Nell Diamond on Paving the Way as an Influencer and Entrepreneur

When Hill House Home first started, founder and CEO Nell Diamond wasn’t focused on selling the now-famous “Nap Dress”, or cultivating her Instagram presence. Rather, the brand started as a bedding company, and Nell’s Instagram was a space for her creativity. Seven years later, the Nap Dress is a cult-favorite, selling out in minutes, Nell’s created the model for the influencer-entrepreneur, and Hill House is now valued at $150M.

In this episode, shares: 

• Why she followed her instincts to go into fashion, despite people telling her it wasn’t a “serious” profession

• What her first job at Abercrombie taught her 

• Why you don’t need to be a natural risk-taker to be an entrepreneur

• The thing she wishes more executives would understand 

• The tools she’s leaned on as a manager and executive

On What She Wishes More Entrepreneurs Would Understand

Nell: I remember when we hired our first kind of like more senior employee and the first person who had kids like me, it was really difficult for me emotionally because I just felt so much responsibility. But I think that's good. I think it's good to have that pressure because I think more business leaders need to understand that they're responsible for people's livelihoods. 

On Her Relationship with Fashion

Nell: I've always loved [fashion]. It's been such a creative outlet for me. But I think for some reason, I mean I think the reason is probably like a lot of the internalized misogyny around how we think about women's interests, of which fashion is one. It didn't occur to me that it could be a career path for me. And that was because I was this very studious, quantitative person at school and I didn't really see fashion as an option until I started getting older and started learning a little bit more about the industry, and realized the kind of intense misogyny that kind of got me to that place. 

On Social Media

Nell: I am just inherently that kid in class who shares a little too much about themselves. And is a little, as I said, nosy and whatever. And so that was never part of the strategy. That was very natural, right? I presumably was talking to my friends on Instagram. There was no business case for it. I think it's been interesting as the business has grown to see the impact of my personal social media profiles on the revenue of the business, right?