Founder's Story · Oct 31, 2026 · 47m · 40m saved
With Emma Grede, Co-Founder and CEO of Good American, Founding Partner and Chief Product Officer of Skims
Photo: Janeirohy, CC BY 4.0 via Wikipedia
Good American, the size-inclusive denim line, did roughly $1 million in sales within 24 hours of launching nearly a decade ago. Emma Grede, co-founder and CEO of Good American and a founding partner of Skims, told Founder's Story that the first day made the company's early growth rate impossible to keep up.
Most founders would count a launch like that as the win. Emma said it was the start of the hard part, because investors and retailers kept asking what came next.
"It set me up to fail in a way because it was so huge and like amazing out of the gate." — Emma Grede
Emma left school in East London at 16, built Good American with Khloé Kardashian, and says the company still employs 120 people and does hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue ten years on. She also invests on Shark Tank and hosts her own podcast, Aspire.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 47 minutes of audio, 7 minutes of reading.
Here are the 7 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
A $1M first day made Good American's early growth rate impossible to sustain
Good American learned that customers came for fit and fabric, not the size range alone
Expanding into swim, active wear and shoes on inclusive sizing alone did not work
Emma calls personal brand "the single biggest waste of time" for early founders
She says a brand formed around her only after she had built the business
Only one yes is needed to build a network from nothing
Honest negotiating means never asking for more than you need, a lesson from Mellody Hobson
Emma would never start a restaurant, because of thin margins and operational headaches
1. A $1M Day One Backfired
Dan and Kate, who host Founder's Story, opened by asking what happened behind Good American's famous first day. Emma said the size of the launch created a problem the company spent years working through.
Good American's launch hype turned into pressure on the company
"All of the great things that everybody said to us became thorns in the side of the company." — Emma Grede
Investors and retailers kept asking what Good American had coming next, and the honest answer was often more jeans. Emma said the harder pressure was internal. Once the hype settled, she had to work out what the company actually was and whether it could keep its promise to customers, and COVID hit while she was largely running things alone.
