As we started talking to customers, we heard this phrase, Facebook kills outfits.

The idea that women used to repeat an outfit with one group of friends and then another,

and you couldn't do that anymore, let alone the fact that you were now showcasing your outfit

and your look to so many more people.

We were all our own mini celebrities because of social media.

So the pain point for customers was that much more acute.

And so it was this really great confluence of events between this recessionary smart shopper moment and tailwind,

as well as the social media tailwind that created a bigger need and made that the timing for this product that we were working on Rent the Runway was going to be more impactful than ever.

Welcome to the Peel. I'm your host, Turner Novak, founder of Banana Capital.

Today's guest is Jenny Fleiss, co-founder of Rent the Runway, which allows anyone to rent, subscribe, and buy designer apparel and accessories,

and the new company she started with their kids, Roll Rider. We talked about the secret that started Run the Runway in 2009.

This inkling that women would want to talk about and share the fact that they rented.

We weren't sure if that behavior would be hush-hush, but it started to feel like that could be

something that was cool. The early days of getting things off the ground, despite having no fashion or tech background.

We wound up having to fire the engineering team.

We had hired like a month before our launch.

Getting the New York Times to cover the launch.

Someone on the wait list had the New York Times email address.

And we offered them to come and take photos.

We kind of knew it was like a pretty wild thing that if we were wearing our rent-the-runway dresses and we were up on ladders, fulfilling orders, that it would be a fun story.

Fundraising with show don't tell.

We wanted to always show them that unlock of the emotional connection with women in fashion.

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