The Dark Realities About LuLaRoe Has Been Revealed In The Epic Documentary That Chronicled Its Rise And Fall
This company is more than just about their "buttery soft" leggings.
LuLaRoe went from a leggings craze to one of the most talked-about MLM cautionary tales, and the documentary about its rise and fall pulls back the curtain fast.
Founded by Mark and DeAnne Stidham, the company grew at a dizzying pace while consultants were pushed to buy in, recruit others, and keep chasing sales goals that kept getting harder to hit. The result was a business built on hype, pressure, and a lot of unhappy former sellers.
Here are the biggest takeaways from the documentary, and why LuLaRoe still gets brought up whenever MLMs come up.
The explosive documentary was the result of a collaboration between Discovery+ and BuzzFeed
Discovery+It was jumpstarted by reports written by one of BuzzFeed's senior reporters, Stephanie McNeal, and here are some of the things we learned:
Discovery+The story gets messy fast once the numbers start climbing.
1. Husband and wife duo, Mark and DeAnne Stidham, founded their leggings empire in 2013
DeAnne started out by selling maxi skirts at flea markets and from behind her car. As it grew, it was patterned after the MLM business model, and they called their resellers consultants.
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2. The company had unprecedented growth. They had 1,000 consultants in 2015, and two years later, they had 80,000 people selling their products
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3. The sign-up package for neophyte consultants ranged from $5,000 to $10,000
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4. LuLaRoe management convinced their consultants to get the money they needed for the sign-up package at all costs
They had many suggestions to make this possible. This included asking for loans from family and friends, selling what they already owned, using GoFundMe, and taking money out from their retirement plans or their kids' college funds.
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5. They targeted predominantly white stay-at-home moms to become their consultants
Their main hook was "full-time income for part-time work." In reality, consultants worked 24/7 to meet their monthly targets.
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6. In the early stages of LuLaRoe, pioneer consultants were asked to write down 50 people they knew who could be potential recruits
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7. To qualify for their annual cruise, consultants had to meet the criteria of selling $12,000 worth of merchandise for six consecutive months
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8. The founders, DeAnne and Mark, were treated like legends. Their faces were even on some of LuLaRoe's infamous leggings.
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9. You HAD to share your "Why" during events. One of their staple event performers, Elijah Tucker, described this as a sob story that makes you relatable.
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10. At one of the events, Elijah was made to go onstage by DeAnne, where he shared his own Why
He said he wanted to be successful so his mom wouldn't have to work another day in her life. DeAnne then called on Elijah's mom on stage as a surprise.
She was in the audience but had no idea what LuLaRoe was. DeAnne onboarded her as a consultant on the spot in front of a celebratory crowd.
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This is similar to the AITA about repaying a sister’s loan while saving a business.
11. Consultants had to use #BecauseOfLuLaRoe on social media every time they posted something positive about their lives
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12. Consultants were not allowed to post anything negative about LuLaRoe and their products. If they did, they were forced to delete it.
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13. If consultants failed to meet their targets or their sales were sluggish, the founders blamed it on the consultants and their negative thinking
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14. Consultants had to order boxes of merchandise blindly
They placed orders after orders without knowing what the designs were. Some resellers described this as addictive as scratch-off lottery tickets.
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15. This type of "trust-fall" ordering created a consumer/consultant hysteria around the products
Rare prints that rarely showed up on products were dubbed "unicorns." The ultimate LuLaRoe unicorn was the plain black leggings. We are not kidding.
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16. Consultants were pressured by LuLaRoe management to keep ordering boxes of products even when they were not selling as fast
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17. The upper management of LuLaRoe was mainly staffed by relatives and children of Mark and DeAnne
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18. The couple believed that if you were wealthy, you were blessed by God. They used the prosperity gospel to prey on hardworking people.
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19. The four graphic designers at LuLaRoe were tasked with creating 1,000 "unique" patterns daily
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20. The unreasonable task forced the design team to stack one unflattering print on top of another just to meet their quota
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21. According to a warehouse worker, they had to handle and store up to 15 million units of LuLaRoe merchandise daily
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22. They had so much product that they had to store some of it outside
At one point, it rained, then it was sunny the next day. The water seeped into the packages, which resulted in mold and degraded the fabric, but they were still shipped out to consultants and, in turn, their customers.
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23. A former LuLaRoe consultant, Christina Hinks, began exposing the company through her blog MommyGyver
After her revelations, she received death threats and tons of hate mail. She was also dropped like a hot potato by the network of women she relied on.
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24. Some consultants say the culture in LuLaRoe was cult-like
They had to dress the same, look the same, and spend their entire days pushing LuLaRoe products. Consultants who chose to leave the company were immediately treated like pariahs by those who were still active members.
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25. Sam Schultz, who was LuLaRoe's head of events and DeAnne's nephew, was charged with multiple felonies for scamming people
He scammed some consultants within the LuLaRoe network. He had also asked people to invest in a medical marijuana farm that didn't exist.
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26. They changed some of the policies in 2017 to "get away from being a pyramid scheme"
It was the brilliant idea of DeAnne's son, Jordan Brady. For example, consultants used to make commissions off of the merchandise bought by their downline; under the new policy, they only made money from the merchandise sold by their downline.
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27. LuLaRoe paid $4,000,000 to settle the case filed by the Washington State Attorney General in 2019
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28. LuLaRoe is still a very active company. They recently held their conference in Cancun, Mexico
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Their ex-consultants are still paying off their debt and bankruptcy payments while the company is acting like nothing bad happened
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So, boss babes, be wary if your friend is aggressively insistent on signing you up for their side gig in exchange for a few thousand dollars. If it looks like a pyramid scheme and they call it a chain distributor, it's still a pyramid scheme.
Do not fall for the flashy social media posts and "ask me how I got this brand new car" updates; they're just bait. The LuLaRoe documentary is a must-watch cautionary tale on the dangers of MLMs.
It is a reminder that the fallout can last long after the sales pitch ends.
Curious how “ignored advice” can wreck a friendship, read if you should support your friends’ failing business.
