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How I Built This with Guy Raz
How I Built This with Guy Raz

FIGS: Trina Spear and Heather Hasson. The $2.5 Billion Scrubs Brand That Investors Said Would Never Work

October 26, 2026 • 1h 11m

Summary

⏱️ 10 min read

Overview

This episode features Heather Hassan and Trina Speer, co-founders of Figs, who transformed the medical scrubs industry into a $2.5 billion publicly traded company. Despite having minimal healthcare backgrounds, they identified an overlooked market of 24 million U.S. healthcare workers buying their own ill-fitting, unfashionable scrubs. Through direct-to-consumer sales, technical innovation, and community building, they disrupted an industry controlled by distributors and faced hundreds of investor rejections before finally achieving success.

Heather's Journey from Failed Dreams to Fashion

Heather Hassan wanted to be a reconstructive surgeon but struggled with organic chemistry and anatomy. After working at Levi's in New York, she started a handbag business with an Italian partner named Steven who believed in her vision and funded the venture. When Steven tragically died of lung cancer at age 36, Heather went to northern Kenya to clear her head, where she discovered the transformative power of uniforms and started making ties to fund school uniforms for Kenyan children.

  • Heather wanted to be a reconstructive surgeon to combine art and science but couldn't pass organic chemistry
  • She started a handbag business in New York with Italian partner Steven, who funded the venture but died of lung cancer at age 36
  • In Kenya, Heather realized uniforms enable children to attend school and started selling ties to fund school uniforms for about 10,000 kids
" Organic chemistry is impossible. That's where it ends for a lot of people. It's just so hard. "
" The real meaning behind it was I'm almost like a fruitarian, so I love figs. I love the fruit. So that's why. "

The Scrubs Epiphany and Early Validation

After noticing her nurse practitioner friend wearing terrible scrubs in 2010, Heather became angry that healthcare professionals saving lives were subjected to boxy, ill-fitting, scratchy clothing. She started tailoring scrubs for friends, and when requests multiplied, she realized there was a business opportunity. She found a manufacturer who believed in her vision and started selling scrubs out of her car at emergency room shift changes.

  • Meeting a nurse practitioner friend for coffee in 2010, Heather was shocked the scrubs hadn't evolved since she was in college
  • After tailoring scrubs for friends at Cedars-Sinai, word spread and more requests came in, validating the concept
  • Heather found a manufacturer who believed in her vision and funded the first production run of 15,000 units
  • She started selling scrubs out of her car in emergency rooms and built the first website
" I was very upset. It came from a place of being so upset that the people who are saving lives, the people who are pulling all-nighters are subjected to wearing these boxy, ill-fitting, scratchy clothing every day. "
" I said, I'm going to make the best damn scrubs out there. But of course, I didn't have any money. So how was I going to do that? "

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