Dec. 7, 2016
Lululemon founder Chip Wilson shares his brand of entrepreneurial thinking with 荔枝视频 audience
From left: Wayne Henuset, Chip Wilson, Elizabeth Cannon and Jim Dewald.
Kelly Hofer, for the Haskayne School of Business
Reacting successfully to a global industry is one thing. But creating a global industry? That鈥檚 another gig entirely.
荔枝视频 alumnus Chip Wilson, BA鈥80, founded athletic-apparel retail giant Lululemon nearly two decades ago. So ubiquitous have his yoga pants become since then, it鈥檚 tough to recall a time when stretchy technical wear wasn鈥檛 the preferred uniform for young urban women in, and out, of fitness studios from here to Tokyo.
Still, while it鈥檚 easy to assume that Wilson 鈥 who initially shot to success with his surf-wear company, Westbeach 鈥 is blessed with a golden touch, he鈥檚 quick to share how his brand of entrepreneurial thinking is, in fact, rooted in learned skills and hard-won discipline.
On Dec. 1, Wilson sat down for a special Wayne Henuset Entrepreneurship Speaker Series fireside chat with Jim Dewald, dean of the Haskayne School of Business at the 荔枝视频, to talk about education, inspiration, and paying close attention to what matters.
Formal 鈥 and informal 鈥 education
Wilson graduated from U荔枝视频 with an undergraduate degree in economics that, he says, took seven years to complete. 鈥淚 looked at university as a tool. The other tools in my life were sports and running small businesses,鈥 said Wilson. 鈥淚 had a lot of failures, and a lot of successes 鈥 and every one of them served as learning for my future.鈥
No matter what courses he was immersed in (never more than three per semester), Wilson said he also read obsessively outside his area of study 鈥 a habit that served to connect him, much moreso than his classmates, to what was going on in the world. 鈥淚 consumed three or four newspapers every day and, by the time I was 25, had read the top 200 novels from the Library of Congress. I was a fanatic reader, never driven by money, but by ideas.鈥
Trend-spotting
As Dewald put it, Wilson is, famously, 鈥渂rilliant at seeing trends.鈥 Indeed, the Vancouver-based entrepreneur said he couldn鈥檛 help but notice how quickly yoga was growing in the mid-1990s. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 have predicted how popular it would become, but I did notice that my yoga class went from 30 to 60 people in a matter of one month,鈥 said Wilson, long a devoted practitioner.
Wilson interfaced his observations about yoga with his habit of seeking news stories and statistics in groups of three. 鈥淔irst, I read that 60 per cent of university graduates were women, then I noticed there was a lot being said about breast cancer and, at the same time, I noticed that superheroes were now often women 鈥 it was women, not always men, in Lycra.鈥 This trifecta of seemingly unrelated information moved Wilson to take a risk.
Chip Wilson BA'80, in Conversation with Jim Dewald
Go slow, Grasshopper
Back when he was running Westbeach, Wilson said he worked 18 hours a day for 18 years. Eventually, he said, 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to work that hard anymore.鈥 Wilson took his time setting up Lululemon, mindfully allowing a culture to build and organically define the brand.
In contrast, Wilson said, his family鈥檚 newest venture, upscale technical-apparel retailer Kit and Ace, grew a little too quickly (the company recently laid off 20 per cent of its staff at the Vancouver head office). 鈥淲e went really fast, and we really felt like we knew what we were doing,鈥 he said, referring to the Kit and Ace team that includes his wife, Shannon, and son, J.J.
鈥淲e opened 50 stores in a year and a half.鈥 That model, Wilson admitted, overlooked valuable culture-building to some degree. 鈥淲e grew so fast that we haven鈥檛 had a chance to really connect with people in our stores, or develop the way we wanted,鈥 he said.
鈥楨veryone is great鈥
One of Wilson鈥檚 biggest priorities in building his businesses is, he said, 鈥渢o treat every employee like they could be their own CEO.鈥 Rather than wait for staff to be good, he added, 鈥淲e asked ourselves, 鈥榃hat would it be like if we decided that everyone was great right off the bat, as soon as they walked through the door, and they just needed the tools to do it?鈥欌 The company thus invests $2,000 in training for every new employee 鈥 an investment that has paid off in developing Lululemon鈥檚 unique culture.
Thanks to high-level training, Wilson said he could take 鈥渁 25-year-old employee to any of our stores anywhere in the world and they would perform to top expectation. I think people live into the dream that you have for them.鈥
Closing time
Wilson left his audience with parting advice for young potential entrepreneurs. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a matter of looking at the expertise you have,鈥 he said. 鈥淚f I was a creative guy, without much money, I鈥檇 want to pair myself with an organizational person who had money. People think they can do it all, but there鈥檚 so much expertise needed in running a business.
鈥淧artnerships 鈥 can be messy, but it means you鈥檝e got somebody in it with you to talk you through things, and to allow you to take a holiday.鈥
Philosophically speaking, Wilson recommended a tried-and-true scenario to talk oneself through decision-making: 鈥淚 make a lot of decisions by imagining I鈥檓 on my deathbed 鈥 I ask my 90-year-old self, 鈥榃hat did this decision fulfill in my life?鈥 You鈥檝e got to take a long-term view.鈥