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20VC: Stitch Fix Founder Katrina Lake on Growth vs Profitability, Her Biggest Lessons From Working with Bill Gurley at Benchmark and The Importance of Mental Flexibility as a Leader

Dec 3, 2020

Katrina Lake, Founder and CEO of Stitch Fix, discusses her journey from venture associate to reshaping online retail. She reflects on the importance of capital efficiency and strategic inventory management while balancing growth with profitability. The impact of lessons learned from Bill Gurley, her board experiences at Grubhub and Glossier, and how they shape her leadership style are insightful highlights. Katrina also touches on overcoming self-doubt and the significance of personal well-being in managing a public company.

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ANECDOTE

Founding Story

Katrina Lake wasn't a "born entrepreneur" but became passionate about improving the fashion buying process.
She realized current online and offline retail models were broken, leading her to found Stitch Fix.

INSIGHT

Early Job Learnings

Early jobs, like working at Banana Republic and as a lifeguard, taught Katrina Lake the importance of people and frontline work.
These experiences showed her the interconnectedness of business processes and how decisions impact individuals.

ADVICE

Stay Grounded

Stay connected to frontline work, even as CEO, to understand the business and its impact.
Lake styles fixes and visits warehouses to gain firsthand insights and maintain humility.

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Katrina Lake is the Founder & CEO @ Stitch Fix, a multi-billion dollar public company, which has brought an entirely new model to retail apparel by combining data science, technology, and personal stylists, to create a unique shopping experience tailored to the individual consumer. Prior to their IPO in 2017, Katrina raised just $42M in venture funding from some of the best in venture including Bill Gurley @ Benchmark and Steve Anderson @ Baseline. In just 6 years Katrina took the company from founding moment to $2BN IPO and was even cash flow positive after just 3 years. If that was not enough, Katrina is also on the board of both Grubhub and Glossier.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Katrina made her way from being an associate at a venture firm to reshaping the world of fashion with Stitch Fix?

2.) On reflection, is Katrina happy that the business was forced to be so capital efficient so early? What did Katrina do to structure the business and its inventory management to preserve cash? How does Katrina think about the balance between growth vs profitability?

3.) What have been some of Katrina's biggest lessons from working with Bill Gurley? How does Katrina ensure not to overweight his opinion on the board? What have been Katrina's biggest lessons on effective board management? How has being on the Grubhub and Glossier board changed the way she operates the Stitch Fix board?

4.) How does Katrina think about imposter syndrome and self-doubt today? How does she remedy it? How does Katrina ensure she remains on the front lines with customers despite being a public company CEO? What benefits are there for founders to stay in the trenches even when a large company?

5.) How does Katrina think on the importance for founders to have a vision today? Where do they need to be flexible? What are some dangers or pitfalls associated with "the vision"? How far are Stitch Fix along in cementing their vision?

Item’s Mentioned In Today’s Episode

Katrina’s Favourite Book: Between The World And Me

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