Julie Wainwright has taken two corporations public, an unimaginable feat by any customary. But in her new memoir, Time to Get Actual, she provides readers one thing much more useful than a type of victory lap: a have a look at the messy realities of management. Wainwright shares the sorts of powerful truths that many high-achieving CEOs can relate to however hardly ever talk about publicly, together with the aftermath of what many would contemplate her first main setback, which was shutting down Pets.com throughout the 2000 market crash.
If you happen to’re of a sure age, you positively bear in mind it. The net pet provides startup had change into 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 practically a decade. “After I would discuss 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, provided that Wainwright’s profession trajectory initially appeared unstoppable. After slicing her enamel at Clorox, she rose via tech corporations 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 glad 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 with no boss,” she mentioned.
Then got here the collapse that may have completely derailed many careers. In 2000, Wainwright took Pets.com public, solely to close it down later that very same yr throughout the dot-com bubble burst. The skilled blow was exacerbated by a private one: she says that on the exact same day she knowledgeable workers 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 considering as she confronted what felt like complete life collapse. Making issues worse, the media protection was “extremely unfavorable 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 provided roles main turnaround efforts at failing corporations. However that crossroads led to a outstanding second act. In 2010, she based The RealReal, serving to within the course of to pioneer the luxurious consignment market on-line. Like a variety of founders, Wainwright first arrange the corporate out of her own residence, but it surely quickly outgrew her front room, and at the moment, it processes many lots 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 house. It’s additionally publicly traded; in her second journey to Wall Road, in 2019, Wainwright took the outfit via the normal 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 draw back from sharing. As a substitute, she names names within the guide, 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 might 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 actually that makes the guide – and Wainwright herself — so refreshing. Within the company world, the place folks usually 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 skill to supply not simply private revelations however sensible knowledge. She walks readers via her resolution to bonus her gross sales workers a sure manner, and shares her learnings a couple of leadership-evaluation quadrant she gleaned from McKinsey executives, together with the conclusion she had employed one of many worst sorts: a “dumb aggressive,” that means, in her phrases, somebody whose “have to bully and coerce and to be on high supersede their skills.”
There’s additionally an fascinating new chapter unfolding. Wainwright is continuous 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, if you happen to’re taken with a learn that’s virtually equal elements memoir and guide, providing founders one thing rather more worthwhile than idealized success tales, you possibly can choose up the guide right here.
Stated Wainwright once we spoke, “I personally wrote it for entrepreneurs to provide them a practical view and hopefully encourage them and, you already know, possibly they’ll assume twice and never make the errors I made.”
