♪ emily: it is one of the few tech unicorns founded by a female entrepreneur. katrina la started packing boxes of clothing, then mailing them to customers. those customers kept coming back and multiplying. some 50 venture capitalists turned her down. that was a mistake. stitch fix went public. it has expanded to new categories including women and maternity, and,

kids. she became the first woman founder ceo to take a company public in years. joining me on "bloomberg studio 1.0," katrina la. i am so glad to have you on the show. katrina: thank you for having me. emily: you have helped millions of customers discover their own sense of style. what is the number one mission of stitch fix today? katrina: the thing we love is every day we get to help 2.5 million men and women everywhere look and feel their best. we are bringing the luxury of personal shopping and making it accessible, so anybody any place in the country can let us know what their style and size preferences are. emily: how many boxes are you sending out each month? how many stylists do you have

curated those boxes? katrina: we have 3000 stylist all over the country, employees of stitch fix, trained by us. our stylist work mostly part-time. the most recent number is we are styling 2.5 million clients. emily: growing up, you were the kid wearing raver boots and jeans. i want to know how you discovered your own style. what was it like growing up katrina la? ,atrina: i grew up in bilingual bi-cultural households. us tolways introduced cultural curiosity and a sense of adventure, exploration, and learning. my younger sister was the fashionista of the family. she would wear purple sequins or

whatever. she was about pushing the limits of fashion. a way tot so it was express her identity and experiment with her style and who you are. of trying to understand your style is a big part of what stitch fix is now. emily: your grandmother had a big influence on you. katrina: my japanese grandmother when women a time did not have a time of opportunities. she was in an arranged marriage. she had two daughters. she felt this great obligation for thehe daughters up life she would have wanted for herself. decades later, my mom and her sister moved here to be americans. my grandmother would follow suit. it was an amazing inspiration of

somebody who was not given a lot of opportunity, and to set these bold aspirational goals and achieve them. at stanford,ded up majored in economics. this was when mark zuckerberg was on campus. did you ever think you could do what he was doing? katrina: it was not even close to my radar at that point. my path to entrepreneurship is a wandering one. i had a preconceived notion of what a founder of the tech company looks like. visible tosn't even me has a career path at that point. emily: what was it that flipped the switch? by the: i was inspired opportunity to transform retail. i thought there are so many different ways you can incorporate data science into

the way retail works, and i did not feel like i saw companies doing that. at first, i was on a journey to find that company. it was looking at pre-existing retailers and thinking which one would win, then it was meeting hundreds of founders to find a founder i could join, then ultimately i realized there was this opportunity to transform retail in a totally different way, that i could found that come be myself. emily: you went to harvard for your nda. that is where you started stitch fix. you started it from your cambridge apartment in 2011. how did you get there? katrina: i had this these this around retail had to change, how people by clothing. when i realized i wanted to sawt my own company i business school as a

risk-reduced way to do it. my jobot going to quit and work out of my garage. be paid to get funded, a salary, be paying back my student loans the day i graduate. i can find that, entrepreneurship as a tenable path. if not, i would have an mba from harvard and a lot of opportunities. emily: you had a cofounder, erin morrison flynn, you bought a lot of clothing on urine credit cards? business thatis a early on we were to have an ango believed in the company who put in money, so i did not have to expand my credit limit too much. emily: what was in early on that made you realize this could work . ? fitina: that product market that this is something that

women gravitate towards. i don't want to go through hundreds of things online. i can find clothing in a way that is personalized and convenient. the value proposition was so was a, that early growth manifestation of that. emily: it wasn't obvious to everyone, unfortunately. dozens of investors said no. katrina: people had a hard time getting passionate around it. can this be a $1 billion business or not? we were looking at the data. we had clients all over the country, in states i had never been to come up so we felt like we have the data to support this is a broad concept with broad appeal, but it was really hard. a lot of venture investors did not feel super passionate about it and could not get there.

that was hard. emily: how much of that is you are woman pitching mostly male investors and they did not get it? katrina: that has a lot to do with the element of thing passionate about it. i had venture investors that wanted to be passionate about all the companies they invested in, and they couldn't get there with women's clothing. that i can't disagree with them. i want them to feel passionate. time, 94% of venture investors were men. there is some natural bias that gets introduced when you have such a homogenous group of people. emily: you did get interest -- , who has gurley invested in uber, and has his own assistant to thank. she became addicted to stitch fix.

katrina: amy is his assistant, and many people in the benchmark office love stitch fix. was like ious and have to understand what this company is doing. we weren't actively looking for money at the time, it was clear he would add a lot of fire you. takes helped the company changes in the way we operate, and we have been lucky to work with him. emily: you and your cofounder party ways. katrina: my cofounder and i parted ways about a year and a fortunately in the summer of 2012. i was able to recruit the coo of walmart.com. he is still on our team and still coo. there has been a lot of continuity in the leadership of the team. emily: was it hard breaking up

with your cofounder? katrina: absolutely. it is some of the hardest stuff founders go through. you see the world through two different lenses, and they don't meet. it was really hard. being able to have mike and eric joined the team, and who have been with the company for five years, they were mentors to me. i had never done this before. that i have ate team with many people who have been at the company for a long time. to have a leadership team with continuity helped us as we looked at milestones, grew in scale, and ultimately as we thought about becoming a public company. ♪ emily: this has a 72% chance of working. this has that 38% chance of working. ♪

emily: stitch fix was profitable two years before you went public. was that a priority, a choice? katrina: i think companies are rewarded for growth. 25%, but companies are rewarded more for growth than profitability. there is not a lot of public pressure to get profitable. i understand the decisions many others are making. that wasn't necessarily a choice we had. our first quarter of profitability was 2014. this was a business really hard to raise money for. our company is better because of it. atly: stitch fix went public a $1.5 billion valuation. you are the first female founder to take a company public. katrina: the whole process was rocky as a company.

it was not as smooth as you would want it to be, but it did not matter. i think this is a company that has been underestimated before. we are happy to prove ourselves in the public market. , it was an incredible day, an incredible day to be able to share with our clients andemployees and investors the people who have had such meaningful impact on how we got to her we are. it definitely was a day i will never forget. emily: what is it like post-ipo? easier, harder? katrina: it is different. in the seven years i have been doing this, every year, i think myself to thering job and recommitting to that job. if you year has been so different than years past. there have been years where it's

about getting everybody and lawn line so everything arrives in time. have private and public market investors we are building trust with and spending time with. things thatme small change, but the heart and soul of the company hasn't changed. i think it has made us better. we look at our financials with more rigor than before. we are focused on making sure we got long-term value for our shareholders, which also includes new shareholders, employees. we feel of a lot of responsibility for that. emily: how big is your potential market, and why? katrina: the apparel market is a $300 billion market. it is retailers that are struggling. we have this amazing tailwind of consumer behavior and stores

closing and what is going on in the macro environment. there were two big things we did, the launch of men and plus styles. those doubled the number of bodies we could address. emily: the state of retail is dismal. does that turn around? katrina: i think there will always be a place for physical retail to experience a brand, but the idea of brand would have hundreds or thousands of stores across the u.s., i think that will be hard. the natural preference of consumers is they want to transact online. stores have to have a different reason for being. is worriedybody about amazon no matter what business you are in. do you worry about the threat of amazon? they have successful subscription services now. katrina: it is a different ballgame in apparel. amazon is amazing if you want

something cheap and fast. having millions of pairs of jeans to choose from isn't that helpful if what you are looking for our genes that will fit your body. confidence andf strength in our capabilities that are focused on the discovery element. that is a different business than what we are seeing most of e-commerce and today. emily: would you sell to amazon, a larger retail giant? katrina: it is clear we have chosen an independent path. we have thought about the outcomes potentially available. we have a deep belief that this is a company that deserves to be an independently publicly traded company and there are still tons of market opportunity and ahead, so we are focused on the independent path. emily: there are a lot of other companies trying to do what you do. katrina: what differentiates our

business is it is not a subscription tag. you can do it monthly, all a an people are not paying the same amount monthly. we do one-to-one, human-to-human personalization. emily: how real is the ai platform at stitch fix. katrina: it is so real and incredibly viable. what we are doing is high signal data that people are actively that pertainss exactly to the experience they are having. people will try five things on and let us know these were two big, too small, too expensive. i would love it in a different color. aree of the things people sharing to help us understand what their liking and not liking about the product.

because of the data we have, we know who buys what. a 25-year-old woman in louisiana bought these genes. 85% of the time we know why. she is letting us know these are too expensive, too cheap, and -- and depth of that data is incredibly viable. you need all those stylists, ultimate, or do they go away? katrina: the stylists are an important part. to have allows us predictability on what will happen. we are able to accurately predict this has a 72% chance of working, this has 838% chance of working, and that data is presented to the stylist. the stylist is part of the relationship building in a one-to-one human way.

♪ katrina: one thing i see a lot of founders do that is part of the problem is they hire their friends. ♪

emily: as of the youngest female founder to take a company public and one of the few running a unicorn, do you feel pressure or responsibility to pave the way for other women than when you started this journey?

katrina: i do feel a great responsibility. there was a time when i was more of first to being a female founder, a female ceo. the world needs it now. myself when i was writing business school applications or figuring out who i wanted to be in the world. i am proud i can be a different kind of tech cpl. -- ceo. emily: you recently wrote a tweet about the iphone suggesting a white male emoticon for ceo. you have an incredible power now to speak up. how do you use that power? katrina: my powers are best employed -- the biggest impact i can have is like creating a company with an amazing culture that people love to work at and

be a client of. emily: you didn't always feel like you have the power. katrina: in the introduction to my book, you had someone bragging about their hot tub people like travis kalanick would congregate. emily: tell me how you navigated that thing in the early days. katrina: i was exposed to bias, deliberate and not deliberate, and i hope those days are far behind us now. i think there is a much greater of what pac-10 could have been seen in a tone deaf way as -- what could have been seen as a tone deaf way to connect to entrepreneurs. having a diverse portfolio an employee base -- emily: you reportedly told

bill gurley during the uber drama that he had a responsibility to what was going on. how do you decide when depressed those buttons? katrina: i have a great relationship with bill. i feel he is someone who is happy to listen to my direct opinions about what i was seeing. i have so much respect for bill and benchmark and the series of difficult decisions they have made in the last two years. i appreciate bill for his openness and listening to my direct opinions. emily: you had your own me too problem with an investor accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and even assault to i know legally you can't discuss it, which is part of silicon valley's problem, forcing people to sign nondisclosure agreements of these stories don't get told, but what is your reaction about the broader stories told by women in silicon valley,

hollywood, washington? katrina: the last year has been a big moment of change. there is a lot that has led up to this. will wasases, there decades of behavior now coming out in this last year. i am more excited about looking ahead. in particular, founders for change in moving forward are two initiatives i think are exciting. people toward allows see the sexual harassment and discrimination policies in d.c. that is something that is a change from where we were in the past. for change and founders agreeing to consider the diversity of her firm. do they have women are people of color? katrina: it also says i am a founder for change and i will build an inclusive team. the founders take responsib

ility for their team and company. this is a massively different environment. there are real protective ace.ures in pl this is a much better environment to found a company. i think what it would be like today, and i think it is better. i am really optimistic. emily: you are building a diverse team at stitch fix. you took your maternity leave and send that is a signal to your employees. talk to me about how you build that team and what founders can learn from you. think one thing i see a lot of of founders do that his part of the problem is they hire the friends -- their friends and the people they have worked with. feeling like you are looking at the whole, broader context and saying is this the best person for the job, that has been my secret to building a diverse

team. emily: i know you are passionate about helping other women find the confidence to do what you have done. what is your advice to those entrepreneurs? especially women entrepreneurs looking at you saying, how do i do that today? katrina: surround yourself with possibilities, do it. experiment. i believe in so much more sosibility now, i gained much over the years and i'm excited to see many more women take the plunge. emily: katrina lake, ceo of stitch fix, thank you for joining us. really great to have you. ♪

rishaad: almost 10:00 in hong kong and in singapore, this is bloomberg markets. yvonne: asia pacific market sink further into their territory. hong kong braces for its first -- worst run of monthly losses since 1982. david: and the regional benchmark down 21% from the high in january. sentimentnvestor sorely tested in october. asia's specific -- pacific stocks have lost $5 trillion this year, seemingly with no end in sight.

how much can one see these markets fall at the moment? a big move to the downside. the u.s., erasing gains for the year. this is not capitulation, or is it temporary capitulation? you wonder if it is the u.s. catching up with the rest of the world, but it may get lower in asia. territory andr seeing more sightings. david: the philippines is in a bear market, below 7000 on that index. every sector is down, 97% of stocks. none of the earnings for now matter. so first, ask questions later.