Realreal founder Julie Wainwright has a startling new memory

Julie Wainwright has received two public companies, a very tremendous joy from any standard. However in her new memory, Time to realizeIt offers readers something even more valuable: an open look at the messy entrepreneurship realities. Wainwright shares the types of difficult truths with which many high -achievement CEOs can be linked, but rarely discuss publicly, including the consequences of what many would consider its first major obstruction, which was closing Pets.com during the 2000 market.

If you are at a certain age, you definitely remember it. The start of pet supplies was immediately made known thanks to its memorable doll and attractive slogan, “because pets cannot drive.” But what seemed like a quick moment in the dot-com bubble explosion would throw a shade on Wainwright’s career for almost a decade. “When I was going to talk to the recruiters, it was like,” no one will hire you anymore, “Wainwright said in an interview with this editor earlier this week.

He came as a friend, given that Wainwright’s career trajectory initially seemed unstoppable. After cutting his teeth in Clorox, she was raised through the 90s technology companies when women’s leadership in the sector was extremely rare. As general director of Berkeley Systems and later online video store reel.com, she worked “Tone Hours” but was happy and, saying, having success, including reel.com revenue growth from $ 3 million – a time during which was the company selling in Hollywood video. “I just operated better without a boss,” she said.

Then came the crash that would have broken a lot of careers forever. In 2000, Wainwright took Pets.com public, just to close it later that year during the Dot-Com bubble explosion. Professional blow was worsened by a personal one: she says on the same day she informed employees about the closure of the company, her husband asked for a divorce.

“My job is gone. I’m taking a divorce and I have no kids,” Wainwright, then 42, remembers thinking as she faced what she felt like the full collapse of life. Making things worse, the media coverage was “too negative and intruder”, to the point that it says day after the company’s closure, reporters appeared on its doorstep.

Wainwright describes what followed as a long -lasting winter, where she was offered only roles that lead return efforts to failed companies. But she’s crossroads led to a wonderful second act. In 2010, it founded Reproductionhelping in the process to pioneer the luxury online shipments market. Like many founders, Wainwright first raised the company from her home, but soon she surpassed her living room, and today, she processes many thousands of different luxury items each month intended to sell within 90 days of more than 1.2 million square meters of warehouses and operations centers. Also a company publicly traded; On her second journey to Wall Street in 2019, Wainwright took the dress through the traditional IPO process.

Unfortunately, this triumphant return had its own harsh conclusion. In 2022, Wainwright was suddenly postponed by Realreal by board members she had recommended – another turn she did not sell away from separation. Instead, she appoints names in the book, and earlier this week, she described the action as an “energy game” from an investor who “did not get his money from the company and thought he could run the company better”.

Wainwright is still upset. She pointed out in the conversation that “no founder means that they have to be shot and removed”, however it is the originality that is so refreshing for this book – and Wainwright itself. In the corporate world, where people often rotate narratives to make themselves look lead, wainwright is a straight shooter; If she does not like something, she will not hold her fists behind. If someone rolls the story differently than she sees, she will call it.

Even better about this memory – in this reader’s opinion – is Wainwright’s ability to provide not only personal discoveries but practical wisdom. She walks the reader through her decision to reward her sales staff in a certain way, and shares her lessons about the guidance of leadership, she gathered by McKinsey leaders, including the realization she had hired one of the worst types: an “aggressive memec” execution, which means, with her words, be on top of their abilities. ”

Meanwhile, there is a happy story that unfolds in development. Wainwright is continuing her entrepreneur journey with her YaA nutritional company that is developing personalized dietary recommendations based on genetics and individual needs.

You can find our full conversation hereThrough strict discharge podcast. In the meantime, if you are interested in an compelling reading that is also memories and manuals, offering the founders something much more valuable than idealized success stories, you can put the book here.

Wainwright said when we spoke, “I personally wrote it to entrepreneurs to give them a realistic look and hope to inspire them and, you know, maybe they will think twice and will not make the mistakes I have made.”