Look at you.
I'm so glad you just are the man that knows all the stuff.
Okay, hey, we're going to work, babe.
Here. Am I good?
Yeah. You're good.
Okay, all right, I'm coming through, guys.
Look at me. The woman in me wants to fluff these out.
Mark, help me.
Help fix it so it doesn't...
Is that-- Is that in frame? Are you seeing that?
Are you guys ready to roll?
I don't know where I'm looking. Yep, yep.
Just try and look at me.
And by looking at me, you're gonna look right into the camera.
Uh-huh, yes, thank you.
-Mark, you weren't paying attention. -I didn't do my job. I know.
Do that part right there, too, Julia.
Okay, just right off the top.
What is the real story of LuLaRoe...
and, you know, what does it feel like to be sitting down to tell your stories?
Do you ever feel like you're, like, pretending
to be somebody that you really aren't?
Even though I am, I'm the boss, I own a clothing company.
You are the boss of your business and you're the boss
of your destiny and the boss of what you choose to do.
LuLaRoe, LuLaRoe, what in the hell?
LuLaRoe, what is that?
You've probably seen their brightly colored tops and leggings
on your social media feed.
LuLaRoe sells clothing to independent fashion retailers.
Well, they resell the items to customers through online and in-home sales.
LuLaRoe's approach?
What's called multi-level marketing.
Retailers buy in with a minimum purchase.
In LuLaRoe's case, about $5,000, then sell to customers at a markup.
When I started LuLaRoe,
I couldn't even afford a $5 box of cereal.
Four and a half years later, I was just able to buy my dream home.
I had achieved the dream.
I almost felt like a Real Housewife.
My department alone was bringing them a million dollars a day.
Easily.
There's a kind of magic in the air.
Based on what? Based on selling an opportunity.
Some of these people have not yet sold anything.
I want to challenge you. I've got a new challenge.
It's coming and a reward, incentive.
Um, shoot, Mark hates it when I do that.
Mark, do you hate me because I did that?
No. There's no incentive.
The incentive is get your business going.
It's going to be fun. You're going to make money.
This is your business.
Women were selling breast milk just so they could afford the startup cost.
People spending ten grand for some leggings.
DJ dance party. Oh, there it is. There it is.
I remember we'd fly on a private jet and the pilots would be like,
"Who are these guys?"
I'm not qualified to run a marketing department
for a million-dollar company, let alone a billion-dollar company.
You know, it was kinda crazy.
When you work it, you work it, and you put your whole...
From that point forward, things were gonna get really, really, really strange.
DeAnne said, "I got the weight-loss surgery.
If you're interested, let me know. I can hook you up.
My sister will drive you down to Tijuana, you get surgery,
and then fly back home."
I think we brought down I think 18. I counted the other day 18.
As time kind of went by, it just felt that something else was going on.
LuLaRoe retailers and customers
are flooding social media with complaints.
Little did I know this was gonna end up looking like a penis.
No one wants to wear leggings that feature
-a bee crawling up your cooch. -
This is a hamburger print.
Or what the vagina would look like if it was a hamburger.
That's bullshit, I'm sorry.
I'm having serious issues right now.
Why is everything ripping? Why are these leggings wet?
Why are they moldy? Why are they stinky?
The whole house smelled like the dead-fart leggings,
like, it was so bad.
I've heard some whining lately also about,
"Well, my inventory's stale."
No, you're stale!
We're talking about a scam.
I remember looking around and being like, "We all look the same."
I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm in a cult."
Guess what, if your sales are down, it's because you're down.
Mark starts spouting off passages from the Book of Mormon,
and I'm looking around going, "What the...?"
We're talking about a mass delusion.
I stopped trying to keep track of how many lawsuits have been filed against LuLaRoe.
It's dozens.
Tonight, the Washington State Attorney General
says LuLaRoe tricked people into joining a pyramid scheme.
I feel like I failed my family. I put my family into debt.
"I'm just so upset because my business can't succeed
because I don't have the leggings to take care of all my customers."
Well, guess what?
Then you're obviously in the wrong business.
We need to get away from being a pyramid scheme, okay?
We sell product through to a consumer, and it's highly desirable product.
That is not a pyramid scheme.
The State of Washington vs. LLR.
We're a family organization and many people wear many hats.
Because you're the president, correct?
They say I am.
Are you also co-CEO?
I don't know.
You know, one of the ancient Stoic philosophers,
Epictetus, one time somebody came and said,
"So-and-so's speaking bad about you."
And he said, "Well, they must not know me well,
they failed to list all of my flaws."
And so, that's my approach to this whole thing.
You know, we are storytellers.
That's how the business grew.
And so, it's exciting to have somebody here
that's interested in the whole story
and an opportunity to share that.
Every day, I am astounded and full of gratitude
for what this business became,
and I'm just thankful for every bit of it,
every day, every minute, so I can't wait.
Okay, so why don't we start at the beginning?
When Mark and I met, I was raising seven kids
and being a single mother and going through a divorce.
Simple things, like, I'm going to buy the cheapest hamburger
and I'm going to buy a handful of fries
and we're all going to split them up,
I hated that.
One day, I was waiting for a plane ticket on standby.
And I got the last seat.
Happened to sit next to him.
He was just funny and happy and positive, and...
we just clicked. It was awesome.
You know, before I even said a word to her,
there was something just powerful.
And we've been married 23 years now, a lot of...
Fourteen kids.
Yeah, a lot of water under that bridge.
I have seven children, three adopted from Romania,
four biological, Mark had four children. That's 11.
Kenny is married to Jill and they have four children.
Then there's Amelia married to Justin.
Nicole and Jeff have four.
Then comes Jordan and Cassie.
-After that is-- was Alex. -It was Morgan.
-Oh, was it Morgan? -Morgan.
So Morgan is his daughter, no kids yet.
Austin,
Alex,
Michael, then Devin, Alexa.
And then we have Daniela.
That just so wasn't enough.
I met two brothers that were abandoned
at age six and seven, Katelyn and Tony.
And in the meantime, we adopted Anna.
Anna fell in love with Michael.
That worked out really awesome,
kind of shocking, but it was good.
So, out of our 14 children, two of them are married.
I mean, they have zero blood relation.
They never lived in the house together.
She went to college. Yeah, anyway. It's awesome.
Yeah, it's a great story. Let's put it on the wedding invitation, then.
We announce the marriage of our daughter to...
-To our son! -...to the son of...
DeAnne and I are members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
Secularly, we've been known as Mormons.
We believe that we're living in the last days.
We believe in self-reliance and that the universe is ultimately fair.
My father was raised in Provo, Utah.
My dad's family, ancestors, grandfathers came here
across the plains, and they were candymakers.
My father was a salesman.
He drove around in his Model T,
and their dream was to start a catering business.
They led us to believe that we could do anything.
I was raised in Pasadena, California.
I am the tenth child of 11, and my mother birthed all 11 children.
My parents had nine.
And then surprisingly, she found out she was expecting at age 44,
so that's where me and my twin sister came along.
We dressed alike all the way through high school.
We were cheerleaders together.
My mother would always say,
"Hey, what are we doing for DeAnne and Dianne's birthday?"
Did you catch that? DeAnne and Diane.
My mother was not very creative.
My maiden name was Startup. S-T-A-R-T-U-P.
My dad would always say, "It's like start up your car."
And honestly, I mean, yep.
Startup.
I come from an entrepreneurial family, also.
I lived an ideal middle-class childhood.
You know, we lived in a three-bedroom,
two-bath house with four kids.
And I seriously never even considered having a job.
That wasn't for me to work for somebody else
and to answer to a boss and to have somebody else
defining what my product was going to look like.
One of the moments in my life that stuck with me for a long, long time,
I was probably about 16 years old, things weren't quite so good.
And I remember my dad having a conversation
with our next-door neighbor
and the neighbor suggested to him, you know,
"Bud, I hear they're hiring up at the mine.
Maybe you could get a job in the carpenter shop."
And my dad's answer to that was,
"There's only one thing worse than being flat broke
and that's knowing I'm going to make $412 a week
for the rest of my life."
Sorry, I didn't know that that story would get an emotion out of me.
That's interesting.
When you're an entrepreneur, there's no upper limit.
Nobody's going to tell you, "You can only make this much."
It's entirely up to you.
My mom was home with the kids and then as kids got older,
it was much easier for her to say,
"Okay, I'm going to go to the office."
So one night she had said,
"Okay, I'm going to be home. I promise you.
And as soon as we get down,
I'm gonna take you guys all out for ice cream."
She had sold this big catering job.
I think it was like $3,000.
That was a lot of money.
She had gone to the bank and she said, "I want all of this in $5 bills."
So this was a pretty big bag full of money.
And she called all of us kids and she said,
"Come quick! Come quick! Quick! Come quick!
Everybody come and go to the bottom of the stairs.
Mom's got something to share with you!"
This is my vision, okay? What I remember.
So she got to the top of the stairs and she said,
"Okay, everybody put your hands over your eyes
and when I count to three, look up."
So she counted to three.
She said, "Okay, open your eyes."
And she began taking that money,
and she threw it over the banister.
All we saw was money just coming down.
She goes, "Pick it all up. It's all yours.
Whatever you can get. It's all yours. Mom did this for you.
Oh, we're going to go shopping.
We're going to go get ice cream."
It was her way of teaching us to visualize
that if we work hard, we're going to see the benefit.
Mom and Dad built dreams and they taught us.
I got married to my first husband really early.
Got pregnant really quick.
Being a mother, I knew I wanted my kids to look great.
And there were times when I wanted new things
and I knew I couldn't just go spend the money.
I shopped for dresses at all the big stores
and I would look at the tag and I knew,
oh, there's no way.
I wanted to be that kind of person that could say, "I've earned it.
I'm going to, I'm going to buy that."
One day, I went to the swap meet
and there was a guy there with little girls' dresses.
And they were the brands that I'd seen that were
anywhere from 80 to 100 bucks,
and they were $10.
I bought four dresses and I was so surprised
that hardly anybody was buying them.
So I thought, "I wonder if I do a party for him."
I would invite all my friends and I'd do it at my house.
Show some dresses and people would come shop, buy it and go.
I think we sold like 300 dresses.
The guys that I bought dresses from, they were shocked.
And so he said, "Okay, DeAnne, we have dresses to sell.
If you can book dress parties,
I'm going to give you the profit to all these dresses.
And I'm going to let you start your own business."
I just, the dollar signs of excitement
and thinking I can do this.
We'll do after-school parties.
I was on a mission to make this build up.
I started booking pop-ups. I could book four parties a day.
They were an hour and a half long.
In three weeks, I would book 15 parties,
five in Arizona, five in Utah, and five in Vegas.
I knew that I had a goal of how many pieces I needed to sell
because I'm not a numbers person.
But by darn, I know what's in that bank account.
I brought home about $40,000 cash. Profit.
And I did that for about 27 years.
One day my daughter said,
"Hey, Mom, do you think you could make me a maxi skirt?"
She knew I could make patterns and sew and create.
Pretty soon, I found myself cutting skirts out on my kitchen counter.
Small, medium, and large skirts.
And I mixed it with a dress party.
Within five months, I sold 20,000 maxi skirts.
And I thought, "Oh, my gosh."
So we started selling only maxi skirts.
Our business started in our home. Bags and bins.
It started in our garage. - Yes.
But then the garage filled up and then it moved into one of the bedrooms.
So then we turned all the furniture into the storage unit.
Well, that just, that was in three months.
People would just buy whatever we put up.
She would call me and she'd say,
"On your way home, I need you to go to LA
and pick up more fabric."
I was like a deer in the headlights.
Some of it was a dollar a yard.
Some of it was $3 a yard, $4 a yard.
We just didn't know what we were going to get.
We'd just go and say, "Oh, that's a pretty one.
Let's make that."
And so what that resulted in was this kind of urgency.
"If you like that skirt, you better buy it
'cause there may not be another one like it."
And so while she was out selling them,
I started helping her get production done.
And that was how I kind of started into the business with her.
She invited me to get involved with it.
I'm not sure if she invited me or if I just pushed my way in,
but regardless...
Do we get in fights? Yes, we do.
It's so great because there's so much passion between the two of us.
There are a lot of times I hate him.
I don't like him, but you know what--
A lot? Wait a minute. Let's clarify that. A lot?
-We going with a lot now? -Well, when it happens.
-Anyway, um...
One day, I met a girl in Utah.
She said, "I've got ten friends, and they've heard the buzz.
And they want me to come and pick out skirts for them."
Brittany dove into the van, and all I could see
is her feet moving around, pulling out.
"Okay, I want that one." And she threw it to me.
"And I want that one.
And this is a good one."
And I called Mark on the phone
and I said, "What can I do to make it valuable to her?"
Mark did the math in his head.
And he said, "Okay, you sell them to her for this,
and she gets to make double the amount of money."
She picked out 20 skirts.
I said, "Brittany, I'm going to let you buy them for this much."
She did the math in her head and it was instant cash
and an instant opportunity.
That is really when LuLaRoe started.
The name of the company stands for our first three granddaughters,
Lucy, and then Lola and Monroe.
So Lucy, Lola, and Monroe is LuLaRoe.
When we quit saying, "How do I get what I need?"
and the conversation started with, "How do we help others make money?"
that's where the business started.
That's where the growth came from.
That's when we became what the world likes to refer to as network marketing.
LuLaRoe is a multi-level marketing company.
Multi-level marketing companies,
which you may also hear described as direct sales,
start with the small number of people at the top.
And then they recruit people below them.
Those people sell goods for a commission.
Part of that commission goes up.
Those people then bring in more people below them,
and down and down the line.
Officially, multi-level marketing operates
as income opportunity based upon selling products.
It's a Tupperware party, and it's really fun.
The girls get together and meet their old friends,
and make some new ones.
Skincare, anti-aging, cream, clothing.
It doesn't really matter.
Somebody takes a product directly to the customer,
a customer buys it,
the salesman gets a commission, and this is legal.
But what is really being sold is the unlimited opportunity.
One person recruiting a multiple of other people
and getting some of the money that they put in.
They in turn each will need a multiple of people,
so the number of people involved keeps increasing exponentially.
You can only go about 13 levels
and you pass the population of the human race on Earth.
When did you first learn what an MLM was?
Probably in about, uh...
1982.
Actually, probably before that.
My parents were Amway distributors in the '60s.
Have you ever been involved in multi-level marketing?
Yes.
What multi-level marketing?
I tried to do Amway.
Multi-level marketing is sometimes spoken of like
it's a business model that has been around forever,
but, actually, it had a beginning.
There was an Adam and Eve of multi-level marketing called Nutrilite.
And from that begot Amway.
We offer freedom. We offer rewards.
We offer recognition and we offer hope.
Amway developed a model that converted
the salesperson into the customer.
So the money would be made
by multiplying the number of salespeople,
getting them to buy into it with fees and purchases,
and that would create the mainstay of revenue.
Hey friends, I'm so excited.
I want to show you what I got today.
Today, we're doing a full face...
Look at how that fits right in your hand.
In the past decade or so, you've really seen an explosion
of multi-level marketing companies.
Herbalife, Arbonne...
Many of them are, you know,
cosmetics companies, or wellness companies.
It has become almost universal.
It's everywhere on social media.
Make the case that you have something great to offer,
recruits pay an entry fee,
and then they purchase a product.
That's where the money comes from.
LuLaRoe itself has this model.
And how did you go about having others sell the clothing?
I just mentioned it when they said they would like
to sell also, and be able to make some money from home.
And then I told them, "Why don't you sell LuLaRoe?"
Do I look good?
I'm still single, okay, so I cannot be commemorated
in any way, other than gorgeous.
That's awesome. That's awesome.
I am Ashleigh Lautaha.
I started in 2013.
I was the third retailer to join the company.
I was born in Kailua, Hawaii.
My husband was stationed with the Army here in Washington
and LuLaRoe kind of fell into my lap.
I saw a friend of a friend wearing a maxi skirt on Instagram.
There is nothing more comfortable or perfect
than a maxi skirt when you're pregnant, right?
There wasn't a way to purchase them online at the time.
So I called the company, somehow got in touch with DeAnne.
She called me out of the blue, wanted to buy a skirt.
I said, "You know, this is a really great opportunity
for you to make money by selling skirts."
I told her I had just graduated from college
and I had two little kids, and I was pregnant.
Okay, well, I'm going to fly out there and I'm gonna see what I can do to help you.
She flew up here and taught me
how to fold the maxi skirts, put them into a bag
so that people could see the patterns.
And we would put them in like big Tupperware bins.
I would put them in the back of my SUV and take them to people's houses.
There are lots of women who still remember me
lugging those Tupperware bins around
and just being like, "What is this thing that you're doing?
Like, okay, I'll buy a maxi skirt."
A lot of us who joined in the very beginning were of the belief
that success is the best recruiting tool, right?
Success with your sales speaks for itself,
and when you go and you do a pop-up and you sell 40 pieces,
ten women show up and they're all having a great time,
that the clothing made them feel great,
there's an energy there that people want to replicate.
These are things to a successful pop-up.
You've got to have music playing.
It's gotta be upbeat, fun.
And I used to tell them, "Don't do refreshments."
They don't eat them.
They're always on a diet.
And the goal was to always be making money
and also finding new contacts.
One of the people that I met was Lindsey Wheeler.
I went to this vendor event.
I had my little booth set up.
She bought a couple of maxi skirts.
I set up a pop-up with her...
Ashleigh Lautaha came to my house and did a pop-up.
I didn't know anything about the brand.
No one in my area knew about it.
And it just, the wheels started turning.
Like, "Man, I wonder if I can do this."
Lindsey called me one day and she was like,
"What do you think about me joining the company?
Like, I don't want to step on your toes."
And I was like, "Yeah, girl, go for it."
There were more retailers that were saying,
"Well, I kind of want to do that," and I thought,
"Okay, come along, let's do it together!
It's gonna be so fun!"
I just make it real simple and easy.
Pay us $10 a skirt.
Sell them for 25.
So you get $15 apiece, profit.
It's not rocket science to sell clothing.
And so people wanted to join that.
It was like, "Join the movement."
That was a phrase that was shared often.
LuLaRoe, for me, it mostly came through women that I had known
in high school who were advertising on Facebook and Instagram.
Thanks to social media,
I can see what they're up to and then they can market to me.
LuLaRoe promised women, "If you're willing
to invest enough of your time, energy, effort, and money
you will get this great payout."
So, I went and did this party and came home and I handed Doug $300 cash.
He's like, "What is this?"
And I said, "This is what I just earned selling 30 skirts
at this skirt party."
And we looked at each other and said, "You know what?
This might be something we really want to look into doing
because it could change our trajectory financially."
The first retailers, they just kind of said,
"Well, my husband I just built a beautiful home,
but I want all-new furniture.
There's no money for that."
And so, man, they started hustling.
You show up to someone's house
and they want you to be on the third floor.
And you're like, "Okay, I can do that."
I can bring this thousand pounds of clothing
up your three flights of stairs.
I would be happy to."
There was never a time that I left having sold nothing.
Maybe I sold two things, but I made some money
and I made a contact with someone
and I was growing sort of my network.
They're telling you, "There is no limit.
The income opportunity is unlimited.
The product sells itself."
I was selling magic leggings that, like, fit everybody
and letting people know why these wild leggings
would look fun with a chambray shirt.
I didn't know much about the company.
I'd been gifted a pair of leggings
that were super comfortable and super soft.
And I was like, "Okay, well, these are the best thing
I've literally ever felt in my life."
I got a black pair of leggings
and they were thick and they were soft.
And I was like, "These are amazing pants.
I love them."
It did feel buttery soft.
The material was super stretchy.
It was perfectly fitted to anybody's body.
And I just, I fell in love.
I felt cute. I felt comfortable.
I got into contact with a gal who sold these leggings,
and I was like, "You know, I want to buy some more."
And she was like, "Oh, okay, well, you know, come on over
and buy some," and I'm going, "Whoa, how does this work?"
With LuLaRoe, now the name is getting more and more out there.
It's getting more and more popular.
We want you to understand and feel secure
in talking about your business with other people.
Let them know! There's opportunities, they can make money.
I'm talking to my girlfriends
and they're kind of going, "Well, what's the catch?"
And I'm going, "Well, I don't think there is one.
I mean, you own the inventory.
That's not like any other business.
People can feel it. They come over, they see it.
There's, you know, there's pricing. They pay right there.
I mean, it's literally a store in your own home.
There is no catch."
Oh, look, here are all the colors.
These are the warm colors.
See how you can really help you make that decision?
Yes, uh-huh.
With normal MLMs, you're gonna get the same exact product.
Everybody sells the same exact thing.
If you're selling lipstick, everybody has the same lipstick colors.
If you're selling shakes, everybody has the same shake flavors.
With LuLaRoe, the stuff that we sold,
they had such a wide variety of products,
and you could pick and choose what you wanted to sell.
And so there was a lot of sharing of customers.
"Oh, I don't have that, but let me ask my team, they might have it."
So that to me was something that seemed
very communal versus competitive.
It just felt different.
I'm a family girl, right?
I love being a mom.
I love spending time with my children
and the idea of being able to run a business
and change our financial future and be a mom.
I mean, it's like everything any mom ever wants, right?
That really resonated with me.
You're important. You're very important to Mark and I,
and for all that you do and for all that you get up
and get dressed and show up and...
There's a lot of great things happening.
This is the company for you, you guys.
We're the original. We're the OG. The original.
Women have to do so much.
We want to see them succeed.
And that's what keeps me going.
There's no requirements. It's not like, you know, get rich quick.
It's buy product, sell it.
Buy it for wholesale, sell it for retail.
If I have a business that works, people will be drawn to it.
Our retailers are selling mostly to people
that they can see, that they can talk to,
that they can discern what their needs are
and create a relationship.
There are so many pathways to success.
I was just told that I could be home with my kids
and I could make money, and I love clothes.
This is a dream come true.
Wow.
Mm-hmm.
You feel good about that, maybe?
Yeah, I just have to remember my posture.
For 12 hours?
I was getting ready to say, "Start handing me a drink or something,
we gonna be here for 12 hours."
I was like, "I think I'm spending the night with you."
Hey, girl, hey!
All right, I'll give everybody a minute to hop on, and then we'll go,
because you can always re-watch it.
My name is Courtney Harwood.
I started with LuLaRoe in March of 2015.
Hey, Vicky.
Hi, Sarah.
Hi, Megan.
Within almost a year, I reached the highest status in the company.
So this is part two.
No, that's a gang sign. Part two.
That's a peace sign. Part two.
I was very high up in the food chain, per se.
I got married right after college.
We have three children,
one who is now 12 years old
and then, surprise...
twins.
I became part of a twins mom group on Facebook.
One of the twin moms announced in the group
that she was having a LuLaRoe clothing party.
So I ordered three pieces of clothing.
I got so many comments and likes on that clothing
that that's when I started to look deeper
into LuLaRoe and what it was all about.
I was working in corporate America, rising up the ranks.
I'd never really saw my children much
because I spent more time at work.
I felt like I was missing out on them growing up.
Part of what attracted me to joining LuLaRoe
was the hope that I could make what I was making, if not more,
working less and being able to spend more time with them.
I mean, in a perfect world, who wouldn't want that?
You are beautiful, amazing.
You are smart, compassionate, confident, free.
We are mothers building a community,
making a difference through social retail.
We are LuLaRoe.
They treated us like one big family.
Look at these people.
If they can all vacation together,
take time off together, and work together...
We are connected.
...then my family can do that, too.
I contacted the retailer that sold the clothes
and said, "I want to know more about this company."
And she explained to me that it was a newer company,
and if I wanted to join, now was the time.
And I said, "Okay, let's sign me up."
She then told me, "Well, there is one thing
I need to talk to you about, and that's the startup cost.
$5,000."
My mouth immediately just dropped.
Me and my husband were struggling,
and we were in debt, always robbing Peter to pay Paul.
And at that point, Peter was broke.
I actually ended up going to the credit union
on my lunch break and asking them
for a loan to start the business.
I came home that day.
And without telling anyone,
I went ahead and signed up to be a retailer with LuLaRoe.
I remember going, "I have to tell my husband I just did this."
So I did tell him.
He shook his head and he just said,
"No company you have to pay to sign up."
And I said, "But this is different, I promise you.
Just watch me do it and let's see where this goes."
You know, if you had asked me ten years ago if I'd be selling clothes,
I would've told you you were crazy.
It's not easy, but if you're passionate about the brand, it's not work.
I could make the amount of money that I set out to make
depending on how hard I was willing to work
on any given day and I had the control.
If you want to create an incredible wealth,
identify an underutilized resource.
And you know what?
There is an underutilized resource of stay-at-home moms,
and they have chosen to be a mother.
And if you make that choice, you pay a price career-wise
in our country right now.
We have a lot of people of faith
that have been attracted to this business.
Here we've got this army of women who are smart,
passionate, beautiful, funny, educated,
and want to do things...
You're awesome.
And we want to give them, "Here, express all of that.
Take your creativity, your passion, your excitement for life,
and here's a place that is a pure meritocracy.
Show up and do it."
I'm so blessed to be a part of LuLaRoe.
And our retailers, everybody, you're such amazing people.
And I just want to say thank you.
And just remember, you are never alone.
We got you. I love you.
It's the community. It is the comradery.
It is, it is LuLaRoe.
This is the sisterhood,
and this is why I love working for this company.
We kept trying to keep up and there came a moment
where it was like, "Okay, so this is...
We gotta get it organized," and DeAnne just looked at it,
and she said, "Well, before we talk to anybody else,
I want to talk to our kids and give them an opportunity."
There was a meeting that my mom and dad
wanted to have with all the kids.
They invited us all over,
and they pretty much laid it all out.
Mark started to write all the numbers in front of us of, like, the business
and how it was doing and what they were selling,
and then also writing down all the needs of the business.
Like, these are the things that we need in order to run this business.
And it was like accounting, photography,
social media, website, you know, production,
all these different things.
And then they, um...
They asked for our help.
They wanted us to be a part of something
that they were seeing success in.
They didn't want it for themselves.
The business consultant asked my mom and dad,
they're like, "Well, what's your exit strategy?
And they both looked at each other and they're like, "Death."
Because they want to leave a legacy on,
not for themselves, for any family, retailer,
anyone who wants to come and is attracted to this business
can just be absorbed in the blessings
that it'll provide for all and more.
What was it? Francis, the door.
Are we ready? - Oh, yes.
Hey, what's going on, man? Do I look okay?
I have a little bit of a hole in my pants.
-What's that?
That orange-- I love that orange underneath.
Oh, yeah, my wife picked it out for you guys.
It looks great.
My name is Sam, and I'm DeAnne's nephew.
There was always kind of this entertainment,
social aspect to my family.
all the boys to the yard
"It's better than yours"
I always kind of was a little bit of a showman growing up.
I joined in 2015.
I got hired as the events director.
I kind of didn't know what to expect,
but, like, I wanted to create something
that was exciting for them.
I was the same age as this demographic.
I was born in the '80s.
I mean, I'm a typical older millennial.
I would play, like, stuff that was new and cool,
like a song that just came out and they'd be like, "Okay, cool."
But then I'd play, like, TLC "Scrubs"
and they'd go wild or NSYNC, you know?
And I'd be like, "Okay."
I was catching on, like, what the needs were.
One of the first events needed someone to present
DeAnne with this award and I was like, "You guys,
we have to get someone that's like straight into their sophomore year."
Why don't you just go with the best dancer?
It worked out perfect to get Mario Lopez.
He was available. He was way under budget.
We just asked him to show up and take pictures
at the end of the red carpet with 300 women.
It was epic. They were taking pictures of Mario Lopez,
posting it on social media, and no joke, the next Monday,
there was like 11,000 people wanting to join.
Everyone's all in and ready to, like, lay down
five to ten thousand dollars on their clothes.
I will tell you right now, we're not in the clothing business.
We're in the people business.
We know that if you're happy and confident,
you can sell anything.
How's everyone doing? What's good?
Hey, hey, hey, everybody! This is Mama Donna!
This is so cute.
Oh snap, you got it, mama! You got it.
-I did this for you!
Who gets to experience that explosive growth
in income, in success?
Look where we're at.
Pack those outfits, pack those clothes,
pack the suitcase, here we go.
Catastrophic growth.
That's a pretty close word for what was happening.
It was a grenade exploding.
It was like flying a plane while you're still building the plane,
and you don't even know how all the pieces of the plane work,
and you've never flown a plane.
You're not even a pilot.
It was a corporate tornado, for sure.
You don't know what that tornado's like unless you're in the middle of it,
looking through the eye of the tornado.
This is the greatest psychological experiment in history
because everybody gets a box of stuff.
And what did you do with it?
"Helping families, blessing lives" was their motto,
and I started to see this light at the end of the tunnel
that that was going to happen for me.
I thought I had answered all of my questions and problems that I had,
and it seemed too good to be true.
And it was.
It went too fast.
Way, way, way too fast.
-
I did undone
too well for sure