Julie Wainwright has taken two corporations public, an unbelievable feat by any commonplace. But in her new memoir, Time to Get Actual, she provides readers one thing much more useful than a form of victory lap: a have 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 take into account her first main setback, which was shutting down Pets.com in the course of the 2000 market crash.
In case you’re of a sure age, you positively keep in mind it. The web pet provides startup had turn out 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 forged a shadow over Wainwright’s profession for almost a decade. “Once 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, on condition that Wainwright’s profession trajectory initially appeared unstoppable. After slicing her enamel at Clorox, she rose by way of tech corporations within the ‘90s when feminine management within the sector was exceedingly uncommon. As CEO of Berkeley Techniques and later the web video retailer Reel.com, she labored “tons of hours” however was joyful 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 bought to Hollywood Video. “I simply operated higher and not using a boss,” she mentioned.
Then got here the collapse that might have completely derailed many careers. In 2000, Wainwright took Pets.com public, solely to close it down later that very same yr in the course of 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, recollects considering as she confronted what felt like complete life collapse. Making issues worse, the media protection was “extremely damaging 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 form 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 posh consignment market on-line. Like numerous founders, Wainwright first arrange the corporate out of her own residence, nevertheless it quickly outgrew her lounge, and as we speak, it processes many tons of of hundreds of various luxurious objects every month that it goals to promote inside 90 days out of its greater than 1.2 million sq. ft of warehouse area. It’s additionally publicly traded; in her second journey to Wall Road, in 2019, Wainwright took the outfit by way 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 really helpful – one other twist she doesn’t shrink back from sharing. As a substitute, 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 might run the corporate higher.”
Wainwright — who totally helps the corporate’s present CEO (she was the corporate’s first rent) — continues to be miffed. She famous in dialog that “no founder is ever going to say they have to be shot and eliminated,” and it’s that actually that makes the ebook – and Wainwright herself — so refreshing. Within the company world, the place individuals 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 in a different way 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 capability to supply not simply private revelations however sensible knowledge. She walks readers by way of her choice to bonus her gross sales workers a sure manner, 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 “must bully and coerce and to be on prime supersede their talents.”
There’s additionally an fascinating new chapter unfolding. Wainwright is constant her entrepreneurial journey with Ahara, a diet firm that’s creating customized 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 fascinated with a learn that’s nearly equal components memoir and handbook, providing founders one thing way more worthwhile than idealized success tales, you possibly can decide up the ebook right here.
Stated Wainwright after we spoke, “I personally wrote it for entrepreneurs to present them a practical view and hopefully encourage them and, , perhaps they’ll assume twice and never make the errors I made.”
