Luxury is hard to break into. Building a new luxury brand from scratch—and aiming for $100 million—is an entirely different challenge. ✨
On The Kara Goldin Show, I sit down with Lola Banjo, Founder and Chief Executive of Silver & Riley, the luxury fashion and travel accessories brand she launched in 2019.
Lola built Silver & Riley while balancing a demanding corporate career, investing her own capital and learning firsthand that understanding business and actually building one are two very different things.
Today, Silver & Riley is a multimillion-dollar business with an incredibly loyal customer base and a hero product—the New Yorker Bag—that has repeatedly sold out. But Lola isn’t thinking small. Her goal is to reach $100 million in annual sales by year ten and ultimately build a billion-dollar global luxury house.
We talk about what happens after you’ve proven product-market fit, why finding your next customer can be harder than keeping the ones you already have, and what really changes as you try to go from millions to $100 million.
Lola also gets candid about putting her own money into the business, the hidden cost of being undercapitalized, scaling manufacturing without sacrificing quality, and why some founders seem to get funded on potential while others are expected to show up with proof.
If you’re interested in luxury, consumer brands, capital, entrepreneurship, or what it really takes to turn a successful company into a much bigger one—this is a conversation you’ll want to hear.
You can find it here or anywhere you listen to podcasts. 🎧