43. When Your Category Doesn't Exist Yet, with Rachel Goldflam, CMO, Sneex

Rachel Goldflam is building something from scratch, and she's doing it in a category that doesn't quite exist yet. As CMO of Sneex, a hybrid sneaker-heel brand, Rachel is figuring out how to normalize a product people have never seen before, get it on enough feet to reach a tipping point, and do it all with a scrappy team of four. This week, host Lauren Douglass sits down with Rachel to talk about what it's really like to work at a founder-led startup after years at established fashion brands like Veronica Beard and Spanx. They dig into why fashion isn't vapid, how Rachel unlearned the rigid career rules she grew up with, and the feedback that changed everything when she was 22 and thought she had all the answers. Rachel opens up about balancing motherhood with building a brand, why enthusiasm beats credentials every time, and what she learned from taking a risk she thought she wasn't "allowed" to take. This is a conversation about scrappy ambition, learning what you don't want, and why sometimes the best move is the one that doesn't follow the rules.