Every day, every one of us sets the stage for our sentiment, our confidence, and our success by getting dressed. When you feel great, when you feel your best, it opens up a world of possibility. Feeling confident and self-assured are important inputs into good days, successful days, and happy days.
Katrina Lake
Be known as a great resource. Are you an Excel genius? An expert on local restaurants? Fabulous at proofreading? Go beyond your job description by being an open resource for others in the company who could benefit from your talents. I believe that paying it forward will serve you well one way or another in the future.
Ultimately, I didn't quite find the company I wanted to join, but I met more than 100 entrepreneurs and realized that all these entrepreneurs were just as unqualified as I was. If I wanted to be this retailer of the future, or if I wanted to join the retailer of the future, I could just start it.
When I founded Stitch Fix, I wanted to create a company that I would want to work at for the rest of my life.
I'm most passionate about personalization. I firmly believe that personalized experiences with brands will most drive loyalty and relevance for customers in the future.
Figuring out how to scale the very human art of personalization is difficult, but I believe that it is also the key to building a lasting connection with customers for the long term.
I wanted to be a doctor. I was pre-med at school, and I actually even took the MCAT. My ultimate decision was that I didn't love the work environment in a hospital.
My goal was to have a company off the ground by the time I graduated. But the worst-case scenario was I would have an MBA and a lot of opportunities ahead of me.
When I feel like work and life are both going well, I feel like I can be fully present at both. I think the reminder to me is that both are super important, and I need to be able to feel like I can experience both in the way that makes me happiest. If I'm not happy in one or the other, it really affects the other side.
Delivering a service that consumers feel truly connected to and providing an experience that people love and love to organically share and talk about is the most effective form of marketing I know.
Clearly define what success means for you. Set short-term and quarterly career goals with your manager that will help lead you to your long term goals.
I founded Stitch Fix to take on a very human problem: How do I find clothes I love? Like most people, I want to look stylish and feel my best. Spending a day at the mall or devoting hours of time to sifting through millions of products online is time consuming, overwhelming, and neither effective nor enjoyable. I knew there had to be another way.
Ultimately, my belief is that the best marketing is creating a product that people are excited to talk about. Period.
Customer-centricity is unbelievably important.
I like to wear more traditional work outfits like pants and a blouse, but I want the blouse to have something that is a little bit different and interesting - like with some studs on it or a little bit of lace. I want to feel comfortable and confident and don't want to have to think too much about what I wear every day.
There are millions and millions of products out there. You can look at eBay and Amazon. You can look at every product on the planet, but trying to figure out which one is best for you is really the challenge.
Ironically, I think some of the inspiration around Stitch Fix is really what was great about stores in the heyday of stores.
I love cooking. It's what clears my mind, since it's pretty hard to multitask when you're chopping vegetables.
Find someone within the company who is on another team but is at a similar level or role as you to be a friend, a sounding board, and a place to go for candid feedback. Find a mentor within the company who resembles the leader you'd like to grow to be.
When the business really works is when we hear clients say, 'I've never had jeans that fit me until I got a pair from Stitch Fix.' We'll also hear, 'I would never have tried this dress on in a store.' It's not just about convenience. They're happier in their clothes.
Creativity was definitely a big part of our household, and I remember always writing stories and being encouraged to be creative.
I've always enjoyed shopping and loved fashion, but my interest as an entrepreneur was definitely more about the opportunities I saw to change the future of retail. My sister was a buyer in New York, and she knew my body and my style, and she could find me things I loved. I thought, 'What if everybody had access to this kind of experience?'
'Personalization' is a popular word in retail, and people often misuse it to describe simple marketing tactics, like segmenting emails or using big data to identify the likely gender of a visitor to their websites.
Brick and mortar stores will ultimately mark down between 50 to 60% of its merchandise because they don't know who's walking in the door on any day, so they lose control.
I find it is a bad habit to look at social media before bed, so I try to read something on paper - not on my phone - before I go to bed.
The idea of going somewhere where the salesperson is able to personalize the retail experience for you doesn't work anymore. Stitch Fix is an opportunity to provide a service for people who are looking for more than just buying the cheapest thing with one-day shipping.
As a consumer, you don't want to choose from a million pairs of jeans. You just want the one pair that's going to fit you and look great on you.
Not a manager or an executive yet? It's not too early to practice. Many companies are always looking for people to volunteer to help coordinate happy hours, onboard new employees, or plan the holiday party.
