Nearly everything I’ve earned is locked up in this beautiful, inspiring, evolving business I gave birth to nearly ten years ago. The funny thing is that it’s funny money. It’s really weird to be in your twenties and have a company that’s valued at hundreds of millions of dollars by investors, implying to the outside world that because I own a huge chunk of the stock I’m “worth” a lot of money. I used to snowboard-I’d fly down the slopes at a million miles per hour with nary a bit of concern-but today, I sense my own mortality-and the mortality of everything I’ve worked for-as soon as the alarm clock goes off each morning, knowing that at this speed my teeth could get knocked out if I biff it. The older I get, the less confident I become. Its success depends on the resilience, fortitude, and ingenuity of the team more than any one skill that I possess. My whole future is in this brand-but at the end of the day, I can only give it a kiss on the head and a PB&J while standing at the front door.
But you have to, because that’s what growing up is all about. They say that when you have a kid, it feels like your heart is outside of your body-you can’t imagine sending her off to school with the threat that she might get hit by a car or bullied by some asshole. Now, it’s hit the awkwardness of puberty-the occasional bout of acne, a cracking voice, incipient self-consciousness. At first, it was a scrappy crumb-eating infant- and then it became a thriving wild child. I think about this all the time as I’ve watched Nasty Gal grow up. Is success building a beloved brand and business? Or is it how you handle yourself when it gets hard? Is success being in the right place at the right time-with the right voice, skill set, team, and drive to cobble it all together? Or is success figuring out how to tame the behemoth once it sprouts legs and sharp teeth? "It was the first time I learned that if I did a better job, I earned more," she says.The concept of success is really weird. Feeling creatively unfulfilled, she began brainstorming better ways to find merchandise to sell – scouring thrift stores for vintage finds until she eventually began designing her own items with a vintage feel. It's not a noble thing to do."Īs she continued to mature, Amoruso supported herself with a job as an art school security guard. I thought that they were faceless and if I stole from them, I'm not hurting anybody. "I was doing that as a teenager because I thought capitalism was evil," she admits. It wasn't until she got caught that she received her "wake-up call." My American Dream: How Nasty Gal Founder Sophia Amoruso Went from Shoplifter to Fierce Fashion Force Worth Millions| Entrepreneurs, Real People StoriesĪs a teenager, Amoruso says one of her first experiences as an entrepreneur included stealing books and reselling them on Amazon.
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