Welcome to Edition #82 of Did You Know? (DYK), the weekly newsletter by Gorick Ng, Harvard career adviser and Wall Street Journal Bestselling Author of The Unspoken Rules, where we deconstruct the untold story of how someone (or something) became successful—and what you can do to follow in their footsteps.
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Did You Know? Poverty can be a strength
→ Read time: 3 min
Your success story this week
Did you know? The fashion retailer ZARA was founded by a poor middle school dropout.
You may have heard of the fashion company ZARA. You may have even walked into one of their 2,221 stores in any of the 96 countries where ZARA exists.
But did you know that ZARA—and its parent company, Inditex, Spain’s largest company and the EU’s 9th largest company by market cap—was founded by a middle school dropout?
It’s 1948—and 12-year-old Amancio Ortega had just watched his mother get turned away by their local shopkeeper. Why? Because his mother had no money—and because Ortega and his family are one of millions living in extreme poverty in post-WWII Spain.
So, Ortega drops out of school and starts working. First, he delivers shirts for a local store in A Coruña, a city in the northwesternmost tip of Spain. Next, he becomes a clothing tailor’s assistant. Finally, he works his way to store manager for a luxury clothing shop.
The more Ortega worked around luxury clothes, the more he realized that the clothes he sold were out of reach financially to people like him and his family.
This made him wonder: What if he created high-end yet affordable clothing?
So, he set out to “figure out what people were looking for, and then make it.”
Through his work in the clothing industry, Ortega hypothesized that an accessible yet luxury fashion company needed to do 3 things:
- To use less expensive materials
- To have more efficient manufacturing processes
- To be competitively priced
To achieve all 3 goals successfully, Ortega knew: He’d need to control the supply chain.
Fast forward, and, 15 years after his first gig as a delivery boy, Ortega started selling quilted bathrobes and called the company “Confecciones Goa.”
Then, 12 years after he founded “Confecciones Goa”, Ortega used the cash to open his first clothing store and called it ZARA.
ZARA’s focus was simple: be fast. Inventory had to be restocked “twice a week” and orders had to be received “within 48 hours, tops.” These rules are still in place today.
In 1985—10 years after he founded ZARA—Ortega opened his first holding company and called it Inditex.
Inditex’s goal? Help ZARA and any of Inditex’s other clothing brands operate even faster. Specifically, Ortega wanted to have a “distribution system capable of reacting to shifting market trends extremely quickly.” He called it “instant fashion.”
Today, in addition to ZARA, Inditex owns 7,200 stores—for brands including Zara Home, Bershka, Massimo Dutti, Oysho, Pull&Bear, Stradivarius, Uterqüe, and Lefties—across 96 countries. And the concept of “instant fashion” or “fast fashion” remains alive and well.
As for Ortega, he credits this success to the day he watched his mother struggle to pay for their goods. “My ambition”, he told a journalist, “was born of poverty.”
What does this mean for you? The next time you find yourself feeling bad about how little you have or had, remember Ortega—who built his career and fortune building what he once lacked himself.
Your career strategy this week
Did you know? What you didn’t have but wanted = your opportunity to make an impact
Ortega didn’t have a lot growing up. But, rather than let what he didn’t have haunt him, he took what he didn’t have—and made a mission out of making it available to the world.
This could be you!
Try filling in these blanks:
“Back in the day, I really wanted _______ but couldn’t afford it. Given that anyone else who is also _______ like me also [needs / wants] _______, I could do a world of good by making _______ accessible to those who _______.”
E.g., “Back in the day, I really wanted a career coach but couldn’t afford it. Given that anyone else who is also ambitious like me also wants to know that they are doing and saying the right things to get ahead in their career, I could do a world of good by making professional scripts accessible to those who want to build a successful career but don’t have access to a professional coach.”
I know it because I’ve experienced it: Recognize the example? That’s why I started HOW TO SAY IT, the flashcard deck with fill-in-the-blank scripts for navigating 260 of the most common professional situations you’ll face in your career.
Offer what you lacked!
Gorick
4 things from me that you might find useful:
1. HOW TO SAY IT: Flashcards that teach you to know what to say in every high-stakes professional setting.
2. The Early Career Success Masterclass: My online course that takes you from day 1 in a new role through to a promotion with 28 modules and 28 cheatsheets (3.5 hours of content).
3. The Unspoken Rules: My Wall Street Journal Bestseller that Arianna Huffington calls “a blueprint for anyone starting their career, entering a new role, or wanting to get unstuck." Used by top companies and MBA programs.
4. Keynote speaking: Including workshops and fireside chats for schools, companies, and non-profit organizations. Let’s connect!
You may also like:
> How LVMH became a star brand
> What Fei-Fei Li can teach us about not being complacent
> What the company bigger than Boeing or Disney can teach us about starting with one thing
Sources:
- 2,221 stores
- 96 countries
- Spain’s largest company
- EU’s 9th largest company by market cap
- Amancio Ortega
- watched his mother get turned away
- post-WWII Spain
- “It didn’t take much for me to realise that every penny counts”
- “figure out what people were looking for, and then make it.”
- needed to do 3 things
- control the supply chain
- “twice a week”
- “within 48 hours, tops.”
- “distribution system capable of reacting to shifting market trends extremely quickly.”
- “instant fashion.”
- 7,200 stores
- “My ambition”, he told a journalist, “was born of poverty.”
