Julie Wainwright is an e-commerce pioneer. In the late ‘90s, she was the chief executive of Berkeley Systems, a maker of popular games and computer screen savers; Reel.com, which was one of the first companies to sell videos online; and the short-lived retailer Pets.com (best remembered for its legendary sock puppet marketing campaign). She’s still at it, leading the RealReal, […]
The RealReal
StrictlyVC: June 19, 2014
Good morning, everyone! Sorry for the late send-off this a.m.; StrictlyVC got a late start on today’s column. Hope you have a great Thursday. —– Top News in the A.M. The FCC’s annual broadband report is out. “The good news,” reports GigaOm, “is that, overall, the country’s average broadband speed is 36 percent faster than what […]
Is the RealReal the Real Deal?
At a low-slung, 45,000-square-foot warehouse in an industrial corner of San Francisco, I’m hovering over a purse. It’s in the hands of Graham Wetzbarger, the director of authentication at The RealReal, a 2.5-year-old luxury consignment company that also operates a 10,000-square-foot warehouse in L.A. and a 20,000-square-foot warehouse in Manhattan. Holding up the bag for closer […]