Publication Date: June 10, 2025

Time to Get Real is part tell-all memoir, part entrepreneur’s crash course, and a candid, emboldening account of Julie Wainwright’s journey as one of the only American women to take a company public. Wainwright, best known as the founder and former CEO of The RealReal—a billion-dollar luxury resale platform—shares the exhilarating, stressful, and messy realities behind her success, including the setbacks and lessons learned along the way.

The book traces Wainwright’s career from her early days at Clorox, through stints as CEO at Berkeley Systems, Reel.com, and the infamous Pets.com (whose collapse became a symbol of the dot-com bust), to her extraordinary comeback with The RealReal. She details the challenges of launching and scaling a disruptive business, from convincing first-time consignors and building trust, to navigating the logistics of authenticating luxury goods and managing a rapidly growing workforce.