Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got. I'm your host Sean Taylor, along with my producer JB and today our guest is Ripley Raider. If you know women's fashion, you've probably seen her name. She's a designer, entrepreneur and builder of one of the fastest growing brands out there. But Ripley didn't take the traditional path to get there. No, she's self taught, fearless and unafraid to go against the grain. In this conversation, you'll hear the story behind the worst advice she ever got and how trusting herself led to something far bigger than she could have ever imagined. Hey Ripley, thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Well, Ripley, I'm really excited to learn more about what's the worst advice you ever got?
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Yes, well, I believe the worst advice I've ever gotten and continue to get is to look outside of yourself to consultants, to experts, to other people, rather than look into your own capabilities and vision of your own brand as you grow it.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: I, I'm sure there's some story behind this Ripley. So maybe just give our listeners, you know, maybe some of the early days and maybe when you were getting some of this advice. I'm sure they'd love to hear some context on this.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah, and definitely I have a story of when I first started the company. I think we were doing three orders a week if we were lucky. I mean I was so proud of that. I built the company from nothing and we were still tiny. But I, I've always been proud of the growth and being small and I needed a website. I got everybody in quotation marks said to me, you need to get a company to build your website so it looks really pro. And so I got all these quotes and even friends and family rates were talking. $16,000 I think was the least I could do on platforms like Magento or other places like that. And I try because my brand is based for women with a woman's gaze. I try to work with women as much as I could. And in the website world there's not a lot of them now there are more. It's been 15 years, thank God. But why am I losing my sense of self in my vision and why have I forgotten my own capabilities? And so I went on Shopify. But $100 template that you buy, built the website and use that same website from when we were making zero money. Like I think, I think my profit was maybe eighteen hundred dollars in two years to multiple millions, tens of millions with that same website. But it was funny because I thought if I would have taken the advice, I don't know if I ever would have had a company because then being nimble in business, mostly in, in the social media world now, if you're not nimble, you're dead. And if your website isn't nimble, you're dead. You're dead in the water. You might as well be blockbuster. So I'm really, really glad because now anytime I want to make a tiny change, we just like today I was on the website, I noticed something went right in.
And so when my advice to a lot of young brand builders, entrepreneurs, you can handle your website.
You don't need someone else to tell you what your branding is. You know it. That's the, that was my first of many years of people telling me to look out instead of look in.
[00:03:36] Speaker C: Well, it's what you can learn too, right? Because you can. You're like, well, I don't know what I don't know, but let me like learn what I don't know and that's fine. So especially. But in your background, like you didn't go to fashion school, you didn't do things that you've always sort of, have you always been that sort of like self starting person? Like, let me just figure it out.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think I was. I mean I was making clothes for my friends at age 15, so I've always been a bit of a hustler, but I was like a Broadway girl. So I was a singer and dancer for many years. That's how I made my money, all in my 20s. I also think there is huge, there's not enough energy dedicated to the power of failure.
And I don't mean failure like you fail, you take the whole company down. But like I don't learn much in my success except to be humble and to sit in that and know it's fleeting. But I have learned. Everything I've ever learned has been through something messing up majorly. The failure part is like we all run from it because it's discomfort but there's no comfort in growth, you know, so the failure is where it lives for me.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: Oh, there's no doubt. Yeah. I'm an accountant. Everybody knows that. Listens to the podcast. We, we have a joke that failure in the accounting world is debit experience and credit. Cash is all right, so little accounting humor there for.
But yeah, I want to, want to dig into one little thing here. You got this advice related to maybe as you were getting the business started and it Sounds like some of it was you. You were making some of the decisions because capital was sparse and you needed to self start. Did you ever actually take the advice of looking outward rather than self starting it, like hiring experts or something and if so, what were the, what was the outcomes of using somebody rather than using yourself?
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Now that we're a really big company and it seems like everybody wants in, there's a lot of people who come in and who have really incredible names behind them and resumes and we'll date them.
Ellen, Ellen Bennett, who owns Headley and Bennett once said to me, you know, you bring in these experts and you date them a little bit, you see what works, what doesn't work. And, and we've had a few come in who have given us I think gyms, couple of gyms here and there.
But when it comes to, I think I, I have to say I have never had a good experience with branding experts. I've never had a good experience. The things that involve the heart of the company, the mission, the ethos, the bones of the company that we have had, we have not had success on. I mean, I'm not anti expert, I'm just anti people who come in and think that they could become your creative director without being, being in it.
[00:06:26] Speaker C: You know, I mean, somebody comes in and tells you who you are, it's like, okay, well I, if you need somebody else to tell you who you are, you're probably problems.
[00:06:37] Speaker B: But there's a huge industry of that.
I mean it's, it's a massive industry. Let me tell you who you are, let me help you with your branding. And it's like, I definitely think that creative eyes. There are certain people that have a creative eye that's unmatched. And, and so I am not, I think creative directors are really clutch. But to have someone come from the outside and go, I'm gonna brand you, it's like, but if you, you're a house flow, if you need that, I believe you're a house built on sand and you need to do a little bit more work before you go in the public eye to figure out exactly who you are, who you speak to, what is important to you, what you'll bend on, what you want, that kind of stuff. Yeah, definitely.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: When you've got a core group of people who believe in the things that you believe in, the values and the culture, I assume that starts from within. You encourage, I guess maybe conversations within before we look out. Is that what I think?
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Thing.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I, we have a company that Is we all joke that we drink the kool Aid because we, we often talk about in clothing. We do women's contemporary clothing. Not selling clothes, but selling confidence, selling armor, selling, you know, your shoulders held back and taking up space and all of that stuff with that. That the culture is absolutely the most important thing to me in the company. And so what we do is we, we really try to empower our team to going, this is flow is not working well. We've got to have somebody come in and help us with this. Not coming from a place of like panic or whatever, but going, okay, we're already, we're good. What we've built is good. We can improve. So from this place of true, like understanding that everyone is doing the best they can and, and then from that point going, okay, with that confidence in oneself, you can go. It's why, it's like why Kristen Neff is all about this. The more self compassion you have, the more compassionate you are to others and the more open you are to others. Same with this. The more confident you are in the core of the company, then you can see its flaws and see its holes without associating that with our worth or whatever. But just knowing that as a company there will be. And that's when we bring in people and when we bring in people, we make sure that they're very clear on how to show their value. I think a mistake of a lot of on of experts is that they come into a. A space and there's two ways to show your value. So if this is the company, you can either show your value, add through collaboration, listening how things are already going, already going well already not, you know, failing whatever and growing it and going, okay, this is the new way of, of looking at it. Or they come in and it's like they should all over you, right? You, I know better than you. You should be doing this. You should be. It's like, absolutely not. We don't play ball with that about looking out and looking in.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: When you're hiring somebody does that. Is that a similar process for you? When you're like trying to bring somebody in for your team for some kind of specific role? Are you still like looking for someone who's curious about what you do or do you want them to know everything? Day one, how do you handle that?
[00:09:50] Speaker B: That was another good piece of worst advice that I did to myself recently. We had a hire that we didn't ask the right questions. We thought they were experts, like they were an expert in their field 100% and without caring about the culture or the thing. And what happened was because they were this and they didn't care how anything else worked, they created a wedge in the company and really damaged the company. You have to hire slow and fire fast anyone who comes into the company and they immediately say to everyone, everything you're doing is wrong. I can improve it. It's like, wow, what a way to empower a team. You know, like, that's never gonna work.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: So this sounds like something that you believed in even before you started your company. Like, this sounds like it's coming from a core of maybe the way you were brought up or things you experienced. Can you just talk a little bit about maybe some of the formative things that maybe led you to feel and believe this? Because, I mean, it's clearly what drives you.
[00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it absolutely drives me. I think I have delusional self confidence and I am on a mission to make women as confident as I am in everything they do. Because I do believe how you do one thing is how you do everything.
And so I have a non profit for teen girls celebrating leadership and their own wisdom. And I came from a long line of strong women who were unapologetic about their capabilities.
And so because of that, I really.
That has been a mission of mine my entire life. And my mission, my larger legacy, I hope, is to inspire younger and younger generations of women to be unapologetic in their capabilities and starting re even if they fail looking inside themselves to start things. Because women, I think, feel the need to be perfectly overqualified to start something where I'm like, leap, just leap, like you'll figure it out or you'll fail and then you'll learn.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: When you say apologize for their capabilities, what do you mean by that?
[00:12:01] Speaker B: I think women inherently have to play small.
I think that women say things and men in business particularly don't listen to what they actually say and they'll like turn it or something. And, and I do believe that women are much more apologetic in their.
Or they play down their capabilities.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Ripley, when you're encouraging your, your team members, your employees to look inward rather than outward, what advice do you give them when they feel, when they start that process but feel unsure of themselves or maybe they don' started because of this, maybe feeling unsure of themselves, what do you do? What, what advice do you give them?
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I'm really good at holding space, so I would argue no one in our company is as delusionally confident as I am. Like, I would argue I've not met.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Anybody in your company. But hearing you talk, I believe that. Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: I don't think I would argue. Yeah. Like I don't know many women that have like I've always thought I was the most like interesting, beautiful, smartest woman in the room and not, I don't actually believe that. But what I do believe is that there is, I am the only me.
I have something to offer the world that no one else can offer because no one else is me. So what I do with these young women that I hired, I hold space. I hold space for their fears, I hold space for their, I am very vocal about giving them a lot of responsibility.
I think real success comes from doing a job very well. Whatever it is. I don't always know the right way. It's why I, but I know, I know the right way often for this company and I might not know the way to get there necessarily. And that's why I bring in these young minds, particularly in the marketing and the creative and let them fly because we build this house on rock and then their ideas can fly and I don't micromanage them.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Ripley, do you think you're core collection, what you produce is, contributes to women being able to look inward and feel good about themselves? Are you trying to promote that same value in the quality of the product that you're making?
[00:14:09] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, you see one piece of our marketing and you'll know exactly that's the case. I, I, it's easy to look good. It's very, very hard as a woman to feel good in the clothes that you wear. And when you feel good in them, you're inherently going to look good in them. But if you feel strong, sexy, powerful, whatever, comfortable even. But if you feel good in the clothes that you wear, it's the great equalizer. CEOs and interns, we all have to wear clothes like, I mean women and I mean, I specifically focus on women particularly. But we all want to feel good in this world.
We want to hold, we want to hold our shoulders back and our chin up and walk in the world. And when you, sometimes you have to start on the outside and when you put on an outfit that makes you feel good, I do believe you walk through the world differently.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: Hey Ripley, I'm going to play a scenario for you and I'd like to know how you would approach this 25 year old woman comes to you and says, I have an idea and I want to start a company around it and she wants your advice on how to go about doing that. What would you Say to her, well.
[00:15:25] Speaker B: This happens to me about ten times a week.
This is, this is where I, this is what I love to do and I hope I can do this my whole life. I would say to her, don't be afraid to be small, don't be in a race with anyone. Have a good product.
And I mean, I really would say make your own website because that was the first bad piece of advice. I think I, that was like the first worst piece of advice I ever got. So I think I truly do say to everyone, don't spend money when you're starting a company, don't spend money where you don't need to spend it. And really, really believe in yourself and your vision. I mean, it has to be un shakeable because at 25, there's too many people who are shooting all over you and you have to be, you have to be clear in that vision and be like you're going to fail along the way and the company might fail, but the fact that you're willing to commit to something and believe in that, then that's how you're going to do everything else you do in your life. That's what I would say. It's really tangible pieces of advice. You have to, you have to fall on a sword for it. The product has to be great and do as much as you can yourself.
[00:16:38] Speaker C: If you're not an entrepreneur but you're somebody you know, Sean used this concept a lot at Intrapreneur, which is like you're at a company that has a lot of things going on, but you still can make your mark and be your own person and do your things. What do you like? Is it still the same advice for somebody even if they're not starting their own company, they're just working for somebody else?
[00:16:57] Speaker B: I think so. I think so. I mean, like I said, how you do one thing is how you do everything.
I think there is, I know someone who I admire beyond belief who is a sales director of another fashion company that I love.
She is incredible. And I, I would take her in a second if she weren't so happy with her company because, and my right hand woman, she's a number two in the company.
It's not that they hold the company as if it's their own because it, that's not you as an entertainment. Did you say entrepreneur like Intra? Yeah, Intrapreneur. I love this.
It's not that you have to hold the company in the same way as an owner would, because I don't believe that you should. But I think if you're in a company holding it sacred, the work you do, sacred, the work you do, that's the same thing as being an entrepreneur. It's the same thing.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Ripley, your, your creativity clearly showed through on this episode. And our audience is really going to the fact that you did look inward to drive your business, but you also looked inward to share outwardly with our guests what that power really meant to you and to your business. So thank you really from the bottom of my heart for being a guest on the episode today. It was fantastic.
[00:18:16] Speaker B: Oh, thanks. What an honor to be here. I loved it, I loved it. Thanks y'.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: All.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: This was lovely.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Jimmy. What strikes me about Ripley story is how many people told her to look outward, to hand over control, to let sort of the so called experts run the show. And if she'd listened to that, we might not even be talking to Ripley and we want, might even know the Ripley Raider brand today.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: No, yeah, exactly. She was, you know, doing three orders a week to start, so not exactly rolling in it. And most people would probably panic or think, oh, I gotta write some big checks and you know, someone else will come in to fix it. But instead she, you know, she, like she said, she bought a hundred dollar template, she built her own site and she just kind of kept going. And honestly, that same site brought her all the way to the millions of dollars that she' making now.
[00:19:01] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, and to be clear, you know, it wasn't just about the money or the revenue. It was about her really protecting her vision. You know, the core of what she believed in, confidence, women's strength, authenticity. I mean, she just didn't feel like. And I kind of agree, that can't be something that's just handed over to somebody outside the company.
[00:19:20] Speaker C: Yeah, it's funny thing about bad advice, you know, it usually comes up dressed up as expertise in a way. You know, people with fancy resumes telling you that they know you better than you do and sometimes they have, you know, those nuggets of wisdom. But Ripley's was super clear. Like if you need someone else to tell you who you are, your house is built on sand.
[00:19:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, I also loved her honesty about failure. You know, a lot of people run from it. We've heard that from other guests and I've seen it millions of times. But RIPLEY leaned into it and said that every major lesson she's learned came from things that went wrong or were going wrong. That's such an important reminder, especially for our listeners who are afraid to take a leap. Yeah.
[00:20:00] Speaker C: You're lying about, you know, being a little delusional with her self confidence. We were talking about that. You know, it's not necessarily arrogance. She just wants other women to feel that same, like, unshakable belief in themselves.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And that connects to her brand. She's not just selling clothes, she's selling confidence, armor, as she put it. Clothes that make you stand taller and walk differently through the world.
[00:20:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Which honestly is what, what made her such a great guest. You know, she's not just telling us how she built a business, you know, she's showing us how she built a culture and why looking inward for her was the only way that works.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. Thanks so much, Ripley, for joining us today. Your energy, your perspective and your story are going to stick with our listeners long after this episode ends. And for everyone out there learning from this episode, thanks for tuning in. We'll be back next week with an all new episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got.
