After reading the headline, you’re probably thinking, wait a minute, where’s Sophia Amoruso? We’ll be unpacking that, and a whole lot more, in this episode of Radio, where Sophia will be passing the torch to….Puno!
Puno is a proud lifestyle business owner and the founder of ilovecreatives, edu-tainer extraordinaire through her successful courses, and the new host of Radio!
Puno has been a speaker at Rallies, teacher at ’ Startup Studio, and even a model with her Insta-famous cat Muad’dib.
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At the 2019 Rally, Puno spoke about running a lifestyle business, and has been evangelizing the concept ever since. So when it came time for Sophia to pass the torch of Radio, she simply texted Puno and said: “you should host Radio.”
In this episode, Sophia talks about why she stepped down from as CEO, selling it to a holding company, launching her first non-gendered business, and how she
Listen to the episode now on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or read the interview below (which has been edited for length & clarity):
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Not really. I don’t really look back maybe enough. It wasn’t fun to hand the keys to over in terms who’s operating it. I loved the team that I built at , but I’m also just happy to pass the torch. I’m not really attached to anything, which is weird, but I’m happy for you. I texted you and I was like, you should be the host. I’m so glad it worked out and they didn’t put someone else behind the microphone. That would be weird.
At the beginning of 2020, we had a $10 million partnership on the table, signed by us, and waiting for a counter signature from this massive company. The attorneys had blessed it and it was done. The day they were supposed to sign it COVID-19 hit. And it decimated our revenue. With COVID-19, we couldn’t do events, which is a huge part of the business. That’s part of why I left.
We couldn’t see when things were going to change. I worked for free for several months. We had to lay off the majority of the team and then it’s like, do I want to rebuild my business again? I like to keep moving, and so I’m not precious about what I’m attached to.
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I sold it to someone that I absolutely adore, one of our investors at , a good friend of mine—someone who is building something pretty awesome and was kind of on this upward trajectory with us. I sold it because I just didn’t want to keep raising money and I wanted to partner with a long term financial partner who was going to build the company with us.
Venture capitalists are kind of hands-off. They invest in high-risk companies. They want you to build the company to 100x the size it is and they’ll invest. And so they own a chunk of your company.
A holding company is like an acquirer. They would buy a company like , and they would buy it from everyone who has stock in it, which would be the Founder, the employees, the investors, and the shareholders. And it would be planted within this company that holds multiple businesses. For example, Urban Outfitters owns Anthropologie, Free People and Urban Outfitters.
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People don’t realize how VC funding can affect a startup business and the direction they want to go. How did it affect your decisions as a founder?
When you don’t have investors, you can do whatever you want. When you do have investors, you have a board. We didn’t have a board that was telling us what to do. But we ended up building a social network, which is really awesome but it’s expensive. It takes a lot of engineers and we did that because VCs want technology. I don’t know if I would have built that, had that not be the thing that I felt like investors wanted. They don’t necessarily want an events business. There are no event businesses that are venture-backed.
With , we were doing a lot of things. You guys are doing less things now which is smart. We were doing events, conferences, retreats, brand partnerships that lived across website content, a newsletter, a podcast, and we built a social network. You really don’t want to fracture your time and your focus like that.
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I’m teaching entrepreneurs how to bootstrap with Business class, which is my online course. I want to connect with my community and give them lots of value. I know my community, my customer, and I know what they want. I don’t want to do too many things; I’m very clear on how I want to work and how much I want to take on or not. So far, revenue’s great—the launch of Business Class was amazing; we did over seven figures. But at the same time, I’m not in it for just growth. I’m in it for a quality of life. I’m in it to build the right thing, have long-term value, and do something that I love doing. Yes, profitable, but not profitability over growth.
Nasty Gal gave women confidence through getting dressed. It was more than fashion. inspired women across all parts of their life. It was generally about being entrepreneurial. It was about confidence. It was kind of broad. And with Business Class, I’m qualified to teach entrepreneurs. I’m qualified to talk about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. And so it’s really been a natural progression into Business Class.
Wasn’t necessarily about bootstrapping because the business wasn’t venture-backed. We weren’t necessarily teaching people how to bootstrap. I wasn’t evangelizing it per se. Now I’m really focused on doing that myself, which is where I started. I built Nasty Gal from the back of my Volvo to $28 million in revenue, annually with no debt and no investors. I mean, you don’t even need to have a $28 million business to bootstrap and have a good life. You can make a hundred thousand dollars bootstrapping and you aren’t beholden to anybody else. You have financial freedom. I think people look at others who accomplished a lot, are on Forbes, 30 under 30, and that’s not really what matters. Having a life that you love and control is often better than having a bigger unwieldy business, which ends up not being fun. I’ve been there.
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You built out Business Class in just a few months. How do you approach getting new projects off the ground specifically during COVID?
I’ve loved working remotely. I’ve done my best work behind a computer by myself, like Nasty Gal. I’m just able to focus and create. I love leading teams, seeing what people bring to the table, and the things you’re able to accomplish with teams. Building out Business Class and starting a brand is just so much fun. The flight manual puns are endlessly entertaining and the space to bring a new spin on entrepreneurial education was wide open.
I did work with a creative agency on the branding. I named it and put together the mood boards with all the references. We set up a studio in the house and it looked super slick. I think people think that because I’ve been building businesses for 15 years, that I’m not in the weeds anymore, but that’s the most fun part. People think when you’re successful, you’ll have a hundred employees. But no, now I’m in meetings about timelines, warehouse management, implementations and HR policies.
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That’s what happens when your business explodes. Not complaining, but I just really love the stage of the business where I get to move quickly and I can accomplish a lot, alone or with just a few people. That’s way more fun for me.
A big thing that’s always on people’s minds is about the company culture at Nasty Gal. As an employer, how did you talk about that?
Things may be painful in the moment. There was so much written about the culture, and there was a lot of speculation. But at the end of the day, if your employees are on Glass Door they’re going there because they’re not feeling heard.
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It’s through that, that I was really able to learn how they were feeling. I had no idea what company culture was because I’ve never worked in an office. Of course it’s my responsibility to educate myself on how to be a great leader, scale a great executive team, and create a nurturing environment where people can grow, have transparency and all of these things that contribute to a healthy culture. I guess I don’t expect to get it right the first time. I was able to take everything I learned at Nasty Gal and apply what worked and what didn’t work to —to the culture and to the leadership.
We can learn from our past. It’s validating to take what it is that you’ve learned and implement it. It’s like, I am capable of doing this right. I’m not doomed. I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder to prove anything
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