How Lauren Conrad Went From The Hills to Becoming an Entrepreneur

Welcome to Second Life, a podcast spotlighting successful women who've made major career changes—and fearlessly mastered the pivot. Hosted by Hillary Kerr, co-founder and chief content officer at Who What Wear, each episode will give you a direct line to women who are game changers in their fields. Subscribe to Second Life on iTunes, and stay tuned. 

This week, we're rebroadcasting and expanding upon one of our favorite Second Life episodes from the archives with Lauren Conrad.

Lauren Conrad might have begun her tenure in the public eye with famed MTV reality show The Hills, but these days, her multifaceted career resembles that of a CEO as opposed to a reality star. In fact, you could put any of these titles before her name, and it would be true: entrepreneur, co-founder of the nonprofit fair-trade store The Little Market, philanthropist, and author (of seven The New York Times best sellers, to be exact). She also started her namesake line, LC Lauren Conrad, with Kohl's 10 years ago, and it's still going strong. Her pivot from reality TV to the aforementioned accomplishments is wildly impressive, to say the least.

This episode of Second Life is unique in that we actually got to watch Conrad's previous life and her aspirations to be a fashion designer, as they were well documented in The Hills, including attending FIDM and interning at Teen Vogue. Conrad successfully parlayed those experiences into the line with Kohl's, and in 2013, she and her friend Hannah Skvarla had the idea for The Little Market, a fair-trade home décor marketplace of sorts that works with female artisans all over the world. Conrad told Second Life the reason she started the company: "I got to a point where I felt like I had kind of checked off a lot of my big goals, and I felt really good about where I was at my career. The one thing that I hadn't done is used my platform to make a difference."

Head to iTunes to subscribe to Second Life, and listen to this episode to hear more about how Conrad built her wildly successful brands. And below, shop some of The Little Market's beautiful home décor and accessories.

Next, meet the CEO who changed careers to start Good American with Khloé Kardashian.