Rebecca Minkoff - Entrepreneur, Podcaster & Best-selling Author | Unlocking Creativity, Courage, and Success

What does fearless mean for you and how do you turn seer into a strength? You turn fear into a strength by… What does it take to turn a dream into a globally recognized fashion brand? Rebecca Minkoff, along with her brother Uri, built their brand from the ground up, starting with a simple t-shirt design that captured national attention. A mental fortitude you need to have as an entrepreneur, because at the end of the day it's your company, right? It's you, and no other employee you ever have is going to care as much as you. Now, with stores across the world and a product line ranging from handbags to jewelry, Rebecca Minkoff has become a household name in fashion, but the story goes deeper. There is a obsession with building without figuring out profitability. I'm of the mindset that not every business should or needs funding. We believe that women who are in positions who have made it should get paid for their time to mentor and advise other women. Rebecca isn't just revolutionising fashion, she's on a mission to empower women through her RM Superwomen platform, encouraging women to live boldly and fearlessly. In this episode, we dive into Rebecca's journey from a bold idea to a worldwide brand, and how she's using her influence to create real change. And the real question, what drives her to keep breaking barriers, both in fashion and in life? What does fearless mean for you and how do you turn seer into a strength? You turn fear into a strength by doing the thing that scares you, doing the thing that holds you back. Build your business to be profitable from the beginning. You won't want to miss this conversation. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast. Our HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show. And I'm happy they are because I'm a huge believer in HubSpot. I've used it for everything from this show to all the companies that I've ever run in the past. And I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs in the audience, and let me ask you a question. If you're an entrepreneur, you have to figure out marketing. Either you're doing yourself or you have a team. And do you ever feel like your marketing team is just running from fire to fire? Creating endless content, launching campaigns, generating leads, scoring them, nurturing them. And just when you put out that one fire, three more pop up. These days, marketers have never been more spread than. That's where HubSpot and its new built-in AI assistant breeze come in. When you combine the power of marketing hub and content hub, every quarter can be your best quarter. Imagine AI that instantly remixes your content for any channel. Smart leads scoring that automatically spot lights or hottest prospects. And an AI-powered analytic suite that puts all your KPIs in one place. Plus AI co-pilots and agents that handle those time-consuming tasks that you've been juggling. Stop spreading yourself thin. Marketing is tough enough. Building a business is tough enough. Stop putting out fires. Start making major moves with HubSpot. Visit HubSpot.com slash marketers to learn more. Rebecca, you kicked off your career with the I Love New York T on Jenna Elfman. Now you've dove into podcasts. You dove into the public eye. You've dabbled in the metaverse. How is your idea of air quotes making it in a fashion changed since that first big break? So I guess what people might not know or assumptions they have about that first big break is when you get that break, you're making a lot of money or you're suddenly rich, right? But I think the big break there was definitely not that. I was definitely delinquent on my rent. Having my roommate confront me in the hallways as I kind of like snuck around her hours-wise. The big break was momentum and wind behind my sales, right? It was that stores would not hang up on me when I called them. The second big, I think, milestone was I didn't have to call my bank to check my balance to see if I could go out to dinner. You know, I remember that being a big milestone of like, I still memorized Chase's phone number because I would call every time I had a dinner like, is there enough money in my account, right? You couldn't log on to the app that exists now. And so I think that we all view success from very different places. And I think, you know, for the longest time I thought making it was really all about how much money you have. Now making it for me is how much time do I get to spend with my family, where I'm not thinking about work. And it's more of a mental shift because for so long I'd say with my first three children, you know, the struggles and challenges of the business were such that even during bath time, bedtime vacations in my mind, I'm somewhere else. And so to me, the luxury is no. In my mind, I'm with you, I leave my phone, we go do whatever we do. And I come back to when I come back to and that's okay. And so I think that as I've gotten older, those like markers of success has really shifted from what you think. Like I just need to make enough money to like go on vacation. Like that all it all changes. You know, it's interesting because it doesn't matter how much money you make. You can always find ways to be distracted and not present. And I'm actually curious what it's actually, you know, I don't have kids yet. And I thought about this a lot and I can't wait to have kids. But I keep telling myself I'm in the season of like building right now. And the second I have kids, I'm going to devote attention to them. And I'm building right now so that I can devote attention. Do you feel like having a family change your perspective or was it like a forced almost? Okay. So I'm realizing that there's unlimited levels to this game. This is where I want to focus my attention now. I think it's not as black and white. I think with my first child, I was very cognizant of the fact that I wanted to be a very present mom and being in New York and seeing a lot of mothers who farm out their children to full-time child care. I didn't want that to be my story, you know. So I made sure he was brought to me for lunch time. When I was breastfeeding him every day, I made sure I left the office at six. I can't tell you that I didn't work after he went to bed or I didn't work some time on the weekends. But I think, you know, I wanted to test my own boundaries and say, what was uncomfortable or comfortable for me versus what I'm seeing around me on social media? And with each child, I had to do that and the boundaries shifted. It got different. And I think that when you are in the season of building, it's impossible to not have your mind on that. I don't, you know, and then when you add a kid to it, it's like both and, right? Yeah. And I think that the biggest signifier and shift that I was able to achieve is when we sold the company two years ago, a lot of the things that normally would keep me up and night or someone else's problem. And I'm still there and I'm happily paid employee. And I'm probably working harder in different ways than I was before. But I get to focus on the things that I love, the things that I do best. And the stressors that would be like, how do we make payroll? Or how are we going to, you know, get the next, you know, the eerie canal? It's clogged. How are we going to get our things off the boat? Whatever it is is not my problem. And I just said, you know what? I sold that someone else's problem and they have to deal with that. And so that's taken a lot of the mental load. I spent 20 years building. So it's a different, it's a different era for me. I'm so curious when you look at, you know, even that like sort of overnight success, which is never overnight, how many iterations or how many sort of failures did you go through before that break? Oh, you're always failing. There's the break is like, I would like and I think that I don't know where we get this misconception. But like entrepreneurship is like, you're dead in the water most of the time. And then, you know, then you get this wind at your sales. And it's like, how fast can you get that boat to go before you're dead in the water again? And I think it's a series of that. And so the failures are everything from, you know, no quality control with our first overseas factory that put Kate's paid hardware and Rebecca Minkoff bags. I didn't have quality control either. You know, my customer got to give me a nickname. Quebec of a spank off for that one. To, you know, a couple of years ago, we had changed over to a new warehouse. We didn't do a stress test and went into Q4, you know, Black Friday. Someone put in a Chinese character into the zip code. It clogged and messed up 10,000 people's orders. Like in there. Yeah. So I sent 10,000 free gifts to angered Black Friday customers who, you know, I ruined their Christmas or whatever. Um, then I got and then I got shit for apologizing and taking ownership for that. Like, and I was like, I, I can't win here. So I think, you know, then there was COVID, which we almost went out of business, you know, 70% of our business overnight evaporated. So I think, um, I am never not surprised by holes in the boat now. And I think it's just a matter of resilience and do you get back up? And some of the people tap out, they're like, can't handle this too much. I'm not here for this party. And it's like, sometimes I feel like half the rigs. And I'm here as I just got, I just showed back up. Yeah. I know. Actually, you know, I'm thinking about it now when, so obviously you are set to do housewives. And that's going to be massive exposure. But all the things that you've gone through in your career, it doesn't matter what happens now with, with housewives with whatever drama on the show. Like entrepreneurs, the mental, the mental calluses they build. It's just, it's just next level what you've gone through. So Bravo fanbase is huge. People are going to love you. People are going to hate you. But the anxiety of screwing up 10,000 bags, I think is slightly more than some people talking shit on Instagram. So I think you're going to be good. Well, it was funny because I can't share too much about what happens. But, you know, you can see from the trailer, you know, someone's giving me some shit. And, you know, I wasn't really bothered by it. Like it didn't hurt my feelings. I wasn't upset. And some of the girls were like, you know, she bullied you. Or, you know, what are you going to do about it? And I was like, this is nothing. Do you know what I've been through? Like, I've got 20 years of like really messed up shit, like messing up 10,000 orders for people's Christmas and ruining, you know, Santa, that's harder to recover from than someone's, you know, snarky comment. A thousand percent. If you were going, you look back at your journey, hindsight's always 2020. This is a corny question, but you'll get where I'm going with this. If you were going to make like an I love blank shirt, based on the one thing that has really been central in your journey, building everything that you've built, all the different seasons of your life, what would that shirt say? What was that thing that mindset, that that hack, that framework that really took you to where you are? I think it's the title of my book, Fearless. You know, a lot of people see the title and they're like, you know, am I going to read this book and not feel fear? And I say, no, you're going to feel fear, but you do it anyways. You know, it's the fact that you acknowledge that it's scary, that it's hard, that it's tough, that you have to take crazy risks and really put yourself on the line, but you just, you just try it, right? Whether or not you're failing publicly or not, you know, like a lot of people, especially with going on the show, were like, aren't you scared? And I was like, yeah, I'm scared. I don't know when I'm getting myself into. I've heard these fans can be quite terrible, but like, I said to my husband the day that I signed, you know, the contract, I said, I can predict our life if we don't do this. But I can't predict our life. We do. And that's fun. And he was like, you're fucking crazy. But okay. Well, now he's going to be along for the ride to some degree as well. So he made sure he wasn't at all. So really, that's so funny. You mentioned, I mean, when you were building, you spoken about education and connection. And the fact that, I mean, you consider yourself an outsider when you started in fashion, correct? Yeah, yes. So talking about the concepts of education, connection, being entrenched in an industry, why do you think that you were successful in spite of these things? Or is that actually an advantage? You know, I'll never know that other path in my sliding door's life. But I think that, you know, I came to realize, you know, too late in the game, oh, if you go to this school and you meet these teachers and they have this connection, they get you the job there, or at the magazine, and then you're the intern, and you know, you could kind of map out the ladder that a lot of successful designers took. And I had been always entrepreneurial. I remember when my mom used to sell, go with me here, it was the 80s. Cast covers, right? They were like, so that the fabric cast covers at the flea market in San Diego. And I set up my table next to her. I was probably six or seven. And I was selling puffy paint and sweatshirts. I didn't sell anything. But all week, I'd prepare my merch to go sell next to her. And it was so exciting for me to be able to like, think that I might sell something. So I think that mindset had had for a long time. And I just couldn't conceive of working any longer than I had worked. I moved to New York. I had an internship. It was paid. When I say paid, it was minimum wage. It was probably three bucks an hour. And you know, six months in said, you should hire me. I'm doing the work of an employee. And she said, you're right. And she hired me and paid me six bucks now. Or so I think after working there for like over three years, I just was like, I'm working really hard. You know, call an IEVT. I wouldn't say I had any ego then. But whatever it was that made me go like, if I'm going to work this hard, I'm going to, I want to be for me, right? And I just had that thing in my soul that was like, I have to start this. Again, and doesn't matter what comes my way, I was essentially not homeless like had like no money. Like I could have gone home to my parents in Florida at any moment. But I had, I had many times where I couldn't pay my bill. I had nowhere to sleep at night and didn't have a place to stay. And I was just like, I'm going to keep going. I'm keeping going. My mom would call me and be like, it's okay, just come home. Please come home. And I'd be like, no, I'm going to figure this out. I'm sleeping on this person's couch tonight. I found a random room on 10th Avenue in 28th Street. I'm not allowed to use any room except the bedroom, but I'm going to do it. You know, I just, I just had to keep going. And I think some people have that and some people don't. Do you think I've, I wrestle with that particular point a lot because I've heard some people say very, very successful investors say like entrepreneurship is built into the person. So it was actually, it was a very unpopular opinion that one investor had. It's like, if you, if I'm going to invest in you, show me your lemonade stand or show me the, like the cards that you are betraged in grade three or grade six. Show me all the, or show me the lawn care business. And it's actually a really tough pill for me to swallow because my parents weren't entrepreneurial. And I didn't come from, I worked nine to five. And but there was a point where my mind shifted. And I think that. But I also feel like I went through, like, like, mentally was very difficult to get that mind shift. But it sounds like you almost were from a young age entrepreneurial. And you dabble less in the nine to five w two, which I think wrong with that, but less than that. And more in the, I need to build my own thing. Do you, first of all, do you believe that most? Because it's never going to be black and white. But most entrepreneurs are born entrepreneurial. And then again, two part question would hate doing what it is relevant. So our most entrepreneurs born entrepreneurial. And secondly, if yes, how do you train yourself to be more entrepreneurial? I think that I don't know that it's like born in you. But I think that it sprouts at different ages of people's lives. Like the some of the women on my podcast I meet. It happens later in life, right? Where they're just like, okay, I figured this out. I've done the Wall Street thing. I've got enough money saved. I'm going to start my company with all the smarts I learned. But I think there's a mental fortitude you need to have as an entrepreneur. Because at the end of the day, if it's your company, right? It's you and no other employee you ever have is going to care as much as you or want to build it as much. And I think that it requires a strength that you don't know until you're in it. A mental strength that you don't know until you're in it. And if you have a partner, that can be awesome. It can also complicate things too, right? If you have different views on things. And so it's like, I'll never forget. I had a president who when I went out on my first maternity leave and I came back and I was having the baby come into the office during certain times to feed him. And by the way, that was if anyone else wanted to do that, it was a special treatment. I was giving myself like, you can all do that. And she was like, you know, it must be so nice to have your maternity leave. Like, be a free for all and you can bring your kid in. And I was like, excuse me. I come on maternity leave and everyone can do this. And the employees are the lucky ones. They get to go on maternity leave and not worry about a goddamn thing. Whereas every maternity leave I had, I'm still fucking working. And she was like, oh, sorry, you're right. I'm sorry I said that. And it was just this like thing that I just remember being like, wow, there are perks that you don't know or think that you get as an employee when it's not your business that I think when you become an entrepreneur, kind of shocking. So the person you mentioned that to you, that was a woman. That was a president. Why do you think there was such an adverse reaction to you doing that? So women in my industry that are, I would say, 10 to 20 years older than me were in another animal of an age. They were in an era of male domination. No, no hope for most women to ascend. They were treated horrifically. They had to be like men, like the bad, the bad idea of men. Like the mad, the mad men version of, yes, understood. And bad men, men, too succeed. And so she didn't get to have, you know, the space and freedom to enjoy first motherhood. She had to come back three months after and not talk about it, you know, get her work done. Stay as late as she had to stay. Could never kind of be like, I gotta go home now. I have a newborn at home. So I think that was her visceral reaction to seeing it again firsthand. But it totally changed when she had her daughter or she watched her daughter have a child. And she apologized to me and she was like, I'm so sorry. I'm seeing what my daughter is going through without the flexibility that you've given women in the workplace. And I'm really sorry I gave you a hard time. I just want to take a second and thank the HubSpot podcast now for supporting success story. Now if you enjoy success story, you're going to love other podcasts and their network like Business Made Simple hosted by Donald Miller. If you've ever wondered why some businesses take off while many struggle, Donald Miller takes the mystery out of growing your business with actionable strategies that you can implement today, whether you're trying to build a stronger team, craft a clearer message or boost your bottom line. Business Made Simple delivers the frameworks that you need to succeed. Listen to Business Made Simple wherever you get your podcast. It's actually, I think when something like that happens, we forget how recent history is. And we forget how shitty circumstances were like not that long ago. Like with people that were still working, it's not like these people are retired. Like they dealt with a lot of shit in their career and it's just, it's very sad. Because I've actually heard this, I've heard this and it's unfortunate. I've heard that from women, sometimes they get the least career help and mentorship from other women. And that seems to just be such a toxic, unfortunate circumstance. But I think that you just described it perfectly. We have to put ourselves in the shoes of what some of these individuals went through throughout their career to really understand why they're so stressed in their work environment and why they act or react a certain way. But I mean, honestly, the way to counteract that is to just have these conversations and to do more of what you're doing and to interview more incredible women leaders and talk about how they've created this workspace and the work environment. It's just amazing for everybody. I think that's really how you win and you modernize and you and you be better. And you know what, you're still going to make people on satisfied. You know, I remember this was in 20, it was definitely pre-COVID. Let's just say it was 2018. I sat all the moms in my office down. I said, what do you need to succeed? And I was aghast at some of the requests because they were like, all right, I was like, this is too crazy. Like it was like, I want you to pay me when I'm not working from home, when I have to stay home and I want you to pay for my kids daycare, if my nanny is sick, if you want me to come work. And I was like, I love all these ideas. But like, I am not the government. And I can't pay your nanny or for your daycare. If you chose, if you elected to have a child, like, you know, I can... It's tough, too, because there's a lot of expenses associated. Now then, in that case, somebody could go work for like a massive, you know, billion dollar publicly traded, even trillion dollar publicly traded company that maybe has those benefits. But there also has to be a balance between what the company can afford. And keep the lights on and how to serve the people that work for you. And that's always like, I mean, you want to talk about entrepreneurial headaches and stresses. I mean, that's one for sure. Oh my god, it's huge. I mean, even with my other company female founder collective, you know, we're a really tiny team. And at first, we wanted to extend a very long maternity leave for our employees. And then I looked at my co-opiner and said, I want to do this. But we can't afford for one of our seven employees to be out for four months. Like, we just can't, you know, so we have to scale it back. And when we get bigger, we can look at, you know, making it longer. But I think people forget, again, like you said, size of company. And the reality of what a company can afford to do at its size and stage. I think that that's, you know, something that I've thought of. And this is not just for women and maternity leave in particular. But having these super candid conversations when you, when you're hiring people so that you both know where you want to go. And you both know if you can support each other. And I think that this extends, definitely extends way beyond women. Because now people aren't staying in careers 20 years anymore. And my suggestion is make contracts for two years and then help them figure where they want to get two years from now. And just commit to each other for minimum two years. And if they want to go different job title more, you know, bigger salary, whatever it is, different company. You commit for the two years to each other. Then you help as a business leader. You help them get to where they want to go. So there's no bullshit. There's no quiet quitting. There's no all this garbage that comes with these lack, lack of candor. That's really, I think, the thing. Anyway, no, what I was going to say is a counterpoint is, you know, when my first employee quit, I felt like it was the same feeling as being broken up with. Because I was like, but we're a family. We're going to do this forever together. And even in the last year, like I had been, you know, saying to my CEO, I was like, there's eight key people. We have to hold on to the eight. They can never leave. This is our team. And one resigned and one got promoted and moved somewhere. And then we started, you know, getting in fresh eyes, fresh talent. And now I'm like, when you resign, like, great, it's an opera. Now I look at it as an opportunity. Like you get to go on. We get someone who's excited and enthusiastic. And it's made it a lot easier to be that nimble. And they're like, great, okay, good. Next, let's find an awesome person. And, you know, recently we had a ton of new team members join. And the energy is intoxicating. And it's like, oh, that's all we needed. We just needed new blood. And so it's not as scary, I think, as it used to be. I want to talk just one more. I want to talk about all the work you're doing with the podcast. Superwoman with the female founder collective. But before we go into that, I just want to, I mean, you've taken a whole bunch of risks through your career. This is like the last point on kind of like the origin story in the come up. If you could highlight one risk or one shit, almost hit the fan moment when you were building that really stood out. Outside of those 10,000 bags, because that definitely is a, it's a, but that's not a risk that went well. It would be a risk that you took that went well. I talk about it often, but we were the first brand to talk to our customer. There was no other brand in 2006 talking directly to their customer. Everything back then was through a boutique or through a store and magazines. And that was it. Social media was just beginning. Facebook was still closed to college campuses. So if you go back to that landscape, the fact that I was online talking and DMing on like the purse morham to her and taking crowdsourcing, maybe that wasn't a term. I'd literally be like, we love that purple leather you use, but can we have it with the pink zipper? And I'd be like, great. I need 60 of you to come into an order and I'll go uptown and I'll buy the leather and I'll run your credit cards personally and do it. And they were all like, we're all in. And so I think that the amount of shit we got for talking to our customer, you like our biggest retailers at the time, Sacks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Nimen Marcus, were like, you can't talk to your customer. Like that's beneath you. Like the designer needs to stay above it all in their ivory tower untouchable. And you look like desperate talking to her. And I was like, I think, you know, my brother and I, who is my co-founder, we think we think this is a good thing. And like go with us here and they're like, we're not going with you. You know, we're even working with influencers. Again, we were told like, why are you working with these sea-list people? There's a lot of like a leotism and I guess it's fashion design. It's a, listen, there's still a layer that shall not be penetrated by the likes of me. There was a lot of elitism. There was a lot of rules and we just didn't, A, we didn't have a choice. And B, we just felt like this was, this was the future. Was talking to your customer, engaging with content creators, and really building a more democratic community, I guess. I love that. I think that's such a smart. And it's so funny how you perceive that as a risk. Because I look at that as the least risky thing you could possibly do for your business. I look at that as almost like the de facto when you're a startup. Well, now, yeah, that's kind of like the playbook. 20 years ago, it wasn't. It's very interesting. Okay. Female founder collective, you have over, I mean, when I did some research, 9,000 members, do you have more than that now? It's obviously. Yeah, so we've structured the community in two ways. We have a free membership for those who can't quite afford yet to pay. So that's about 25,000 people to participate in that. And then the 9,000, yes, is like our private community that we have where we're going real deep on education. So my co-founder, Ali and I really felt that the missing link for a lot of founders is all the nitty gritty ugly shit of business. And can we get women that have done it and succeeded to teach these like modules to other women? So whether it's in person, zooms, you know, and then the community itself where you can go ask anyone anything, you know, what's the best AI to use or, you know, what's the best CRM platform? And you can really go deep with other women who are probably going to give you a much better recommendation than, you know, searching for yourself. What is the sort of the one universal problem concern repeated post that comes up again and again and again and again and it's all women founders. So what's happening that you just want to put out to any woman who's building something incredible right now that you see repeated? I see that due to the last, I'd say maybe five to 10 years of raising money, right? Now you see women are also raising money. The we all know the percentage is 3% of women get funding. But I'm of the mindset that not every business should or needs funding. And there's too much this desire to be like, I raised this and therefore I'm a success. No, you're not. You just raised money. You're now beholden to investors. You sold a big chunk of your company way too early. And there's this obsession with building without figuring out profitability. And trust me, we were there. We were in the raise raise raise build doesn't matter. And then when sentiment changes and investors are like, are you profitable? Oh, we need to be profitable. Cool. That's going to take us five, you know, five, 10 years to figure out. Like build your business to be profitable from the beginning, you know? Like there's nothing wrong with slower instead of your growth or build your business to have a balance of like profitability and allow you lifestyle, right? Mobility. And instead I'm meeting too many women are like, I'm trying to raise. I'm trying to raise and building and I'm just like, I'm frankly, I'm just like, I think I think they're all just looking at what they saw the last five, 10 years is that's the only way to build a business. Well, I think you could actually fall into a trap. So if you know the numbers of how many women actually successfully raised, which are horrible, and those numbers shouldn't be the numbers that they are, but they are the numbers that they are. So say it's, I was actually at this conversation with with Julia Borstein. And it was again, it's like two, three percent. It was like really bad. It's almost like when you hear the number, you're like, no, no, that can't be right. But when if I was a woman entrepreneur and I was looking at that number, and I also tied into the Silicon Valley, everybody's raising, I would give up before I started, because not only do I have, you know, it's not only like a 99% failure rate, but I have a two or three percent chance to go raise money and everybody's raising money. So what, so you have to like shift the lens, shift the paradigm of entrepreneurship. So you understand, okay, it's super fucking shitty that these are the numbers, but there's other ways to build businesses that I would actually say not just women should adopt all entrepreneurs should adopt. But I think that again, if you go into it and you look at those numbers, I don't want, I don't want great women entrepreneurs to give up before they even start just because they're getting in their own head. Yeah, I'm not saying you should give up, but I, you know, the amount of women I meet, like I'm making clothing for tall women and I'm raising money. I'm like, no one's gonna invest in that. That's not a huge hockey stick of scale, you know, open a great boutique, open a great e-commerce site, sell on TikTok shops, you know, small batch. And I've had the pleasure and honor of meeting so many women who are on, again, on my podcast, but they've done, you know, pink lily, over 100 million in sales, never has taken a dime, you know, I think there's some really exceptional Monique Rodriguez, one of the largest women of color exits in history, like she didn't, she didn't take money or try and raise to scale. And by the time money came to her, she was still valuable and profitable that her multiples are like mind-blowing. Have you had Nancy twine on? I got to make an intro. Oh, you have had, okay, she lives in Florida now. So I know she's like, she's, she's, I accept your girl crush on her. And she's awesome. She's absolutely awesome. No, when, when you just started talking through some of the people and you show you a lot of people, she was gonna be the third name I threw out there. No, she's great. She's great. You know, the podcast is called Superwoman to play on that. What's your personal kryptonite? And how do you deal with it? I think that my personal, wait, kryptonite is the thing that we can do, right? Yes, yes, yes, you got it. Sometimes I say, and it's like, that's the thing you take that gives you the superpower, but I have that. No, no, no, that's like, that's like radioactive something or whatever, get bitten by a spy. Yeah, that's not the growth in life. My kryptonite, um, I feel lately that I am very, I don't, I feel like we're in this time of like, I have ADD and I have ADD. Look at me, I have ADD. I don't necessarily believe in that label, but I definitely find myself distracted when I'm, you know, I have a, I have a laundry list of things that are on my calendar, and then I have all these things that pop into my head that I like have a big notebook of lists that I keep, but I definitely feel like getting a task through to completion in one focused amount of time is hard for me right now because I have a lot of things going on and, and that is probably my kryptonite right now. So you have, so that's shiny objects syndrome basically. Yeah, well, I got literally typing an email and I'm like, oh, I just had an idea and then I'll just go hop and do that or, you know, I mean, but that's, so it's interesting. So let's just touch on that because that serves you to some degree because you're always creative, you're always thinking, but it can also be a detriment if it takes you away from the main thing. And even before we start recording, like Scott, like, how did you grow your podcast? I'm like, this is it. This is all, this is, I'm all in on this right now at this particular season of my life. So just by virtue of, this is how I identify myself as a podcast, which by the way took a long time to get to the point where I would say, this is what I do for a living. But I think that, I think that you have to have a balance, but I'm curious how you sort of manage doing the main thing very, very well, while also being a creative and having all these other ideas that could contribute to the main thing that you want to build. But you don't know when it's actually going to help it, hurt it, take it to the next level. It could be six months, five years where a creative idea actually helps the business. A lot of it is trial and error. And be like, what? I was going to say, like, what's your, I'm going to try this for a little bit. And then this, this is what has to happen for me to continue to put energy into it or to kill it. That thought process. I mean, it differs. So like, we just, we have a collaboration coming out that was so much work with the biggest movie that's going to wicked is coming out. It's, it's the most money that NBC has ever spent on a movie period. And when you see what the work and effort they put into the film, it's incredible. We were chosen as like the bag merch partner for launch. So like, we have two bags. Now, when you go, oh, we're launching two bags. It seems like a no brainer. It was so much work to get it out there to sort of circumvent our usual production line and make, you know, a limited addition. And I at the end of the day, it was like, is anyone who sees the movie going to need this bag? I don't know, you know, but, but I wanted to try it. And even though if you add up the hours of work and the team involved versus the amount of bags we made, you're not going to get your money back just on that, right? On the salaries versus how many limited addition bags we made because they had to be special and sell out and whatever. But does that get you in someone's mind somewhere further? Whether it's in the media or the customer, that is sort of untangible. So sometimes these things to me are in intangible things that I just have to hope are working, right? I guess another example is for the longest time I spoke all over anything you asked me to speak on women, whatever I didn't charge any money. You know, and I was like, at some point, I'll feel like I am worth X. And when that happens, I'm not going back. And I'll say no to a lot of things because they're not paying. And I remember that shift. I asked for a number that maybe want to throw up and I got it. And I was like, great, we're here now. And so I think it's just, you know, and then there have been times where it hasn't worked things I've tried. And so I think it's just for me, each area has its own timelines, you know, getting a bag to market takes nine months. I spoke for free for three or four years before I ever asked anyone to pay me. So I think or or like with our first attempt at TikTok, I tried everything, right? I tried the dancing. I tried the funny thing. I tried the college advice. I tried the like, let me show you my back. Nothing worked. Scott. And I was like, all right, TikTok. I'm fucking down with you. I'm taking a break. But now I have a woman on my team who's like, this is the approach and this is what we're going to try. And I'm like, great, let's try it again. So like I'll sometimes come back to things just to, you know, I want to take a second and thank Range Rover Sport for supporting today's episode. 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We had our first NFT, the first female fashion designer in the States to do an NFT. The first launch sold out in nine minutes. Huge success. You know, we went back for it again. Also really successful. Third time I was like, this is it, man, we've hit the mother load. Like I watched the day that we launched like the industry tank. And I was like, all right, we're going to be done with this. But when you saw the numbers, you saw forever 21 made what $2 million on one little hat, I was like, we can make a bag. And we can sell $2 million worth of products on Roblox too. And we didn't. And that's okay. You know, you've said before that a no is free. So what's the best no that you've ever gotten? I think that the best no we've ever gotten was we wanted to do a show that was open to the public. This was in 2015, I believe. No one was opening their fashion weeks to the public. We wanted to cast influencers, which they had been accepted as content creators, but no one would dare put them in a fashion show. And we had to appeal to the not only to the city of New York, but the like the Soho district, which was full of people who were like, I'm an actress. I have to run my lines. And I can't have the crowds there distracting me. So we literally went into a little college classroom. We pitched to these people. We'd hear all the reasons why like I need to be able to walk my dog in the morning. And you're going to be setting up to the actress. And they were so happy like unanimously. No, you cannot close down this one block of the street for a day to do your thing. We had a store on the street, which is why we could even get that meeting. And I just remember being like, yeah, we're not done. We know people in the city. And so we were able to get, you know, someone above this like group of angry tenants, Soho tenants to like bypass and approve. And the hurdles to do that show were obnoxiously overwhelming. But when we did the show, just break breaking so many barriers and boundaries, having 5,000 people show up was just this feeling I wish you could bottle. That really felt like we pushed through every single hurdle that had been thrown at us from government to city to parking to whatever it was and made it happen. It was it was really cool. I love that. But on the flip side of that same same same idea of no, those were knows that you overcame. And that's such a good feeling. But also as an entrepreneur, saying no is sometimes very important to respect your time and your energy and whatnot. So how do you decide what's your framework for saying yes, saying no. I mean, you must have one because people hit you up all the time, new ideas, new concepts. And I think that this sort of plays back into that shiny object syndrome. So it's useful to a point, but then it's not. So how do you think through these problems? I think many of my nose are tied up in boundaries, but it's also tied up on how much research have you done. If you're going to stand in front of me and meet me and go, how did you get your start? Like no, like that's online, right? Like ask me something that I that's actionable that I can do for you in an email or an intro or whatever. And I'll tell that to a lot of people. And then sometimes I just have to get more information, you know, I'm pitched all the time to invest. And my thesis now is if I can and this is no like no shade to any anyone, man or woman asking for money, like I am in a season of spending money on my four children right now. And you know, I'm really not investing because these people are really expensive humans that I that I brought into the world. And so it's kind of like, is that the best use of my funds right now? I need an ROI in one year, not 10. And unless it's something wildly, you know, crazy that everyone has to get in on. So I just think I run it through my own filters, depending on what the ask is. But you have filters. And that's the most important you have filters. And you set these. Yeah. Yeah. And one of the things that we started with female founder collective, we call it the north is we believe that women who are in positions who have made it should get paid for their time to mentor and advise other women. So we've set up a marketplace of women. Incredible accomplished women. It's it's find your north.co. But you know, now I'm just like you want time with me. Here's my link. You know, like I I'm giving back till I'm blue in the face with our nonprofit and and you know, there needs to be a little bit of a like again, a filter or a boundary to like, I can't just let you pick my brain. I don't have 15 minutes free to pick my brain as much as I would love that come to one of my events, listen to my podcast. You know what I mean? Like, it's out there. Yeah. I think that's very important. And I think that that keeps you saying like you say yes. And when you're in a season of building, and I'm sure there's like different quotes around this, but you know, maybe like 20 to 25, maybe late 20, say yes to everything. But then when you start to make it, when you start to have success, it is important to set boundaries because also just to sort of inject a different perspective, if you aren't happy with the work that you're doing, if you're jumping on a Zoom call to give someone some advice and you're just dreading it because you're burnt out because you're saying yes to everything, you're also not showing up in your best self and you're also not helping them. So I think it's very important to set those those boundaries in as an entrepreneur because you get so much, you get so much thrown at you. The last thing I am super curious to understand because you've done this successfully and you will have to continue doing this successfully is putting yourself out in the public and having just eyes looking at you and what you're building. And you that was sort of like the initial like moment that brought you into the public spotlight. So this is not new for you. But then even with real housewives, how how do you leverage that? How do you harness it? How do you help it with your own goals? And it's not like a perfect process. We don't pretend that it's not going to be a little bit chaotic, especially with again, Bravo fans and how crazy they are sometimes. But there has to be some thought process you went through when you went on this show and it's like this is going to be a net positive in my life for X reason. And that's at the extreme level. But also entrepreneurs that speak on stage put themselves out there on a micro level. They can take some lessons from this as well. I think depending on what it is you want to accomplish, some founders can just be behind the scenes and you never know or hear from them. And I think that's phenomenal. In my case, I am here of my customer because of her. She looks to me for you know, that personal connection that we started with. And that means showing up visually and audio and on TV. And so, you know, I'll never forget. I think it was 2018, maybe 2017, where my brother was like, we're turning the camera to you. And I was like, no, I just want to be the designer in my like, yeah, I'll talk to everyone. Smile. She'll see me at trunk shows, but like, I don't want it to be this. And he was like, it's time. And I was like, oh my god, I can't believe what I have to do. And the first many times I had to do the selfie, I was like wanted to throw up. But now it's like second nature. And I think the decision to go on Housewives was we're about to celebrate 20 years to be able to have my age, demo customer see me in their homes once a week, see another side of me. You get a lot of sides of me on our brand, on my podcast, from my book, from my speaking. There's another side. And does that forge and even deeper connection. And again, I was like, why wouldn't I do this? And I don't have to approach it with I'm hungry and starving. And this is my one thing. And if it goes away, I don't have it. And I don't feel that most of the women approached being on the show because of that either they're all they're all great entrepreneurs and have their own businesses. But I just thought, you know what, as long as I know that I was me the whole time and I didn't become someone that disappoints someone else or is not who they think of me as, then I know that I that I gave it I did it with integrity, I guess. I love that. And then the last thing, you know, you have a book called Fearless. Everyone's scared of something. Obviously, what does Fearless mean for you and how do you turn fear into a strength? You turn fear into a strength by doing the thing that scares you, doing the thing that holds you back. And I think I talk about it as a muscle. You learn to use it and get stronger and stronger at it. And again, 75% of the time it might end up in failure. But it's, do you get back up? Do you not wallow in it? Does your wallowing time shorten? You know, the things that I'm scared of today are very different than the things I was scared of 10 years ago in that shift. You know, today I'm I'm a gassed as a mother with all the crazy stuff that trafficking of children or, you know, shooting up in schools. Those are my fears. You know, I don't have business fears. I don't have risks that we take in the company that scare me anymore because I think we've tried so many things that I'm like, what's the worst that can happen? You know, my business almost went out of business. I think when you confront that, like, what else could possibly go wrong? It's pretty much it. And then you realize like even if that happens, well, I'm going to wake up tomorrow. Right. I'm going to wake up and I'll start something else or all, you know, do, you know, go get a job. So I think that for me having faced the worst case scenario of like, okay, this isn't going to last. Like now the fears are just normal, I guess mom fears. I love that. And those are good fears to have. Those are good fears that should never, those fears will never, ever go away. They're not like business fears. I know with my mom. I still think she stresses out. My mom is still stressing out. She's like, you need to build you a fence and you don't have curtains yet. And they're going to be taking the paparazzi are coming in your dear into your home. I'm like, well, no, just chill out. No one knows where I live. Okay. If you wanted to, we spoke about a lot. What's one lesson or one, you know, words of wisdom that you could tell your younger self that we didn't speak about today. We talked a lot about fearlessness. And I think that early on I cared a lot about what, what the elite would think of me, what the industry would think, you know, would I be a joke to my peers? And that really stopped me from going, I would go in and take the risk, but it was with that baggage. And I feel like how much more risk would I have taken if I didn't care? Or how much better could I have been if I was like, no, this is the future guys, you're coming on board or not. And not like, I'm sorry, we have to try this thing called talking to our customer. I know it sounds crazy. You know, or like, it sounds ridiculous now, but at my fashion shows, we would have to sit editors didn't want to look at influencers. So I had to put celebrities and editors across each other and then influencers in their own section because they could not be looked at with the eyes of an editor, you know, and it was just like that dumb shit. I should have been like, fuck you. Here's the future. Don't come to my show or not, you know? Yeah, just less, like less apologizing for doing what you know is right. I think that's a good, very good lesson. Where do you want to send people? I mean, you have a podcast, you have a community, you have a book, where can they get everything? Okay, here we go. At Rebecca Minkoff, Instagram, at Becky Minkoff from my personal Instagram, my book, Fearless, The New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Encourage, and Success, wherever you go, Audible as well. My podcast, Super Women with Rebecca Minkoff, wherever you listen to your podcast, it's available. And Female Founder Collective, if you're a woman-owned business, and you feel like you need a community and great access to incredible women, femalefoundercollective.com.