These notes were taken on a short article published in 2018 by the Yale School Of Management. The article contains a Q&A with Tracy Gardner, who I know to be someone Todd Snyder – the now eponymous designer who worked alongside Gardner and Jenna Lyons at J Crew – has referred to as a genius of merchandising, which is what prompted me to search for more information about her.
The article is a quick enough read, but nonetheless, here are the main points further (and faithfully) distilled for time’s sake. What’s written here has been taken from Gardner’s responses.
On Startups, Fear, Leadership, And Teams
- If you want to start your own company, you have to become comfortable with fear. The word fear is derived from both the German word per: to trial, to risk, to go over, to go through, and the Greek peira: to trial, attempt, and experience. You must master and move through your fear.
- The biggest growing pains for start-ups are threefold:
- People give up, lose focus, especially in the face of problems. If you give up, the business gives up with you.
- Start-ups survive on fundraising cycles, and this can skew strategic goals. Scarcity drives innovation, limited resources forces a company to focus on the details that matter. In the presence of funding, entrepreneurs must self-impose scarcity as they grow their business.
- Founders are too slow to come up with solution, mostly due to perfectionism. You must be willing to make decisions that are only 60% there.
- You learn to get into a mindset which holds no problem as unsolvable.
- As a leader, you must get people out of an anxiety-ridden mindset. It’s important to separate the mind into the anxious mind, where there is paralysis in the face of decisions, and the curious mind, where solutions can come forth. Consider the worst-case scenario, and then proceed with a problem-solving mind.
- To build a start-up, having a good team you can trust is vital. It takes shared obsession and like-minded people to operate in scarcity. You are only as good as your team, and the relationships therein.
- Questions like “do we work well together?” and “are we intellectually honest?” are cultural tenets for a great team. When ego is left at the door, you can make better decisions, and iterate faster. This is the constant cycle. Better to make a fast mistake than a slow, lingering one that leads to purgatory.
- Ultimately, everything comes down to mindset. “Those who do remarkable things have an extraordinary mindset. It will come from a place of confidence and openness and it is what will separate us all.”
Adapting To Disruption In Fashion & E-Commerce
- Fashion design is no longer the king it once was. Between the ecosystems of mobile devices and the speed with which e-commerce platforms allow projects/brands to launch, new competition is constantly flooding the market with new creative ideas and customer experiences. Competition in the industry is fiercer than ever before.
- There are more platforms and network effects to leverage in launching a business than ever before.
- Tech companies like Shopify, Amazon, and Etsy have expedited the growth of e-commerce. Businesses must now face traditional challenges (competition, execution, etc.) and adapt to continuous disruption, too.
- What contributes to this competition is that apparel is one of the only deflationary commodities – you can pay the same amount for clothes now as you did when you were a teenager. The cost of raw materials has inflated, but consumer price expectations have not, so it’s a race to the bottom. Companies must take into account how new technology and materials can instantly change their business model.
- Even with the current challenges, you can scale your own micro business with google searches and Facebook ads.
The Importance (And Sense) Of Sustainability
- Sustainability will occur within the fashion industry on both micro and macro levels. Resources are finite, and so it’s an issue that must be tackled no matter what.
- Sustainability will become obligatory. Sustainability is smart and efficient.
- Big players like Gap and Zara are placing sustainability at the forefront of their business considerations. There are a lot more manufacturing links now to make sustainability more efficient. Big companies, however, have to reverse engineer their supply chains in order to make things more efficient.
Favorite Books
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
- The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy
- Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
- The Hero’s Journey by Joseph Campbell
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