Rent the Runway is one of those ideas you should have thought of first. But while the concept seems like a slam dunk — an infinite closet of outfits for customers who want to wear it once — the road was extremely bumpy for co-founder and CEO Jennifer Hyman.
The challenges were epic. A global pandemic, which could have been an existential event. An IPO pop which disappeared almost overnight, precipitating a credit crisis. A crossroads when she had drifted away from day-to-day and her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Even coming to terms with something as fundamental as understanding the company's DNA.
"Now, millions of women are renting clothes, whereas there were zero women renting clothes when I had this vision in 2008,” Hyman told me for This is Working. "I believe in this more ever."
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This Is Working with Daniel Roth