Good Life Project - The Wildfang Way | Emma Mcilroy

Episode Date: August 8, 2019

Growing up outside Belfast, Ireland, Emma Mcilroy was obsessed with all-things athletics, while also developing a fierce interest in human behavior. She went on to Cambridge, then landed in the world of business, starting out at Barclays in London. Soon after, McIlroy jumped companies and countries to work for Nike in Oregon. Still, something else, a powerful and deeply personal vision, bundled with a movement to smash gender norms, support equality and empower expression was brewing. So she left to launch her own brand, Wildfang (https://www.wildfang.com/), upon the "belief that a womxn has the right to wear whatever the hell she likes and be whoever the hell she likes." Wildfang now boasts locations in Portland, LA and NYC, and has built a global following and fanbase of badass celebs including Janelle Monae, Chvrches, Lizzo, Rachel Evan Wood, and Blondie.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So growing up in a small town outside of Belfast, Ireland, my guest today, Emma McElroy, was kind of obsessed with sport and with athletics. And with a couple of brothers who were similarly wired, she was just encouraged to go and pursue it and become incredible at anything she wanted to do. And she didn't really realize until later that that was what she now calls, in her words, a privilege to really step into her own identity, to not have to conform to some sort of role that maybe society or others thought was the appropriate way for her to be. She eventually ended up going on to Cambridge, worked in London, and then found her way to Nike

and was rising up the ranks really quickly there until everything changed. She made an abrupt jump into the world of entrepreneurship and founded something called Wild Fang in Portland, which has now grown to have locations in LA and New York, has launched a really powerful, not just brand, not just about fashion, not just about things that you wear and that you put on your body, but also about ways for people who have very often been ignored and left behind by that entire world to actually find things that honor their identity, that allow them to step into who they are and express themselves fully in the world. And that journey to creating and building Wild Bang, the moments that led up to that, is where we go in today's conversation.

Super excited to share it with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. If you're at a point in life when you're ready to lead with purpose, we can get you there. The University of Victoria's MBA in Sustainable Innovation is not like other MBA programs. It's for true changemakers who want to think differently and solve the world's most pressing challenges. From healthcare and the environment to energy, government, and technology, It's your path to meaningful leadership in all sectors. For details, visit uvic.ca slash future MBA. That's uvic.ca slash future MBA. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest

Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. I grew up kind of in the countryside, just outside of a small town. And I think every kid feels like their childhood's normal, right? So it depends on what normal is for you.

But I'm very grateful for where I grew up because Northern Ireland is an interesting place that gives you perspective, you know? So, yeah, I grew up through the 80s, born at the start of the 80s. So I grew up through most of the Civil War and the conflict. Come from a very working class part of the world. I mean, when you were a kid, were you, what was it, because probably a lot of people know the history in the 80s, probably a lot of people don't, but there was an incredible amount of strife, of violence. Were you immediately aware of it or involved in it or around it in sort of like a day-to-day way?

Yeah, so, yeah, there was a 30-year civil war, 30-year conflict. And in some parts, it still exists in small ways. The peace agreement sort of brought the two sides together. But for those who are listening and don't know, it's a Catholic-Protestant rivalry conflict that's largely territorial and in part religious. Yeah, so I have an interesting connection to it. So the first thing I would say is I grew up in a community that was predominantly Protestant.

You know, most people, when you grew up in a community that was either predominantly Protestant or predominantly Catholic, there was just less conflict. That was the bottom line. So those were the safer places to grow up because everybody was more similar, right? But was I aware of it? Of course. I mean, I'm sure by the time I was 10, I had been in 30 or 40 bomb scares, right? So there were things that were normal.

It was weird for me when the police, the army left the streets. It was more normal to have them on the streets because that's how I'd grown up. My dad worked in forensic. My dad set up the fire and bomb lab in Northern Ireland. So every time a bomb went off, he had to go and determine who had built it and how it had been built. And that was not a great job to have in the 70s and early 80s in Northern Ireland. So we grew up very much, I guess I would say, down the middle. Because when you've seen people killed by bombs that had nothing to do with it, you see a different side of the conflict.

So yeah, my parents were very much about get out, see the world, meet other people, meet people from different backgrounds, and then you will understand that our conflicts and our differences are actually not that big. Yeah. Did you guys travel when you were younger or was it more like when you get a chance you go out into the world and do that thing? It was more the latter. We grew up pretty working class, so travel for us was Scotland.

But yeah, you know, as soon as I got the opportunity, I played a lot of sport. So I played a couple of sports for Ireland and I got the chance to compete abroad. So that was one way that I got out. You know, I got to run in Belgium and Norway and France and a bunch of different countries. So I definitely got to meet people from all over the world, which was a really cool way to get perspective. Yeah. It sounds like sport was such a central part of your life also, and I guess to this day remains. Yeah. You know, I was a sport obsessed obsessed if it had a ball i played it and even if it didn't have a ball i gave it a go um my brother my elder brother was professional runner

so he was an olympic athlete top 10 in the world so um as every little girl who's obsessed with her big brother you know i used to follow him to every race and every competition world champs olympics euro champs um so if i wasn't watching it, I was either coaching it or playing it. It was one of the three. So we grew up in a really sporty family. And I think sport arguably probably prepared me best for what I'm doing now. Yeah. In what way?

Well, you know, my sport, my main sport was middle distance, which is pretty much like the worst thing you can do in the world. Right. It's not over quickly. No. Well, I used to say that middle distance is kind of like we're all born with a bubble. And the question is, how far can you push your bubble? Right. And a middle distance pushes you physically, mentally, emotionally. You constantly think in both sessions, in training and in competition, you constantly think you can't go any further and you're done and you're broken.

And then somehow in between those reps, you get back up and you get on the line. I think that resilience is really important in startup. And then I think the other thing is just, you know, I've lost a lot. I've lost more times than I've won. You know, if you win too many times, you're not racing hard enough competition, right? So if you lose more often than you win, you're ensuring that you're in the right pedigree of field. So it's not a big thing for me in startup when I fail because I'm used to failing and I'm used to that experience. And I'm very aware that, I mean, it sounds cliched, but I'm very aware that failure is a part of the innovation journey or a part of the progression journey, not a setback.

Yeah. It's interesting. The word grid has been tossed around so much these days, and you see that in the entrepreneurship community, in the business community a lot. And it seems like whatever this thing is that makes you say, like, this is the thing that I want to do, and I am going to do everything I can possibly do to try and make it happen, even in some of the hardest domains on the planet, that you have that in you. I'm curious, and I don't even know if you can answer this question, but I'm curious about it. Do you have a sense that that was cultivated through your lifelong passion for participation in sport and athletics? Or do you feel like that was something that was a part of you more

organically, or maybe it came from somewhere else, and it just manifested in sport? No, I think sport definitely built it. I remember being what we would call a wee shit when I was younger. I had a temper. I was arrogant. I expected to win. As my dad would say, sport knocks the eye of you, right? So I definitely learned a lot of those lessons.

It's not like I was born special in any way. And then I would also say I owe a lot to my parents. So I grew up with two big brothers. And it's a lot of what led me to Wildfang is I grew up very privileged. And I don't mean in the sense of money or power or anything like that. I mean, in the sense of I didn't realize there were gender rules. I didn't realize I was supposed to do things differently. All I wanted to do is be my big brothers. And my parents raised me as if there were gender rules. I didn't realize I was supposed to do things differently. All I wanted to do was be my big brothers, and my parents raised me as if we were all equal. So I didn't realize there were careers that I shouldn't do or wasn't supposed to do.

I didn't realize there were things I weren't supposed to wear. I didn't realize I was supposed to not be as powerful or strong or fast as the boys, or I was supposed to care more about my looks. I was raised fairly unaware of the gender rules and gender limitations that most of society kind of puts on kids, particularly at high school. So if you ask most women in America, they'll tell you that at high school, they spent most of their time thinking they were fat and trying to get skinnier. I spent most of my high school trying to get ripped. You know, I was just trying to put on more muscle and get faster. And I didn't realize that that was uncommon thinking. So I think I see that as privilege, tremendous privilege. And I think that's a feeling

that I want, truthfully, every woman in the world to have. I want every single young woman to grow up with that and to grow up feeling that way and without those gender restrictions. Yeah. It also seems like your mom has played sort of like a large part in your, the way that you look at the world, the way that you look at a sense of identity and possibility. Yeah. If you'd met my mom, you'd know why. Tell me more. She is a larger than life character. Yeah. You know, my mom and my dad both played a massive role. As my parents used to say, we are an island off an island. We're not even an island. We are an island off an island. And so we're very small and most people don't even know we're here. And so, yeah, you just get perspective and, you know, you realize there's a big old world out there and there's a lot of possibility in it. And they did a nice job of reminding me of that while also reminding me I

was going to have to work hella hard to get to it. But yeah, I would say they're both pretty big personalities and you would know if they're in the room. Let me put it like that. You've, I know you've shared a moment in a story and a phrase that seemed to drop when you were a kid that stayed with you and seems sort of like a guiding principle in your life, which is, it's sort of like a lens on possibility, which is instead of shutting something down, it sort of like invites like, huh, maybe. Can you tell me what the phrase is and a little bit more about how that sort of like entered your experience and why it stayed with you for so long? Yeah, I think the phrase is, yeah, maybe. And the alternative to yeah, maybe is yeah, right.

And yeah, right shuts down things immediately, shuts down conversation, shuts down possibility, shut down ideas, and often also makes the recipient of that phrase feel a bit shit, to be honest. Yeah, now have a staff, right? I have a staff of like 35, 38 people. And, you know, a lot of people work at Wildfire because of our mission, right? And because of the impact we're having on the world. So I get a lot of people in their first job or straight out of university and they're so excited to work for our brand and they so believe in our brand. They don't necessarily have any corporate training or an understanding of what a workplace is. And so we've built this culture where ideas come from anywhere. They can come from any person anywhere in my organization. And so sometimes when the ideas come to you as someone who does have 15 years corporate experience, you can see the flaws and you can see the weaknesses in those ideas that get presented to you. And I was in a conversation

with my customer service manager. This was a couple of years ago and she presented an idea that was completely bizarre, wacky and weird and seemed to have loads of problems with it. But I also, the particular idea she presented to me, I hadn't thought of it that way before. And I find myself thinking about a time, I don't know why I flashback to it, but I thought about a time when I was seven years old

and I was on the beach in Northern Ireland and I was such a nerdy kid. I was a massive nerd. I was really into science. And someone had taught me how to hunt for fossils, how to identify ammonites and some other basic fossils on the shore. And, of course, Northern Ireland has a big shoreline and, you know, we've had a lot of activity on that shoreline. And so it's a good place to hunt for fossils. So I'm on the beach. I'm seven years old and I find this rock. And I thought it was a mammoth's foot because I'm seven. And the

rock was about five or six inches in diameter. And the reason I thought it was a mammoth's foot was because I could see a toenail. That's what I thought it was. And so I walked over to my mom, and I said, a bit like this kid in customer service coming up with this crazy idea for me, I walked over to my mom and I said, Mom, I found a mammoth's foot. And at that moment, my mom, in my mind, had two options, much like I did with this, you know, 24-year-old customer service representative standing in front of me. I could either say, yeah, right, or yeah, maybe. I could either say, yeah, sure, that's a mammoth's foot. Maybe, yeah, maybe, we'll see. You know, let's go to the museum and check it out. Or I could say, yeah, right. There's zero chance that that six inch rock you're holding in front of you is the foot of a six ton, three million year old mamm foot. Let's go to the museum. Now, I'm sure a

large part was my mum just wanted to simply educate me on dinosaurs and take me through the dinosaur exhibition at the museum. But regardless, we went to the museum. I handed it in. We go around the dinosaur exhibition. I learn about dinosaurs. I become even more obsessed with dinosaurs. And at home the next day, we get a phone call and it's the head of paleontology for the Ulster Museum and he says, is Emma there? My mum says, no, Emma's seven, you can't talk to her. What do you want? And he says, well she found an ichthyosaurus skull

it's 200 million years old and it's the best example of such a skull that anyone in Ireland's ever found, so we need to talk to her. My mum was like, you mean the mammoth's foot? And I think about that, and you can go to the museum in Belfast, the Ulster Museum in Belfast, and still see that exhibition. I went there last week, actually, and saw it.

And it says seven-year-old schoolgirl Emma McElroy found this amazing fossil. The point is that fossil wouldn't exist. That piece of history wouldn't exist. The thousands and thousands and thousands or millions of people who have seen it and admired it wouldn't have seen it had my mum shut that idea down on the beach. And, you know, as I thought about what happened with her on the beach, I realized that I had the opportunity to do that in small ways every single day with my staff. Every single day I had the opportunity to allow.

You're not saying yes, definitely. You're saying yes, maybe. I'm not saying your idea is perfect. I'm saying run with it, go with it, allow it to grow, explore it. And, you know, the fact is I was completely wrong. I hadn't found a mammoth's foot. I'd find a Nyctheus or a skull, but if she'd shut it down, that would never have ended up where it did.

And so, you know, I think about that all the time because, like I say, I'm faced with it every day as a leader in the business, whether I'm going to shut down ideas or allow them to grow. And sometimes when you're under stress and you're under pressure to grow the business and you have to move fast, it feels easier to shut things down. And I think we're also a society that likes to be right and likes to one up each other in forms of intelligence, you know, and be critical of one another rather than allowing things to grow and evolve. And so, yeah, that's I gave a TED talk on it. And it's it's been something I really try to

think about every day. It's it's so simple. Most people, you know, when people hear it, they're like, yeah, of course I do that. And then you're like, do you really like think about it every single time someone asks you a question or ask you for input, do you? And actually, when you keep it at the front of your mind and, you know, I almost visualize, yeah, right, yeah, maybe when someone asks me for advice. And it's harder than you think. It's harder than you think. Well, I think because our default is always, well, what's the safest option for – what's the option that is the least risky and also covers me? Yeah. And very often that's the one that doesn't expose you to uncertainty.

It doesn't expose you to uncertainty. It doesn't expose you to stakes. You know, so it's like, because we act from a place of wanting to feel safe, we don't acknowledge the possibility, even if it's a small possibility of something that's going to have to have us not just potentially green light more effort for someone else, but us sort of like be associated with it in some way, shape or form. Expose yourself. Because then we're at on the line at the same time. You know, but it's interesting to me, because as you're saying this, I'm also thinking, okay, so you're the founder of a company that yes, started with your own money, but at some point you also went out and raised capital. So at some point you're the person who's asking other people to look back at you and say, yeah, maybe.

And had nobody been willing to do that, it's just like the ripple effect of this, like as it goes out into higher and higher sort of like circles, that nothing new is really possible without somebody standing in that place. Yeah. And I actually get, you're completely right. I actually get most obsessed with the idea of how we say it to ourselves, because actually I'm completely obsessed with the fact that we shut our own possibility down every day. And I think if you can actually just say, yeah, maybe do yourself and allow your thought to grow and be explored a little more, I think you can do stuff you never even believed was possible.

But I think actually we shut ourselves down mentally more than we realize. Yeah. What do you think of the idea, sort of building on that, of looking at things you say yes to more as experiments rather than sort of like large scale commitments. Yeah, I mean, I talk about it when people ask me. I talk about failure as falling forward. It hurts. It hurts like hell. But the view from where you land is normally better than the one where you start it.

Like it's that simple. And so almost every great decision or great moment in Wildfang's history has come from failure without question and and my team the culture that we've built is so focused on adopting and accepting failure and then learning from it and sharing learnings and when you you know it's really interesting what happens when from leadership down you accept and own failure it gives such permission to the rest of the organization and the organ is you know the organization becomes an organism it it starts to grow and move in ways that you didn't realize possible because people feel truly empowered.

Not empowered in the shallow sense, but truly empowered to try and feel. And because they are empowered and because they are owners, they want to learn and grow from that failure. And that's when really cool stuff starts to happen. Yeah, it's like it normalizes the experience to a certain extent.

So then it's like, well, if everyone's doing it, it's almost like I'm the weirdo if I'm not putting myself out there and trying things that may well just like lead me to fall flat on my face. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I can't tell you how many times I feel. I feel every day. It's like just part of the program. Yeah, like raising my hand. Yes.

Yeah, no, for sure. But every one of those makes me better, stronger, bigger. You know, I obsess the learnings from it. So, yeah, it's such a weird word for me. I don't even really associate with it to be honest. Yeah. I want to come, um, I want to circle back and explore a whole bunch more around wildfire, but let's fill a little bit of the gaps here. Um, super athletic kid, um, brought up where you were. You ended up eventually in Cambridge. I did. I was a science nerd at Cambridge.

What'd you study specifically? So at Cambridge, they make everybody study the same degree, which is called natural science. And you have to study three of the four sciences. So I started with math, chemistry, and biology. And eventually I specialized in experimental psychology and neuroscience. What was it about that? You know, I'm really obsessed with why humans do what they do. So why we think, behave, memorize from the very psychophysical. So why a sound makes us pay attention, what we take in in our visual field. So all the way from psychophysics all the way through to memory and behavior. But I'm obsessed with that, why we each do what we do and the ability to control those things, you know, whether it's advertising or chemicals. I mean, there's just, I find that truly fascinating.

And to me, a lot of science was hard to relate to the real world. It was very much in a petri dish in a lab, and there was a leap from that to the practical. That is not the case for neuroscience and psychology. It's very real. Yeah. Was there a point where you thought you might actually sort of like pursue advanced degrees or even academia in that world? Yeah, I wanted to do a PhD, actually.

It's funny you ask me that. I wanted to do a PhD. Rest in peace, my favorite professor, Nicholas McIntosh, who essentially invented the field of associate of an instrumental learning. And he also did a lot of great work in IQ. But he was a brilliant professor. And in the year that I wanted to do a PhD, he retired. And so actually I probably owe him one because being stuck in a lab with 40 or 50 rat for the next six years

was probably not a good idea for me. No, I was obsessed by it. I actually was a bit of a generalist, so I don't even know if I was smart enough to do a PhD, to be honest. But yeah, I loved the behavioral stuff. I'm pretty social, so being in a lab with a bunch of rats for four years was probably going to be tough. It's funny, I had a flashback of what you were saying. My dad had one job his whole life.

He was a research professor. He ran a lab researching human cognition, like human learning. Oh, so cool. Where was that? CUNY College in New York. Cool. But I remember when I was a little kid going to his lab and he had rats and pigeons. And it was years he slowly progressed into like human beings and students and all sorts of other much fancier stuff and fMRIs and things like that. It's mind blowing. I mean, when you see experiments of how you can, I don't want to say control

because that sounds manipulative, but when you can affect human behavior in a really strong way, it blows your mind. Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg.

You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary. I mean, it's interesting also to have that background and then take that and go into the world of business, especially sort of like with a really interesting emphasis on marketing and messaging and brand development because it's almost like you're cheating. I know, I sound really freaky and creepy. No, I don't. Yeah, no, I promise I'm not creepy. Yeah, no, I guess that's a fair point. I think it just becomes marketing and brand building just becomes a translation of that in the real world. And ultimately, I was obsessed with, you know, the brands I've worked on in my life. The first one I built was the Premier League. So I worked on that brand. That was Barclays.

Yeah, I was at Barclays. And they had the sponsorship of the Premier League. And, I mean, people go bonkers for that property, right, and bonkers for their team. And I'm a huge Liverpool fan. So that was cool. And I cut my teeth there. I learned the trade there. And then I went to Nike, which arguably, you know, one of the best brands in the world.

And then I started my own brand at Wildfang. So all I've really cared about since I got into business is making a deep emotional connection with a consumer and making them feel, you know, delighting them, surprising them, creating these strong emotional reactions in the consumer, whether it's through content, events, experiences, products. I've been really lucky to work on some great properties and there's nothing greater than when you make someone's day through one of those properties. Yeah. How did you make the jump from, I can see Cambridge, I can see the emphasis on like

studying human behavior to Barclays and certainly again, because it's also close by, it's an easy starting point. How do you go from there in London though to Nike in Portland? Because that's a much bigger jump. It is a little bit of a bigger leap. It's four or 5,000 miles. I went into banking because that's what everybody does. So I went into banking.

The logical next step. Yeah. And I picked the banking program where I made the most money. And I did it for 12 months. And I thought, I'm going to be an awful human. Like, I'm going to be the worst human that's ever existed. Because I have a wildly competitive side. I have occasionally an ego. And I just, none of those things need it fueled,

and banking was fueling them. Like, I was getting rewarded really heavily for them. And I kind of looked around at the people, you know, who were 20, 30 years above me, and I thought, I don't want to be any of these people. Like, I want to be a good human. I don't want to be, and a good human, like, that's so judgy, so maybe I take that back. But I just don't want to lead the life any of these people are leading.

I want more than that. And so there was only one team in the bank that didn't do banking, which was the Premier League team. People used to laugh at our team because everybody in the bank made money and we spent it. So there was only one team that didn't do banking, so I joined that team. And it was a great few years. And then because my brother was an international runner,

I used to follow him everywhere and, you know, just was obsessed with him and wanted to be like him. And I would go with him to the European Champs, the World Champs, the Olympics. And I was at one of those events and this guy came up to me in the warmup area and said, you know, where do you work? And I said, well, I work at Barclays. And he said, well, would you ever want to work at Nike? And I was like, I mean, just like out of the blue, completely out of the blue. And, and he was a publisher. He published a ton of running magazines in the US and he knew the guy, a British guy had just taken over at Nike running, um, Leslie. And, um, he said, he's trying to diversify the team. He's trying to put women, uh, Europeans, people under 40, like he's trying to

build a more diverse, uh, organization. Um, you know's trying to build a more diverse organization, you know, and you seem really into the sport, so you should go talk to him. And yeah, he hired me and he put me into London for a few years. And then the mothership called and they moved me to the U.S. And I'd never been to America before. So that was quite the adventure. Yeah, especially landing in Portland, which is sort of like its own special sauce version of America. I actually landed in Beaverton and I thought it was Portland, but I didn't know. That was like HQ for Nike.

Yeah, a lot of weird things happened. I got into the car and I phoned my mom. I had to go and use a pay phone because it was before mobile phones. I phoned my mom and I said, Mom, I just got into the car. She's like, okay. I said, it's got PR and 123D and 1, 2, 3, D on it. What do I do with it? And she was like, oh, you're in an automatic.

And I was like, well, what do you do with an automatic? I said, I've been looking for the clutch for like 15 minutes. And she was like, oh, it's just like a go-kart. I was like, what do you mean? She's like, you just go forward and backwards. That's it. Just go to D or park. And so with the instructional, it's just like a go-kart.

I got in and drove around Oregon for a bit. But yeah, there was a lot of weird and wonderful things that happened in my first adventure in America. Yeah. So when you landed at Nike and you're working there, what were you actually doing? What was your jam there? Yeah, I started as an associate brand manager, so a BB brand manager. And then I worked my way up to a senior brand manager. My last stint was actually in product, which is a bit weird,

but I was a product manager on the fuel band, so I did some digital sports stuff. And I really only took the product role because I knew in this new venture that I was going to start, I was probably going to be the CEO, so I was going to have to get back to numbers and supply chains and logistics. So I wanted to step outside of brand marketing to do that. But primarily I was a brand marketer, which just means I was bringing Nike's products to market four times a year, creating assets to allow us to storytell about those products in each of the different channels.

So PR, events, retail, social, brand comms, all those good things. So just basically different pieces of content in different channels to communicate the benefits and the excitingness of the products to the consumer. Yeah. I mean, when you talk about it, you have a lot of energy, which makes me feel like this was actually meaningful. You learned a lot. You enjoyed your time there. It was valuable.

And you're nodding along with people who can't see. But what makes you then say, and you're working for one of the premier brands in the world, right? In their, you know, like main corporate offices. So what, what makes you, how do you reach a point where you're like, you know what? There's something else calling me. So the funny thing was I didn't want to leave. So I, you know, I was reluctantly an entrepreneur, let's say a reluctant CEO. So I'm sport obsessed. I'm at the greatest brand in the world, and I'm doing what I believe to be the greatest function in the world, which is brand marketing. So I have no intention of leaving.

And my best friend has this idea. We're in Urban Outfitters. We're shopping. We've wandered through the women's section. We end up in the men's section. And I love graphic tees. Like if I could basically just roll out of Patti Smith or Keith Richards wardrobe every day, like I'd be psyched, right? So I have this kind of rock and roll vibe most of the time. And I love a graphic tee. And the truth is women's

graphic tees are largely crap or were at that point in time. This was 2011. They are scoopy and frilly and have flowers on them and are weak colors and pastel shades and stuff. And there's never been really bold in the women's section. Now that has changed thanks to Wildfine. But at the time, that was true. So I'm looking at this graphic tee in the men's section, which has semi-clad Kiat Moss on it, giving the bird to the camera. And just she's, you know, you don't know if you want to be her or sleep with her she's just so cool right and so my best friend is looking for a little blazer and she wants one with patches on the elbows and she finds one in the men's section and she's like five foot so she puts on you know drawings her and I put on the t-shirt and it doesn't fit because of my hips and it has a really high crew neck and so you know we're both we have this just light have this just light bulb moment. We're both standing there in products that we want, styles that we

want, but they don't fit. And she turned to me and she said, you know, I bet there's tons of women do this. I bet there's tons of women that want silhouettes that for whatever silly reason are not offered in the women's department. Or if they are, they're done really crappily, like really half-assed. She was like, I think, I think we should try to offer, you know, styles that normally live in the men's department to women, but make them really fit their frame. I said, that's cool. You can totally do that. I'm not going to do that.

I'm going to stay at Nike. And she very cleverly said, well, look, could you go do consumer insight work for me? Could you go talk to consumers, see, you know, who might want this, how many of them there are, what they look like, you know, why they want it to exist. And so it was 2011 into 2012. And I had a full time job and a lot of travel. So I used my nights and weekends and I interviewed 43 consumers for four hours each. So 170 plus hours of consumer work. And the first three or four that I spoke to were friends. And then after that, they just recommend other people and people love to talk about themselves. So, you know, I just find willing victims to be in my study. And I went through their wardrobe,

I went through their social media, you know, I went through all parts of their lives. And when I finished that work, I turned to her and I said, hey, I got to do this with you. Like it's the need is so real. There are so many women and so many women from very diverse backgrounds and very diverse identities who want this. They're either stealing their boyfriends' items of clothing, buying vintage and tailoring it, wearing their grandfather's military jacket from back in the day. You know, somehow they're getting to it, but no one's offering it. And then the other piece that came out of that research, truthfully, was that no retailer was really captive to Vietnamese women. They didn't feel particularly connected to any retailer.

Their version, you know, their perception of retail was lots of styles and cheap styles. So when I asked them what store they would take to a desert island or when they walk in the door, they're so glad they walked in, they feel at home. They just couldn't answer those questions. And the bottom line was, well, I'd probably take urban to the desert island because it just has so much stuff and something will always be on sale. And for me, as a brand marketer who wants to create things that people care about, that people feel connected to, that make people's day better and more, you know, enjoyable and

delightful, it was like, wow, that is so fucking depressing that the future of retail is lots of stuff and stuff on sale. Like, there has to be better. We have to give women better. And so I basically, you know basically said to my best friend, I said, I think there's something here. I think if you can offer these styles through values that this girl cares about

and really build a community for her, I really think you can be her favorite brand. I think you can win with her. And I might only get one chance in my career to build a brand and this might be it. So I'm going to go do it. So yeah, it's kind of funny looking back on it. She wanted it to be a small store in Portland

where she could bring her dog to work and create a playlist every morning. And then I turned it into a multi-million dollar online offline business with a bunch of staff. So that was a little rude. It sounds like you're both well served by that. You know, it's interesting though, because you talk about it, you know,

you say it's like there was nothing like, quote, this for women. You also talk about, you know, like this is the state of retail. But what I'm curious about is what does retail mean to you in the context of the way a woman lives her life and expresses herself in the world? Because to me, it's like I don't, you're using the word retail, but what I'm getting from you is it's much bigger. Sure. Yeah, but let's not forget, you know, retail's like a couple hundred billion dollars, right?

So I think the connection is that how you self-express, firstly, if you can self-express is a tremendously important thing. And then how you self-express is a tremendously important thing. And many of us have gone through the world feeling very comfortable in self-expression. And there's a large number of women that have not. And it's really shit when you can't self-express. And it's really shit when you don't feel comfortable in your own skin and how you show

up in the world. And the fashion industry is a big part of that. It's your uniform. It's literally what the world sees every day. And it tells people a lot about you. And so if you're not comfortable, that's a really bad equation, you know. So I would say if you look at fashion or, you know, retail, there are just so many crappy messages we give people every day, but particularly women, you know. So body size, body diversity, you know, 57% of the population is a size 14 and above. And yet we continue, I mean, Wildfang is one of the few brands that has models up to a size 20 on our website, like good luck finding that from the

other guys, you know, and that's not cheap, right? That's, that's three photo shoots. When we shoot on a size two, a size 12 and a size 18 or 20, that's three foot we shoot rather than one, but it's just the right thing to do. So, you know, we don't show various body sizes. We don't show, you know, women who present differently. Like our models might have short hair, long hair. They might be queer. They might be straight. They're from all types of socioeconomic backgrounds,

all types of some of our models use they, them pronouns rather than she, her pronouns. We're just trying to reflect the world in a more real way and a way that people can relate to. I just think fashion is such a massive part of that. And it gives you, fashion can give you such confidence when you truly are self-expressed in the way you want to. You get confidence that releases potential.

That's the bottom line. I mean, it seems like the opposite could also be true, not just not being able to find what you want to express yourself, but I wonder if there's also a signal if you're just looking, looking, looking, looking and saying, okay, so nobody's catering to me. Nobody's actually giving me options that will let me step into my identity and share who I am in an unfiltered way with the world. Is that also, is the reason that nobody's

out there doing this because there's something wrong with the way I am? Like, I wonder if that's part of the process. Yeah. And then you imagine you're not in New York City, right? Where you can see lots of diversity. You imagine you're in Kansas or Sioux Falls, South Dakota, or we have customers in all sorts of places, South Dakota, or we have customers in all sorts of places, you know, and it's become really clear to me on this journey just how important Wildfang is for those customers because they feel connected to others who are like them and they feel aware of diversity. I was just with someone this morning for breakfast and I was talking about, we were talking about growing up in Ireland and I'm queer, he's queer, and we were

talking about how unaccepted it largely was. And actually, he's a couple of years older than me. And when he was growing up, it was actually illegal for four years after he came out. And we were talking about the importance of pride. And he said, even before Ireland had a pride, he used to see photos of the pride in London on the newspaper. And it was so important to him because he thought there's other gay people out there. Like, I'm not the only one. And you can translate that into any community.

You know, it's relevant to so many communities. But I think the bottom line is wildfying allows many, many people to feel seen, feel like they have a community, feel like they're part of something when the environment around them is telling them something very different. You know, and that might be body size, that might be career,

that might be sexuality, that might be the color of their skin. I mean, there's a lot of things go into that. But yes, I think you're right. I think that's a really dangerous thing. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like what you're offering helps validate who somebody feels they are in the world. It's not that they need somebody else or a brand to come in and validate who they are on an identity level. But if the entire universe of things that would let them express that is not giving them an option, and for whatever reason, you don't have the inner fortitude to actually say, screw it.

This is me. I'm bringing myself to the world no matter how I need to do it. And we're not all that strong. No, exactly. We're not all that strong all the time. And to have somebody else step in and say, I see you, and that's cool, and we're making things for you, it's powerful. Yeah, we've always tried to see ourselves as her big sister. Like, you know, the person that will take the first punch for you at the bus stop kind of thing, you know?

I totally get where you're going. I wouldn't use the word validate because it's not our permission to validate anyone. It's the wrong word for sure. But it's just, we have, honestly, like, startup's the hardest thing I've done. It's the hardest journey i've ever been on for a million reasons but on the hardest days and at the hardest moments uh it's the consumer's experience that keeps me going like the stuff that happens in our stores or in our social communities is so powerful you know and i mean after the not that we probably want to get political but after

the election in 2016 like i thought potentially wildfirefine was done. You know, as a CEO, I spend all this time pitching, raising money, creating decks that have, you know, time slides and total addressable market slides. And I have to explain how big the opportunity is and all this other stuff. And I thought, you know what, maybe I got it wrong. Maybe we don't need to exist. Maybe, maybe there aren't that many people who believe in what we believe in because it felt like that night maybe there wasn't. And so I pulled the team together the next morning. My team was devastated.

Each of them was devastated for a variety of reasons. They all had different fears and concerns. And I pulled them together and just listened to them, and I said, you know what, we're not going to market for a couple of days. We're just going to turn off the marketing engine. So we're not going to, we're going to open up our customer, we're going to send out an email that says if people want to talk, we're here, our customer service team is here.

We're not going to do any advertising. So turn off all the Facebook ads and the Instagram ads and the social ads. Don't send any emails. You know, don't post any product on our social channels. Just be there for the community. And then in the next three days were the three biggest sales days of our year. So that was a pretty clear message from my community that said, please don't go anywhere. Yeah.

They're like, no, we need you more than ever. We need you more than ever. And that was cool because that was a really dark moment for me. But those are the times where I remember why we do it. The experience that we give people in our stores, I think is second to none and everyone feels welcome there, no matter how they identify. So yeah, I'm really proud of what we do. Yeah. I'm really curious about the moment when you're coming out of that and you're like, let's kind of go dark for three days, not expecting what happened. And then when you start to see the first hint of like,

oh my, wait, what? Yeah, it was a wild feminist shirt. How does that, like, what's going on in your head when you're saying that? And I'm curious also what's happening with your team, because you go from one profoundly dark extreme and say, let's just breathe and pause. And then all of a sudden, it's like there's an influx of people saying, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Every single sale was a sudden, it's like there's an influx of people saying, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, every single sale was a wild feminist shirt. Every single sale without question

or multiple wild feminist shirts, which is one of the products we've become kind of famous for. Yeah, my first thought was, is the website broken? That's nearly always my first thought. I run engineering in my spare time, so it's not uncommon for the website to break.

So my first thought was, oh, God, something's broken. Then when I realized something wasn't broken, I went and sat with my customer service team and tried to figure out what was going on. And what was amazing was a lot of people were phoning the place orders because they just wanted to talk. They wanted to tell our team why they were buying them. They wanted to say, keep going. They wanted to say our team why they were buying them. They wanted to say, keep going. They wanted to say, thank you. They wanted to say, I'm buying 10 for my 10 friends because we have to stand up now more than ever. So I really tried to get close to customer service so I could hear those stories and in the stores and with our retail team.

So it was really powerful, especially, you know, we've already talked about this, but some of the most powerful stories for me were from the middle of the country, from people in Republican states that had to go to a Republican office place the next day and didn't feel safe and knew that everyone in their office place was going to be celebrating and excited about Trump's victory. And they did not feel that way. And they felt unsafe, quite literally. And they would wear their, some of my favorite stories were the people who would wear their Wild Feminist under their button up and under their suit. Just because they didn't feel safe enough to wear it outside. And it also wasn't appropriate for work attire. But they felt just a little bit braver and stronger because they had it on.

And fuck, man, that's like the coolest thing you can do is create something that gives people strength. Yeah, it's like Superman on the club exterior. You just kind of know it's there. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like I said, being, you know, I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Northern Ireland, you know, my entire town was like 16,000 people when I was growing up. Right. And no one could find it on a map. So I know what it feels like to feel far away and to feel like you don't have a community. So I think it's really special when people feel connected and connected for the purpose of releasing potential

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Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required. Charge time and actual results will vary. How do you, you seem so driven by meaning and service and purpose with what you do. And yet at the same time, like you said, starting any startup, especially in retail in this day and age, is one of the hardest things you could do. It's brutally hard. And coming from your background where you actually have the knowledge and the skills and the tools and the understanding that you also have to be really focused on the bottom line and money and stuff like that. I mean, it's an interesting dance to do, especially in this day and age, right? When you've got to like, I have an entity and now you have investors. And at the same time, you're like, we have strong beliefs and we need to be in service of in a very pure way, balancing those two things on a daily basis.

Yeah, I don't have the answer. I just know I'm not, I don't, I don't have the answer because I don't want to tell anybody else what to do. I know what works for me. And I have real clarity on what gives me peace and joy. And that is making other people's lives better and trying to address some of the inequalities that I see. So the way I looked at it, startup is this weird, fucked up space, to be perfectly honest, where, you know, it's broken, the model is broken. We let the same group of people, you know, young white tech guys, we let the same group of people access all the, young white tech guys, we let the same group of people access all the capital.

They get taught the model that no one else gets taught. And then they, you know, they win big on the other end. And so the cycle continues, right? Which is why people like Arlen Hamilton at Backstage are doing such amazing things to break that cycle. But the model is very broken. And so I personally don't really want to subscribe to the model. So for me, I decided a couple of years back that I don't know how this goes. I don't know if Wildfang makes it.

Wildfang doesn't make it. I don't know if I'm a success or a failure by other people's standards. And I don't really care because what I know is I get up every day and I give it my absolute best. And we change people's lives. And it might be one person and that's okay. It might be one young, gender non-conforming person who has never felt comfortable in any retail space in their life who comes in with their mum and their mum bursts into tears because it's the first time anyone's given them an experience

where they feel accepted, loved and shown their potential. Like it might be that or it might be when we write, you know, a hundred thousand dollar check to the last abortion clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. And we know that the next 50, 60, 100 women that come in will have their abortion paid for by our community because of the work that we did. It can be all over the board what Wildfang does to contribute. But that is what I decided. I decided entrepreneurs are so focused on the end. What's the exit? How much do you make? You know, how much did you get bought for? I don't care. I don't give a fuck because what I can tell you with hand on heart and a hundred percent honesty is every single day

we help someone and we make someone's life better better and that's all you can do yeah the end of the day that's all you can do you know and then the matters yeah somebody said to me recently comparison is a thief of joy and i've become obsessed with this phrase yeah um totally agree yeah and and so uh i i just really focus on on making sure I'm giving my most and my best and I'm taking care of myself. And then also that I'm doing everything I can to make the lives of the community that follow us better. And that's pretty much it. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. When you talk about the people who are your customers, who are in service of of, your community. Fiercely devoted to you also.

And you said a number of times now that being inclusive, inviting everybody to this party is so important to you. How much of that comes from your own experience in the world versus experience in just seeing other people as you move through the business world? And then in you stepping into this place where like I have the ability to choose exactly who I want to reach out to and invite into this experience, into this solution. Well, that's the biggest part for me. It's the last part, which is recognizing the amount of privilege I have.

Like I get to walk into a room and fuck, I'm unsuccessful more times than I'm successful. But I get to walk into a room with very wealthy people and try to raise money. Do you know how many people get that opportunity? You know, do you know how many people wouldn't make it through reception? You know, but for whatever reason, you know, my skin color, my education, the fact that I speak English, whatever it is, I get into that room. Right. And so I am damn sure that every room I get into, I'm going to kick the door down for everybody that looks like me behind me. That's super important to me. You know, everybody with a funny Irish accent, every queer woman.

I am making sure that I'm using every opportunity I get to create a path for people that look and sound and act like me behind me because things just get, you know, the inclusion and diversity conversation is just really old. Like, I don't even know why we're still having it. I don't even know why we still have to prove it or just speak to it because it's, we're about to have Gen Z is going to be the most fluid identity of any generation yet. You know, more than 50% of American teenagers in Gen Z identify as something other than straight on the Kinsey scale of sexuality, right? First time in American history. More than 50% are from an ethnic minority race. First time in American history. 57% of them know someone with a gender neutral pronoun.

First time in American history. I mean, this generation is going to teach us, right? They are exploding and growing and evolving. And, you you know, we, we better get on their rules real fast. And it's, it's, the future is very bright and I'm very excited about that generation to come through. So, um, yeah, for as hard as it is and for as hard as it is with the current administration, um, and there was me saying, I'm not getting political and non-political for as hard as it can feel in some of this stuff, I am overwhelmingly assured and confident that we're going to be on the right side of history. And the future is, there's only one future. There is only one way this is going to go.

And that's tremendously exciting. So I just don't know what the other option would be. You know, diversity can only lead to better ideas, more productivity. And I feel very fortunate that whatever my small part in all of this is, I get to allow, you know, every other person that thought they didn't have a chance at being a CEO can look at me and go, well, I guess if she can do it, I can do it, right? Part of what you have put in place also is, at least it's in the Portland store. I don't know if you're doing it sort of like in different places also, is the weekly, not the weekly, the monthly gathering. Tell me more about like where this came from and what it's about and maybe a story or two that's actually emerged from it that's really touched you.

Is it the free speech? Yeah. Yeah. So free speech is exactly what it sounds like. It's a monthly event that happens in our stores. We have stores in L.A., New York and Portland. So that happens in our stores um we have stores in LA and New York and Portland so it happens in all the stores and basically what it is is um and it's been going for about three and a half years so um uh I saw things like Moth and Mortified which are great

um but they felt like competitions to me um which uh unfortunately creates kind of like a sport and in doing that when there's when there's competition inherently in it two things happen which unfortunately creates kind of like a sport. And in doing that, when there's competition inherently in it, two things happen. One is people really practice, and two is you limit the population who take part, right? And if you limit the population who take part in storytelling, you therefore limit the stories that are told, right? And you limit the number of human experiences that can be shared.

And so for me, I wanted to create something that was as broad and intersectional and representational as possible and allow all kinds of stories to be told. And so we have this event. We allow six women to tell their stories. There's a broad theme. And you can see a lot of this on our blog. A lot of this content is online. But people speak for five or six minutes. There's no marks, there's no scores, there's a broad theme and we get tons of first timers. And internally, we don't tell people externally, but internally we ensure that 50% of the lineup are always women of color and 50% of the lineup are always queer because to be completely honest, it started in Portland and it's too easy to do a

straight white girls event in Portland. So yeah, we kind of built that in from the start. And so we've had speakers as young as 16 and as old as 95. 95 is Miss Hattie in Portland. She was one of the first women in the Royal Marines in 1942, and she's amazing. So we have incredible diversity of speakers. And then in one month every year, we do anyone who doesn't identify as female.

So we turn it over to our gender nonconforming community and the men in our community to tell their stories. But for the other 11 months of the year, it's female identified. And there wasn't really, when we started this, anywhere that women had an intimacy of space to tell their stories, right? So we did that. And, you know, you asked me about stories that have affected me. I mean, we've, it's all over the board. I love it so much because, and it sells out every, every event, you know, we, we pack the, pack the doors every event, but we, we get stories from like someone who, who thought she was really cool and wore the same fluffy bunny slippers to school for four weeks until someone like told her, A, they smiled and B, they weren't cool.

And her perception of what cool is and where cool comes from and why we should allow our kids to be free from those terms at elementary school and high school. So, you know, we get this silly heartwarming story all the way through to, you know, probably one of the most powerful. There's two that come to mind. One was a woman who was mullibly and repeatedly raped by her staff sergeant in the Marines and she

didn't bring it up but actually she left the Marines because of her experience and one of her colleagues brought it up and it went through the investigative process and she got a phone call right before Christmas which she thought was the verdict and, it was the military to tell her that her statute of limitations had been reached, and they no longer had to reach a verdict on it. So, you know, you get this story where the whole room just sinks, the whole room just, you know, the their stomachs drop, and you know, people are in tears and stuff. So you get a story like that. Or we have a lot of people talk about mental health issues.

And, you know, one of the strongest stories that stands out to me is a young girl who tried to commit suicide and she talked through why she tried to do it and how she tried to do it. And then she talked about actually the night before the storytelling event, she'd had a terrible allergic reaction and she'd woken up in hospital and how grateful she was that she'd woken up and how much it meant to be alive. And yeah, so we just create this platform where people will share all kinds of stories, stories about, you know, equal pay or the corporate workplace, stories about abortion, stories about rape,

stories about mental health. And it takes the taboo out of the topic and it allows people to feel connected and you see a weight come off people. And the community is there for them and the community is there to love them and celebrate them and just, you know, hug them, actually, normally what happens when they get off the stage.

So that event's tremendously powerful. It continues to be one of the best things that we do. Maybe someday I'll turn them into a podcast or something. You never know. I mean, it's interesting because as soon as I, when I first heard about it, I was like, wow, this is really powerful. And then being, you know, like in the podcast space and, you know, the first thing that pops in my head, I'm like, wow, this is really powerful. And then being, you know, like in the podcast space, you know, the first thing that pops to my head, I'm like, wow, this would be really powerful as a series of podcasts too.

But then the next thing that popped into my head was, but would that also like potentially just completely go against the ethos of what this is all about, which is like a private safe space. I mean, obviously you get permission if you're going to do something like that. But even if people knew, like if people stood up, if those six people stood up, you know, and they knew that the story they were about to share would very likely go well beyond the walls of this one moment, this safe space, would that change the nature of the experience? Would that change what they said and didn't say? Would it change how they felt in that moment? And would it, like, I wondered whether it would,

in a meaningful way, change the quality and the intention of the entire thing. Yeah, it could. You might be totally right. And you certainly know more about podcasts than I do. But I think it depends on the speakers. Some people, you know, like that rape story that I was telling you about,

that woman had never told anyone that story. And then she gets up and tells 150 people in a packed house the story. And the reason she did, she stood up and she said, you know what, I was going to tell you a different story. But Brock Turner just got sentenced to three months in prison for rape. So I'm going to tell you a different story that I think you need to hear. And so I don't want to say there's an obligation, but these women tell these stories for others. They tell them as a way for others to, you know, to feel released from their their shame or their challenges or their loneliness. You know, it's just so weird how we this all comes back to the social pressures that we put on women in general, you know, and what's considered appropriate, not appropriate, normal, not normal, and it's

all bullshit. And so many of these women, yes, you're right, there's definitely women who would never want their story shared. But there's also women who really desperately want other women like them to know that it's okay, and to know that they've been there, and to know that it'll get better. And that's the coolest thing. That's the coolest thing about the event is when a speaker gets down, you watch eight or ten women rush towards them and be like, yeah, me too.

Like, I know exactly what you're talking about and thank you. Like, thank you for being so brave as to get up there and share that. So it's pretty special. It's still probably my favorite thing that we do. Yeah. When you think about, so Wildfang is about six years old now? Yeah, six years old. When you think about the idea that you had when you started this with your friend, right?

This sort of like seed of an idea, like she wants a place where she can go and hang out and work importantly with her dog. You're like, we're going to make this big national brand. You know, like there's a huge need. We validated for it. And then you think about reflecting over these six years and what the actual experience is of what you have built, how it's changed and morphed

and the effect that it's had on other people. I'm also curious what effect it's had on you. Yeah. What effect it's had on me? I mean, there's tremendous ups and tremendous dimes. So it depends which one you want me to talk about. Both. Both. Yeah, so on the upside, it's afforded me, if I'd worked at Nike, there's no chance I'd be sitting here, right?

So it affords me massive opportunities. I get to sit with people like Cecile Richards or Hillary Clinton or Janelle Monáe or Lizzo, right? Women that I massively admire and look up to. So, you know, I get the opportunity to work with these incredible individuals. I also get the opportunity to make a massive difference, like we've discussed. You know, when I spoke to the clinic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when we wrote that check, like, that was just cool. That was so cool.

Like, you know, their first question was like, why the fuck does someone in Portland, Oregon care about someone in Sioux Falls, South Dakota? You know, and it was like, well, actually, I think we have a bigger problem if we don't. But so I, you know, there's amazing opportunities. There's amazing ability to make impact, which I would never have had if I'd been a big brand. And then I would say the last, the last thing that comes to mind in terms of highs is the team I work with. Like they're just so special. They really are so special.

And this funny thing happens because you're in startup and no one's making enough money and everybody's working too hard, but you're all there for the same reason and you all have the same beliefs, and that's really weird. That doesn't happen anywhere else. It doesn't happen anywhere else that you put a team of 21 to 61-year-olds in the same place and they come to work every day for the same reason. You know, no one is coming just for the paycheck. You know, no one is coming for their position or power.

People are coming for the same mission to make women's lives better, right? And that's cool. That is such an amazing experience when you have it. On the lows, I mean, how long you got? You know, this journey has taken everything from me, to be completely honest, you know, it's taken at various times along the journey, you know, it's taken my financial security, I think I personally guarantee about $7 million right now, which, you know, good luck finding that. So, you know, I've pretty much put every asset I have on the line when I started it. I took out my 401k and put that on the line. So that's, you know, in there as well. I've lost multiple relationships. So, you know, I broke up with my fiance last year and a lot of that was due to the stress and pressure of the job and how it affected my life and our life. I have, you know, I used to live in a really nice

place and I downsized over the years to like a shoebox with no windows, right? Just me and my fat grumpy cat. Health wise, you know, I've had bouts of depression. I've had various like physiological shutdowns. Like I went through a really rough fundraising patch a couple of years back where I really struggled to raise money and like my GI tract basically shut down. So there's nothing really that hasn't happened to me at this point. I've had my biggest hire quit on my birthday. I've been as close to three days having like 72 hours of having no cash. I mean, lawsuits, threats. Yeah, I mean, there's pretty much nothing I haven't lived through at this point. And it has a tremendous mental, physical, physiological, emotional impact on you.

I think this is the loneliest thing I've ever done. I had no idea how lonely it was going to be. It's tremendous. But you learn, you learn to cope, you learn to grow. And, you know, it does ultimately make you stronger. I think it's just not that fun the whole way along, you learn to grow. And, you know, it, it does, it does ultimately make you stronger. I think it's just not that fun the whole way along, you know, but I'm, I'm, I'm very outspoken and transparent about my journey because I think, I think the media has a very messed up, uh, view of startup and has created a real, uh, falsehood and a real fallacy around startup, which is, you know, you have free kombucha and free lunches every day. And, you know, you make a fat salary

and you raise tons of money and you grow and it just gets better. And then you sell and you buy a penthouse in Silicon Valley or whatever you're going to do. And for so many of us, that's just not the journey. And I think because of the bullshit that's around venture capital and fundraising, we're very rarely, as entrepreneurs or as CEOs, we're very rarely vulnerable or honest about the impact. And all that does is create a cycle where other people aren't going to talk about it and other people are going to go to really dark places because they feel disconnected, lonely, and like they're the only ones suffering.

Yeah. No, I think it's so important to, the same way that you talked about normalizing failure for your staff, you know, having the conversation around the dark side of entrepreneurship, around the struggle, around the fact that this is really hard and that I have not met a founder, an entrepreneur who has not been through multiple, multiple moments where they were just completely on their knees, me included. Like it just, if you're in,

if you commit to starting, going from idea to something and then making that something continue to grow, even if it starts really easy and it seems like you're graced with everything from day one, you will hit a time where stuff gets brutally hard. And sometimes you don't see it coming and you don't know how to get out of it and you don't know how long it's going to last but um and i i

agree i think it's so important to tell that side of the story as well um not to dissuade people from getting into it but just to be honest about it and also because the more people who are sharing that, the more people who realize they're not alone. Like if you're in that space, like, oh, I'm not broken. This isn't broken. It's actually part of the natural cycle of this thing that I've chosen to raise my hand for. And I'm not alone. And maybe I can actually share what I'm feeling

with other people who are feeling similar things and may not cure the moment that I'm going through, but at least I will feel like I'm not there just sort of like trying to will it to happen all by myself. Yeah. And the problem is it's a vicious circle. You know, when you get to that dark place and you feel disconnected, then it just spirals. So yeah, I tend to be really honest and upfront about mental health struggles and about my dirty laundry because I think it's super important that anyone getting into this game understands exactly what's going to come next. Like, if you really pare it down, the equation is really messed up, right? So you have too few resources, you have very little experience, and you're creating something from scratch.

Like, that's a very difficult equation, and that's what we do. You know, I didn't – yes, I'm a really good brand marketer. I don't know shit about any of the other stuff. I had to learn it. I didn't know anything about e-commerce or fulfillment or engineering or customer service or, you know, merchandising. And I learned it. So I had way too little information or experience.

I don't have enough resources and never have had enough resources in terms of people or money or budget. And you're trying to create something that's never existed before, I mean, wow. So something's going to go wrong and something's going to break, and sometimes it's you is the truth. But, yeah, I think one of my gripes with startup media is it only really tells the story of those who win. It's a bit like history.

Selection bias or success bias. Exactly. Yeah, it only tells the stories of the people who succeed. And success is very one-dimensional in startup, which is typically selling your company. And so the funny thing for me is the people I add to my board and the people I learn the most from as mentors is people who've had tons of ups and downs. Because the downs is where they learned the lessons. And if everything's just gone right for you the whole time, you didn't learn any lessons. So you're not very helpful to me.

You're like, just do this because it always worked for me, right? And so I think the problem with startup media is twofold. One, it only tells the stories of the winners. So we lose tons of great stories and learnings. And secondly, it's looking backwards. We only talk to people at the end of the journey. And therefore, I compare it to pregnancy. You know, you look back and you're like, yeah, it was fine.

You know, if you'd asked them during labor, they would have been like, do not do this. It's the worst thing in the world. So when you look back as a founder on this incredibly hard time, you're like, yeah, sure, it was fine. I got through it, you know, and just do this and that. And the truth is, if you talk to them in the moment, it's devastating and scary and terrifying and, you know, sad and pressurized. And so I think startup media needs to do a better job of A, telling more stories and from more people and B, telling them in chronological fashion, not wait until the end of the journey. Yeah. And which means that also people have to be more open to actually telling that story as the founders, the individuals along the way.

But yeah, I remember a couple of years ago, Amy Hoy coined this term entrepreneur, which I've always loved because it's like, yeah, it's just like they tell the stories that are really sexy and the unicorns and stuff like this. And those are the rare, rare, rare examples of the reality of the life. And I think most people who are founders and entrepreneurs, brutal as it can be for long windows of time, if you ask them would they choose it again, most would say yes. Yeah. And I think in no small part because of all the other side that you've just shared. For sure.

You know, like the ability to actually walk in and say I've got 35 or 40 people and we are in love with each other and doing this for a reason that is bigger than all of us. And we see the effect that it has on people. Yeah. So as we sit here today in this conversation, and you're literally on your way back from Ireland, stopping through New York, heading to Portland. And also in Ireland, because you went there because there was family stuff that you had to deal with that I know has made you potentially a bit reflective just about your own life as well. If I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Wow. The two immediate thoughts that came up to live a good life,

the first was internal peace or internal contentment. So I think a lot of us are always striving and always pushing and always trying to get the next thing. And I think there's something very powerful in finding peace and contentment in where you sit today. So when I think about living a life, a good life, I think about the fact that I feel peace and contentment with today. So that was the first thought. And then the second thought was probably part of where that peace and contentment comes from internally for me is knowing that I'm leaving the world better than when I find it. It's that simple.

I think that would be what I would judge myself by whenever, you know, whenever you guys pop up a gravestone and stick me in the ground. I think the question is, did I leave the world better than I found it? Did I make other people's lives better than when I started? And as long as I've done that, I think I'll feel pretty good about it.

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