Business

Bonobos founder who helped transform Walmart opens up about mental health struggles

Burn Rate: Warm Up and Lose Your Mind

Andy Dunn’s startup, Bonobos, is being offered by the retail giant Walmart. It’s been a thrilling process, but the co-founder and former CEO of the online menswear brand knows it’s time to reveal his secret: He has bipolar disorder.

In his new book, “Burn Rate: Starting a Business and Losing Your Mind,” the 43-year-old businessman shares how his personal life fell apart not long ago. Walmart’s $310 Million Acquisition of Bonobos in 2017. He shared some of the lowest scores, including his stay in the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital in New York City and alleged assault from a severe manic episode. important when he attacked his then-girlfriend and her mother. The charges were later dismissed as Dunn sought treatment and mended his relationship with his girlfriend, Manuela, whom he later married.

Dunn joined Walmart after telling the retailer about batches and his drive to get better with therapy and medication. He oversaw Walmart’s growing collection of online-started brands and helped propel the company into the digital world.

Dunn leaving Walmart in 2020 and founded a social media startup, Pumpkin Pie. Its app, described as “Tinder for Friendship,” will launch later this year.

Earlier this year, Walmart launched a new, lower-priced extension of its Bonobos brand, Bonobos Fielder. It marks the first time Walmart’s website and some stores have sold clothing under the Bonobos name – part of the company’s broader strategy to launch its own fashion apparel lines and sell more merchandise. chemistry in general.

Dunn spoke to CNBC from his home in Chicago. His comment has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Andy Dunn, Author

Courtesy of Brian McConkey

You may have devoted the book to entrepreneurship advice, or the acquisition of Bonobos by Walmart. Why did you decide to write a book about your mental health struggles?

It was a great conversation with my editor, before he officially became my editor. He put it bluntly, in an email: “If Andy wants to write a self-deprecating memoir about an entrepreneur’s success, I don’t care. But if he wants to do one, I don’t care. If the story isn’t hectic about mental illness. Illness, told through the lens of an entrepreneur, it can be a really interesting project.”

And I said, yes, that’s what I want to do. That’s who I want to work with.

What makes you willing to relive some parts of your past?

Four years of therapy, twice a week, and have really done the work to process, metabolize, and rebuild myself after this horrible mental breakdown in 2016. And all the power of loved ones around me.

Never ended up with this diagnosis, but I thought I’d have a unique opportunity to share how I got through at least some really challenging days. I don’t want to waste that.

Andy Dunn credits his family, including his wife, Manuela, for keeping him healthy. He said the birth of his son, Isaiah, has also helped him stay grounded.

Courtesy of Andy Dunn

In the book, you mentioned another successful businessman who has had a very public battle with mental health, Tony Hsieh of Zappos. Why do you think mental health is such a taboo topic in the business world, and indeed in the startup world?

Tony’s case It’s sad and tragic in its own right. This is a guy who wrote a book called “Bringing Happiness” who built a company rooted in a joyful energy. Zappos has been known and studied for its culture for a long time. He is known to be a party man and has done so much for the community in Las Vegas.

He is a hero to me. And then, apparently, he suffered privately.

I think that’s part of the typical entrepreneur, someone who has that – a brilliant, charismatic spirit. And it’s to be expected, isn’t it? You have to show up to that every day, and that’s inhumane to anyone.

The pandemic has started a broader conversation about mental health. What role can the business world and employers play in trying to improve access to care and combat stigma?

The first thing is to create a safe environment for disclosure, so that everyone can share what they are dealing with. Leaders have a duty to model that behavior to show their team that it’s safe to move forward.

Step two is to build community around it. I have had the opportunity to speak to many companies over the past few weeks. I enjoy my conversations with [tech company] Carta because they’ve got a neurodiverse team of employees.

The third part is really investing in the care that people need. Conventional health insurance doesn’t get the job done on the ability to find mental health professionals. Refund rates are often too low.

The only way for that to change is through investment.

The contrast in the book is really striking. You’re in a psychiatric ward and right after that, you’re negotiating a deal with Walmart. How did you feel when you heard that Walmart was interested in buying Bonobos?

I went from thinking we were going to do a private equity transaction, where we were still on the independent path towards the IPO, to spending time with the team at Walmart, especially Marc Lore. [Walmart’s then-e-commerce chief] and [CEO] Doug McMillon and truly loved the opportunity to be a part of Fortune One’s digital transformation.

As I went from being, “independent of the moon” to “joining with Walmart would be unbelievable”, we started the part of the settlement process where the background checks were taking place. . It’s about time I thought I had to reveal it [my diagnosis and arrest record]. I don’t want to try to hide it.

Andy Dunn attends a launch party at a Bonobos store on Chicago’s Michigan Avenue in 2016. After operating solely digitally, the direct-to-consumer startup opened locations Traditionally called a “guide store”, where customers can try on clothes and order directly to their door.

Daniel Boczarski | beautiful pictures

You’ve helped create the direct-to-consumer movement in many ways. But many of them did not become independent, profitable businesses. What do you think about the future of the DTC model?

Pure internet model play is difficult. The direct-to-consumer founders – and I am one of them – fell in love with the direct-to-consumer potential of their brands, ignoring parts of the legacy retail world. still exist and develop.

Pure-play internet models are only fundamentally challenged for long-term profitability. It’s important to be humble as a direct-to-consumer founder, and to keep in mind that even if the home’s e-commerce business is growing really fast, there’s still a lot revenue through tradition.

How do you find a better balance between your drive to succeed and your desire to stay healthy?

My son, Isaiah, is a big part of that. He’s only 20 months old, and he doesn’t care about my success. He takes care of himself and I think that’s a beautiful thing. I felt so conceited for a long time. Building a company can be a constant endeavor.

The way I describe it is that the word at the center of the solar system becomes a planet orbiting him. It just creates a fundamentally different worldview.

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