Keep pulling the thread on Emma Grede.
Early in her career, Emma Grede's husband Jens Grede identified that she had an "employee mentality" in board meetings, seeking approval rather than acting as a CEO guiding the board.
Emma Grede considers a job candidate asking about "work-life balance" in an interview to be a major red flag, stating it is the individual's personal responsibility to manage.
The first three to ten hires a founder makes will determine whether the company becomes good or great.
The idea for Good American originated from Emma Grede's experience structuring talent-for-equity deals, where she realized she was leaving significant value on the table by taking a flat fee instead of participating in the upside.
The core business strategy for Good American was to serve the plus-size market by offering all products in a full range of 19 sizes, rather than creating a separate, limited collection for larger customers.
The cost-effective customer acquisition arbitrage that existed on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram in the mid-to-late 2010s is now almost entirely gone.
During Good American's early years, board members Andrew Rosen and John Howard advised against a high-spend growth strategy, instead pushing for a focus on profitability, which proved crucial when digital ad costs rose.
Emma Grede will not invest in any founder who cannot effectively sell their idea, as she considers it a non-outsourceable core skill.
Emma Grede believes the employees who scale a company to $10 million in revenue are often not the same people who can scale it to $100 million or $1 billion.
A company's culture is defined by three key actions: who you hire, who you fire, and who gets promoted.
Emma Grede believes it is impossible to become number one in a field while maintaining a strict work-life balance that protects all evenings and weekends.
Emma Grede is the co-founder of multi-billion dollar brands Good American and Skims, in partnership with the Kardashians.