people who understand and who are at a similar level of business. And I just loved being in that

room with other entrepreneurs. Like what to you has been the biggest impact of building this community and why was it so important for you to build? I think it was important to build because to me, empowering women with access to education and tools to succeed and grow their businesses is the quickest way I know to make women more wealthy and more successful. And most of us start our business with a passion with no roadmap outside of that. And so our goal is to surround you with experts that have been there, done that, that can give you those much needed answers to those questions.

And so, you know, the best thing that's come out of it is women are making more money, women are being more successful. When I see someone not renew, and the reason is, I've outgrown the need for this because my business has gotten so big and they might be looking for another tier that we don't offer yet. I'm like, hallelujah. She had started year one, year two, she's in year five, and she needs the next level of opportunity. And so I think that it's the only way I can think of to make the wage gap smaller and making us all more wealthy. Yeah. Well, it truly is such an isolating experience. And I have my incredible partner who is not an entrepreneur and I can go to him and he can be supportive but doesn't fully get it. Or I can go to my best friend who's also not an entrepreneur who's like, again, supportive

but doesn't fully get it. And it's just so helpful just being in a room with other people who understand what it's like, but also like the connections that come from it and the relationships that are built, I think is just so powerful. And like men do the shit all the time. They go out golfing, they go in a boardroom together and they talk about business. And it's just like, this is so needed for women to like, yeah, get ourselves to the next level, support our employees in the best way to support the business in the best way possible. Yeah. I think also we need to share with each other and be vulnerable. Men don't mind sharing and we need to do that so that we can actually help each other a lot more instead of being

like, did you hear what she did this year in revenue? She's a loser, you know, which we can do to each other and it's terrible. Yeah, as opposed to being open and vulnerable and also perfect segue into what we do at her first 100k, but like talking about money, like talking about here's how I got this, here's what we did, here's who I talked to, here's exactly how much we brought in in this certain category. Like that's so helpful to hear because yeah, you might see somebody killing it, but you're wondering like, how did that happen?

Okay, if they're doing this partnership or they've launched this thing, where did they get the money to do that? How much did they raise? How much are they making now? That's so, so helpful to know because otherwise it's just this veiled thing that we have no idea about.

For sure. And I think that one of my favorite quotes, I think it was Sally Krocheck, was on my podcast and she was like, if women talked about money as much as they talked about sex, how much more money would we all be making right now instead of that being the front thing you gossip with your friends about? Right. Right. It's the number one conversation we will avoid talking about. Like we'll talk about sex, death, politics, religion, any other uncomfy topic before we will talk about money. Yeah.

You mentioned crypto and NFTs. I would be remiss if I didn't ask you really quick. How's that going? Oh, how's it going? Let's go back to the test and learn. We were part of something, we tested it, we made some good money, then the whole thing died and now the things that I didn't sell in time are sitting at half their value. So I mean, except for Bitcoin, which is up. But I think that we felt that it was important to be able to provide digital garments to our customer, to collect, to wear in games and trade. And there was a market for it. Then the market changed. And I said, good, we're done there. We'll go back if it heats up again. So I never looked at it like as a failure because there was

complete lack of me to control what happened in that arena. Right. But we had great success in it when we did. Well, and again, to your point about testing, like I love this idea of like, yeah, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens as opposed to thinking, oh my god, this might be a failure. So I'm never going to do it. And it's like, yeah, it's always how you define failure, like as a failure, it did not succeed. Well, what did you learn? Who did you meet? What happened from it? I don't think that's a failure. Not at all. And we we had great, earned media from it. We had great press, we had great exposure, we got a new.

The first time I ever met you was a dinner with our friends over at SoFi. And you were talking about, here's what we're doing. Like that was the first time I met you. That's right. So if we had never had an NFT, you and I never would have met. Look at that. NFT is bringing people together. Who would have thunk it? Rebecca, thank you so much for being here. Thank you both personally, just for your mentorship and for your support. It's going to make me a little weepy. But like, this is, yeah, this is fucking hard. And it's just really validating to know that not only can women fucking go out and kill it, but also that you are passing the baton and bringing us with you. And that means just

the world. And also just professionally, just how big of an impact you've made for literally millions of women across the world. So thank you. Where can people find you, find out more about you, plug away. Okay, here come all the plugs. You can buy my books, Fearless, the New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success wherever you buy books. You can subscribe to my new sub stack, rebecca minkoff.substack.com. That's more the personal side of life. My Instagram, at Becky Minkoff or at Rebecca Minkoff if you want the brand. RebeccaMinkoff.com to buy the best bags ever. Is that it? I think that's it. Oh, and my podcast, I'd be Duh! Super Women with Rebecca Minkoff, which you're going to be coming on soon, which I can't wait. And if you are an entrepreneur

and you want a community, femalefoundercollective.com. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Rebecca, as always, for joining us. You can access all good things, Rebecca Minkoff at RebeccaMinkoff.com. Please also join the Female Founder Collective. It is one of the most incredible communities I found for women in entrepreneurship. I actually spoke at their seven-figure summit last year, their net retreat, all about how to grow your social media and grow your Instagram.

It is such an incredibly powerful, well-connected group of women who is actually teaching people how to run a business. It's not just like show up, take pretty photos, because I've been to those events too. It is like, here's how to raise money. Here's how to find the people you need to talk to. Here's how to hire. Here's how to fire. Like if you want to run a business or are running the business and you're trying to get to the next level, could not recommend Female Founder Collective enough. Thank you as always for being here, Financial Feminist.

To support the show, which is very expensive for us to produce, but free for you to listen, you can subscribe, you can share it with a friend, you can leave us a five star review. We really appreciate it. And it's the easiest thing you can do to support us and make sure this show continues running. So we appreciate it very much. Thank you as always. We'll catch you on the flip side. Bye. Thank you for listening to Financial Feminist, a Her First 100k podcast. Financial Feminist is hosted by me, Tori Dunlap, produced by Kristen Fields, associate producer Tamisha Grant, researched by Ariel Johnson, audio and video engineering by Alyssa Medcalf, marketing and operations by Karina Patel, Amanda LeFeu, Elizabeth McCumber, Masha Bakhmakiyeveth,

Taylor Cho, Kaylin Sprinkle, Sasha Bonar, Claire Karonen, Darrell Ann Ingman, and Janelle Reisner. Promotional graphics by Mary Stratton, photography by Sarah Wolf, and theme music by Jonah Cohen Sound. A huge thanks to the entire Her First 100k team and community for supporting this show. For more information about Financial Feminist, Her First 100k, our guests, and episode show notes, visit financialfeministpodcast.com.