Rent The Runway's Jenn Hyman At The HIBT Summit

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2018

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our first episode from the How I Built This Summit features Jenn Hyman, co-founder of Rent The Runway, a designer clothing rental service that pulls in $100 million a year. When Jenn sat down with Guy Raz for a live interview at the Summit in San Francisco, she shared her long term strategy for launching the company in phases, plus her advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Every Thursday until mid-December, we'll be releasing episodes from the Summit – so keep checking your podcast feed.

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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 Year's 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.
0:30.0	Hey, it's Guy here, and today I'm super excited because we're releasing the very first bonus episode from the how I built this summit that happened last month in San Francisco.
0:41.0	And we asked a few entrepreneurs who we already interviewed on the show to come back and talk more about how to build a business, a kind of masterclass from the people who've been in the trenches.
0:52.0	Today's episode is with Jennifer Hyman, co-founder of the Fashion Brand Rent the Runway.
0:57.0	And if you haven't heard Jen's original episode on the show or the story of Rent the Runway, I definitely recommend listening to that first.
1:05.0	But if you can't wait, here's a brief sketch.
1:08.0	Jen came up with the idea for a company that would rent out designer clothes to women for special occasions.
1:14.0	And back when she started out, she had to convince designers to get on board, including the iconic designer, Diane Von Furst,
1:21.0	Jen and her co-founder hustled their way into a meeting with Diane, who was initially cool to the idea.
1:29.0	But eventually, Diane Von Furst and Berg and hundreds of other designers signed on.
1:34.0	And today, Rent the Runway does $100 million in annual revenue.
1:39.0	And one of the lessons Jen Hyman learned along the way was how to introduce a disruptive idea slowly.
1:47.0	Here's my conversation with Jen Hyman in front of a live audience of how I built this summit in San Francisco.
1:54.0	Alright.
1:57.0	So something we didn't really get into the podcast episode is that you actually had a much bigger, fully formed idea.
2:04.0	Because initially Rent the Runway was a place you could go and rent a fancy dress for a gout, for a ball, or some kind of fancy event.
2:12.0	And that's what it was at the beginning, but you actually had the idea of what it would be fully formed in your mind already at the beginning, right?
	...

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