SELF-PROMOTION ?Discover RÉUNI, my new projectFollow RÉUNI on Instagram I Twitter I Linkedin I Facebook Get involved in the making of RÉUNI and its first product hereEPISODE This week, we are meeting with Jennifer Rubio, co-founder of Away, the New-York based travel brand she started less than 3 years ago and which is now valued to at more than a billion dollars. Enjoy our conversation! TO FIGURE OUT WHERE YOU ARE IN THE EPISODE00:47 Jen presents herself and talks about her background from law studies to social media consulting, and social media role at WarbyParker and AllSaints. 12:00 How did Jen feel after AllSaints and the juice company careers failed? Why do people need to loose somebody, or something important to change?17:00 Why and how did she decide to start Away? Did she wanted want to create something that big?23:00 How do you prepare yourself to get ready for such a big growth?25:00 How did she set up her goals?27:00 The Brand and The story telling, how does the content fit into Away’s strategy?31:00 What was the ahah aha moment which made her realise she needed to create more than a luggage brand?34:00 What other brands do inspire them? Her ambition to be the Nike for travel. 39:00 How should a brand talk about sustainability? Peace Direct NGO. 42:30 Is there something she would do differently? What does her dayslook like? Who she would like to listen to in this podcast?KEY LEARNINGSI was floored by the idea that you can could take a very old industry, like eyewear which is basically a Monopoly and create something new and the way that you create something new is through technology and story telling, a great brand and most importantly an amazing customer experience. And you can do all of that and you can really make a difference in the industry. I saw the potential of that and I wanted to be apart of it. Everything that I have done in my whole career was like that: I saw the opportunity in something and I wanted to be apart of it so even though it didn’t make sense from a career point of view, it wasn’t the right next step, it made a lot of sense for me because it was so obvious to me the opportunity that was there. I don’t believe in an Innovation title anymore, because I think anyone should be innovative in a company, the second that you create an innovation role and tell a small team to focus on innovation that inherently means that nobody else in the company is going to be thinking about it and you gonna try to convince people to spend the money, to change their process or to do things differently. I always grew up knowing, with the encouragement of my parents that you should do what nourishes you, even though when there were pushing me to become a lawyer or a doctor. I genuinely grew up for 18 year loved the idea of being a lawyer. To prepare for it, there is no class or podcast, part of it is knowing what you don’t know and also being really flexible. It’s like a travel, you can make all of the plans you want, you have to be ok with the fact that when you get to your destinations none of it is probably gonna be the same. If you don’t know something you have to have the courage to go and ask for help. That’s where I saw see a lot of people fail. You are never the first person to do something or to run into a problem. Humility has been a big part of our success. So many people look for brands that they fil feel pround proud to beassociate with. Our goal has never been to just make luggage, it is how do we create this travel brand and community and then make all the products for them that they they need to have an amazing journey. It is easier than ever to start a  company now. Anyone can create a company or a business but it is harder to create a brand that people want to talk about or to love. If you gonna care about sustainability, you'll  have to really care about it and make it part of your company's DNA, and it can’t be just something you do as a marketing campaign. Being iterative is one of our core value