Bet on Yourself
I Want Her Shoes Podcast - Anna Anisin
In this episode of 'I Want Her Shoes,' host Anna Aniston sits down with Melody Vander Ben, CEO and founder of Max Retail, to explore her unc
Key takeaways
- Resilience and reinvention are often born from loss and failure rather than success.
- Entrepreneurial success frequently stems from solving problems you've personally experienced.
Main topics
- Reinvention after financial loss
- Entrepreneurial journey without traditional education
Notable quotes
"When you don't go to college, in some ways you burn the boats. You're on land. You have no way back."
"I didn't know what a price point was. I'd say, 'I'll call you back.'"
Conclusion
Melody Vander Ben's story exemplifies how adversity, personal frustration, and relentless
Transcript preview
Speaker 1 (0:00) Hi there, this is your friend Anna, and the question that I've been getting the most from all of my friends is what are we wearing? This age-old question isn't just about choosing an outfit, it's about choosing how we present ourselves to the world. I created the I Want Her Shoes podcast to dive deep into what it means to dress with intention, whether you're heading to a council meeting or just having a casual day out with your family. Join the conversation as we explore the power of personal style and the decisions that shape our public personas. Put on your favorite pair of shoes and step into my closet. Speaker 1 (0:50) All right, welcome back to that One Her Shoes podcast where we explore ambition, reinvention, resilience, and the women building lives and businesses on their own terms. I'm your host, Anna Aniston, and today's conversation is about something every entrepreneur and honestly every woman has experienced at some point is starting over, right? Because success rarely follows a straight line. Never. That does not happen. And sometimes it means losing everything before you build the thing you actually meant to create. And today's guest knows that better than most people. And before becoming the CEO and founder of Max Retail, Melody Vander Ben, right? That's right. Skipped college, built a career in real estate as a teenager, lost everything during the house crash. sold designer clothing, clothing out of a van, right? And opened her own boutique and eventually created a tech platform she wished she had as a retailer. That's right. That is so cool. And today, Max Retail is helping boutiques and brands turn unsold inventory into opportunity, changing the way fashion industry thinks about resale. This conversation isn't just about retail, it's about resilience, reinvention, entrepreneurship, and having the courage to solve the problem that really keeps... You're up awake at night as a business owner, right? Well, it's so nice to have you here, Melody. Thank you for having me in this beautiful, beautiful shoe closet. Thank you. And before we dive in, I always ask our guests, where are you local? How did you end up in South Florida? Tell me a little bit about your story. Lucky for me. Speaker 2 (2:22) I was raised here in South Florida and it's just become cooler and cooler every decade. Yes. Speaker 1 (2:28) Cheers Speaker 2 (2:29) to that. So now I am in North Palm Beach, which is just a little bit north of West Palm Beach and living my best life with my husband and two Speaker 1 (2:37) kids and my startup. That's amazing. I love that. And I'm actually going to check it out too, because it seems like a cool place to live. For sure. And your career has taken so many unexpected turns. Looking back. Was there one moment when you realized your path was never going to look conventional? Speaker 2 (2:54) I had moved out of my house when I was 16 years old. So I grew up much faster. Right. That will do it. That will absolutely do it. And while still going to high school, I was working two to three jobs. And by the time... I graduated high school. I didn't feel like my peers. And I just couldn't grasp the thought of going and living in a dorm room after I had been on my own with these people my age who hadn't had enough life experience to really be on the same page as me. And it was just, I felt different. And between feeling so different, almost alienated from my peers, and not knowing what I wanted to do, I thought, how can I go and commit to four years? Before knowing what I truly want to do with my life. And so I took an unconventional path and instead I got a real estate license, which took a whopping two days Speaker 1 (3:47) to get a real estate license. Much Speaker 2 (3:49) easier than in Florida. That's right. Wow. In Speaker 1 (3:51) California, it takes some crazy. I did it too in my early twenties and it took like six months of going to night classes and stuff there to do it. But here it's two days. Speaker 2 (3:59) That's correct. Yes. Speaker 1 (4:00) And what did this entrepreneurship and just doing that teach you that the classroom never could? Speaker 2 (4:07) Well, I think when I was in class, teachers wished that I was sleeping because otherwise I was just talking. And so I drove everyone nuts. And I think what I learned over time is that I'm a kinesthetic learner, right? There's audio, visual, and kinesthetic. I learn by doing. And how that's played out in my life is learning the hard way and really just getting my hands dirty at every opportunity. and making mistakes and being okay with that. And that never fits in a regular classroom mold. Right. And I was able to understand that once I was out of high school and really starting to make my own mistakes and find my own Speaker 1 (4:47) way. Well, I think that's an awesome way to look at it. I know that you lost everything during the housing crash, and that could have really ended your entrepreneurial journey. But instead, it became the beginning of another one. Absolutely. And how did that change you? That's so cool. I mean, I feel like that is just so inspiring. Well, when Speaker 2 (5:07) you don't go to college, in some ways you burn the boats, right? You're on land. You have no way back. And when the housing market crashed and I found all of the properties I had purchased were now being repossessed, I was turning my Mercedes back into the dealer as that was being repossessed. And I had nothing, but I also had no route back. And so I ran away to Israel for six months with a guy I was dating. Nice. It's a nice little break. That seemed like the best idea at the time. You know, I had this opportunity. He was moving there and I had nothing to lose because everything was already as good as gone. And in Israel, I came across these incredible designers on this street called Dizingof. And I would enter these stores and be, oh my goodness, this fashion is so incredible. Where are you sold in the States? And they would say, well, we're not sold anywhere. How would we get there? And so it started with just this naive question of, well, then how do designers get into stores? How can they get in front of people? And it's quite interesting because I almost feel like looking back now, this was when I was about 20 years old that I asked that question. how do designers get in front of consumers, get in front of retailers? And I kind of think I never stopped asking that question. Because how do they really? Exactly. And I still solve that today, right? I solved it with my first company, which was DBC Showroom. Speaker 1 (6:39) I Speaker 2 (6:39) think the most important lesson I learned is when you present yourself to a company, you can either apply for a job where they're going to say, where did you go to school? Or you're going to approach as a company. And people are going to say, well, what does your company do? Right. So Melody, as director of sales at DBC showroom at 20 years old, could approach a designer and say, I'm going to place you into independent boutiques. Now, I did not know how I was going to do that, but I