Julie Wainwright

She lost $300M, her company, and her husband in the same week.

Julie Wainwright graduated from Purdue and worked her way up from brand management at Clorox to leading tech startups in the ‘90s.

She became CEO of Reel.com, then took over Pets.com… one of the most infamous busts of the dot-com bubble.

In just 268 days after its IPO, Pets.com collapsed, burning through $300M.

The media had a field day, and Julie? She lost her job and her husband in the same week.

For years, she struggled. No one would hire her. Investors weren’t interested. She thought she was done.

But in 2011, at age 53, she found inspiration watching a friend drop $5,000 in a brick-and-mortar consignment store.

The idea? An online luxury resale marketplace. But with authentication.

eBay had resale, Sotheby’s had high-end, but no one had built a platform where people could safely buy and sell authenticated designer fashion.

So, she built The RealReal. 250,000 items sold in the first two years.

Raised over $300M in venture capital.

Hit a $1.3B valuation at IPO in 2019.

But success came with challenges.

High operational costs, lawsuits over authentication, and shifting consumer habits led to a decline.

In 2022, she stepped down.

Did she retire? Not a chance.

At 67, she’s back with Ahara, a startup revolutionizing personalized nutrition.

She said it: “I'll probably work for the rest of my life because I love it.”