The Tim Ferriss Show - #112: The Nasty Icon of Retail, Sophia Amoruso

Episode Date: October 13, 2015

Sophia Amoruso (@Sophia_Amoruso) is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Nasty Gal, a global online destination for both new and vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories. Founded in 2006, Nasty Gal was named “Fastest Growing Retailer” in 2012 by Inc. Magazine, thanks to its 11,200% three-year growth rate. Sophia has been called "fashion's new phenom" by Forbes magazine, and she has become one of the most prominent and iconic figures in retail. She recently founded the #GIRLBOSS Foundation, which awards financial grants to women in the worlds of design, fashion, and music. Sophia's first book, #GIRLBOSS, is a New York Times bestseller published in fifteen countries. Show notes and links for this episode can be found at www.fourhourworkweek.com/podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. I get asked all the time, “if you could only use one supplement, what would it be?” My answer is, inevitably, Athletic Greens. It is my all-in-one nutritional insurance. I recommended it in The 4-Hour Body and did not get paid to do so. Get 50% off your order at Athletic Greens.com/Tim. This podcast is also brought to you by Vimeo Pro, which is ideal for entrepreneurs. In fact, a bunch of my start-ups are already using Vimeo Pro. WealthFront uses it to explain how it develops personalized investment portfolios. TaskRabbit uses it to tell the company’s story. Twitter uses it to showcase Periscope. Why are they using it instead of other options out there? Vimeo Pro provides enterprise level video hosting that typically costs thousands of dollars for a tiny fraction of the cost. Features include: Gorgeous high-quality playback with no ads Up to 20 GB of video storage every week Unlimited plays and views A fully customizable video player, which can include your company logo, custom outro, and more You get all this for just $199 per year (that’s only $17 per/mo.) There are no complicated bandwidth calculations or hidden fees. Just go to Vimeo.com/business to check it out. If you like it, you can use the promo code “Tim” to get 25% off. This is the deepest discount you will find anywhere for Vimeo Pro.***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Interested in sponsoring the podcast? Visit tim.blog/sponsor and fill out the form.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. Hello, my little kittens. This is Tim Ferriss. And welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show, where I attempt in each interview to deconstruct world-class performers, to tease out the things you can use, not just

act with integrity, but what does that actually mean on a daily basis? What are your morning routines? What are your habits? What are your favorite books? What are your influences? What are your favorite documentaries? So on and so forth. I really want specific tactics that you guys can apply toolkits that you can use in your daily life and lives. That's a plural for you guys. And this episode is no exception. I'm very excited to have Sophia Amoruso, that's at Sophia underscore Amoruso, on the show. She is founder and executive chairman of Nasty Gal, which is a global online destination for both new and vintage clothing, shoes, and accessories,

among many other things. Founded in 2006, Nasty Gal was named fastest-growing retailer in 2012 by Inc. Magazine, thanks, I suppose, in part to its 11,200% three-year growth rate. It's a very big number. Sophia has been called, quote, fashion's new phenom, end quote, by Forbes Magazine, and she has become one of the most prominent and iconic figures in retail. She recently founded hashtag girl boss foundation, which awards financial grants to women in the world of design, fashion, and music. Sophia's first book hashtag girl boss, check it out is a New York times bestseller published in 15 countries. And we touch upon

many, many things. We talk about tactics, testing, the Genesis story of Nasty Gal, early successes, early mistakes. The last time she accidentally crapped in her pants. We really go all over the place. And there is a lot of personality in this episode. There's a lot of fun and there's also a lot that you can use. So without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Sophia Amoruso. Sophia, welcome to the show. Hi, Tim. How are you? I'm fantastic. And we've had such an adventure putting this together and getting all the tech to work. But I'm stoked to be chatting with you. I've wanted to have a jam session with you for so long. And I know we've met very briefly before,

but let's start with some basics for people who may not be familiar with you. And I know your role has changed in the last year or so, but when people ask you, what do you do? How do you answer that now? And how did you answer that two years ago? If I don't know them, I just say like, I have an online fashion business and I try to leave it at that. And if they ask, it depends on who it is. But I started a company called Nasty Gal in 2006 as an eBay store selling vintage clothing and whatever. A lot of entrepreneurs just did everything myself, did what needed to happen, just ran a little eBay store. But it wasn't little for very long. Left eBay about a year and a half later and launched NastyGal.com, which is now kind of a full-on fashion e-commerce destination.

We carry brands. We design our own product. and we still sell vintage. And I guess I'm an author. So there's that too. I wrote a book last year that spent a bunch of time on the bestseller list and it was called Girlboss. It's called hashtag Girlboss, but saying hashtag out loud is kind of weird. I mean, you're a multi-hyphenate. You've done a lot to, to put some numbers or stats to it. And I'm reading off of just the reading that I've done.

So I'd love for, feel free to correct me, but it sounds like company has customers in more than 60 countries. It was the fastest growing retailer in 2012, according to Inc. Magazine. And I guess at one point, at least, it sounds like, and again, I'm reading from online, so who knows how verified this is. But I guess in 2011, so it was started in 2006. And by 2011, revenue is like 24 million or so, marking, I guess, an 11,000 plus three-year

growth rate. So very impressive stuff. Thanks. Very impressive. And I cannot resist asking about some of these bullets before we get into that whole story. I apologize in advance. So for those who are wondering how this podcast gets put together, I usually like to not rehearse, but send some prompts for guests who are on the show. So one of the sentences that I send out is, can you please send some bullets with a handful of topics and or questions that will lead to actionable tips, advice, funny stories, or resource and how-to recommendations. So funny stories. The first... I just went straight for funny stories. Oh, no. It was awesome. So I'm just going to read the first five and then we're going to dig into

one. So bullet number one, I once pooped my pants in high school. We're going to come back to that. Number two, I have three poodles that are all related. Number three, and I'm paraphrasing here, I lived on a street called Orange Blossom twice in different parts of California. I love karaoke. And then the last bill I'll read is I'm a big supporter of reality TV because it's cheaper and healthier than weed or alcohol. So people love the embarrassing stories. I woke up this morning for the first time. I just adopted a rescue puppy about six weeks ago. She's five months old. Oh, cool. I woke up and she's never pooped in the house and woke up and she's being crate trained.

And looking at the crate, it looked like someone had taken a handful of mud and thrown it into a Cuisinart. She somehow managed to diarrhea in every direction, including on the top of the cage. I don't know how this is possible. Oh my God. Inside the crate? Yeah. Yeah. Unless you're like a Cirque du Soleil athlete who's had whatever, too much to drink. But in any case, so this is on the mind. Obviously it's all cleaned up. She's fine. She's chilling. Molly's good. But tell me about this high school incident I uh I I have to I have to ask

since it was sent over oh my god well um I was at this guy's house I was like 16 years old I was at this guy's house who was like this amazing bassist he played this thing called a war guitar which is bass it's like a it's like a bass with I don't a ton of strings on it, and you basically just play the fretboard. And he was just this weird proggy musician who I thought was super cool. And he was like, I don't know, maybe he was like 19. I thought that was amazing. And I went to his house. He lived with his dad.

And got there, I don't know, like 15 minutes, my stomach was just like, uh-oh. I had eaten some pepperoni pizza, I think, like the kind that has cheese that you can almost drink, like not like, you know, not like boutique-y LA pizza or whatever. It was like gnarly pepperoni pizza, just like mouthfuls of cheese anyway um was like oh no I don't want to use this guy's bathroom I'm not sure what's going on here but I should probably leave so after like 15 minutes at his house I I left um and I started driving down the street it wasn't like oh geez well if I find a toilet then I'll be happy about it was like oh I really need a toilet um And I stopped at this liquor store and

walked inside and I was like, do you guys have a restroom I can use? And they were like, no, sorry. It's for employees only. At that age, it would have been confusing if I had like lied and said I was pregnant. I've done that before. Once, only once. An awful person. And then, so I got back in my car and drove. I was in a, like, 1991 Honda Civic with a little, like, a racing steering wheel. It was pretty funny. And I drove down the street and stopped at a gas station and got out. And it was, like, step, step, framp.

Just, like, oh, my God. I didn't even make it inside and it was just like you know when something like that happens to you you wonder if you're gonna spend the rest of your life doing that like uncontrollably because it's just so it's so shocking like it just shouldn't happen um and and i i just like i had to get back in my car and like finish, like finish. And then I had to drive home and, and, you know, sitting in my, in my. Sorry, that's, that's, that's, that's my pooch. I apologize for that.

But so you see. That's a disgusting story. And so, so I have a number of friends who swap these stories. Sorry, my dog's freaking out, guys. Okay. This is like podcast verite. Are you there? Yeah. Okay.

So coming back to the topic at hand. So I have a number of friends who are athletes and have been competitive athletes. And guys take all sorts of disgusting pre-workout products and so on. And these guys trade stories of what they call fouling out. So what happened to you, they would call fouling out. Oh, my God. Well, I'm not alone. My people are out there.

No, you're not alone. And so I'll trade just a really quick one because I think that most guys who've tried to gain muscle and taken a lot of horrible supplements will somehow identify with this. So I was on my way, driving on my way to SFO, right? Driving to the airport. And I had had a bunch of creatine monohydrate, a bunch of coffee, and then I think what's called MCT oil, which is the ultimate recipe for disaster pants, I now realize in retrospect. But got halfway to the airport, I'm racing to a flight and had the exact experience that you did. Like just viciously shat myself. And so it's like throwing up, it comes in waves. Oh, it was the worst. It's like throwing up. It comes in waves. Oh, it was the worst. It's like throwing up. It's so true. So then I had to basically clean myself up with my own boxers and run into the airport,

get through security, and then go deal with myself. So for those people out there who've had this experience, you're not alone. And what you said also, the steps, kind of like step, step step step bang it made me think of like san francisco doula midwifery and whatnot because they're like oh when you're trying to have a a natural birth if you're doing it at home you can have a pregnant woman like walk on a curb just like one foot on one foot off and that's a one way to like kind of pop the baby out so wow you know all kinds of stuff. Well, yeah. The four-hour baby.

The four-hour baby. Sounds like a horrible tragedy. But how did the business start? And I think a lot of people, they know you. They know your photograph. They've seen the book. They're very familiar with the company as it exists now. But like, what was the,

what was the moment in which you decided to start selling clothing? Yeah. I never worked in a clothing store and it wasn't, you know, eBay was definitely not my way into the fashion industry. That was not my intention. I just was kind of flailing. I wanted to be a photographer, but figuring out how to schmooze in the art world or talk about my photography and make stuff up about why it was important or all of that stuff just seemed like not right for me.

And not like people were inviting me to do shows, although I did have a show at Adobe Books before they went extinct. Do you ever go there? No, this is here in the Bay Area. Yeah, it was a super cool bookstore in San Francisco. But I don't know. I was working at the Academy of Art University in downtown San Francisco. How old were you at that point? I was 22. Okay, got it. And I got that job because I needed to have a hernia fixed. I don't know how I got a hernia, but I had no health insurance. So I had to get a job so I could get health insurance so I could get my hernia fixed. And I had to work at this job for three months to get health insurance.

So I did. But I was working in the lobby just like checking student IDs and sometimes worked like late at night and had time to kill on the internet. And was getting friend requests on myspace i'm not sure if anyone remembers oh yeah i'm kidding um and so i was getting friend requests on myspace from ebay sellers that were promoting their businesses on myspace and i wore almost entirely vintage at the time and I knew where to find it. And I saw the prices that these vintage pieces were fetching on eBay and said, Hey, you know, I can find them for way cheaper. Um, I know how to take a picture. I'm pretty sure I know how to use the internet.

Um, and eBay, eBay was a great place to start. You's kind of like a framework for you to sell online. And it's really easy today. But then building a website, like a web shop, it wasn't as easy. So I started with eBay. And you also have a built-in customer base there. You put something and you can test what works or if people, your taste or what you have to bring to the table. So I bought eBay for dummies and, uh, had a friend model for free, you know, and just found some vintage, sold some of my stuff. And it was, you know, you can get a read on what people like really, really quickly on eBay because they watch stuff. There's something

called watching, which is basically like you're monitoring it or adding to your favorites. You want to see what happens with the auction over the course of a week or 10 days. And how did you know where to find vintage clothing? It was like all I wore. So I just spent my youth in thrift stores discovering just unearthing stuff that no one else wanted that I thought was really special. I made a career out of it. Did you have a favorite thrift store at the time in the Bay Area? Let me think.

At the time, I don't know. None of them are a real gold mine anymore. I liked estate sales a lot because you can encounter people who have no idea what they have. That's becoming rarer and rarer. Thrift stores are on to vintage being valuable. How would you find, at the time, how would you find the estate sales? Just look in the newspaper or a Craigslist? Craigslist, yeah, Craigslist and the newspaper or like a Craigslist? I'm not, I'm trying. Yeah, Craigslist and the newspaper.

Yeah. Very cool. And I like line up with all these people that were, I don't know, way older than me at like 6 a.m. to be the first people in and I just run straight for the closet and hope whoever died had great style. I saw this, the end, I didn't watch, I didn't see the entire thing. My girlfriend was watching at the end of this documentary about a, I want to say a fashion icon named Iris, who's now,

or when it was recorded or filmed in her nineties, 93. And she has awesome style, but I think it'll be hard to get to her estate still. Uh, so you got, you got eBay for dummies. You know where to find the vintage clothing.

Know how to take a picture. Know how to take a picture. And you're getting an indication of what works or what people are at least interested in, right, through the watching. Do you remember your first sale or your first day of sales? Yeah. It was a, it was, it was a week of auctions. So I watched what happened over the course of the week. And at the very end, some stuff goes crazy because people swoop in at the last minute trying to

steal it from whoever was in the lead. And, you know, sometimes nothing happens, but I learned really quickly what, you know, what was working and what wasn't and tweaked that with every auction, with everything I bought. And I watched my competitors and I watched what they were doing. And I just, I tried to do a better job and I don't know. What are some examples of maybe some of the things that you noticed in those initial tests and that you could be better at. Yeah. Well, the thumbnails are the thing that attract. I mean, you evaluate everything as you browse eBay by a thumbnail and the title of the item.

And those are two things that you can optimize just to kind of infinity. I mean, there's a limited amount of space, but I knew that using images that were really bright where you could see the silhouette of the item, eBay thumbnails have gotten a lot bigger, but at the time they were teeny tiny, teeny tiny. So making it really obvious what the item was and even showing, you know, I had a, I would split the image in half and have, of the thumbnail be a full-length shot of the item, and then I'd have a detail shot on maybe the right-hand side, and the description. So, I mean, selling vintage is such an incredible way to learn perceived value

because unless you're selling something that's like a designer, like a Chanel jacket or whatever, you're buying stuff that you're buying it for the style and you're buying things that have no inherent value that could be, that are really are someone else's throwaway and exalting them to a level that makes them worth more and, and worth more. I mean, eBay was the customer who determined the price. They started everything at $9.99 and let them choose. I let them fight over it.

But they only fought over it because I turned it into something really special. And I breathed new life into these forgotten about things. And as a copywriter, how did you accomplish that? And maybe that's a nonspecific question that's unhelpful. For instance, a lot of people bring up, I think it's influenced by Robert Cialdini, and they talk about scarcity, time, restrictions, etc. as tools of persuasion that can be used for, for good or ill means. Um, but what did you, how did you learn to write persuasive copy?

Um, I don't know. My mom was a writer and write reading and writing was always, I mean, it sounds like so, so basic, but it was just something that she always took a lot of pride in and, um, something that I really cared about. And I guess I had a voice. I didn't realize that until later on when I realized I was building a brand because there were so many specific things that had become part of the Nasty Y'all DNA. But you can take something that may be like an 80s, like big ass, you know, coat capy thing that, you know, some, you know, overweight lady might have bought and turn it into like this like avant-garde. I mean, you can use a word like avant-garde for something that could be perceived as like outdated and funky on the wrong person, like a lady with a perm or just like the coolest thing on some like kid with a weird haircut you know on the sidewalk so it's all about context

right yeah so a couple of things um the the first is thumbnails we are doing this over skype for those people who always ask me i'm'm using Ecamm Call Recorder to record this and Audio Technica ATR2100 mic, which is about $60 on Amazon. But your thumbnail for Skype is this rad-looking chick. I don't know who she is. It's a bunch of bikers, naked female bikers. And one of them has, it looks like a tattoo of flowers and something over one breast. And she's holding a knife. I can't tell exactly what's going on.

Yep, that's pretty accurate. Where is this from? How did you find it? What is this? So I'm working on my second book. And I've been pulling images, just all kinds of inspiration. Some of it will be used in the book. And this is actually an image from a movie called Girlboss, Girlboss Gorilla.

Gorilla, G-U-E? G-U-E, yeah. Yeah. So that was a film that I saw a long time ago that was kind of the inspiration for the name of Girlboss. And very few people know that. So there's a whole genre of Japanese cinema called pinky violence or just pinky films. And it's pretty much like all female revenge and girl gangs gangs and they're so cool like they're super stylish and tarantino's ripped a lot from them um and this this one this is from girl boss gorilla i wonder if i think battle royale i want to say is one of those comic books one of like the most violent i've seen it violent things you could possibly imagine which makes you then think of some of say the fight scenes in like kill bill uh in some capacity but uh coming back to the writing for a second well let me start with a question that i always ask and we'll go from there what is the book that you've gifted most other people so the book that i've gifted most other

people is uh the richest man in babylon which i talk about in girl boss and it's was written like a hundred years ago and it's it's written as though it was written in biblical times or something uh parables oh yeah it's parable or yeah it would be a parable it'd be like the alchemist yeah it's like it's basically parables set in ancient times describing someone who goes about this guy who goes about i forget his name trying to find out how he can make money how he can make a life for himself and his family and he encounters all these different people and lessons along the way and the advice is you know very there's some really simple advice like save 10 of everything

that you earn don't take advice from the baker if you want to be a cobbler. And it's something that anyone can read and understand. It's like a one-hour, two-hour read. It's the tiniest little book. And 100 years later, all of the advice still holds up, which I find really great. And it's a cheap book, and I'm a cheap giver. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. So it would be that in my book, I guess. The Richest Man in Babylon. And what other writers, just from a writing perspective,

so you said your mother was a writer or your father? My mom. What type of writing did she do? Well, she sold houses for a long time and then kind of quit doing that and started writing about real estate. And now she writes about all kinds of stuff and she's working on her own book. But yeah, wait, what was the question? The question was, I was stuttering and stammering my way to the question, which was, what, do you have any

favorite writers or writers that you admire or have influenced you? Any of the above? Yeah. So Rainer Maria Rilke, I think is just such a great... Can you say that one more time, please? I think it's Rainer Maria Rilke. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah yeah um so on love and other what's it called on love another maybe it's just on love i don't know everything i read almost like everything that i learned from actually reading things or um unearthing culture happened before i started the business because after basically since I was 22

so it's been almost a decade um I feel like my personal I don't know my quest for for for knowledge was fulfilled by all the shit all the challenges that come with building a business and so things like books that I read for fun and not books that I read to learn stuff kind of went out the door. It's like all nonfiction. The discretionary extracurriculars kind of got consumed or displaced by the work. Kind of.

Yeah. It's like I only read things that I can do something practical with now, which is, I don't know, not, not, not, not something that makes for a lot of relaxation, but fun.

So Rainer Maria Rilke, if that's, I'm sure I'm pronouncing that incorrectly, but he's come up actually in my life in the last 48 hours, I've had two separate people recommend reading. And I did read this long, long time ago, but letters to a young poet.

Yeah. From 1929. So what do you do? You said it's not relaxing, and I know we're hopping around a lot, but what do you do to relax? Let's just say, looking back at some of the either tougher periods or fastest growing periods in your company, what did you do to decompress? I mean, when you felt overwhelmed or burned out, what did

you do? How did you manage that? God, sometimes you just kind of explode and hopefully no one else is around. Um, and I was like, I was like crying last night. Uh, also, why were you crying last night? I can't let that go. Oh my God. I don't know't know just because because running a business is really hard um and what do you yeah what do you do i mean do you cry for like five minutes and you're done do you cry for longer than that do you yeah i cried for like five minutes and then i was done just kind of like this feels good so i'm gonna just let it happen for a second yeah um yeah it's just like, fuck. It was just one of those, it was the long day. Yeah, but right now the thing that relaxes me the most is tuning in and turning off with reality TV. I don't know, I just finished watching the entire season of the worst show.

People are not even compelling. They're not funny it's it's it's so bad but you can't stop watching it's called dating naked dating naked oh my god i've seen i remember i saw a few minutes of this in like a waiting room at a doctor or something and i was like that is the most ridiculous premise i've ever seen but i couldn't stop watching it it's so dumb it's so dumb but i can but I couldn't stop watching it. It's so dumb. It's so dumb. But I can't, you can't stop watching it. You're like, ew, they're butts. And you're like, but I like watching this show.

I don't know. Yeah, what else do I do to relax? Hang out with my dogs. They're cool. These are the three poodles that are related? They're all siblings, yeah. They're different ages. They're like from different litters.

But their parents like, yeah, their parents have been busy. What are their names? Donna Summer is the oldest one. And she's like three. And the next one's Cozy Dozer. And Cozy's like, I don't know, maybe just over a year old. And then there's one named Gino who was named after my husband's grandfather. And he's like, I don't know, maybe eight months or something.

That's Gino. I want to talk about naming because naming and titling is really, I've enjoyed reading about how you've gone about it in a few cases. So the girl boss gorilla, I had no idea. So that's new. And I need to get that made into a poster in my house because it's amazing. You should. Second, so Gina's after the grandfather.

What about the two other dogs? How did you come up with those names or how were they named? I don't know. Donna was just like, well, it was kind of like, can we name her Donna Bummer? And then it was like, but that's not very nice. Okay, let's name her Donna Summer. I don't know. Donna was just like, well, it was kind of like, can we name her Donna Bummer? And then it was like, but that's not very nice. Okay, let's name her Donna Summer. I don't know. I don't know why.

She has a cool haircut. And then Cozy was just like super sleepy. And, you know, when we brought Donna home, she was like screaming her head off, just like, don't take me away from my parents. And we were like, oh, no, we're awful. And then we brought Cozy home, and Cozy just kind of slept. It was just like, I'm cool. And she's still like that.

So it was just like, let's name her Cozy Dozer. Cozy Dozer. Now, Nasty Gal. A lot of folks don't know the origin. Where is the name from? So the name Nasty Gal, so I used to work at a record store in San Francisco that's no longer around in Noe Valley

called Streetlight Records and spent a lot of time. I think music was probably like my first love way before fashion. I'm not even sure if I'm in love with fashion. And this, I'm not sure if it was just reissued at that time but i somehow uncovered this album called uh nasty gal by a woman named betty davis who i think is becoming become more well known but um she's the ex-wife of miles davis and she's just like super outspoken funk singer with a really great band behind her and just these super raunchy like

awesome lyrics and she just doesn't give a fuck um so when i was choosing a name for my ebay store which i never thought i'd be you know i never thought i'd be talking about it this much you know nine years later which is fine i still like the name um i thought i thought nasty gal would be good because there were so many other e sellers whose business names were like Lady Standing in the Dust or Lady in Tall Grass or Boho. Just so bohemian and kind of expected. And I was like, I'm going to name it Nasty Gal. I don't know. I'm antagonistic.

I don't know. It worked. What, looking back at Nasty Gal, I guess a couple of questions. One is, I've read in different places, well, different accounts of this. Why leave eBay? What, yeah. One second. Did I actually say that she has an album called Nasty Gal?

Because I think I didn't. Because I think I just talked about this lady named Bitty Davis. All right. Well, that's helpful to have that tidbit then. So the album name is Nasty Gal, hence... Yes. Bang. Okay. Yes. Cool. The transition off of eBay, how did that happen? What's the story behind that? Well, it wasn't much of a transition. I like to make promises that I'm not sure I can keep and then figure out how to keep them. It's happened a few times in my life.

We will come back to that. It's good. I think you can will things into happening by just committing to them sometimes um and so i was i had started to promote the idea of this you know coming soon nasty gal.com nasty gal vintage.com was actually the first url i had to buy nasty gal.com from you can guess who um but i had started to leave feedback for my customers when wait a second all right i actually can't guess i'm like bet davis i can't imagine that's who no who did you have to buy from was it some porn company yes okay all right got it did you do that through a broker did you reach out to them directly or i did i did it through a broker got it and where does someone find such a broker to help them if they want to do that? I don't remember. Someone introduced me to this guy and it was like, it was $8,000.

Nice. That's a good investment right there. So I, sorry to interrupt, but I had to, my head was spinning with all these incorrect answers. So you get the domain, you've put up coming soon. Put up the domain, yeah, coming soon, you know, Nasty Gal Vintage vintage and i had started to leave feedback for my customers on ebay saying like hey come come to coming soon nasty gal vintage.com and i was like oh shit i better build a website better actually do this so i figured out i launched the website um and when i launched the website ebay decided to suspend me around the same time so it was not a transition. It was

literally like, I'm going to try this website thing. I hope I can go back to eBay if it doesn't work out. But it became apparent pretty quickly that that wasn't going to be an option. I got suspended for leaving a URL in the feedback for the customers. eBay doesn't want you sending traffic off their website. Yeah. Ixnay on the stealing our customers, eh? Ixnay on the eBay. Right. Exactly. So what the hell did you do? I mean, if suddenly, bam, that entire ecosystem is turned off, what happened in the next 24, 48 hours?

Some editors had heard or seen on the MySpace profile that I was going to launch a website. They did a little coverage of it when it launched. It was just like there was a lot of pent-up demand. I didn't know I would have any traffic, but the website sold out just instantly. It was like an hour. There was maybe 150 items on the website when we launched, but there's only one of each of those things. 150 orders still seems like a lot for your first day of doing business. That's a lot for your first day of doing business. That's a lot. But it was just like I had Kelly Ripa's stylist calling me asking if I had another one of those like vintage jacket and extra small.

It's like, no, it's one of a kind. And I don't know. It was very serendipitous that it worked at all and that I was able to not have to go back to eBay if that is even a sentence. No, I think we can work without punctuation in this conversation. Especially since I've had enough tea now and butter and coconut oil to last me for like a Siberian trek. But I'm digressing. The eBay transition slash booting off of slash jumping, jumping headfirst and growing wings

on the way down. That was how long after you started selling on eBay? That was, oh gosh, a year and a half. And at the, at the point that you launched your site, what did sales look like on eBay for you? If you recall, roughly? Yeah. So the first year on eBay was like $75,000 in revenue, which I wasn't paying myself. I mean, I didn't need stuff. I lived in a pool house for $500 a month. I drove an 87 Volvo. I ate Boston Market and Subway all the time. So that was like winning a lottery. Yeah. Oh, for sure. I think Boston market's underrated i used it kind of it's like trader joe's in boston market's like don't

knock it until you try it uh and then you start getting these inquiries from say kelly ripa she is extra small um having been on that show once she is tiny she's in such great shape she is in amazing shape uh how did you develop those relationships with editors and so on or was it all out of the blue i mean did you ping them no it was it was like totally inbound at that point and it wasn't like a giant you know there wasn't a ton of news every year it was daily candy um you know rest in peace and uh who what where and they just kind of they they followed me on myspace they heard about the launch and they decided to talk about it and the kind of coverage i got was stuff that brands like Cartier will pay tens of thousands of dollars for.

But when you're doing something cool, people want to talk about it. And I guess it was cool. I mean, I hate saying that I'm cool. No, you can say it was cool because if you were like, let me tell you how I'm cool, it would be one thing. But you're talking about how the launch was cool. That's fair game. People liked it. They liked it, so they talked about it.

If you have something great, people will talk about it. I think that's just kind of like a rule of the internet. And if someone were launching now, not necessarily fashion or anything like that, but they say, I have this idea for X. Let's just, let's, we can think something up. Like vintage toy cars, let's just say. I'm sure it's been done. And they say, I would like to figure out,

I would like to build a business based on this. What advice would you give them in terms of kind of testing or de-risking or testing the waters in any way? Or you can answer that in any way really that you'd like. But if you had that conversation with someone, and I'm sure you have had probably ad nauseum these types of conversations, but assuming they're pretty smart, they're willing to do the work, they're detail-oriented, like what would you say to them?

I would say it's really great to test your product. My MO is like, I'm going to talk about something before I've even launched it and make a big stink about it. Who knows if it's going to work out? And that's just me being kind of like short attention span, instant gratification. But I really think there's a lot of value in being patient, in testing things with like a small group before you go out there and tell the world, ta-da, you know, here I am fully formed, you know, buy into my stuff, you know, buy into what I'm doing. I think there's just a lot of resources for, I mean, as far as selling online goes, it's, I mean, it's like having a lemonade stand at this point.

So it's incredibly easy thing to do. Your product should be really differentiated and the way you talk about it should be unique and really thoughtful. And regardless of whether you're selling used diapers or used toy cars, you should really, really invest in presenting yourself well. And there's websites like Squarespace, obviously, that make that so easy now, so much easier than it used to be. Just finding a graphic designer that can make something look like what you can plug into now for almost no money is incredible. Yeah. No, the, the infrastructure, I mean, the, the rentable infrastructure per se, whether it's a Squarespace or a WordPress or someone else, uh, I mean, you can, you can have a site up and running within an hour or two, and then you could use, you know, I've mentioned them

in the four hour work week, but even the marketplaces that exist now for things like designers, right. Or illustrators like a 99igns or Fiverr or something like that. I mean, I'm having illustrations done for a book right now with the non-spec version of 99designs, these kind of one-on-one projects. And the quality is obscenely high. I mean, I've been very, very impressed.

So it is a lot easier. And particularly with things like Kickstarter, I think you have also the ability to see how strong your pitch is right before you buy inventory or manufacture things. Yeah. No one cares. You don't have a customer. It's like, you got to see if anyone cares first. Exactly. And if they're willing to part ways with their dollars, what were some books or resources that helped you in the first few years or overall in building Nasty Gal? Totally. I would say the dummies guides are not, I mean, they're fine. They're really fine. When I went to raise venture capital, there's one called,

I think it's something like how to be smarter than your venture capitalist, like literally something like that. And I read that and I was like, you know, I think it's something like How to Be Smarter Than Your Venture Capitalist, like literally something like that. And I read that and I was like, you know, I've raised $70 million, so I guess I figured that out. And there was a book called No Man's Land that I thought was really good. It was about just that period of time where you're too small to be big and you're too big to be small. And most people hire middle management, but middle management have never seen the top. So then you hire more senior management. And I've done that. And even that's challenging. So I mean, there's no silver bullet, but reading about other people's experiences of growing and

struggling with scaling a business always makes you feel better. Is the book that you were thinking of, Venture Deals, Be Smarter Than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist? No. Maybe it's called How to Outsmart Your Venture Capitalist or something. How to Train Your Venture Capitalist. Yeah, basically. How to Be Smarter Than Your Venture Capitalist. That's what it's called. At least that's what's coming up in the search results. Let me see. How to Be Smarter Than Your Venture Capitalist? No's what it's called. At least that's what's coming up in the search results. Let me see. How to be smarter than your venture capitalist? Oh, Venture Deals. Be smarter than your lawyer. I guess that's it. Yeah.

Okay. All right. Cool. Yeah. Venture Deals for People Interested in This World is a great book. That's Brad Feld and his partner. Very, very good investors. What were some of the biggest challenges for scaling an e-commerce business? What were some of the harder things that you had to contend with? Let's just keep it focused on you. But the company, of course, as it's growing, I've spoken with people like Phil Libin of Evernote on the podcast, and he's like, well, this gent who runs Rakuten, he's saying you should always plan on what if it's three times bigger, what if it's 10 times bigger. There's sort of these phase shifts where systems have

to be completely redone. But for you in growing the company, what were some of the hardest periods for you? Yeah, I would say scaling is really hard. So I would say infrastructure, so systems. I mean, we still don't have the systems that we would like to have to be able to plan our business and evaluate our business and talk about it. What would be some examples of systems? I mean, it's really kind of like unglamorous stuff, like an ERP system, like enterprise resource planning, which basically connects the dots between different departments like finance and merchandise and whatever else. And right now, everything that we do is living in kind of disparate systems that don't talk as much as they could. So that's a struggle today. What else? I mean, I would say people. I would say like, you know, being,

having never really been a manager prior to starting the business that is Nasty Gal, you know, my dream scenario at one point was not getting out of a bathroom and eating Boston Market with my hands. And then encountering a team of hundreds who were looking up

at you. It's a really scary thing. I thought you meant your dream was walking into the office of hundreds of people in your bathroom. And it's like, that's very Wolf of Wall Street. I kind of like that visual, like eating lobster tails while you walk through the office. I would totally, I would do that, but I haven't. Should I start over? Because I didn't make sense. No, no, no, no, no. It does make sense. I mean, how, what did you view your, now you are,

you are no longer CEO. Is that correct? No. Yes. Correct. When you were CEO, what did you view as your job? Like as entrepreneur CEO, it's really tough because there's so many things that I've been a part of and done over the course of the company's history. And I'm also kind of the brand, the brand cop. Um, the brand is my voice. Um, the vision has kind of grown out of the, the beginnings, the DNA of what was nasty gal origin story. So there's never been a point where I could just be like the cut and dry. I'm the CEO kind of person, you know, I'm the cultural leader of person. I'm the cultural leader.

All of these things, it was so many things. So when you're growing a business, it's really hard to say, no, I'm not going to plug that hole. I'm not going to edit the photos. I'm not going to company spring leaks. And when you've done so many different things, it's easy to sprout arms and fingers and just start, like, you know, overextending yourself by filling in the gaps as they present themselves over the course of, you know. So it was not, I don't think I got to choose my, what I did as much as I perhaps would have liked to. And I'm even today, I'm not,

I'm not sure if I have that privilege because you kind of have to do what the company needs you to do for it to continue operating or to be its very best. And nine years of that is a really long time. And I think my greatest strengths are with the brand and with, with marketing the brand and with the creative and the things that in the beginning built Nasty Gal. And that's what I'm hoping I can focus on today. How do you try to keep the team on the same page so that that sort of brand aesthetic and spirit doesn't get

fragmented and turned into some Frankenstein monster where you've become brands that you loathe or whatever you get the idea how do you how do you try to steer that you can really quickly become a caricature of yourself um like yeah um uh like yeah like a spoof of what you've done best and I think it's a matter of talent but it's also coaching but at the end of the day I think you really need to have tools that everyone can rally

around and say hey this is what it is, this is what the brand is this is what we're all signing up to do not this is my idea versus your idea versus your idea versus your idea. Because I think culture, like in a business that people are really excited to work at, culture can be used as a weapon. I think the brand can be used as a weapon. I think there have been times where people who are really cool and actually do get what the brand is find themselves really frustrated because not everybody gets it the way they do. And they start to say, well, Sophia said this, or Sophia wouldn't like that. And it's like, I don't want to be, don't sling me around. Like, that's not cool. And so we've

been spending the last several months actually working on somewhat of a brand bible but also just filters for how we make decisions about what the voice is and how we how we take pictures and you know the the world that that is the nasty gal world and what the you know what the guardrails are that people can explore within we always want to leave room for people to be creative but but it takes out the, it takes out the, uh, the objectivity, uh, or wait, yeah, the, the subjectivity. Oh my God, my brain's not working. Basically it makes it not personal. So yeah, it makes it, makes it more objective or depersonalized. Yeah. So it's easy for it to be like, Oh, well that's not not on brand because I said so. It's like, oh, hey, we're all trying to do the same thing. Let's look at this thing that fits outside of us and

our taste, our ego, whatever. Let's talk about what it is rather than what we think it is. So you have to have those things defined for people to have conversations about. And that's something I'm really excited to have. There's a really cool handbook. I think it's just called The Handbook for New Employees for a company called Valve, which is a software company. It's one of the coolest sort of employee orientation handbooks

that I've ever seen. I had a chance to meet, I guess it was Gabe Newell at one point in Seattle. And somebody else then recommended I see this handbook. It's really cool. You should check it out. I think you might enjoy it and people listening might get something out of it.

You can find the free PDF if you just search Valve employee handbook. It's pretty sweet. I think I've seen that. It's really beautiful. It's this teeny little cool thing. Yeah. Yeah. It's really well done.

Great illustrations, but, uh, lays out the basic ground rules, right. For working within this somewhat unusual culture. Um, now you mentioned the, before I derailed us with the, uh, Wolf of Wall Street analogy and you walking around in the bathroom eating lobster tails, uh, which actually I have to quick, uh, quick anecdote. So when I was in college, one of my buddies and I was in,

I was in New Jersey and one of my buddies ends up calling us from Atlantic city. And he's like, there are limos coming to get you. You have to come to Atlantic city. We show up and he's just been on a bender and made like two hundred thousand dollars blackjack and proceeds to spend it all in the next 48 hours and he was walking around the casino in a bathrobe eating and he ordered lobster tails for everyone on the on the like blackjack floor wow and so i

was kind of imagining like you could you could be that person but with like a martini glass. I love absurd, just doing absurd things like that because you can. So I was going to ask you about managing, and I will, but absurd things. What are some absurd things that you've done? Oh, my gosh. I'm getting on a bus that I'm calling a girl bus, hashtag girl bus. And, well, it's like later at the end of this month. And it's just the paperback. It's the Girl Boss paperback.

And it has a new introduction in it. It's the introduction to the introduction, I guess, just talking about what's happened over the last year a little bit. And we're going to like 10 different cities on this crazy tour bus. It's like I'm a Spice Girl or something. And, you know, throwing events at different venues and some bookstores. And it's just like it's really absurd to be riding around like Hillary Clinton and like a campaign bus basically. But Penguin wanted to do it.

And I thought it was just like too good to pass up. And it's really funny to have your face and the cover of your book, like, like, you know, slathered across the side of like a giant tour bus. Yeah, I would imagine. What about, um, managing? Let's talk about that. So the managing of people you had no experience prior to Nasty Gal, now it's grown, of course, tremendously. Um, what were, who were the mentors or what were the things that helped you learn to manage to the extent that you were able? Oh my God. I think I'm still learning. Um, wait, say that again. Yeah. That was a, that was a word salad question. Um, who are the mentors or like the, the resources that helped you learn to manage other people? Because I think that's a weakness

of mine, quite frankly, I'm good at defining systems, but I'm not always, uh, for instance, I mean, I was raised by or not raised by, that sounds weird. I was coached by a lot of athletic coaches who were always kind of very short with praise. They didn't do a lot of head pats, but heavy on criticism and very meticulous. And so I am often very bad at providing praise when I probably should, because I don't feel like I was ever given it. Therefore, it's not really necessary. Yeah. I'm the same. I think I'm the same. But that causes all sorts of problems, right? Yeah. People are like, we don't feel appreciated. And it's like, oh my God, I totally appreciate you. But I respect your intelligence enough not to

be like, I don't know. It's just... Yeah. It's tough. I mean, because I've always been told, like, look, the good stuff. I remember I had a VP of sales at one point when my first job out of college and he said I would give him all the story and the backstory tell him all this stuff about every client. He's like, Tim, I don't need the story. I just need to know next steps. And second, I don't

need to know the good news because that takes care of itself. I need to know the bad news. And I was like, oh, okay. And so I've kind of adopted that. But you end up in a position where people can get very demoralized in a culture where people aren't getting the, or don't have the ability to celebrate little wins and so on. Who has helped you to become a better CEO when you were a CEO or a better manager? I've had some executive coaches along the way. I think knowing the difference and then actually living the difference are two different things. And I think I'm pretty aware of the things that I'm, what my shortcomings are as a manager, as a leader, as a fill in the blank.

I'm not, you know, I think I have experienced the same thing where when you, especially if you're entrepreneurial, which I think we can both like safely say we are, no one's giving you those pats on the back. And when you find yourself in a position to be doling those out, you don't really relate because that's not something that you ever required. I'm an only child. I had a really mean dad. I mean, he's awesome now, but like it was criticism after criticism and it makes you self-aware enough to, uh, to calibrate on your own in a lot of ways, even though I'm totally open to, I love, you know, criticism and I love, but I think when you, when you're like a solo act at any point in your life and have to manifest things without the team, without the amazing team that we have today, you become really good at being your own critic and your own, and also your own pat on the back, or you're motivated maybe by different things.

And that's a hard thing to relate to as an entrepreneur who's leading people, and I think that's definitely been one of my shortcomings. But I'm always seeking advice, and I'm always seeking to better myself. I think leadership, management, chops, whatever you want to call it, is something that comes over time. A lot of things are just learned over time with repetition. And that's something that I have, you know, I've been, that's one part of the job that I've had is managing people, leading people. But there's been a million other things that I've done over the course of Nasty Gal's trajectory. And having someone like Sherry, our CEO,

who has a lifetime of those chops behind her, who wakes up every day inspired, not just inspired to lead people, but knows how to do it in a way that will work, it's such a cool thing to witness. And when you were in the CEO role, who were the other CEOs out there alive or dead that you admired and really looked to as role models? Hmm. Good question. Um, I mean, I've always admired Natalie Massonet who founded Net-A-Porter. She hasn't

been the CEO for a long time, but she's just like an incredible woman. Why is she incredible? She's a mother of two. She started a company along, you know, like she started an e-commerce business long before most of us had the idea to. She's been told, you know, I mean, I think people like kind of scoffed when, you know, she said, I'm going to sell a $30,000 handbag on the Internet or sell shoes on the Internet or these things that have become really commonplace. And she's also just a super-duper down-to-earth woman who's funny and sweet and gives great advice and who's seen a lot. And there's not a ton of examples that I think are similar to hers. Mickey Drexler is also an incredible CEO.

Mickey Drexler? Yeah. Do you know who Mickey Drexler is? I don't. I'm embarrassed to say it. Oh, my God. But I shan't tell a lie. Okay.

He's the CEO at J.Crew right now. And he used to be the CEO at Gap. And he's kind of like a retail legend. I think he's called like the Merchant Prince or Merchant King or something like that. It's a cool nickname. I know, right? I know. He's someone who's given me advice along the way,

just really great advice and connecting me to people that I've ended up... You know, great people beget great people. It's just when you meet someone awesome, it's common that I find the people that they surround themselves with are the people that I also like, and that's just such a cool thing.

It's like, I don't know. It's like you don't have to. It's like going to a, never mind. Wait, no, no, no. I want you to finish that thought. That was about to get interesting. I was going to start babbling about Yelp reviews. And it's like a Yelp review for a person.

It was not an intelligent thought, so I gave up. You know, I should learn to do that more often. I would embarrass myself a lot less. What was some of the advice that Mickey has given you that has stuck with you? It doesn't have to be specifically business. It could be anything. His advice was to stay CEO, which is really funny. It's definitely stuck with me, but I ignored it. Um, let me think. I can, I can give you an escape hatch for this. My memory

blows. We can, we can, I can, uh, I can give you a whole slew of pills and potions for that, but we will do that separately. Have you met David Cho? No. You haven't? Okay. Somebody asked online what you learned from him. What? David Cho?

Yeah, the graffiti artist slash artist who ended up i guess worth 500 million after facebook i believe i'm saying his last name oh cool what did i learn from him no i didn't i that's cool but you haven't met him what i learned about him was everything that you just told me okay okay got it i've been hoping to i find his story fascinating so i'm hoping to to connect with him at some point that's pretty, yeah, he's just made some really fascinating, creative decisions that, uh, I'd love to love to dig into. But, um, anyway, that's a whole separate story. Um, the, uh, what, what do you struggle with the most and how do you deal with it? I struggle with doing it all the most.

I struggle with feeling like I don't have time for everyone who I want to have time for and who I assume wants my time. For my friends and for my husband and for my parents and for my team, it's just time is a really finite thing and prioritizing it so that you can, you know, so you can be your best so that you can, you know, have a real solid time with people. So you can also find time to be alone or to take a vacation. It's just, there's not enough time. Um, so I, I'm always feeling like I'm letting someone down or I'm just, you know, it's like, it's like my calendar is booked up for the next month and a half now. And it's just, I, it's, it's not always like that, but to look out at the rest of the year, it's kind of like, it's over like the years, you know, years over that's, that's

something, I don't know if I, you know, I kind of hope that my life isn't always like that, but there's, there's gotta be great things if you're planning that far out, I guess. I feel very lucky for that. And the answer to your question really is feeling like I don't have all the time I wish I had to spend with all the people that I wish I could spend it with. And how do I deal with that? Yeah, how do you deal with it? And let me ask just in combination with that, and this is maybe a very silly question. You obviously are very driven and that sometimes leads people to find it difficult to hit the pause button or downshift. But you've stepped out of the CEO role. I would think as an outsider looking in, of course, you're still going to be very involved as chairman. But why can't you

create more time? Why can't you block out time? Because the company still needs me for my things and I still partner with my CEO and still spend a lot of time with her. I'm drumming up opportunities for the business, whether it's a collaboration or, you know, weighing in on something creative. You know, I still spend time there. You know, I've signed up for more things than I probably should have, but, you know, everyone should be. So I don't know. I feel like saying no is just, it doesn't create opportunities. So I'm throwing all that I can into the air and just to see how much I can actually handle. I think, I don't know, I might look like a glutton for punishment. So, you know, it's like, I'm launching a podcast next month. I'm like promoting this paperback.

You know, I'm working on another book. I'm like, who knows? I mean, I want Girlboss to become its own thing. Girlboss should be, is so much more than a book. It should like, who knows? I mean, I want Girlboss to become its own thing. Girlboss should be, is, is so much more than a book. It should be a business. It should be, it should be conferences. It should be, it should be so many things beyond what it, what it is. It's just a matter of, of doing it, um, of, of making, making the time and finding the team and, oh my God, what am I going to start another business? I not sure you know but just doing all I can with all that I have and connecting things that shouldn't connect

is what really really gets me excited because that's where invention happens and that's where I get that's where I just get like really really excited about things so what were some of the key inflection points for,

uh, for the company? So if you look back over the last 10 years or whatever it is, um, what were some of the key inflection points that allowed nasty gal to become what it is, right? Cause I can think back,

for instance, with the four hour work week, I can think very specifically to like the four-hour workweek i can think very specifically like the day that robert scoble at the time put something on his blog was a clear inflection point uh that was a clear inflection point the appearance on dr oz clear inflection point uh meeting certain people getting advice from say uh michael gerber who wrote the e-myth revisited and before i even wrote the four-Myth Revisited. And before I even wrote the four hour work week, he said, if you're going to write a book, write a fucking book, like don't half-ass it because a mediocre book is more of a liability than a help and, um,

blah, blah, blah. Right. So, so I can point to very clear introductions, meetings, blah. What are some of those for, for you and Nasty Gal? Yeah, I would say it was launching. I mean, the first one would be just launching the eBay store. The next one would be selling a Chanel jacket that I bought for $8 for over $1,000. The next one would probably be launching the website and having it sell out just overnight and then pretty soon after that hiring my first employee um after that it would be buying things that weren't vintage so buying a small medium and large of something from a trade show and bringing in new brands and testing and seeing if our customer had an appetite for more than just vintage, which they did.

And then it was like, I think just scaling, that's not an inflection point. But what happened, we outgrew our space in Venetia. I mean, we've moved so many times, but I would say after that, it was raising $50 million from Index Ventures. For me personally, it was four pages in Forbes in 2012. How did the four pages in Forbes happen? Because there's often some backstory, right? Not all of them are just gifts from heaven that get dropped in your lap and maybe this was but how did that come together i mean that's a that's a significant wait how did what drop in my lap no how did it come together i'm not saying it did your lap forbes yeah um oh my god the way the way media works is well it was it was it was someone who i met through index her name was julie supan and she was friends with someone who wrote at forbes

and they were getting brunch and she mentioned me and this the reporter um got interested and then i had no idea what i was doing and never talked to the media before and then julie julie used to run um like pr at youtube and she she consults for for startups and she's kind of like a maestro of all things publicity. And she was like, well, now that you have someone writing a profile on you in Forbes, you probably need my help. So I don't know. She did a great job. And so I hired her and she helped me, just coached me through it. She was like, they're going to want you to look like a billionaire. That's, that's their, you know, we've had to reshoot other stuff

that I've worked on with Forbes because they didn't think that the entrepreneur in his hoodie looked like a billionaire. So it's so funny. It's really funny just how all of that works. And so now I show up at photo shoots and I'm like, what do you want me to be? Okay. I'm bringing it, you know, it's like so dorky, but it's like whatever. You just try to do your best. What was that like? That was cool. What were some other pieces of advice that you got or things you've learned about interacting with media?

God, I've learned so much. I feel like I could- I'll give one. Always do fact check corrections via email and not phone. Yeah. That's smart. You need a paper trail of that stuff. I've been misquoted so many times. Really? And then that will sneak its way into Wikipedia and then it's a big, big quagmire to fix.

I mean, I think it's just that like the media always wants something to talk about and, um, they can, they can skew things for their own, you know, for their own fun. And it's, you know, there's a time where I think I believed a lot of what I read out there and I still believe a lot of it, but when there's controversy, it's often just to serve, um, you know, clicks and, you know, get, I don't know. It's like, I don't know what, I'm just kind of babbling, but be careful with what you say. Um, and if you don't have anything to say, then just don't say anything. I think it's okay to say no. Yeah, definitely. And also, I mean, one thing that I've learned, because if you take something out of context, like one sentence out of a paragraph,

it can make you look like, you know, a hero or a complete ass or a misogynist or an asshole or any number of things. So the context is so important. You know, what I've been doing for the last couple of years is if I send a response via email to a journalist, I'll just say, thank you for using this in its entirety. I do not give permission to slice and dice this. If it's going to be cut down, I need to give you permission. And not everybody responds well to that, but usually the ones who respond poorly to that, if it's diplomatically worded, are the people who already had an agenda to slant something in a really controversial, unnecessarily sort of a incendiary way. And even like the most,

you know, the best, some of the best journalists I've worked with, they'll write a really positive story and then they'll throw, they'll throw in some shit just for their own credibility to make sure they don't sound like some big fan. So there's always going to be some shit that they like say that you're going to be like grumpy about but it makes them credible and you just kind of have to like stomach it yeah and you can actually i mean you can help them also

you can facilitate things by saying like here are two or three of my detractors but that'll that can also give you um as long as they're safe, factual attackers. Does that make sense? Yeah. Once I walked like an ogre in heels and it's like, um, no,

like I've like go, go, go danced in public and fucking heels. I'm pretty sure I can. It was just like, no, like it's fine. But like of all the things,

like I can walk in heels. Okay. You know, like, um, just like pick something, just just there's plenty of things to criticize jesus if you if you catch me in like a you know in the corner i'm probably picking my nose like yeah just like find something real talk about that plenty when when are you when are you happiest oh god um i'm happiest when I'm like running down a trail in Big Sur, downhill a little, just a little downhill. And you jump and you feel like you fly like 20 feet. It's almost like a dream.

Oh, yes. I think that's the best feeling is being like I'm in a video game, but it's real. Like this is real life. And I'm, it's like, yeah, I think just like running down a trail in the forest is like maybe the best feeling ever.

That's such a good answer. That's a good answer. Uh, do you side note, if you come back to San Francisco, I'm sure that'll happen at some point. There's a place called House of Air, which is basically a humongous building full of trampolines at different angles.

And you can feel like you're in the Matrix. It's amazing. Do you struggle with depression or anything like that? And you don't have to. Oh, totally. It's not intended as you do. Oh, totally. I've struggled with depression my whole life.

I've been in and out of therapy my whole life. They tried to tell me I had ADD and give me some stuff in high school and they tried to give me stuff for depression. It made me feel super wired. um, more than anything, I think I struggle with anxiety. So I, I can hit the ceiling by like 11 AM. Um, if something just doesn't go right. I mean, I don't like yell or pound my fists. I'm not like a person in the office who throws things, but if I'm like, if I'm not happy, ain't nobody happy, like in the room, basically, it's just kind of like, it's not, so I don't, I'm not good at like hiding my feelings. It's, it's unfortunate, and then there's people who value it, and I try to keep those people around. But yeah, depression is like a gnarly thing. How do you contend with that? And I ask as someone who has similar ups and downs and has for as long as I can remember.

But what are your coping mechanisms? It's easy to point at things in your life that are out of your own control. Like I've pointed at who I got married like three months ago, but there's been times where I pointed at Joel and I was like, you're the problem. It's like, no, you're just not solving your own problems. I think you can just look everywhere outside of yourself to fix your problems. And thank God I'm not like, I don't have like addiction issues or anything. Cause I totally, if that was, if that was, if that ran in my family, I'd be a that I've been, I've taken antidepressants at different times. Um, and some are better than others. Um, but I just, I generally like to stay pretty kind of, I know alcohol, alcohol can help. Yeah. Yeah. That's, um, that's, so I, yeah, I'm not, I'm sorry.

Alcohol in reality? I'm telling you. I'm laying off the booze more now though. But I mean, I can have one glass of wine and I'm like the happiest, most like, like charismatic, like, you know, just fun person. Effusive. Yeah. And when I'm not drinking, I'm like, you don't want to walk up and talk to me. Like I'm not friendly. Like I'm not unfriendly. I'm just not open.

I'm just kind of stuck in my head. I don't know. What's your go-to wine drink or your go-to wine? Yeah, I like white wine. A lot of bars don't have white wine. But it would just be like a – I don't know, I started drinking Chardonnays. I like those. Oh, I got a Gewurztraminer.

It's really good, right? It's really good. Very minerally. You know what's a good one? It's the Cliff family, the Cliff Bar people. I went to this thing in Napa. Oh, my God. I sound like so cool now. But I went on this thing in Napa. Oh, my God. I sound like so cool now.

But I went on a bike ride. It was basically my investors have a retreat every year. And all of their entrepreneurs and the partners at their firm get together. And this is at Calistoga Ranch, which is a really beautiful place in Napa. Gorgeous. It's Pretty fancy. And then they have these activities. So you hear people talk, and there's really cool people.

Jerry Yang spoke at the last one. It's really interesting. And then they have these activities, and one of them was road biking and road biking up to a winery and then having a glass of wine. And I was like, yeah, I'm getting in shape for my wedding. Like if I'm going to drink wine, I should get on a bike first, right? And oh my God, these, all these guys, they're all European for one. And they're like, you know, they're like wealthy guys who like have their own shoes and like all the clothes and like do this. They like do it as a thing, you know, that they're like those guys who have all the cycling. So they're like $5,000 worth of gear i just thought i was i thought it was like i was just

like going on a bike ride for fun and i was just oh my god i was the only person that like didn't finish it i had to get in the car and like get a ride to the top of the hill anyway and the top of the at the top of the hill was cliff family winery i don't know why i'm like i'm like i don't know them i'm not i'm trying to not trying to like plug anything. It was just like, I'd never heard of Gewurztraminer and I bought a few bottles and took and like had it shipped to my house. And, um, yeah, I guess, I guess a white crispy wine. Yeah. Super, that's super tasty stuff. Uh, Sancerre is pretty good go-to for a lot of folks. The, uh, I guess I usually do a gin tonic, sort of Hendrix and soda. It's kind of my go-to if I don't want to have a nasty, nasty headache or tequila, as you've seen.

Yeah. Tequila's gnarly. You have to go with the good stuff if you're going to do tequila. So the Casa de Dragones is very expensive, but very tasty. With that, no headache. I mean, you saw me. I had a fair amount to drink, but no headache the next day. No cognitive dysfunction. Felt just fine.

When you think of the word successful, and I know that's a gnarly, dicey word, but who's the first person who comes to mind for you? Yeah. Successful. The word success is really conflicted for me because it sells people this idea that there's like a destination. I think there's people who have manifested things in the world that make more noise than other people, but success can just be as being a stay at home mom. If that's your dream, success can be, um, having a small business and keeping it that way and keeping in laying low because that's what you want. And that's the life that you want. Um, I really want,

you know, and as someone who's public, it's kind of like a, it's a, it's a, it's a hairy thing because I'm out there and I'm, I'm, I have book and, you know, I have a business and I sell things and whatever. But I just really want people to remember that they're capable of doing everything that the people they admire are doing. Maybe not everything, but if you're – don't be so impressed. I guess that's where my head goes is there's no reason that you can't have the things that the people that you admire have. it's like you I told you I was crying last night it's not like we who like my you know I'm done I've I've arrived or anything like that if you have any amount of hustle and any amount of humility you know that it all can go away tomorrow and that you should do everything you can with it now with what you have today so I guess it's a very philosophical way of saying when I hear the word success, I don't know what.

Warren Buffett? I don't, you know? It's like, I don't know. It's tough. It's a tough one. You said don't ask the cobbler if you're a bricklayer or whatever. I was thinking of Warren Buffett when you said that because he often says don't ask a barber if you need a haircut.

He's full of those. Totally. He's full of those. Let me ask just a couple of rapid fire questions. You don't have to have rapid fire answers, but just because I know that people will ask me why I didn't ask them if I leave them out. What is your favorite documentary or movie? My favorite movie might be a film called The Color of Pomegranates and it's by this guy Sergei Parajanov.

I'm not even sure if I pronounce it correctly. He was like a Georgian filmmaker and it's basically a moving painting. There's almost no dialogue. It's just one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. And, um, I've been, you know, I grew up Greek Orthodox and I'm just still kind of enchanted with the, with Eastern, um, the visuals of like Eastern Europe. Um, yeah. Sounds, sounds gorgeous. Yeah. I need to sort of fill up my roster

so I'll add that to the list what are you world class at that people might not realize or what do your friends know you're world class at that the rest of the world doesn't know about wait what did I put on my thingy I don't know I didn't read it

so for those people listening I send I could look it up I didn't read it. So for those people listening, I, um, I send, I could look it up. I S I send some of these questions in advance just so people don't get totally stumped, um, which happens. Uh, but I didn't look at the answers cause I wanted to be fresh for conversation. Uh, I could pick it up. I could look it up. Um, bear with me a second. I'll pick it up. Oh my God. I can use my brain hold on that's okay that's okay it's

let's see we got playing catch oh my god yeah yeah I guess playing catch yeah no I'm like I can have really good coordination to the point of it like being freaky like if i drop something i can be like looking the other direction like scratching my armpit

with one hand and then like like swoop in and like cat-like reflexes like that happens sometimes but it always it even surprises me and, I'm good at playing catch. Did you play athletics or sports growing up or no? Yeah, I played soccer. I mean, I played basketball. I played softball when I was in third grade, and then I played soccer a lot. I snowboarded a lot. I never hacky-s sacked San Francisco awaits

when you come back we can do some hula hooping totally you have to teach me how to break dance I can teach you, I can give some basics we can do six stepping next time you come along what are the most common misconceptions about you

oh I think people well I met some people yesterday who thought what are the most common misconceptions about you? Oh, I think people, well, I met some people yesterday who thought, they were like, I was like, what surprises you most? We spent some time and I showed them the office and talked to them about my business. And I was like, well, you know, what surprised you? And they said, well, you're not as egotistical as I thought you'd be. And I was like, wow. I mean, that's not insulting. From the outside, you put yourself on the cover of a book

with your hands on your hips and whatever, and maybe you expect something different, but that was a pleasant response. Yeah, it's better than the other way around. Like, wow, you're so much more mega-maniacal than I could have imagined. Oh, God, get me away from you if you could have a billboard anywhere with anything on it what would it say and where would you put it um i could have a billboard i'd put nothing on it and i'd put it everywhere

just an empty billboard you know i'm gonna cheat here i'm gonna go back and see if uh there's anything else that you'd stop telling women to smile yeah that's just like such a grumpy billboard though i changed my mind i'd rather just have nothing you project what you want onto the billboard but okay that's that's and since i've given you this this imaginary billboard you're entitled to do that but i want to hear the backstory and stop telling women to smile what's the what's the what's the story backstory um well it's something that i've said i mean i've said just like stop don't tell me to smile or like i mean if you're a girl who's not like who a guy wants to talk to and you

intimidate them because you aren't like giggling or whatever, they'll like take a, it's like you're, we're there for your, we're there for your pleasure. I don't know what it is, but it's happened to me from as early as I can remember. Just like, you should smile more. Just like, oh, you look really pretty when you smile. And it's like, that's nice. Thanks. Um, but there's something that's like, you're, you're here for me, so can you just smile if I have to look at you? Because a woman evaluating me just makes me feel emasculated or something. Kind of. They just don't know how to handle it.

And it's really frustrating and honestly pretty insulting. And then I found out that there's a woman named, what is her name? I mean, she has like this, she's an artist. I think she's in Brooklyn and she started something called Stop Telling Women to Smile. And someone was telling me about the other day and her name is Tatiana Fazlizade. Oh my God. Fazl tough name. Yeah, it's just her long name. I'm embarrassed of how I did that. But she has like wheat paste posters and kind of like a campaign, like stop telling women to smile, like I'm not your baby, that kind of shit. Which is just, I wouldn't put, you know, if I could put one thing on a billboard, it would probably be nothing.

Maybe Nasty Gal if it was free, you know. Right. Yeah. it would probably be nothing. Maybe Nasty Gal if it was free. What was your thinking process around stepping down, stepping out of the CEO role? The things that I find myself, that I think I'm good at are not the things that a CEO wakes up every day to do. Running an executive team of C-levels who have more experience than I've been in business for. It's like I said earlier, there's just a totally different skill set that comes with leading people and giving praise and repeating what we're all here to do. There's a lot of repetition, actually. And I'm the kind of person that's like, what?

You didn't hear me the first time? I'm not saying I'm proud of that. I just think that's kind of how I roll. There's an art to leadership. I wanted to focus on the the face of the company, which I wasn't prior. And so there's things that come along with that that are good for Nasty Gal, but take my time and take me out of your office. And there's nothing worse than feeling like you've abandoned the people who are reporting to you who need your time. It's just a matter of choosing. So I chose. And it was something that I'd been thinking about for a long time. Um, what was, what was the first day like or night after you made the decision and it was, you'd finally kind of made the call and knew that you were no longer going to be CEO?

Um, I think it was just a lot of relief. A lot of relief and just feeling like I had done the right thing. I was really happy for Sherry, my CEO, and it just seemed kind of like a non-event to our team. I expected more of a reaction, but they were like, what's the difference? Sherry's in all hands meetings and she speaks and we know who she is. What's the difference? I don't think it was a huge change for most of our team,

which felt good. Yes. Um, yeah, that's great. Yeah. That's huge. That's a big,

yeah. I expected a lot more questions and I was kind of bummed that people weren't, they weren't like, they weren't like, they weren't like freaked out. They're like, okay, cool.

Got it. We've been waiting for years. don't let the door hit you on the way i'm just kidding uh what uh one hundred dollar or less purchase has most possibly impacted your life in recent memory um i had a hamburger yesterday hamburger Hamburger? What kind of hamburger? I mean, was it a particularly interesting hamburger? I don't know. I mean, the one thing. I mean, I can think harder on this.

It's basically just inexpensive stuff that you get a lot of value out of. I don't think. I'm looking at my – I mean, a manicure. Manicures are like pretty, they're good. They're like, they make you feel better, but they cost like, you know, I get gels. So I don't know, maybe they're like 20 or 30 bucks and you don't hate your hands as much. I don't know. What else?

Under $100. Not a lot is under a hundred dollars it's like a hamburger or you know probably i mean probably a glass of wine oh my god that's the theme here that's a glass no glass wine's good i actually bought one of my favorite bottles of wine i've ever had uh i bought from trader jo Joe's. They have great wine service. I mean, the people really know what they're talking about. It's $4 for a bottle of white wine.

And if you want to upgrade that, you get the, I really like Rombauer Shark. Oh, yeah. Rombauer is good. Yeah. 2004, I think I had, which was amazing.

And not that expensive. That was the first white wine I ever bought a case of. I thought I would never buy a case of white wine, ever. I've always been a red wine guy. And Rombauer Chardonnay was the one that made the difference. What does the first 60 minutes of your day look like? Now, I'm going to ask that a little retrospectively.

When you were CEO of the company, on a day where you look back and you're like, fuck yeah, kicked ass today. What did the first 60 to 90 minutes of your day look like? Or, or what were your morning routines? Yeah. I mean, I usually, and a day that ends well is one that started with exercise. That's for sure. Um, I usually eat, you know, you know for breakfast so i wake up let me what time what time do you wake up um i don't know like 6 30 7 um most people are like exercising at 6 30 or 7 but i'm just i don't know i i stay up i'm like i keep i i just keep weird hours um

so i wake up i take my invisalign out of my mouth because I sleep with these braces in basically. And before that, it was a mouth guard because I clenched my teeth because I'm a freak. But I recently Botoxed my jaw so that I can't clench my teeth as much. Whoa. So you injected fat into your mandible space? It's just something that basically makes your muscle weaker. I'm like Hulk Smash. I clench my teeth like the fucking Hulk.

Oh, no. I sometimes wake up with blood in my mouth guard because I'm clenching my teeth so hard. I can tell just by looking at your face. That's what happens. Would I have really overdeveloped jaw muscles like a pit bull i do let me look at hold on let me look at um i'll just google you right now no but it does that's what happens you know i have a jaw muscle that no you don't yeah you have a strong job but when you're a girl that is like a kind of a masculine thing whatever but yeah i'd also just you wake up with a headache. So I did that. I think that's helping, actually.

And then I wake up. I might pee. I chug water. I'll chug a bunch. I try to chug a bunch of water, but I don't always. And then I drink coffee with heavy cream in it. How do you make your coffee? We have a thing called a Jura, likeU-R-A, it's some company

and it's just like, basically you put the beans in, it grinds them and it's just a coffee maker I guess, but it's like a fancy coffee maker J-U-R-A but I put hot water in the glass, I fill the mug up about halfway with hot water and then I

put shots of coffee I guess it's espresso. I don't know. Are coffee beans and espresso beans the same thing? Uh, they are often roasted slightly differently. Um, but my understanding is you're just using kind of more beans for the volume in the case of espresso. But the, but the darker the roast is, my understanding is the lower the caffeine is interestingly enough. But, uh, but yeah, you're is the lower the caffeine is, interestingly enough. But yeah, you're basically making an Americano. Yeah, we're making an Americano and we use David Lynch coffee. If you haven't tried it, it's pretty good.

David Lynch? Yes, he has his own coffee. Are you serious? He not only has Transcendental Meditation Foundation in schools for at-risk at-risk youth he also has his own wow man i'm really lisping right now but he also has his own coffee totally look up david lynch coffee i just did it's pretty good um that's i don't know my husband found it but um and then so have okay so you have your coffee with with why heavy cream i don't know someone i'm a big fan of it's like Someone told me it's better for your stomach,

and now the whole thing is that fat's good for you, so I carry even less, but I already knew that. Yep. And then I'll have one of maybe three things. I have rolled oats with a little bit of honey and a little bit of milk and a little bit of salt with raisins usually, just made on the stovetop. Or I will have a pancake that I make out of rolled oats.

So I crack four egg whites into a bowl, and then I put two cups of dry rolled oats in, and then I stir it around, and the eggs kind of help the oats congeal. Yeah, bite it. in and then I stir it around and the eggs kind of help the oats congeal. And then I shape it into a pancake in a pan and then I cook – I like heat it up a little bit and then I put it on a plate and I put applesauce on it and a little bit of maple syrup and I eat it and it's really good. That sounds amazing. I mean, but it's two ingredients, which is crazy. And it looks – it doesn't look as good as it tastes.

It's pretty decent. I bet that would be really good with like some nut milk. Yeah, or I drink like a white smoothie, which has apple and Greek yogurt and some cinnamon. And it's just just pretty simple. Some of those recipes came from this guy that I trained with named Harley Pasternak. Have you heard of him? I have heard of that name. He trains with UFC fighters, right? Probably. He's like a celebrity trainer type

and he has people that work for him. I'm thinking about Mike Dolce instead of Harley Pasternak. Yeah, he has some books and stuff. He's awesome, and I've just gotten some cool recipes from him. So those are his recipes. And then, I don't know, I guess I shower. I'll go work out, depending. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. And then start my day. Sometimes I'll roll out of bed and have a phone call. And, you know, I, you know, it's like, we have a call, we're on a kind of like a call now. And it's like, I haven't showered. I don't know. I'm at home. Sometimes I'll have calls for a while before I go in the office. Sometimes I won't go in the office because

I'm working on something that I need to focus on. And that's hard to do in the office. And I don't know, every, every day is different, but they all start pretty much the same. When you work out, what, if you could only choose a couple of exercises for the rest of your life, what would they be? And the reason I'm asking is I saw this photograph on your Instagram account, which, which I thought was hilarious. And it was, it was you on a, I want to say an elliptical, and it said preparing the centaur for her wedding day or something like that. Yeah. And because you have very well-developed glutes, I'll put it that way.

It's a creepy conversation. I think I have to go. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. No, this is purely anatomical, speaking as an exercise physiologist. And so those don't look like they came from ellipticals. Or is that just a God-given? I can't.

Because when I think, now you're Greek. I'm Greek, Italian, and Portuguese. All right. That explains. Okay. So I knew only about the greek part i'm like not usually like if it was like yes i'm 80 brazilian i'd be like okay that makes no and people actually like get surgery and make their butts it's like i can't if i wear a dress like the top fits but

then the bottom i can't get the bottom over my hips or and then or if like if the hips fit and like the top is too big and i'm not gonna like i don't know i don't i don't i don't want big boobs and then like if i wear pants it's just weird it's not it's it's like it's it's weird that like our culture is like into butts because i think they're kind of gross but well i mean i think you just have to watch like discovery channel for 15 minutes and see like presentation posture and all that stuff. And mammals have that fixation, I think. But the – not my intention to go there, but the exercises.

So if you're exercising before you get started with the day and you could only pick a couple of exercises. I mean, you basically asked me why I have a big butt. Like that's what – is that just – No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's fine. I'm not, it's just funny. No, no, it's not, it's not just the, what do you do?

Well, if you had to only choose a couple of types of exercise, not, not just for the butt, what would you, what would you choose? Well, the thing about having a big butt is that like it can go to hell really fast. So, um, you have to, you kind of have to exercise. Um, uh, I do deadlifts for my butt or just in general, I do deadlifts. Um, I do a lot of lunges. I do some like walking lunges and like some, I don't know, we do squats sometimes. Um, I'll, um, like resistance training. Um, what else?

When you do deadlifts, are you doing sumo stance with your legs wide or your legs closer together? Kind of like shoulder. Um, they're a little beyond shoulder width and like slightly bent, I guess. Right. Um, and, and if you had to choose three types of exercise just for the combination of like enjoyment and benefits for you overall, what would you choose? Probably like squat jumps, box jumps, and let's see, like shoulder presses. I don't know. That seems like you could get a lot, like a lot of different things happen with those three exercises. Right. And then you have the mountain,

you have the trail running at a slight decline if I'm in Big Sur. For the flying effect. Well, I only want to ask a couple more questions and then I will let you get back to your day. But this has been very fun. What advice would you give your 30-year-old self? It doesn't get easier. I need – tell me more.

Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think when you're like, yeah, I'm like on to something. My business is growing and, oh, this is so cool. I can't wait for a time when, you know, I can just like, you know, let go or a time where I can, oh man, this is just going to be running itself someday. Or I'm going to, I don't know, like, or just you, you think, um, you know, as you get older, I mean, yeah, you know, more, you can handle things better, but it's the same. It's the same, You know, it's just different stuff, I guess. And the challenges are bigger with bigger things. And, you know, I think it's easier to sell yourself or for maybe other people to sell you that it's just like one vacation after the next.

And, hey, I have a great life. I really appreciate everything that I have. And I've taken some great vacations. But just that, like, the hustle never ends, you know, but that was just a year ago. It was 30 a year ago. So,

Hmm. It would be like, hi, I don't know. That's right. I keep forgetting that you're, you're, you're such a young and,

uh, what, um, what are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months so far? In the next 12 months, I'm looking forward to going to Tokyo. Yeah, we're going to Tokyo, my husband and I, for like a week. I haven't been since I was in high school. I know it's a cool place.

I have some memory of it, but things are so different when you're an adult. I'm excited to check it out and eat food. Now I eat sushi. I didn't eat sushi when I was in high school. Weird. Oh, yeah. Now that opens up all sorts of doors. If you ever want to chat about that, just feel free to ping me.

I'd love that. Give me a call. I've spent a lot of time there and actually have a two-part article on Tokyo on the blog that goes through some of the smaller spots that I love. But that is exciting. Week in Tokyo is something I think everyone should do. It's one of those completely alien places for English speakers where you can get completely lost, completely confused,

even in the middle of the night and not really be in any danger whatsoever, which is great. Yeah, you can like leave your purse, you know, on like, you can like give it to a bum and it's probably safe for an hour, you know. You're right. Purse check. And it's just a fascinating, fascinating country. It forces you to question a lot of your own sort of social norms and behaviors, which I think is really helpful. So that is exciting. I'm super stoked for it. I'm going to be headed to Korea for the first time. I've only been in the airport. Oh, cool. to hoping to head to Seoul and within the next month or two, but, uh, what, uh, do you have any ask or requests for my audience? And, um, we'll, we'll, the, the question after this is going to be where they can find you online and learn more about you and so on.

But just in general, any like recommendation or request of my audience, any action they should take or things they should think about. That's for their own good. Yeah, sure. Let's do that. I don't know. Compliment someone today. I don't know. Say something nice to someone. Be nice. Awesome. I would love people to check out what you're up to. Um,

you've done such, you've, you've done so much for such a young and, uh, thanks. Well, that, that of course is a, uh, a sort of high praise in my, in my world, but the, of course that you course, you have to. But where can people learn more about you, find out what you're up to? Cool. Well, nastygal.com. That's like, you know, my reason for existing.

And then you can follow me on Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat. It's Sophia underscore Amoruso. And I'm launching a podcast. I don't know. Launching a podcast next month called Girlboss Radio. And you can read my book. It's called Girlboss. Cool. Yeah. And people will be listening to this for quite a while. So look for Girlboss Radio, guys. And the book has 835 reviews on Amazon, four and a half stars, more than I want to say, I'm looking right here, more than 70% or five stars.

So the book has had a fantastic reception and I appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for having me. Really fun. So of course.