Exclusive Fireside Chat: Time to Get Real with Springboard Alumna Julie Wainwright
📅 Monday, June 2 | 🕛 12 PM EST | 💻 Virtual Event

Join us for a compelling conversation with Julie Wainwright, Springboard alumna and trailblazing founder & former CEO of The RealReal. In this exclusive virtual fireside chat, Julie dives into her powerful new book, Time to Get Real—a bold memoir and business playbook wrapped into one.

From building a billion-dollar brand to redefining the fashion resale industry, Julie shares unfiltered insights on resilience, reinvention, and what it truly takes to thrive in today’s entrepreneurial world. Whether you’re a founder, dreamer, or change-maker, this is a can’t-miss event designed to inspire and ignite.

🛒 Time to Get Real available on Amazon June 10, 2025.

More about the book:

Part tell-all memoir and part entrepreneur crash course, the founder of The RealReal offers an emboldening story of perspective and triumph

When she was 52, a recruiter told Julie Wainwright that her failure as CEO of Pets.com made her unemployable. But she proved him—and Silicon Valley—wrong and built her company from an idea into the world’s largest resource for authenticated luxury resale. Since its launch in 2011, The RealReal has changed the world of fashion forever, making luxury items more accessible and sustainable.

Time to Get Real spills the tea on the entrepreneurial journey from a woman’s perspective and includes all the lessons learned and mistakes made along the way to a billion-dollar business and public company. This is the book Julie wished she had when she was in the trenches—one that shares the whole exhilarating, stressful, glorious, messy truth about success.

Time to Get Real isn’t just about Julie’s wild ride through Silicon Valley; it will also show you how to:

• Build a business from the ground up
• Hire for startups while avoiding common oversights
• Overcome workplace bias and adversity
• Be a shark—and create a unicorn

With Julie’s inspirational story and hard-earned wisdom, this is the perfect read for anyone who has ever imagined starting a company, loves fashion, or wants an uncensored glimpse behind the scenes from a woman who succeeded in spite of it all.

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When and Where

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Questions?

Email Rachel Rong, Director of Community Engagement for Springboard Enterprises at rachel.rong@springboardenterprises.org

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