699 Julie Wainwright: Author of Time To Get Real
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that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be. You just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don't get knocked out. Knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone and welcome to the Kara Golden Show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world's greatest leaders.

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Hi, everyone, and welcome back to The Kara Golden Show. I am so excited to have our next guest with us here today. She is a returning guest, and you may recognize her. Her name is Julie Wainwright. She is the founder and previous CEO of

The Real Real, and today the co-founder and CEO of a company called Ahara. But today we're here to talk about her brand new book, which is just awesome. It is just coming out today called Time to Get Real. And if you want to

not only be inspired, but also get the real skinny of what it's like to build multiple businesses as Julie has. This is definitely the book for you. So entrepreneur, e-commerce pioneer, and now author of the

powerful, I'm sure it will be a bestseller upcoming book, Time to Get Real, How I Built a Billion Dollar Business That Rocked the Fashion Industry. Incredible, incredible story of taking a company from nothing to a billion dollar IPO. Her story is anything but ordinary. And

high-profile situations, including pets.com to rebuilding her career later in life. So, so much to talk about. So without further ado, welcome, Julie. So excited to see you and to have you here. Hi, Cara. I'm happy to be back.

Very, very excited. So okay, so I have the book right here. Thank you for the pre copy. I was able to really dive into this before actually getting a chance to, to talk to you about this, which I was so excited to do. So time to get real. Give us like a snapshot of the why behind why you decided to actually write this book.

Well, originally, I'm sure you wrote yours too, by the way. Anyway, I wrote it myself. I started with a ghostwriter that wasn't going to work. And I wrote it because I really wanted...

entrepreneurs to actually understand really what it's like. So sort of year by year going through it and the key lessons woven in because all the business books I'd look like are here are the five things I know or here are the five things you need to do, which is fine. That shortcut is fine. But the truth is the journey is more than five things. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card.

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Then start using your Apple Card with Apple Pay right away. No hassle, no waiting, just simple and fast. What I love most about my Apple Card, I get up to 3% daily cash back on the things I'm already buying. No points to keep track of. So if you're looking for a credit card that fits your lifestyle, Apple Card is it. Give it a try. Apply now in the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch, terms and more at applecard.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Rula, affordable online therapy that fits into your life and your schedule.

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And on my journey of starting the real world from my house to taking it public, you know, going from an idea in my head to over a billion dollars, a lot of key lessons learned and a lot of excitement. So I also wanted people to sort of feel the excitement and the fun that happened. And then I wrote it for really other entrepreneurs, to be honest. And right when I was at that turning point where I was like, do I need to publish this?

Someone approached me and said, a young guy in England. And he said, I know who you are just randomly, which was a little creepy, but not that creepy. And he said, I really hope that you write a book someday because your story's great. And it was really at that point where I'm like, why do the book...

Um, because, you know, you don't, if you publish it, you've going to, it's going to be out there and you have to mark, you know, it's a lot of work to get a book out. It just doesn't happen, but I'm really happy. I'm happy with the book. I'm happy I wrote it.

It's not a PR piece. It's not a puff piece. It really is as authentic and as honest as I could be without stepping into legal issues. And actually, and even when I'm about to step into legal issues, I say I can't go too much further because of this reason. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card.

Hey everyone, Kara here. I've had an Apple Card for a few years now and honestly, it's one of the best kept secrets out there. It's made managing my spending feel effortless because I can see what I spend when and where at a glance. And here's the best part, applying is so easy. You just go to the wallet on your iPhone to apply and see your credit limit offer in minutes.

Then start using your Apple Card with Apple Pay right away. No hassle, no waiting, just simple and fast. What I love most about my Apple Card, I get up to 3% daily cash back on the things I'm already buying. No points to keep track of. So if you're looking for a credit card that fits your lifestyle, Apple Card is it. Give it a try. Apply now in the Wallet app on your iPhone.

Subject to credit approval, Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City, Branch, Terms and more at applecard.com. This episode of the Kara Golden Show is brought to you by Rula, affordable online therapy that fits into your life and your schedule.

Let's be real. Life gets overwhelming. Whether it's stress, anxiety, or just needing someone to talk to, RULA makes it so much easier to get the support you need. They connect you with licensed therapists who actually take your insurance. No endless searching or waiting weeks for an appointment.

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I love, love everything that you just said. So the book is really the messy, unpolished stuff, right? Which I think is so needed, right? And I think it's those stories you and I were talking briefly before we even hit record that

you know, it's the founder stories. And we're sort of lucky being founders to be able to be in that circle where we know a lot of the backstories, but a lot of people don't know, right? They see the billion dollar IPO. They see, you know, the beautiful clothes and brand that you've built with

with the real, real, but they don't really understand how hard it is to go from setting up and doing home parties where you're selling clothing, which, you know, I knew you back, back then in the beginning to building this incredible, incredible brand. What was the highlight when you finally thought, okay, this is actually going to be a real business?

I started the business, well, I got the idea in November of 2010, so a long time ago. And then we launched June of 2011. And the first sale we put up, we didn't have a lot of product. We had enough to run three sales. It sold out by the end of the day. And I'm like, okay, this is going to be big.

And, and we did, I think it was something like $35,000 or 30,000 plus dollars the first day. And if you do that on an annual run rate, you're at 10 million a year, you know, if you, but in fact, we didn't have the product to do that. We couldn't get that revenue. So it was all about supply. So I knew that very for sale. Now,

We weren't in a position to then take that big first sale out to raise capital because, you know, first of all, oh, gosh, that's another story. But the venture capital world was in no hurry at all.

to fund something they thought eBay was doing well, and also from the founder of Pets.com who had had a failure. So I waited until I got to the real $10 million in sale before I actually did my first venture capital round.

I raised money along the way, but I knew right away. And I knew it in my bones. And I remember talking to someone about, you know, they asked me what my cohorts were. I was like three months into it. And I said, it's irrelevant. I don't have enough product. And they said, well, you should know, blah, blah. And I said, no, all I know is my repeat rate's 80%. Incredible. Which isn't, you know, it was such a nascent business. So

But yeah, I never wavered, by the way. You know how people are like, oh, I never wavered. I knew it was great. I knew it was going to be hard. And I never thought it. I always thought it would succeed. I almost said the negative, the double negatives, but I always knew it would succeed. This message is a paid partnership with Apple Card.

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So when you were getting to that 10 million point, I mean, you mentioned pets.com for those who might not remember that era. I mean, you came off of a really challenging time. I mean, you may have been able to surface from that, but a lot of people can't, right? A lot of people just go hide in a hole, right? Well, I did for, oh no, I did for a long time. I mean, I really did. I took it very personally, the failure personally. And-

I would say it was a lot to shake for me, the failure of pets, because I also got a divorce at the exact same time. So the double whammy was hard. And I say it at the beginning of the book, which is true. I really let it define me until one day I'm just like, I have to stop this.

I have to stop it because this isn't the life I want to live. So it's almost like, you know, my, finally all myself talking to try to get myself out of it. It like snapped and I'm like, okay, I'm done. I'm done living in the past and carrying that burden. But it took more than, it probably took four years. A lot. I mean, too long. It was still there in the back of my head. I was still like, oh yeah, I'm a plus. I mean, it didn't help. Everyone was telling me I was a failure. Right.

And I'm like, oh, they're right. But can you imagine letting others define you that way when, in fact, Pets.com really was, the failure was really about timing. And up until then, I'd had multiple successes. So you have one failure. It just goes to show you how Silicon Valley is like, oh, we embrace failure. No one embraces failure. Maybe they do if it's not public, but they really don't embrace failure.

I think especially if it really is out of your control too, right? Yet you're still, you know, you were running it, right? I was running it.

Yeah. And it's completely explainable for people who saw you going through it. But it's nonetheless, I can only imagine how hard it hit. So you decide to start The Real Real in your 50s. So many people... Early 50s. Early 50s. Early 50s, which was incredible. And how did you flip that narrative that...

you know, what are you doing, Julie? You're going to go start another company and use it to your advantage. You know, Cara, I don't really think I had any choice. I mean, I was either going to get like the job offers coming my way were sort of soul sucking and bad, right?

And a recruiter had told me that I was pretty much unhirable for any good opportunity. They were so bad. And because of the divorce, even more than that, because of my own self-worth, I needed to work. And I love working. And I love creating things. But also, the divorce had left me sort of financially in not a great situation because...

I had been the prime earner. My ex-husband was a social worker. But yet, you get 50-50 when you divorce. So 50% went away. And so I was facing a potentially very sad next, what, 20 years of my life. And I thought, this is ridiculous. I love working. I feel great. I'm not going to get it

Took me a while to really digest. No good opportunities are going to come my way that I have to create it. And I gave myself two years to have a big success. So that was really, really important. And it could have gone the other way. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't a haphazard thing I did either. I mean, I researched. I knew I wanted to get back into e-commerce.

I knew I wanted to do something Amazon couldn't do. I had a list, a short list of things they couldn't do. Luxury was on it, but I wasn't, I wasn't going to create a luxury brand. And that's where, all right, so I had this in my head and that's where serendipity came in. And that to me is, I think this is what founders do anyway. Like you solve, you put a, you put a construct in your head and then you're just waiting for

Just like I needed it to, I was still doing work to try to figure out what I was going to do, but I needed, I needed to know the right way and everything I had looked, gone down and research had fallen by the wayside. So then I was shopping with a girlfriend who bought consignment in a full price, beautiful boutique in the back. She went to the back of the store and,

And I'd never seen her do that before. And as soon as I saw that, I went, oh my God, that's it. I mean, I questioned her a lot. It was a different time. I'm like, have you ever bought, shopped on eBay? No, I wouldn't do it. Too many fakes. I said, have you ever walked into a consignment store? She goes, no. Why would I? I don't like them. They're not great. And I'm like, you bought consignment. She goes, who cares? I got a great deal.

And by the way, this was a self-made multimillionaire. So we're not talking about someone who goes, I got a great deal. I got Louis Vuitton. I think she bought Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada that day.

And she's like, this is amazing that you can, you know, and I trust the owner that they're genuine. So you put that together. I knew it at that moment. It all crystallized. But it was also the work I'd done before to try to eliminate other opportunities. And even though I knew I wasn't going to create a luxury brand, here I was.

Looking at luxury product being sold in a brick and mortar store. And given the fact I'd been in technology for a long time, immediately I went to the power of actually bringing this together in a way and leveraging the internet to actually have the best selection of luxury goods in the world. Well, and I remember when it was taking off, I was an early, early, early,

fan and consumer of The RealReal and just cheering you on as you went. But the same people that were your doubters were, you know, whether that's media, whether that's investors, whoever, were also the people who love the comeback story, right? So I think it was brilliant how you used that in many ways.

I didn't have to. I wasn't that savvy about myself. I mean, I have to say, though, it was it gave the real world a lot of press. The fact that I had failed so publicly at Pence.com. But I'm not that good of a marketer myself.

To say, I'm going to use this to tell my comeback story. The press wrote their own story. And luckily that was the story. My favorite headline, although at the time it wasn't. And I used a picture of myself from that publication. I bought it from the photographer and it says from dog house to penthouse.

And I was in still, we were still pretty small. I think we were probably a hundred million then in top line revenue. And I'm in my ops center with my hands up in a victory in this messy, messy warehouse. Cause it was still at, was in Oakdale. So it was in a, it was still small. It was about 30,000 square feet. Now I think there's about 1.2 million square feet of ops center space.

That's incredible. So you really, brick by brick, literally, built the RealReal into a company that eventually went public. A lot of your story is kind of taking people up to that point. And then ultimately, when you do go public...

What's the mistake, if you had to name one mistake that maybe cost you time, money that you regret along the way that was really like, I won't do that again or I'll do it differently the next time?

Oh, I'll tell you exactly what it is. So I would say operationally, we really didn't make mistakes. It really was the whole thing was fully formed. I would say that all my mistakes, which do relate to operational issues, were on hiring the wrong people, maybe not firing them fast enough. Certainly,

This is going to sound naive, but I'm going to say it anyway. When my original investors exited the board...

who were venture capitalists, except one guy who was the last money and was a PE guy, didn't exit the board. But everyone else, you know, and this is normal. They put money in, company went public, they had to exit the board to get their liquidity. But venture capitalists are a special breed and they really do understand startups, they understand founders, they understand the messiness of

that happens with that. I recommended other board members for the board and they had deep expertise in their area of expertise, but the values weren't aligned. And the new board members, I would say almost

on the majority, they'd never seen a startup growth like this. They didn't understand high growth companies. They didn't understand a collaborative environment. They were hierarchical. Their model was old. And that's where the tension came in, to be honest. And then I sort of like had to beat myself up that I used one company

values were really important when hiring an employee because you want to make sure someone's there, they're all in, they have curiosity, they're going to work hard, they know how to play well with others. I didn't apply the same criteria to the board members. And that was a big mistake. And I would say, when you're a company that's venture-backed, you don't always get to pick your board members. And if you only have one term sheet, which the real, real

never had competing term sheets. They always got one investor and that investor was all in. So that person then was on the board. And we had, if they weren't on the board, like Dana Settle was on the board, she was from Graycroft. She was a big help. But then replacing those board members, I made a lot of mistakes. And the other thing I would say, and you're probably the same now. I know I don't want to speak for you, but I haven't been in corporate America for a long time.

And I've been doing founder work or startup work and been in tech. The tech world, at least for a long time until you get into bigger tech companies, it really is about what you do. It really is, especially if you're a founder. It really is a meritocracy because there's no place to hide in small companies at all. And corporations, especially the people they attract, are

are not necessarily the most progressive thinkers. They like more certainty. And if the company's a low growth company, it's more about the politics to get ahead than the merit-based. And maybe companies are too convoluted in their structure to have merit-based. And so I put people on the board that came from an environment that was foreign to me

And actually, to be honest, it's not an environment I would ever want to be involved with where it's more politically driven than merit based. So that was my biggest mistake. Or I recommended people. I didn't really get to put them on because the company was public. But, you know, that was my biggest mistake. And I'm sad to say, you know, anyway, we'll just leave it at that. That was the biggest mistake. During it, I would say some people I just didn't let go fast enough.

And, you know, the company went from $10 million to $20 to $50 to $100 to $250 to $500 to $750. And some of those people at the beginning just couldn't scale. And the people that could scale, though, are gold. They are gold. And so luckily I had a few of those people, including Rati Lebec, who's running the company now.

She just, the more I gave her, the more she took on. And she really understood the business. And she was the first employee. And that really, did you ever come to a really sort of gross? Probably not. I wouldn't let people in. I did in the early days. Yeah. I came over to the- The Canal District in San Rafael? Yeah.

Exactly. Or the ICB building. That was at least prettier in Sausalito. But on the canal, because we did do sales where we opened it up on like a Saturday, opened up the warehouse and tried a few warehouse sales, which was a nightmare. It was that was a nightmare. It's so it's so funny to listen. So in so looking back at the tradeoffs of IPO life, I mean, what would you say to founders today what you've learned about taking company public?

Well, I'd say overall, if you take money in, you have to get...

a path to liquidity. It's sort of as simple as that. And the RealReal wasn't a company that was going to be sold to another company. There were no natural buyers where if you put the RealReal with a company, they would accelerate their sales or their profitability. So I don't think we had another path. Now, the day-to-day running of the RealReal didn't really change. COVID changed everything. But

But we had all these antics right around the first quarterly report that were really suspicious. And to this day, I don't know if they were caused by short sellers or by a brand or a series of brands or, you know, that hated us. But

It was a circus. And it was really something. And to be honest, that was still when I had my VC board along with that one PE guy. And they were shocked. So let me give you an example. The company had luxury consignment offices, which only were staffed with gemologists.

Think of this all happening at the same time. All right. So staff with gemologists in many cities, depending on the jurisdiction, that could be considered a pawn shop. The real world could be considered a pawn shop. There are old rules.

So you have to get pawn shop licenses. Well, we had them, but we had them centralized. They weren't hanging up on the wall. So every one of the luxury consignment offices had a police raid within two weeks with the goal of shutting it down. So our lawyer was always going... I mean, at some point, we figured it out and had all the paperwork there on site, but it was just like...

policemen coming in guns, you know, we have to shut you down. You're operating without a license. All right. So someone did that little scheme. We had a fake reporter show up at the Melrose store and,

um trying to interview people shoving uh a microphone in people's faces what you know what do you think of the real rail and so the store the guy running all the stores walked out because he's calling us and our lawyer's like we'll do this and he actually totally called their bluff he goes i've called the police you need a you actually need a license to do this on the street they've given me the permission to confiscate all your equipment which i'm going to do and we had big

people, big, strong guys, and the reporters packed up and got out of town. So you've got these fake reporters showing up. You've got the...

luxury consignment offices happening. Then you have this guy jumping out of the bushes in our warehouse, in our ops center in Secaucus. And he was a CMBC investigator reporter and handing out cards. Oh, you want to, you know, if you ever want to talk about the railroad, literally jumping out of the bush. So hijacking employees. So then they did a big expose that hit two days before our earnings report. These were...

which was sort of a, if you, it's still out there. It was absolutely, they interviewed an employee who, who was not an employee in good standing, who said, I have a quota and it's really too high. And I never authenticate all things. It's like, well, that's why you're not employed anyway. So, and she, and we knew it was her before she went on there because she was posting her limo rider makeup, her hair and makeup and all that online. So that,

So she was talking about she doesn't really do this. Then there was a woman who got the wrong item shipped to her and was mad at me and said she wanted to give me a piece of her mind. And I'm like, well, I would have just taken care of you. It's like sometimes you get the wrong item shipped. And in the same segment, they flashed up this lawsuit of this woman who was an ex-luxury manager who we did sue because she removed our database.

But they flashed it up like, you know, and she said, I never authenticated things. I never saw it happen. Well, she'd never been to her op centers and it didn't happen at that manager. So it was this total takedown of the company, how we sell fake things. And it was, it was unprecedented. This all happened at the same time. And,

And so you think about it, it's like, I don't really think that was a coincidence. So, you know, and I'm always, this is maybe a little too raunchy for people, but it's either sex or money, or maybe it's sex and money. But.

But money's always in there and sex may be in there. So it was clearly benefiting someone. It could have been the short sellers. It could have been a brand had orchestrated this, but it felt like an orchestrated hit team on the company. And it was a little shocking, actually. So that was one of those moments where you're like, what is happening? And I even called that had a CNBC on it.

And he was just, which I recap in the book. I'll just let the book speak for itself. I recap it. And I got a couple calls from CNBC reporters saying, we've never seen anything like this. This is not fair. But the damage was done. I appreciated their call, but the damage was done.

You know, because the stock fell and all then, and then all kinds of weird stuff happened. Like a couple of big events that we were having, oh, you sell fakes, you know, and it's like, you know, then they canceled. Even, you know, the guy that does how you build it, his producer called and said, we don't want you on the show. You're clearly not reputable company. I'm like, are you kidding me? So all that negative and, but I have to say it did not stop demand. Yeah.

Never stopped demand, and it didn't stop supply. It just deflated the retail price. Now, the cool thing that happened after that retail, I'm sorry, the stock price, quite a bit. The cool thing that happened that we were in the process of doing anyway is we were already at that time starting to use machine learning and AI to help us authenticate.

So that's actually now a huge part of the business. So, I mean, you know, depending on humans for accuracy rate does have some inaccuracies. That's why you QC things.

And you have to do random QC. But when you start using a combination of AI machine learning, which is AI, and human oversight, it becomes much cleaner and much better. But yeah, it was just... I mean, it was a shit show after we went public. But...

Every employee, that's all the bad side. Every employee in the company had stock. If they'd been there for a year, it was vested on some level, every employee, which means that employees' life changed measurably once the company went public.

where they had some money and some people bought condos, some people, you know, things were going, you know, after the holding period, but their life got better and everything was going well. Again, we got past that till COVID hit. And then that was a drama for everyone in the world.

Yeah, definitely. I remember when we had you on, I think you were just moving to Arizona. You're some of your plants because California was shut down and. Oh, you know what? That's another thing. We should have done that earlier, by the way. So when I look back and I write about it, cause you know, there was, there were very good reasons to keep the employees. Cause we had all that in institutional knowledge in California to have that ops center in South San Francisco. But again,

California is not an employee-friendly state. I mean, an employer-friendly state. It's just not. And

It's hard. You know, the taxes are hard. Arizona wanted us, they gave us some incentives to go there and we needed a much bigger facility. So that was, I wish we would have done that. I wish we would have ripped the bandaid off earlier and just committed instead of doing the interim step in South San Francisco, because it made, it gave us expansion space. We did get incentives. We looked at Texas and Arizona and,

Texas had some archaic pawn shop laws there still, even having an ops center that may or may not have affected us. And we were worried about their power grid.

Because they had already had a power grid problem. And Arizona didn't have those issues, really wanted us. And it's worked out really well for the company. I wish we would have done that earlier and just been a little more. Because honestly, a lot of employees reload there. Some of the top employees reload there. And they could buy a house there. And they love it. They love the Phoenix area, Phoenix-Scottsdale area. Yeah.

Well, I'm from there. So I remember when you were moving there, or moving the facility there, that you were doing that. So that was, I remember that well. So you leave the RealReal and probably...

emotional to some extent because you burst it from nothing, right? How did you feel about really leaving it? You left it in the hands of somebody that it sounds like had grown up. Well, it wasn't my choice. I got fired by the board.

And I got fired. I would say there was at least one board member who didn't sell his shares and had an opportunity. My theory, because you never know, is that he staged a battle against me. I have to say I didn't really help myself. I was two heads down and didn't realize what was going on. And then when I did realize...

sort of in the board meeting that there was a big lie and I had stopped trusting this person anyway. I just lost my shit on him. And then the women got mad at me and told me, that's not the way you talk to board members. And it was ugly. It was all ugly. And then eventually, I mean, let's just say this way. Someone had it out for me. I didn't help myself. I always say someone hung a noose, I put my neck in it.

And, you know, people don't like to see women lose their stuff. And men in particular don't like to be called on their lies or what I perceived as a lie in front of other people. And, yeah.

And they were shocked I would do that. And yet, so yeah, I got fired. So yes, it was very emotional. And it was left in co-CEO hands. And then they hired one of the board members, old protégés from Neiman Marcus. He was subsequently fired.

which, to be honest, made me happy because now Rachi Levesque is running the company. She understands the company. She was the president. She had all the direct reports. At the time I left, in fact, this is sort of the irony. I had just, with board approval, moved all my direct reports under her except the CFO, the head of HR, and then it was Rachi. And the reason being, we were just coming out of COVID,

And the board members were too new and I needed to spend time with them to spend more time outward facing. And she was operationally, she's like a rock star. So I had just moved. I had had marketing and sales, I think, and technology reporting to me until, you know,

January of 2022. So at that point, I just moved it and consolidated under one president so I could spend more time outward facing instead of heads down trying to make sure we made it through the worst period in the company's history. You know, the real world picked up product from people's homes. So when COVID happened, as you recall, we couldn't pick up product. It wasn't a self-posting site. So we ended up really digging ourselves out of a hole.

And I had a new CFO, which I was very excited about. And he ended up getting fired by the board and or by the new CEO who wanted to bring in his own guy. And.

Then the new CEO got fired, which made sense to me and Rati got the job. So anyway, it worked out. It was a rough little bounce around there, but you know, I would say like, it was a really bad ending, but on the grand scheme of the time, that's such a small thing that happened versus the whole thing. And the, it was, you know, we did amazing work and I'm very proud of the real rail and it did change the way people shop and it's great for the planet and

But yeah, so it was shocking. I remember when you were one of the first people in the industry that was talking about resale in the luxury market, but also around sustainability. I remember when you were flying to Stella. Yes. Yeah. No, we actually, and honestly, Stella McCartney's company support and her support was another pivotal turning point.

for us as a company because she embraces sustainability. Her brand's about sustainable fashion and she understood the circular economy.

And getting that relationship was so important. I can tell you the CEO, Gucci, I was at an event with him shortly after we announced it goes, you really shook up the industry. And I'm like, and then he scared it off. I was about to raise it, but we can do a deal with you too. But yeah, Stella really got it. And we brought that home. And as you know, people don't buy because something's sustainable. They buy for other reasons, but yeah,

Letting them know what they were doing was also good for the planet was a great supporting proposition. And it was real. We quantified it. We're working with some scientists that Stella's team introduced us to.

That's amazing. Well, I think you just proved that thinking differently and taking an industry, not only your industry around the real real, but also the luxury industry as a whole and bringing in new ideas and new partnerships. And I mean, that was really another game changing. You've had so many game changing moments.

moments and so many stories along the way. Before we go, I want to talk about the company that you co-founded. Oh, great. O'Hara? O'Hara. O'Hara. O'Hara. And new industry, not the fashion industry at all, but what's the play here? So,

I mean, nutrition's always been important and I know it is to you too. And what you eat, you know, can actually impact your health almost more than any other thing you do. Exercise is important, but not as important as diet and community is important. Spirituality, all those things add to your overall health, but diet's really important. And I kept thinking, I was working with a doctor, I kept thinking, you know,

What I need in my body now as a woman in her 60s is not the same as what I need in my 20s. And my nutrients have to be different. And is there an algorithm that we can develop that'll actually be personalized to me that will tell me I need more of X, Y, and Z? Because I kept thinking, especially after I left the railroad, you know, I was tired. I was at least probably tired.

10 to 12 pounds heavier than I am now. And, you know, it was just, it's a lot starting a company and running, running it hard is a lot. Um, and so I thought, you know, there's gotta be a way to do it. And she was doing all this triangulation by looking, doing testing, genetic testing, this, that having people answer a question. And I'm like, this is an algorithm.

So we put together an algorithm that it gives its data, it's user driven. So if you put in bad data at the beginning or you're not honest, you're not going to get a good answer, but then it gives you your optimal foods, what your key nutrients may be lacking from your diet, why that is important to incorporate it. And then it maps it to recipes and takes it all the way to Instacart. If you cook, I don't cook, but it did in it, but it literally by balancing my diet, I

And getting my omegas right, which they were out of whack, adding more seeds to my diet because I wasn't a seed eater. Can I say it changed my life? I don't know because I'm not looking at the insides. I can tell you that.

I lost weight. I can tell you that, you know, I always had a lot of energy, but I can tell you that I, I feel better eating, you know, and I always thought I was healthy, but part of me kept thinking, but I'm still eating like I did. Cause I always say it's, it's easier to eat, I think, healthy in California. And so I was always careful about what I ate, but I, but

I kept thinking, but what if I'm not doing it right? And I needed to change some things. And so it's an algorithm. It's $20 for the foundational plan. We added dietitian consulting. We found that if people, and it's mostly backed by insurance. I think every major insurance company has actually underwritten and approved us so the dietitian consulting is free. So if you do that with the app, it's illuminating.

And, yeah, to me, it's so important diet. Now, that was the real, real I love fashion. You know I do. But this is more of like a passion thing that I think is really important for people to get the right information versus going to TikTok and figuring out how to eat right.

No, absolutely. Well, Julie, you are just a force and I adore you and time to get real is so, so good. Everyone needs to pick up a copy. We'll have all the info in the show notes, but thank you so much for being here. Also for writing this. It's so inspiring. I can't wait to see what

what else you're doing with your life. I know you're not finished. So you've got plenty, plenty of good things going on and disruption ahead. So I really, really appreciate you and all of your honesty as well. So everyone, thank you for listening and goodbye for now.

Thanks again for listening to The Kara Golden Show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode of our podcast.

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