Everlane’s Michael Preysman on 'Balancing Time, Customer and Product' | Drive Season 2
The Business of Fashion Podcast
The Business of Fashion
4.6 • 770 Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2019
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Michael Preysman shares his experience of building Everlane from the ground up and putting sustainability and something he calls 'radical transparency' at the centre of his business model and operations.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion, and welcome to the second season of Drive, delivered by D.HL, where we hear the stories of fashion's most dynamic entrepreneurs, in their own words. |
| 0:12.7 | In our final episode of the season, B.O.F's Lauren Sherman sits down with Michael Pressman, founder and CEO of Everlane, which is now a global business. |
| 0:22.4 | Michael shares his experience of building Everlane from the ground up and putting sustainability |
| 0:26.8 | and something he calls radical transparency first. But it wasn't easy. We hear about the challenges |
| 0:34.1 | of auditing factories and countries with low labor standards, the complex |
| 0:37.8 | process of deciphering how to price products fairly, and learning to focus on solving the most |
| 0:43.4 | impactful issues before he lays out his ambitious plan to go carbon neutral. You have to balance |
| 0:48.8 | what you think is right for the planet and then what is right for the customer. And oftentimes |
| 0:54.0 | there are people who are too much on the planet side. what is right for the customer. And oftentimes there are people who are |
| 0:55.9 | too much on the planet side. And as a result, you're getting a very expensive product that is |
| 1:00.8 | 100% sustainable, but not affordable by anybody. This like tension, which I think is really good, |
| 1:06.8 | that ultimately keeps pushing you to do the thing that can be best for both, but it takes a lot of |
| 1:11.9 | time to get there. And if you take too much time to do that, you'll never launch anything. |
| 1:15.8 | So you're always balancing time, customer, and planet. So here is Lauren Sherman and Michael |
| 1:19.6 | Pressman on what it really takes to create a sustainable global enterprise. How's it going? How are you |
| 1:26.3 | feeling? I'm feeling good. I'm glad we're able to do this now |
| 1:29.4 | and congratulations on Williamsburg. Oh, thank you. Have you been buying? Looks great. Yeah, it's good. |
| 1:34.3 | Oh yeah. It's, it feels like I wish every store could feel that good, but it feels really, |
| 1:39.2 | it's really special. It's, it's where all your people are. I know it is maybe we can start with you know I |
| 1:46.5 | actually didn't know that you went to Carnegie Mellon I'm from Pittsburgh oh are you from Pittsburgh |
| 1:51.1 | that's amazing yeah but so the thing I'm curious about is you you went to Carnegie Mellon you then |
| 1:58.0 | you went into is elevation a VC firm or an investment firm or what |
... |
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