Nasty Gal CEO Sophia Amoruso intently knows what it takes to build a brand online, turning her popular eBay vintage shop into a revenue opportunity worth over $100 million — and the envy of brick and mortar stores like Urban Outfitters — before she was thirty.
A role model for young, unconventional women who want to lead, Amoruso will be joining us onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt NY to discuss Nasty Gal’s casual conception, its whirlwind growth, and its future path toward total fashion and world domination.
In addition, Amoruso will also be talking with me about her new book, #GIRLBOSS, a no BS exploration of what it’s like for women to climb to the top of their fields and organizations and stay there. Hint: Not easy.
From her humble beginning as an ID checker at an Art School in San Francisco to her formidable position as head of one of the world’s most successful e-commerce startups, Amoruso has remained sharp, stylish, witty and, above all, a tough cookie.
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As the founder and owner of Nasty Gal, the fastest-growing online retailer in the country, Sophia Amoruso is the creative visionary, modern-day entrepreneur and fashion doyenne who has forged an unprecedented path in building a modern brand. Recently named by Forbes as “Fashion’s New Phenom,” Amoruso’s rising success and business savvy was touted for being “up there with retail’s most profitable ventures.”
On May 6, 2014, Amoruso is set to debut her highly anticipated, first book titled #GIRLBOSS under the Portfolio and Putnam imprints of Penguin Random House. Part memoir and part business book with an edge, #GIRLBOSS is a sassy and irreverent look into how Amoruso organically grew her business from the ground up. The book will tell Amoruso’s extraordinary personal story and offer insights on entrepreneurship and career advice for young women.
At only 29 years old, Amoruso has become one of the most prominent figures in retail and a cultural icon who has worked from the ground up and landed on top of a fashion empire named Nasty Gal— a term originally coined after a 1975 Betty Davis album and the singer’s outspoken and unapologetically sexy style. Building on that inspiration, Amoruso’s Nasty Gal first sparked a cult following in her one-woman vintage venture on eBay where she quickly learned she had a knack and photographer’s eye for fashion, styling and buying. In just five years (and after being kicked off the site in 2008), the brand has grown into a one-stop shop and online retail haven with a progressive following of fashion risk-takers and well over a hundred million dollars in revenue. Today, Amoruso’s bold style is synonymous with six-inch platforms, motorcycle jackets, rock tees, shredded denim and an occasional red lip— all elements of the fashion retailer’s intrinsic personal taste.
Having recently caught the attention of Silicon Valley, The New York Times poetically put it, “if ever there were a Cinderella of tech, Sophia Amoruso might be it.” With relentless obsession over all things web and social media, Amoruso has propelled her brand’s unforgettable aesthetic on every channel including a half a million followers on Facebook and six-hundred thousand followers on Instagram. As these carefully curated pages have “translated ‘likes’ into sales” according to Forbes, Amoruso has revolutionized marketing with a business built almost entirely on unpaid social media from day one, today drawing millions of visitors back to the Nasty Gal site every month.
On the heels of Nasty Gal’s success, Amoruso is passionate about evolving her brand and team of creative mavericks in every way possible. As she continues to be deeply involved in every aspect of the business, she loves most to meet the girls that have inspired Nasty Gal to be one of the most coveted brands of our time.