Top 44 Jennifer Hyman Quotes

It’s amazing how much misinformation there is about pregnancy and how many myths are still ingrained into our culture.

All early entrepreneurs fall prey to the same problem, which is everyone believes that if you are super intense in the beginning, work long hours, that you can create something quickly and that entrepreneurship is almost something that happens overnight.

I had this thesis that we had entered the experience economy. People were getting married later and starting to value experiences like travel over owning things.

Founders are often great storytellers because they’re in the business of constantly selling a dream against all odds.

I think, so often, female cofounders are positioned in this competitive, catty way. It’s just awful. It’s not reality.

When I feel like the day is great? Pasta. When I feel like I want the day to be great? Pasta. It’s just awesome.

I want to have an ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ experience where I drop off the face of the planet and move to Greece.

As a leader, you have to have a vision that inspires people around you.

If you spend your time away from work looking at emails and making sure your inbox went down to zero, that’s not an effective way to spend your time as a CEO or an entrepreneur. Often times, those emails aren’t that important.

Our company wouldn’t exist and wouldn’t be around without our warehouse employees and our call center employees. And these employees – not just at Rent the Runway but at tens of thousands of other companies throughout the country – are treated unequally.

If your work isn’t mission-driven or emotionally resonant to you, it will be very hard to maintain passion and focus over a long period of time, which is critical in entrepreneurship.

We learn about MLK’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. Take that same speech and put it in the voice of a woman. Would it be as inspirational? Would it have as much gravitas to it?

There are a lot of subtle things that are harder to stamp out of a culture in terms of male entrepreneurs being mentored more than female entrepreneurs… male entrepreneurs getting several strikes against them before they’re kind of let go, whereas female entrepreneurs, it’s kind of one strike and you’re out.

As women and men, we’re not primed and taught to feel that women are as inspirational as men.

I sleep around 8 hours, but I tend to wake up several times a night with constant dreams, thoughts, and ideas related to Rent the Runway.

I think sales is the most important skill set young people can learn. Understanding how to pitch an idea with confidence and secure a client are valuable skills that apply to every single aspect of business.

The more time goes by, the more things will happen to you in your life. And the ability to be positive throughout and look for the good in people, look for the good in situations – it’s so important.

One of Rent the Runway’s core values is ‘Trust in Everyone’s Best of Intentions.’ We trust our team.

The most important thing to Ben and me was starting a family, so as soon as we got engaged, we booked Gurney’s in Montauk – which is just a few miles down the beach from our summer home – as our wedding venue a full year and a half out, and then we immediately started trying to get pregnant.

When we launched, we had to figure out every problem – big or small – on our own.

I don’t think of careers from a functional perspective or from a subject matter perspective. I think of careers as, how do you like spending the time in your day? What makes you happiest? What are you most passionate about?

We are helping women express themselves and feel awesome about themselves, and I think that does change the course of your day.

In early 2011, I had the opportunity to meet and spend significant time with Alfred Lin, a partner at Sequoia Capital and co-founder of Zappos.

Mentors don’t just have to be people who are older or more experienced than you are. Mentors are people who really care about you, know you, and want to offer feedback and advice to help you grow.

I’ve been humbled by the amount of people who have gone out of their way to reach out, mentor me on an ongoing basis, and devote time to help solve the problems Rent the Runway faces as a company – simply out of their own interest and kindness.

People should think about their closets like they think about a stock portfolio. There are things you want to invest in; you make those investments, and those are your blue chips. So you should invest in a great pair of jeans, in a great cashmere sweater.

Like any startup in hyper-growth mode, growth often brings change, and with it, evolution in the executive team.

Our goal is to teach young women who were brought up on H&M and Forever 21 that designer clothes are expensive for a reason. They’re works of art.

The way I inspire loyalty in my team is for them to see me more casually, to have lunch with members of my team, for them to see me with my family, my fiance, to see the real me.

I can grow as a leader only if I’m willing to accept feedback.

I’m totally obsessed with Italian food and Mexican food.

I think it’s extremely important to think of your company as a series of chapters.

I have the most eclectic music taste out there. I can be listening to an indie pop song just as easily as I could be listening to a Carly Simon song from the ’70s to a country song.

My contribution to Rent the Runway as the CEO is higher than the contribution of someone on my warehouse team, but my pregnancy is not any more important than the pregnancy of any single person who works at my company.

As a little kid, I would watch Oprah almost every day.

Startups, by their nature, are entrepreneurial – testing new things, launching new products, and disrupting themselves. That’s why you join a startup in the first place – to create, to stretch beyond your current capabilities, and to make an outsized impact.

Almost every one of us interacts with the experience or sharing economy every day, and I’m proud that Rent the Runway has helped to popularize and normalize this behavior.

Every single person around the world has this storage facility in their bedroom, and we call it a closet, and 80 percent of the stuff in that storage facility is worn three times or less in its lifetime.

I want to put H&M and Zara out of business.

When you buy something for $9.99, and you know that it’ll fall apart after you wear it once… you’re going into the shopping experience knowing that you’re renting. So all I’m doing is making the rental process more efficient.

I’ve always felt the connection between clothing and confidence, which is why I probably was such a shopaholic.

I think layering is key for fall along with a really colorful scarf to bring spiciness to the outfit.

When I traveled around the country visiting women in their own homes and talking to them about their closets, every woman lamented about ‘settling’ for many of the pieces in her closet.

I didn’t wake up one day and want to become an entrepreneur. I had the idea for Rent the Runway and thought it would be fun to work on and also thought if it was successful, it would make women feel great about themselves.