The RealReal founder Julie Wainwright has a startling new memoir

Julie Wainwright has taken two firms public, an unimaginable feat by any customary. But in her new memoir, Time to Get Actual, she affords readers one thing much more beneficial 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 not often focus on publicly, together with the aftermath of what many would take into account her first main setback, which was shutting down Pets.com through the 2000 market crash.

For those who’re of a sure age, you positively bear in mind it. The net 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 forged 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 stated 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 firms within the ‘90s when feminine management within the sector was exceedingly uncommon. As CEO of Berkeley Methods and later the web video retailer Reel.com, she labored “tons of hours” however was pleased 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 out a boss,” she stated.

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 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 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 whole 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 form 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 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 this time, it processes many tons of 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 house. It’s additionally publicly traded; in her second journey to Wall Avenue, 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 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 absolutely 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 should be shot and eliminated,” and it’s that truthfully that makes the ebook – and Wainwright herself — so refreshing. Within the company world, the place individuals 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 capability to supply not simply private revelations however sensible knowledge. She walks readers via her choice to bonus her gross sales employees a sure method, 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 sorts: a “dumb aggressive,” that means, in her phrases, somebody whose “must bully and coerce and to be on prime supersede their skills.”

There’s additionally an fascinating new chapter unfolding. Wainwright is continuous her entrepreneurial journey with Ahara, a diet firm that’s creating personalised dietary suggestions primarily based on genetics and particular person wants.

You’ll find our full dialog right here, through TechCrunch’s StrictlyVC Obtain podcast. Within the meantime, should you’re excited by a learn that’s virtually equal components memoir and handbook, providing founders one thing way more worthwhile than idealized success tales, you may decide up the ebook right here.

Mentioned Wainwright once we spoke, “I personally wrote it for entrepreneurs to offer them a practical view and hopefully encourage them and, you recognize, possibly they’ll assume twice and never make the errors I made.”