Hardware Podcasts

Stitch Fix: Katrina Lake (2018)

How I Built This · 16 Sept 2019 · 52m

What this episode covers

Katrina Lake, founder of Stitch Fix, explains how she pivoted from consulting and venture capital to building an online personal shopping service that combines human stylists with data science. She details the early validation process involving 20 friends, the struggle to raise seed funding from skeptical Silicon Valley investors who disliked the inventory-heavy model, and the strategic decision to hire Netflix alum Eric Colson to build recommendation algorithms. Lake also discusses the challenges of being a female founder in a male-dominated VC ecosystem, the eventual public offering, and the company's growth to over 3 million customers.

Most relevant to

founders before launch, early-stage companies and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
Stitch Fix, Netflix, Nordstrom, Amazon, Core Performance, Chick-fil-A, U.S. Army
Products
IcePlate
Also
Eric Colson, Steve Anderson

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