Entrepreneur Secrets: How Nasty Gal blew it
March 8, 2017
By Jerry Bellune
Last week, you may recall, we talked about Laura Rose.
Laura is an English school girl who started an eBay business.
She sold used teenage clothing on the internet to:
- Pay for her college education.
- Take luxury resort vacations abroad.
Here’s another success story with a different ending.
Ever heard of Nasty Gal and Sophia Amoruso?
She started out much as Laura Rose did, selling on eBay.
In her memoir/self-help book #GIRLBOSS, she wrote:
Be nice at work or no one will want to work with you.
“The worst kind of mean is selective mean,” she wrote.
That’s kissing a boss’s butt but being mean to everyone else.
“If you are a habitual bitch,” she wrote, it will backfire.
“The news will eventually make its way up the chain.
“The top of the chain ain’t gonna like it.”
Sophia knows a lot about being on top of the chain.
Her advertising was friending other girls on MySpace.
She’s now worth an estimated $250 million.
She’s celebrated as a #GIRLBOSS icon for:
- Working hard as hell and being relentlessly positive.
- Treating everyone with kindness and respect.
Focus on the positive, she preaches, and you’ll succeed.
It’s a nice image but apparently far from the truth.
Ex-employees say success has been costly to her people.
Lawsuits claim pregnant employees were fired.
One had a serious illness needing an organ transplant.
Sophia was busy promoting her books and TV show.
Running her company, critics say, were less capable people.
Nasty Gal has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Sophia has resigned as CEO and chairman.
A British retailer has offered to buy the company.
Here are several questions in this for us:
- Are we too distracted to keep our eyes on the business?
- Are our people capable of running it day to day?
- Do we tolerate ass kissers and other sycophants?
- Do we ignore or reward real folks who do the work?
- Have we gotten too big for our own britches?
- Have we checked our own bottom lines lately?
- If we were buyers, would we buy our business?
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Next: How to cure a boring business
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©2017 The Bellune Company, Inc
Neither MidlandsBiz.com nor The Bellune Company, Inc. makes any warranty as to the results that may be achieved from using this information. ©2015 The Bellune Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Requests for permission to reprint or circulate may be obtained by emailing [email protected]
