As much as people complain about startups being hard, there's nothing as hard as your

demand falling off a cliff because of a global pandemic and there's nothing we could have

done to plan for that with the exception of we had 12 years of building a business and

dealing with the ups and downs that inevitably come.

There were really two categories of strategic work streams that we focused on from April

2020 until now.

One was increasing the strategic aperture of the business.

The second component was everything related to scaling our operations and logistics.

Better technology, better automation, better processes, better garment science, better

machine vision.

I do think that being locked away from all of the people that we truly love over the last

15 months has, yes, of course, people want to celebrate and they want a party right now.

That might be a short-term thing, right?

But what the long-term thing is going to be is the level of appreciation that we have

for those moments with the people that we love.

That is the real driver of not only my business, but that's the real driver of the fashion

industry.

That's Jen Heimann, co-founder and CEO of Rent the Runway, the Pioneer Fashion Apparel

Subscription Service.

After COVID-19 lockdowns decimated the business forcing layoffs and furloughs, Rent the Runway

began to see a dramatic rebound early this year, fueled by new customers in unexpected

places.

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