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How I Built This with Guy Raz

M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.831.1K Ratings

🗓️ 3 February 2020

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When she was working corporate jobs in New York City, Sarah LaFleur hated getting dressed in the morning; the choices in her closet felt overwhelming, many items didn't fit right or wore out too quickly. So in 2011 she launched a line of clothing for working women that would be simple, elegant, and well-tailored. She had no experience in fashion but partnered with a top-line designer, Miyako Nakamura, to create M.M.LaFleur. Today it's a multi-million dollar company with loyal customers from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. PLUS in our post-script "How You Built That," Taylor Mali explains how he created Metaphor Dice, which ease the pain of writing the first line of a poem. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

0:07.0

Download the app today.

0:09.0

New years is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

0:13.0

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

0:17.0

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

0:24.0

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

0:27.0

So really quick before we start the show, we are coming back to Seattle and to San Francisco for two how I built this live shows.

0:34.0

Details on the guests will be announced very soon in the next few days.

0:37.0

It's so exciting, it's hard for me not to tell you.

0:40.0

But if you want to find out more about it, please follow us on Twitter or keep checking nprpresents.org to find out more tickets.

0:46.0

We'll go on sale later this week.

0:49.0

We still continue to do trunk shows. We had revenue goals for the month, and so if we weren't meeting our revenue goals, then we would set up a trunk show, stat.

1:02.0

But online, it was just a totally different story. We could not sell our dresses.

1:07.0

I have to assume your cash reserves were getting close to running out.

1:11.0

Not only do we run out, it actually went into the negatives.

1:14.0

Our bank account, I think at one point, said like negative 2000 or something, and I didn't know you could draw down beyond zero.

1:20.0

So that was a wake up call.

1:29.0

From NPR, it's how I built this.

1:31.0

A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

1:37.0

I'm Guy Raaz, and on the show today, however relentless morning routine inspired Sarah LaFoura to build a simpler wardrobe for women, a multi-million dollar brand called MM LaFoura.

1:52.0

Back in 2004, an American psychologist named Barry Schwartz published a book called The Paradox of Choice.

2:05.0

Barry's argument, and we've talked about it before on the show, is pretty straightforward.

...

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