Pivoting from Chief of Staff to Founder
"The way we tested our idea was to run concept ads. We used stock images and some copy, and put it on Facebook. We got insane click-throughs."
On lessons learned from early experience at Uber
For operational changes, you think you can do one thing and it will create a big step change within your business. But at Uber, when we were optimizing markets, it was actually a lot of little changes that added up incrementally. In every step of the funnel, if you could do something a little bit better, you had a better end result.
On launching Frankly Apparel
We did 80 interviews with women. We asked, "What's your relationship with shopping? How do you think about your clothes? How do you think about your bras?" The way we tested our idea [for braless apparel] was to run concept ads. We used stock images and some copy that I wrote, and we put it on Facebook. We started getting insane click-throughs.
On launching with Kickstarter
We knew we wanted to do things on a pre-order basis. It helps with cashflows, but it's also more environmentally friendly. You're not making a ton of sizes in the wrong color and having those not sell. Kickstarter helped us facilitate the pre-order process. And, Kickstarter backers are trained to wait for product.
On the rise of the Chief of Staff position
If there's someone you admire and you really want to work for them and they don't have a Chief of Staff already, just reach out.
On whether or not to pursue an MBA
If you are going to business school, know what you're getting out of it. If you don't have your top two or three priorities set, you'll have weeks go by where you're like, "What did I just do with my time?"