# Jen Rubio (Away) - Our goal has never been to make just luggage

SELF-PROMOTION 😊Discover RÉUNI, my new projectFollow RÉUNI on Instagram I Twitter I Linkedin I Facebook Get involved in the making of RÉUNI and its first product hereEPISODE This week, we are meeting with Jennifer Rubio, she is the co-founder of Away, the New-York based travel brand that she started less than 3 years ago and now is valued to more than a billion dollars. Enjoy our conversation! TO FIGURE OUR WHERE YOU ARE IN THE EPISODE00:47 Jen presents herself and comes back on her back ground from low studies to social media consulting, and social media role at WarbyParker and All Saints. 12:00 How did Jen felt after AllSaints and the juice company career fail, why people need to loose somebody, or something important to change 17:00 Why and how did she decide to start Away. Did she wanted to create something that big?23:00 How do you prepare to get ready for such a big growth 25:00 How she sets up her goals 27:00 The Brand and The story telling, how the content feet into Away strategy 31:00 What has been the ahah moment she realized she needed to create more than a luggage brand 34:00 What other bands inspire them? Her ambition to be the Nike for travel. 39:00 How should a brand talk about sustainability. Peace Direct ONG. 42:30 Is there anything she would do differently. What does her days look like. Who she would like to listen to in this podcast? KEYLEARNINGSI was flowed by the idea that you can take a very old industry, like eyewear which is basically a monopoly and create something new and the way that you create something new is through technology and story telling, a great brand and most importantly an amazing customer experience. And you can do all that and make a difference in the industry. I saw the potential of that and I wanted to be part of it. Everything I have done in my all career was like that: I saw the opportunity , I wanted to be part of it, even though it didn’t make sense from a career point of view, it wasn’t the right next step , it made a lot of sense for me because it was so obvious to me the opportunity that was there. I don’t believe in innovation role anymore, because anyone should be innovative in a company, secondly, as soon as you create an innovation role and tell a small team to focus on innovation that inherently means that nobody else in the company is going to be thinking about it. And you gonna spend your time to convince people to spend the money, to change their process to do things differently. I always grew knowing, with the encouragement of my parents that you should do what nourishes you, even though when there were pushing me to be a lawyer or a doctor. I genuinely grew up for 18 year loving the idea of being a lawyer. To get prepare, there is no class or podcast, part of the thing is knowing what you don’t know, also being very flexible. It’s like a travel, you can make all the plans you wants, you have to be ok that when you get to your destinations none of it is going to be the same. If you don’t know something you have to have the courage to go and ask. This is where I saw a lot of people failing. You are never the first person to do something or to run into a problem. Humility has been one of the key of our success. So many people look for brand that they fil proud to be associated with. Our goal has never been to make just luggage, it was: how do we create this brand and community and then make all the product for them that they they need to have an amazing journey. It easier than ever to start a business now. Anyone can create a company or a business but it is harder to create a brand that people want to talk about or to love. If you gonna care about sustainability, you gonna have to really care about it and make it part of your company's DNA, and it cannot be just something you do for your marketing campaign. Being iterative is one of our core value at Away. REFERENCESNeutrogenaWarby Parker AllSaintsOKRs Shoe dog - Phil KnightKerby Jean Raymond 

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