Julie Wainwright - The RealReal Founder | How She Rebuilt After Pets.com Failed and Built a Billion-Dollar Empire

Success Story with Scott D. Clary

Success Story Media

Business, How To, Careers, Self-improvement, Education, Entrepreneurship

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 August 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Julie Wainwright is the visionary entrepreneur who transformed one of Silicon Valley’s most public failures into a billion-dollar empire. After leading Pets.com through the dot-com crash, she came back stronger, founding The RealReal in 2011 and scaling it into the world’s largest online luxury consignment marketplace with over $1 billion in annual revenue, 33 million members, and a successful IPO on Nasdaq. Under her leadership, the company processed millions of authenticated luxury items, disrupted a $200+ billion resale market, and redefined sustainable fashion. Her story is proof that with resilience, bold vision, and relentless execution, even the biggest setbacks can become the launchpad for extraordinary success.

➡️ Show Links

https://www.instagram.com/realrealjulie/

➡️ Books

https://www.amazon.com/Time-Get-Real-Billion-Dollar-Business/dp/1637746865

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➡️ Talking Points

00:00 – Intro

01:31 – Julie’s Career in Her Own Words

02:40 – Why Training Shapes Entrepreneurs

08:32 – The Risk of Letting AI Think for You

11:49 – When Julie Was Called “Unemployable”

16:02 – Bouncing Back from a Major Failure

21:43 – Sponsor Break

23:40 – Building Something Completely New

30:29 – Winning in a Crowded Market

43:12 – Sponsor Break

45:07 – Success vs. Billion-Dollar Success

51:27 – Why Every Founder Needs an Exit Plan

1:06:49 – Julie’s Biggest Life Lesson

Transcript

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0:00.0	Beginning of my career, great training, which I got at the Clorox Company and brand management.
0:05.1	After that, I'm a risk taker. I've embraced technology from an early age.
0:10.7	Julie Wainwright, she was the CEO of one of the first dot coms to go public,
0:14.6	and the next day, her entire life collapsed. Pets.com shut down.
0:19.0	Her husband filed for divorce, and the world watched her fall alone.
0:22.8	For me, the key thing was I knew the world had changed now. It's 2011. And the only big player
0:29.8	was Amazon. I need to map out what Amazon can't and can do. And one of those opportunities was
0:36.3	the luxury market. Then I moved really, really fast.
0:39.3	And then at 53, she came back with no funding, no team, and no second chances.
0:44.3	She built the real real, a luxury resale empire that reshaped e-commerce.
0:48.3	She was told she was too old.
0:50.3	She proved them all wrong.
0:51.3	This is the most brutally honest conversation she's ever had.
0:54.7	AI tools, we outsource our thinking and we outsource our writing.
0:58.2	What do you think is going to happen in 30 years from now?
1:01.2	Entry level jobs already in certain areas are being replaced by chat GPT.
1:07.9	Means people on a senior level have to know where you're going.
1:12.5	Operating out of fear is always losing.
1:15.2	You have to trusting yourself because fear-based decisions have failure written all over them. So Julie, thank you for coming on.
1:34.3	If you had to describe your career, how would you describe your career?
1:40.3	Oh, you know, I was looking, I was thinking about that the other day. I would say
1:45.5	two things, and they're a little conflicting. I've always wanted to understand how business
	...

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