🎙️ Bet on Yourself with Melodie van der Baan
Max Retail founder and CEO Melodie van der Baan joined the I Want Her Shoes podcast with host Anna Anisin for Episode 81, “Bet on Yourself.” It is a candid conversation about entrepreneurship, risk, and building a company that solves a real problem for independent retailers.
Melodie’s story runs through the whole episode: leaving a stable path to bet on her own idea, and turning the everyday pain of unsold inventory into a platform that now works with thousands of retailers and brands.
What Melodie talks about on the I Want Her Shoes podcast
Anna and Melodie get into the moments most founders keep quiet about. A few of the threads from the episode:
- Why “bet on yourself” is easier to say than to live, and what it actually cost her.
- How a frustration every store owner knows, dead stock, became the seed for Max Retail.
- Building a company as a woman in retail technology, and the mentors and missteps along the way.
- What she would tell another founder standing at the edge of a big, scary decision.
From boutique problem to platform
The throughline of the I Want Her Shoes podcast episode is the same idea Max Retail is built on: unsold inventory is not a dead end. Melodie explains how independent retailers can move past-season stock to online shoppers who actually want it, recover their cost, and free up cash instead of slashing prices in-store and training local shoppers to wait for markdowns.
Why “bet on yourself” resonates with retailers
Independent store owners are entrepreneurs too, and Melodie’s message lands because she is not speaking in theory. Every season, retailers put their own money on the line choosing inventory, and some of it does not sell. Betting on yourself, in that world, also means finding smarter ways to recover from the bets that do not pay off. That is exactly the gap Max Retail fills, and it is why this I Want Her Shoes podcast conversation is worth a listen for any owner who has stared at a rack of last season’s product and wondered what to do next.
About the I Want Her Shoes podcast
Hosted by Anna Anisin, the I Want Her Shoes podcast spotlights women who have built notable careers and companies, digging into the real decisions and trade-offs behind their success. Episode 81 with Melodie van der Baan fits that theme squarely: a founder who saw a problem in her own store and decided to build the fix rather than wait for someone else to. For retailers and aspiring founders alike, it is a practical, honest look at what betting on yourself really takes.
About Max Retail
Max Retail helps independent retailers and brands sell unsold inventory with no onboarding fee and no membership. You can see how Max Retail works, or start listing your past-season stock in minutes.
Listen to the full “Bet on Yourself” episode of the I Want Her Shoes podcast on Apple Podcasts, or press play below.
