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Alexandra Wilkis Wilson – From Lemonade to Fashion and Beauty

January 7, 2019

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Highlights

  • Coming from a lemonade stand as a child to launching GILT as her first entrepreneurial effort as a professional person
  • Being bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, a major turning point for her — seeing tech, fashion, commerce, all really changing
  • Why Alexandra is a big believer in teams
  • The unexpected level of difficulty, and how startups are romanticized
  • The process from idea to raising money and figuring out a business
  • How Alexandra is involved in many startups in various ways
  • Always seeking the perfect market fit — a perfect storm of a good idea and amazing people, timing and funding
  • What the co-founders focused on in their roles
  • The importance of a two-way street, LinkedIn, helping others, what goes around comes around
  • The timing of becoming a mother, how it brought a change
  • Getting involved in Glamsquad because she bumped into cofounders who had a great idea
  • What Alexandra is doing now is scarier than anything before
  • Someone from Socialfly was the 500k Glamsquad customer
  • When she was looking for board roles, a big client is Allergan owned Botox, doing something innovative
  • Spotlyte – a great place to learn about beauty and skincare
  • Alexandra is an expert in understanding consumer behavior, consumer strategy and innovation into an industry heavily regulated, that wasn’t focused enough on customer
  • A billboard in Times Square and a food truck for a launch
  • Educating millions of consumers on beauty and medical aesthetics, unbranded
  • Why Alexandra is surprised that a big, global company is so entrepreneurial
  • Keep meeting people, keep track of people
  • Hiring 50 new people in a year
  • Leading over a 1,000 people at one time
  • The culture at Alexandra’s current office – transparent, communicative, respectful, agile, teamwork, fun, passionate, and more — consistency
  • Whether being an entrepreneur gets easier? The good days and bad days phase her less
  • Learning to say “no”