TL;DR: Sophia Amoruso was
a community-college dropout and former nomad who founded online retail store
Nasty Gal at age 23. At 25, she left as CEO the company, stayed on as executive
chairwoman and was named ‘America's Richest Self-Made Women’ by Forbes (2016),
Fortune 40 under 40 (2014), Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies list
(2013), Forbes 30 under 30 (2013), and Inc. 30 under 30 (2013). By age 30, she
was a success, featured on all these powerlists and her company was valued at
$350 million. At 32, this past Fall, Nasty Gal had filed for bankruptcy.
Some don’t consider Nasty
Gal as a tech company was it was just an online retailer that first started off
as an Ebay store. But Amoruso was innovative with her business. She searched
through thrift stores to find good clothes and resold them for way more than
the initial cost. Certain pieces, she would cut, fix, or restructure. Some
people flip houses, she flips clothes. Not many people were doing this and
Amoruso would sell out on Ebay and even on her own ecommerce site. Nasty Gal
became the fastest-growing retailer in the States. The business gains a large
online following through young women on social media, which exponentially grew
revenues. The New York Times even called Amoruso “The Cinderella of Tech.”
Amoruso's thoughts about an article posted about her
Last month, I saw a post
on social media, which Amoruso commented, "What a dumb ass piece"
with the link to an article on Inc. titled "Does the Failure of Nasty Gal Prove Millennials Aren't Ready to Lead?" A media publication that once titled her “30 Under 30” was now featuring
articles that discussed the falling of her business. Author Kevin Daum writes,
“The Nasty Gal is one of many Gen Y-led startups that showed early promise
before falling flat. Some would say that this example and other press-worthy
failures like [Theranos’] Elizabeth Holmes are evidence that this generation is
still too young or immature to lead well, despite a few shining outliers like
Zuckerberg and the Olsen twins” followed by a list of advice to avoid
“missteps” like Amoruso. But there has been a number of tech company founders that have become widely successful worldwide including:
Pinterest, Instagram, Dropbox, Box, Airbnb, Tumblr, Quora, Snapchat, Asana,
Stripe, Lyft, Oculus VR, Tinder, and Eventbrite.
So are millennials ready
to lead? For many entrepreneurs, failure is inevitable. There's that famous mantra within the startup world, "Fail fast, fail smart, fail often." I believe that Amoruso was extremely successful, doing things that many people her age and even older have never accomplished in their lives. She's working on a lot of new projects now: has two best-selling books, is an executive producer on a Netflix shows based on her memoir/the story of how she founded Nasty Gal, and founded a community and media company focusing on redefining success. Through her new business, she and her employees have started a foundation that awards over $100,000 grants to women in the fields of design, fashion, music, and the arts. Millennials are tech savvy and have introduced numerous
technological innovations that we used everyday. They think differently and are disrupting best practices and industries we didn't think needed change. But even those Gen X-ers who
are leaders within these organizations are leading and managing millennials or
Gen Y-ers are training them to become leaders. However, millennials are using
organizations to reinvent how they are lead and managed. They want to know that
their work has purpose, they are looking for constant feedback from their
leads, they want to focus on their strengths, and growth and development is one
the greatest drivers of millennial engagement. There are different traits
within these different generations and we have to learn how to adapt and work
best to who these people are and how they think. I think, at times, those who
criticize our generation forget who raised it. What do you think?
Amoruso, Sophia. "Starting Over After Bankruptcy and Divorce." LinkedIn. N.p., 10 Apr. 2017. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/starting-over-after-bankruptcy-divorce-sophia-amoruso>.
Daum, Kevin. "Does the Failure of Nasty Gal Prove Millennials Aren't Ready to Lead?" Inc.com. Inc., 28 Feb. 2017. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <https://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/does-the-failure-of-nasty-gal-prove-millennials-arent-ready-to-lead.html>.
Perlroth, Nicole. "Naughty in Name Only." The New York Times. The New York Times, 24 Mar. 2013. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/25/technology/nasty-gal-an-online-start-up-is-a-fast-growing-retailer.html?_r=0>.
Shontell, Alyson. "The Most Powerful Millennials In Tech." Business Insider. Business Insider, 03 Nov. 2014. Web. 22 Apr. 2017. <http://www.businessinsider.com/most-powerful-millennials-under-35-in-tech-2014-11?op=1%2F#w-see-who-the-most-important-up-and-comers-are-in-nyc-tech-31>.
Hi Danielle - Great post. I think that yes, millennial have the chance to lead. However, with this we must consider that employees are either going to be of equal age or older which will have an impact on authority. I believe that Sophia and the Nasty Gal brand could've remained successful if she had altered the clothing available on her site and store to reflect current trends. Further, I recently came across an article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/haydn-shaw/millennials-are-motivated_b_7446790.html) concluding that millennials are motivated by money. I conclude that this is due to the difficulties that graduates make once graduating university. In order to become financially stable and independent they are required to work a job in order to create funds rather than searching for a career. Overtime, I think that millennials will be able to lead more efficient and effectively with societies respect.
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