The RealReal founder Julie Wainwright has a startling new memoir
The RealReal founder Julie Wainwright has a startling new memoir
Julie Wainwright, the indomitable founder of The RealReal, has long been a force in the business world, though her journey has been anything but smooth. In her startling new memoir, *Time to Get Real: How I Built a Billion-Dollar Business That Rocked the Fashion Industry*, she strips away the polished veneer that often surrounds tales of success and invites readers into the raw, emotional reality of her life. Her memoir, set to release on June 10, 2025, is not just a business book; it's a gripping story of resilience, pain, ambition, and transformation that will resonate with anyone who's ever dreamed big — and fallen hard.
Born in South Bend, Indiana, Wainwright grew up in a traditional, working-class environment where little encouragement was given to young girls to dream of running companies or changing industries. But something inside her burned with ambition. After graduating from Purdue University, she carved her path through corporate America, eventually making a name for herself as a sharp, driven executive in the tech world. Her big break came when she was named CEO of Pets.com, one of the most recognizable names from the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. But the crash came hard and fast. Pets.com folded in 2000, becoming a symbol of the irrational exuberance and failures of the early internet economy.
The public nature of the company's collapse would have been devastating on its own. But at the same time, Wainwright's marriage was ending. In a matter of months, she lost her company, her marriage, her financial stability, and, for a time, her sense of self. She writes candidly in *Time to Get Real* about those dark days — about feeling humiliated, unemployable, and utterly lost. Recruiters told her point-blank that she would never lead a major company again. Some days, she could barely get out of bed. Yet something inside her refused to accept that this was how her story would end.
At 53, an age when many are thinking about winding down, Wainwright was gearing up for a comeback. The RealReal was born not out of opportunity, but out of necessity and a refusal to give up. She started it from her house, without venture capital funding, packing and shipping luxury goods herself in the early days. The idea was revolutionary: an online marketplace for authenticated, pre-owned luxury goods. At a time when trust in online transactions was fragile and secondhand luxury shopping was niche at best, Wainwright saw the future. She knew that customers would embrace sustainable shopping if — and only if — they could trust what they were buying. The RealReal’s authentication process, involving a team of trained experts inspecting every item, became its heart and soul.
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Investors were skeptical. Friends warned her she was taking too big a risk. But Wainwright pushed ahead with ferocious determination. Slowly but surely, The RealReal gained traction, winning over both buyers and consignors. Wainwright’s vision of a circular luxury economy — where goods could have multiple lives — resonated more and more as consumers grew conscious of sustainability issues. In 2019, less than a decade after she began, The RealReal went public. It was a stunning moment: a company led by a woman, founded without a technical background, without an Ivy League MBA, and without venture capital at its inception, thriving on Wall Street.
In her memoir, Wainwright is refreshingly honest about how grueling that journey was. She writes about the nights she couldn’t sleep, terrified that the company wouldn’t make payroll. She writes about the investors who told her to “bring in a man” if she wanted to be taken seriously. She writes about the casual and not-so-casual sexism she faced nearly every step of the way. But she also writes about the people who believed in her, the customers who trusted her vision, and the deep sense of purpose that drove her forward even when the odds seemed impossible.
*Time to Get Real* doesn’t just recount the victories; it digs into the painful lessons that came with them. Wainwright openly discusses the authentication scandals that rocked The RealReal in its early years, when a few counterfeit goods slipped through and the company’s reputation was briefly shaken. She acknowledges the internal struggles with scaling rapidly — maintaining quality, treating employees fairly, balancing growth and values. In today’s culture where leaders often spin every story to their favor, Wainwright’s willingness to own her mistakes makes her memoir stand out as brutally authentic.
One of the most moving parts of the book is her exploration of loneliness. Entrepreneurship, she writes, is often romanticized as glamorous. The truth, she says, is that it can be isolating, exhausting, and deeply lonely. Many nights, she sat alone at her kitchen table, wondering if she was crazy to believe that secondhand luxury could be a billion-dollar idea. But in those moments, Wainwright found a kind of internal fire — the will to bet on herself when nobody else would.
Today, The RealReal is more than a marketplace. It’s a symbol of a new kind of consumerism, where luxury and sustainability can coexist. Wainwright’s vision helped transform the way people think about fashion, ownership, and environmental responsibility. High-end brands that once sneered at resale now partner with The RealReal, recognizing that customers care about both status and ethics. Wainwright proved that secondhand could be sexy, profitable, and good for the planet all at once.
Critical acclaim for her memoir has already started pouring in. Fashion icon Diane von Fürstenberg called Wainwright’s journey “a hand of steel in a velvet glove.” Designer Tommy Hilfiger praised her for building “a brand-new retail system to change the buying habits of high-end consumers.” Reviews highlight not just the inspirational nature of her story, but also the practical wisdom embedded in it: how to build a brand around trust, how to manage failure, how to stay resilient in the face of massive doubt.
Wainwright’s story is important not just because of her business achievements, but because of the barriers she shattered along the way. In an industry where women are still grossly underrepresented at the top, her leadership sends a powerful message: it’s possible to reinvent yourself after public failure. It’s possible to lead differently — with transparency, authenticity, and yes, vulnerability — and still succeed.
At 68, Wainwright is showing no signs of slowing down. She remains an active advocate for sustainable business practices, women’s entrepreneurship, and mental health awareness. Her memoir feels like a culmination of everything she has lived through — not a victory lap, but a reckoning. She’s telling the truth, even the uncomfortable parts, because she believes that the next generation of entrepreneurs deserves a story that doesn’t sugarcoat the real work, the real fear, the real failures behind “overnight” success.
*Time to Get Real* is essential reading not just for aspiring business leaders but for anyone navigating change, uncertainty, or reinvention. It's a reminder that the only way to build a life — a real life — is to be willing to risk everything, to get back up when you fall, and to never let the fear of looking foolish stop you from dreaming boldly.
For those interested in the intersections of business, fashion, sustainability, and personal growth, Julie Wainwright’s memoir is a must-read. It's an invitation to abandon the myth of the perfect entrepreneur and embrace the messy, courageous, utterly human path that real success demands.
The memoir will be available in hardcover and eBook formats through major retailers like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Simon & Schuster starting June 10, 2025. Early pre-orders suggest that *Time to Get Real* is poised to become one of the most talked-about business books of the year — and rightly so. Julie Wainwright has lived a story that many would have given up on halfway through. Instead, she turned heartbreak and humiliation into a billion-dollar dream that changed an entire industry. Her willingness to tell the whole story — not just the pretty parts — may turn out to be her most revolutionary act of all.
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