20VC: Stitch Fix Founder Katrina Lake on Growth vs Profitability, Her Biggest Lessons From Working with Bill Gurley at Benchmark and The Importance of Mental Flexibility as a Leader
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 3 December 2020
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Katrina Lake is the Founder & CEO @ Stitch Fix, a multi-billion dollar public company, which has brought an entirely new model to retail apparel by combining data science, technology, and personal stylists, to create a unique shopping experience tailored to the individual consumer. Prior to their IPO in 2017, Katrina raised just $42M in venture funding from some of the best in venture including Bill Gurley @ Benchmark and Steve Anderson @ Baseline. In just 6 years Katrina took the company from founding moment to $2BN IPO and was even cash flow positive after just 3 years. If that was not enough, Katrina is also on the board of both Grubhub and Glossier.
In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Katrina made her way from being an associate at a venture firm to reshaping the world of fashion with Stitch Fix?
2.) On reflection, is Katrina happy that the business was forced to be so capital efficient so early? What did Katrina do to structure the business and its inventory management to preserve cash? How does Katrina think about the balance between growth vs profitability?
3.) What have been some of Katrina's biggest lessons from working with Bill Gurley? How does Katrina ensure not to overweight his opinion on the board? What have been Katrina's biggest lessons on effective board management? How has being on the Grubhub and Glossier board changed the way she operates the Stitch Fix board?
4.) How does Katrina think about imposter syndrome and self-doubt today? How does she remedy it? How does Katrina ensure she remains on the front lines with customers despite being a public company CEO? What benefits are there for founders to stay in the trenches even when a large company?
5.) How does Katrina think on the importance for founders to have a vision today? Where do they need to be flexible? What are some dangers or pitfalls associated with "the vision"? How far are Stitch Fix along in cementing their vision?
Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode
Katrina’s Favourite Book: Between The World And Me
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | We are back and this is the 20 minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and on Monday we featured an |
| 0:03.8 | incredible billion dollar founder in the form of Vlad at Robin Hood, and stay we're joined by |
| 0:07.8 | another incredible billion dollar founder who's reshaped their industry. I'm thrilled to be |
| 0:11.9 | joined today by Katrina Lake, founder and CEO, Stitch Fix, a multi-billion dollar public company, |
| 0:17.3 | which has brought an entirely new model to retail apparel by combining data science, |
| 0:21.7 | technology and personal stylists to create a unique shopping experience, really tailored to the |
| 0:26.3 | individual consumer. And prior to their IPO in 2017, Katrina raised just $42 million in venture |
| 0:32.1 | funding from some of the very best in venture, including Bill Gurley at Benchmark and Steve |
| 0:36.5 | Anderson at Baseline. And in just |
| 0:38.1 | six years, Katrina took the company from founding moment to two billion dollar IPO, and they were |
| 0:42.9 | even cash flow positive after just three years. If that was not enough, Katrina's also on the board |
| 0:47.7 | of Grubhub and Glossier, and I'd also want to say a huge thank you to Bill Gurley for some |
| 0:51.5 | fantastic questions suggestions today. That really did mean a lot. But before we move into the show today, I'm sure you've heard about it on the show before, |
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... |
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