← Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
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- [00:32]
Lucy Grow
I am marrying a stranger like never before.
- [00:35]
Rebecca Minkoff
Am I crazy?
- [00:36]
Lucy Grow
It's a whole new Married at First Sight on Peacock.
- [00:38]
Rebecca Minkoff
Thank God I woke up in love with new experts.
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Lucy Grow
My name is Dr. Lisa.
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Rebecca Minkoff
My name is Paul Brunson.
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Lucy Grow
More couples. This could be the start of a
- [00:46]
Commercial Narrator
very successful marriage and lord surprises.
- [00:49]
Lucy Grow
Or maybe not.
- [00:50]
Rebecca Minkoff
Everything is just not enough.
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Lucy Grow
You're a little bit crazy.
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Rebecca Minkoff
I don't know what's gonna happen.
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Lucy Grow
I want my fairytale ending.
- [00:56]
Rebecca Minkoff
Married at First Sight now.
- [00:58]
Lucy Grow
Streaming new episodes Thursdays only on Peacock.
- [01:01]
Christy from Lululemon
Hey, it's Christy from Lululemon and I'm here at the office checking out the Shake it out shorts. These have been my go tos and I kind of think of them as a middle ground between a true run short and a more playful, athletic, sporty short. They have all the performance you want for running, so a comfy liner, our lightweight swift fabric, even a pocket for your keys. But what I really like is the flowy fit and layered hem. It gives it a little bit of volume, a little bit of fun so they feel as good on a run as they do just at coffee afterwards. You can find the Shake it out shorts in store now or online@lululemon.com the
- [01:31]
Lucy Grow
biggest mistake a founder CEO can make is just listening and getting reports from their executives because like what if they're not telling the truth? My executive layer was not being entirely truthful about like where things were in their org. What I've also learned is that ICs don't lie. Now I have moles in pretty much every single org that really tell me like hey, this is what's going on. Hey everyone.
- [01:53]
Rebecca Minkoff
Welcome back to Superwomen. I'm in my LA outpost and today's guest is Lucy Grow. She is the world. Yes, youngest self made billionaire having launched and sold scale AI. But today we're not really talking about her career in that we're talking about how you have to disrupt your team, how you can use AI to free up a lot of your time, but most importantly how to have moles in your office to actually give you the truth. Take a listen.
- [02:17]
Lucy Grow
I would say generally, when a team is not working or, like, a whole team needs to be blown up, chances are they're not actually impactful to the organization at all. Like, women are held to higher standards, and that's actually why female founders outperform male founders.
- [02:29]
Rebecca Minkoff
How do you know? Like, to keep pivoting or that this is something like, when do you say, I'm drawing the line? I tried that. It failed.
- [02:35]
Lucy Grow
You really have to be delusional to start a company.
- [02:38]
Rebecca Minkoff
I say it all the time.
- [02:39]
Lucy Grow
Like, you have to be delusional to start a company because your chances of failure are 99.9%.
- [02:49]
Rebecca Minkoff
I'm Rebecca Minkoff, and this is Superwomen. Each week, inspiring women are interviewed to uncover the unexpected journeys, the challenges, and the unwavering spirit that makes them powerful. Get ready to be motivated by stories of resilience and discover the keys to unlocking your own potential. Lucy, welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
- [03:12]
Lucy Grow
Excited to be here.
- [03:13]
Rebecca Minkoff
So when I first heard of you, what I loved about you was you don't look like the typical person that, like, women have put up as, like, the founder. You're like a dj. You go to Barry's. You dress like you're in fashion. You know what I mean?
- [03:30]
Lucy Grow
Like, I love side quests.
- [03:31]
Rebecca Minkoff
You are in the antithesis of, like, I am going to be a founder, and I'm going to just look like this for a founder that's had the success you've had. And so I was like, I'm intrigued. Who is this fashion woman that should be a supermodel with those legs? And the more I've learned about you through reading about you and hearing about your success, the more I was so excited for this interview, so.
- [03:51]
Lucy Grow
Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be here.
- [03:53]
Rebecca Minkoff
So one of the things we talked about when we had our. Our Zoom call was the fact that you have built and scaled and sold a huge endeavor. Started another, but that you said some things that struck to me as, like, the opposite of what we've all been told. And one of those, to me, was not being afraid of certain things, whether it's firing people or blowing up a team. And I say this because when I started, it was like, we're gonna be together forever. It's the four of us. And then you realize that someone needs to go or they leave and the devastation that comes with us. And you're. You're pretty fearless in your approach to that, so I'd love to start there. Yeah.
- [04:33]
Lucy Grow
Well, I'd like To correct that a little bit, I would say my biggest weakness as a founder is I'm bad at firing people. I'm very good at identifying when someone needs to be fired, but I am really bad at firing them themselves. Like, even one example at my current company, I had to fire someone, and they just started crying in a firing room. And I started backtracking, quite literally. I was like, well, like, maybe we can find a solution. And my HR person is staring me down like, luc, not again. So now I actually don't really enter firing rooms, but I'm very quick at identifying because the worst you can do is have an underperformer. Because what ends up happening is that even though they're, like, really great culturally, let's say the rest of the team notices. And when our team notices, they get frustrated. Like, why is this person still able to be on this team? Like, they're not doing anything. And then they start asking for, like, more equity or, like, more salary because they feel like they're worth more than said person. That's underperforming. And then suddenly you have a giant problem, right, where you're, like, running out of equity in your equity pool, you are incre your burn rate because you're having to keep paying people more for retention because they're so frustrated at this one under performer. So, yeah, I mean, I think that, like, even though it sucks, especially like firing friends, it just needs to be done.
- [05:42]
Rebecca Minkoff
So when you decide to blow up a team, right, Me, that's assuming that's more than one. It's a couple people. What do you do in those moments? Do you have the backups ready? Like, take me through that moment. Because I think we've all been there as founders or as people in businesses, and we're just like, I gotta do this one at a time, or I gotta give it every three months, or if I do it all at once and then bring in a new crew, like, everything changes. Yeah.
- [06:04]
Lucy Grow
I would say generally when a team is not working or like, a whole team needs to be blown up, chances are they're not actually impactful to the organization at all. On off chance that it has, like, some impact, usually I'll have a backup plan. And that pack a plan is like, I have an employee that's being underutilized, or they're willing to step it up and work double the hours to be able to take over the job. And obviously this comes with, like, equity and pay increases, but in general, you don't need to replace, like, a team of six people. With six other people. Because there's a reason why the team is being blown up, and that's that they're not that efficient.
- [06:35]
Rebecca Minkoff
And what taught you to be so good at noticing that? Because I feel like a lot of us aren't.
- [06:39]
Lucy Grow
Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of teams, it's like a very quantifiable. Right. For example, sales is like, are you increasing revenue? If you're not increasing revenue, or you're increasing revenue at a slow rate. So, for example, if like, one person could be increasing revenue at the amount that the entire team is doing, so then it's time to blow up doorg. I think that, like, as a founder, I'm the type of founder that like, does everything at first myself. So I know, like, exactly what is possible for a person to do. And obviously, like, I'll discount that a little bit because, for example, if you're doing sales, it's much easier to do sales as a founder than it is as an employee. Right? Like, everyone wants to talk to the CEO, so you can discount it by like, let's call it 30%, but by the end of the day, it's like, because if you know how to do the job yourself and they're not doing it well, then you have an idea
- [07:24]
Rebecca Minkoff
of what is the bar and have you ever done that? And then you have to go back to doing all those things. And is that painful for you or you enjoy it all the time?
- [07:32]
Lucy Grow
Um, I would say that I don't find it painful. Right. Because it lets me, like, let's say I did it initially, like, you know, the seed stage of the company, raise a series, a higher team, team's underperforming, and I have to go back and do it. I recalibrate because there might be outside factors that might have made the job harder. For example, more competitors pop up. So that's just like one example. But I do think as a founder, like, I still do most things in the org, I touch it a little bit, right? Because I want to constantly have calibration to understand is the organization performing as efficiently as it could be.
- [08:08]
Rebecca Minkoff
Right. And I know you're probably sick of talking about this, but with AI creating so much space for support and agentic AI, like, how has that changed how you now structure a team?
- [08:20]
Lucy Grow
So with hiring especially, I actually see, like, how they can use agentic tools or like, have they been using agentic tools to be able to make their jobs more efficient? So, like, are you playing around with Claude code? Are you playing around with cursor etc, because now technically anyone can vibe code. Right? And there's ways to make your job more efficient through that. I think that every employee is a 10x employee now. So I actually.
- [08:43]
Rebecca Minkoff
What does that mean, 10x employee?
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Lucy Grow
I would say, like they can do the job of 10 people.
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Rebecca Minkoff
Right.
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Lucy Grow
Like, I don't know if you've tried cloud design, but it's actually absolutely phenomenal.
- [08:53]
Rebecca Minkoff
I'm still on my, I'm still on chat and I have to switch over and I just, I'm really good for.
- [08:58]
Lucy Grow
So the reason why they're doing so much more revenue is because they really built these like great enterprise tools. Like chat is made more for consumers and that would be like cloud code, for example. Like pretty much every org uses cloud code because it makes every engineer 10x engineer. Um, now Claude design has come up and like it's making Every designer a 10x designer, which is awesome. So I think that like, when you're thinking about the organization, you don't need to be hiring as fast, which is cool also because now companies can be started at much lower costs, which I think lowers the barrier of entry for everyone and actually gives like, for example, women a higher chance of success because women have a harder time raising funding. But now they don't need to raise as much funding and they can get just as far along.
- [09:39]
Rebecca Minkoff
So I was in this meeting that I was at this morning, one of the founders was like, now the goalpost is going to move for women though. Their EBITDA is going to have to go up because they have less engineering costs, less people needed in the organization. And is that going to be like a stressor we didn't imagine happening of like, okay, now you got to make 10x the more money or whatever that multiple is?
- [09:59]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. I would say that this is not a woman only problem. This is an everyone problem. Right. Because that is why VCs are actually investing in AI companies at higher valuations. Because they believe that you will need to use less capital to be able to 2x that valuation. Everyone's like, oh, do you think we're in a bubble? Because like these valuations have gone crazy? And I would argue no, because the cost to get a company to like unicorn status has drastically decreased.
- [10:22]
Rebecca Minkoff
I'm sure you're in rooms where these conversations were the decisions that are impacting, like millions of people are because of your background and your businesses and what you've done. What do you say to the people that are just like, I'm intimidated by it. I'm scared. I don't even know where to start.
- [10:37]
Lucy Grow
I would say that there's like pros and cons, right? Like if you are an entry level employee, like you have an entry level skill set, like you need to figure out how to like become a mid level person through AI. The nice thing is AI can really help here. But new jobs have always been created with new technologies and I believe that like new jobs are being created and that more opportunities are going to become available to people. For example, like in the past ideas people were useless. Like everyone has an idea but it's all about execution. Now you, if you have a good idea you can go on like replit or cloud code or cursor and literally like vibe code your way to your idea. There's so many people, like there's so many stories actually right now of people that are making businesses or like really simple apps that generate, let's call it like 1 million a month. They're not startups that can scale. And I don't think that like any of these tools, if you don't have an engineering background you can build a unicorn company but you can certainly build a lifestyle business and that's life changing. So I think that like now if you're creative and you're willing to learn these tools, you have the opportunity to make like life changing income.
- [11:42]
Rebecca Minkoff
I almost feel like for a while it was like, I guess everyone's going to be an influencer or a TikTok star and now it's going to be like what you just said. I'm going to build an app that's going to do a million dollars a month and I'm going to go live in Costa Rica.
- [11:54]
Lucy Grow
Although I do think that like a lot of people are still doing the influencer TikTok sort of thing. But arguably it's like you know, that's free marketing if you're able to pull that off 100%.
- [12:02]
Rebecca Minkoff
100%. So again back to our, our pre call. You said something which I loved, that you have moles in your companies. Will you talk to me about that? And how do you approach the mole? How do you get them to not be a double sided spy?
- [12:16]
Lucy Grow
Yes. So this goes back to the fact that like if you have layers in a company, so like most companies are not flat orgs, right. Like you have managers and you have your executives. Things get polished up on the way to the top because everyone wants to look like they're doing a good job. So like you're like, let's call it chief marketing officer wants to like give you good updates and make it sound like they're amazing because they don't want to get fired. So what I've noticed, or, like, what I had a problem with was that my executive layer was not being entirely truthful about, like, where things were in their org. What I've also Learned is that ICs don't lie. They have no reason to lie. So I.
- [12:55]
Rebecca Minkoff
When you say, I see, what's that?
- [12:57]
Lucy Grow
Individual contributors.
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Rebecca Minkoff
Okay.
- [12:58]
Lucy Grow
Yes. So now I have moles in pretty much every single org that really tell me, like, like, hey, this is what's going on. Here's a drama between, like, these two people, et cetera, and you get an idea of, like, what are the problems the team, like, what they wish were changed, et cetera. In terms of, like, processes. It's really helped me understand, like, what exactly is going on in the company. And I think, like, the biggest mistake a founder or CEO can make is just listening and getting reports from their executives. Because, like, what if they're not telling the truth?
- [13:30]
Rebecca Minkoff
Well, how do you have the conversation with the upcoming mole? Like, you sit down and say, no,
- [13:34]
Lucy Grow
I just have one on ones with them.
- [13:36]
Rebecca Minkoff
Yeah.
- [13:36]
Lucy Grow
Or I talk to them daily.
- [13:37]
Rebecca Minkoff
Right. Okay. So it's not an official, like, you're my mole.
- [13:40]
Lucy Grow
No.
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Rebecca Minkoff
Okay.
- [13:41]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. They have no idea they're the mole. They're just like, oh, wow, the CEO loves me.
- [13:44]
Rebecca Minkoff
And then does that worry their manager? Like, from a cultural perspective? So. And I say this because for a very long time, I thought that to be a successful founder, I had to be, like, the mom within the group. And I would say, you know, come in, tell me your. Your problems, your issues. And then I would get in between an executive and a junior person that would cause its own struggle. And, like, I was causing chaos. So how do you do that and not cause that?
- [14:10]
Lucy Grow
I would say, yes, it did. As in, I learned later from a lot of the individual contributors that the executives were telling them that they weren't allowed to talk to me, and they would get extremely upset when they found out that they were talking to me. So honestly, like, in those cases, keep more low key. Just keep it on sl back. But it. It's a fine line balance. And I definitely, like, had an issue, and, like, all of it really came out. I would say, after I did a cleanup, right. I was like, oh, wow. Like, they were getting in trouble for talking to me and telling me what was really going on. That's crazy.
- [14:45]
Rebecca Minkoff
Everyone, sorry for the quick pause. I want to share something really exciting. Superwoman has a brand new YouTube channel. It's still under construction, but big things are coming in 2026. You'll find past episodes, new episodes, and some bonus content I cannot wait for you to see. Just search SuperWoman Media on YouTube and hit subscribe so you don't miss a thing. Okay, back to the pod. Yeah. I had entire teams that weren't allowed to talk to me and I could. I was like, wow. I just must be like, no one likes me. No one wants to.
- [15:16]
Lucy Grow
Like, yeah. So like, my opinion after everything, I was like, okay, we're all going to be like, like, we're sitting together. I'm going to be like, by the stairs and just be super friendly to everyone. I told, like, you know, all hands, like, please, everyone, please talk to me. You're always welcome to say hi. Like, I want you to say hi to me. So it's been great. And I just spend more time with them. Like, you know, sit at the bench and eat lunch and dinner with them. They'll feel like more camaraderie.
- [15:39]
Rebecca Minkoff
Totally. So from learning things from these unknowingly moles, how do you then go back and make changes? Because I'll share an example where I have people that talk to me and then I'll go say something to, like, their manager or I'll draw out the scenario and then I'll say, and this is where I go wrong. But I'll say like the same words that the IC said to me. And then in the past, someone's been like, well, how did you know that? You said that the same way that they did. And I'm like, right, Right. Yes. I usually say, like, know what to say.
- [16:11]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. I usually say, like, multiple people have told me.
- [16:14]
Rebecca Minkoff
Right.
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Lucy Grow
Which obviously, like, they end up going to their entire team then. But at least it doesn't get one singular person in trouble.
- [16:21]
Rebecca Minkoff
And when that's happening, take me through how you approach that difficulty. Because it's your company. You should get to know everything. This person shouldn't be lying to you or shielding your team. So when they are saying, well, who told you that? Like, do you ever just say, like, it's my right to know. I'm a founder. I haven't done that, but I'm thinking about doing that.
- [16:38]
Lucy Grow
I haven't said that, actually. No, I usually say, like, I've heard from multiple people. But then if it gets to that point, like, should that person even be at your company? Right. Like, no one should be preventing anyone at the company from talking to you. I believe in radical transparency. If someone isn't in line with radical transparency as a company, then we're just not aligning on company values as well. And you need to align with your leadership team on company values.
- [16:58]
Rebecca Minkoff
Totally.
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Lucy Grow
Yeah.
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Rebecca Minkoff
So speaking of values, you care a lot about your health.
- [17:02]
Lucy Grow
It's more so. I think I'm. I like being good at things, and I take pride in certain things, like having Olympic qualifying times on a treadmill. So I eat such shit. Like, I said the county fair yesterday, and I literally, out of all the food that was there, I decided to buy Spam.
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Rebecca Minkoff
Am I, like, healthy?
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Lucy Grow
Like, I eat a lot of Spam, by the way. I love Spam.
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Commercial Narrator
Okay.
- [17:26]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. I love Span, I love junk food. McDonald's Burger 3000 now the best burger in LA right now. So I don't eat healthy. But I also like. I like being athletic because I'm good at being athletic. So that's why I do, like, berries every single day. That's why I use my hyperbaric chamber for, like, recovery, et cetera. And I like looking at my stats. Like, I have, like, a resting heart rate of like, 48 to 49, which makes me feel good.
- [17:49]
Rebecca Minkoff
Right. Have you always been that way?
- [17:51]
Lucy Grow
I've always been very competitive. And I think in general, competitive people, like, tend to love things that they're good at. Right. So that's me where I'm like, if I have, like, any natural talent towards something, I know that if I work hard, I'll be really good at it, so I'll work hard at it.
- [18:05]
Rebecca Minkoff
And where do you get the energy to sustain that? Because, again, I know. I think from what I've listened to, like, you can be out. You are hosting an event for your own, like, group, and you're out till 4 in the morning. You get up at 6am, you go to Barry's, you work a full day, you lead a team. Like, how. How do you do that?
- [18:23]
Lucy Grow
I need at least three hours of sleep, so I'd be just 3, 7am, no big berries. So I actually think it's genetic, if I'm being completely honest. Like, my parents are so disciplined. They would, like, you know, work until midnight, 1am and then they wake up at 5, 6am and I've seen them do this pretty much my entire life. I just. Yeah. Like, I didn't actually really think about that. And I didn't think it was odd because it was my entire life. So that was normal, Right. Until people were like, how are you not sleeping? Blah, blah, blah. Like, I'll post my eight sleep stats right? And like my average amount of sleep is five hours, which is actually improved because back in 2019, 2020, I wore whoop. And my monthly average was like three hours a night. So it's gotten a lot better. But yeah, I just thought about, I was like, you know, like, now that I'm thinking about it, like, my parents are exactly like me. So in that sense, I think that
- [19:11]
Rebecca Minkoff
they need to study you so that they can give us all your genes.
- [19:14]
Lucy Grow
I think I just have like a
- [19:15]
Rebecca Minkoff
sleep dream and a McDonald's, which blows my mind that you can do it. So one of the things that I'd love to touch on is your perspective on fundraising. It's been doomsday for women and the stats have gotten worse. And I'm curious for a woman who's raising or has raised like your perspective on that.
- [19:33]
Lucy Grow
So I'm really surprised the stats have gotten worse. And the reason I say this is because Angelist has really democratized being able to create funds. So now you can just be a solo gp, right? And it's been a lot easier. Like there are literally fund of funds that are dedicated to funding female gps. And theoretically, at least from what I have been told and what I have seen, is that female GPs invest in other women. So that's disappointing to hear if that's true. My perspective on fundraising in general for women though, is that like, everyone wants to invest in women from just like being like, looking good or like being able to like, as a VC, brag, like, oh, like 50% of the founders we invested in our women. I think women are held to higher standards. And that's actually why female founders outperform male founders at the end of the day. But you have to basically have this like, quantifiable resume that shows that, like, I will not fail at building a company. And I always say that, like, if you took like two kids out of mit, one was a female and one was a male, the guy would be more likely to get funded. But if you take someone with like five years of experience and they worked at like, you know, stripe, OpenAI, ramp, etc, like all the top startups, the woman is much more likely to get funding. Because everyone wants the stats of funding a woman, but they're just more uncertain about us. I think subconsciously,
- [20:56]
Rebecca Minkoff
I wonder if there's also something to it. Like, I don't know if you notice this, but when someone is constantly projecting bad news or bad PR about themselves, that tends to be what the perception is where, like, guys aren't going around who didn't get funding, being like, I'm a guy and I didn't get funding and the guys that are getting funding are announcing it and women are just like, I didn't get it, I didn't get it. And so there's this perception that maybe is more real like that people think like, oh, women really aren't, when in reality it might be. And whoever is telling us these numbers is also part of the, the yeah,
- [21:28]
Lucy Grow
the problem really, theoretically there are a lot more because like there was an issue in Silicon Valley, right, where none of the GPS were women. Like every single VC fund was getting hit with like, oh, why are all your GPS like men? And I do think subconsciously it is harder to get like you are set to a higher bar. But now there's so many female GPs and so many funds that invest in like women LED funds. So I'm like, if that stat is true, I'm surprised.
- [21:54]
Rebecca Minkoff
I hope I'm not relaying it, but
- [21:56]
Lucy Grow
it could be true because I actually
- [21:58]
Rebecca Minkoff
have heard that also went from 2 to 1.8.
- [22:01]
Lucy Grow
Yeah, so I heard that too. And my only hypothesis there is that like women, like, let's say you're a new female gp, right? And like you just are fun and you really want your fund to do well, so you subconsciously are also doing the same thing. That or like let's say you're a follow, like your Strategy is like 100k checks, but you're looking for a signal From a Tier 1 VC investing and Tier 1 VCs are investing more in men and you follow on to those investments, then like, yeah, it's going to go down.
- [22:29]
Rebecca Minkoff
So what gave you confidence to play in this space? Because I feel like again, tech still skews masculine, right? It's changing. But like, where did that desire come from? And how did you walk into a room with the confidence that you, it seems very like you come off as like, it's just that's how you are in the best way.
- [22:50]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. So I mean, I think I've just been in tech my entire life. Like I've been building websites and like figuring out how to make money since I was in elementary school. So in that sense that was normal. I would say, like really where I grew the confidence would probably be at hackathons. They're these like 24 to 48 hour coding competitions. I went to a lot of them in college. Like pretty much all the top colleges host them. Like there's Hack, mit, Calhacks, like la, I think la, Hacks, Hack, la, whatever. It's called M Hacks. Like, every top college host, it pen hacks at these hackathons. Like, I mean, I would build the app and then win, right? So, like, I just collected, literally, iPads and, like, other random toys. And I think that I knew I was good at product and good at design because other people were giving me awards for it. So there is that. But also, think in order to build companies and meeting these rooms, like, you just need, like, relentless belief in yourself. Like, you really have to be delusional to start a company.
- [23:45]
Rebecca Minkoff
I say it all the time.
- [23:46]
Lucy Grow
Like, you have to be delusional sort of company because their chances of failure are 99.9%. And it makes much more sense to, like, start a lifestyle business. It makes much more sense to, like, work at a company and make, like, millions of dollars a year, which, like, as a good engineer, you are making millions of dollars a year. So why would you sacrifice millions of dollars a year to go build a company? Like, you're actually psychotic. And the only reason you do that is because you have this, like, relentless belief in yourself. And you're a little bit delusional to believe that, like, I can be one of these people that will build a unicorn.
- [24:18]
Rebecca Minkoff
And so what keeps that going? Or do you have those dark moments where you're questioning yourself?
- [24:24]
Lucy Grow
I question, like, certain business decisions, let's call it. But I don't really have dark moments. Like, I have reflective moments or, like, that was probably a bad decision. But I view every, like, bad thing that happens in my life as a learning moment. Right. Whether it's, like, a friendship going awry or, like, a product launched and, like, it flops.
- [24:40]
Rebecca Minkoff
Did you ever have it be the opposite? Like, it took me a long time. Like, I'd feel the failure. I don't. I never would wallow in it. But, like, it. It stings. And then now, like, you, I reframe it into a learning moment. But when did that shift for you?
- [24:52]
Lucy Grow
I don't know if it's ever shifted. I've been an overly positive person for most of my life.
- [24:57]
Rebecca Minkoff
Well, okay, so we don't just need to clone you. We need to also figure out what
- [25:00]
Lucy Grow
makes you overly positive. Say, like, I think, like, I have a problem of being too happy as a person.
- [25:06]
Rebecca Minkoff
Why is that a problem?
- [25:07]
Lucy Grow
Well, I mean, it's our problem, but like I said, googling. Like, why am I so happy as a person? And it's not like bipolar disorder. It's literally just, like, I don't. Like, I'm just happy. Like, I Can confidently say, I think I'm like one of the top 10 happiest people in this entire universe. There must be like some psychological issues. I was like, I think it's called like, hypomania. Hypomanic something.
- [25:28]
Rebecca Minkoff
Don't make it negative. Just be like, yes, I'm one of the ones.
- [25:31]
Lucy Grow
And I'm like, I'm just really happy. Yeah, it's like there is like, like thing. I don't know what it's called, where the definition of it is like, literally, you are just too happy.
- [25:40]
Rebecca Minkoff
That's an unhappy person giving you that label. I don't like them. What is it you're excited to build now that you can share?
- [25:47]
Lucy Grow
Obviously, I'm working on Passes, which is our creator economy platform. We help creators monetize their brand. It's been awesome. We've had creators make nine figures in the past few years. So I'm very excited about that and continuing to grow that. But ever since I would say, like, you know, liquidity, I've been having a lot of fun being able to build other apps as well. So I'm working on this fintech app. Can't really say too much. Hopefully like, you know, June, July, I'll launch. But the idea is like global payments with AI built in. So we'll see how that goes. I'm working on a something in the travel category, but like, apparel. So travel apparel. Like, apparel made really good for travel. Can't really go into details of that, but I think that that one's one I'm having actually a lot of fun with because it's different, right? Like, I'd never done D2C and it's fun, like designing, like, what it's going to look like, feel the different fabrics, like how it fits on men and women, the colors. It's a different side of my creative brain than, you know, like, app building. And then I'm working on an agentic tool that is meant to replace your growth team. That sounded really dark.
- [26:51]
Rebecca Minkoff
Growth teams, take note, your jobs are over. How does one do that many things at once?
- [26:58]
Lucy Grow
So I think that now because I have more flexibility. Like, let's talk about Elon, right? Like, he's like running a bunch of different companies, but he also has very competent CEOs and CTOs are doing a lot of like, lifting. And that's kind of the move I'm doing where like with the apparel company, I actually place the CEO in because I only have time to be like, you know, chief creative officer basically there. But because I'm able to self fund it. I'm able to just do that, which is nice for the other companies. At the moment. I am acting CEO, but who knows what will happen? Like I think that like, depending on which one I decide I want to like focus on more. I'll stay as acting CEO or end up placing in like a very competency. Oh, or hire someone in a CEO who knows.
- [27:44]
Rebecca Minkoff
I'm sure it's very, very different. Well, I know it's very, very different building something once you've had success or the money to like say, good, I can actually hire a CEO. Like I'm starting something on the side. And it's just nice to know that I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna fund this. Right? It's very different post acquisition. So I want you to talk me through like the difference in building with no money and the difference in building with money.
- [28:07]
Lucy Grow
I mean, if it's a building, no money is just, it's more stressful, right? Because you actually have to go through the fundraising process and then you have this timeline to hit product market fit. And if you don't hit product market fit, the company dies. Uh, the nice thing about being self funded is that I do think that like with perseverance, if you're a founder, you will eventually hit product market fit. It could be in two months, it could be in 20 years. And I have seen people that spent, you know, the last decade pivoting. And then actually a good friend of mine, he spent literally one decade pivoting and then just got acquired by Anthropic. It's all about perseverance. So like with like being able to self fund, I am able to continually explore until product market fit. And then once that hits, then I can raise funding. And it's nice because it's less dilutive.
- [28:48]
Rebecca Minkoff
How do you know, like to keep pivoting or that this is something like, when do you say I'm drawing the line? I tried that. It failed.
- [28:54]
Lucy Grow
I think most products, like, you can tell pretty like right away because you want to see a logarithmic curve right when you are after you launch. Like, is it spreading organically? Are people talking about it? Like, is sales easy? Like, are you getting that like 10% month over month growth? And if you're not, then chances are it's not a product people want. Are the tam's not high enough? Like maybe you launch a product and you're getting that 10% month above a month growth for six months, but then it plateaus out. And if you have no way of getting out of that plateau. Like, you probably hit the year total addressable market and then it's time to pivot away. That or it stays as a lifestyle business, like, kind of up to you.
- [29:31]
Rebecca Minkoff
So I'm curious if you agree with this. I interviewed an engineer, like one of my first podcasts, and they, they really changed my perspective because everything to them was like, a B testing goes in the failure funnel. And it took the emotion out of failure for them. And then I applied that to my own failures and I was like, there's your emotion now. Just, I ab tested this shit. Didn't fucking work. Do you think like an engineer with these new projects?
- [29:53]
Lucy Grow
So, like, you can AB test things, like small features, right? But you still need to view things as a whole. So, like, if you view every single thing in, like, life, let's say, as AB testing, the sum doesn't necessarily equal the whole there. And I've seen companies where, like, they believe they can solve the entire, like, growth problem with a B testing. Like, let's a B test a login page, then the signup funnel, then, like, this feature that helps drive more like, posts, let's say, and then this feature that helps drive more like, time spent on site and thinking that as long as they continue a B testing and increasing those metrics, then they'll have a unicorn. I think it's a very important thing to have. Like, you should absolutely be AB testing, like, pricing for conversion. You should be AB testing your signup form. But I don't think the sum of a B test equals a whole. So that's kind of how I view it.
- [30:41]
Rebecca Minkoff
That makes sense.
- [30:42]
Lucy Grow
Like, this is more art to things than a B testing, right?
- [30:45]
Rebecca Minkoff
Yeah, right. I just meant an approaching and looking at, like, when you have a failure in your life, you're viewing it as a B. You know, like, I, a B tested this, this thing and it didn't work. Not, not necessarily applied to, like, yeah, home pages and stuff like that.
- [30:57]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. I do think about life that way where I'm like, okay, cool. Like, I tried something, it didn't work. I learned something. Let's move on. Yeah, Like, I don't really care about failure. Like, I don't think failure is like a bad thing.
- [31:06]
Rebecca Minkoff
So what do you do to fuel yourself? What do you do to, like, stay inspired, stay well, you're already happy all the time. So, like, what do you do to fill your cup?
- [31:15]
Lucy Grow
I think that quite literally waking up at like 5:30am and doing berries every day makes me very happy. Like, If I miss Berries, I'm not happy. And obviously, like, if, you know, I'm in a city that doesn't have berries, I like pre accept it. So I'm like, okay, cool.
- [31:28]
Rebecca Minkoff
Is your hotel continued upon the nearest Berries?
- [31:31]
Lucy Grow
Yes, actually, I get really upset when there's no hotel like nearby Barry's.
- [31:35]
Rebecca Minkoff
Will you stay at a three star hotel if it's across the street from a Berries? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to see how committed you are to be.
- [31:41]
Lucy Grow
Yeah. Like in Paris, for example, like the nicest hotel is I think like a three, four star hotel, but it's closest to Barry's. Everything else is far from Berries. And like, I don't want to like take a 20 minute Uber to Barry's. So yeah, like, I will stay in a crappier hotel for Berries.
- [31:56]
Rebecca Minkoff
I hope you own shares in Berries.
- [31:58]
Lucy Grow
I don't zero. Literally zero. So I just, I just love it. They won't even give me free classes or free merchandise.
- [32:04]
Rebecca Minkoff
Very free. Take notes. This is terrible.
- [32:07]
Lucy Grow
But I do think working out in general, like, you know, it's like an extra like cup of coffee in a day. Like boost your serotonin. Like, and for me, I love music. Like I'm a DJ on the side, so like I get to wake up to a rave every single day.
- [32:21]
Rebecca Minkoff
So when you say you're a DJ on the side, like you're DJing at Forbes 30 under 30, that's not really a side gig. That's like a pretty like visible place. So are you of the mindset? Like, I'm really busy. I have these companies, I'm launching new projects. Like, if you want me to dj, I'm coming to the big stuff. Or are you just doing it where? Wherever you can. And no.
- [32:37]
Lucy Grow
So I do it for the big stuff. Like in order to grow as a DJ. And DJs are really hard working. Like actually some of the hardest working people you'll meet because they're constantly on tour. Right? Like you are working at like four different college bars every single week you're on the road non stop to blow up your career. I'm like very grateful and lucky that I don't have to do that.
- [32:55]
Christy from Lululemon
That.
- [32:55]
Lucy Grow
So for me it's just like if I get offered to do something really cool or convenient, I'll do it. I'm pretty like strict on my rate though. It's like you're gonna pay me to go and do this. But yeah, like I would say I'm taking it seriously in a sense of like, I want to play Google I just played Ultra Miami, which is awesome. Right? I played. Just played the Getty Villa, which was also awesome.
- [33:13]
Rebecca Minkoff
And you taught yourself?
- [33:14]
Lucy Grow
I mean, yes and no. I would say, like, I have a lot of DJ friends, so I basically bought CDJs from Guitar center because I was bored one day.
- [33:21]
Rebecca Minkoff
What is a cdj?
- [33:23]
Lucy Grow
It's like the mixer.
- [33:24]
Rebecca Minkoff
Okay, okay.
- [33:25]
Lucy Grow
Or like, the like. And then you have, like, your mixer in between. Then I just called up my DJ friends and I was like, hey, can you come over and give me a lesson? And they spent five minutes explaining the buttons, and I was like, wait, this is really easy. It's all about, like, song selection. So then I. But I'm also, like, making music right now.
- [33:40]
Rebecca Minkoff
Singing or making music?
- [33:42]
Lucy Grow
I can't say. I mean, I have a song where we, like, have my vocals on it. It's just terrible. I need to find a vocalist. But no, I'm, like, remixing music and creating originals right now.
- [33:51]
Rebecca Minkoff
Yeah.
- [33:51]
Lucy Grow
So I do want to, like, actually build up, like, me as a D, because, like, if you just dj, you're never gonna really be that big. Like, you have to, like, release music. So I am working on that as well. On the side.
- [34:02]
Rebecca Minkoff
Oh, my gosh. I don't know. I. I want to keep up with you. I'm so impressed with you. So would you say that that fuels your cup, like, being.
- [34:10]
Lucy Grow
I think it makes me really happy. Like, yeah, it makes, like, extra happy.
- [34:13]
Rebecca Minkoff
Totally. I love it. Do you have a piece of advice that you want to pass on that either you learned or someone else gave to you that you think is worth.
- [34:19]
Christy from Lululemon
Worth.
- [34:19]
Rebecca Minkoff
Worth mentioning?
- [34:20]
Lucy Grow
I guess two pieces of advice. Number one is I think happiness is a secret to longevity. If you look at, like, the oldest people on this planet, they all say they're just really happy because they never dated men, but they all drink and smoke and do whatever. And then number two, I would say, like, if you're young, you should be making friends with everyone around you. Especially if you're in college. I think college is, like, the number one place to find your future co workers, co founders, et cetera. Because there's nowhere else and no time else in your life where you're going to be in a place with, like, a high density of people that are incredibly intelligent that all want to make friends, like, or become friends because they all entered college with no friends. Right. Like, once you, like, go get a job, like, people have friends already established. College is literally the one place where people are like, oh, crap, I have to make a whole new set of Friends. And these people also happen to be highly intelligent people that are probably just as motivated as you, depending on the college. But if you're listening to this podcast, I'm going to assume we're going to.
- [35:27]
Rebecca Minkoff
You're very smart if you're listening to this podcast.
- [35:29]
Lucy Grow
Exactly.
- [35:31]
Rebecca Minkoff
So where can people find you, follow you? And what should they support of yours at the moment or should they just be waiting for the July like, yeah,
- [35:39]
Lucy Grow
keep an eye out for things. But if you want to keep up with me, I'm pretty much only active on Instagram now. But my Instagram is grow for it. G U O F O R I T because you just yellow and go for it in life. Like your dreams, your goals. If you don't like take that jump, then you're never going to like make it. Right?
- [35:58]
Rebecca Minkoff
You're never going to make it.
- [35:59]
Lucy Grow
You guys have to be okay with failure to like beat your limits.
- [36:03]
Rebecca Minkoff
It's so true. Thank you for coming on today. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you wanted to share?
- [36:08]
Lucy Grow
I'm really bad at thinking of things like that. I'm just like, you can ask me anything, I'll answer.
- [36:12]
Rebecca Minkoff
But okay. I didn't know some people have like things that are just like. I really feel passionate about this. Yeah, okay.
- [36:19]
Lucy Grow
No, okay.
- [36:20]
Rebecca Minkoff
Thanks so much for watching today's episode. Before you head out, I want to invite you to my brand new YouTube channel for all things Superwoman. It's a fresh space I'm building out for 2026, packed with episodes, future episodes, and some special new content we're cooking up. Just search SuperWoman Media on YouTube and subscribe so you're there for everything Coming next. I'll see you over there. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you've enjoyed it, take a second to rate and review the show wherever you're tuning in. It really helps others find the podcast. You can follow me on Instagram, Rebecca Minkoff and msuperwoman or for a slice into my personal life, eckyminkoff. And don't forget to check out my book, the New Rules for Unlocking Creativity, Courage and Success. See you next week.