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nerdwallett.com for details. Hey

2:23

everyone, it's Guy here. So this week

2:25

we're bringing you a really great episode

2:27

from the archive. It's with Missy Park

2:29

who came on the show to tell

2:32

a story of Title IX, the women's

2:34

sports apparel brand. The company had a

2:36

pretty rocky launch in the late 1980s,

2:38

but as you'll hear, a last-minute addition

2:40

to its mail order catalog changed everything.

2:42

This episode first ran back in

2:44

October of 2021 and hope you

2:47

enjoy it. So

2:56

you get these catalogs, 15

2:58

or 20,000 catalogs, and how

3:01

did you do? How many

3:03

orders did you get from

3:05

those? So we put those

3:07

catalogs and then I'm just

3:09

waiting for the phone to

3:12

ring. Yeah. And? Waiting. Waiting.

3:14

And? waiting. Okay. And I think

3:16

we got a whopping maybe 15

3:18

orders. Maybe seven of them

3:21

were from someone that I

3:23

did not know. Wow, that's

3:25

from mailing out over

3:28

20,000 catalogs. That's the

3:30

hit rate. Super sad.

3:33

Super sad. Welcome to

3:35

How I Built This,

3:37

a show about innovators,

3:39

entrepreneurs, idealists,

3:42

and the stories behind

3:44

the movements they

3:47

built. I'm

3:50

Guy Ross and on the show

3:52

today how Missy Parks frustration with

3:54

bad fitting sports gear led her

3:57

to launch Title IX one of

3:59

the very first American sportswear brands

4:01

exclusively for women. About a

4:04

year ago I was riding

4:06

my bike near the railroad

4:08

tracks in Berkeley California when

4:10

I passed a clothing store

4:12

with an unusual name. The

4:14

store was called Title IX

4:16

and I thought it might

4:19

have something to do with

4:21

a law but a law

4:23

I couldn't remember right at

4:25

that moment. So a few

4:27

days later. I looked it

4:29

up. Title IX, I was

4:32

reminded, was a US civil

4:34

rights law passed in 1972.

4:36

It prohibited discrimination based on

4:38

sex in any federally funded

4:40

school or educational program. And

4:42

among the things the law

4:45

did was to open up

4:47

high school and college sports

4:49

to women. Colleges and universities

4:51

that received federal dollars now

4:53

had to provide the same

4:55

opportunities for women to participate

4:58

in sports as they did

5:00

for men. In that year,

5:02

1972, less than 20% of

5:04

all the athletes on the

5:06

U.S. Olympic team were women.

5:08

But by 2016, nearly 55%

5:11

of the team was female.

5:13

And much of this is

5:15

because of Title IX. The

5:17

same year Title IX was

5:19

required to take effect in

5:21

schools, 1976, Missy Park joined

5:24

her high school basketball team

5:26

in Greenville, South Carolina. She'd

5:28

go on to play Division

5:30

I basketball at Yale. But

5:32

after years of wearing bad-fitting

5:34

sports apparel as a student

5:37

athlete, Missy decided to solve

5:39

her own problem. And in

5:41

1989, long before anyone would

5:43

hear the names Lulu Lemon

5:45

or Athleta, Missy Park founded

5:47

Title IX, one of the

5:50

first brands to make sports

5:52

apparel for women. Now today,

5:54

many of those other brands

5:56

are multi-billion dollar companies, either

5:58

backed by venture capital or

6:00

publicly traded. But Title IX

6:03

is comparatively small. This year

6:05

it will do roughly a

6:07

hundred million dollars in revenue.

6:09

And unlike its competitors, Title

6:11

IX is owned only by

6:13

one person. Missy Park. She

6:15

bootstrapped the brand from day

6:18

one and built it very,

6:20

very slowly. If the company

6:22

grew by five or even

6:24

ten percent a year, that was

6:26

considered a victory. And that slow

6:29

growth has allowed the company to

6:31

build a sustainable and supportive culture.

6:33

Missy Park grew up in the

6:36

60s and 70s in Greenville, South

6:38

Carolina in the foothills of the

6:40

Smoky Mountains. Her dad was a

6:43

World War II veteran and became

6:45

kind of an overnight entrepreneur when

6:48

he bought the small manufacturing company

6:50

that he once worked for. And

6:52

as for her mom... My mom, on

6:54

the other hand... was a

6:56

stay-at-home mom and we always accuse

6:59

her of being part of

7:01

a secret feminist cell in Greenville

7:03

South Carolina in the 60s.

7:05

Because she was, what? She thought women

7:08

ought to be paid for birthing babies.

7:10

Yeah. I would say that was pretty

7:12

ahead of her time. My mom

7:14

and dad had separate checking accounts.

7:16

I remember my mom. fighting to

7:18

get her credit card and her

7:21

own name rather than in Mrs.

7:23

Russell Hunter Park. So my mom

7:25

loved being a full-time homemaker, but

7:27

she thought it was a position

7:29

worth paying for. And this was

7:31

really, I mean, this is, people

7:33

don't remember, I mean, the 70s

7:36

was, I mean, this is the

7:38

era of ERA, equal rights amendment

7:40

and of Shirley Chisholm and Bella

7:42

Absug, you know, with her hats,

7:44

right? There was huge... leaps and

7:47

strides that happened in the 70s.

7:49

And from your description of your

7:51

mom, she was either secretly harboring

7:53

those feelings or maybe not so

7:55

secretly harboring them. Yeah, well, you

7:57

know, my parents were so unusual.

8:00

Like my mom was in charge

8:02

of the girls and our allowances

8:04

and we had budgets and we

8:06

had to reconcile at the end

8:09

of every month and we had

8:11

to give money to savings and

8:13

to offerings and each year we

8:16

would take on other responsibilities. It

8:18

was her expectation that we would

8:20

go up to be financially independent

8:22

women capable of running our own

8:25

finances and our own life. As

8:27

a little girl, or maybe even

8:29

a young teen, did you know

8:31

for sure you were not going

8:34

to end up living in Greenville,

8:36

South Carolina? No. I would say

8:38

I'm the kind of person that

8:40

maybe everybody else is for sure

8:43

about it, and no one's more

8:45

surprised than me. You know, I

8:47

really loved growing up in Greenville.

8:49

It was at the time a

8:52

great place for me. It's a

8:54

small place. I could ride my

8:56

bike everywhere. I was in that

8:59

first generation of girls and women

9:01

that were able to grow up

9:03

with Title IX being in effect

9:05

all the way through high school

9:08

and all the way through college.

9:10

And of course Title IX just

9:12

kind of opened up sports for

9:14

women and girls at the time.

9:17

And you got to play lots

9:19

of things. Yes, I got to

9:21

play every sport. You know, I

9:23

mean, coming up when I did.

9:26

especially as a girl, you just

9:28

played all the sports. And if

9:30

you were willing to play and

9:32

you were willing to try, you

9:35

were pretty good because there weren't

9:37

as many women pouring into the

9:39

sports and fields as there are

9:41

now. So yes, we will say,

9:44

Guy, I think that I was

9:46

a big fish in a very

9:48

small plant. I think that's what

9:51

I'll say. Well, I'm curious because

9:53

here you are. You were in

9:55

a small southern town in the

9:57

70s. being a debutant is a

10:00

was some extent still is but

10:02

less less so was a a

10:04

kind of a cultural phenomenon in

10:06

the South. Was there, like, were

10:09

you a debutant, for example? Oh

10:11

my gosh, I hate your guts

10:13

right now. So let's just go

10:15

on the record right now, I

10:18

hate your guts. Yes, I was

10:20

a debutant. Now you and me

10:22

and all of your listeners know

10:24

that. And in my home office

10:27

here, you could see my little

10:29

rebellion against that. There's a picture

10:31

of me, what, about 19 and

10:34

a white gown with long gloves

10:36

that actually won't go up above

10:38

my upper arm and biceps, sadly.

10:40

And I'm spending a basketball and

10:43

I have my basketball sneakers on

10:45

in it. So you were forced

10:47

or kind of pressured to be

10:49

a debuteton? You know, here's the

10:52

danger of things like that. Yeah,

10:54

I'm just a kid. This is

10:56

where I grow up. And now

10:58

I look back on it and

11:01

I see it differently. But it

11:03

was one of those things, you

11:05

know, I love my mom and

11:07

dad and had very quickly understood

11:10

like, there's some battles that if

11:12

you can give in and it's

11:14

not much skin off my back.

11:17

Yeah. Then I should just do

11:19

it because it's going to make

11:21

my mom so happy. But it

11:23

is the source of a lot

11:26

of amusement amongst my family and

11:28

close friends more because it's so

11:30

different. From who you are? From

11:32

who I am. Exactly. Yeah. And

11:35

how would you describe yourself as

11:37

a teenager? Were you, did you

11:39

get along with everybody? Were you

11:41

a pleaser? Speak before I think.

11:44

I have strong opinions that can

11:46

change quickly. I think it was

11:48

an OK student. I think I

11:50

got along well with most folks.

11:53

Yeah. I mean you must have

11:55

been better than an OK student

11:57

because you went to Yale. You

12:00

would tend to Yale. Yeah. Yeah,

12:02

well, I will also tell you

12:04

this, that we joke about it

12:06

in my family, but my parents'

12:09

single greatest failing is that they

12:11

have a daughter that went to

12:13

Yale. Because? There's an awful lot

12:15

of good schools in the South.

12:18

Sure. And there are. So I

12:20

think that I think my parents

12:22

really wanted me to go to

12:24

one of those great southern schools.

12:27

All right, year 1980, I think,

12:29

about 1980. You get to New

12:31

Haven. Yep. You played several sports

12:33

there, lac, lacrosse, tennis. and basketball,

12:36

you are an athlete. That is

12:38

your, was that your identity, your

12:40

self-identity as an athlete? Totally. Yeah.

12:42

You get to Yale, you're Missy

12:45

Park, the basketball player. Yes, the

12:47

southern basketball player when I get

12:49

to Yale. Yeah. And just to

12:52

be clear, there were, there were

12:54

women sports, right, at Yale. They

12:56

had been for a long time.

12:58

Yep. Yep. But the difference when

13:01

you got there was Title IX.

13:03

which was passed in 1972 was

13:05

in full effect, right? And so

13:07

what did that mean when you

13:10

got to Yale 1980 as a

13:12

student athlete? Well, I think a

13:14

lot with my generation in particular

13:16

guy, you know, yes, Title IX

13:19

was passed. Yes, the 70s had

13:21

happened, but we were still in

13:23

that place of everything that we

13:25

gain is a loss for... the

13:28

guys on the other side of

13:30

it. That was a perspective that

13:32

you as a woman athlete are

13:35

taking away resources from me as

13:37

a male athlete. Exactly. And in

13:39

some ways, yes, that was true.

13:41

It's like all of a sudden

13:44

the men's basketball team doesn't have

13:46

the pick of all of the

13:48

basketball practice times. They have to

13:50

share them with the women's team.

13:53

Do those four years feel like

13:55

there were battles? Yeah. Well, I

13:57

think it also, it goes to

13:59

sort of the genesis of Title

14:02

IX, the company. is, you know,

14:04

me and my teammates are getting

14:06

uniforms that are hand-me-down men's uniforms.

14:08

I remember my my buddy Regina

14:11

Sullivan, she wore I think like

14:13

a size six and a half

14:15

women's shoe, but they don't make

14:18

women's shoes. So she had to

14:20

go to like the little kids

14:22

department at Macy's and buy some

14:24

little boy sneakers. So the sense

14:27

of having to create the traditions

14:29

around a team. what it means

14:31

to get success, while at the

14:33

same time fighting for the good

14:36

practice times, marketing support in the

14:38

community. Those were battles being fought

14:40

on two fronts for sure. And

14:42

as I said, the genesis of

14:45

Title IX, I mean, I remember

14:47

my buddies and I were all

14:49

like, oh, we graduated from college,

14:51

we're going to go get some

14:54

experience, and then we're going to

14:56

start the women's version of Nike.

14:58

Of course, they all went and

15:00

got. really good jobs and you

15:03

know yeah investment banking finance right

15:05

sure finance Proctor and gamble Microsoft

15:07

and I was the only one

15:10

that actually ended up not getting

15:12

one of those good jobs so

15:14

I had to figure out something

15:16

else to do all right you

15:19

graduate in around 84 and from

15:21

what I gather you wanted you

15:23

decided that you would go into

15:25

into coaching that maybe you would

15:28

like explore becoming a professional coach

15:30

of some sort right I was

15:32

lucky enough to be offered a

15:34

job at our arch rival at

15:37

Harvard. And then I found it

15:39

very difficult to coach against my

15:41

former teammates. And a job opened

15:43

up at Yale the following year.

15:46

But I think I realized at

15:48

that point that coaching a team

15:50

was never going to be the

15:53

same thing as playing on a

15:55

team. Yeah, there's a book by

15:57

David Epstein called The Sports Gene

15:59

and he makes... analogy between a

16:02

player and a coach and

16:04

the analogy is just because

16:06

you're a bird it doesn't

16:08

mean you can be an

16:10

orthologist and I think that's

16:12

right. Well yes correct. And

16:15

I think that's right. All

16:17

right so you realize that

16:19

that that college or

16:21

basketball coaching is not

16:23

the right fit for you

16:25

and it's the mid 80s.

16:28

You're from Greenville, South Carolina.

16:30

You're living in New England.

16:32

What got you out to the

16:34

West Coast? What was it? I knew I

16:37

didn't want to live in the South.

16:39

Okay. I knew I didn't want to

16:41

be cold. Fair enough. I knew

16:43

I didn't have any money. My

16:45

brother lived in California. So

16:47

I packed up my... I

16:50

had a Toyota pickup truck.

16:52

I packed up all of

16:54

my worldly belongings belongings. And

16:56

my parents had given me

16:58

a tent for graduation from

17:00

college because they knew exactly

17:03

what I would want. A tent.

17:05

That's a good idea. Right? Like

17:07

who? What southern pair? I mean,

17:09

like who would do that? Right?

17:11

But they knew I wanted a

17:13

tent. So I in those days

17:15

you had to seam seal the

17:17

tent to seal up all the

17:19

little needle holes so it wouldn't

17:22

leak. I'm unrolling the tent and

17:24

I'm taking off the hang tag

17:26

and I look at it and

17:28

it says the North Face nine

17:30

nine nine Harrison Street Berkeley California

17:32

well so I moved in with

17:34

my brother I'd also led some

17:36

bike trips for kids so I

17:39

really loved cycling and it's like

17:41

okay I either want to work

17:43

for a bike company or I

17:45

want to work for the North

17:48

Face yeah so I started just

17:50

walking into bike shops asking them,

17:52

you know, about bike companies that

17:54

were in California and how I

17:57

might get a job and one

17:59

of those. bike shops. I ran

18:01

into a guy by the name

18:03

of Michael Phillips, who happened to

18:05

be a sales rep for some

18:08

old bike brand. And he's like,

18:10

you're looking for a job? He's

18:12

like, well, why don't you come

18:14

ride with me in my van

18:16

for a day while I call

18:19

on customers I can teach you

18:21

about the business. Wow. Well, my

18:23

brother had different ideas. Right. He

18:25

was like, this guy's creepy. Don't

18:27

do it. Right. While that was

18:30

going on, Michael, and then at

18:32

the same time, I was kind

18:34

of trying to find my way

18:36

into the North Face, and I

18:38

had heard at the time that

18:41

there was another young woman about

18:43

my age that was leading up

18:45

the equipment division in the North

18:47

Face, a woman by the name

18:49

of Sally McCoy, who was from

18:52

Charlotte, North Carolina, and had gone

18:54

to Dartmouth and was a little

18:56

bit older than I was. I

18:58

was like, okay, she's the person

19:00

I need to talk to. Yeah.

19:03

But I can't get anybody, right?

19:05

You know, you're not emailing people,

19:07

like maybe you write them a

19:09

letter. I don't know what you

19:11

do. Well, what I do is

19:14

I find out 999 Harrison Street

19:16

and I walk into the reception

19:18

area and I'm like, I'd like

19:20

to see Sally McCoy. You know,

19:22

well, do you have an appointment?

19:25

No, I don't. But well, she's

19:27

busy. I'm like, okay, well, I'll

19:29

just wait. So I wait. And

19:31

I wait and I'm there pretty

19:33

much all day. Yeah. And finally,

19:36

this guy comes down the stairs

19:38

that jump into the front lobby

19:40

and he's like, you know, you've

19:42

been here a long time. Is

19:44

there anybody helping you? I'm like,

19:47

well, no, I really want to

19:49

talk to this woman Sally McCoy,

19:51

but she seems to be very

19:53

busy. He goes, well, well, maybe

19:55

I can help you. This guy's

19:58

name was Mark Erickson and he

20:00

was I think the vice president

20:02

of product. I was super disappointed

20:04

to be talking to him, but...

20:06

He ended up getting my foot

20:09

in the door at the North

20:11

Face and I ended up meeting

20:13

Sally McCoy and a really interesting

20:15

group of business women and that

20:17

was really my first exposure to

20:20

a real job. I mean, it's

20:22

interesting because you wanted to work

20:24

for that company. You were a

20:26

student athlete and you were really

20:28

passionate. And one of your principles

20:31

as a leader is hire for

20:33

passion. You can train people to

20:35

do the business stuff. Don't worry

20:37

about skills or training, like hire

20:39

for passion, which I think is

20:42

a thousand percent right. Like people

20:44

have to believe in the mission

20:46

of what you're doing. That's more

20:48

important than anything else. And then

20:50

you can train them. Well, I

20:53

think that was it. They had

20:55

this thing that needed doing, and

20:57

it was very entrepreneurial. You just

20:59

had such a broad range of

21:01

things that you could do. I

21:04

mean, they strongly believed in the,

21:06

it's easier to be forgiven than

21:08

to obtain permission rules. So it's

21:10

a great, and right, as you

21:13

know, I think about it, it

21:15

was such a good, so the

21:17

first job I got, strangely enough,

21:19

was putting together a retail point

21:21

of sale. catalog for them. So

21:24

it's going to be like a

21:26

magazine that's going to sit in

21:28

their retail stores. I mean, I

21:30

don't have any skills. I mean,

21:32

literally zero skills. And there I

21:35

am. I'm working with a graphic

21:37

designer. I'm working with photographers. I'm

21:39

going on photo shoots. I wrote

21:41

copy about products that I didn't

21:43

really know anything about. Fortunately, there

21:46

was a lot of supervision. I

21:48

really wasn't doing all that. But

21:50

I was. sort of the person

21:52

kind of making sure everything held

21:54

together in the end. Yeah, and

21:57

by the way, I think while

21:59

you were at North Face, you

22:01

met someone who worked there who

22:03

would eventually become... your your life

22:05

partner your wife right? That's right

22:08

actually how I met her is

22:10

Sally had recommended that all of

22:12

the managers Sally McCoy original woman

22:14

I want to talk to had

22:16

recommended that all the managers take

22:19

a look and see if they

22:21

had any job openings and Dana

22:23

my wife happened to have one

22:25

so I actually interviewed with Dana

22:27

for the job that she had

22:30

that I really, really wanted, even

22:32

though I was colosily unsuited for

22:34

it. So I did not get

22:36

the job, but more importantly, I

22:38

got the girl. And the truth

22:41

of the matter is that my

22:43

buddy Michael Phillips, who was not

22:45

an ax murderer, but ended up

22:47

being a very good man who

22:49

mentored me. He actually hooked me

22:52

up with Fisher Mountain Bikes, and

22:54

I applied for a job there.

22:56

I didn't get the job at

22:58

Fisher Mountain Bikes, but my parents

23:00

raised me right and they told

23:03

me to make sure to write

23:05

thank you notes. And the person

23:07

they did hire ended up not

23:09

working out and they called me

23:11

and said, hey, the job's yours

23:14

if you want it. So I

23:16

went to work at Fisher, which

23:18

was... one of the first, if

23:20

not the first, mountain bike company.

23:22

Yeah, I think it was, Gary

23:25

Fisher, right? Yeah, I mean, these

23:27

are pioneers of like outdoor gear,

23:29

mountain bike. And I got to

23:31

work with them. And I'm like

23:33

26. Yeah. And I think good

23:36

job experience is wasted on the

23:38

yon. That's what I get in

23:40

my short version is that. So

23:42

I went to work at Fisher

23:44

and inside sales. and that was

23:47

me calling on bike shops. But

23:49

suffice it to say, most bike

23:51

shop guys were not used to

23:53

having a woman calling them on

23:55

the phone. So I mean, you

23:58

must have really stood out. I

24:00

mean, here we are talking in

24:02

2021. You've been in California since

24:04

1985 and I mean your accent

24:06

sticks out, right? I mean, but

24:09

you really rarely run into people

24:11

in Berkeley with a South Carolina

24:13

accent. No, I know. Yeah, I

24:15

think I stuck out for good

24:17

or real. And you were from

24:20

whatever. Red, I think your brother

24:22

lived across the bay, south of

24:24

the airport in Foster City. Eventually,

24:26

presumably, you moved to Berkeley because

24:28

you were working for... You would

24:31

work for Fisher and for North

24:33

Face. Yes, I had a job

24:35

with a paycheck, so I could

24:37

afford to have a room in

24:39

a house. When you were a

24:42

student athlete, right, you imagine... We're

24:44

already thinking about the fact that

24:46

the clothing made for women athletes

24:48

was not Well thought out right

24:50

while you were working in North

24:53

Face You were from what I

24:55

read like you were thinking about

24:57

this like problem that there were

24:59

there was no good athletic gear

25:01

for women Yeah, you know guy.

25:04

It's it's funny because here's the

25:06

thing I think about a lot.

25:08

I mean I I'm assuming you

25:10

know about the narrative fallacy right

25:12

like this idea that we end

25:15

up in a certain place and

25:17

then we make up this really

25:19

nice story that proceeds logically from

25:21

point A to point Z. It's

25:23

just a lie. So I want

25:26

to tell all this to you,

25:28

but it's going to be completely

25:30

misleading that like, oh, and then

25:32

I went to you where I

25:34

found little fitting uniforms and then

25:37

I went to the north face

25:39

and was frustrated. But no, I

25:41

was just, and I guess I

25:43

think, I used to think. to

25:45

use an old school analogy, I

25:48

used to think I was the

25:50

person operating the flippers on the

25:52

pinball machine. I'm the ball. Right.

25:54

You know, I mean, I think

25:57

that's, so I'm having all of

25:59

these experiences. You were bouncing around.

26:01

Right, I'm just bouncing around. 500

26:03

points, free balls, yay, okay, I'm gonna

26:05

play, I'm gonna keep playing. But, so

26:08

I want to make sure like that

26:10

part of it is clear. This was,

26:12

I mean, I am, I am not

26:15

foresided enough to have planned what happened

26:17

to me. And just to be

26:19

clear, almost nobody who's been on the

26:21

show is. There's no, I can't

26:23

think of a single story where

26:25

somebody said. you know, I was 18,

26:28

I had this vision, now I'm 55,

26:30

and you know, it kind of unfolds

26:32

over time, and it's like being the

26:34

ball in the pinball machine. Yes, exactly.

26:37

And I think that's it, you know,

26:39

so I can look back and I

26:41

can see the thread, like I can

26:43

look back on my time as a

26:45

kid, you know, I'm like eight or

26:47

nine or ten years old,

26:49

and at the time there

26:51

was basically one sports magazine,

26:53

sports illustrated. and I would

26:55

go through every single one

26:58

of them and try and

27:00

find pictures of women athletes.

27:02

And I would painstakingly cut

27:04

them out and put them on

27:06

a poster board and have it

27:08

up in my room. So you

27:11

could say like it was already

27:13

in me then I wasn't thinking

27:15

like and therefore I am going

27:17

to start a women's athletic apparel

27:19

company. But the seeds were there

27:22

early trying to create a vision

27:24

of what I could be. What was

27:26

women's sportswear in the 80s?

27:28

I mean, Nike had been

27:30

making stuff, but what did

27:32

that mean? Well, it was kind

27:35

of aerobics, right? Yeah. Jane Fonda,

27:37

it's kind of that kind of

27:39

stuff. I mean, I think about...

27:42

You know for me when you play

27:44

college sports you get all your gear given

27:46

to you ill-fitting or not It's given to

27:48

you. It's given to you. They wash

27:50

it for you if it wears out you

27:52

get a new one. It's not your

27:54

concern Then I graduate from college and all

27:57

of a sudden I'm having to buy my

27:59

own gear And there's nowhere to

28:01

find anything that's built or

28:03

designed specifically women. You know,

28:05

there's no lulu lemons. There's

28:08

no, there's nothing. Literally, there

28:10

is nothing. And really, I

28:12

mean, if you think about

28:14

it, it's just math, right?

28:16

Title IX was passed in

28:18

72. So I was in

28:20

that first generation. There was

28:22

no market. What was it

28:25

that, that I mean, you're

28:27

27, and you decide at

28:29

that age to start your

28:31

own business? Were you frustrated

28:33

working for a bigger company?

28:35

Were you just one of

28:37

these people who had to

28:39

be your own boss? What

28:42

do you remember about that

28:44

time in your life that

28:46

led you to that decision?

28:48

I would say probably that,

28:50

you know, I think about

28:52

the North Face. I had

28:54

great jobs. But I'm 26

28:56

and I'm like, boy, these

28:59

guys are kind of idiots.

29:01

If they can run these

29:03

businesses, then anybody can do

29:05

it. You know, because I'm

29:07

26 and I know everything.

29:09

Of course you do. You

29:11

know, so it was frustration.

29:13

They wouldn't. Do everything that

29:16

I wanted them to do

29:18

they probably aren't even paying

29:20

attention to me I'm like

29:22

some entry-level person right home

29:24

You know they're busy. They've

29:26

actually got important decisions to

29:28

make where I'm down here

29:30

seeing how Idiotic everything is

29:33

yeah, so I'm so confident

29:35

right I remember that feeling

29:37

yeah, yeah, and I think

29:39

my favorite part of those

29:41

is like and now guy

29:43

I'm the idiot But

29:46

you know what here's a thing

29:48

because we're both we're both talking

29:51

we're both you know older and

29:53

we're talking about Remembering that feeling

29:55

and if you are listening and

29:57

you are 26 It's okay to

30:00

think that I'm an idiot or

30:02

Mrs. An idiot because that That's

30:04

the fuel you need to do

30:06

something stupid enough to start a

30:09

business that will ultimately be a

30:11

good decision. Right. I mean, those

30:13

are very, like, people say, oh,

30:15

how did you do that when

30:18

you were 26? And I have

30:20

to say, it's the only time

30:22

to do it. Yeah. And this

30:24

is 1989, I think, when you

30:27

decided to start the business. And

30:29

what did you tell yourself? Did

30:31

you say, you know, I'm going

30:33

to start a women's apparel company,

30:36

because it's always been on my

30:38

mind. How did you describe it

30:40

to people? And I said, so

30:42

what are you going to do

30:45

now, is he? Well, first I

30:47

did zero market research. My market

30:49

research was me and my friends,

30:51

which let's just be very clear,

30:54

is a very small group of

30:56

people. You just said, hey, would

30:58

you use this? Hey, you need

31:00

shorts that fit women, don't you?

31:03

Yeah, me too. But I had

31:05

enough to say, okay, there's not

31:07

enough people in Berkeley, California. to

31:09

support a retail store just for

31:12

women athletes. So I need to

31:14

do something that's more national so

31:16

I can find all the women

31:18

who need workout and fitness gear.

31:21

So I did sort of what

31:23

is the precursor to the internet

31:25

is that was a mail order

31:27

catalog. Did you have, I mean,

31:30

let's just back up for a

31:32

second, I mean, what kind of

31:34

money did you have? to start

31:36

an apparel company. Presumably you had

31:39

some savings from your job. Yes,

31:41

I did. Exactly. I had like

31:43

30,000 bucks and I can tell

31:45

you. Pretty good. Sort of. Yeah,

31:48

I mean, that's a nice amount

31:50

of cash. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But

31:52

what people were telling me is,

31:54

you know, this time, right? This

31:57

is 1989. Ah, hey, I've decided

31:59

I want to start a mail

32:01

order catalog. You have started one

32:03

and all of that. them told

32:06

me if you're going to do

32:08

this, you need at least a

32:10

half a million dollars. To start

32:12

a mail-order catalog business, because this

32:15

was 89, this is how you

32:17

marketed. You sent out millions of

32:19

catalogs, and then hopefully people would...

32:21

Or not millions, guy, or not

32:24

million. Or not, okay. So people

32:26

said you need at least a

32:28

half a million bucks to make

32:30

this work. Yep. That's intimidating. Yeah,

32:33

yeah, I was like, well, I

32:35

don't have a half a million

32:37

dollars. I have 30,000 dollars. So

32:39

I call up my dad. I

32:42

said, so dad, I'm super excited

32:44

because I've got an idea for

32:46

a business. And the best part

32:48

about it is that no one

32:51

else is doing it. Yeah. And

32:53

he's quiet for a second. And

32:55

he said, there might be a

32:57

good reason for that missy. When

33:00

we come back in just a

33:02

moment, how Missy struggles for months

33:04

and then years to get Title

33:06

IX going and how she discovers

33:09

the one item of clothing that

33:11

will give the business a much

33:13

needed boost. Stay with us. I'm

33:15

Guy Ross and you're listening to

33:18

How I Built This. airport

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36:21

use. Hey,

36:29

welcome back to How I

36:31

Built This. I'm Guy Ross.

36:33

So it's 1989, and Missy

36:36

has decided to quit her

36:38

job and put $30,000 of

36:40

her own money into launching

36:42

a mail-order catalog for women's

36:44

sportswear. And that $30,000 is

36:46

pretty much all she has

36:48

to spend on everything, including

36:50

the clothes. But the good

36:52

news is that there are

36:54

all these big manufacturers and

36:56

small manufacturers... Who are starting

36:58

to think about the coming

37:00

women's market now the retail

37:02

stores are not necessarily buying

37:04

the stuff because obviously they're

37:06

worried about that a customer

37:08

coming in today But these

37:11

manufacturers have to think about

37:13

tomorrow So lots of manufacturers

37:15

were starting to what they

37:17

used to call shrink it

37:19

and pink it and I think they still

37:21

call it that they take their men stuff

37:23

and they do it over in pink and

37:25

call it a day and make it smaller

37:27

So, but the good news about that is

37:30

there were a lot of also small brands

37:32

of women my age or a little bit

37:34

older who were also starting to

37:36

design and manufacture women's athletic apparel.

37:38

So the idea was that you

37:41

were not going to manufacture

37:43

your own stuff. You were going to

37:45

find it. Right. You can afford

37:47

it. You're going to find manufacturers

37:49

buy their stuff and then put

37:51

it in the, have a catalog

37:53

and that, that would be it.

37:55

And that, that would be it.

37:57

eventually, I'm assuming you got to

38:00

probably smaller manufacturers? Exactly. So yes,

38:02

we could have gone into manufacturing

38:04

and that probably would have cost

38:06

me a half a million dollars

38:08

more. An unlimited amount of money.

38:11

But what I realized pretty quickly

38:13

is there were enough of these

38:15

small brands, you know, Pearl Azumi.

38:17

moving comfort was like the first

38:19

women's running brand. So I started

38:22

calling on folks like that and

38:24

you know mostly what I did

38:26

is well one again I don't

38:28

I'm operating out of a garage

38:30

in the house that I have

38:33

a room in. You're living in

38:35

like a group house with other

38:37

people? Yeah, well, I'm living in

38:39

a group house and I wanted

38:41

the cheapest rent, so I got

38:44

the room that was actually the

38:46

garage. Nice. So yeah, nice. So

38:48

I have to go outside to

38:50

go to the bathroom to come

38:52

back in the house, yeah, whatever.

38:55

And I'm trying to get these

38:57

manufacturers to talk to me, but

38:59

they're not going to talk to

39:01

me if I'm... meeting them in

39:03

my garage, so I would go

39:06

down to my brother's office in

39:08

Foster City, I can't remember where

39:10

he was, and I would meet

39:12

people there in his office so

39:14

it would be like official, right?

39:16

This is pre-we work, you could,

39:19

or right? Yeah, way pre... Free

39:21

Starbucks, really. Exactly, it was pre-everything,

39:23

so how am I going to

39:25

fake this? Yeah. And then finally,

39:27

one of that's who's like, like,

39:30

so what's going on here? And

39:32

it ended up being the... the

39:34

sales rep for moving comfort. And

39:36

so then I just said, well,

39:38

I'm starting and I really, I

39:41

don't have an office. This is

39:43

my brother's office and she was

39:45

very kind to me. She said,

39:47

well, look, I'm gonna, I've met

39:49

you, I can see you're real.

39:52

Why don't we just come? I'll

39:54

just come and show you the

39:56

line. I'll show it to you

39:58

in your living room. And moving

40:00

comfort was one of the first

40:03

businesses that, I mean, they were

40:05

a manufacturer moving comfort. Yep, a

40:07

brand like Nike, a small one.

40:09

And they were like, okay, we're

40:11

willing to work with you. Yeah.

40:14

And at this point, I know

40:16

it's mainly you by yourself, right?

40:18

Actually, running the company, but I

40:20

mean, did you have any help

40:22

or support? Yes. I just was

40:24

surrounded by a whole bunch of

40:27

people who were willing and fired

40:29

up about this idea. an editor

40:31

at a women's sports and fitness

40:33

magazine. So she became my first

40:35

copy editor. She had a friend

40:38

who was a graphic designer. So

40:40

she designed the catalog for free.

40:42

I had another friend who I

40:44

met playing basketball. And she designed,

40:46

because you had to have a

40:49

corporate package. I don't know why,

40:51

but that's what you needed. A

40:53

corporate package was like a logo.

40:55

Letterhead. to call it a brand

40:57

Bible now I think. Yeah you

41:00

had to have that so my

41:02

friend Lisa did it all and

41:04

threw in a t-shirt for $90.

41:06

Okay that sounds like a good

41:08

price. And the name the name

41:11

which is a great name was

41:13

it had you thought of that

41:15

name yeah that was the thing

41:17

that was kind of hanging me

41:19

up is I couldn't come up

41:22

with the name I come I

41:24

would come through like four or

41:26

five and Somebody had all of

41:28

them, you know, I was like,

41:30

oh, it'll be cheetah sports because

41:32

the female cheetah is whatever, faster,

41:35

yeah, faster. And then I remember

41:37

I was up on telegraph, maybe

41:39

walking around Mo's books or that

41:41

other bookstore that was right next

41:43

to it. And I was just

41:46

looking through books and I picked

41:48

up this book and it was

41:50

writing about the history. of women's

41:52

sports in America and I started

41:54

reading it. And I was like,

41:57

oh, title nine. That's what I'll

41:59

name my, and that was it.

42:01

You know, no one wanted that

42:03

name, um, unsurprisingly. So I named

42:05

a title nine after that piece

42:08

of legislation that ensured that I

42:10

got to play sports all the

42:12

way through high school and college.

42:14

And you were, the idea was

42:16

you were going to sell like,

42:19

like, running shorts and. and tights

42:21

and things like that. Yeah, well,

42:23

remember, the customer was me. So,

42:25

very narrow group of people, but

42:27

it was me, I had, we

42:30

had tights, we had running shorts,

42:32

we had cycling shorts, we really

42:34

didn't have much in the way

42:36

of tops because you got all

42:38

your tops for free at the

42:40

races and the tournaments that you

42:43

wanted to. Okay. I was not

42:45

a merchant. I mean, it's interesting

42:47

because today, you know, title on

42:49

is... very well known for sports

42:51

bras for women. But that was

42:54

not, like you weren't thinking, oh

42:56

we're going to sell sports bras.

42:58

Well, so I put together this

43:00

assortment of stuff and it's a

43:02

tiny little flyer of stuff and

43:05

I really do not know anything

43:07

about the apparel industry. I knew

43:09

what I was able to glean

43:11

at the North Face, but I'm

43:13

just assembling a group of merchandise

43:16

that I can get people to

43:18

sell to me on credit and

43:20

then at the last minute. I

43:22

got in touch with the sales

43:24

rep who was representing two women

43:27

who had invented, I didn't know

43:29

this at the time, but it

43:31

invented the first sports bra. And

43:33

I'm super flat-chested, we're going to

43:35

say double A on a good

43:38

day. So that's an afterthought for

43:40

me, but this guy was a

43:42

guy because most of the sales

43:44

reps at that time were guys.

43:46

He says, you know, I really

43:48

think you ought to. Put these

43:51

sports bras in there. And by

43:53

the way, were sports bras widely

43:55

used in in Canada? No, no,

43:57

no, I was like, so what?

43:59

What did women do who were

44:02

women athletes do for support? They'd

44:04

wear two and three bras guy. Oh,

44:06

wow. So anyway, it's almost an afterthought.

44:08

We bought some sports bras and we've

44:10

done all the shooting. It was all

44:12

in color. And so I just had

44:14

time to take some real quick black

44:17

and white photos and we put them

44:19

on what was then called the order

44:21

form. This is in the catalog. Yeah.

44:23

And in the catalog. And then there's

44:25

an order form in there. And so

44:27

I put them in there. And I

44:29

think we sent out like 15,000

44:31

catalogs. And by the way, I'm

44:33

looking at a photo, some photos

44:36

from that first catalog, and

44:38

it is not a slick

44:40

production at all. It is,

44:42

I mean, it's cool, because

44:44

all the models are women

44:46

athletes and they're not like

44:48

glamour shots or some action

44:50

shots, but they're very authentic.

44:52

And these were like, these were

44:54

your friends. Yeah. Yep, all like

44:56

people like mostly that I played

44:59

Ultimate Frisbee with or went road

45:01

riding or mountain biking with or

45:03

that I worked with at the

45:05

North Face. So you've got the

45:08

catalog up and running and I'm

45:10

assuming you had to order a bunch

45:12

of stuff with your the small

45:14

amount of capital you had and

45:16

just hold it in your in your

45:19

where garage in where you lived

45:21

in your room. Okay, and hoping

45:23

that some that it would all

45:25

be sold. Yeah, and our

45:28

suppliers were our bankers, so

45:30

I would order stuff, let's

45:32

say, in November, and then I would

45:34

say I'd like for you to

45:37

ship it to me in May,

45:39

and then I would like to

45:41

pay you in September. Wow. I

45:43

mean, it's a little bit of

45:45

a Ponzi's game that you hope

45:47

for. You're hoping, hoping some, all

45:49

right, so you get these catalogs,

45:51

15 or 20,000 catalogs, and how

45:54

did you do? How many orders

45:56

did you get from those? So

45:58

we put those catalogs in. and

46:00

I'm just waiting for the phone

46:02

to ring. Yeah. And? Waiting. And?

46:04

Waiting. Okay. And I think we

46:06

got a whopping maybe 15 orders,

46:09

maybe seven of them were from

46:11

someone that I did not know.

46:13

Wow. That's from mailing out over

46:15

20,000 catalogues. That's the hit rate.

46:17

Supercad. Supercad. But that, but that

46:19

makes statistical sense. You got it,

46:21

right? You're going to, your hit

46:24

rate is going to be. It

46:26

did not make statistical, it didn't

46:28

make any sense to me. You're

46:30

correct. But one thing that I

46:32

did notice in this, that all

46:34

of the people that I didn't

46:36

know, put a sports bra on

46:39

their order. And so while I

46:41

may not have been. The quickest

46:43

study you don't have to tell

46:45

me twice and I realize like

46:47

wow Sports bras that is probably

46:49

now I know the most essential

46:51

piece of sports equipment for the

46:54

average American woman. Yeah, this is

46:56

1989 the year you start I

46:58

know that the first four years

47:00

it was like Really rough and

47:02

but that first year not only

47:04

did you have, you're dealing with

47:06

like cash flow issues, but that

47:09

was the earthquake, the big Bay

47:11

Area earthquake. I remember, you know,

47:13

I remember exactly, because I was

47:15

so relieved there was an earthquake

47:17

because we were going through the

47:19

financials. Not to make light of

47:21

the earthquake at all, but I

47:24

just, I mean, it just is

47:26

how much the finances made on

47:28

me. Because you were watching. not

47:30

only your bank account window, but

47:32

you owed people money. Right. And

47:34

just kind of, you know, the

47:36

ways you think about it. So...

47:39

We did the first catalog, it

47:41

went poorly, saw a little opportunity

47:43

for sports bras, so I was

47:45

gonna make the most of that

47:47

that I could, but I was

47:49

also even then trying to figure

47:52

out like, okay, how do I

47:54

kind of get out of this

47:56

and just go back and get

47:58

a job again? I can't just

48:00

quit after one, but. I'll do

48:02

a second one and it'll be

48:04

super super cheap. It'll just be

48:07

like a folded up piece of

48:09

paper. Yeah. It's like super cheap.

48:11

So I did a super cheap

48:13

folded up piece of paper and

48:15

it did a little better even

48:17

though it was a little worse.

48:19

You were from what I read,

48:22

you would order a bunch of

48:24

stuff and then you would sell

48:26

it and then some money would

48:28

come in and then you would

48:30

use all that money to send

48:32

out to order more stuff. the

48:34

stuff to people who ordered it.

48:37

So you were constantly at a

48:39

cash, like every, right? Yep. It

48:41

was like cash in and then

48:43

out, no cash. Constantly, constantly out

48:45

of cash. And I remember like

48:47

two times a year I would

48:49

be, and even now I sort

48:52

of have. sort of stress reactions

48:54

around these two times of years.

48:56

It's the time when we're building

48:58

up a lot of inventory. Yeah.

49:00

And you know, there are these

49:02

two times when you have invested

49:04

a lot of money in marketing,

49:07

you've invested a lot of money

49:09

in inventory, and sales are going

49:11

to come. You hope they're going

49:13

to come, but you don't know

49:15

if they are. And it kind

49:17

of two times a year, I

49:19

just, I just be done. I

49:22

just like. I just like. I

49:24

just like. I just like. I

49:26

just like. Yeah. At one point

49:28

in those, in the first, I

49:30

think maybe four years, you were

49:32

like $200,000 in debt. Yes, that

49:35

was a lot of dough. But

49:37

you were thinking, all right, what

49:39

could I do for a living?

49:41

Right. What could I do for

49:43

a living where clearly I am

49:45

self unemployable? And how did you

49:47

deal with that stress? Did you

49:50

get depressed? Get anxious did you

49:52

lash out? Well Dana actually had

49:54

a real job and a good

49:56

job So her paycheck was supporting

49:58

both of us. Oh wow So

50:00

by this time, you know, I

50:02

wasn't taking any money out of

50:05

the business She was she was

50:07

only your girlfriend at the time

50:09

and and supporting you Yeah, well,

50:11

you know that that's a matter

50:13

of laws or a matter of

50:15

practice right? because we actually couldn't

50:17

be officially married until, believe it

50:20

or not, something like 2012 or

50:22

15, I mean, which is crazy.

50:24

So what would I do in

50:26

terms of the stress relief? And

50:28

Dana reminds me of this all

50:30

the time because you never get

50:32

out of that. I mean, we're

50:35

always in it for the rest

50:37

of building a business. You have

50:39

those times and my solution then

50:41

was to call my dad because

50:43

he was, whenever I talked with

50:45

him, he always just had like...

50:47

the one good piece of advice

50:50

that I needed to hold on

50:52

to. I remember very early on

50:54

when I was ready to hang

50:56

it up and I called him

50:58

and I was just like, Dad,

51:00

I just, it's just, it's not

51:02

happening. I can't learn fast enough.

51:05

I just, I just don't think

51:07

I can do it. And then

51:09

he would just go to the

51:11

business and he's like, well, tell

51:13

me about your customers. Tell me

51:15

about how much it costs you

51:18

to get a new customer this

51:20

time last year. and he would

51:22

just find the successes. Well, so

51:24

I think that's the thing is

51:26

those little lifelines that that someone

51:28

can offer you. Yeah. It's not

51:30

like, oh, and then we got

51:33

a vest investor and I got

51:35

a million dollars and everything was

51:37

fine. Yeah. It's like, no, there

51:39

were a lot of little lifelines

51:41

all along the road and continued

51:43

to be. I read and I

51:45

don't know how much of a

51:48

big deal this was, but I

51:50

did see a reference to a

51:52

flood that destroyed all the inventory

51:54

at some point. What was that

51:56

in your, when you were in

51:58

the garage? In the garage. Yep.

52:00

How did the flood get

52:02

in there? What happened

52:05

was we had installed

52:07

some racks in the

52:10

garage and by we

52:12

I mean Dana and

52:14

she's handy but not

52:17

super handy and they

52:19

probably weren't installed in

52:22

the most professional

52:24

manner so they came

52:26

crashing down. in the middle

52:28

of the night, but we're not in

52:31

the garage, we're asleep, we don't hear

52:33

it, and then there's a rainstorm,

52:35

and you know, like Berkeley garages,

52:37

there's just the water swooped up

52:40

in there, and I think it

52:42

was about that point where I

52:44

decided it was time for us

52:47

to get real office space. I'm

52:49

like, this is ridiculous. We

52:51

need to stop doing this.

52:53

It's probably shortly after that

52:55

we moved into again another

52:57

converted warehouse just a it

52:59

was next to an ice

53:02

cream manufacture also a small

53:04

entrepreneurial lead and every morning

53:06

it would smell like chocolate

53:08

when I came in so

53:10

everything that we shipped out

53:12

started smelling like chocolate all

53:14

right so those those first four

53:17

years there were moments where you

53:19

really were like very seriously

53:21

thinking that this was not going

53:23

to work out but I guess

53:25

around 1993 You guys turned a profit

53:27

for the first time. This is

53:30

four years in. Probably not a

53:32

huge profit, but a profit nonetheless.

53:34

Yes. And what was that the

53:36

result of? Was it you were just

53:38

getting sort of better at

53:41

managing things and more experienced?

53:43

Did you hire people? What would happen?

53:45

Well, you know, what I would say

53:47

is, it's just like... staying in the

53:49

game, right? I mean, that's just the best

53:51

way I can describe it. It's just, for

53:53

me, I'm just like, I'm gonna just stay

53:55

in the game here. I'm gonna kind of

53:57

keep hitting little singles. And I think it's.

53:59

It kind of goes to basically

54:02

a business philosophy. It's just sort

54:04

of failed faster to succeed sooner.

54:06

And if you're gonna make big

54:08

mistakes, those take a long time.

54:10

Little mistakes don't take a very

54:13

long time. You can make a

54:15

lot of little mistakes really fast.

54:17

So I think it was just

54:19

because we didn't have anybody who

54:22

had retail experience, apparel experience, marketing

54:24

experience. Everybody was just true believers,

54:26

product users that are really interested

54:28

in women's outdoor gear and athletic

54:30

apparel. That's it. I think that

54:33

the story of Title IX is

54:35

a story of hitting singles, which

54:37

is actually a great strategy, right?

54:39

And a strategy that you can

54:41

really only do without having outside

54:44

investors. Right, you can't do that

54:46

if you've got people who expect

54:48

a 10x return in five to

54:50

ten years. You can't just hit

54:53

singles because no one's going to

54:55

be that patient. Right. I mean,

54:57

we've had apparel brands on the

54:59

show that have raised venture money

55:01

and, you know, and was that

55:04

even on your radar? Was that

55:06

ever even anything you considered or

55:08

thought about or was it just

55:10

not even something that you thought

55:12

was an option? I think you

55:15

always, it always has to stay

55:17

on your radar because you never

55:19

know what's going to happen, right?

55:21

But it's never a real option.

55:24

I think the time I was

55:26

most aware of how impossible it

55:28

would be to go out and

55:30

get investors is we had a

55:32

president, the first president we had

55:35

who came in and established a

55:37

music. She did a great job

55:39

running the business. She'd done everything.

55:41

She bought businesses, sold businesses, and

55:43

she came in and ran the

55:46

business for a while. And I

55:48

said, you know, somebody contacted me

55:50

from one of the big investment

55:52

banks. I can't remember who now.

55:55

And I told to sell. I

55:57

said, would you like to talk

55:59

with this guy? Would you like...

56:01

us to talk to this guy.

56:03

She's like, sure, let's do it,

56:06

let's do it. So the guy

56:08

comes and I'm meeting with him

56:10

first. I really literally cannot remember

56:12

his name anymore, but he comes

56:14

into the office and I'm talking

56:17

to him and guy literally, the

56:19

longer I talk, the more nervous

56:21

he is getting as if he

56:23

has walked into some sort of

56:26

alternate universe that does not speak

56:28

his language. What were you saying?

56:30

Just about how we, you know,

56:32

people want or riding by the

56:34

door on scooters. So there's chaos.

56:37

We play a lot of games

56:39

at work. So there's a lot

56:41

of stuff going on around. So

56:43

he's walked into a foreign country.

56:46

You know, maybe I'm talking about

56:48

every year we do something called

56:50

the Title IX Olympics and we

56:52

divide up in the teams and

56:54

we play sports together for a

56:57

day. And people, you know, get

56:59

hurt, hopefully not badly, but you

57:01

know, We play hard. And that

57:03

just didn't work in his investment

57:05

banker mind, right? And then Estelle

57:08

came in and she sits down

57:10

and she starts talking to him

57:12

and that guy was so visibly

57:14

relieved and just talking to her,

57:17

I just was, I don't even

57:19

know the language to talk. Yeah.

57:21

So to answer your question, do

57:23

we consider it? Yes. Would it

57:25

have to be someone who is

57:28

very different from me to really

57:30

get that deal done? Yes. But

57:32

by the same token, what I

57:34

would say is if you hit

57:36

singles, which we do and we're

57:39

good at, you're not going to

57:41

hit a grand slam. And that's

57:43

just you need to make your

57:45

peace with that. And I think

57:48

I would take the staying in

57:50

the game of singles to striking

57:52

out a whole bunch and every

57:54

once in a while getting a

57:56

grand slam. Once you became profitable,

57:59

right? And again, it wasn't like

58:01

buckets of money, but probably profitable

58:03

enough where you could pay yourself

58:05

a little bit of a salary.

58:07

When were you able to actually

58:10

hire people and pay them a

58:12

salary? Every time someone asked me

58:14

that, I'm taken back to my

58:16

own decisions around that and how

58:19

hard it was. First, we just

58:21

had people who would help us

58:23

out and volunteer. And then I

58:25

remember, and this is probably one

58:27

of the conflicts, and maybe something

58:30

about being a female entrepreneur, I

58:32

really wanted to go home to

58:34

South Carolina for Christmas. the phones

58:36

were going to ring and people

58:38

were going to want to place

58:41

orders and return product and I

58:43

wanted to be in South Carolina

58:45

and I couldn't be because of

58:47

the phones and this was before

58:50

call forwarding and all the stuff

58:52

that you could do now. So

58:54

I had a teammate and I

58:56

said hey and she lived in

58:58

California I was like would you

59:01

be up for minding the store

59:03

while I go home for Christmas

59:05

and she said sure. And I

59:07

said, you know, and if it

59:09

works out, then maybe you can

59:12

keep doing some work. And so

59:14

that was really how I hired

59:16

my first actual paid employees. Renee

59:18

Thomas Jacobs, we are still good

59:21

friends. She ended up being our

59:23

first president, but it felt like

59:25

a big step, like there's... Who

59:27

can I afford to do this

59:29

or should I just be working

59:32

harder myself? When we come back

59:34

in just a moment Title IX

59:36

keeps hitting singles until Missy makes

59:38

some miscalculations and the company suddenly

59:41

finds itself in a slump. Stay

59:43

with us. I'm Guy Ross and

59:45

you're listening to how I built

59:47

this. Creating

59:58

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off. Hey, welcome back to how

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I built this. I'm Guy Ross.

1:02:11

So... It's the mid-1990s and Title

1:02:14

IX has only just become profitable.

1:02:16

And Missy is still running the

1:02:18

company on a shoestring and still

1:02:21

looking for ways to get new

1:02:23

customers. The way we did it

1:02:26

is the old-fashioned way. You know

1:02:28

we went to a lot of

1:02:30

races and you know tournaments and

1:02:33

we would sell stuff like our

1:02:35

excess inventory. We would sell there

1:02:37

and we would build up our

1:02:40

mailing list by doing that. And

1:02:42

then... the hard work of building

1:02:45

a customer file, you know, selling

1:02:47

a sports bra, selling a woman

1:02:49

a sports bra, she can't do

1:02:52

without, and you earn her trust

1:02:54

on that, and she comes back

1:02:56

to you for all of her

1:02:59

athletic apparel needs. And to this

1:03:01

day, I would say that we

1:03:03

are much better. at keeping our

1:03:06

customers than we are at acquiring

1:03:08

new ones. That's just always, and

1:03:11

I think that's again that sort

1:03:13

of bootstrappy hitting singles. You know,

1:03:15

our customers know that we get

1:03:18

them, that we're product users and

1:03:20

product testers. So once they find

1:03:22

us, they stay with us for

1:03:25

a long time, but it's not

1:03:27

like we're going out there and

1:03:30

we're going to do a hundred

1:03:32

million dollar marketing campaign that's going

1:03:34

to net us a whole much

1:03:37

more new customers all at once.

1:03:39

That's just never been the model.

1:03:41

Was that ever, was it always

1:03:44

designed to be a direct, because

1:03:46

this was a direct-to-consumer business from

1:03:48

the beginning? Was it, was that

1:03:51

the model from the beginning? Did

1:03:53

you ever think, you know, maybe

1:03:56

we'll do a collaboration with, you

1:03:58

know, Macy's or something? You

1:04:01

know, I think we just weren't

1:04:03

sophisticated. I wasn't sophisticated enough to

1:04:06

think like that. I was just,

1:04:08

I want to control everything that

1:04:11

I can. I know it's a

1:04:13

delusion, but I still want to

1:04:15

control it, right? I mean, certainly

1:04:18

people propose them, but I just

1:04:20

couldn't. Again, remember, we're mostly selling

1:04:23

other people's brands at this point.

1:04:25

Yeah, but with Title IX on

1:04:27

it or was, no, it's just

1:04:30

with, whatever brand it was. like

1:04:32

eight years in or something, you

1:04:34

finally opened up a store like

1:04:37

a brick and mortar store in

1:04:39

Berkeley. And what's interesting to me

1:04:42

is today we're looking at the

1:04:44

women's apparel market and it's enormous,

1:04:46

right? Like you really are the

1:04:49

pioneer. You really created this category

1:04:51

with Title IX. I mean this

1:04:54

is long before Lulu Lemon or

1:04:56

athletic voices, any of those existed.

1:04:58

At that point, eight years in,

1:05:01

did people get it or was

1:05:03

it still a curiosity? You know

1:05:06

what the most incredible statistic about

1:05:08

that first store was? The amazing

1:05:10

thing about that store was that

1:05:13

over 50% of the customers that

1:05:15

came to that store came from

1:05:18

more than two hours away. Wow

1:05:20

who were they were they were

1:05:22

they were they high school athletes

1:05:25

college athletes non Just women that

1:05:27

want to work out what age

1:05:30

ranges I would say probably We

1:05:32

think of our customers sort of

1:05:34

like that 30 to 50 age

1:05:37

range and it was pretty much

1:05:39

that then as well. You know

1:05:42

they're not they have some disposable

1:05:44

income because you know at that

1:05:46

point direct or ecom wasn't as

1:05:49

big a thing that very few

1:05:51

people were willing to buy something

1:05:54

sight unseen. Yeah. But what we

1:05:56

found mostly was people were coming

1:05:58

from all of the country. Yeah.

1:06:01

They were flying to SFO and

1:06:03

they would come to our store.

1:06:05

So we were really looking for

1:06:07

that woman who is in the

1:06:09

workforce now and is coming into

1:06:12

her own either an aerobic studios

1:06:14

or you know in the outdoors

1:06:16

and needs to find the gear

1:06:18

that works for. Yeah. The second

1:06:21

piece though I will say is

1:06:23

our sports bra business ended up

1:06:25

there was a small piece of

1:06:28

that ended up being a big

1:06:30

part of our business to high

1:06:32

school and college athletes, even now.

1:06:35

We have a lot of mother,

1:06:37

daughter, first trips to buy sports

1:06:39

bras happened in our retail

1:06:41

stores. I wonder, you know, one

1:06:44

of the, it's essentially, because

1:06:46

I've heard you describe

1:06:48

a low point in your career as

1:06:51

a leader was during your

1:06:53

first maternity leave because obviously

1:06:55

you were incredibly overjoyed at

1:06:58

the birth of your first

1:07:00

child. You were 37, you had

1:07:02

a very difficult long labor and

1:07:04

you just decided that you

1:07:06

were the CEO and the founder

1:07:08

and you didn't want to take

1:07:10

a long leave that you were back

1:07:13

in the office pretty soon after

1:07:15

the birth of your daughter. Yeah.

1:07:17

And I think, you know, that's a

1:07:19

little bit of a hero complex there,

1:07:22

right? You know, the business was doing

1:07:24

well. I was still running the business

1:07:26

at that point, but the business was

1:07:29

doing well enough. But, you know, I

1:07:31

mean, that's the thing about running a

1:07:33

business. You get so much positive reinforcement,

1:07:36

especially if you're the founder, owner, entrepreneur.

1:07:38

You've done every job, you know all

1:07:40

the answers. And then I suppose there's

1:07:43

something about like, wow, a new mom,

1:07:45

I don't know any answers. I think

1:07:47

I'd rather go back to the place

1:07:49

where I know answers. I mean, if,

1:07:51

you know, you want me to get

1:07:53

into sort of the psychological underpinnings of

1:07:55

that choice. You know, I have this

1:07:57

picture, it's like a Polaroid of gill-

1:07:59

so she comes to the office

1:08:02

with me. And she was a

1:08:04

newborn. Yeah, yeah, really young. And

1:08:06

she's all like swaddled and she's

1:08:09

on one of those spinny chairs,

1:08:11

like spinny, rolly chairs. And she's

1:08:13

just lying there all swaddled up,

1:08:15

like right on the chair. And

1:08:18

there's no one around. I'm like,

1:08:20

huh. But I think I needed

1:08:22

to have that and realize like,

1:08:25

wow, that's really, that's really screwed

1:08:27

up. I got to do better.

1:08:29

But then I think now when

1:08:32

people talk about work-life balance, I

1:08:34

think, you know, there's really no

1:08:36

such thing as balance. If you

1:08:38

want to do something really great,

1:08:41

whether that's be a great mom

1:08:43

or be a great entrepreneur or

1:08:45

a great business person, you're really

1:08:48

going to have to dig in

1:08:50

and have a lot of imbalance

1:08:52

for a while. But it always

1:08:55

has to flip back. We're going

1:08:57

to write there's going to be

1:08:59

a teeter-totter. Yeah, sometimes it's going

1:09:01

to be I am really digging

1:09:04

in on work and sometimes it's

1:09:06

going to be I am really

1:09:08

digging in on home and then

1:09:11

for those ordinary days, hopefully I

1:09:13

get home in time for dinner

1:09:15

every day. I think around 2000

1:09:18

you started to design and manufacture

1:09:20

your own stuff. How involved were

1:09:22

you in in the designs? I

1:09:24

mean what I would say about

1:09:27

us is mostly what we are.

1:09:29

and I think you have to

1:09:31

be if you're going to be

1:09:34

owner operated. We are very opportunistic.

1:09:36

So the very first thing we

1:09:38

ended up manufacturing ourselves was a

1:09:41

sports bra. And it was because

1:09:43

I found a sports bra that

1:09:45

someone else was selling and it

1:09:47

was kind of a passion project

1:09:50

for her. She was maybe a

1:09:52

yoga teacher and she couldn't find

1:09:54

a sports bra she liked. She

1:09:57

made this one and ended up

1:09:59

being a top selling sports bra

1:10:01

for us for many many years.

1:10:03

But at a certain point she

1:10:06

decided she was more... interested in

1:10:08

fitness instruction understandably than in making

1:10:10

sports bras. So she said, hey,

1:10:13

I want to get out of

1:10:15

this business, would you like to

1:10:17

buy the rights and designs for

1:10:20

this, we called it the frog

1:10:22

bra? And I said, sure. And

1:10:24

then she coached us up on

1:10:26

how to get into the manufacturing

1:10:29

business. Basically, in the 2000s, there

1:10:31

was an absolute explosion in women's

1:10:33

apparel brands. Lulu Lemon, athletic. Now

1:10:36

there's outdoor voices. Nike and Adidas

1:10:38

are making this stuff. We had

1:10:40

Chip Wilson on the show, we

1:10:43

had Tyler Haney of outdoor voice

1:10:45

on the show before a few

1:10:47

years ago. You started this category.

1:10:49

You were the lonely voice in

1:10:52

the wilderness saying, hey, there is

1:10:54

a market for women's athletic wear.

1:10:56

But these other brands, which started

1:10:59

after you, became bigger very fast.

1:11:01

Did that, um, what did you,

1:11:03

what did you think about that?

1:11:06

I mean, did you feel like

1:11:08

you were under pressure to like

1:11:10

compete and to grow faster and

1:11:12

to, I don't know, was it

1:11:15

frustrating to not get the recognition

1:11:17

that that maybe you felt you

1:11:19

guys deserved? So, kind of in

1:11:22

the nicest way possible what you're

1:11:24

saying is why do you let

1:11:26

all those late players come in

1:11:29

and squash you like a bug?

1:11:31

No, I'm not saying that, no.

1:11:33

No, but it's, it's spot on,

1:11:35

it's spot on, you know. So

1:11:38

I played basketball in college and

1:11:40

I have to tell you, I

1:11:42

never played better basketball than when

1:11:45

I was having to compete for

1:11:47

a spot. Yeah. So, I mean,

1:11:49

I think that having more folks

1:11:52

in the field makes, helps us

1:11:54

all raise our game. At the

1:11:56

same time, I'd say we're, in

1:11:58

some ways we're competing on the

1:12:01

same game, but in other ways,

1:12:03

we're not. Yeah. And to be

1:12:05

really honest, if Title IX were

1:12:08

a publicly traded company, someone should

1:12:10

fire me right now. I mean,

1:12:12

that's just the facts of it.

1:12:15

They should fire me because the

1:12:17

fact is the sole purpose of

1:12:19

a publicly traded company or a

1:12:21

private equity backed company is to

1:12:24

maximize shareholder value in purely financial

1:12:26

terms. And plain and simple, I

1:12:28

haven't done that. But I would

1:12:31

say that at Title IX. I

1:12:33

have, I think we all have,

1:12:35

always measured this idea of value

1:12:38

creation much more broadly. And I

1:12:40

think my philosophy, and I think

1:12:42

it's all of our philosophy now,

1:12:44

can probably be summed up with

1:12:47

one of my favorite sayings, not

1:12:49

all things that can be counted.

1:12:51

Yeah, I mean, you built a

1:12:54

business that didn't, it was bootstrapped,

1:12:56

is bootstrapped. You never brought an

1:12:58

outside investor, so you didn't have

1:13:01

to make decisions that, that... You

1:13:03

know they wanted you to make

1:13:05

but there's a trade-off right you

1:13:07

don't you don't explode you don't

1:13:10

go on the New York Stock

1:13:12

Exchange you don't you're not a

1:13:14

billionaire Yeah, I mean I think

1:13:17

it You know, when I think

1:13:19

about that guy, I think about

1:13:21

how this choice that we made

1:13:24

and that we remake every day

1:13:26

is informed by our business practices,

1:13:28

and it's everything from the suppliers

1:13:30

we choose to, who we choose

1:13:33

to hire, I mean, probably the

1:13:35

most important way is that we

1:13:37

have chosen to mentor up and

1:13:40

coming female executives rather than some

1:13:42

plug-in-play sea level, you know. I

1:13:44

have to say one of the

1:13:47

things I'm still very proud of

1:13:49

is that we grew the business

1:13:51

from probably zero to about 50

1:13:53

million with not one person that

1:13:56

knew anything about retail or apparel

1:13:58

or business at all. I mean

1:14:00

it's just like pure passion about

1:14:03

women and the. transformative power of

1:14:05

sports. And we have this pitch

1:14:07

fest that we do twice a

1:14:10

year for up and coming women

1:14:12

run brands. I mean, I am

1:14:14

filled up by seeing these women

1:14:16

come in and grow their businesses.

1:14:19

We share resources and sometimes even

1:14:21

finances with these kinds of businesses

1:14:23

and we're all stronger and better

1:14:26

for it. So it's just a

1:14:28

different game. You've been quoted as

1:14:30

saying that around 2014 the company

1:14:33

had climbed out of a pretty

1:14:35

pretty significant downturn and I'm assuming

1:14:37

that that was probably connected to

1:14:39

the recession but you said that

1:14:42

it was solely self-inflicted and I

1:14:44

wonder I mean sounds like there

1:14:46

would you know maybe some maybe

1:14:49

some personnel decisions or strategic decisions

1:14:51

led to some rough years. Yes,

1:14:53

very rough. You know, when I

1:14:56

was a kid, something bad happened

1:14:58

to somebody and a self-inflicted wound,

1:15:00

and I talked to my mom

1:15:02

about it, I'd say, well, it

1:15:05

was their own fault. And my

1:15:07

mom would say, well, those are

1:15:09

the worst kind. I mean, and

1:15:12

I would say that I have

1:15:14

a lifetime of the worst kind

1:15:16

of self-inflicted wounds. Some of the

1:15:19

biggest mistakes are people mistakes, and

1:15:21

mostly they are my own failures

1:15:23

in leadership that negatively impacted team

1:15:25

members or the whole team. And

1:15:28

2014-15, while it had its share

1:15:30

of people mistakes, I think it

1:15:32

was really a failure on on

1:15:35

my part to recognize how quickly

1:15:37

we needed to shift from a

1:15:39

print and bricks and mortar model

1:15:42

to a digital model. To like

1:15:44

social media marketing and things like

1:15:46

that. Exactly. All of that. And

1:15:48

it's, you know, I mean, it's

1:15:51

one of those things where, you

1:15:53

know, if a company's been around

1:15:55

a long time, it has a

1:15:58

legacy. You know, and that's a

1:16:00

great thing, but it's also a

1:16:02

challenging thing. I couldn't figure out

1:16:05

how to rebuild the organization around

1:16:07

digital. And I think I set

1:16:09

the team up for maybe the

1:16:11

only time in the history of

1:16:14

the company where We were not

1:16:16

all playing off the same sheet

1:16:18

of music. There were folks who

1:16:21

were very committed to the print

1:16:23

model. You were still a catalog,

1:16:25

primarily a catalog, yes. And you

1:16:27

can't be today. No, it's just

1:16:30

too late. No, it's just not

1:16:32

happening. Don't get me wrong, print

1:16:34

is an awesome secret weapon to

1:16:37

have. Yeah. They're a part of

1:16:39

your marketing mix, but in 2014,

1:16:41

2015, yikes, I mean, maybe they

1:16:44

were 80%. of a marketing mix.

1:16:46

Now, when you consider our digital,

1:16:48

you consider our retail, prints only

1:16:50

30% of the marketing mix. You

1:16:53

know, so a dramatic change in

1:16:55

six years. But I remember talking

1:16:57

to Dana at one point, and

1:17:00

I was like, you know, I

1:17:02

think we're going to have to

1:17:04

take out a mortgage on the

1:17:07

house, and I just need you

1:17:09

to tell me that you're willing

1:17:11

to go back to work. like

1:17:13

the fortunes of the business had

1:17:16

kind of reversed in a sense.

1:17:18

Yeah, brutal. And it was, it

1:17:20

was, so revenue, sales figures, everything

1:17:23

was declining. Yep, inventory, way too

1:17:25

much inventory. And of course that's

1:17:27

going to create stress for everybody.

1:17:30

Yep, yep. But in those moments,

1:17:32

I mean, we have good people

1:17:34

and I wish I could have

1:17:36

been the coach. that they needed

1:17:39

me to be. And I think

1:17:41

I'm getting better at it. I

1:17:43

would say that the progress is

1:17:46

slow, but I think the lessons

1:17:48

that I have to learn now

1:17:50

are the lessons of leadership more

1:17:53

than they are. entrepreneurship. Yeah, I

1:17:55

guess those sort of that that,

1:17:57

I don't want to say dark

1:17:59

days, it sounds too dramatic, but

1:18:02

the kind of the downturn led

1:18:04

you to eventually to bring on

1:18:06

a new president of the company,

1:18:09

Johnny Lynn, a man and you

1:18:11

had for the most part women

1:18:13

executives was hiring Johnny, did you

1:18:16

have paused, did anybody have paused,

1:18:18

say wait, were a women's apparel

1:18:20

company, is this the right fit,

1:18:22

is this the right fit? Oh,

1:18:25

hell yeah! It was a hell

1:18:27

of a lot of costs! Yeah!

1:18:29

Yeah, man! I was trying to

1:18:32

be gentle on the question, but

1:18:34

yeah. Thank you for being gentle,

1:18:36

but hell yeah! You know, sometimes

1:18:39

the right woman for the job

1:18:41

is a man. Right. And I

1:18:43

think that Johnny Lynn, he was...

1:18:45

just what I feel like every

1:18:48

time we have had a presently

1:18:50

needing the business, they have been

1:18:52

exactly what we needed at the

1:18:55

time they came in. We need

1:18:57

a diversity of ideas about how

1:18:59

to run this business and Johnny

1:19:02

is going to bring that to

1:19:04

us and he is such a

1:19:06

good leader and I felt confident

1:19:08

knowing that I wasn't going to

1:19:11

be leading the company on a

1:19:13

daily basis that the next person

1:19:15

we needed to lead was someone

1:19:18

who could build a great executive

1:19:20

team. So they could lead long

1:19:22

past when I'm here. You are

1:19:25

a retail business. I think you

1:19:27

have 14 or 15 stores. Yeah.

1:19:29

And you kind of come out

1:19:31

of this rough period and you're

1:19:34

back to, you know, I think

1:19:36

you hit a hundred million dollars

1:19:38

and then COVID hits, which was

1:19:41

absolutely devastating, certainly initially for retail.

1:19:43

You had to close all your

1:19:45

stores. I think, I think, Store

1:19:48

sales account for like 20% of

1:19:50

your total business and that was

1:19:52

it. 20 to zero. Zero percent.

1:19:54

And that's a lot of money.

1:19:57

I read that you guys had

1:19:59

six weeks of cash in the

1:20:01

bank in 2020. So sales drop

1:20:04

like a rock. We're in the

1:20:06

middle of what should have been

1:20:08

our busiest season. We should have

1:20:11

done about $10 million in sales

1:20:13

and we lost. $5 million of

1:20:15

sales in the last two weeks

1:20:17

of March alone. Wow. We had

1:20:20

six weeks of cash on hand.

1:20:22

And then sales start to come

1:20:24

back maybe in August or September.

1:20:27

Of course, we didn't recover the

1:20:29

year. We ended up in negative

1:20:31

territory. But I would say we

1:20:34

made up a lot of ground

1:20:36

on it. probably worked way up

1:20:38

to about 85% ecom and 15%

1:20:40

retail, but a bigger number overall.

1:20:43

I mean, Missy, you've been at

1:20:45

this for 30 plus years. It's

1:20:47

been, I know, incredibly fulfilling, but

1:20:50

a grind. I mean, at some

1:20:52

point, and I'm sure you've been

1:20:54

approached in the past, but at

1:20:57

some point, there will be a

1:20:59

moment where somebody, you know, says,

1:21:01

hey, we want to buy this.

1:21:03

and you'll be in a position

1:21:06

to decide whether to do that.

1:21:08

When, I mean, what do you

1:21:10

think? I mean, at some point,

1:21:13

do you think you would entertain

1:21:15

that? Well. Guy, you are asking

1:21:17

me the question that the accountants

1:21:20

and the lawyers have been asking

1:21:22

me since day one. What is

1:21:24

the exit strategy? Right. Which you

1:21:26

don't have to answer because it's

1:21:29

your company. No, I think I'm

1:21:31

coming more to what the exit

1:21:33

strategy is as I, you know,

1:21:36

I couldn't have answered it. It's

1:21:38

important, it's absolutely incumbent upon me

1:21:40

to be able to answer that

1:21:43

question. If I want Title IX

1:21:45

to outlast this generation of leaders,

1:21:47

I need to be able to

1:21:49

answer that question. And the thing

1:21:52

that I know is that my

1:21:54

goal is to get it in

1:21:56

the hand of the next generation

1:21:59

of female owner operators. I do

1:22:01

not need a liquidity event because

1:22:03

of the way we have grown

1:22:06

it. At this point, we have

1:22:08

zero debt. We have zero outside

1:22:10

investors. So it is a good

1:22:12

spot for someone to come in

1:22:15

and be able to earn a

1:22:17

seat at the ownership table. And

1:22:19

that is my hope is that

1:22:22

at some point over the next

1:22:24

10 to 15 years, I'll be

1:22:26

able to pass Title IX on

1:22:28

to the next group of owner

1:22:31

operators who I hope will do

1:22:33

it a whole heck of a

1:22:35

lot better than I have. So

1:22:38

I am not thinking actively about

1:22:40

an exit strategy. I am thinking

1:22:42

actively about leadership succession. Yeah, fair

1:22:45

enough. Missy, could you ever have

1:22:47

imagined when you started this in

1:22:49

the garage in 89 as a

1:22:51

26-27-year-old that 30-plus years on, it

1:22:54

would look something like this? Could

1:22:56

you have envisioned that? I want

1:22:58

to say no, and I want

1:23:01

to say maybe a little bit

1:23:03

yes in only the sort of

1:23:05

frivolous way that a 20-year-old might.

1:23:08

We need to start the women's

1:23:10

version of Nike, you know? And

1:23:12

then once I got around to

1:23:14

it, no. I don't think I

1:23:17

ever could have envisioned what the

1:23:19

work has become. and the people,

1:23:21

right, that I've gotten to work

1:23:24

with. I'm not... I really had

1:23:26

expectations to be honest. I was

1:23:28

like, this is going to be

1:23:31

a fun adventure. And I think

1:23:33

that's really when I think about

1:23:35

business, it's the great game of

1:23:37

business. Yeah, you know, we're not

1:23:40

curing cancer guy. I mean, so

1:23:42

it can, it can be fun.

1:23:44

There can be times when it

1:23:47

is hard and you take your

1:23:49

losses, but it's a great game

1:23:51

and it's been a great adventure.

1:23:54

So I hope I have a

1:23:56

few more adventures left in me.

1:23:58

How much do you attribute your

1:24:00

success your success to your success

1:24:03

to your success to? to the

1:24:05

work you put in, the really

1:24:07

hard work you put in, and

1:24:10

how much it has to do

1:24:12

with luck. I mean, you had

1:24:14

some lucky breaks early on, and

1:24:17

I mean, of course, meeting Dana,

1:24:19

and like I, who helped you

1:24:21

kind of like learn about the

1:24:23

bike business, and then North Face,

1:24:26

and meeting the right people at

1:24:28

the right time, but also, obviously,

1:24:30

there was a grind there too.

1:24:33

So how much of those things

1:24:35

do you, would you attribute to

1:24:37

the success of the business? Yeah,

1:24:40

right. It's percentages. It's not binary.

1:24:42

It's not all luck or all

1:24:44

hard work. It's percentages. And I

1:24:46

think, you know, if you want

1:24:49

to talk about the luckiest things

1:24:51

that probably had sort of the

1:24:53

absolutely necessary parts of it, I

1:24:56

had to be a young woman

1:24:58

growing up in the 70s and

1:25:00

80s, not in the 40s and

1:25:03

50s. That's luck. I probably had

1:25:05

to grow up in a family

1:25:07

that was... encouraging me to be

1:25:09

an entrepreneur even though that might

1:25:12

not be something young women in

1:25:14

the South did at the time.

1:25:16

That's luck. I had to grow

1:25:19

up and not be battling abject

1:25:21

poverty. That's luck. So when you

1:25:23

look at all those very lucky

1:25:26

things and then you add on

1:25:28

to it all of the things

1:25:30

that happenstance meetings and the people

1:25:32

that offered me a hand up,

1:25:35

I mean, I'd say it's 90%

1:25:37

luck. But then what I would

1:25:39

say is the part that I

1:25:42

can control. is the 10% that's

1:25:44

work. And so it may only

1:25:46

be 10%, but I'm gonna work

1:25:49

as hard as I can to

1:25:51

control that 10%. That's Missy Park,

1:25:53

founder and CEO of Title IX.

1:25:55

Back when we first recorded this

1:25:58

episode in 2021, the company had

1:26:00

just written the biggest check in

1:26:02

its history. One million dollars to

1:26:05

the US women's national soccer team,

1:26:07

so they could pay their players

1:26:09

more money and get them a

1:26:12

little closer to what the male

1:26:14

soccer players make. And this wasn't

1:26:16

for a fancy sponsorship deal or

1:26:18

anything like that. It was just

1:26:21

a straight up gift. A straight

1:26:23

pass through to the players. We're

1:26:25

not asking, I don't want, and

1:26:28

I said, like I don't want

1:26:30

to have a beer with the

1:26:32

US Women's National Soccer Team. Honestly,

1:26:35

this is just. I'm sure they

1:26:37

would buy you a beer though.

1:26:39

They might buy me a beer.

1:26:41

I do have a Budweiser beer

1:26:44

class with Megan Rapino on it.

1:26:46

I think that'll do. So it's

1:26:48

kind of like I'm having a

1:26:51

having a beer with a beer

1:26:53

with her. Thanks so much for

1:26:55

listening to the show this week.

1:26:58

Please make sure to click the

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follow button on your podcast app

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so you never miss a new

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1:27:16

This episode was produced by J.C.

1:27:18

Howard with music composed by Remptine

1:27:21

Arablui. It was edited by Niva

1:27:23

Grant, with research help from Claire

1:27:25

Murashima. Our production staff also includes

1:27:27

Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Chris Mussini,

1:27:30

Elaine Coates, Emmon Mahani, John Isabella,

1:27:32

Catherine Sifer, Kerry Thompson, and Sam

1:27:34

Paulsen. I'm Guy Raz, and you've

1:27:37

been listening to How I Built

1:27:39

This. If

1:27:50

you like how I built this,

1:27:52

you can listen early and add

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free right now by joining Wondery

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Plus in the Wondery app or

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1:28:01

listen ad-free on Amazon music. Before

1:28:04

you go, tell us about yourself

1:28:06

by filling out a short survey

1:28:08

at wonderie.com/ survey. In the early hours

1:28:10

of December 4th, 2024, CEO

1:28:12

Brian Thompson stepped out onto

1:28:14

the streets of Midtown Manhattan.

1:28:17

This assailant pulls out a

1:28:19

weapon and starts firing at

1:28:21

him. We're talking about the CEO

1:28:23

of the biggest private health insurance corporation

1:28:25

in the world. And the suspect.

1:28:28

He has been identified as Luigi

1:28:30

Nicholas Mangioni became one of the

1:28:32

most divisive figures in modern criminal

1:28:34

history. I was targeted, premeditated, and

1:28:36

meant to sow terror. I'm Jesse

1:28:39

Weber, host of Luigi, produced by

1:28:41

Law and Crime and Twist. This

1:28:43

is more than a true crime

1:28:45

investigation. We explore a uniquely American

1:28:48

moment that could change the country

1:28:50

forever. He's awoken the people to

1:28:52

a true issue. Finally, maybe this would

1:28:54

lead rich and powerful people to

1:28:56

acknowledge the barbaric nature of our

1:28:58

health care system. Listen to Law

1:29:01

and Crimes Luigi exclusively on

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Wondery Plus. You can join

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