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Travis Makes Money
INTERVIEW | Make Money by Building a Brand That Lasts with Rebecca Minkoff
00:28:10
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- [00:00]
A
I was recently on whatnot the other day, just shopping around, looking frankly, because I was just blown away that this is something that people are doing with their time. And so I was like, I got to go see if this thing is real before I talk about it on the show. And so I'm browsing whatnot, looking around, finding things and it's crazy to see the volume of people that are just having fun in the chat. They're watching people do live shopping. It's like, it's like you know, QVC directly on your phone. It's something you need to try, I'm telling you. Not just buying, but the selling piece to too. Where these people are just starting up pop up shops and businesses, selling whatever product, finding their people, building community, getting repeat customers that come back to see your face as the seller. Not just a logo or a brand, anyone can sell. Whether your business is big, small or yet to exist, people selling on whatnot sell 10 times more than on any other major marketplaces. And that's because you're not just listing products, you're building real connections with buyers across whatnot. The number of sellers making over $1 million a year has now doubled. The consistency pays off for those sellers. It's not just side hustle, it's a real path to building something that lasts. Because whatnot buyers spend more than an hour a day in the app, they're not just browsing around, they're engaged, they're buying, they're coming back. You go live, show off your products in real time and turn what you love into real income. So search whatnot whnot in the app store, download it today and get started selling right away. You're listening to the Travis Makes Money podcast presented by GoHighLevel.com for a free 30 day trial of the best all in one digital marketing software tool on the planet, just go to gohighlevel.com travis. What's going on everybody?
- [01:44]
B
Welcome back to the Travis Makes Money podcast where it's our mission to help you make more money. On this episode of the show I have a new friend, Rebecca Minkoff. She's the founder and chief creative officer and co founder, actually female founder, known for her global accessible luxury fashion brand that is that was created back in 2005. So it's been a little, little bit of time since she's been working on this. She's also a best selling author. Powerhouse entrepreneurs paved the way for many and is the co founder of the female founder collective. Rebecca is dedicated to creating the modern Cultural and business narrative of togetherness and shared success. She's doing this for a little bit of time now, and she's also a wife and a mother of four, so wears many hats in this world. Rebecca, what's up? Welcome to the show.
- [02:29]
C
Thanks for having me.
- [02:30]
B
Of course. I love to ask this question just to start things off, because I'm endlessly curious about how people ended up doing what they've been doing for as long as they have. Tell me the first time, Rebecca, the first time you ever made a dollar that got you excited or, like, you were, like, surprised? Like, I can't believe somebody just paid me for this.
- [02:49]
C
So I was quite the crafter. And so when I was little, my mom would pay for supplies, but not the actual items themselves. So I bought some jewelry, like beads and, like, all the things you need to make a bracelet. And when I sold that first bracelet, I was hooked. And I used to go door to door in my neighborhood when I guess it was safe and knock on doors and show people my. Probably very terrible jewelry. But some people bought it.
- [03:15]
B
Yeah, well, it's the first little. First little slice of rejection. You know what I mean? You get a. Get a little bit of experience under your belt doing that. Was this innate in you, Rebecca, what did your parents do?
- [03:26]
C
So my dad was a doctor. My mom was a wearer of many hats. She had an Amway business, which is, like, for people that don't know what Amway is, like a Mary Kay. And then she had a home health aid clinic, and she's also a nurse, so she did a lot of things.
- [03:42]
B
Wow. Yeah, no kidding. So, yeah, you learned that pretty early on, it seems like. Did they encourage the entrepreneurial route? Did they encourage traditional school go to college type route? What was that like?
- [03:56]
C
So they were very not traditional. They made our household. Anything we wanted, we had to work towards. We had a ledger in the kitchen, and so you had your chores, and then anything on top of that was earned money that she kept track of to buy us stuff. We had a very frugal upbringing. When people hear doctor, like daughter of a doctor, they think money. But when my dad told me his story, like his residency, he was making, like, 35, $40,000 a year, which, to support a family of three is not a lot of money. And so we definitely were very savvy and scrimped and, you know, didn't buy cheeseburgers, just hamburgers or one small fry for the family. Not a whole, you know, not one for each of us. And I think my mom had two, two approaches. She wanted us to learn how to be self starters because she felt like she didn't have those. Her parents for like immigrants, they came over, they didn't teach her how to do that. And she felt odd when she left home, like not knowing how to self start. So she was very motivated for us to learn. And then separately they were just like hippies. They were like, you want to go to college? Great. Pay for it. You want to get a job? Cool. Go start working. So in our household, it was sort of up to us to discover what we wanted to do and how we were going to do it.
- [05:10]
B
Yeah. Did you find that to be useful and helpful?
- [05:13]
C
Incredibly. It's a skill set I rely on today. Like if all else fails, I know I can do something right. I know I know how to make something. I know how to, how to get from A to B. And I think because nothing was handed to me and I had to work for every single dollar I ever wanted, you almost feel this sense of if it doesn't work out, yes, it'll be awful. But I know I have the skill set to start over.
- [05:36]
B
How have you taken those lessons into your own parenting style? I know, I feel like it's, it's the easiest thing to say, you know what I mean, to like let your kids figure things out on their own type of a thing. But it's so difficult to do as a parent. You just want to reach over and help them so bad, you know what I mean? But you just, you can't do it all the time. So tell me a little bit about how that's affected your parenting style at the desk.
- [06:03]
C
Yes. So I think that the bar of where we live like as a family is definitely very different than what my parents had to deal with as a single income household. My dad making like 40 grand a year. So there's a level of what the kids see and have access to that like I can't necessarily take away from them, but what I can take away is I don't just buy you whatever you want, you have to earn it. If you, if you want clothing outside of like the things that you need for school or your stuff is destroyed, like how you going to earn it, you know? My daughter is a mini entrepreneur, whether it's making nails or selling flowers. Like I'm always her investor, but I get paid back first, interest, free loans and then she can keep the rest. And so I constantly say no. And it's very hard because I remember being told no and how terrible that felt. Like, but why? But my husband and I say no a lot because we want our kids to be forced to have to work hard. So if they have an idea and opportunity, the full support is there. But again, we treat it like a business so that they know that it's not just like, oh, yeah, we'll advance you capital for your nail business and never get paid back or whatever.
- [07:12]
B
Yeah, right, right. Okay, so let's get back into your story now. So you coming out of high school, what was it your, what was your, what was your goal? What was your plan?
- [07:21]
C
So I was really good at science in high school. I went to a performing arts high school where I was a dancer. I was too tall, my bust was too big. I threw off the symmetry is what the teachers told me. And so I spent a lot of my time in the costume department and in science and I thought maybe, maybe I wanted to be a geneticist. Don't ask me why. And I did one college tour of John Hopkins and I was like in the sad air conditioned hallways where everyone was wearing lab coats and I was like, I can't do this for the next eight years. Like, I'm a creature of the outdoors and sunshine and I can't be in a lab. So that sort of helped me make my decision after being in the costume department of like, I think I want to be a designer. And so I knew I didn't want to go to school and hadn't quite figured out what I was going to do to get myself to New York. And then, you know, fate intervened and my brother came home from a party and he said, hey, I met this designer, he takes interns, they pay him wage, like call him, and stuff like that doesn't happen these days. But I think then it was a definitely more innocent time. And I called him, he said, come on up, we pay $3.25 an hour. And so I went to my parents, I said, I got a job, like, can you buy me a ticket to New York?
- [08:31]
B
Wow. Where were you at the time?
- [08:32]
C
We were in Tampa, Florida. We had moved from San Diego to Tampa when I was 10.
- [08:36]
B
Okay, gotcha. So pretty big move we're talking about here. How old were you?
- [08:42]
C
I was 18.
- [08:43]
B
Okay, what did your parents say when they, when you came to them with that?
- [08:47]
C
I said, great, we're going to buy you a one way ticket to Islip Airport, which isn't even anywhere remotely near the two major airports in New York City, but it was a cute ticket. And they said, your aunt will pick you up. You can stay with her for the night and then we'll drive you into the city. And I was like, so we're gonna get me an apartment? And they're like, no, you gotta find a place to stay.
- [09:06]
B
Yeah.
- [09:07]
C
And I had a turnout.
- [09:07]
B
Yeah. It turns out $3 and 25 cents an hour doesn't really get you an apartment.
- [09:11]
C
No, it does not. But I had a friend who had lived with us during high school when he was going through some family issues. And so he's like, come stay with me at my dorm. And I. So I knew I had the first three weeks figured out and I was like, I'll figure out where I, where I sleep after three weeks.
- [09:27]
B
I love the story again, especially now, where college is not what it used to be. It's not as much of a guaranteed path to some version of success anymore, at least from the data that I've seen. But it doesn't have to be. And hear stories like yours where, you know, this is still at a time where college was even better than it is now. And still you're like, I. I have enough clarity to know that this is not the path that I want to take and this is the path that I want to take. And maybe it doesn't make as much sense to other people and maybe other people might look at this move and think, what is Rebecca doing? This is insane. But it ended up, you know, working out okay for you? I think so. Tell me about those first few years working in New York City. What was, what was, was it a. Was it a, you know, baptism by fire? Going from being in Tampa, you know, with your family, to being 18 year old single adult in New York City.
- [10:26]
C
It wasn't quite a baptism. Only because I had been there when I was 16 with my boyfriend. Don't ask me why my parents let us go up there for New Year's Eve. Never will understand that, that thought process, But I think it was a mixture of excitement, anxiety, feeling like I had to have my career figured out now. But then working at a designer and his office was also amazing. But I think I went in there being like, oh, I'm going to be like the assistant designer and it's going to be so glamorous. It was not glamorous. You know, I was shipping, I was organizing the supply shelves, I was picking up the CEO's son. You know, I was cleaning up after market meetings. And so I just knew, like, I know how to work hard. I'm going to put my head down, I'm going to work hard. I'm going to get noticed for it. And when I get noticed, that's when I'm gonna ask for what I want, you know. So I went from working hard for six months, okay, I'd like a raise. I'd like $6 an hour. I'd like to work in the design department, you know. And I think the CEO was like, yeah. Cause she saw that I was. I was able to work hard to make that happen.
- [11:27]
B
What were some of the early lessons that you took from that experience?
- [11:32]
C
That you have to work hard, that you have to be the type of person. I think it happens unfortunately, very rarely now. But like first in the office, last leave, like, what else can I do? How else can I show off how hard I'm working so that you see potential in me? I think it was also a lesson on patience. Like, no, you don't get the glamorous job right away. Your first job is not your dream job. But maybe your second or third job is not your dream job. You know, this is the time for you to learn, for you to hustle, for you to make mistakes on someone else's dime. And then I would just say it was humbling. You know, be humble and. Be humble and show gratitude.
- [12:11]
B
How long were you there for?
- [12:13]
C
I was there for a total of three years and I was fired shortly after 9 11.
- [12:19]
B
Oh really? Just because of downsizing of staff or.
- [12:23]
C
No, it was sort of a mixture of a perfect storm. I had made a shirt that was an Isle of New York shirt before 9 11. I had sent it to an actress. She wore it on jay Leno after 9 11. And then just saying my name on national television. Like I was making that shirt in my like 5th floor walk up, going to Canal street, buying the shirt, cutting it up, making it look like a rock and roll shirt. And my boss was like, either you're going to be a hundred percent in on me or you're going to be 100% in on like your shirt business. And I think I know the answer, so like go do it. And I'm like, no, no wait. I want the comfort of my $6 an hour. And she's like, I know, you just have to go do it. And so he sort of fired me and let me go. And I then had to depend on
- [13:13]
B
myself at the time. Were you upset about that?
- [13:17]
C
I was really nervous, like can I subsist on my own fumes from this T shirt, you know, which then slowly became six piece collection and a small line and E commerce was just starting. And I Had a website that, you know, would buy on consignment. But I was avoiding my roommate to not pay rent. I was going into debt on a credit card to make the business happen. And I think the only thing that made me not panic was I had met a director again through this actress, Jen Elfman. And he gave me a chance at an ESPN commercial. And he's like, if you do a good job styling this commercial, I'll hire you for, like, everything I do. And he paid me a thousand dollars a day, which at the time was
- [14:05]
B
like, oh, my God, hitting the lottery.
- [14:07]
C
Yeah, 100%. And he hired me. I just, again, I learned. I knew how to work hard and I knew how to go above and beyond. And so I blew him away. And he's like, all right, you're my girl. Like, you're on every shoot with me. And he became the. As Project Runway came out and Top Chef, like, he did all the commercials. So I was supplementing my income, or my lack of income, my. My money losing business. I was supplementing with dialing to like, stay afloat.
- [14:33]
B
Yeah. This is, I mean, the. The perfect example of the def. Definition of luck of preparation, meeting, opportunity, you know, that you put yourself in the right position. You could have stayed in Florida.
- [14:47]
C
I could have, you know, I mean,
- [14:48]
B
been like, I. I could just live it, live in my parents house, and I'll. And I'll. And I'll design in my free time, and I'll, you know, do this thing and do that thing. But then that you. You miss out on the opportunity where you meet people in New York City who met this person, who met this person, who met this person, who then gives you an opportunity to be able to do something. And then you stepped into the opportunity and succeeded with the opportunity, but also because of the preparation that you had done, you know, from the outsider's perspective, it's like, oh, well, Rebecca is just so lucky. You know what I mean? Yeah,
- [15:20]
C
you did. To get there. You know, it just discounts all of that.
- [15:24]
B
Right? Exactly. How did you enjoy your time styling for those commercials and stuff? Did you feel like you had made it? Yeah, yeah.
- [15:31]
C
I mean, I got to do Heidi Klum. I got to do Padma Lakshmi. I got to do Hilary Duff, and I then got clients from it. It was fun. You know, it was a lot of work, but it was really fun. It just became, at a certain point, really hard to manage both because you're going on set for 10 days, you're not fulfilling orders. I was making everything, so there was definitely the tension point of, like, how am I going to do this? Both.
- [15:56]
B
Well, yeah. So what did you end up doing?
- [15:59]
C
I ended up doing it for as long as I could until the business felt like, okay, there's something here. And by something, it was like hopping along at $250,000 a year, maybe in orders. But I was able to live, you know, in my $850 a month rental apartment and sort of piece things together.
- [16:21]
B
So this is essentially like a four year time period, if I have my timelines right. Between 9, 11. Between losing your job and then starting your fashion brand in 2005. Right. Is that. Was that the extension of this early business? Is this a completely different business? What exactly happened there?
- [16:40]
C
So from 2001 to 2005, it was solely just apparel and I was in great stores. It was myself and one other gentleman kind of making everything max. The business was topping out at half a million, which no profit losing. I was in debt at that point, about 50 or 60K.
- [16:58]
B
Yeah.
- [16:59]
C
And no way to figure out how I was going to get out of that hole. Then the same amazing actress who's been so supportive, Jenna, came back and said, will you design a bag for me? The character in the movie is going to carry the bag the whole time, so you'll get a lot of airtime. And I was like, yeah, I'll do that. So I had two bags made. I shipped one to her. I had a very compressed timeline to make this bag. Two weeks. Yep. FedEx did not deliver it on time. It did not make it to the movie. And so I owned a very expensive bag. I was like, I guess I'll carry this bag. And I carried it around and so many women stopped me that I was like, there's something magical about the silhouette, the shape, the fabrication. I used that. I thought, maybe I'll just add this bag to the collection and see what happens. Why can't I be apparel and a bag designer? And then through again, series of luck. My. My friend who had been styling with me on shoots had become a buyer for a store in LA. She bought 12 bags, put it in the store. She introduced me to another woman who was a writer for a really popular publication. It was written about. The bags were gone in a couple hours and then the reorder came. And then I was like, okay, like I've been the only one pushing my business for four years and now there's this momentum and oh, shit, how am I going to do this?
- [18:24]
B
Yeah, right, right. And it's in. In an adjacent field that you didn't think about at that time. Right. You're making like T shirts, apparel, stuff like that, and then make a one off bag. And then again, this is what I, this is what I love about people's stories is that you see, like, you feel that moment of, I couldn't get the bag in time, everything's done, my dreams are dashed, I'm, I'm over. You know what I mean? Like, everything is not going the way it's supposed to go. And then you just start wearing the bag. Get noticed, get this other connection. Sell a couple does. Well, sell a couple more. And now you have a fashion brand on your hands. Yeah, I love the story. What was the name of the company?
- [19:03]
C
The company that bought the bag?
- [19:05]
B
The brand that.
- [19:08]
C
It was always Rebecca Minkoff.
- [19:09]
B
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So now you have your actual name going into luxury stores across the country. How long until you were like, okay, we actually have a real business here. Like with their profit in the bank account, we're paying down debt. And I can see a path to where this is actually going to become something that's going to be successful for me.
- [19:30]
C
I mean, we never had a profit because that's not how businesses were built until 26. What year was it? When did Trump do the first tariffs? 2016, 2018, something like that.
- [19:44]
A
Yeah.
- [19:45]
B
First couple years of his administration.
- [19:46]
C
Yeah. Just to give context, we built the business with. We couldn't get, you know, as it scaled it, the business was doubling. You know, it was 500,000amillion to whatever it was growing. So a lot of that funding came from my brother's credit card, from mortgaging his house once that felt too scary. We had purchase order financing.
- [20:09]
B
Okay.
- [20:10]
C
And then we had a private equity infusion in 2012. And at that moment, when they put the money in the company, obviously now we didn't have debt, but their, their ethos was grow at all costs, margin does not matter. So we weren't profitable because it didn't matter. Yeah. And we were actually going along that direction until the sentiment changed, you know, overnight to like, wait, are you profitable? And the year.
- [20:36]
B
And the year said, yeah, exactly, yeah.
- [20:39]
C
And then the year we were supposed to be profitable, the tariffs started and we were making in China. And so we completely had to say, oh, I guess we won't be profitable. So that scenario didn't happen till, really Covid, where we were forced to be scaling.
- [20:54]
A
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- [22:03]
B
What do you mean by forced to be profitable?
- [22:05]
C
Well, we had to figure out a way to survive which with a loss of 70% of the business and so the E comm site had to make money. You know, it couldn't be this game where you're moving money around all the time and purchase, order financing, paying it back and then you know, like so we were forced, you know, to figure it out. Like how do you make this a profitable business that can live on its own without a dependency on any, on any other outside partners.
- [22:35]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean, again, love the story. I mean this is, we're talking 15 years before we reach profitability here. But it also is a lesson in doing something that you enjoy, you know what I mean? Like using your time, the majority of your waking hours to push forward a project that you genuinely personally care about and have a vested interest in seeing successful. Because if it wasn't that, you just would have stopped doing it, you know, 10 years before, 12 years before, just would not have ever gotten to that point. And then another lesson in there, to have your back against the wall and just figure it out when Covid hits and say, well, 70% of our business is gone or retail foot traffic is zero and now we either adapt or we die. And that's the only two options now and then to be able to get into some other businesses. Now you have the female founder collective, right? Tell me a little bit about that.
- [23:28]
C
Yeah. And one lesson to add before I tell you about Female Founder Collective is make a profitable business. You know, that can weather any storm. It is not pleasant to be in those situations with banks with the leverage that they can have, with the personal guarantees and commitments you're beholden to. Like I tell every founder now, figure out a margin that provides for you a nice. A nice lifestyle and profitability because you never know what can happen. And the sentiment can change on a dime. And even today with investors, they don't. They don't care that you're growing. Like, are you profitable? Can you make money? Is there a path to making money here?
- [24:05]
B
Yeah.
- [24:06]
C
So even though that's how we did it, I never tell anyone to do it like that because it was really hard and it lasted far too long. Like this, this former advisor was like, you grew this company like a tech company, but it's not a tech company. Like, it's a handbag company, you know, with inventory. And so, you know, grow your company along the lines it should be grown.
- [24:29]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [24:31]
C
But Female Founder Collective I co founded with Alison Wyatt. I'll start that over. Female Founder Collective was started with my co founder, Alison Wyatt, and our founding partner, Elizabeth Leonard, because I had only known women against women in my industry. Women not sharing, designers battling each other, competition. I had no idea that when you got outside my industry, there is a glass ceiling. Women aren't making equal. And I thought to myself, you know what, we can make Mary sue at the corporate job, making 21 more million dollars and great that she's rich, but what's the trickle down? Not much. And my path to that solution was if we can make founders more successful and if we can make them actually have the keys with community and education, that has more impact on our economy and. And women than anything else. And so started that in 2018. We've grown it to over 30,000 members. We have two tiers of different private membership available, depending on the scale of your business. And our full goal is to educate you on all the unsexy parts of business that you never knew you needed to know, and to provide a community that's there, whether it's resources, a shoulder to cry on, or whatever, you need to, like, get to that next level of your business.
- [25:49]
B
So three different member tiers. If I'm hearing that right, you have free and then you have a subscription, then you have a higher ticket subscription. Is that right?
- [25:56]
C
Correct. Yes. Okay.
- [25:58]
B
Okay. And how are you growing that? Is there a marketing sales team? Is it all word of Mouth.
- [26:04]
C
So right now we have yet to truly pay if more than $5,000. I would say on marketing, it's all word of mouth at the moment. That doesn't mean we don't want to do paid marketing, but we also, I don't know, sometimes I feel like when you're trying to get someone to be a member of a community, you don't necessarily want to advertise that because you don't know who it's at the end of the day being sent to. And so the word of mouth and referrals has been our biggest source or LinkedIn, quite frankly, like our LinkedIn lives are our biggest converters. And at least we know with that, the traffic is it's people you want. And so we're growing it through that primarily and, you know, through, you know, great events that we do. We have a huge event every year called Female Founders Day that's open to anybody. And from there you get to hear, you know, almost 50 women teach you. It's not the inspirational I walked away and I'm so inspired. That's the last thing I want you to say to me if you attend one of our events. I wouldn't say, I learned what the CRM, you know, platform I need is, or I learned how to take my first steps in AI, or I learned how to do X, Y and Z. That actually helps your business when you get home.
- [27:18]
B
Rebecca, I appreciate you, the work that you're doing in the world, for taking the time to come on the show. Where can people go to get more from you and everything you're working on?
- [27:24]
C
Oh, my gosh. Well, my podcast, Superwomen with Rebecca Minkoff is a good listen. You can follow me at Rebecca Minkoff if you like. My products at Becky Minkoff for the
- [27:33]
B
world beyond Rebecca Minkoff for some of her products, go check out her podcast, Superwomen Podcast. That's M I N K O F f Rebecca Minkoff. Rebecca, again, I know you're a very busy woman. I do not take your time for granted. Thank you for taking the time. Everybody else tuning in, remember, money only solves your money problems, but it's easier to solve the rest of your problems when you got a little bit of money in the bank. So let's start there here on the Travis Makes Money podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Catch you guys next time. Peace.
- [28:02]
C
Thank you.