Rachel Jarrett is the President and COO of Zola.com, an online wedding registry and planning company changing the way we approach wedding preparation. Rachel has had experience in both the traditional retail and e-commerce space, as well as in the start up world. She was gracious enough to share a bit about her career journey with a selection of YMA FSF alumni at our Alumni Dream Grant Meet Up at the Zola offices in New York. Marlena Meyers, YMA FSF Alumni and one of the directors of the YMA FSF Alumni Association, moderated the discussion.
“Can you tell us a bit about your background, where you’ve been, and how you ended up at Zola.com?” Marlena asked. “First of all, thank you all so much for inviting me to come speak with you. This is a very impressive group, and it is amazing that you are all a part of the Fashion Scholarship Fund,” Rachel said. “I actually just learned that someone on my team here at Zola was a recipient of this scholarship as well! In terms of my background, I was a career changer. I started out in government. I actually worked for five years at the CIA,” she said. “I eventually left to get my MBA and attended the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. During my time at business school, I fell in love with retail and decided that was where I wanted to end up. I started working at Toys R Us as an Associate Buyer and worked my way all the way up to merchandising, eventually becoming the Director of Merchandising. I stayed at Toys R Us for five years and then moved to FAO Schwarz. I stayed there for a year and then had the chance to move into e-commerce. I went to work for Barnes & Noble.com. My time there was during a very exciting period when they were launching Nook. That was an amazing adventure and I was so glad to be a part of it. Next, I joined Gilt.com where I ran their children’s business for several years. Later, I took another detour and actually opened up my own chocolate store on the Upper East Side. After two years, I then came to Zola where I’ve been for a year and a half. As the President and COO, I run the finance, operations, merchandising, growth, human resources, and legal functions of the company. Zola is the fastest growing wedding company in the United States right now. We started out in registry only, but we recently transitioned into offering services for the entire wedding planning process. Our services now include the website, guest list, checklist, and everything else you need to make your wedding what you want it to be. We have really succeeded by using technology and innovation to recreate something that hasn’t changed in a long time.”
“Can you tell us about the background of the company and how it got started?” Marlena inquired. Rachel went on to share some information about Zola’s CEO and what inspired her to create this business. “Our CEO, Shan-Lyn Ma, founded our company. Approximately four years ago, she was invited to ten weddings in one year. She had to buy gifts for all of these friends of hers off their wedding registry. She went to purchase these gifts and found that this was the worst e-commerce experience she had ever had,” Rachel said. “Shan had worked at Gilt and had built the iPhone app for that company. From her experience there, she was a visionary product leader. Reflecting on the wedding registry experience she had, she realized that not only did she not like it, but her friends didn’t enjoy the process either. She decided to recreate the wedding registry process using technology to make registry a completely different and much better experience. She started out with her new business idea and got immediate traction with new couples who found this to be a more modern way to register.
“On our platform, you can register for cash, experiences, and product – all in once place. Traditionally, you would have to go to a different place for each of these things. On Zola.com, you can also choose when your gifts ship to you. Instead of coming back from your honeymoon to a hundred packages you weren’t ready for, Zola allows you to control when those gifts get to you. You can even return a gift before it gets to you. If your grandma buys you a gift you don’t love, before the item comes to you, you’ll receive an email asking you whether you’d like to keep or exchange the gift. If you want to exchange it, you can do it for a credit on our site. We are solving real customer pain points, and continue to do so.”
“Going back to your own personal career journey,” Marlena said, “You began your professional retail voyage at Toys R Us, but then transitioned to Gilt. What was that transition like, and what was the decision process surrounding your choice to cross over from traditional retail into e-commerce?” Rachel shared some of the different experiences she had during her time at each establishment. “I had a great time learning from working at the bigger companies I was employed at. I think that working in merchandising and buying is an amazing training ground. It’s like being a mini CEO of your own little business. You learn so many transferable skills,” she said. “When I went to Gilt, what was so exciting was just to see the pace of innovation, and the value of what you could bring to the table regardless of your level of experience or age. I joined Gilt very early on and our head of operations was around 24 years old, and did an amazing job. Working there was about being talented, innovative, and getting things done. I would say we have a similar environment at Zola. It’s so fun to be a part of such a creative company. On the down side, working at a start up there is of course always so much more risk involved. That being said, traditional retail is not in the steadiest place either at the moment. I think that given the circumstances, you need to go where you are excited and where you really want to be, and less where you think you should be based on what you predict the outcome of this moment in retail history to be. Whether you’re going to a small startup or a giant retailer, who knows what could happen. You just can’t tell.”
“Lastly,” said Marlena, “Do you have any advice you want to pass on to our alumni?” Rachel opened up about the lessons she has learned during her time in retail. “My biggest piece of advice would be to not be afraid to fail. If you are afraid to fail, you’re going to be stuck. There was a great article in the New York Times a few weeks ago about failure being integrated into college curriculums now. People are so nervous about facing failure that they are almost becoming incapable of facing even small failures. Failure opens you up to so many possibilities. My chocolate store was a failure in many senses – I lost a great deal of money from the venture. Nevertheless, it was one of the best things to ever happen to me. Not only did it allow me to find Zola, but it also made me a lot less scared to fail in general. It has made me want to take more risks and try new and creative things. I know now that if I fail, I will be okay.”
Rachel Jarrett’s Words of Wisdom:
You need to work where you are excited and where you really want to be.
Don’t be afraid to fail.
Take more risks and try new and creative things.