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Networth and Chill with Your Rich BFF
From Idea to Empire: Jennifer Hyman on Building Rent the Runway
00:47:36
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- [00:00]
Jennifer Hyman
Needing to survive has actually been part of the journey every single day for 15 years that I've never actually felt comfortable ever. No, there have been really bad times like Covid, where we all wore pajamas for two, three years. We had to hunker down. We had to cut dramatic costs. We had to let go of a lot of people. We had to raise debt. You know, you're in a once in a hundred year pandemic and you had to like, keep the business alive.
- [00:36]
Vivian Tu
What's up, rich friends? Welcome back to another episode of Net Worth and Chill with me. Your host, Vivian Tu, AKA Urich, bff and your favorite Wall street girlie. Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. And a huge thanks to Botox Cosmetics, the Confidence Project, empowering women entrepreneurs for making today's episode possible. The Confidence Project is an incredible program aimed at supporting entrepreneurs through skill building, mentorship and access to community and grant funding. And to start off today's show, I would like to quote a great philosopher, Lizzie McGuire. I may be an outfit repeater, but you're an outfit, remember? Which is just as pathetic. Aesthetic. As my career has progressed, I have found myself in many last minute fiascos where I book an interview or a speaking event and I need to have something to wear that lets me put my best foot forward. And if we're being honest, my PR team is getting really tired of me wearing that same tan blazer for every single event where I'm going to be photographed. And that means I end up having to drop hundreds, if not thousands, thousands of dollars at the 13th hour just to have something new and shiny and fun to wear. When does the hamster wheel of buying a new outfit ever end? It feels like my wardrobe is never big enough and no matter what I'm buying, I have nothing cute to wear. Lucky for us, there's a way to have access to a rotating wardrobe of designer pieces without the commitment, the closet space, or the buyer's remorse. And our guest today invented this industry disrupting system over a decade ago. She turned one simple observation, that with the rise of social media, we often only want to wear things once or twice into a billion dollar business that's completely disrupting how we think about fashion consumption. She's raised over $500 million, taken her company public, and is literally changing the way an entire generation approaches shopping. Everyone, please welcome Jennifer Hyman, co founder and CEO of Rent the Runway.
- [02:49]
Jennifer Hyman
Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:55]
Vivian Tu
Thank you so much for being here. I am so excited to chat today. But before we get into everything that we need to talk about. I like to start with a little icebreaker.
- [03:06]
Jennifer Hyman
Okay.
- [03:07]
Vivian Tu
What is the worst luxury purchase you've ever made that you should have rented instead? Support for net worth and chill comes from Botox Cosmetic. Onibachi Lineum Toxin A Women entrepreneurs often navigate unique challenges. Over a third report difficulty finding peer networks and fewer than 3% receive venture capital funding. The Confidence Project, empowering women entrepreneurs, founded by Botox Cosmetic, is here to change that. The Confidence Project supports entrepreneurs by providing transformative access to coaching, mentorship, community and funding. Talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information, including boxed warning, call 877-351-0300. Learn more at botoxcosmetic.com realimpact okay, so.
- [03:54]
Jennifer Hyman
I purchased a hot pink snakeskin Celine bag that was $9,000. This was like a million years ago. So like $9,000 was $9,000. I mean, it still is a lot. But I have had the bag for 15 years and I've actually probably used it five times. And it was just one of those, like I was in Miami, I was feeling cool girl. I was like, hot pink snakeskin, let's do this. And didn't really think about like the cost per wear and just how insane it is and the fact that like, maybe if you are going to spend a ton on a bag, maybe it should be black.
- [04:43]
Vivian Tu
Okay, so $9,000. Now we're traveling in our time machine.
- [04:47]
Jennifer Hyman
Yep.
- [04:48]
Vivian Tu
What are we spending that $9,000 on if we could go back?
- [04:54]
Jennifer Hyman
Well, investing.
- [04:56]
Vivian Tu
Yes.
- [04:56]
Jennifer Hyman
Real estate.
- [04:57]
Vivian Tu
That was a tee up.
- [04:58]
Jennifer Hyman
No, I mean, listen, I think that for me, what derives happiness personally in my life, it's time spent with people that I love. It's experiences, it's traveling, it's eating out, it's being in the same place with the people that you love. And part of the thesis behind Rent the Runway was let's take this element of people's budget, which we overspend on things that we don't get high utility on, and let's transfer it to other places in your life where it serves you better. And for me, I'd rather spend on vacations and restaurants and time spent with friends and family. So if you're gonna spend the money, do it in a way that derives happiness. And I actually feel like we've been pressured as women to feel that fashion derives happiness. But after you wear something for the first time and have that high of, you take off the tags, you wear it for the first time, you're like the woman you want to be for that moment. The second, third, 10th time you wear it, it never feels as good as the first time. So it's like, okay, let's create a service that you feel as good as the first time every single time.
- [06:10]
Vivian Tu
I love that. And I'm sure there are so many of us in this room who have personally used Rent the Runway, but give me the story behind the company. What made you want to start Rent the Runway?
- [06:23]
Jennifer Hyman
I think that it was that I was the customer and my sister was the customer. So I was home in New York City. I was at business school at the time. I came home for Thanksgiving. My sister had her first post college wedding. So she was 25. She was a buyer at Bloomingdale's at the time, which meant that she was probably making, like, $50,000 a year. And she had just gone to Bergdorf Goodman to buy, like, the dress that she wanted to show up at with all of her college friends. And it was a $4,000 dress that put her into credit card debt. And I was at her small little apartment, staring at her closet filled with dresses that had only been once worn once or twice. And I was like, becky, return the effing dress. This is insane. Like, this is truly insane. This is double your rent. And she was like, I can't. You know, I've been photographed and everything in my closet. The photos are up on Facebook. Like, I need something new.
- [07:22]
Vivian Tu
Facebook.
- [07:23]
Jennifer Hyman
And, yeah, Facebook. This was 2008. Yeah, I'm telling the real deal. I mean, this was like, truly. This was pre Instagram. This was pre TikTok. This was like, I don't even know if iPhones had come out, actually. Like, it was like, around the time that an iPhone came out. And I really started thinking about, number one, we weren't even having a conversation about fashion. We were having a conversation about confidence and how someone would feel when they put on their armor before they walked into the room. And that's actually what she wanted, was the feeling of the armor. 2. Yeah, Facebook did kill outfits, and Instagram and TikTok totally accelerated it. But I then, like, the first idea was actually, could we monetize your closet? Like, you have all these things in here that you've only worn once or twice. Like, let's monetize that. I started thinking that through, and I'm like, well, okay. Well, that's a little in the future kind of. People aren't used to renting clothes. Let's not do it. Peer to peer initially, let's see if we could do it from brands. And a few days later, I was meeting with Dan Van Furstenberg and introduced myself as the co founder of Rent the Runway. Then we were kind of off to the races.
- [08:37]
Vivian Tu
I absolutely love that. And typically when I'm looking on Rent the Runway, what I love about it is I see what I can rent something for and it's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of what it actually costs me to buy it. But these days, fast fashion brands like Shein are dominating with ultra cheap clothes. Yeah, you get two washes. Okay, two. While luxury brands are starting to push their prices higher and higher and higher. And not always necessarily to higher and higher quality.
- [09:07]
Jennifer Hyman
Not to higher quality, likely.
- [09:09]
Vivian Tu
Lower quality, higher price. Where does Rent the Runway fit in here? And where do you see that business?
- [09:14]
Jennifer Hyman
Okay, so I have the idea. And before rushing out and deciding do I want to spend my time on building this idea? I actually think most ideas are not new ideas. And I was like, does this idea already exist? And I realized that it did exist. It's called. In 2008, it was called walking into H and M buying something that you knew you were only gonna wear once or twice. Cause it would fall apart after you put it in the washing machine a few times and feeling comfortable with that. And the world of fast fashion was actually rental fast fashion, Zara and H and M, which really started in the 80s and proliferated in a massive way in the 90s and early 2000s. They train the consumer to be comfortable with buying something that you knew you would only wear a few times because it would physically fall apart. If you think about any of your parents generation, no matter where your parents are from, no matter how much income they had, they never would have purchased something that they knew would fall apart after they wore it once or twice. But that was actually the majority of how we got dressed in 2008. So I'm like, actually, we're used to this and all Rent the Runway is going to be. It's going to be a substitute for that portion of your closet where you want a trend, you want something new, you want variety, you want constant newness. Then I looked at the data and I was like, okay, is this true that fast fashion has clobbered the industry? And in 2008, the average American woman bought 68 articles of apparel per year? I was like, that's interesting. That's crazy. In the 1980s, that number was 40. But the real income that we spent on fashion, the Percentage of our income we spent on fashion hadn't actually grown. So what had happened between the 1980s and 2008 was we were buying more units, but at lower prices. So we were spending the same amount on fashion, but we wanted more variety, we wanted more newness. Now, actually, if you looked at post 2008, with the proliferation of social media, we all started buying way More than 68 articles of clothing because we needed that constant variety for your personal brand that you have one personal brand. But we all have personal brands because we're on social media and we can't repeat constantly. And in a workplace as well, I think women, there's a different expectation of women. You can't show up in the same outfit every single day in the way that a guy can. And so I really saw like, okay, if I think about Rent the Runway on a cost per wear basis, so in our, you know, one of our subscription plans, you get 10 items a month for $160. So basically each item is 16 bucks. That's actually Shein price point. And in fact, many people wear the items that they receive from us more than once. You know, they'll wear multiple times. So I was actually always thinking about the pricing of Rent the Runway as being comparable to, I need this to be cheaper than or equivalent pricing to fast fashion. And so right now, my comparables that I look at are Shein, because I think that Shein has really undercut the Zara's and H and M's of the world. A lot of us and actually younger, you know, Gen Alpha, Gen Z, they don't even think Zara is fast fashion anymore, which is really interesting because there's like this other player out there who's offering you the same dress for 10 bucks as opposed to $35 at Zara. Now what luxury has done is really misinformed in my opinion, which is they utilized, they've taken advantage of us. So we all had more savings during COVID because we weren't doing anything. And we wanted to spend our money to make us feel better in like a very depressing period of time. So we all started buying jewelry, we all started buying luxury handbags. And so they started just increasing pricing without doing anything related to quality. Now the pricing of luxury bags and luxury shoes has gone up so dramatically from 2021 to now, just five years later. I think a Chanel bag has, you know, some of their classic pieces have more than doubled over that period of time in terms of price point. I actually think even at the luxury end of the market. They're seeing people just opt out. They're like, this is ridiculous. Even if I can afford this, like, I don't want to spend $10,000 on a bag like that makes no sense. And so they thought that they'd have this pricing power forever. But I think that even the luxury consumer thinks that, like, this isn't cool anymore and this isn't smart. And I think that the luxury houses are going to have to really change their approach for, I think, a much safer, smarter consumer base. And not everyone's just sitting around saving their money anymore.
- [14:10]
Vivian Tu
Yeah. And speaking of a much smarter, like, consumer base, AI and predictive analytics are huge in fintech, but these are also now technologies being used in a lot of different industries, including fashion. What does that mean to you? Is it something that Rent the Runway is doing? Is it for reducing waste? Is it for picking the right styles? Like, how are you using technology?
- [14:34]
Jennifer Hyman
I mean, technology has always been the underpinning of the business from the very beginning. The most important financial decision we make in our business is how much inventory to buy and what inventory to buy. And so we get signals very quickly. One of the interesting things about our business is that the average customer comes to our app four times a week, but she's only actually picking her next order once or twice a month. So really, 14 out of the 16 times she comes per month is for entertainment purposes. It's like Harding and creating lists and seeing what's new. And we're from that kind of understanding, what are the hits going to be? What should we be reinvesting our dollars in? You can set up notifications now on Rent the Runway, similar to Resi, where you can say, oh, tell me when this is back in stock. And we weight that via technology as being like a really big signal of demand. And we're able to actually get signals on inventory before we even have it in stock. So we put inventory on the site when it's still coming soon, when it's not even in our warehouses, and we're able to understand, utilizing our technology and the right data inputs, what our hits are going to be and therefore where to kind of reinvest and go more deeply and where to actually talk to some of our brand partners and trade styles that we don't think are going to be as successful for new styles.
- [15:58]
Vivian Tu
And the way you talk about your business is so smart, it's so strategic, But I have to imagine it hasn't always been this way. Could you tell us about a time while you were building Rent the Runway. That was kind of like your oh shit, we may not make it moment. What was your lowest flow?
- [16:15]
Jennifer Hyman
I feel that having the feeling of survival and needing to survive has actually been part of the journey every single day for 15 years. That I've never actually felt comfortable ever. No. I'm always a little bit like, hey, we could be disrupted. We are being disrupted. Let's innovate. Let's have the humility to understand that how we did something yesterday, the world has changed. Let's innovate and do something differently tomorrow. I mean, there have been really bad times like Covid, where we all wore pajamas for two, three years. Like, you know, the use case of Rent the Runway is leaving your house. Gotta leave your house. It doesn't matter what you do. You can be walking your dog, you could be seeing a friend, you could be having a coffee, you could be going to work. But like, leaving your house is pretty important. If you're not leaving your house, it's hard to get you to sign up for a subscription. And so there was a period where demand could not be manufactured for what we were doing. And I, we had to hunker down, we had to cut dramatic costs, we had to let go of a lot of people, we had to raise debt, which you don't want to do, but you know, you're in a once in 100 year pandemic and you had to like keep the business alive. And I'm really proud that we were a team of people that were super committed to the mission of the business, to each other, and we were able to survive through that period when most in our spirit space went under and come out the other side with, you know, new elements of our business that we wouldn't have been able to innovate had we not had the space for it.
- [17:58]
Vivian Tu
During COVID Yeah, and you mentioned new elements, obviously. Covid during 2000, 2001, 2002 was a really tough time. But you actually called 2024 a refounding year for Rent the Runway. What does refounding actually mean and what did that mean to you?
- [18:15]
Jennifer Hyman
Okay, so I believe that it's really important in our lives. And this isn't about having a startup. This is just about in our own lives. Every year, every two years, you need to almost do a check in with yourself and re up for your own life. You're re upping into your own marriage, you're re upping into your own job. You're figuring out, do I love this thing you do. I believe in it. Do I want to stay here? Do I want to change? Do I want to iterate it? And you know, Covid was a very difficult period of time for our business and we were in survival cost cutting mode. And that did change the culture. It changed the talent base that we had because we weren't focused on as many of the innovative entrepreneurial growth ideas that we had been focused on for the first decade of the business business. And I recognized that there was a good amount in the way that we worked and in our culture in 2023 that I didn't like anymore. And I had to challenge myself, to ask myself, do I still want to do this and do I still believe? And the resounding answer when I thought about it was, oh my God, I believe in this market more than ever. I believe in the people that I'm doing this with more than ever. But I have to change everything about the way that we work. I have to bring the warmth and the positivity and the innovation and the simplicity back to our business. I think that we had, you know, over complicated things over Covid. And so it was about like re upping and asking yourself those hard questions that sometimes like you don't want to ask yourself, but they force you to change. Because fundamentally, like when I answered the question for myself, I still believe. Then I realized, wait, I'm the CEO. I have the power to change whatever I don't like about what's going on here. And actually the fact that I don't like it is my own fault, right? Like, if I have a problem with how we're operating or our culture, that's my fault.
- [20:29]
Vivian Tu
No one to blame but Jen, right?
- [20:31]
Jennifer Hyman
You gotta blame yourself, but you take responsibility and then you change it. And so I think it's really empowering to understand that like, we all have the power to kind of bob and weave in our own lives and kind of make those changes. So it was a re founding moment for the business. I think that those of you who are subscribers and have been on the journey with us hopefully have seen tremendous transformation over 2024 and 2025. And there's been this tremendous refocus on the customer. I think the main way that we had lost our way is that over Covid, we were just in survival mode. Whereas the ethos of our business and what makes us great is when we focus on the customer insight, like what could we do to improve the customer's experience? How do we really understand where she's at and make sure that everything that we work on has an ROI to the customer. And it was really just bringing us back to that level of customer love and customer obsession that had always been a natural part of who we are. But I think that, like, we didn't have any customers over Covid, so we kind of lost that muscle for a little while, and we had to, like, rebuild and understand. Actually, the customer had changed. Like, Covid did change us. It changed the way we lived. It changed our value set. It changed how we work. Many of us still work from home a few days a week, so that changes, like, aspects of how we get dressed and what we spend money on. So just reacquainting ourselves with the new consumer, I think has been just a really fun part of the journey. Yeah.
- [22:07]
Vivian Tu
And we talked about your lowest low, the re founding. So you know what I'm about to ask. Has there been a moment and I know you said you've never felt confident, never felt comfortable, Never felt confident.
- [22:16]
Jennifer Hyman
I always feel confident, confident, but I don't feel comfortable.
- [22:19]
Vivian Tu
Okay. Is there a moment that you're like, this is something I'm really proud of, and I felt like I made it Fox Creative. This is advertiser content brought to you by Botox Cosmetic. Onobotulinum toxin. A.
- [22:35]
Jennifer Hyman
Okay. Does it sound okay? All right, cool. My name's Orion Brown. I'm the founder and CEO of Black Travel Box. We're a personal care products company made specifically for travelers of color.
- [22:47]
Vivian Tu
Since 2023, Botox Cosmetic has proudly provided resources for skill development, mentorship and access to funding to women business owners through the Confidence Project empowering women entrepreneurs. Women like Orion.
- [23:01]
Jennifer Hyman
We participated in the Confidence Project by Botox Cosmetic in 2023 and are Grant recipients from that program. When I first learned about the Confidence Project, I did not know how deep Botox Cosmetic was going to go to support us. Botox Cosmetic actually put real money on the table, but also, they just kind of opened their Rolodex to us. We were placed in Oprah Daily because of their agency partnering with Black Travel Box. So those things were super impressive to me, and I don't think I've seen it in any other programs.
- [23:39]
Vivian Tu
Talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information, including boxed warning, call 877-351-0300. Learn more about the Confidence Project Empowering women entrepreneurs@botoxcosmetic.com realimpact this year's grant winners will be announced in October.
- [24:05]
Jennifer Hyman
The entire time, I've been incredibly proud of everything that we do, because I think that it has a real impact on our customers lives and it makes women feel like the best version of themselves every day. Like, why do I still do this after 15 years? I actually never even wanted to be an entrepreneur. I was like the only person at Harvard Business School that didn't sign up for the Harvard for the entrepreneurship club. Like genuinely 85% of the class at Harvard Business School signs up for the entrepreneurship club. I wasn't even in that 85%. I founded Rent the Runway. Yes, I had the idea, but it was because I really feel like the most important thing you can give to a woman is the ability to change. If you give a woman the ability to feel incredible about herself, because women are multifaceted, how you want to feel when you come out at night to a work event is totally different than how you want to feel when you're with your significant other, when you're relaxing on a beach. And I have felt that this industry was really undemocratic and elitist my entire life. That most of us have been denied feeling awesome about ourselves every single day by both the fashion and actually the beauty industry. To a large extent, many of us have been excluded from the industry, not only because of income, because of background, because of geography, because of size. And I really wanted to democratize the feeling of power that comes from being able to self express. So I've been so, so proud that from the very beginning of the company that we have been able to fulfill that mission and do it on a larger and larger scale. As we grew, one fun, really proud moment was I IPO'd the company and did it surrounded. First of all, we were the first female leadership team in history to IPO a company. So it was the first company ever to IPO with the female CEO, COO and cfo. And that, yeah, that deserves a clap. That was incredible. The pride came from recognizing that the IPO had nothing to do with me at all. That there were hundreds of team members there who had been part of the story, you know, present and past, who were a part of building it. And I realized I was in this moment in my life that, you know, most moments where you feel elated in your life are fundamentally selfish moments. They're about you at your own wedding. Like you're the happiest person there and everyone else is having a good time. Or you, you know, your child is born, like you and your husband are over the moon and that's in your parents. But like, this was a moment where hundreds of People felt like, we did this. We did this together and doing it as a team and feeling like, wow, I'm part of this incredible community that has done something and has changed an industry and changed the world. Like, that was, like, this unbelievable moment of pride, because it was a communal moment of pride. But attached to that day were so many amazing moments. One other one is just that I rang the bell with my daughters. Two of my daughters, one of whom was four and a half at the time, and the other one was two and a half. And we were leaving NASDAQ in the afternoon, and, you know, my daughter Aurora turned to me and she was like, mommy, that was so fun. But are there boy companies? How come boys aren't allowed to run companies? And for a brief moment in time, I was like, wow, I've created a universe for my daughters where they feel like this is normal to see all of these women at the helm of something, building something, that this is their everyday. And I was really proud about that. And part of what drives me is I don't want to ever have to tell her that that's not true. You know, I want her to live in a world where women at least have half the leadership roles and half the options open and half the possibilities. We're nowhere near that. But, you know, that was just such a fun, fun experience.
- [28:46]
Vivian Tu
Not even that it was just normal, but it was her norm. That was her status quo. She literally just thought, oh, well, all mommies are CEOs 100%.
- [28:55]
Jennifer Hyman
I mean, prior to the IPO, this journalist had come to my house, and she was interviewing me, and she was kind of trying to, like, you can tell that there was an element where she was trying to be a little snapped. And we were in the backyard, and she. My daughter ran outside because she had just gotten home from school and was giving me hugs and kisses. And she turned to Aurora and she was like, oh, do you know what your mommy does? And Aurora was like, yeah, she works at Rent the Runway. And the reporter was like, well, what is Rent the Runway? And Aurora was like, it's girls. Girls who run the world. You know, because I, you know, educated her and Beyonce from an early age. That was actually my proudest mother moment of all time. It's never gonna get better than that. And it was. That's, like, how they live. And to give her that confidence of, like, you know what? You can have a dream, you could go for it, and you can create this awesome life where you have this career that you love, you have a marriage that you love. You have kids that you love. You have a social life that you love. I really am sick of all of these women who are successful, going on every podcast and going on every show and being like, you can't have it all. It's not possible. Blah, blah, blah. I'm really depressed and my life is filled with anxiety. It's like, dude, men have been working forever, and men have been able to have great careers and great marriages and great kids and great hobbies and great social lives. You, yes, they have wives at home. I understand that. But it's like, by the way, I have a husband at home who's a stay at home husband. We have a marriage where he has recognized that it is fundamentally important for him to support my own career and that we're gonna have a family that works and operates differently. And so I just think that you can create the life that you want and rewrite the rules for your life.
- [31:09]
Vivian Tu
And you mentioned your husband staying at home and, you know, taking care of your family and the house building. Rent the Runway has obviously contributed to a significant portion of your personal wealth. How do you feel like your relationship with money has changed since founding Rent the Runway?
- [31:25]
Jennifer Hyman
Since becoming a CEO, I've actually become a lot more conservative related to money. Since I became a CEO, I think that I'm far less of a spender than I was when I had less money because I recognize how difficult it is and how much sacrifice it has required to make money. And so I don't take that for granted. So I don't splurge on jewelry or clothes. Like, first of all, I don't need to. I can have a subscription to fashion and have my unlimited wardrobe. But, like, I'm very intentional about what are the things that are actually going to drive happiness for myself and my family. So, like, I invest in education, I invest in where we live, so we have, like, a community that we love. I invest in helping other members of my family, my own parents, my siblings, helping them be able to have more joyful moments and more carefree moments of vacations and whatever. But, like, I just think that the objects are less important to me now. And I, like, kind of have realized that it's really hard. I've had to work like a crazy person for the last 15 years. The intensity. I'm. What is true about what a lot of the podcasts and the people that talk about their careers. The truth is that I never stop working. I don't take a shower without thinking about Rent the Runway. I haven't Been on a vacation since I started this business 15 years ago. I've been on vacation, but the whole time I'm on slack, I'm thinking about work. I haven't had that time where I could just be like, I don't give a F about my job because I care so much and it's almost like my first child. And so therefore I've had to make sacrifices of my sanity. And because I've sacrificed a lot of my normalcy, my sanity. I therefore am super not wasteful of whatever the outcome, whatever the benefit is going to be. And I want any amount of money that I have made to be spent on things that are actually going to drive happiness and not superficial things.
- [34:04]
Vivian Tu
I love that. And I do want to pivot our conversation a little bit because I am incredibly selfish and I need you to take out your crystal ball. And we are about to talk about some future fashion trends. So I want your professional opinion about things that are likely to happen in.
- [34:18]
Jennifer Hyman
The maybe near future.
- [34:20]
Vivian Tu
Okay, so obviously we've heard the big T word, tariffs. How do you think tariffs are going to impact fashion overall, but also the runways business?
- [34:32]
Jennifer Hyman
So it already has impacted fashion. I'm sure you guys have gone to stores recently or online and realized that pricing has gone up. No one is announcing it, but, you know, pricing on basically everything is 15, 20% higher. Because while a lot of companies are eating a certain portion of the tariffs, like they can't have their margins go down to zero and they have to pass along some of the tariffs to the consumer. So it is a tax on the consumer. What is, I think, misunderstood about the fashion industry is that the supply chain is extremely complex. And it's not just in one country where a article of clothing is produced. You might be getting the fabrics and the yarns from Italy. You might be then producing it in China. There might be finishing in Vietnam on a single unit. The supply chains of all of the brands that you know and love, they're not limited to one place. And so tariffs have been extremely complex sometimes for like very small businesses. It's been easier for the Ralph Laurens of the world, who are vertically integrated, who are much larger businesses to deal with this. But I happen to work with hundreds of brands that, you know, Maybe they have $100 million business, maybe they have a $500 million business, which in the scheme of it is like they're still small to mid sized businesses. And it just takes a lot of mindshare to figure this all out.
- [36:12]
Vivian Tu
Okay, next one. What is your take on dupe culture.
- [36:17]
Jennifer Hyman
Okay. Love dupe culture. Because you do. Oh, my God, I love dupe culture. I am so done with the Birkin bag. Bring on the working bag. Bring it on the firkin. Okay. Bring on Bethany's whole take on the working bag. I'm with her. Like, if it is absurd to have an article of clothing that is $15,000, sometimes $60,000, and it's no different than it's not worth that. It's worth the probably 3, $400 in leather costs that the guy on TikTok who rips apart all those bags and he tells you how much it costs. It's worth the same as, like, some cheap bag that you're buying somewhere else. Like, there's a level at which something is premium. So, like, we carry all these premium brands that do produce in higher quality at Rent the Runway, but they're worth, like, a few hundred dollars. Maybe they're worth a thousand dollars. Maybe they're worth fifteen hundred dollars in real production costs at a certain point. Like, they're not worth 4,000, $5,000. There's almost no clothing or no luxury on earth that is worth as much.
- [37:36]
Vivian Tu
As it is priced, diminishing marginal returns.
- [37:40]
Jennifer Hyman
And so I love the fact that dupes are coming out and that consumers are like, you know what? I'm gonna buy the Amazon dupe of these Lululemon pants. Like, Lululemon. You can't charge US$225 for leggings anymore. That's crazy. And it makes the brands innovate, makes the brands. Sometimes brands that have had long standing, almost like monopolies on our mindshare and on our wallets. It's like, you know what? I can get the same freaking thing for 10% of the price. I'm gonna do it. So I love that dupes create pressure for these companies to stay on their toes and do something differently and do more for the consumer, because I think that the consumer has not been the winner over, you know, the last few decades as it relates to fashion.
- [38:32]
Vivian Tu
That's a hot take. I'm going to be honest. I'm kind of surprised by that. But I love how you like the way you took that.
- [38:39]
Jennifer Hyman
I mean, Rent the Runway is just smarter, fast fashion. Like, it's just fast fashion with the real thing. Like, it's not an attack on Zara, by the way. Like, Zara, actually, the quality of Zara has gone up over the last 15 years. I think that they're doing something really amazing. I just now work with 800 brands that I think are at a higher quality than Zara, that are interesting, that are fun, that are doing cool things. And I'm giving you a cheaper than Zara price point. But, like, I don't believe that fashion should be expensive. I think that every time you wear something, it should cost 7 bucks, 8 bucks, 10 bucks. Aware. Maximum, maximum. Like, if you're spending more than that per wear, like, it doesn't make any sense.
- [39:29]
Vivian Tu
What about your perspective on private equity, perhaps entering fashion? I feel like for a long time the traditional finance world was like, oh.
- [39:39]
Jennifer Hyman
My skirt was up the whole time.
- [39:41]
Vivian Tu
What?
- [39:41]
Jennifer Hyman
Yeah. Oh, I didn't even see it. Fashion faux pas.
- [39:48]
Vivian Tu
I was going to say, you know, like, private equity, like, is very uncool. Let's be honest. It's primarily men in Patagonia vests. But all of a sudden, no.
- [39:59]
Jennifer Hyman
No private equity dress is better than that. They're in sweaters. There's sweaters in the VCs. No VCs are wearing the Patagonia vest.
- [40:06]
Vivian Tu
Okay, but, you know, as these more traditional financial institutions are starting to get into the fashion space, do you think this is like the death to cool?
- [40:15]
Jennifer Hyman
No, I think that money is money and smart people are smart people that could lend advice. And I think that it is smart to have aggressive, financially oriented people around you who want to make a lot of money, who are going to challenge what you do and make you better. Like private equity, venture capital. Like, those are financial animals. Good, because come into my organization and help me figure out how I could be more of a financial animal and what I can change to continue to deliver more to the customer, but also make better returns. So I really like it. And I think that the more that you have differentiating points of view on your team and bringing around your board, like, the better your outcomes become.
- [41:09]
Vivian Tu
And you mentioned this a little bit earlier about constantly feeling like you need to iterate in case you get disrupted. Rent the Runway was the OG rental service the first and foremost. How do you feel about a lot of other brands, competitors popping up and what are you doing to make sure that Rent the Runway is still number one?
- [41:31]
Jennifer Hyman
Okay, so number one, the fact that there are competitors and there is a market is really exciting because it is much easier to tell you why Rent the Runway is better than X or Y than it is to convince you to rent clothes and why you need to do that and then convince you to use Rent the Runway. So, like, Coke wouldn't be Coke without Pepsi. Like, having a foil and having a knowledge that this is now A mainstream part of the market is really helpful. It's a thing. And so we've gone from, like, early adopter status. I don't think we're totally mainstream yet, but we're like, we're getting there. And that's exciting that millions of women have now rented clothes, and it's becoming bigger and bigger every year. I also think that our competitors all copied us. Like, literally, like, cut and paste. And so I and my team, we all have the humility to be like, hey, they're doing a lot of things really well. Let's copy them. They copied us. Like, we don't have to sit around and be the OG's originals on everything. Like, let's just copy paste for some of the things they're doing. So, like, that's number two. Number three. Like, it's not over till it's over, baby. Like, this game is long. Like, we're at early, early innings of this rental industry and of women making, you know, rental a part of how you get dressed. It's not going to be the only thing you do. But my wish is that we all have subscriptions to fashion for the constant rotation part of your closet. You also buy things. You also utilize resell, which is another very smart way to shop. And, like, that's what your closet is probably. A third, A third, a third. And I am in it for the fight. And I like the fact that we've been in a bit of, like, you know, we've lost a little bit of our ground over the last few years. And, like, this year we're, like, really coming out swinging and have returned the business to growth. And I feel very excited about what we're going to deliver and especially, like, how we can now have other competitors to compare against. Because now we can say, okay, here's what we're better at. Here's what is different about us. And by the way, some consumers are going to want that, and some consumers are not going to want that. There are people that shop at Walmart and there are people that shop at Neiman Marcus and, like, both of them buy clothes and they can make different decisions. Like, there's going to be many different players in the rental space. This is not a winner takes all market.
- [44:06]
Vivian Tu
My main takeaway from that answer is just that Jen's hands are rated E for everyone. She is ready to scrap. She's ready to fight. I love that always.
- [44:16]
Jennifer Hyman
But that's bold.
- [44:17]
Vivian Tu
That's strong.
- [44:18]
Jennifer Hyman
I mean, we are. It took 15 years to get to a place where the mainstream Market would even consider having a subscription to Fashion. One of the things that's so exciting about our data recently is that it's not just women in their 20s and 30s that are subscribing to Fashion. We have tons of customers who are in their 60s, who are all ages, who are coming. They're not just New Yorkers anymore. They're from all over the country. They have all different income levels. That's amazing. Like, there's going to be millions and tens of millions of women in this market in the future. And, like, we're nowhere near that today. So I think that there's a lot of room for a lot of people to win. And let's just have some fun.
- [45:02]
Vivian Tu
I love that this has been such a fun conversation, But I want to wrap us up with one final question, Jen. What is your personal definition of being rich? And it doesn't have to include actual financial insights.
- [45:17]
Jennifer Hyman
Well, none of it includes financial insights because.
- [45:19]
Vivian Tu
Okay, talk to me.
- [45:21]
Jennifer Hyman
Being rich is about having a lot of love in your life. And that's woo woo. It's not woo woo. It's real. What else do we have? Like, we've got, like, our relationships with people. That's it. That is all that we have. And that's what I value the most. I value my relationship with my family and my friends. And I am rich because I get to spend a lot of my life with people that I love. And I feel very rich that I come from a super loving family. And I had the experience, you know, six months ago where my father, who was one of the loves of my life, passed away. And one of the lessons that I have learned from him throughout my life is like, you know, when you love someone, tell them, like, tell the people that you love how important they are to you all the time. Like, don't make love a precious resource in your life. Like, give it away openly, freely. Like, let love be a part of your relationships, not just with your significant other or your kids or your parents, but, like, with your colleagues, with your friends. Like, tell people about the impact they have on you. And, like, that's the only way to be rich in your life. And the many moments that I thought that Rent the Runway was gonna disappear, like, I've never really. Yeah, I love Rent the Runway. I want it to be around forever. But, like, I'm so happy in my life because of all the love in my life that, like, that's all you really need. So never about money. I feel like that's a really great.
- [47:09]
Vivian Tu
Way to end that conversation. Thank you so much. I have had such a good time tonight. Thank you so much for being here and thanks again to Botox Cosmetics the Confidence Project for their support. Check them out if you're interested in joining a supportive community of entrepreneurs working to shape the future of business. And the good work continues. Thank you guys so much for being here.
- [47:35]
Jennifer Hyman
Thank you guys. Sign up for Rent the Runway.
- [47:43]
Vivian Tu
Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Net Worth and Chill, part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. If you liked the episode, make sure to leave a rating and review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. Got a burning financial question that you want covered in a future episode? Write to us via podcast Richby. Follow Net Worth and Chill Pod on Instagram to stay up to date on all podcast related news and you can follow me at yourrichbff for even more financial know how. See you next week. Bye. Support for Net Worth and Chill comes from Botox Cosmetic. Ana Botulinum Toxin, a Botox cosmetic, proudly supports women entrepreneurs through the Confidence Project, a transformative program designed to provide access to skill building networks, mentorship and funding. The Confidence Project connects entrepreneurs, mentors and industry leaders. Plus, at the end of the program, 20 women will each be awarded a $20,000 grant from Botox Cosmetic. Talk to your specialist to see if Botox Cosmetic is right for you. For full prescribing information including boxed warning, call 877-351-0300. Learn more at botoxcosmetic.com realimpact.