Bringing Girlboss and Female Entrepreneurs to Netflix

Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso

Let’s hear it for the girls! The Netflix show Girlboss came out April 21 and we finally binged the first season and loved it. Full of vintage clothes, salty language and lots of badass antics; it has a punk rock vibe that’s instantly addictive. Check out the trailer and just try not to get pumped, if you haven’t checked it out yet:

Girlboss stars The Longest Ride’s Britt Robertson as Sophia Marlowe, a down-on-her-luck, punk rock-style chick who’s trying to scrape by in San Francisco in the early 2000s. When Sophia “flips” a vintage jacket, netting her hundreds of dollars, it becomes the start of a growing business where she peddles second-hand clothing through Ebay, and later her own website. Crass, broke and irreverent, Sophia is determined to carve her own path, earning plenty of money along the way. The message of the show is clear: girls doing it for themselves, and screwing “the man” in the process.

It’s a message that transcends the show, as Girlboss is loosely based on alternative businesswoman Sophia Amoruso’s bestselling memoir. In 2006, Amoruso opened her own Ebay store, called Nasty Gal Vintage, where she flipped vintage clothes and used social media to grow a loyal clientele. After a falling out with Ebay, she moved the business to her own website, dubbed it Nasty Gal, and worked on growing the vintage and second-hand shop into an empire.

And it most definitely became an empire. What started as an online store run out of Amoruso’s apartment eventually grew into a multi-million dollar business that employed hundreds of people and was named the “Fastest Growing Retailer” by INC Magazine in 2012. The brand also opened two brick and mortar stores, branched into the magazine world with the semi-annual Super Nasty, and launched an original label in 2014. And while Nasty Gal has hit some financial troubles as of late (in 2016 they filed for bankruptcy and were bought by British retailer BooHoo), their alternative look and edgy vision immediately connected with young women around the world.

It’s a vibe that the Netflix show was definitely hoping to capture, portraying Sophia as a tough, smart chic who isn’t afraid to take risks in order to get what she wants. Again, it’s not far from the truth—in 2015, Amoruso published #Girlboss (Portfolio), a memoir that dives deep into her business empire and what it took to build Nasty Gal up from nothing. She describes how she went from a childhood of hitchhiking and petty theft to dropping out of school and finally deciding to start selling clothes on Ebay. #Girlboss is a book about how to succeed on a different kind of path, and how breaking the rules can sometimes help you get ahead.

We’re all about girls succeeding in their own ways, which is why we had to watch Girlboss on Netflix and we were not disappointed. If you want to see what it’s like to rise to the top in an unconventional way, check out this latest addition to Netflix now!