0:01

This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

0:03

If you're a small business owner, you know

0:06

that it isn't just your business, it's

0:08

your life. And whatever your

0:10

business might be, you want someone who

0:12

understands. That's why you might want

0:14

to check out State Farm Small Business Insurance.

0:17

Why? Because State Farm agents are

0:19

small business owners, too, living and working

0:21

in your community. That means they know

0:24

what it takes to help you personalize

0:26

your policies for your small business needs.

0:28

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

0:31

Talk to your local agent today. Wow,

0:36

that guy means business. Just an amazing

0:38

player. No, not him, the sports photographer

0:41

behind him. Uh, what? He has a

0:43

business bank account with QuickBooks Money, where

0:45

he earns 5% annual percentage yield, so

0:48

he's scoring big on and off the field.

0:50

You might even say he's the MVB. MVB?

0:55

The most valuable business. Making

0:57

your money work harder. That's how you business

0:59

differently. Intuit QuickBooks. Banking services provided by Green

1:01

Dot Bank. Member FDIC. Only funds and envelopes

1:03

earn APY. APY can change at any time. And

1:09

you've talked about that with this company. You don't want

1:11

to raise a penny of outside

1:13

funding. Why is that? Being

1:16

a fiduciary means that I'm going to think about your

1:18

money as much or more than mine. Two

1:21

nights ago, I decided that you're all going to a

1:23

visa on me. And when I say all of

1:25

you, I mean everyone at Prof G. If

1:27

I take an outside capital, I'd have to think,

1:29

well, is really that the best use of capital?

1:33

So it gives you a level of

1:35

freedom. If Prof G works or

1:37

doesn't work, it's not going to have a big impact on my life.

1:40

But when you take other people's money, you

1:42

have a responsibility to have sleepless

1:45

nights thinking about, you know,

1:48

is there investment going up or down? The biggest sources

1:50

of stress in my life, and

1:52

granted I've led a charm life so far, have

1:54

usually been, at least professionally, concerns

1:56

around losing other people's money. And

1:59

so... Control is an addictive

2:01

substance. It's really nice to have total control

2:03

when you don't have any outside investors. And

2:06

B, I just don't want to be responsible for

2:08

other people's capital anymore. Welcome

2:15

to First Time Founders. In

2:17

1972, Congress passed a

2:19

piece of legislation that banned schools from

2:21

discriminating on the basis of sex. That

2:24

bill, known as Title IX, had

2:26

many impacts. Before Title IX,

2:29

only 1 in 27 girls play sports.

2:32

Today, that number is 2 in 5. As

2:35

a college athlete in the 80s, my next guest

2:37

was one of the first to benefit from Title

2:39

IX. But she also benefited

2:42

as an entrepreneur. Female athletes

2:44

represented a new market. She recognized

2:46

that early, and in 1989, she sent

2:48

out 13,000 mail order catalogs for

2:52

a new clothing category known as

2:54

Women's Activewear. Since

2:56

then, the category which she defined has

2:58

exploded, with thousands of new entrants from

3:01

Luda Lemon to Alo to Afflecka. But

3:03

despite all that competition, she's protected her

3:05

company and grown it into a $100

3:08

million dollar per year business with over

3:10

300 employees. Plus,

3:13

she did it all without ever raising

3:15

a penny of outside funding. Yes,

3:18

you heard that right. This founder owns

3:20

100% of her company. She bootstrapped

3:23

it the whole way. This

3:25

is my conversation with Missy Park, founder

3:27

and CEO of Title IX. How

3:32

are you doing? No complaints. What about yourself? I'm

3:34

doing very well. It's nice and sunny here

3:36

in New York. You're in Berkeley? Yep.

3:38

When did you move to Berkeley, by the way? I

3:41

was just thinking about that. Let's see. I think

3:43

I moved here in 1987. So

3:47

that was before you started the company then? Yeah, yeah,

3:49

yeah. I worked for a couple years on the

3:51

East Coast after college, and then it was

3:54

too cold. But

3:56

you went to college on the East Coast, right?

4:00

Yale, I believe. How do you like that? Well,

4:02

it's like most things.

4:06

It was hard but good. I

4:08

think coming from a small town and Greenville,

4:11

South Carolina to a really, quite

4:16

frankly, ugly city. New

4:19

Haven, Connecticut. Really,

4:23

all of that entails. That was

4:25

a big culture shock. Not

4:29

just a physical environment, but

4:31

the people, everything. It was

4:33

a big culture shock, but

4:37

I wouldn't have had it any other way. You

4:39

were an athlete in college, right? Yeah,

4:41

I was. I came up all the way. I

4:46

was actually in the first class of women

4:48

who came up all the way through

4:51

high school and college with Title IX

4:53

being in effect. Give us an

4:55

explanation of what Title IX is. I think most

4:57

people probably know now, but some

4:59

might not. Most people do not know.

5:01

Is that right? Actually, that's awesome. They

5:04

feel entitled. They think

5:06

it's been this way all along, can

5:08

you tell? I'm good that most people

5:10

don't know. It

5:12

meant a lot to me and my generation,

5:14

probably women on probably 15

5:17

years on either side. Basically,

5:19

it was a piece of legislation that was passed in

5:22

1972 which said that girls and

5:24

women must have an equal opportunity

5:26

to compete in

5:28

all interscholastic athletic activities.

5:32

People thought it

5:34

was about the sports, but

5:36

that's kind of where they were

5:38

mistaken because we were talking about the whole

5:41

shooting match. So, yes, it was about girls

5:43

getting equal opportunity to compete, similar

5:45

practice times, similar practice facilities. That

5:48

was a long time in the

5:50

making, but what it

5:52

was really about was equal opportunity

5:55

to an education. So that

5:57

means, you know, in

6:00

the 1970s, probably one in

6:02

every 50 professional

6:04

school attendees was a female.

6:06

Now it's 50%. So

6:09

it wasn't just about athletics. It was

6:11

about law school, med school, business school,

6:14

um, all of the advanced

6:16

degrees and that that's where Title IX really

6:18

made the difference. Let's, uh, dive

6:20

into the company a little bit. I mean, you started

6:22

the company in 1989. It

6:25

was one of the very first

6:28

American sportswear brands that was made exclusively

6:30

for women. I think

6:32

today that sounds pretty normal

6:34

to us. I mean, there are a lot of

6:37

female focused brands and all sorts of consumer

6:39

products, but at that time, 30 years

6:43

ago, I assume it wasn't. So

6:46

why did you decide to start this company? I

6:48

graduated from college and really could not find, you

6:50

know, when you're in college, you basically get all

6:53

your gear given to you for free. I mean,

6:55

it's bad gear. It's men's gear, but at least

6:57

we had stuff. And then when I graduated from

6:59

college, I realized like, wow, there is no one

7:01

out here, Lily, no one we were before Nike

7:04

or Nike woman or dicks

7:07

or dicks for her. Um,

7:09

certainly before athletic Lulu lemon. I mean,

7:11

we were really the only one doing

7:13

it. And when I told my

7:15

dad, my idea, I said, you know, the great thing is dad,

7:18

that we're the, we're, we're going to be the only

7:20

ones doing this. My dad was like, well, there

7:22

might be a good reason for that. Ever

7:26

the encouraging one. Um,

7:32

so yeah, it was a very different time. And

7:34

really, as I said before, I was

7:37

in that first cohort of women that could have

7:39

gone all the way through high school and all

7:41

the ways to college playing sports and

7:43

then in that first cohort of women who

7:45

wanted to make the thing they love part

7:47

of their vocation and not just have it be

7:50

an avocation. And was the idea that you wanted

7:52

to sell clothes to

7:54

female athletes in college or

7:56

just. Oh, what it was

7:58

for was for. for

8:00

27-year-old former collegiate basketball

8:03

players. For you. You got

8:05

it. Exactly. You

8:13

know, I mean, obviously for good and ill, I

8:15

didn't have a business plan. I

8:17

basically bootstrapped the whole way. They're good

8:20

and bad things about that. One

8:23

of the bad things, and maybe the

8:25

good thing too, is my ideas did

8:27

not go through the rot tumbler of

8:29

vetting that happens when you

8:31

raise money and

8:33

build a business plan. So

8:35

no one pointed out some of the

8:37

very obvious problems with targeting a company

8:40

to a very, very small subset of

8:42

women. But

8:44

the good news is, you know, we

8:47

didn't spend much money. When

8:49

I say we, that would be the royal we, that would

8:51

be just me. You know, I

8:53

had, I don't know, 25,000 bucks. I

8:57

talked our suppliers into shipping us

8:59

stuff and invoicing

9:01

us after we sold it, which turned

9:04

out to be optimistic. Even that was

9:06

optimistic. But the

9:08

good news was I could get the stuff out

9:10

there and start to learn very, very quickly. You

9:12

know, so I had like a little catalog. And

9:15

at the very last minute, I put

9:17

in a black and white section sports

9:20

bras. And I

9:22

mean, you know, we, I don't know, I can't

9:24

even remember, like maybe 20,000 catalogs. We

9:27

probably got like 13 orders. And of

9:29

the 13 orders, I think 11 of

9:32

them had a sports bra on it. So

9:34

I don't know that pitching

9:37

what was typically the investment community at that point

9:39

would have helped me figure out that sports bras

9:41

were the same because it'd be a lot

9:43

of people that don't look like me. So

9:47

in the end, it would have been nice to

9:49

have the rot tumbler of the vetting that goes

9:51

on with a capital raise. But

9:53

on the other hand, you're only

9:55

as good as the people you're sitting in front of.

9:57

And I'm not sure anybody really knows. to

10:00

do it relatively cheaply. I was like

10:02

wow, sports bras, running shoes, running

10:04

shorts. Those were the things that came across.

10:06

Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. I mean, a

10:09

third of sales include a sports bra in the order. My

10:11

next question was going to be, could

10:13

you just not get a sports bra anywhere else? It

10:15

sounds like the answer is yes. Correct.

10:18

I mean, women are problem solvers, right? And

10:20

so people come up with ways to do

10:22

it. They wear three regular bras. They use

10:25

a bandages. The

10:27

original sports bra was actually two

10:29

jock straps, which you don't even know what a jock

10:32

strap is. But

10:35

you could probably imagine. But

10:39

you know, it's like, oh, well, men need

10:41

support and women need support. So why don't

10:43

we just take the thing that men need

10:45

support for and apply it to women? It

10:47

didn't really work that way, but that was

10:49

the initial. I mean, women got pretty inventive

10:52

about how we solve those problems.

10:54

But now, I mean, that

10:57

is old business. Had you had any

11:00

professional experience in retail or in

11:02

a power load, sports wear? What

11:04

was your background before deciding to

11:06

do this? Well, you know,

11:08

I probably worked a little bit of retail.

11:10

You know, I've worked, I played

11:12

tennis in high school a little bit in college.

11:14

I worked at the local tennis shop.

11:16

But no, no, I mean, probably

11:19

the most relevant experience I

11:21

had is obviously the experience of

11:23

a participant and the passion of

11:25

a participant. And you can say

11:28

that cuts both ways. And

11:30

then after that was really, I had

11:32

two jobs when I moved out to

11:34

California, I worked for Fisher Mountain Bikes,

11:37

worked for them for a year. So I got

11:39

sort of a firsthand look at what a

11:41

small company, how it runs. And this was

11:43

a small family run business and getting to

11:45

see what that looks like. And then the

11:48

other great experience I had was working

11:50

at the North Face when they are

11:52

much smaller than Title IX is now.

11:55

It was, I did

11:57

their first ever point of

11:59

sale. print catalog. And

12:01

by doing it, it meant that I

12:03

just ran around and worked with all

12:05

the people who knew what they were

12:07

doing and was responsible for, you know,

12:09

hiring photographers and models, writing

12:12

the copy, being

12:14

at the photo shoots. That's probably

12:16

the main marketing channel at the time,

12:18

right? Exactly. That was the marketing channel. And

12:20

then the other piece that I had is North

12:22

States is I ran their, what they call the

12:25

warranty department, which was the department that was responsible

12:27

for making good on

12:29

their lifetime guarantee. So

12:31

it was really a customer service department.

12:33

Well, it sounds like you always kind

12:36

of knew you wanted to be involved

12:38

in some way in athletics. But did you

12:40

always know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?

12:43

You know, always knew. No, I

12:45

don't know that always like hindsight.

12:48

You know, you start to mix up hindsight and

12:51

memory a little bit. I think, you know,

12:53

my father was an entrepreneur, although they didn't

12:55

call it that at the time. He was

12:57

just, he was just a bootstrapper. Yeah. He's

12:59

just a scrappy guy. A guy with a

13:02

business. Yeah. Yes. He was just a

13:05

scrappy guy. My sister's in business for herself,

13:07

but my brothers are in business for themselves.

13:09

I think a lot like, I

13:11

don't think it's a requirement, but certainly like if

13:14

your parents are lawyers or doctors, you're more likely

13:17

perhaps to be a lawyer

13:19

or a doctor. I think just living up,

13:21

living in a household where business

13:24

and running a business and

13:26

the problems of small businesses conversation around

13:28

the dinner table. So I don't know

13:30

if I always knew Ed, but I

13:32

think what I would say is

13:35

there was a lot in the water and

13:37

in the jeans. So you're

13:39

working at the North

13:41

Face and then you decide another desk. You

13:43

want to start your own company, but you

13:46

didn't raise any money, which I feel like

13:49

most of the people I've had on this podcast and most

13:51

of my friends who are entrepreneurs, that's the first thing they

13:53

do. Like, okay, pitch deck. Now I'm going

13:55

to go out and raise money. You didn't do that. What

13:58

was the first thing you did

14:00

to start building this company, the first

14:02

piece of action you took? Well, and

14:04

I think this may be relevant to people

14:06

who want to bootstrap. The thing about bootstrapping,

14:08

I mean, the most important thing is to

14:11

take the first step and make a commitment.

14:13

So for me, there was a psychological hurdle

14:15

I had to cross over. I was like,

14:17

okay, am I really doing this? And

14:20

for me, it was, you

14:22

know, printing up business cards,

14:24

you know, asking a buddy of

14:26

mine, I paid her 50 bucks,

14:28

and she designed a logo and

14:30

put together a corporate package with

14:32

things that we don't use anymore,

14:34

but letterhead and, you know, shipping

14:37

labels and all these things, and

14:40

a t shirt, and I paid her 50

14:42

bucks. That felt like

14:45

a little bit of crossing the Rubicon, I

14:47

suppose, you know, it's like, okay, I'm committed,

14:49

I've paid money. And that

14:52

was really the first step. And then it was just

14:54

a matter of scrapping, you know, I had

14:56

some I was playing on a bunch

14:58

of different sports teams, I met some

15:00

people who were involved in the publishing

15:02

industry, they agreed to help me out

15:04

all the side with design and copy

15:07

editing. My teammates were

15:09

models, so they were free. I

15:11

mean, everything just had to be cheap, you know, I

15:14

mean, because like, there was

15:16

no cash flow, really, I mean,

15:18

it wasn't like I had a pot of money in the

15:20

bank that I could just work my way through it. I

15:22

mean, everything, you know, I had $30,000, I needed for that

15:26

to last until I got my first sale. So

15:28

that that is one of the things I think

15:30

that I don't like about the investment. You

15:33

take so long to get

15:35

to the first good information you really

15:37

need. And that is, what does the

15:39

customer think about this idea? I mean,

15:41

I, I mean, and people

15:43

are so good with those pitches, man,

15:45

I'm just like, okay, you got your

15:48

elevator speech, but I don't know

15:50

if you can sell a damn thing. I mean,

15:52

it's just two different things

15:54

like a bunch of guys, usually

15:56

who all look alike, think alike,

15:58

think at the same day. banks are

16:01

deciding what customers want.

16:05

I guess there is something to the

16:07

fact that they have money, and

16:10

that is legitimizing, but the

16:12

most important thing is what does the customer want? For

16:15

me, that is the thing you have to get

16:17

to the most quickly, is to figure

16:20

out if the customer wants what you're selling, and if they

16:22

don't, then how are you going to change? How

16:24

long did it take you to get your Fuzz

16:26

Sale? I left the door face

16:28

in April of 1989, and

16:32

we had our first sale in October

16:35

of 1989. So pretty quickly.

16:39

What did that mean to you psychologically? Was that like,

16:42

yep, this is going to work? I

16:44

was really ready to quit. It

16:47

was one event because of course, you know. Because

16:50

again, I didn't go through the rock tumbler of vetting

16:53

that would normally happen, so I didn't

16:55

have all of the hard knocks, right? And

16:58

when you get 13 orders, that's, I mean,

17:01

you know, everybody has a plan until they get punched

17:03

in the face. And

17:06

I didn't even have a plan. I just got punched

17:08

in the face. So

17:11

for me, really, that

17:14

first one, I was like, wow, I have no idea

17:17

what I'm doing. It almost

17:19

sounds like a better vetting process to me. It's

17:21

like, that's probably the best

17:23

vetting process you could have is you went

17:25

through the struggle, and you had

17:27

to go find out if there was demand, which you just

17:30

did as quickly as possible. It sounds like now,

17:32

from my understanding, the first four years for you

17:34

were a struggle, just some of those struggles that

17:37

I know about. You were $200,000 in debt. There

17:40

was a flood that basically

17:42

destroyed your entire inventory. What

17:45

were those first few years like? And was

17:48

there ever a point where you truly thought,

17:50

yeah, I actually do want to quit? Yes,

17:52

and still, and

17:55

still. I mean, and anybody that tells you differently,

17:57

it's just, you know, I sit on these calls. We

18:01

have this pitch fest that we do that has

18:04

young women who are building outdoor brands come and

18:06

pitch us. And I

18:09

sit on a Zoom call every so often

18:11

with them talking about sort of whatever challenges

18:13

they're facing. And one of them,

18:16

we were talking about money and they're like, when do you stop

18:18

stressing about money? And I was like, never, literally

18:21

never. I know specifically

18:23

back in those early days, there would be

18:25

times when there was a question of, could

18:28

I hold off paying the printer and all

18:30

the other marketing things that we were doing

18:32

before I got my first sales? Not someone

18:34

that said I got my first sales. Could

18:37

I hold off the people that actually

18:40

owned the inventory until

18:42

I got enough sales to be able to pay

18:44

them? And there was a specific time really twice

18:46

a year. And that still happens about twice a

18:48

year. It actually gets really, really

18:50

tight. And

18:53

so I would say, anybody that

18:56

isn't constantly paranoid about is this the

18:58

misstep that's going to do me in,

19:01

is not being vigilant enough. Or

19:03

they have too much money. I don't

19:05

know which. And

19:10

then in 1993, you became profitable

19:12

for the first time. Would

19:14

you say that was sort of the turning point for

19:16

Title IX from a financial

19:18

perspective? And you're nodding yes. And

19:21

so what started going right?

19:23

What did you start doing that

19:25

allows you to reach that point? Yeah, I always

19:27

say just like, fail faster to

19:30

succeed sooner. I mean, we didn't have

19:32

enough failure. It took us four years

19:34

of screwing things up to find the

19:37

things that worked. We found the right

19:39

customers. It wasn't all the people, but

19:41

we narrowed in on some places where

19:43

we could advertise and market that really

19:46

worked with us. I figured out how

19:48

to manage inventory, managing cash flow, marketing,

19:51

and those tricks. You

19:53

learn those, but you have to keep relearning them

19:55

right. I mean, like at the beginning, you

19:58

have to learn all the things all at once. Once

20:01

you get started, it's more like conducting a

20:03

symphony, I think. It's like you get the

20:05

woodwinds right, and then you've got to go

20:08

over and work at the strings, and then

20:10

by the time you get back around, the

20:12

woodwinds are screwing up again. I mean, I

20:14

think once you get it going, usually not

20:16

everything screws up at once. So that's helpful.

20:20

We'll be right back. Support

20:36

for the show comes from Upway. You don't need

20:38

me to tell you about the benefits of bike

20:40

commuting. The evangelists love to tell everyone how good

20:42

cycling is for the body and the planet. And

20:45

as true as it all may be, it takes a lot of

20:47

work to get into cycling shape, and some of us could use

20:49

a boost. And not the kind

20:51

of boost that gets you kicked out of

20:53

the Olympics. I'm talking about e-bikes. If

20:56

you're in the market for one, you might want to

20:58

check out Upway. Upway is a

21:00

top destination for certified and brand new

21:02

e-bikes. Upway offers a range of top

21:04

tier brands, but at a fraction of the

21:06

cost, as much as 60% off retail.

21:09

All items are delivered to your home within a week,

21:11

and are backed by a one year warranty. Right

21:14

now, you can get $150 to use on

21:16

your first e-bike purchase when you use code

21:18

PROPG2024 at checkout. Go

21:21

to Upway.co and use code PROPG2024

21:23

at checkout for a great deal.

21:27

And ever your way, your next

21:29

e-bike could be on Upway.co. Making

21:57

your money work harder. That's how your business differs.

22:00

Intuit QuickBooks, banking services provided by Green Dot

22:02

Bank, member FDIC. Only funds and envelopes earn

22:04

APY. APY can change at any time. When

22:07

you need mealtime inspiration, it's

22:10

worth shopping Kroger, where you'll find over

22:12

30,000 mouthwatering choices that excite

22:14

your inner foodie. And no matter what

22:16

tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our

22:18

everyday low prices. Plus, extra ways to

22:20

save, like digital coupons worth over $600

22:22

each week. You can also save

22:25

up to $1 off per gallon

22:27

at the pump with fuel points.

22:29

More savings and more inspiring flavors

22:31

make shopping Kroger worth it every

22:33

time. Kroger, fresh for everyone. Fuel

22:35

restrictions apply. We're

22:42

back with First Time Founders. When

22:44

we last spoke, one of the things you're talking

22:46

about in terms of your business strategy was this

22:48

idea of base hits versus

22:51

home runs. And

22:54

you basically said to me and elsewhere that

22:56

Title IX actually doesn't go for home runs,

22:58

you try to optimize for base hits. Could

23:00

you take us through your thinking

23:02

there and what that means to you? Well,

23:04

it's really hard, right? Because everybody wants the

23:07

unicorn. Everybody wants the home run, right? Those

23:09

are the people that are most highly compensated

23:11

as the home run hitters. We

23:14

just want to stay in the game. You know, you show me

23:16

anybody that's hitting a lot of home runs, I'm going to show

23:18

you somebody that struck out an awful lot. And

23:21

when you strike out, you're sitting in the

23:23

dugout. You're not playing, you're not learning, you're not

23:25

learning how to run the bases, you're not you're

23:27

learning nothing. I don't want to

23:29

change. I want people's failures to scale

23:32

with their expertise. I

23:34

should be making bigger mistakes today than I did

23:37

25 years ago, but I don't want

23:40

to make any game over mistakes. So that's what

23:42

I would say. I mean, those guys like we're

23:44

just gonna make

23:46

one heap of all our winnings and risk

23:49

it on one turn of pitch and toss.

23:51

That is just not what we're doing.

23:53

We're gonna stay in the game, get lots

23:55

of learnings, experiment a lot, fail

23:58

quickly, give more resources

24:00

to the things that work and let the other

24:02

stuff down the fan. Yeah, which

24:04

is exactly what you've done. I mean,

24:07

in business for 30 years, $100

24:09

million in sales per year, 300

24:11

employees, it's incredible. Was that the

24:13

game plan from the very beginning?

24:16

Because it's just a very mature

24:19

approach and you were a young

24:21

founder at the time and the most young founders

24:23

I know are just obsessed with

24:25

the home run. Is that something that

24:28

you knew from the get-go or did

24:30

you kind of slowly learn that over

24:32

time? Well, it's funny. I mean, I

24:34

don't remember I can remember even conversations I

24:36

had like, I

24:39

went down to the office depot and

24:41

bought a landline, two-line phone and a

24:44

buddy of mine who was starting a

24:46

business at the same time, also an

24:48

apparel business, he put in a whole

24:50

phone system. I mean,

24:52

we were doing basically the same thing, but

24:54

he was just so

24:57

much more confident. He's like hiring

24:59

people and his

25:02

first foray into it was

25:04

no more successful than mine, but he

25:08

was done because he'd

25:11

spent all this money. So

25:13

I'd say for me, I've always been fairly

25:16

pragmatic, very optimistic. I always think it's

25:18

going to work. But

25:21

I think there's part of me that also knows,

25:23

and if it doesn't work, here's

25:25

my plan B, plan C, plan

25:27

D. A buddy of mine,

25:29

the founder of Cliff Bar, we talk every once

25:31

in a while, Gary Erickson. Everybody's

25:33

always trying to tell you the three characteristics

25:36

of a successful entrepreneur, always got their

25:38

opinions about that. So we do

25:40

every week on this podcast. Well, and

25:43

you know- This is what you have to do. I

25:45

know. You

25:47

know what? Gary's is actually, he's the only one

25:49

who I think got it right. His

25:51

thing is, there are three characteristics. Never

25:55

give up, never give up, never

25:57

give up. I think that's- That's

26:00

just it until you have to put

26:02

yourself in a position that someone doesn't

26:05

give up for you. Successful entrepreneurs, they

26:07

can be extroverts, they can be introverts,

26:09

they can be highly quantitative, they can

26:11

be great salespeople, they can be terrible

26:13

salespeople, but boy, they have

26:15

got to be able to stick through it,

26:18

even when they feel like quitting. Just

26:20

going back to base hits versus home runs,

26:22

one of the things you've also said is

26:25

that by taking up strategy, you're

26:28

recognizing that you're never going to win a ground

26:31

slam. In other words, you

26:33

recognize you're not going to be the next

26:35

Nike or the next Adidas, and you're

26:37

okay with that. Which I

26:40

love, it sort of takes the

26:42

stakes down a little bit in a way. But

26:45

describe why you think that is a good

26:48

strategy for you. Why does that make sense for

26:50

you to say, okay, we're

26:52

not going to be the Nike? And why do you

26:54

think that would make sense for other entrepreneurs who are

26:56

selling their own businesses? The first

26:58

thing is, I think we're fairly limited

27:00

when we think about the

27:03

financial statements, a P&L, a cash flow,

27:05

a balance sheet. Not all

27:07

things that count can be counted. So

27:11

I am very ambitious,

27:14

but it's not counted the way that

27:17

capitalists might count that. I am very

27:19

ambitious about the change I want to

27:21

see in the world, the way business

27:23

is done, the way women interact

27:26

with business. I mean, you talk to anybody

27:29

in our business, it's like, if we're doing something

27:32

and we've achieved it, then I'm like, here's

27:34

the next thing. Here's the next thing. But they're not

27:36

things that you're going to write about in

27:39

the Wall Street Journal. They're like, are we doing

27:41

a good job of developing

27:43

the next generation of women

27:45

executives, the next generation of

27:47

women entrepreneurs? How are

27:49

we helping other women get access to

27:51

capital? I'm not

27:53

going to get rich in money by that,

27:55

but I would say I'll

27:58

take the richness. a

28:00

fulfillment. And I think just people

28:02

are motivated by different things. My thing has always been

28:06

about the team. You know, I've played team sports.

28:08

I want to play on the team where

28:10

everybody is has a sort of

28:12

unanimity of purpose and

28:14

that we are all made better by

28:17

each other's presence and it

28:19

will make our communities better and we're going to

28:21

make money. But damn, I

28:23

mean, how much money do you

28:26

need? Right? I

28:28

mean, I guess for me, that's what I would ask

28:30

is, you know, these measuring sticks that

28:33

we use to decide whether we're successful

28:35

if we've hit a grand slam home

28:37

run. I feel like I

28:39

have hit a grand slam home run and

28:41

I think that grand slam home

28:44

run is not for other people to judge, but

28:46

for me to judge. Yeah, absolutely.

28:48

I mean, I think another way of

28:50

putting this is that your

28:52

mission isn't just to maximize

28:55

shareholder value, basically. It sounds

28:57

like you have more

28:59

missions to this company. What's

29:01

interesting though is if you have shareholders,

29:04

you must maximize shareholder

29:07

value. But this

29:10

is kind of the big thing and which is why I think

29:12

I'm so glad to have you on. I think

29:14

you're the first bootstrap company that we've had on

29:17

this podcast. You own 100% of the company.

29:20

You've never raised any venture funding.

29:22

This is your company and yours alone.

29:24

Therefore, you get to choose what to

29:26

do with it and that includes the

29:29

missions that you want to pursue. Or

29:31

run again to the ground. I

29:34

mean, it can be both. Or quit. Exactly.

29:37

It's yours. Take

29:39

us through your decision process there.

29:42

Why have you never gone out

29:44

and raised money? I would say

29:47

there are two reasons. Money

29:49

is kind of easy to find, honestly.

29:52

You've got to bring more than money to the table. If

29:55

you want a share in this business, and this is

29:57

sort of how we look when we make some money.

30:00

investments and other women led companies. I'm like, can

30:02

I help them with more than just a check?

30:05

Can we help them with more than just a

30:07

check? So money, money by itself

30:09

is just kind of dumb. And

30:12

so I never really have found someone

30:14

who I felt like brought

30:16

money and was equally

30:19

invested in sort of

30:21

the business. And then the second reason is,

30:23

you know, that a woman can be rich

30:25

or she can be queen, you

30:28

know. And for me, I think

30:31

I choose queen. And that

30:33

is having control because the fact is,

30:35

if you want something done, if you

30:37

want a decision on something, the people

30:40

who are making that decision are in the building and

30:42

they're working shoulder to shoulder with you. The

30:45

other thing that I

30:47

like about it, I have sat on some boards and I

30:49

see how it goes awry, it's

30:52

clarity decision. You

30:55

know, it never gets watered down. Now,

30:58

could be a good thing, could be a bad

31:00

thing. You know, in those

31:02

first four years, I am sure if

31:04

I'd had investors and they had watched

31:07

our performance, they would have

31:09

been like, Oh my gosh, what a

31:11

disaster. This is never going to work.

31:14

And that would have, as

31:17

even a 27 year old, that would have

31:19

shaken me. You know, people

31:21

can get you off track

31:23

pretty easily because you're young and

31:25

you don't have that confidence. So

31:28

I guess for me, it's like the

31:30

thing about bootstrapping is the business will

31:32

grow as you grow. I mean, and

31:34

that's probably the third thing that you, the business

31:36

will grow as you grow. There are things that

31:39

I am doing now with the business that

31:41

there's just no way I could have figured

31:43

out when I was 27

31:46

or even 37. So I think

31:48

it's sort of like intelligent scaling

31:50

would be

31:54

that third thing. You can't scale faster

31:56

than your ability to grow it. Now,

31:58

all three of those things, there

32:01

are downsides to them. Anybody on the venture

32:03

side of things would be able to

32:05

blow those arguments out of the way about

32:07

like how bad those things are too. But

32:09

for me, I just don't know

32:11

why people do it a different way. But clearly, clearly, I'm in

32:14

the minority. Well, I don't know if you are in

32:16

the minority. I think I just think that we don't, those

32:18

companies get less attention because probably

32:21

because they don't have millions of

32:23

dollars funding their marketing campaigns. No

32:26

more kidding. I know these guys

32:28

numbers, right? I know how much they're spending

32:30

per click. I know they can't make that

32:33

math work. It's just, can they raise money

32:35

fast enough? And so I think there is

32:37

like, yes, you want to have your head

32:39

up. But on the other hand, you want

32:41

to have your head down because

32:43

there are a lot of people doing stupid

32:46

things with money. Ryan

33:01

Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. With the price

33:03

of just about everything going up during inflation,

33:05

we thought we'd bring our prices down. To

33:08

help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer,

33:10

which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile Unlimited

33:12

Premium Wireless. How do you get 30, 30

33:23

uhh, you. This

33:29

week on the pitch, when a TikTok

33:31

trend becomes a startup.

33:34

I am the founder of Robe

33:36

Curls, the heatless curling headband. Now

33:39

with only 90 seconds of effort, you can

33:41

create curls that last five times longer than

33:43

your curling iron with zero heat, zero damage,

33:45

and you can do it anytime, anywhere. As

33:47

you can see, I'm wearing it right now.

33:50

I would think, and forgive me if I

33:52

sound kind of shaky, here, but it'd be

33:54

really easy to rip this off. Oh,

33:57

yeah. We were one of the most counterfeited products

33:59

on air. Amazon, let alone knocked off.

34:02

That sounds expensive. So

34:04

is the only person probably

34:07

on this side of the hemisphere that

34:10

has a whole thesis around tools

34:12

in the hair care space? No. Whoa.

34:14

What? What? I'm the guy

34:16

in the room. Nobody was here for the

34:18

guy above me. I knew. What is your

34:21

hair? Yeah, go. Position. That's

34:24

this week on The Pitch. Go right

34:26

now and subscribe to The Pitch, wherever

34:28

you listen to podcasts. We're back

34:35

with First Time Founders. You

34:38

have children. You had your children in the

34:40

middle of running this company. How did

34:42

you deal with raising a family

34:45

and at the same time building a successful business? Well,

34:48

it's not without compromise. I mean,

34:50

you can't have it all. Men in

34:53

my generation came as close to having

34:55

a call as anybody. But now

34:57

you're a generation. Yeah. And

35:01

I think that's what you have to

35:03

start with, is that you can't have

35:05

it all. You know, people talk

35:07

about work-life balance. I mean, that's

35:10

just kind of BS. I

35:12

don't believe it. If you want to do something

35:14

really great, you

35:16

are inherently imbalanced.

35:20

You just have to dig in. But

35:22

what I would say about that is

35:24

that that imbalance may be, wow, I

35:26

really need to dig in on my

35:28

family right now. There are some things

35:30

going on here where work is going

35:33

to kind of drop off

35:35

a little bit. And family,

35:37

I want to do

35:39

a really great job of caring for my parents

35:41

in their last years. I just

35:44

want to be really good at that. That

35:46

takes time. You know, one of the

35:48

choices I made is when we were

35:50

growing at a certain point, we decided we wanted to

35:52

open retail stores. And all

35:55

of our customers are, a vast majority of our customers are on

35:57

the East Coast. And I just said, you

35:59

know, we're not going to do that. going to open a store past

36:02

the Rockies. You know, because I

36:04

want to be able to fly there. If

36:06

something blows up, I want to be able to get there and get

36:08

back in time for dinner. Now, I

36:10

gave up something. You know,

36:12

I gave up world domination. You

36:14

know, but I also got something.

36:17

And there have been other times where

36:19

I'm just like, wow,

36:21

work is hell right now. And

36:24

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to be

36:27

the best mom ever. And I'm going to

36:29

try not to feel bad about that any

36:32

more than I feel bad when I'm not giving everything I

36:34

need to give to work, because that's just

36:36

the way life is. So it's not, there's

36:38

just different chapters. And I think that's the

36:40

most important thing that both men and women

36:42

coming up to learn is like, how you

36:44

are now is how you are right now.

36:47

And as long as you continue

36:49

to sort of ride that seesaw of

36:51

balance, and that, you know, it's never

36:53

sitting here, but it's also never

36:55

sitting here, or you're just kind of constantly

36:58

going back and forth. And I think that's

37:01

what will allow us to clear up some of this pay

37:04

gap is what

37:06

those men and women recognize

37:08

that that doesn't work that

37:10

kind of like unrelenting drive

37:13

to one thing. I think it's great.

37:15

But then in the end, I think

37:17

that one thing is going to disappoint.

37:19

I think it's going

37:21

to disappoint because you gave everything for

37:23

that one thing, and nothing is

37:25

worth that. There are obviously all

37:28

these societal issues which make

37:30

life harder for working women.

37:32

But I'd love to get your take on what

37:35

women can do for themselves today,

37:38

right now, in spite of all

37:40

of those issues that

37:42

can better their careers, and maybe

37:44

improve their overall work trajectories.

37:47

One of the biggest ones that I encourage

37:49

everybody to do is getting comfortable

37:52

acting without all the information. You

37:56

know, I see it over and

37:58

over. again by

38:01

acting I mean as simple

38:03

as okay I haven't got

38:05

the thought entirely thought through but

38:08

I'm still gonna lean in here and

38:10

weigh in on whatever topic is

38:12

being talked about like dudes

38:14

man they are super comfortable talking about

38:17

all the things they don't know a

38:19

damn thing about I mean they're words

38:21

for us no man's playing I'm just

38:23

like oh really you're gonna teach me

38:25

how to hit a forehand I've been

38:27

playing tennis for 40 years and you've

38:29

got some tips for me great I

38:32

don't know what you're talking about and that is waiting until

38:34

you have all

38:39

the data in order to

38:41

act or to speak and I would say

38:43

for women that is something we can control

38:46

you know I work with my daughter on it you

38:48

know it's so interesting talking to

38:51

her she's like yeah I'll have all

38:53

my arguments marshaled and then and then

38:55

the subject will have changed and

38:57

like well just bring it back

38:59

you can just say like oh that

39:02

thing that we were talking about I have one more point I

39:04

wanted to add and it's okay people do

39:06

it all the time but again we compare our

39:08

insides with other people's outsides they're like oh that

39:10

thing has already moved on well maybe it has

39:13

or maybe it hasn't so for

39:15

me this is the number one thing with

39:17

women it's not lean in it's

39:20

sort of solving that problem

39:22

of why am I not

39:24

leaning it I'm not leaning in because I

39:26

don't have every bit of information I think

39:28

I need in order to act and

39:31

in terms of the corollary to that is

39:33

to take small risks all the time and

39:36

then you will get better at taking the big

39:38

risk because this risk comes

39:40

reward that that's where the compounding

39:42

comes in you know I

39:44

can tell you almost without exception

39:46

if I'm offering a promotion to

39:48

a dude I guess about

39:51

damn time you know

39:53

whereas women are like ah I

39:55

don't know do you think I

39:57

can do it because I've already thought of

40:00

all the things about the job

40:02

that they don't know how to do, but

40:04

they don't realize again, that's their insight. It's

40:07

also everybody else's insights. I

40:10

mean, for someone who's lived through

40:13

probably 40 years of the greatest

40:15

change in women's station

40:19

in life, it's still a long

40:21

way to go. There's great opportunity out

40:23

there, but there is no opportunity if

40:25

you are not willing to act

40:28

without all the information, take

40:31

some risk, and stop

40:33

conflating your insides with other people's

40:35

outsides. Those three things are

40:38

killers. Yeah, I think the

40:40

reason I'm sitting in this chair

40:42

on this podcast is because I was, for whatever

40:44

reason, willing to say and do

40:46

things without all the information and probably what

40:48

I wasn't supposed to. That's exactly right.

40:50

That's exactly right. Yeah, raise your hand.

40:53

Like if somebody wants something, raise your

40:55

hand. Raise your hand. What

40:57

piece of advice would you have given to your

40:59

former self when you started

41:02

the company back in 1989? I

41:05

think I'd probably say it's a marathon,

41:07

not a sprint. I

41:11

think that's probably it. It's a

41:13

marathon, not a sprint, and pace

41:15

yourself accordingly. And I also know that if

41:19

someone had told me that, I would have told them

41:21

they were crazy. It is

41:23

a damn sprint. I got to get going right

41:25

now. Well,

41:28

that's great. I really

41:30

appreciate your time, Missy. Missy is the

41:32

founder and CEO of Title IX, a

41:34

women's sportswear company. Thank

41:36

you so much for joining us. I really appreciate what

41:38

you're doing. Thank you. And I'm

41:41

looking forward to hearing more women on your podcast. That

41:46

means to me in there. We're working on it. I

41:49

can help you any time. Please

41:52

do. Thank

41:54

you. is

42:00

Alison Weiss and our engineer is

42:02

Benjamin Spencer, Jason Stavros and Catherine Dillon

42:04

are our executive producers. Thank

42:07

you for listening to First Time Founders

42:09

from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Tune

42:11

in tomorrow for Prostinovirus. Support

42:39

for this show comes from HubSpot. More

42:42

to-dos, less time, and an infinite number

42:44

of tools to keep track of. Doing

42:47

business has never felt harder, but But

42:49

you don't need a miracle to

42:51

hit your goals. You just need

42:53

HubSpot. Because their all-in-one customer platform

42:55

can make growing your business infinitely

42:57

easier. Imagine this. High-quality

43:00

leads, fast closing deals,

43:02

wildly happy customers, quarters.

43:06

It's not a miracle. It's HubSpot.

43:09

Visit hubspot.com to get started today.