YouSaid · the spoken record

Sarah LaFleur

lines on the record: 100
first: 2020-02-03
most recent: 2020-02-03
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

“Oh it's 99% luck? I always go back to that experience I had in Zambia. It is mostly luck. Being born to the right parents at the right time. Even just like watching how different my mom's journey was as a female entrepreneur in Japan versus me born, you know, 37 years later and the benefits and the funding I am able to get in a way that I know that she was never able to. That is all luck. And yes, a lot of hard work too.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, of course. I mean, the whiskey on the rocks in the middle of the night, that never ends. I feel like I'm running a different company every two years. And this stage of the business brings a whole different set of challenges that the first two years did. I will qualify that by saying the first two years were by far the hardest two years of, I think, my life. It was just incredibly lonely, incredibly hard getting this business off the ground.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I feel that way. I told you so when it comes to working women not being a niche category. I feel very strongly about that. But in terms of feeling like I'm the business school reject no longer, no, not really. I feel like I'm always being tested. I've never really had a test. I've showed you I feel like I am the startup world has a way of always putting you back in your place.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, for sure. If you can't tell already, this is like a constant process of self-doubt and me thinking that I'm a loser and trying to navigate throughout this process and not being able to raise from VCs repeatedly when other GTC companies are raising money. It just makes you question a lot. But I think the result is like what I did was I ended up just spending a lot of time with my customers. Internally we call our customer Samantha, but where is Samantha working? How do we make her happy? How do we make products that she really loves? And so by the time we took in that money, that precedent was already set. Like investors, you know, well, I am so grateful for them and very thankful for them. They don't direct the future of the company.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I do. Yes, I do. We don't disclose it, and it's so funny because, um, I think there's a real dark side to talking about how much money you phrased. And I think what happens often in startup culture is that that is what you become known for.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. You know, I got to hold on to a lot more of my company because we couldn't raise for a while. But the result was, I think, in a position where we could better absorb those financial resources. So there wasn't risk of other investors coming on and saying, like, wait a minute, wait a minute, like you got to change your product because this isn't working.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I was like, you know, we're going to do this without VCs. Like, that's just the way it's going to be. But then we met this with this investor who was just really wonderful. And his wife was a customer. He said to me, you know, I know nothing about women's clothing, but I'm a good student and I'm willing to learn. So will you teach me? And just came at it so differently, which really got me thinking about VCs in a different way up until that point”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think it had anything to do with who was wearing it, you know, what we started to see was traction in revenue four years into it, it's around 2017, a VC investor approached us and he said, hey, we're just interested in learning more about you. Could you tell us? And I think at that point, I had a big chip on my shoulder because we had had. Total failure trying to raise from these seasons”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And in some ways, the dress code is even more nebulous. Can you help me figure out what to wear? And so Miyaku actually started working on what we're calling power casual, a power casual line for them, where it's much more relaxed. It's a lot of pant-based, knit-based offerings. It's a more dressed up version of the jeans and the hoodie. And so we have a really loyal fan base out in San Francisco as well.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“New York was always number one, still is number one, but we saw ourselves growing in two other markets, which was DC. Right. And then the other one being San Francisco. And DC was fascinating. You know, we have a lot of congresswomen, a couple of senators who wear our clothes, and staffers too. You know, I was on Capitol Hill a few months ago and walked into the congressional building and immediately saw a number of our customers. Wow. And then on the other end, we were seeing customers in San Francisco, which became our third largest market. And these women were saying to us, you know, I don't actually want to go to work in jeans and a hoodie. I make money. I want to wear nice clothes. And at the same time, if I dress too nicely, people think I'm interviewing.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, does it feel comfortable on the skin because you're going to be spending 14 hours in it? It's my incredibly practical nature wanting machine washability and wrinkle resistance and comfort and everything that I wear. And then Miyako really saying, I've spent 20 years training to deliver the best designs in the world. So let me figure out how I can do that for working women. And I think the place where those two things meet, that's MMF fleur.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we hear that all the time. And we were actually briefly, briefly talking to a department store, a luxury department store. And, you know, they said to us, you could sell these dresses for $700. That's what we would sell it for. And we said, exactly. But the point is we sell it for $200, $250. That's the point. But it's little details that I think most fashion designers wouldn't care about. And I think that's really where we set ourselves apart and try to justify the price point. You know, does it have pockets? Can you zip it up yourself easily? We're always checking to make sure that you can zip up yourself because you might be traveling by yourself and be in a hotel room by yourself.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because we were getting our products into our customers' hands, and only once they tried it on were they really understanding why these pants cost $195. And they start to say, oh, okay, I get it. I get why this cost $250. I get why it's worth it. But it is really hard to make that case online. I think that that sentiment has shifted a lot Back in 2014, it was a really tough sell.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, I think when you walk into a clothing store, price is maybe one of 10 things that you're considering when you decide you want to buy that thing. Do you like the feel? Do you like how it fits on you? Do you like how the salesperson is selling it to you? Whereas, when you're shopping online, first of all, it's really hard to tell what products actually look like. And when you see this like really simple black dress, it's not going to jump out at you and you're thinking like, am I really going to spend $195 on a pair of black pants? And I think what Bento did in many ways is it took that decision paralysis away.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was the moment that Silicon Valley calls Finding Your Product Market Fit. We launched it into official form October 2014. We suddenly went from not being able to pay rent to tripling our revenue oftentimes. month over”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we didn't call them bentos back then, but when we launched it in its official form later that year in the fall, we called them bentos.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We had some data about what they had picked, and we knew their size. And then actually that was a really brilliant moment by Annie, who said, you know, I wonder if we should try this with new customers. And so she said, you know, why don't we email a group of people who've never shopped with us before and ask them to fill out some basic information about themselves? And based on that, why don't we tell them we're going to send a box of dresses too?”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A good number of those 1,000 customers, we had met them through trunk shows, and so they had already purchased something with us. Right. So you had some data.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we launched this, I guess you could call it a beta in February. And operationally, it was a total nightmare. I mean, we sent the wrong size to people. Some people were like, why did you send this to me? I don't understand. There were a lot of those things. The numbers really spoke for themselves. There was more demand for that service than we had ever seen.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, we were not. You know, I think we Just thought it was actually interesting because even when I suggested this initially to my team, there were a lot of, when I say a lot of people, there were four people who said, oh no, I would never want someone else to pick out what it is that I should wear. Like, I want to choose for myself. Why would I want someone else to pick for me? And, you know, I kind of had to say, Annie was my CMO. Annie and I were in the camp of, you know, we're not fashion lovers. Like if someone else who understands fashion better than we do told us what we should be wearing, like that's actually a pretty amazing surface.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And 18% of customers responded to that email saying, sure, send me something. I don't have time. It would be so great if you chose it for me. And we ended up sending those 180 boxes out and making more money in that one week than we ever had in any month leading up to it.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. You know, we had moved into a really humble office in the garment district on 35th Street. It was above a methadone clinic. And I would just walk into this tiny room and I would see it flowing to the ceiling in an inventory. And I would think to myself, oh my God, we are going to die under a mountain of dresses. And I think that was the point where I was like, I saw the dresses and I said, what if we just sent our existing customers an email asking them if we could send them a box of dresses because we somehow have to physically move these dresses out of here? And so we sent our, I think we had like a thousand customers on our mailing list at that time. And we said, we'll send you a box of products that we think you'll like. And if you like them, you can keep them. If you don't, you can return them. And so that was the pitch.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I was just like, I can't watch that show anymore because every time I'm like, walk away, walk away. But yeah, $75,000 when you've got negative $2,000 in the bank is pretty precious.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's right. You know, I think that's where, I mean, meeting Bob, and he ended up being a phenomenal partner. But Bob could have also been somewhat terrible. He could have really screwed me over.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, it's so true, and I think you're actually pointing to something really important there. And I catch myself doing this too now, and I really try to stop myself from doing it, which is telling other entrepreneurs, like, don't just take anyone's money or be really careful who you take money from. That's all well and good when you've got cash in the bank. When you don't, it's really unhelpful advice because it's true you really want to make sure who you take money from, but you also just want to keep your company alive.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is the quickest any single investor has put together around like that for me. And I think Bob has these very close connections with other business people, well-established business people, and they do deals together all the time. I think they pass each other deals and they move together, they talk to each other, they invest together. I just never saw that with any of my other female angel investors.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was like the first time where someone said to me, It's actually not you, it's us not being able to understand the product. But then I think the part that I didn't share was that Bob, after seeing me go through a couple of these VC meetings, I think he's seeing how determined I am to raise this money. He says, you know what? I'm willing to write a check, which I honestly at that point wasn't expecting because he's more coaching me through this process. And he was like, you know, I'm willing to invest 50, maybe $100,000, which is a lot of money for us at that time. And he says to me, and are you interested in raising maybe a little bit more money from me and my friends? And I said, you know, absolutely. And he says, okay, give me 24 hours.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there was a lot of that. I'm sure you've heard this from your other founders, but there was a lot of, oh, I'm going to have my wife who is a stay-at-home mom try it, nothing against her, but she's been at home for 30 years and probably has different needs for what she wants to wear every single day or I'll have my 17-year-old daughter try it. It just kind of lumping in all women into the same category. You know, the most honest thing I heard was I had an investor call me after we did the pitch and he said to me, we really like you, we really think there's a lot to like about the business, but it's just so early and we're a four guy sitting around the room and we just can't get a gut feel on the product. I've repeated that elsewhere, and people are like, oh my God, I can't believe he said that. How sexist. But to me, it was a relief.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, yes, yeah. Niche business is essentially its code word for list of small potatoes. And I'm thinking to myself, like, what about working women is such a niche business? There are 30 million Women aged twenty five to forty five who work in some sort of corporate environment. And these women spend on average for women making $75K an up, $4,000 a year on clothes to wear to work. And so that's roughly $100 to $120 billion market. To me, nothing about that was niche.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Their response was the same response that I would basically hear for the next three to four years, which is congratulations. It looks like you started a real great niche business for yourself.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, and how much I should be raising. And I go back to Bob and he says, this is really interesting. Like, these are the facts that you need to go out with when you go and talk to these VCs. None of the VC conversations actually go anywhere. But armed with this information, I'm able to say my company, we've already generated revenue, similar companies when they were at my size were raising this amount of money at this valuation. Can we talk?”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bob Deutsch. Bob was a CFO at these two insurance companies. I had gone to meet my husband's friend's father, who was a very successful entrepreneur for some advice. Secretly, I'm also hoping maybe he'll invest. But he said, you know, you got to meet with my former CFO, Bob. Bob and I have started two companies together. They sold both incredibly successful. And I go and meet Bob and I say, hey, Bob, I'm just having a really hard time trying to raise money. Can you please give me some guidance? And he said, well, you know, the first thing we should think about is how much should your company be valued at and how much do you want to give up? And I was like, I'm willing to have my company valued at anything just to keep the business going.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, no, no. I knew I couldn't go back to them because we haven't done what we said we wanted to do on the cash that we had raised at that point. So I had to go and fundraise again. And the most amazing part of this story is meeting Bob.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not only do we run out, it actually went into the negatives. Our bank account, I think, at one point said negative 2,000 or something, and I didn't know you could draw down beyond zero. So that was a wake-up call. And I had to go out and fundraise again. Same people.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, you know, we were paying ourselves very, very little, and we've only raised $400,000 at that point. So, you know, we're watching the cash dwindle.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, we did not. I think actually for the first year, my goal was like a million, so we felt quite short of that. And in 2013, we had hired three other people.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, yes, it was really still continuing to do trunk shows. We had revenue goals for the month. And so if we weren't meeting our revenue goals, then we would, you know, set up a trunk show, stat, and try to make some money off of that. And the trunk shows actually were always quite lucrative. We knew that when our customers actually tried on the clothes in person, they loved them. So often women were buying multiple dresses. But online, it was just a totally different story. We could not sell our dresses.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, I don't know, maybe we get like 10, 15 orders on the day of launch, and then afterwards we get like three, two. I'm sure there were days with zero. I mean”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, it's my mom's nickname. Her nickname is Meme, which is a child's way of saying eyes in Japanese, and she has really big eyes. And so that was her nickname. And initially, actually, it was called Meme Lefleur. But Mehme in French means nana. So after a while, I realized like nana flower doesn't actually have the best ring to it. Like maybe we should change that. And so we took the initials of Mehme, which is MM, and made it MM Lafleur.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's right. And around this time, this direct to consumer was becoming a thing, and so online was where it was at. And I think I foolishly had this notion that if you launch a website, your customers come and they shop and you become millionaires. Of course, I think we have all learned since then that that is not the case. But at the time, there was such a media frenzy around these new DTC businesses. And I just thought like, wow, it's so easy, let's launch a site. And so we did can never forget this, 3 a.m. of January 1st, 2013. That was the official launch of our e-commerce site mmwflura.com.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I raised, so contrary to what we thought we wanted to do, which was like, I don't know, a million, a two million, we raised $400,000 and it took me nine months.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We started with friends and family. This is a trick that I pass on to other entrepreneurs who are trying to raise money in the very early stages because a lot of people, I think women especially, tell me they feel bad about asking for money. They feel nervous. What if I lose their money, et cetera, et cetera? And what I tell them is rich people get asked for money all the time It's you and 500 other people asking for their money. And one phrase that I developed, which I started using in all my emails, is if you or anyone you know might be interested, please let me know. I think the you or anyone else you know gave the other person an elegant out if they weren't interested. You know, they could say like, yes, I'll think about who I know. Or if they're interested, they'll say like, actually, I'm interested.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me a generated revenue. I think it was in the fundraising world they talk about pre-revenue companies and post-revenue companies. So I was like, well, we are a post-revenue company. And, okay, we said, you know. Do we want to raise a million dollars? $2 million.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that's right. I was like, you know what? Not only do we have product, we have made money now. This raising money thing, it's gonna be a piece of cake.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I think it was after we did our first set of trunk shows. And by the way, we sold out. I mean, that was, we had made about $50,000 at that point. And we said, okay, this is a quote-unquote proof of concept. We're going to go raise money”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then I would start working on my business again in the evening. I mean, I just had no time to attend to everything that I needed to. And Nari was someone who I worked with. She was actually the first person I managed at Bain. And so, you know, I said, I want to take this company to the next level. Do you want to come? And she said, sure. And she... She also didn't have a salary, I couldn't pay her salary, so she started tutoring too. And that's how the two of us made ends meet.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it was actually the opposite of Mianco. I needed someone who could do what I was doing because at that point I was getting stretched too thin. I should also share probably at that point I was, you know, I wasn't taking a salary. I was tutoring to make ends meet. So usually every day from, you know, I would wake up and then I would work. I would be running around the factory, the pattern maker, the factory, the pattern maker. And then from 4 to 7 p.m., my apartment would turn into a tutoring facility and I would be teaching the SATs or fifth grade math or seventh grade English.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, well, Jenny saw so-and-so wearing this dress, and she asked her where she got it. And here we are. Most products that people make, you rely on editors, magazines, ads to spread the word. It's essential for your business. And I think one thing I didn't quite realize, you know, women, they're not looking to fashion magazines to tell them what to wear to work. They're turning to each other. They're asking each other, where'd you get that? Where'd you shop for that? And so that was hugely beneficial in the early days”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We rented this hotel suite. We turned the bathroom into a dressing room, the shower stall into a dressing room. I think we created one more makeshift one. And the first two trunk shows, I think, you know, legitimately was really just my friends and friends of friends coming to be supportive. But I think by the third trunk show, I hardly knew anybody there. And what started happening was women would be telling each other at the workplace. We had zero money to spend on marketing. So, you know, it wasn't like we were inviting editors or taking out ads or any of that. It was women just telling other women. You remember there was a group of women from Goldman at our third trunk show and I was like, how did you hear about us? And they were like,”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That is correct. I think we did gosh a dozen or so in the first year and it was hard work. You know, you're lugging around suitcases. I was lugging around fabric, rolls of fabric on my shoulder through the garment district. It's a very physically intensive experience.”
2020-02-03 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT