Trina Spear - Billion Dollar Scrubs

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
This episode of Invest Like the Best is sponsored by Canalyst. Canalyst is the leading destination for public company data and analysis. Founded by a former buy side analyst who encountered friction sourcing, building and updating models, Canalyst is now used by over 400 institutions, including the largest money managers globally and by a number of guests on the show.
With detailed company specific models and data on virtually every public company, Canalyst clients are able to ramp up faster, update models instantly, and incorporate the highest quality fundamental data into any workflow. If you're a professional equity investor and haven't talked to Canalyst recently, you should give them a shout. Learn more and try Canalyst for yourself at canalist.com/patrick. That's canalyst.com/patrick. Today's episode is sponsored by Brex, the integrated financial platform trusted by the world's most innovative entrepreneurs and fastest growing companies. With Brex, you can move money fast for instant impact with high limit corporate cards, payments, venture debt, and spend management software all in one place. Ready to accelerate your business? Learn more at brex.com/best. That's brex.com/best.
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money.
Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts and you can access all our podcasts including edited transcripts, show notes and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:37)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.
Clients of O'Shaughnessy Asset Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (2:02)
My guest today is Trina Spear, a former investor at Blackstone and the co-founder and CEO of FIGS. FIGS is a multi-billion dollar public company that built a category leading brand selling scrubs to healthcare professionals. It was a problem hiding in plain sight and FIGS solved it through vertical integration and customer obsession. Trina shares so many interesting simple lessons that are often ignored in business. Please enjoy my great conversation with Trina Spear.
I'd love to begin our conversation with the story around the original insight for this product line because one of my favorite things in the world is when there's something hiding in plain sight that everyone sees all the time in their lives and no one ever thinks, wow, that would be a great new two billion dollar opportunity. Maybe you could just tell us what the original core insight was for you and your co-founder and why you decided to make a business out of it.

**Trina Spear** (2:54)
The best ideas, the best businesses at the root of it are obvious and simple. And this is one of the most obvious and simple ideas in the world.
Heather Hassen, my co-founder, she was sitting with a friend of hers over coffee over a decade ago. Her friend is a nurse practitioner at Cedar Sinai.
She said to Allison, her friend, what are you wearing? Her friend said, these are my scrubs and they were baggy and boxy and actually the size was on the back of the neck. And Heather's like, everyone's walking around the hospital with this size on the back of the neck. And her friend's like, yeah. And she's like, wait, everyone? Like, that's crazy. Basically said, I'm the best shopper in the world. I'll find you better scrubs. So her friend sent her to one of these stores where scrubs are sold. And generally they're in strip malls and you walk into a medical supply store and there's a rack of black and a rack of navy and a rack of black. They're selling bedpans and knee braces next to what you would wear as your uniform. What Heather realized at the time was not only was the product so awful, not anything that you or I would want to wear at work, but the experience was really not great. So she said, wow, you're right. There's nothing out there. She took her friend's scrubs. She really focused just on the fit and the inseam and the rise and tailored them. And everyone started calling Heather, hey, scrubs girl, can you fix my scrubs?
All the healthcare professionals at Cedars.
And Heather's like, I don't have time to fix everyone's scrubs. Why are they calling a random girl in LA? That's really how it all started. And from there, built a first of its kind fabrication, built out our distribution, first company to go online, direct to healthcare professionals. That's what we're doing.