By Calynn M. Lawrence
@fairytalefacesbycalynn
Sophia Amoruso is a self made multimillionare businesswoman and fashion mogul, in her early 30’s! She founded the extremely successful clothing store, Nasty Gal. You may ask how she did it. Well, here’s her story. She was born in San Diego, California, in 1984. After being diagnosed with depression and attention deficit disorder (ADD) during childhood, Amoruso dropped out of school and began homeschooling. She had multiple jobs as a teenager, including working at Subway. Her last “real” job was as a clerk where she checked student’s ID at the lobby of a school. According to her, the boredom that cam along with this job allowed her the freedom of web surfing and thus she found her passion for social media, at the time it was Myspace. That is when she sold her first item on her eBay shop, called Nasty Gal Vintage.
Nasty Gal Vintage soon became her main source of income. She reports to have done all of its marketing, buying, selling and customer service herself. Her main system for the business was to find unique vintage pieces from flea markets and thrift stores, even dumpster diving, fixing them up and putting them up for auction. In an online interview, she claims to have spent as little as a few dollars on an item but was able to sell it for hundreds of dollars with an ROI of over 10,000%!!!
She soon saw that her brand was far beyond an ebay store and she thus launched Nasty Gal website. Nasty Gal gained a consistent online following of young women on social media, and quickly grew with revenues increasing from $223,000 in 2008 to almost $23 million in 2011.The New York Times has called her “a Cinderella of tech.”In 2013, Inc. Magazine named her to its 30 Under 30 list.
According to Forbes, “In 2015, Nasty Gal surpassed $300 million in revenues, according to Forbes’ estimates, tripling its sales in three years. It topped industry bible Internet Retailer’s list of the year’s 500 top e-commerce performers, beating out the likes of Apple and Amazon with a 92.4% five-year compound annual growth rate.”
This runaway success has gained Sophia a whopping net worth of over $280 million. She is included on Forbes’ second annual list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with an estimated net worth of $280 million. She’s the second youngest of the 60 women on the list. That’s super impressive for any woman, let alone a 32 year old woman who doesn’t hold a thread of college eductaion or business training!
She now plans to expand her brand even further by launching a stream of brick and morder stores for Nasty Gal, as well as leading a motivational tour for aspiring entrepreneurs. She is already a bestselling author from her autobiography, #Girlboss (by the way, Netflix is creating a series) and a for her podcast, #Girlboss Radio. Yet, she wants to take it a step further and not only bask in her own success but to help other young women to do just the same!
