How I Built This with Guy Raz Stitch Fix: Katrina Lake (2018)
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Sep 16, 2019 Katrina Lake, the founder and former CEO of Stitch Fix, shares her journey from recruiting friends for a style experiment to leading a billion-dollar online styling service. She discusses the challenges of fundraising in a male-dominated industry and how personalized shopping transformed retail. Lake highlights the innovative use of data science combined with human stylists to enhance customer experience. She also addresses the emotional toll of pitching to investors and the importance of resilience for entrepreneurs, especially women in tech.
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Early Retail Innovation Idea
- Katrina Lake, while consulting, pitched a revolutionary retail idea involving wands, a warehouse-like backroom, and personalized fitting rooms.
- The idea, presented before the iPhone, was met with disbelief but foreshadowed her future innovation.
Entrepreneurs Are Ordinary People
- Working at a VC firm, Lake realized entrepreneurs were ordinary people with ideas.
- This empowered her to pursue her own ventures instead of remaining a passive observer.
Business School as Risk Mitigation
- Katrina Lake decided to attend Harvard Business School as a calculated risk mitigation strategy.
- Her goal was to secure funding and a salary by graduation, with an MBA as a backup plan.