#GIRLBOSS ( PDFDrive )

Typically, people with Frank’s experience don’t apply for jobs. I was
shocked to receive a résumé from someone who had twenty years of
experience in operations at Lands’ End and had been COO of
Nordstrom’s online and catalog business. But Frank knew that Nasty Gal
was on a tear, and also knew that type of fun is hard to come by. Frank
had a lot of solutions. He told me about this thing called an “org chart,” a
tool companies use to map out the structure and hierarchy of their teams.
Then, he told me about “departments.” It was like we were inventing the
wheel! First came a director of human resources. Then a controller. After
that, a customer care manager, an inventory planner, and a manager of
fulfillment. We got an IT guy. We got assistant buyers, and I got an
assistant. We split up shipping and receiving, and created a returns
department. Cody joined the team full time and became our e-commerce
manager. We turned on the phones for the first time and had multiple
lines and headsets—so official! No longer did our customers have to e-
mail to reach us—they could just call! You are welcome, customers!
As we plotted and strategized, I was a sponge, soaking it all up. As
the business grew, I grew, and the ambiguity that once terrified me
became something I thrived on. I was still ADD, but found that running
my own company meant that every single day, if not every hour, there
was some sort of new challenge to tackle, a new problem to solve, and
there was no time to linger on anything, let alone get bored. We hit our
first $100,000 day, and I decided to celebrate: I rented a giant, horseshaped
bounce house and had it blown up in the warehouse. Send a few
e-mails, bounce bounce bounce. Ship a few orders, bounce bounce
bounce . . . It was pretty much the best day ever.
To everyone’s surprise but mine, we outgrew our Emeryville
warehouse in just one short year. By this time, I was getting used to the
growth. It didn’t make it any easier, but I could at least see around the
corner, even if just a little. I stopped listening to the folks with experience
—even Dana—because even they hadn’t seen the magnitude of growth
we were experiencing. In the fall of 2010, I once again started the search
for more space. I was growing weary of my monthly and sometimes
weekly trips to LA, where I crashed on my friend Kate’s couch so much
that I started to worry about wearing out my welcome. Nearly every
showroom and designer we worked with was down there, and I was flying
in to cast models we then flew up to shoot with us. I knew that I wanted to