Founder's Story · Oct 31, 2026 · 47m · 37m saved
With Emma Grede, Co-Founder and CEO of Good American and Founding Partner of Skims
Photo: Janeirohy, CC BY 4.0 via Wikipedia
Good American did $1 million in sales on its first day, and Emma Grede, its co-founder and CEO and a founding partner of Skims, told Daniel Robbins and Kate Hancock on Founder's Story that the number hurt the company.
Most founders treat a record launch as proof the business works. Emma said the praise turned into an expectation of growth no apparel company could meet, and the brand lost staff and money chasing it.
"That growth was impossible to keep up with. You can't do that type of growth year over year over year." — Emma Grede
Emma dropped out of school in East London at 16, sold sponsorship deals before she sold clothes, and built Good American with Khloé Kardashian into a company she says still employs 120 people a decade on.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 47 minutes of audio, 10 minutes of reading.
Here are the 11 lessons that matter.
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Key Takeaways
A $1M first day created expectations Good American could not meet
Retailers and investors kept asking what came next
Rival employers poached staff with $150K pay bumps she could not match
Good American fell on its face in active, swim and shoes
Customers were buying denim fit and fabric, not inclusivity as a category
The company still does hundreds of millions in revenue, but it is not a unicorn
The risk was staying put, not dropping out of school at 16
Emma calls personal branding the single biggest waste of time for women founders
A byproduct of success, she said, not a way to build one
Founders succeed only when they stop lying to themselves about what they want
1. A $1M Day That Backfired
Emma opened on Good American's launch with Khloé Kardashian, which did $1 million in sales on day one. At the time the brand was hailed as a change in how fashion handled sizing and inclusivity.
Good American's $1M launch day created a standard the company could not hold
"It set me up to fail in a way, because it was so huge and amazing out of the gate." — Emma Grede
Being called "visionaries" from the start meant retailers and investors kept asking "what's next." Internally, the company could not invent new categories at that pace.
Emma Grede said the early praise became a burden on the business
"Everybody was saying, 'You've changed fashion, you guys are visionaries'... and all of the great things that everybody said to us became thorns in the side of the company." — Emma Grede
