Julie Wainwright has taken two firms public, a reasonably unimaginable feat by any normal. But in her new memoir, Time to Get Actual, she gives readers one thing much more invaluable: a blunt have a look at the messy realities of management. Wainwright shares the sorts of 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 in the course of the 2000 market crash.
For those who’re of a sure age, you positively bear in mind it. The web pet provides startup had change into immediately recognizable because of 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 practically 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 reducing her tooth at Clorox, she rose by tech firms within the ‘90s when feminine management within the sector was exceedingly uncommon. As CEO of Berkeley Techniques and later the net video retailer Reel.com, she labored “tons of hours” however was comfortable 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 with no 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 pondering as she confronted what felt like complete life collapse. Making issues worse, the media protection was “extremely adverse 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 sort of lengthy winter, the place she was solely provided roles main turnaround efforts at failing firms. 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 loads of founders, Wainwright first arrange the corporate out of her own residence, nevertheless it quickly outgrew her front room, and at this time, it processes many a whole bunch of hundreds of various luxurious gadgets every month that it goals to promote inside 90 days out of its greater than 1.2 million sq. ft of warehouse area and operations facilities. It’s additionally a publicly traded firm; in her second journey to Wall Road, in 2019, Wainwright took the outfit by the standard IPO course of.
Sadly, this triumphant 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 absolutely helps the corporate’s present CEO (she was the corporate’s first rent) — remains to be pissed off. She famous in dialog that “no founder is ever going to say they should 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 again 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 potential to supply not simply private revelations however sensible knowledge. She walks readers by her determination to bonus her gross sales employees a sure approach, and shares her learnings a few leadership-evaluation quadrant she gleaned from McKinsey executives, together with the belief she had employed one of many worst varieties: a “dumb aggressive” exec, that means, in her phrases, somebody whose “must bully and coerce and to be on prime supersede their skills.”
There’s additionally an attention-grabbing new chapter unfolding. Wainwright is constant her entrepreneurial journey with Ahara, a vitamin firm that’s growing customized dietary suggestions based mostly on genetics and particular person wants.
Yow will discover our full dialog right here, by way of TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC Obtain podcast. Within the meantime, when you’re focused on a compelling learn that’s each memoir and handbook, providing founders one thing way more invaluable than idealized success tales, you possibly can decide up the guide right here.
Mentioned 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.”
