Julie’s Secret Sauce

Julie Wainwright

06.02.21

Julie Wainwright has been awarded just about every laurel in business. What's behind the success? She attributes the recognition to creating a unique business--one that solves a real need.

Julie’s Secret Sauce

Summary:

Julie Wainwright has been awarded just about every laurel in business. What’s behind the success? She attributes the recognition to creating a unique business–one that solves a real need.

Thuy

You have won so many awards for creating and dominating an entirely new category in fashion. Just to list some of them here, a Silicon Valley Visionary award in 2020. You were on Vanity Fair's New Establishment list. You were named Retail Innovator of the Year in 2018. The list goes on and on and on. Do you have a playbook for innovative thinking? What is that secret sauce that Julie Wainwright has?
Julie_Wainwright

Julie Wainwright

Oh, no, I don't think so at all. I think you know what it is, I tried to create a business that solved a real need. And in doing that, that meant that I created a business that didn't look like other businesses. So if you think that... I didn't try to replicate something been done before. So, for example, re-commerce is really, really hot and most of re-commerce, or the circular economy is peer to peer to peer. People post things and then the company that has the platform takes a percentage. And then it's just like my features are cooler than your features. So it's really as simple as that. Or I made it a little easier or I pay you a little more. That wouldn't work for this model. So what I tried to do is create something that works for the type of products that we actually sell and also for the consigners that we actually service, which meant it didn't look like anything that was out there, which actually made it harder to get finance, but also gave us an incredible competitive moat around the business. So it's not... To me real problem solvers are always innovators and the thing about it is it always seems like it's so intuitive when you see it, you're like, oh, that makes sense or what I heard a lot is "I thought about that." I'm like, "OK, well, that's great." But more importantly, I think it's one of those things that if you make it look seamless and it's something that feels fresh at the same time, then it just makes sense to people. It's like, gosh I am trying to remember what services really came like... oh, let's just say Uber when Uber first came out. Of course I want to get a taxi when I want. Of course it should be run off an app. Everything was like, "Of course, of course." You know, and then so that just made sense. The RealReal just makes sense to people.