Ep. 31: Missy Park of Title Nine
In 1972, a landmark civil rights law entitled Title Nine was passed, which requires gender equality in all aspects of publicly-funded education. Missy Park was one of the first cohorts of students to benefit from Title Nine during her college career, which allowed her to play numerous collegiate sports. Following her career as a student-athlete and after working in the outdoor apparel industry for a handful of years, in 1989 Missy realized there was a massive hole in the market for women's sports apparel. So starting with a self-made mail order catalog and inventory piling up in her garage, she launched a new women's sports apparel company and called it Title Nine. Title Nine is now a multi-million dollar company with stores in states across the US and a thriving eCommerce company. On this episode, I sat down with Missy to talk gutting it through your first few years, staying independent and not taking external capital, and the best advice she has for other business leaders — oh, and there's some good stuff about parental leave in here as well.