Trina Spear: How Outsiders Disrupt Industries | E15

Trina Spear is the Co-CEO and Co-Founder of FIGS, a healthcare apparel and lifestyle brand that has a current value of $4 billion.  What has grown into a spectacular success started with a simple idea and question – what if we put as much thought into healthcare apparel as we do with athletic apparel?  What if we invented apparel for healthcare professionals by selling fitted, fashionable, cool, and comfortable medical scrubs?

Trina and her partner Heather Hasson began working on this idea in 2012, and a year later they were selling medical scrubs in parking lots of hospitals out of the trunk of Heather’s car.  The rest is history.  In May 2021, FIGS became the first company ever to go public that was led by two female co-founders.

In today’s episode, Trina and Randall discuss Trina’s early life and educational pursuits, how her background in investment banking and private equity prepared her to navigate life as an entrepreneur, the future of female entrepreneurship, why outsiders are better equipped to disrupt industries, and much more.

Episode Topics:
- Pros and cons of college
- The importance of internships
- Female entrepreneurship
- Mentorship under Strauss Zelnick
- Taking the leap to become an entrepreneur
- The importance of cold calling and communication skills
- FIGS’ biggest mistakes
- Taking FIGS public on the New York Stock Exchange
- Finding funding
- Direct to consumer products
- The power of being underestimated
- FIGS’ charity initiative Threads for Threads
- And other topics…

Trina Spear is the Co-CEO and Co-founder of FIGS, a $4 billion healthcare apparel and lifestyle brand. Trina’s many accolades include being named Goldman Sachs’ 100 Most Intriguing Entrepreneurs in 2018 and 2019 and Los Angeles Entrepreneur of the Year in 2018, and in 2021 Trina made the Forbes list as one of America’s wealthiest self-made women with a net worth of $600 million.  Prior to FIGS, Trina was an associate with the Blackstone Group and spent several years in investment banking and private equity at Citigroup.  She received her BA from Tufts University and her MBA from Harvard Business School.

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