The Bossticks - Sophia Amoruso - #Girlboss, NastyGal, & Serial Entrepreneur On How To Build Yourself Back Up After A Set Back & Persevere

Episode Date: November 1, 2019

#225: On this episode we sit down with the #Girlboss herself, Sophia Amoruso. Sophia is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Girlboss Media. She is also the former founder behind the fashion brand Nasty Gal. On this episode we discuss what it takes to be a #Girlboss, how to deal with setbacks, and day to day life of a serial entrepreneur.  To connect with Sophia Amoruso click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by the Peleton Tread Discover the immersive and challenging total body training you can get from Peloton Tread. Peloton is offering listeners a limited-time offer. Go to www.onepeleton.com, use the code "SKINNY", to get $100 off accessories with the purchase of a Tread. This episode is brought to you by FOUR SIGMATIC We have been drinking this company's mushroom-infused elixirs and coffees for over a year now. When we need a break from coffee but still need that extra morning jolt and focus the Mushroom Coffee with Lion's Mane and Chaga is the way to go. Lauryn also drinks the Mushroom Matcha which is a green tea designed as a coffee alternative for those of you who want to cut back on caffeine without losing focus and cognitive boosts. This stuff doesn't actually taste like mushrooms, it's delicious. All of these blends have a ton of nutrients and amino acids to give you balanced energy without the jitters. To try FOUR SIGMATIC products go to foursigmatic.com/skinny and use promo code SKINNY for 15% off all products. WOO MORE PLAY is the all natural and organic coconut love oil that is changing the way we have sex. With only 4 all natural ingredients WOO is the perfect personal lubricant to spice up your sex life. That's just the pre-party.  All Him & Her Listeners will receive 20% off your entire order plus free shipping when when visiting www.woomoreplay.com & using promo code skinny20 at checkout. Produced by Dear Media   

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Check out the freshies as well. A lot of fun stuff happening over at the Woo brand. Enjoy guys. We know that you will. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness.

Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. Aha! The community of Girl Boss built itself before I ever started a business. It became a part of the zeitgeist. People became like card-carrying girl bosses. It became an identity. It was something that people were emotional about. In some ways, Girl Boss, from an awareness perspective, eclipsed Nasty Gal, which was a huge

business. And that became the really noisy thing, which I never anticipated. Welcome back, guys. Happy Halloween. That clip was from our guest of the show today, Sophia Amaroso. Sophia was the founder of Nastygal, and now she is the founder of Girl Boss. I am so excited she's on the podcast today. we actually did a swap.

So you can go over to Girl Boss Radio and listen to my interview on her podcast. You can expect some entrepreneurship, tips and tricks, hacks. And we just kind of discuss careers, like where we started. It's fun. Anyway, head over to Girl Boss. It's on the podcast app. I am Lauren Everett's the creator of the Skinny Confidential. And across from me is actually Brad Pitt.

No, well, I'm, you know, I wish. That guy's looking pretty good at his age. You are Brad Pitt, though, right now. I look worse at my age, at the young age of 32 than he does at the ripe age of almost 60. My name is Michael Bostic. I'm a serial entrepreneur brand builder. Most recently, the CEO of the Dear Media Podcast Network. Excited.

It's Halloween night. I tried to do the Brad Pitt. I failed miserably, guys. No, you didn't. I taught you the trick about really making your jawline pop. You take your tongue and you press it up against the roof of your mouth, and it makes your jawline pop. I didn't get that. I actually just almost made myself gag and throw up.

But anyways. Well, we were once upon a. a time in Hollywood. I was pregnant Sharon Tate and you were Brad Pitt and our friend Weston was Leo and Weston got into it. You know, what is that? That's a tall order. Those are three very, very good looking people that were trying to emulate and look like and, you know, I'm a confident guy, but that's a lot to live up to. Okay, I hope we did it. I'm going to post it on Instagram. We actually ended up going to the restaurant where Sharon Tate used to go all the time called El Coyote. It was in the movie if you saw it. and there's a table called the Sharon Tate table,

and we sat at the Sharon Tate table and ate chips and salsa and got all the pictures that we needed for Instagram. So, yeah, that was our Halloween night. It was sober for me. You had two beers. Yeah, and then I knew I had to come back and here and do this podcast, so I couldn't really let loose like I wanted to. You couldn't let loose.

Did you really want to let loose? Your pregnancy is slowing me down a little bit. I think I need a little bender. I need to go in a little bender before this baby comes and takes over our life. You know, the last time we went to El Coyote, I got pregnant. I know. And this one's a completely different vibe. Last time we had all these margaritas, we had fun, led to sex.

And look at us now. Now I'm back here doing a podcast. Late night, Halloween. Now you ate just too much beans and rice and you're going to shit your pants and go to bed. I'll be fine, but, you know, it's just not the same. All right. I thought I signed up for Brad Pitt tonight. I don't know if I thought this through.

Okay. Well, guys, today, Sophia Amorosa. Like I said, she was the founder of Nastygal and now Girl Boss. this is a fire episode. We really go deep with Sophia. I hope you love it. Happy Friday. I hope you guys aren't too hungover.

I'm sure a lot of you are. So make sure you like have hair of the dog. Do a Bloody Mary for me with a talking rim. I have a feeling most of the listens this Friday are going to come in a little bit later. Yes, so do I. In any case, guys, enjoy. And if you're listening to this hungover, get a little hair of the dog. Just let our soothing voices carry you through the morning.

This is the skinny confidential, him and her. All right, you guys. I am so excited because we have Sophia in the studio. And I have 100 questions. I read your book. But first, just for anyone who's unfamiliar with you, can you give a little summary? Man, it's such a long story. It's exhausting to even tell.

But short summary started in an eBay store called Nastygal Vintage when I was 22. Built Nastygal to over $100 million in revenue, raised $50 million from venture capitalists, wrote a book about my crazy experience as a community college dropout from, yes, San Diego, but also Sacramento, who somehow pulled this off. That book was called Girl Boss. It spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, sold half a million copies. And I've written-ish two books since then. There will be a follow-up that will be like a written book. Those were more visual. And today I'm the founder and CEO of Girl Boss. It's a professional network for women that lives both online and offline. We have an annual conference called the Girl Boss Rally. So we just welcomed 1,600 women to UCLA with 120 speakers over two days and 10 rooms of programming.

So we do a lot. So when you first started as an eBay store, take me back to their. How many people were naysayers? There weren't any people to be naysayers. I mean, my mom, I guess she was proud, but she was like, are you really going to slup clothes for the rest of your life? Maybe you should go back to college. Did you have the vision then?

No. It was just a store to just support your life. So yeah, it was vintage clothing. I knew where to find it. I wore almost exclusively vintage clothing. I guess I'm wearing vintage clothing today. Yeah, thanks. I'm going to go see the Who tonight.

So I thought I'd dress like a groupie. It was an eBay store just like everyone's Etsy store, everyone's Shopify store, everybody's Squarespace site, you know, none of those things existed then. Facebook and Instagram didn't exist. I was hacking MySpace to build my following. And yes, it was a way to support me. I was making more money than I had at my last job, which was in the lobby of an art school in San Francisco, Academy of Art University. And I just followed my nose.

You know, if something didn't sell or, you know, the auction didn't go very high, just wouldn't buy things like that again. And then the things that worked, I'd go find more of those things. I watched my competitors. I saw what was selling for them, what people were really duking it out over, what auction prices were going really high. Then I go find those things and I put them on a beautiful girl who looked like, your friend who wasn't so pretty that she looked like an alien. So Nasty Gal was always aspirational but also accessible. It wasn't high fashion.

It wasn't necessarily fast fashion. There was a feeling to Nasty Gal that was you bought a motorcycle jacket and you felt like you could take on the world. It wasn't about the clothes. You had to get a degree in business real quick. And for a master's. For me, I started as a solopreneur. and I didn't realize, oh, as I grow, like, you have to manage a team.

You have to do all these different things. How did you manage that? Because I feel like you're so creative and then you had to like put your business hat on too. I'm still learning that. So that's probably the most challenging part for me. I am a creative. I'm a marketer. I'm a curator of things.

I'm a curator of people. I, you know, have a voice. I infuse that into everything that we do. It's a big learning curve. And I think with Nastygal, the learning curve was deeper than the speed that I was able to learn. even though I'm a real quick learner, it was very much just a trial by fire. And it exploded, you know, after a few years, we went from $250,000 in revenue to 1.1 to 6.5 to

28. And that was profitable and completely bootstrapped out of the back of my 1987 Volvo. And, yeah, you could say it was $50 million. These investors want me to hire 100 people in a year and grow from $28 to $128 million in revenue just because that sounds like a nice way to round up. And that was a lot harder than I think I had anticipated. We kept growing, but it took a little bit longer than we had expected to reach over $100 million in revenue and came with a lot of lessons along the way and a lot of money blown and a less profitable business, which is a lot of the time what venture capitalists

want to put you, they want to take that money and be taking money like every 12 to 18 months is moving for that exit, right? It's just go big or go home. If you don't explode, if you're not Amazon, you're nothing, and they're comfortable losing $50 million because they can afford it and they'd much rather have a massive exit and have you plow that money into the business to supercharge it.

Yeah. I think a lot of young entrepreneurs got to think about that when they're taking on money. They don't always understand what that comes with, especially if you take it from a firm like that. That can blow $50 million. I'm like, okay, we have 100 others. Yeah, blowing $50 million.

Can you imagine? Like in retrospect, I'm like, what? If you could go back and you could pinpoint and tell yourself, I didn't blow it. No, but I mean, like, a lot of them are pushing you for scale. And like, that's not always scalable. And especially if you're moving for that exit and then you don't hit it, like, I can understand how this can happen. Growing organically is what happened for the first several years. And I think to grow on purpose gets a lot more expensive.

There was a point. It was a few years ago. We were in the offices there for something. Yeah. Beautiful offices. We met your cousin, Devin. Shout out to. Oh, yeah. Her engagement parties on Saturday. Congratulations. And she took us on the tour and it was amazing. I think I have a blog post on it.

It was a beautiful office. It was 40,000 square feet in downtown L.A. You had the yoga studio, right? Or was that a, or was that a meditation? What the hell was that? There was a room upstairs by where the engineers work. That was just kind of this like derelict room that we, you know, repurposed into some kind of a wellness room. It's smart, though, because I feel like you need that. You need a wellness room with how crazy everything is. You're constantly on. There's so much content to create 24-7. Like to have a real. room for your employees where they can just go zen out. I mean, I want that. I think we all want that. Yeah. But I remember you were like really early on the pulse. I remember that you had a room that was just for putting, you know, the outfits on the models, taking pictures, putting on it. So like,

I remember being like, wow, like that's pretty avant-garde at the time. We had a massive photo studio. So, I mean, with the comments pretty typical to, you know, most people shoot their photography in house, but it was all day, every day hair and makeup, more than one model at a time. This one gets dressed while the other ones like getting her photo taken, styling head to toe. This wasn't like dump a t-shirt on somebody and cut their head off. This was like head to toe styling. Like this girl's going somewhere. She might be wearing sunglasses. She's got a bag. You know, and the way we presented things at Nastygal was, you know, you can't touch and feel the clothes. So all the context you can bring in and all of the texture and culture and context that you can bring in to that photo so that someone can

see themselves in that life and in that lifestyle and, you know, see themselves just one step more stylish than maybe they are today is a lot of work. But it was something that in some ways, and, you know, I don't really compliment myself or claim credit for a lot of things, but that was something that Nastygal was first to. You know, e-com photography in 2007, 2008 was such a dump. It was just like dump a t-shirt on some person, no jewelry, no styling, take a picture of the t-shirt and a t-shirt can be a t-shirt and a t-shirt can be elevated to something that you know makes you feel like an like incredible depending on like what it's infused with how it's presented who it's presented on well you're also too you're doing a million things because you're

like the designer and the creative director you're also running a business but you're also an influencer too like you have an influencing presence and you're a content creator too so you're doing a million things at once it's a lot. lot. It's exhausting. If I could turn off my Instagram, I would, but it's an important part of what we do. It's a lot of work. I don't think I've posted in like six days, but it's funny because one of the questions I was going to ask you is like, how would you describe yourself at this point? Outside of being an entrepreneur, I think it's you're a multi-hyphenated person. So like when you, when someone asks like at this point after everything, like how do you describe yourself?

I identify as an entrepreneur. I think that's my greatest accomplishment. I wrote a book about being an entrepreneur. I've done a good job dragging IP into like many, many things. So from a book to a podcast to a Netflix series to a full-fledged business. But I consider myself an entrepreneur who developed a following because that's what I did. If you could go back and pinpoint things that you would give yourself advice on, what are some of those pieces of advice that you would tell yourself now? Life is a marathon, not a race. So I think when you're young, you just want everything now. And that can pile up and you can't sort through all of those things. If you're lucky enough, you know, it can be a blessing and a curse to have a lot happen in your life at once and it doesn't all

have to happen at the same time. So I think having a certain amount of pacing would have been nice just to have like maybe a better plan. I think also embracing the different ways that people work, which I try to do with Girl Boss and I know our team tries to do because we have a lot more flexible work schedule than Nastygal ever did. Nasty gal was a place where at the end of the day, if it was 7 o'clock, I'd walk around and be like, huh, hmm, interesting. These people left already. And it's just like, that's not good. I was super naive. I was like, well, I did this all. You know, I started this and I'm working really hard. Why isn't everybody working just as hard? And it's just like people have a different lifestyle. Maybe they get everything done within an eight-hour period,

great. Like no one should be sitting around symbolically to like prove that they're working hard. So that's not necessarily how it works. We work from home on Fridays at Girl Boss or from Dear Media in West Hollywood. That's really nice. And the team's really productive even from home. And there's all these amazing tools now at our disposal like Slack and Zoom and new conferencing that we can use to stay connected, stay productive. But I wish I had gone to college. Really? Yeah. You think you would have done good college? I wish I didn't go to college. I think college was just talking about this with my partner, Raina, and I was saying, like,

I don't know now if I would go to. And it'll be interesting to see what young people do. Oh, you did in college was fuck girls and drink. So that doesn't count. I was trying to learn. Oh, you're trying to learn. But no, you think you'd go back? I would.

At this point? I think it's one of those, like, things where, you know, all these things happen in your life that I'm so, so grateful for and fortunate to have happened. But, you know, there's that thing that's like pulling you that's like, I never did that. It's like, I wanted to be a photographer. And it's like, okay, that would have been just as tough as what I'm doing to pull that off as a career. So part of me is just like, I always wanted to go to art school. I never got to because this eBay thing took off.

And it's like, wah, we're way. But at some point, you know, I think I'd really appreciate it. It felt like an assignment when I was young. You think at the time you would have appreciated it? Oh, hell no. Yeah. Okay. I hated it.

Yeah. And I hated the. culture at colleges. I'm an introvert. I'm kind of weird. I wouldn't have fit in. I might have gone to parties, but I would have been like, I don't know, picked on or done some crazy shit or... Why do you think you would have been picked on? I don't...

I don't think you would have been picked on. I'm just weird. I'm just weird. I think I was too weird for like a traditional college. Weird's super in now, though. I mean, especially with social. I know. It worked out. It works out. We are going to get into that. But let's talk about mushrooms. because mushrooms have been a theme throughout my pregnancy.

The legal kind of mushrooms. The legal kind. The legal kind. Don't freak out, guys. So 4-Sigmatic, you guys know we've been a fan for a very, very long time. And specifically during my pregnancy, after tons of research, I've decided to focus on the Chaga mushroom and the Rishi mushroom. So I went to the 4-Sigmatic site, and I looked for these two mushrooms specifically. They're very, very good for pregnancy, and there's tons of benefits.

So you can actually go to the same thing. site and like search exactly what you're looking for. The reason that I liked these mushrooms for pregnancies, because they're full of B vitamins, zinc, iron, magnesium. You really need magnesium when you're pregnant. They have potassium in them. And basically they just boost the immune system, which is really important right now because it's flu season. And it's getting colder. So you want to make sure your immune system's like amazing. I like to mix their mushrooms into my coffee or my matcha tea. I'm only allowed 200 milligrams a day of caffeine. So this is kind of a really high point of my day to be able to sip my coffee or my matcha with my mushrooms in them. Yeah, guys, you know that

mushrooms are some of the most nutritious foods on the planet. And Forsygnatic decided to make them very deliverable, very easy to consume, easy to get to, easy to pour into a drink. Little packets, mushroom powder, pour them in water, hot water, tea, make mushroom tea. And boom, nutritious, delicious treat. to try them, go to 4Sigmatic.com slash skinny and enter promo code Skinny for 15% off your entire order. Again, that's 4Sigmatic.com slash skinny and promo code skinny for 15% off the entire order. And like I said, make sure you get the Reishi mix and the Chaga. You can mix them together and you can put it in your coffee every morning and feel really good about your immune system. It's like a rock star.

I have a question about the astronomical amount of stress that you were dealing with. I would think you have no one to relate to. Like you can't call a friend. I mean, maybe you have a friend. How old were you at the time? It's just like who do you, who are you calling and talking to and using as a mentor or sounding board? I mean, no one really understands the landscape and social media with the business. I mean, it's like so much happening.

Like who are you calling when all this is going down? I was 22 when I started NastyL. So this is year 13 of me. I was naked on the bar at 22. Yeah. I never did. I did that. I was probably, I was definitely scuzzing around, probably dressed like this. I was naked under the bar.

Dive bars drinking like somebody's leftover beer that they left on the table that might have had like an ash cigarette in it. Yeah, I was 22 when I started this eBay store, which didn't seem like a big deal. And then eventually exploded. Who was I calling at the time? I didn't really have anyone to call. I did have a consultant named Dana Freed, who's amazing, still consults for companies. is based in LA. He helped me hire like my first person and my second person and, you know, gave me an employee handbook that he had worked on at a big law firm had like, you know, someone paid a big law firm for and I just changed the company name to nasty gal and I was like,

this will work. At the time there wasn't a glossier or in a way luggage or a bumble or an outdoor voices. I was this like, I became the poster child because I was such an outlier, which was great, very loud, but also. lonely. I didn't have a community. And this is a big part of why I'm building what I'm building at Girl Boss because so many of us are building things, especially from home. So many of us are freelancing, want to start businesses. There is no playbook. And there's so much to learn from one another. That's something I really lacked. Today I call everybody. I'm constantly asking for

advice. I'm sending PDFs and screenshots over text to people who probably don't, you know, they're like, I'm glad to help. But hey, like, I have a life. I'm busy. I'm going to bed. And I still do it. When it was a nasty gal, I was, I owned 80% of the company after we raised $50 million. That's pretty, that's incredible. I didn't know that. That's crazy. Because I bootstrapped it. So is that a quarter billion dollar valuation? 350 million after you. At post money. And that kind of sealed our fate because then it was like even at $100 million, you know, certain people might value us at 350. But even when we got there, some people might have been like, you're worth $250 million, which been a fucking awesome urban outfitters offered over 412 million dollars and my investor said hey

let's ask for more and I took his advice and it went away and I owned 80% of the company at that time what's going through a young woman's mind at that age people throwing that kind of money that kind of valuation as you're like don't take this wrong way but what does it do for like your confidence and your ego at the time because that's got to be so much market validation you're just like I'm on top of the world I'm untouchable I think it's a bit of a mind fuck It was like one of the best times of my life. You know, I could buy oysters for everybody. I went from Boston Market to like oysters and not just champagne, but like bottles of champagne and took my friends on trips for their birthdays.

And, you know, one thing about money is that you can be generous without any kind of expectation. And I would entertain and I could afford all the alcohol like and food and not just food. but like get like those rattlesnake hot dogs from like that place downtown or you know i don't know about that i got to go find what i didn't i didn't eat me but like novelty food or just like excellent excellent kielbasa or whatever for the barbecue it was amazing mostly because i got to be generous and i got to buy some cool stuff mostly i'm just like trying to make last as long as i can now because i'm not buying handbags the way i used to but i think i think i was a little diluted for a while i think i was out of touch. It was a super fun time. In some ways, I'm glad I didn't end up with hundreds of millions

of dollars in the bank because God knows who I would be today. But do you think now, like, let's like, you're doing new things. You're probably have another success like that because people like you will be successful. I mean, you can't keep someone like you down. I always say like when you recognize, there's certain people that no matter what happens, like they're going to come back up. You're probably one of those people. When you get to that point. When you get back to that point, it's probably better that you've been through this experience because if you do have the hundreds of millions you'd probably be better equipped to be like okay I know what to do with this now or do you still think like I should not be I should not make that kind of money I would love to make that kind

of money but it just wouldn't phase me the way it had the glamour doesn't phase me anymore getting invited to stuff doesn't phase me anymore having my photo taken doesn't phase me anymore I understand like what actually matters and I'll go do those things to the extent that they're strategic for my business but I like appreciate them but I'd also just like rather be at home making a steak that's better than like any restaurant I could eat at because I've eaten at the restaurants, you know? So I think I value just much more wholesome things today. I'm way more boring. I drink like once a month and it's like one drink. So I think that probably makes socializing a little bit more challenging. We interviewed Jordan Belfort, who is the wolf of Wall Street,

right? He was the guy Leo played, but like the real guy. And he was telling us, you know, when he had money and all that craziness was going on, and he was saying, basically, he's false. and asleep in more bowls of soup and fancy restaurants than he can even remember. And he's like, at this point, all he wants to do is just kind of chill out, be at home. But I feel, you know, a lot of people kind of have, I believe, if they're an entrepreneur, kind of have to get their face slammed in one time and stumble a little bit. But the difficulty for you is that you're a public person. It's a very public display.

And a lot of people can have a failure, but it's not in front of the world. So how do you're like the, you're like the, you're, you said it. You're an outlier. So how. Like you're the first, like you're the first girl boss. I just want to be normal. How do you navigate that? though when, when, you know, because you're getting judgment from the world.

Yeah. It's like, so what's going through your mind then? I got my head bashed in, but I think I got my head blown off. That was a really hard time. So Nasty L filed for Chapter 11 at the end of 2016 after a lot of investor meddling. And, you know, a lot of mistakes on my end, you know, hiring the wrong executives, building a culture that I didn't intend or not intend to build, had never worked in an office before, just didn't really know what I was doing.

Not that I'm doing it perfectly now. I just can do better. So the hardest part was, well, 2016 was a rough year, 2016 to early 2017. So I was on the cover of Forbes in like June of 2016. And then my husband of eight months left me in July of 2016. And then Nastygal went belly up the day Trump was elected in November of 2016 while a Netflix series was being made about my life that was about to come out four months later. which came out, then Trump had been elected. The conversation about women was very different at that point

between the time of the show being written and the time of the show coming out, and a show called Girl Boss was expected to be this example of women in the workplace. It wasn't the right time to have a comedy like that. And it also, people conflated the character with who I was. And, you know, they were like,

is she really like that person? Is she, you know, the character's really abrasive. You know, it was a lot of noise about who I mostly wasn't, both as a real person and then some weird adaptation of who I am kind of. People wouldn't have been as hard on you if you were a man, I don't think. No, which is fucked up. It's fucked up. I'm fine.

I still have a lot of fear and a lot of hesitation, which, you know, I wish I was naive. As naive as I mean, I do, but I don't. But you can move a lot faster when you're naive. With ignorance and confidence, that's what's gotten me through my whole life. You can get really far. Yeah. What are some habits or rituals that you did during that period that really helped? Like, you know, was there a meditation or a book or a podcast or a resource that you look to?

No. I was just like flailing. I was just shooting from the hip. In my 20s, wellness didn't matter. Also, there was no conversation around it. Like the Gary V. Like hustle culture was the thing. You know, the world has changed and workplaces have changed.

The demands of employees has changed. So for me, just grinding was what kept me in it. I think when I stopped grinding, it was actually when I got like bummed out. And maybe I had to like address like real things in my life or I'm not really sure why. But that rabbit hole has been the thing that's kept me occupied and kept me satisfied for a really long time now. Quick break to talk about fitness. Fitness is going to be a big theme for me, especially in 2020. But I'm even starting now.

I'm working out every single day of my pregnancy. Michael seen me. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Getting after it. Okay, so we're going to talk about the Peloton. This is not another treadmill, guys. The New York Times says the Peloton tread is like having a personal trainer come to your house whenever you'd like.

So essentially what they're selling really is time, which is amazing. You can get everything done and streamlined in your house. Some things that you can expect from the Peloton tread. So there's live motivation where you can unleash your inner competitor. you can actually like see live performance metrics like speed, incline, and mileage. This is going to help you push yourself even further with real time encouragement. They also have performance metrics and workout history. You get to sweat with all these instructors.

I mean, this is kind of cool. You can like pick whose energy you like. Do you want someone who's really hyper or do you want someone who's more mellow and has a very soothing voice? And they also have variety. So you're never going to repeat the same workout, which this is very, very important to me. You can mix it up whenever you feel like it. They have classes everywhere.

They have classes that are 10 minutes long to 60 minutes long. So if you just want to squeeze something in, it's effective. You know what I mean? Like you don't have to do a full 60 minute workout where you're getting in the car, going to the gym, getting out. You know, you're running into Sally from high school. Like it's so distracting to just have it in your home. Like I said, it's streamlined.

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Has it been difficult to date? Date like boys? Yeah. No. No. There's not all these people coming out of the woodwork that are trying to date you all the time. I would think you get all these DMs and all. I'm super unapproachable. And I'm also like a serial monogamous. So crazily, I fell in love just a few months after my husband just like broke my heart. Thank God he did because I'm really happy with who I'm with now. He's an old friend. I've known him for 10 years now. That's the best. Never anticipated it. Yeah, I've never actually been like, Like I've never been on a series of dates. I've never been set up with anybody ever. Maybe I'm lazy or just like go through my network and my friends, but that's kind of always how it's happened.

I can't imagine dating. I hope I never have to date. It just sounds anyway. Taylor can tell you. Yeah, Taylor can tell you all about it. He's had a couple of interesting dates. Yeah. He's probably not the best one to ask for the advice.

So out of this, how do you have the idea for Girl Box? Is it an epiphany or is it from the book or is it something that you've had the idea like while you were working with Nasty Gal? What how did that come about? I mean, it's just exploded. So the hashtag's been used 17 million times. Wow. On Instagram. The community of Girl Boss built itself before I ever started a business.

It became a part of the zeitgeist. People became like card carrying girl bosses. It became an identity. It was something that people were emotional about in some ways. girl boss from a awareness perspective eclipsed nasty gal, which was a huge business. And that became the really noisy thing, which I never anticipated. So I started a podcast. I said, you know, hey, and I heard you say this.

My story is interesting. Like the stories of so many other people should be interesting. And I have this incredible rolodex of women that I've been so lucky to meet over the last decade of my career and access that this girl doesn't have. How can I lasso that access and bring it to a girl? who may not be an executive, who may follow me in my story and relate to a girl who started an eBay store, but is not getting invited to Fortune's most powerful women to watch the echo chamber of executive women, you know, clap. And that was really the start.

And Girl Boss was this latent opportunity for a long time that I saw and couldn't focus on, shouldn't have focused on, until I had the time to do it. And it was already late. By the time I started Girl Boss, in my opinion, I was years behind because it had been growing itself, the community being continuing to mushroom. And so in 2017, I said, hey, all these amazing women that I've had on my podcast that I've access to, let's do a conference. You know, these girls hadn't had the chance to do that outside of the bookstore.

So I think the genesis of the Girl Boss rally was the book tour. So in 2014, when I wrote that book now, over five years ago, I took it to a dozen cities, and I watched these girls line up in Barnes & Noble all over the country and line up to get their books lined, but what they were doing was exchanging business cards. They were there to network. There was no other place for them to do that. And so that's what we've built today, five years later, which I'm really incredibly proud of. And it just, it doesn't even feel like a choice.

It wasn't like, okay, here's my, it's just like, all right, get the fuck up. You've got an opportunity here. You know how to build enterprise value. You have a mission at hand. People expect this from you. Don't fucking sit around. And it's not resilience. It's masochism.

But it's also opportunism and it's purpose. And in many ways, I'm just possessed to keep going because I know what I can do, even though I didn't do everything I could have done at NastyL. I was going to say, you don't pick easy businesses. What the fuck? It's not easy to do these conferences. Like, I know that it's extremely challenging. You can only do it if you're completely mission-driven because it's really hard.

Our team does an amazing job. And you know what? The girls that show up, we had women from 30 countries and 40 states flying for the last rally. These girls show up, they're ready to be inspired. It's not a tough audience. And we program it exceptionally. My team does that. You know, it's gone far beyond my Rolodex today.

Yes, it's hard, but it's also something that brands have been really supportive of that's driven great revenue for us, that has driven enterprise value for us. That's driven just an incredible conversation that we've now been able to harness into an online community that has felt like a really natural extension of everything. The last five years of Girl Boss, you know, growing itself and then in us building it. It sounds really fulfilling. It's really fulfilling. It's really hard.

So I think it's easy to get mired in the day to day. It's extremely fulfilling, but at the same time, there's the work to be done. And that often doesn't look like the output of the work. What is the work on a day-to-day? If you could give us like a peek, are you in office every day? Is it always different? When I'm in town, I'm in the office. Right now I'm traveling a lot.

I have a lot of meetings that I really prefer not to do. I only travel when I absolutely have to. The glamour of business travel is just like gone. I'm like, I'll get on a flight for vacation. So I'm in New York with our New York team as much as I can be and then have a lot of interesting conversations happening in New York right now and in San Francisco. Day to day when I'm in the office, it's a lot of meetings. And I wish I could be the example of like the boss who like goes and eats lunch outside by myself.

and I eat lunch at my desk. I usually bring it. I've been keto for a little while, which we can, I don't know, maybe get into it. Oh, yeah, I have questions about that. Oh, yeah. We've talked about it a lot on the show, keto. What's the trigger to make you decide you wanted to be keto?

I just felt like super swollen and gross. Mm-hmm. And I'm like all or nothing. So it's either like postmates, ice cream McConnell's, like ice cream, cookies and cream all weekend long and like pad tie and just piling on carbs or it's like, Okay. Like this is what I'm eating. Easy. What's lunch? Keto lunch. You're at your desk. What's lunch?

Two hot dogs. You've been wrapped in lettuce with that's sweetened with monk fruit sugar instead of ketchup. Where did you get monk fruit ketchup? That's the most unique lunch response we've had on this show for sure. I'm into that though. Two hot dogs. Catchup hot dogs. In front of my team with executives, pretty weird to like chomp down hot dogs. I'm sure that they're fine with it. They're going to have to be. So an alcohol, you said only once a month, not a big drinker. This Rolodex I keep referring to you, I only have because I drank. So I think there's a time and a place to do that because you build relationships with people that you wouldn't otherwise.

I mean, maybe if you're like the most gregarious person, sober, great. I'm not. I'm a total introvert. When I drink, I'm pretty different. And I think people like me. It seems to have worked. My boyfriend calls me Tina Turnup. So I have like one drink on Wednesday, maybe two.

And then I'm like, who wants to go to the strip club? Yay, karaoke, Blind Dragon. That was a while ago. I don't do that anymore. That was one of the underground parking lot, right? Yeah. Then they have the gongs. Do they?

I haven't heard the gongs. I was too blacked out when I was in there to remember the gong. It's been a while since we've had those situations. I'm 35. It just doesn't age well. Do you have any morning routines that set you up for success? Is there any rituals that you do when you wake up? I chug coffee.

on an empty stomach. I like your honesty. It's probably dehydrated. This is like reminds me. I put heavy cream in it. I cut it with heavy cream. Can you do that on keto? Yeah.

It's all cream, right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Heavy cream has less sugar than milk, so I try to stick to the heavy cream. And I don't know, read the news, look at my inbox. Think about meditating. Probably don't. Sometimes get on the treadmill. I lifted weights the other day.

I'm super sore. Keto's been great. It's made me lazy because, like, my, pants fit and I didn't have to exercise which is kind of dangerous because I don't want to turn into like a I don't know bingo wing lady someday you know what that is I need to try like a bat wing bingo and like yeah oh yeah yeah yeah your upper arm bingo wing I've never heard about wings the bat wings just yeah yeah you know I don't want my flesh to just fall off my bone I need some muscle to like keep it there so I'm working on that I'm not a lot of since now that I'm going to get I'm going to get a lot of

shit about people are going to come in they're going to say people are going to be like body shaming they're I'm going to say Michael, yeah, of course. Well, I'm talking about myself. No, don't worry. I'll still get the shit. It's fine. On the weekends, are you just like off work or are you still working on the weekend? I'm off work.

You're off work. Yeah. And that's probably different than when you were with Nasty Gal, right? It is. It really is. So it seems like your mentality's shifted a little bit when it comes to work. My capabilities shifted. My appetite's shifted.

Yeah, my need to have a personal life. I actually have a personal life. I could have more of a person in the life. But I understand what that means. It used to be, you know, oh, I'm on vacation and I propped up my cute fiancé in front of an infinity pool. Look, I have everything looks great. But, you know, there wasn't a lot of substance to it, even though I'm not like a dunce or a totally superficial person. That was kind of what was going on at that time on social.

I mean, a lot of that seems like it's out now. A lot of people aren't kind of like showing. Yeah, Kylie Jenner got in big trouble the other day because she posted her like brand new. She didn't get in trouble. People just didn't like it. People didn't like it. People didn't like it. They didn't want to see her.

Is it a Bugatti? They didn't want to see her Bugatti. But there was a time when like a lot of people like when Instagram first came out, it was like everybody showing their best life, whether it was true or not. It's still happening a little bit, but it's just, now it's more flaunting experiences. I mean, I think the most sexy car you can buy is an electric car at this point. Yeah. It says way more about you.

I mean, I like an Uber. It saves my time. Yeah. I don't know about the sustainability of Uber's take a Prius. Okay. I don't know. Can you order one? I don't think so.

I don't think they let you select at this one. So what's your vision now for Girl Boss? Like, do you have a 10-year plan? Do you have a five-year plan? Do you have a two-year plan? We don't have a 10-year plan, like in terms of budget. I want Girl Boss to become the largest community of women online and offline that are helping each other both professionally and personally,

where they feel like they can bring their whole selves. There's a really big international opportunity, too, because even though there's so much work to do here in the States with women, or for women as women, in other countries, we're spoiled in comparison. So women write me from Indonesia and say, hey, I just want to have a conversation with my husband about the fact that I want to work. I just want to get a job or start a company. And that's a big conversation because culturally they're not supposed to at all.

So that's like a pretty radical thing to approach your husband with. And then three weeks later, another woman from Indonesia will write me the same email. And I realize, wow, like these women think they're the only person in their country going through this. And that's totally not the case. And it's the same in smaller markets. You know, in L.A. and New York, we can build networks more easily. In the middle of the country, it's harder to find one another. What are other themes that you see from women emailing you?

Like, what are the roadblocks that you constantly see over and over and over again? I got laid off. I'm having a hard time. What should I do next? I'm in a career transition. I'm starting my business. I mean, the biggest thing I've ever gotten from my book is I read your book and I quit my job and I'm so much happier. That probably feels good.

It feels really good. I never told anyone to quit their job. But I think the book in some ways gave people confidence to say like, you know, you know what? Fuck this. I can do you better? And what do you plan on for your social strategy as you grow? Are you like are you taking on your social strategy separately from Girl Boss? or is it like together?

Personally, I do not have a social strategy. I go to work in like weird dungarees because I'm not running a fashion company anymore. So I don't even like have an outfit to photograph, let alone time. And I'm not like speaking at conferences every week. And even then I just like never remember to take a picture. I probably should. Get that bird collar jacket out there. I need to get myself one of those.

If I had one of those. Yeah, he likes that jacket. I actually, I don't think I've ever seen a collar like that, bird collar. This is a 1970s east-west motorcycle jacket. It's rad. Thanks. It's cheesily enough, and I've never worn it before. Like I said, I'm going to go see The Who tonight at the Hollywood Bowl.

I've never been to the Hollywood Bowl. I've never been to the Hollywood Bowl. I decided to dress like a groupie, but this is the jacket on the super cheesy. Netflix series. I bought a rep, like not a replica, like actual 70s. The actual one. The actual one. I just bought, found another one vintage of the jacket that the character buys like in

the first episode that kicks off her eBay career, which was not the true story, but it's a cool jacket. So there's so many millennial women listening. If you could give a piece of advice, and that sounds so cliche, but if you could give a piece of advice for people that are working nine to five and they want to quit their job, what would you say? There's something out there for you, you know, and sometimes you might have to take a step back to make a leap forward. Often, and a lot of women who have come on my podcast have taken pay cuts from their big finance job back into, okay, I'm going to work at a creative agency or an ad agency and get paid a lot less, but I'll have stock.

And for Susie Rue, who's an entrepreneur here who invested alongside Troy Carter for a really long time, that early equity she got at a creative agency and she took like a $50,000 pay cut, just paid for her down payment for a house. And to move into a different industry, you know, a lot of people are like, like, well, I want to switch industries. And it's like, this company is going to go hire someone who has already done this job over you unless you say like, hey, I'm willing to start maybe at a lower level than I'm at today. A lot of people, they start making a certain amount and then they change their whole lifestyle. Say, okay, if I don't make this amount, I'm going to go underwater and I feel like they get stuck.

And they're doing something they don't like, but they're stuck financially. I think that the race to having the nicest stuff and the bigger apartment and the better car. you end up addicted or used to this lifestyle that like you were fine with the last one. You know, why did you need to do that? It puts you in a place where you have less flexibility. I think luxury is a trap. I think it's great to reward yourself for your hard work responsibly. But be careful because you want to be able to pivot in any given time.

And that means saving money often. And it means not having an overly glam lifestyle. I had to like, I had to go back. So when I went to college, I went to the Harvard of the day. desert, which was the University of Arizona. So we were out there and it was really cheap to live in Tucson that time. I remember we had like, it was like 350 bucks a month for a four bed, four bath place. I had to have three roommates at the time. But those were some of the best times ever. And I think back and I'm like, that cost me 350 bucks a month to do that. And that's what I'm saying.

The trap is it was like one of the happiest times, which you forget as you make more and more. It's like I could never go back there, but you could. It's kind of experience stretching. Yeah. I had free time. Like what is that? What would I do? And I didn't have money. So now I leave the house and I'm like, okay, I can eat at a restaurant or I can go shopping. And that's like, I can go to brunch and then I can walk to like a store. I can eat it Fred's and Barneys and walk downstairs and look at shoes or get some perfume. And it's like, wait, I had no money and lots of time. And I had so much fun. What the fuck was I doing? A lot of people when you ask them what they really want to do now, they don't realize how close it is. Like, like, an example. Like for me,

I was thinking of like, what do I really want to do? I want to be able to escape for a while and like, sit down and not be bothered and read a book. And then I had to stop me like, wait a minute, I could do that right now if I wanted to. I'm choosing not to because I'm, you know, building these things and ambitions in the way. But a lot of people, they just get, they get so caught up and they don't realize like what they actually want in life is not as far away as they think. It's true. The only difference between the people who are doing what you want to be doing and you is that

they're doing it. That's it. We got to pull that clip. You got to put that in your trailer. Pull that clip, Taylor. Yeah, Taylor. Pull that clip. Are you awake back there?

Okay. I heard you were listening or I heard you were watching the dark crystal. I was watching the dark crystal. Oh, you're a dark crystal fan? Yeah. Okay. Lord, butt out for a minute. We got to talk about this.

So I'm one of those weird people that if there's a new show coming out, I have to have seen everything previously before I can jump in. So I knew the new show was coming out. I know Mark Camel was doing some of the voicing and it was like a big cult classic back in the day. but I had never seen it. So I had to go back. And it was hard to follow, but, you know, now I'm in it.

I'm like, I get it. Skexies. Yeah. Do you have a fan with that one back in the day? I was. I don't think I watched it a ton. I was more of like a Pee's Playhouse, Spaceballs kind of person. Baseball is the greatest.

Yeah. I don't know why my dad let me watch that when I was so young, but I think it really shaped me as a human. It was one of the best shows I've seen in a really long time. And it was puppets. I have to get that. Every time I put on the show, she's like, oh, my God. She's not a big sci-fi fan.

I just want to tune out and watch Real Housewives. After I've worked all day, I just want to watch something that's just dramatic and horrible. My boyfriend won't watch that with me, so I can only do that when, like, I'm alone. It's so good to tune out. You just want to meditate on it, and their life is, like, all messed up. And it just, like, in a weird way, it makes you feel better. It's almost therapeutic. I heard you on Tim Ferriss Wallback.

Didn't you say, were you the one that said it was cheaper than drinking to watch reality TV or something like that? Yeah, if you want to just like, I mean, I think meditation is probably the most constructive, but I really enjoyed married at first sight. Oh, I haven't seen that one. Literally the first episode people meet for the first time. Their families are like in chairs. They're wearing a gown and a suit and they've never seen each other forever. And they're paired up by relationship experts. and they get married on the first episode and then it watches them go through their honeymoon and then they move in together and navigate like intimacy.

Taylor should apply for that. Lifestyle. It's gnarly. I feel like Taylor would be a great candidate for that. You think, so we talked a lot of people there. I was like big on meditation. And I tried. I've really tried to read the books.

I've done the things and I try to do it. And I know it's probably good for me. I can't do it. Can't do it. Can you do it? I can. And you just choose not to, or you, or you? It's not a choice.

You know, yeah, what you say, what you don't do is not a choice, but I don't actively say no to it. I just don't, like, actively say yes to it. I can't do it. It's hard to sit with your own thoughts. I resist it. I say, I'll do it when I, when after I have my coffee. I'll do it after I have my water with lemon. I'll do it after take a walk.

Oh, yeah, coffee. I feel like you have to do it right when you wake up, like the second you wake up. Wait, you have a total routine, though, right? I'm a psycho. She's... We're going to talk about that on Girlbust Radio. I'm anal. So before we go, who is an online mentor, a resource, a podcast that you look to all the time?

It could be a book, anything that you would recommend. Gabby Bernstein has been an incredible help to me. I haven't like paid for her services, but she's been on Girl Boss Radio and just watching the career that she's built and becoming a mom and being able to control her lifestyle in a way that seems really. great and seems like she does have a great routine and does eat healthy and cooks a lot of food at home and is you know I'm sure she has her challenges but has carved out room to have her life in addition to being you know I think she hit maybe number one on the New York Times bestseller list a week ago so she has this new book called super attractor which I've read part of but she's actually going to be here in LA next week for our book tour but she's been she's really special

All right. I need to consume her content more. I feel like she's a girl boss. She's a total girl boss. So where can everyone find you now? Where can everyone follow you? Where can we check you out? Where can we go sign up for your conference? Like, pimps yourself out. All right. So join the girl boss professional network. You will be glad you did. We've, you know, tens of thousands of women on there in our first couple months, connecting with one another, messaging one another, posting in our groups. We have an ecosystem of course. groups you can connect to women locally or in your industry that's at girlboss.com and then our Instagram is at girl boss my Instagram's at sophia amaruso and that's that's it you got to post that jacket both of your uh yeah both of your instagrams have great quotes too I'm always inspired when I look at your instagrams thank you for coming on I am doing girl boss podcast right now so you guys can go listen to that join us on girl boss radio yeah girl boss radio um and thank you so

so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me. Come back anytime. Right. As always, thank you guys so much for listening. A little fun giveaway today. We're going to give away some skin care. Some of my favorite skin care. I set it aside for one of you. All you have to do is tell us your favorite part of this episode with Sophia on my latest Instagram at the Skinny Confidential. Super easy. Someone from the team will slide into your DMs. Thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing the podcast and we will see you on Tuesday. This episode is brought. brought to buy 4Sigmatic, one of our favorite companies, one of our favorite sponsors. Four Sigmaics specialize in superfoods, medicinal mushrooms, and adaptogenic herbs,

and they make drinking mushrooms and superfoods delicious and easy to do with their mushroom coffees, mushroom soups, and mushroom elixirs, if you are looking for a coffee alternative to switch up your caffeine intake, 4Sigmatic has the blends for you. They're all delicious, just open a pack and add to hot water. They don't taste like mushrooms, and like always, we have a special offer just for him and her listeners. Go to 4Sigmatic.com forward slash skinny and enter promo code Skinny at Check. out for 15% off your entire order.