Editor’s note: This article was first published in May 2013; Sophia Amoruso’s age and net worth and Nasty Gal’s sales and headcount are figures from that time. Amoruso stepped down as CEO in 2015, and Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy in 2016.
Sophia Amoruso, CEO of Nasty Gal, is an entrepreneur who is currently 28 years old and has a net worth of 250 million dollars, according to Forbes, which puts her on the list of the 400 richest people in the United States.
But let’s go back six years, to when she was just 22 and had a bank account with a little under 100 dollars in it.
Sophia Amoruso is already almost a legend, above all because she is part of the American dream, writing a new rags-to-riches story, in her case in just six years.
Sophia herself says that before becoming an entrepreneur she had been through 10 different jobs, none of which lasted very long. Perhaps what encouraged her to take the plunge was working in a shoe shop, where she sold more than 500 dollars’ worth of shoes while earning only 12 dollars an hour. That made her see that if she wanted to get ahead, she had to do something, and do it herself.
Read also: An entrepreneur who succeeded after failing 15 times
At 22 she began selling second-hand clothes on eBay. She looked for clothes in good condition, bought them very cheaply and sold them on eBay, sometimes for five times what she had paid. Her best deal was buying a Chanel coat in good condition for 100 dollars and selling it within a couple of days for 1,000 dollars.
That is how Nastygal.com was born in 2008. At first it was an online shop for second-hand and vintage clothing. Little by little she added her own designs, until she had several designers working for her. Sophia says that the business was profitable from the start, although the rapid growth in sales has been far from normal.
In 2011, Nasty Gal had sales of 25 million dollars. In 2012 it took in 128 million, so it quadrupled its sales in a single year, helped by a venture capital fund that invested 40 million in the project once it saw the entrepreneur’s potential.
See also: 6 steps to help you get over a business failure
Read also: Entrepreneurs whose business ideas made them millionaires before they came of age
The fact is that Sophia Amoruso has now set out to compete with the big players: when she is asked how far she intends to go, Sophia answers that she is aiming for the universe itself, and she says it in complete seriousness.
The secret of her business success
She has a reputation for being direct and tenacious. They say she rarely hesitates. If she says she is planning to do something, before you know it, it is already done or under way.
She knows her customers. She says she knows exactly what women want in fashion, and that has led her to create a brand that is already sold in several countries around the world.
She surrounds herself with capable people. Nasty Gal now has nearly 300 employees. She met Deborah Benton on LinkedIn, and Benton is now the company’s president. For her catalogues and twice-yearly magazines she has chosen a famous fashion photographer, Terry Richardson.
Persistence. Sophia knows that once you are successful you must not let your guard down; quite the opposite. You have to make the most of the momentum to keep growing and expanding, and to look for new channels and sales networks.
Further reading
- 9 tips for entrepreneurs from Richard Branson
- The time to start your business idea is today
- Donald Trump: the secret of business
Featured image: TechCrunch, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
