Page 73 - Entrepreneur-November 2018

MOST DARING
ENTREPRENEURS

Julie Wainwright
Founder/ The RealReal
Bold move/ Convincing luxury fashion brands to embrace a secondhand seller
hen making her investment pitch for The RealReal, Julie Wainwright sensed that investors saw four
strikes against her: “I was a woman, old enough to be most of their mothers, I wanted to launch
a fashion business, and I wanted to use an unproven concept,” she says. “I knew I’d hear a lot of
noes.” And she did. But she also had a laser-sharp vision: to bring the luxury consignment market
online, handling authentication, appraisals, shipping, and sales.
Wainwright is the former CEO of Pets.com, so her background in e-commerce gave her some
competitive insight. She suspected that the operation of a secondhand luxury fashion market
would prove unattractive to Amazon. She also knew that eBay was cluttered with knockoffs and
bad photos. So in March 2011, having failed to hook investors, Wainwright bootstrapped her site
W and began shipping purchases that June. In the first year, the business did $10 million in sales.
“Let’s say investors were more interested after that,” she says, laughing.
Fast-forward seven years, and The RealReal has raised more than $288 million, grown to a team of more
than 1,600, and has a brick-and-mortar retail store on each coast. (Wainwright hints that business is so brisk,
a retail expansion is now under way.) But as much as those figures may raise eyebrows in Silicon Valley, it’s
The RealReal’s recent campaign partnership with designer Stella McCartney that’s earned the attention of
global fashion brands. The initiative—called The Future of Fashion Is Circular—marks the first time a luxury
brand is actually encouraging consignment rather than turning up its nose at it. When customers consign any PHOTOGR A P HS BY M A R G OT DUA N E T
Stella McCartney item to The RealReal, they receive $100 to shop at Stella McCartney stores.
“A strong secondary market really does support the primary market,” says Wainwright. “When people start
consigning, they have more room in their closet and more money in their pockets—and they tend to buy new
things that they know they can ultimately resell.” Whenever that moment comes, The RealReal will be waiting.

56 / ENTREPRENEUR.COM / November 2018