"[MUSIC] Jen, welcome to Stanford. >> Hi, I'm so excited to be here. >> We're excited to have you. >> I spent the last day watching all of these view from the tops. >> [LAUGH] Well, great, you're ready..."

"So let me show you the video. [MUSIC] >> My god. [MUSIC] >> [APPLAUSE] >> Just one thing, I think as evidenced by this video, to all the men in the room, you are never going to meet a crop of women, e..."

">> [APPLAUSE] >> So if that's your preference, if you are into women, spend more of your time thinking about dating when you're at school as one of the key elements of success of business school. >> [..."

">> Yeah, so I grew up in a very close knit, super loving family, which I'm very fortunate for. >> I have a sister who is autistic and she's severely disabled. So she is now 38, she can't live independ..."

"in your life that you love, that you are effectively supporting for their entire lives. And I really feel in many ways that my family dynamic and the team dynamic that I saw when I was a little kid ac..."

"And your parents are humans, and they're going to get tired. And there were often times that other siblings had to just step up and lead, and act like the mom or the dad would have acted, that we had ..."

"they wouldn't bring that family member to a restaurant with them or to a vacation with them. And my parents had this point of view that we love Cherry. Yes, she does crazy things, but it's better to l..."

"Four kids, an autistic sibling who's kind of the equivalent of 15 kids, my parents have an almost open door policy on their life, so they're always friends and family kind of streaming out of the hous..."

"as an undergrad, and you begin your career at Starwood Hotels where you soon find yourself as a 22 year old influencing hundreds of people in the organization. How did this come about and what were so..."

"of gift them room nights or scuba diving or massages, instead of buying them pots and pans. because if you're getting married when you're 30 years old, you probably have a frying pan already. >> [LAUG..."

"he didn't quite say yes, but he also didn't say no. >> [LAUGH] >> So I took that as yeah, he really likes this idea, he wants me to pursue it. So I started actually building out this wedding business ..."

"I had to inspire all of these people who Jen's honeymoon business was certainly not in their OKRs. But I had to have them want to spend their time on building this for me. And so the first aspect of t..."

"an innovative idea? >> I think that all great ideas come out of sometimes personal experiences, which is what this did. The first inception of the idea was I was home for thanksgiving break in New Yor..."

"But then I started to think about, okay well this could be a good idea, it could not, does this already exist? Because often, even disruptive ideas, they already exist, it's just takes a change of how..."

"how people are already accessing variety in their wardrobe. >> You have this innovative idea and you've mentioned that there are a lot of steps that you have to tackle in order to actually get it off ..."

"And I was kind of pitching her on this new idea where we would get her inventory, current season, rent it out to customers, and what did she think about it? And she hated this idea. >> [LAUGH] >> Hate..."

"So, that was just a really incredible experience. DVF continues to be an amazing friend of mine and of the business today. A huge supporter is someone who, while the initial reaction was like, this is..."

">> Did your pitch to brands and all the lessons learned through that inform how you decided to pitch to customers and convince them to join the platform? >> No, I don't think that the brand value prop..."

">> In those early days too, I can imagine that some customers were maybe hesitant to rent clothes that others hadn't worn before. So how did you go about transforming consumer behavior to enable custo..."

"And the third aspect was kind of hustle and utilize our own story as founders, kind of put ourself front and center to try to get as much earned media as humanly possible around this concept to get pe..."

"number one, but number two is, create your own luck. This woman was effectively, no way you're not going to be in the photo, and who knows if they're even going to use the photo. I'm like, I'm going t..."

"women are no longer leaving the house. How did Rent the Runway change as a result of COVID? And how do you now think about navigating turbulent times? >> So I had been building Rent the Runway for 13 ..."

"So we had had this incredible few months prior to the pandemic, or many years prior to the pandemic. We had launched a subscription to fashion which was growing like crazy. So the vision of the closet..."

"And I think that the first lesson is when you're in any crisis you have to ground yourself in reality. And grounding yourself in reality is often a very difficult and harsh thing to do and it's especi..."

"all of these orders coming through the warehouse, etc. So it was an absolutely horrific period of time on one hand because I felt like, The huge amount of emotional stress that I needed to save the co..."

"fashion market right now that we were a part of pioneering and that circular fashion market is global and it's enormous and it's growing. And I see that the market, no one consumer is going to just ha..."

"And I personally think that because 80% of the closet is worn three times or less, that there is a huge amount of the closet in the future that can actually move to this idea of a closet in the cloud...."

"keep you going. And enable you to kind of keep on putting one foot in front of the other. So I just wanted to go back to that IPO because it was unbelievable that we were able to do that. And thank Go..."

"you, all of you in the room, that you are able to build something. And have a career where you feel like you've done something with a group, where you are part of a community that's changed the world ..."

"the very beginning of what I want to build and innovate and create for Rent the Runway. I want this business to be really sustainable. I view that so much of my life and what is going to make me happy..."

"So I think that we should just all think about, the goal is the journey and enjoying it. The goal is what is optimized around making you happy. And for some of you, that's going to be very career rela..."

"So we have to focus on like the whole picture. >> I appreciate you saying that because there's so many in the twos and audience they're about to graduate and yeah. >> Thank you. >> [APPLAUSE] >> Jen, ..."

"Men are becoming more and more interested in fashion. But, I think that great businesses stay focused, and we can do so much more for our female customer that we have today. We're just scratching the ..."