Julie Wainwright has taken two firms public, an unimaginable feat by any normal. But in her new memoir, Time to Get Actual, she provides readers one thing much more beneficial than a type of victory lap: a take a look at the messy realities of management. Wainwright shares robust truths that many high-achieving CEOs can relate to however hardly ever focus on publicly, together with the aftermath of what many would contemplate her first main setback, which was shutting down Pets.com through the 2000 market crash.
In case you’re of a sure age, you undoubtedly bear in mind it. The web pet provides startup had grow to be immediately recognizable due to its memorable sock puppet mascot and catchy slogan, “As a result of pets can’t drive.” However what appeared like only a fleeting second within the dot-com bubble’s burst would solid a shadow over Wainwright’s profession for almost a decade. “After I would speak to recruiters, it was like, ‘Nobody’s going to rent you anymore,’” Wainwright mentioned in an interview with this editor earlier this week.
It got here as a shock, on condition that Wainwright’s profession trajectory initially appeared unstoppable. After chopping her enamel at Clorox, she rose by means of tech firms within the ‘90s when feminine management within the sector was exceedingly uncommon. As CEO of Berkeley Methods and later the net video retailer Reel.com, she labored “tons of hours” however was completely happy and, by her telling, succeeding, together with rising Reel.com’s income from $3 million to $25 million — a time throughout which the corporate was offered to Hollywood Video. “I simply operated higher and not using a boss,” she mentioned.
Then got here the collapse that will have completely derailed many careers. In 2000, Wainwright took Pets.com public, solely to close it down later that very same 12 months through the dot-com bubble burst. The skilled blow was exacerbated by a private one: she says that on the exact same day she knowledgeable staff of the corporate’s closure, her husband requested for a divorce.
“My work is gone, I’m getting a divorce, and I don’t have youngsters,” Wainwright, then 42, remembers pondering as she confronted what felt like whole life collapse. Making issues worse, the media protection was “extremely detrimental and intrusive,” to the purpose that she says days after the corporate’s closure, reporters confirmed up at her doorstep.
Wainwright describes what adopted as a type of lengthy winter, the place she was solely supplied roles main turnaround efforts at failing firms. However that crossroads led to a exceptional second act. In 2010, she based The RealReal, serving to within the course of to pioneer the luxurious consignment market on-line. Like loads of founders, Wainwright first arrange the corporate out of her own residence, however it quickly outgrew her front room, and at the moment, it processes many tons of of 1000’s of various luxurious objects every month that it goals to promote inside 90 days out of its greater than 1.2 million sq. toes of warehouse area. It’s additionally publicly traded; in her second journey to Wall Road, in 2019, Wainwright took the outfit by means of the standard IPO course of.
Sadly, this comeback has its personal harsh chapter. In 2022, Wainwright was abruptly pushed out of The RealReal by board members she had beneficial – one other twist she doesn’t shrink back from sharing. As an alternative, she names names within the ebook, and earlier this week, she described the transfer as a “energy play” by an investor who “didn’t get his cash out of the corporate and thought he may run the corporate higher.”
Wainwright — who totally helps the corporate’s present CEO (she was the corporate’s first rent) — remains to be miffed. She famous in dialog that “no founder is ever going to say they must be shot and eliminated,” and it’s that truthfully that makes the ebook – and Wainwright herself — so refreshing. Within the company world, the place folks typically spin narratives to make themselves look bulletproof, Wainwright is a straight shooter. If she doesn’t like one thing, she isn’t going to carry her punches. If somebody spins the story otherwise than she sees it, she’ll name it out. The place she messes up, she says so.
Even higher about this memoir — on this reader’s opinion — is Wainwright’s capacity to supply not simply private revelations however sensible knowledge. She walks readers by means of her choice to bonus her gross sales workers a sure approach, and shares her learnings a few leadership-evaluation quadrant she gleaned from McKinsey executives, together with the conclusion she had employed one of many worst varieties: a “dumb aggressive,” which means, in her phrases, somebody whose “have to bully and coerce and to be on prime supersede their skills.”
There’s additionally an fascinating new chapter unfolding. Wainwright is constant her entrepreneurial journey with Ahara, a diet firm that’s growing personalised dietary suggestions primarily based on genetics and particular person wants.
You could find our full dialog right here, through TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC Obtain podcast. Within the meantime, when you’re focused on a learn that’s nearly equal elements memoir and handbook, providing founders one thing way more worthwhile than idealized success tales, you may choose up the ebook right here.
Mentioned Wainwright once we spoke, “I personally wrote it for entrepreneurs to present them a practical view and hopefully encourage them and, you recognize, possibly they’ll suppose twice and never make the errors I made.”
