founder's journal

How Spirit Halloween Makes $600M in 2 Months, The Journey of a CEO & Is a Recession Coming?

Episode 2: Today, hosts Alex Lieberman (@businessbarista), Sophia Amoruso (@sophiaamoruso), and Jesse Pujji (@jspujji) kick off with a discussion of Jamie Dimon’s recent economic predictions and how a possible recession will impact startup founders. Then, we jump into the aspects of Spirit Halloween’s business model that have helped it become wildly successful, the team’s own experience of going from founder to CEO, and finally, for Startup AMA we answer a listener question about how to pay yourself as a founder.

00:27 – Jamie Dimon’s prediction about the markets

06:06 – Intro

06:41 – The Rundown

09:58 – Discussion of Spirit Halloween’s wildly successful business model

14:02 – Businesses that have capitalized on under-used inventory/resources

18:28 – How Spirit Halloween uses licensing to their advantage

20:15 – The team discusses their own experiences of going from founder to CEO as their businesses grew

20:53 – Jesse’s experience as CEO over the course of his career

23:48 – Sophia’s experience as a CEO over the course of her career

28:33 – Alex’s experience as CEO 

32:40 – Startup AMA – How should you pay yourself as a founder?

33:08 – Sophia’s bank statement in 2010, 3 years into starting Nasty Gal

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