#Revolve clothing facebook full#
#Revolve clothing facebook software#

Karanikolas was hired by the same company in 2000, after earning a degree in computer engineering at Virginia Tech.Īs the youngest employees at the company, the two 20-somethings quickly bonded.

#Revolve clothing facebook software#

Mente was in an entrepreneurship program at USC when he dropped out to join software company NextStrat in Los Angeles. While she found support through friends and mentors to figure out her next career move, ultimately, she says, 'You're your own best cheerleader, and you really have to just pick yourself back up.Karanikolas and Mente had planned to ride the tech industry dot-com boom that had begun in 1995. This simple shift in thinking is something Gerona has carried with her since that first brush with failure, even if she couldn't fully appreciate it at the time. 'And immediately when I changed my mindset, I felt even though I look different from everybody else in the room, there was a reason I was there.' 'But that required a lot of hard work and self-talk for me to even get myself out of that mindset,' she says. She drew from her decade-plus experience in entrepreneurship, fashion, online retail and her ability to turn Revolve into a social-media power-house to ground herself in her business savvy and make the pitch. 'But after a day of meeting with investors, I was like, 'Absolutely. 'I was like, 'Oh my God, am I cut out to do this?'' Gerona continues. 'I never expected myself to be in a room where I'm pitching a billion-dollar deal to investors and talking about the power of influencer marketing and experiential marketing. 'I didn't go to business school, I didn't go to an Ivy league school,' Gerona says.

#Revolve clothing facebook full#

While the past few years have been an uncertain time for traditional apparel retailers, Revolve's influencer-driven marketing strategy and ability to connect with millennial and Gen Z shoppers had the company on track to hit $600 million in sales in 2019.īut along the way, Gerona once again had to find a way to feel confident in her role.Įarlier in 2019, Gerona joined Mente and Karanikolas to prepare to bring Revolve public, and she found herself in an unfamiliar position: in rooms full of mostly male investors. The strategy has proven to be a successful one. As a company executive, she sought to reach consumers directly on social media, which is when she pitched the idea to Mente and co-founder Mike Karanikolas to partner with bloggers-turned-social media influencers to expand Revolve's reach. (The two met when Gerona was selling her clothing line on Revolve's platform.) Gerona and Mente ended up launching a new brand together, which Revolve eventually bought in 2015.įollowing the sale, Gerona became Revolve's chief brand officer.

When Gerona was ready to pick up the pieces of her career, she found a mentor in Revolve co-founder and co-CEO Michael Mente. Gerona and her team declined to comment on how much money was lost with the closure of Brigid Catiis. 'But I do think it's a process, and I think it's important to feel those feelings and just be like, 'All right, I'm done with it, and I'm moving on.''Īnother mindset that helped her move forward: 'It's so hard to get over feeling like you failed at something, but truly, everything is temporary in that way.' 'It really starts with yourself, to pick yourself back up and know that you can continue to move forward,' she says. Self-reflection was the ultimate key in being able to restore her confidence and continue pursuing her ideas.

She says it was important to allow herself to feel grief over the career setback. 'That obviously takes a toll on your confidence and how much you believe in yourself.' 'It was quite difficult for me in the beginning when that happened to me to say, 'OK, I failed at this and couldn't make this work,'' Gerona tells CNBC Make It. But just a decade ago, Gerona had to close her first online clothing brand, Brigid Catiis, after she ran out of money at the height of the Great Recession.