YouSaid · the spoken record

Katrina Lake

lines on the record: 100
first: 2019-07-24
most recent: 2019-07-24
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Exactly. Like we have examples of a t shirt vendor who has, you know, for years and years sold into traditional retail. And until they were working with us, they didn't realize that there it was a men's brand. They're extra, extra large was actually fitting like an extra large. And for years, they didn't know that because if you sold into a store, like it sells or it doesn't sell, they're gone. They don't know. And they don't know that it's actually an extra large person and not an extra extra large person buying the shirt. And so with our data, we could actually show them like, hey, like this shirt is doing great, but like this size is off. And like if you want to have better sales, like you need to change the sizing. And they were able to iterate that in our channel, but also in all of their channels and help their business overall.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Vincent Yeah, great. You do the theory? I never forgotten theory. That's interesting. I'll write that to my Kind Oh, brands love working with us. And I mean, we're a really pure matching channel. Like we are a way where we can figure out who's going to really love this brand and match them in a way that doesn't have to do with, you know, kind of being super cheap or the cheapest price and really preserves their brand and introduces their brand into somebody's home. And that's an incredible value proposition for our brands. And then in addition to that, we help them to really understand what's working and what's not working and why. And so with most other retailers, you're selling them 10,000 shirts. You have no idea why they worked or they didn't. In our model, we actually share back with our brands so they understand like, hey, this didn't work and it's because the sleeves are too tight or this color was too bold or this worked well and let's do it in four other colors because people said they wanted another colors. I mean, there's so much more that we can share with brands to help them to be more successful not only in our channel, but also in others in their own.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely totally, and like just being able to feel like this is a place to discover and find brands that I'm gonna love”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, well, so I just mean that it doesn't, like the idea of having a personalized experience doesn't just need to be in those five things. And I think the opportunity is like, how can we show more of how we're personalizing in your experience? You talked about the buy new colors, for example. You know, there's lots of other ways that you can engage with stitch fix. And so we're not committing to exactly what that looks like, but I think over time, like what I would love is I think today people kind of wrongly categorize this as subscription and people think of us as like they think of stitch fix and they think of the box. But as I think about five years from now, like what I hope is that everybody thinks of stitchfix and like, okay, they understand me. They know me. And that personalization part of our business is going to be the dominant part of what people are doing. And the multiple.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it's like if you were really going to set out on a hot So, when you say out of the box, you just said that you just kind of dropped that. What does that mean? When you said not a box experience, not sending you a box, what else would you do?”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Our jank are going to be Right, but what was interesting, regular retailers weren't exciting enough, and then these trend retailers are. I think the growth of something like, how do you look at an H&M or the Mooji or things like that? I just bought a pair of Mooji pants. Great. I was in, I happen to be in France. It was hot as a hell. And I did not have appropriate pants for 110 degree French weather. So I went in Mooji and got a pair of, I like Mooji. It's very simple that way. How do you look at those retailers, sort of that idea of reaching, not trendy, but on trend?”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But a lot of our things are going to be, a lot of what we sell is genes that you're going to be able to wear for multiple seasons, blazers that could last you years. And a lot of those staple pieces. And so the reality is the trend part of your wardrobe is actually kind of a small part. And so we're not as married to kind of the exact thing that we're interested in.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go ahead. They're cool though. They're cool. I think mom jeans are cool. And so, but we can see those trends materialize in the business. And then, I mean, the other thing is also like our business is we're selling over $400. Our revenue per client is over $400 a year. And so at our price points, that's actually a fair amount of things. And what we're selling are, yes, we definitely have a small, we have a percentage of our assortment that is more of the trend forward kind of what is hot at the spirit. No, you have them there.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know. Like there's not like an aesthetic point of view that you have. And then the second part, though, is because we have this amazing data, like we are able to kind of see these trends coming and go. And so, for example, with the rise in now we're kind of getting over the fall of skinny genes where we could see that skin jeans.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was Yeah, and No, and there's two reasons for that. I think one is because we are a retailer and we're not kind of vertical. And so we're not necessarily hitching our horse to one specific aesthetic, right? Like we're not the...”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, we're not even close to that yet. I mean, we're at a point now where we have 3 million active clients and our addressable market is 400 billion, and we're doing a billion and a half. And so we're not even close to that. But I think we just, this capability around personalization is so strong and an apparel in particular, no one else is able to do this in the way that we are.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's harder. And Style Shuffle gives us a read on a much broader swath of inventory. So you might get a floral shirt and you're affixed and say, look, I'm just not going to wear florals. And like, great. But then there's all kinds of more data that we can get from you in style shuffle, which happens more. You can do it every single day if you'd like. And so that's an example of kind of a new way to engage. But I think the idea is that with personalization, we can actually take this capability. And it doesn't have to be five things. It doesn't have to be in the box. And to your point, it doesn't even have to be apparel. And I think that's the really special part about this company that will be thinking about how do we use that capability to grow over the next 10, 20 years.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And today that actually massively improves our ability to get to know you, but actually also our ability to get to know all of our clients. And so it turns out that that data, so you talked about kind of the surveys that you fill out. The surveys that you fill out at the end of the fixes, those are super helpful in us helping understand fit. And so when you say this fit perfectly or this didn't fit perfectly and why, style's been a little bit harder to unlock and the style shuffle has been a really, really helpful thing for us.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From Vox, and I just put Would be Why wouldn't you trust Yeah, it's more just, I think this idea of personalization today has happened in the form factor, as you said, of five things that you're getting in a box. When you're engaging with style shuffle, for example, you're thumbing up, you can log into an app. So you can log into your Sitchfix app and you'll get a little quiz that says, what do you think of this? And then you can take a denim quiz or you can take a night out quiz or you can take a jacket's quiz or whatever it is and you can thumb up and down things and let us know what you're liking. And so that's just a glimmer of a way that you can engage with us. That's not just kind of in the make.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not necessarily, no, no. I got you. I just bought these cool shoes, but some stylist handed them to me from Vox, and I just put them on, and that's it. That's how I roll. But what else could you have? This idea of a rundle, let me explain. It's a company you trust, say an Amazon. I'm just going to use an Amazon or an Apple. Apple would be a good one, or Nike, and you trust them with your sports stuff, so why wouldn't you trust them with your blank, like your gym membership? Why wouldn't you trust them with other things? Like more of a relationship because you trust that company to make selections for you. And so it's sort of a subscription bundle. So it calls it a bundle. I don't know why. Oh, interesting. Sounds very Amish. But the idea is that you have a larger relationship with a company that you trust them for a lot of things. Is that what you're thinking when you say you see glimmers of things when you see?”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when you talk about the opportunity, so you're moving into other categories like men's and children's and abroad, now the UK is your first. First international expansion. What about things? You also have other things, right? Other products, accessories, and things like that, shoes and currently we have earrings, I think.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And simple. Thank you. And for somebody else, we might have more of a bohemian romantic. And that helps us to be able to serve people who are 15 years old, 65 years old, and serve them equally well in their aesthetic, in their style, in their price point. And I think that's part of what creates the really large opportunity ahead for us.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And it's really like we should be able to serve everybody. Our inventory is broad and wide. And I think that's what's really powerful about being in the business of personalization is that we can have a different storefront for every person. And so for you, we can have.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Showing you kind of behind the scenes or how the sausage is made. But the reality is the personalization capabilities are so good now that what we're really thinking about is like, how do we bring those to life in more ways? And how do we make it so that you can engage with stitch fix in ways that isn't just kind of in that box and five things and how can we take these amazing capabilities that we have and help it to expand our wallet share with you and our addressable market. And so I think you'll see more to come on that front. But even in the last six months, you'll see Style Shuffle, which you talked about where you thumb up and down things. That's been kind of a new product innovation. And we talked a little bit about buy new colors, which is actually relatively new where you can then go back and see all the product that you've bought in the past that was recommended from us and buy things if you want the pants that you love and other colors those are things that you can do and so those hopefully are glimmers of kind of the types of product changes”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly, for sure. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But all of the sales are because we recommended it, right? Like you're not coming to a website and clicking saying, I want this exact thing and we're shipping it. That's not how we operate. And so in apparel, that's like a really radical concept that all of the sales would be not selected by you. And what that has done is created this incredibly strong personalization muscle that we have. And so we have this amazing capability where whenever we're sending you things, we have a high degree of confidence in terms of what you're going to keep, what you're not going to keep, and we have scores that predict that really accurately. So that's helped us to drive this business today of like sending often five things in a box to men and women and kids. And my point is more of just in the last eight years, like there's nothing that you as the end consumer really sees except that actually our keep rates have gotten better and that people are more satisfied and those are things that we've been able to see over that time period, but we're not necessarily”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“100% of what we sell is because we recommended it. Oh, I see. You know what I mean? We're selling clothes all by our recommendations.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think what's really, I think both interesting and also the opportunity with Sitchfix is that like behind the scenes, what's really cool is 100% of what we sell. So like this year we're doing a billion and a half in sales. 100% of that, a billion and a half is by recommendation. And like that's such a powerful concept. And like, I don't know if there's anybody else that can people reject.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I want to talk a little bit about when you're thinking about the idea of what's changing in your business, what have you changed since founding? Because it feels the same. A lot of it does feel the same, but how do you continue to innovate in that way? Or do you watch other people?”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Own design team, and we created what we consider kind of the perfect shirt. And now that's a really big business for us. And so in our men's world, those exclusive brands have been especially successful because we have been able to so intentionally create product against what needs that we know there are there. But all of those kind of coexist under the Cysvix umbrella and help us to be able to have this really diverse wide breadth of products so that we can serve your style and we can also serve somebody else's style who does want the floral shirts that you didn't want and all of those brands are a really important part of the equation.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have both. So we have brands that many people know and love, like we'll have Paige Denim and we'll have Rag and Bone and we have a lot of kind of contemporary brands that people know. And then we also have some brands where they are actually creating exclusive product for us, sometimes under their own brand name. In some cases, they're actually creating a brand specifically for us. And then we have another portion that is pure, we really call exclusive brands, which is brands that we've created where we actually create the product. And so in a lot of those cases, we're really intentionally doing it. And so in our men's business, for example, when we were first launching, we realized that there is this need for a men's woven shirt like a button-down shirt that you wear every day at 48. And we looked everywhere in the market and there was no vendor that was making that product at the right price point with the right quality. And so, but we really needed that as a go-to-market. And so we created relationships with factories and we have our”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's interesting the innovativeness of that, the idea of renting your regular clothes or using brands that you pick. Now you have relationships with certain brands, right, correct, that are exclusive to you or not, or you're just a distribution vehicle fan. We have both.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's, I mean, I think all of this innovation around different ways that you can think about apparel is just it's all goodness for us. And I love to see how the rental market is taking off and that it isn't just about occasions and that we see so many more women who are thinking about consuming clothes in that way. And to be honest, like all this lifts all tides for us, it's like right now 80% of this industry is still clothes that are bought in stores. And that's amazing that 80% of the dollars are still tied up there. And so, you know, all of these new ways of shopping are really helping people to open up their minds to like new ways of doing things and trying things. And I see it all as being really additive.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Impossible. And like, when am I going to have time to do that? And so I love to hear that you say that you enjoy it and it makes you love shopping. Yeah.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's kind of what I think The inspiration for me was like, I actually there were so many elements of shopping that I used to love that I felt like e commerce had taken a lot of the joy away from it.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I bought everything in it this one time, like everything, and I liked everything. It fit great. I loved it. And I sent back, I don't want to send anything back this month. I usually send the whole package back. And it's super easy for people who don't know how to use it. You get the box, you like or don't like things, you stick them in the bag that you put in the box, and then you check out. That's it. It's so easy. It's simple, simple book. Just pay for what you get. I hate shopping, so it's perfect for me. It's two seconds. So you're perfect in that regard, but you were giving me all these flowery shirts and all this shit I just didn't want kind of thing. And I took everything this one time, and the stylist brought me back. I forget her name. She goes, I finally figured you out, your androgynous and simple, which I was like, just a second stylist lady.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been great. Now we're at about three years, and that business in many ways is just as strong, if not stronger, than our women's business. And now at a point where we can think of it as a business that we can drive and put marketing behind it and have it grow and contribute in meaningful ways to the business. And so I think the men's business really gives us this confidence that we are now in the business of creating great businesses and that now we think about the kids in the UK and how we can grow those to be kind of like the men's business of being another source of ammunition for us and runway as we think about our growth plans.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you compare it to other kids' businesses, our tween audience, kind of like 9 to 13 or so, that segment is bigger than what you would normally see in a kid's business. And what we have come to learn is that it's actually because when a mom is getting fixes, then the daughter really wants to get one too. And so that, I think that mommy and me kind of, not just being in young kids, but being in kind of this age where kids have more say has been a bigger business for us. And so this idea of being able to serve a whole household I think is also”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's market share. These are places where I think we deserve to win and where our capabilities extend really easily. And rather than let somebody else kind of take market share, we're like, we wanted to be there first and we wanted to be there to take advantage of it. And there's also a household play element where one interesting anecdote with our kids business is that”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Most of the business is still women's, but we have petite, maternity plus size. And then two years ago, longer than that, two and a half years ago, almost three years ago, crazy. We launched our men's business and then newest our kids business and our UK business.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly. Like it's like if you want to be relevant 10 years from now, every company is going to be a tech company and Airbnb is a hospitality company and Uber is a transportation company and we are a retail company. But if you want to still exist in a decade, I think everybody's going to have to be a tech company and figure out what is the thing that is going to be lasting about their company.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, we're absolutely. The thing that is special about Stitchfix is absolutely in our technology, in our personalization capabilities, and that is undoubtedly what makes the company special and what is going to help make us successful for years and years and years. But this notion of like a tech company is one that I think is going to be gone 10 years from now. It's like every mobile company.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You have to be held accountable someday. I mean, in some ways, I think it's easier to do that earlier because then you build the muscle and it's hard to scale back, I don't know, free lunches and free dry cleaning or whatever. Not just that.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Totally. And it's made us more long term in some ways because I think this isn't about making a quarter. We care about what are people going to be thinking about Stitchfix four years from now and how is that going to be reflected in our business? And so I actually think in a lot of ways it's made us more long-term thinking.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, so being public. So I spend my time in more different ways, and it's a lot of it has been really new to me, but I actually really strongly believe it makes us stronger where I think now we really look at every dollar that we are using in the business and really understanding how it's driving long-term value. I think it really helps us think about our narratives of like, what is the larger story of stitch fix and how does this year fit in? And it pulls the lens back farther where people talk about the public market being short term. And like I understand some of that, but for us, I actually think it's...”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A small amount. And we built, you know, and we actually didn't even use all of that when we were profitable and cash flow positive. We still had 27 million in the bank.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's different. It's challenging, though. And I mean, I like some of the challenge where it's been really interesting to better understand how the outside world perceives our business. And, you know, it's definitely been, I feel like I've been on a really quick learning journey around communications and just how we can be thinking about communicating our story in a more global way, in a more broad way. We are so private before. We'd raise very little money. So I spent like Under 50 million”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Talk a little bit about that, and then we're going to talk to the next part about the business itself, where it's going. I mean, the decision to go public was one, I don't really know, like, the staying private forever thing is not realistic. And I think we now see that. I think Uber and Lyft and there's a lot of companies out there who were trying to stay private as long as they possibly could. And they're now coming out and having to do the same things that we did two years ago. And so obviously I think it's a myth that you can really stay private forever. And actually surveyMonkey was like the one company that really had stayed private forever. Now they're public too. And so I think it was a reality that that was going to be the outcome for a business of our scale being profitable with a lot of growth prospects ahead of it.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Companies that have gotten public just recently there's been a couple more Zoom and some others. That's the one that's done well, Uber and Lyft's not as well. But you're one of the few that had gone public quite early compared to the others who are staying private. Enormous amounts of time.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Up in the morning and thinking about women's dresses. And like we'll get into sexism later, but you know, I don't even blame him, though. I mean, I understand, like, I joined the board of Glossier because I love what Emily's doing and I love her business. And I deliberately didn't join like a gaming company or a Hunting and fishing company or something else, because I love it. And so it's not like I can blame him for what his interests are, but then you step back and you're like, you're looking at the world of venture investors and they all kind of look the same and all kind of have the same interests. And that's where the problem really is. Right, absolutely. So going public, talk a little bit about that journey because you are one of the few.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Doing phenomenally well, we are close to profitability. We've now been profitable for maybe four years, three, four years. And so the business was healthy. It was doing well. And there are a lot of venture investors that were very skeptical about the model. Right. It's because so many of these retail businesses have gotten to, I'm thinking of NastyGal, some others who've gotten to a couple hundred million or more and don't reach the next step. Yeah, I don't even know what the hesitation was their mental. It was, yeah, I mean, there are a lot of times, it was super frustrating because we would get to the very last rounds where you're meeting with a whole partnership and you're just almost there and then we just couldn't get over the line. And in one venture investor who I really respect, who's a top tier venture fund investor. And he said to me, he was like, look, I get to invest in one or two companies a year and I'm joining their boards. And like, I want to love what I do. Like, I want to get up every morning and think about your business. And he was like, I just can't imagine getting.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Strong, like there are just women everywhere, and now men who really just felt like this is a solution that helps me in my life and helps me to look my best. It's quicker, but it's also more effective. It helps you to find things that you never would have found. And it does it in a really human way. And so I think there was just a real connection of the business with the end consumer. The venture side was harder. I mean, this business was, there were times when the business was”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm just an easy journey, but you got funded pretty quickly and the company got up and running relatively quickly in terms of the Angel around, yes. Yes, yes. Yeah. So talk about the journey from that to going public. Because you're one of the few companies that's also gone public. That's right. And retail is also an area that's actually done rather well. We just had Julie Wainwright take Real Real Public. We run the Runway. They're all public companies, which is really interesting revolutions recently. Right. Yeah, so in between the Angel Round and going public, I mean, there's a lot, I guess, in that six-year span, seven-year span, but some of the real highlights were, one, there's just amazing product market fit where we, the first few years, we spent no money on marketing and couldn't keep up with the business. It was growing so fast. And so we were all of a sudden doing hundreds of million dollars all of a sudden hitting, getting close to a billion dollars. And a lot of that was really just because this really”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That kind of reinforced that I love the space, but I went to business school with the goal of I want to graduate with a company off the ground, paying myself a salary, paying back my student loans. And if I wasn't able to do that, I'd have an MBA. But that was my goal. And I was lucky enough to meet Steve Anderson in my second year. Steve Manch is a baseline. Baseline ventures exactly. And actually, so Kinders and Cassidy, she was a mentor of mine, and she was the very first men, exactly. And then she was the very first check. And then Steve agreed to do the Angel round. And so when I graduated, we were kind of off to the races. So you had a...”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Need to join and ultimately didn't find anything that I wanted to join but felt really inspired that if I imagine this world of retail that was different in the future that I could start it on my own. And so I had kind of a wandering journey to figuring out how I could be an entrepreneur myself, but went to business school thinking that would be a risk reduced way for me to start a company and start in school. And I don't know if I needed it, but I needed that time, honestly. I needed that figure to work on it and feel like I wasn't failing. And worst case scenario, I'd have an MBA. And my goal was to do right before this? I did before stitch fix. Before stitch fix, I was doing my MBA. Before that, I worked at a venture fund called Leader Ventures. And that was part of this thread of like maybe I can find the future of retail and did a side project for this guy Charlie Graham, who's had this company called Shop It To Me, which is still around.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So let's talk A while now, right? Yes. A couple of years. Yep. All right. So I want to get to that, but let's go. To your background, like a little bit. People don't know you, but let's talk. One of the few women's CEOs and founders, we talked to VCs all the time about these issues and things like that. But talk about sort of your quick and dirty of your journey. I mean, the quick and dirty is that this is the space that I fell in love with. I looked around and said lots of people are trying to transform all of these age old industries and retail is like one of the oldest and that this idea of like how do I find genes that fit me or how do I find address that's going to suit what I'm looking for. Like those are still really hard problems to solve and that there's this huge migration of dollars from offline to online and yet I felt like the online tools weren't actually helpful in trying to help people navigate that huge world of apparel. And so this was I honestly like I didn't know I would be an entrepreneur. I just wanted to work for whatever amazing person was going to come on your podcast and talk about the future of retail. And I spent a lot of time looking around trying to find a company.”
2019-07-24 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: Stitch Fix CEO Katrina Lake · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT