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Rhea Lana Riner
Founder & CEO, Rhea Lana's Children's Consignment Events
Rhea Lana Riner is the founder and CEO of Rhea Lana's Children's Consignment Events, now 120 locations across 26 states. What started as a living room clothing swap in 1997, while she was a stay-at-home mom of three, grew into a multimillion-dollar company built on community and trust. She's since helped thousands of women build flexible paths into entrepreneurship.
From a living room swap to 120 locations
In 1997, Rhea Lana was a stay-at-home mom of three organizing a small children's clothing swap out of her living room. She'd noticed something long before secondhand apparel went mainstream: young families needed an affordable way to buy quality kids' clothes, and nobody had built a trustworthy, high-quality version of that experience yet.
That observation, tested small and close to home, eventually became a franchise with 120 locations across 26 states.
Key Takeaways
Scaling fast doesn't require abandoning grassroots heart—Rhea Lana's grew from one living room swap to 120 franchise locations while keeping the same community-first model.
Rhea Lana taught herself franchising fundamentals from a book, Franchising for Dummies, before testing replication just an hour from home.
Her flagship event functions as a living laboratory, piloting new technology and training staff before anything rolls out to franchisees.
A single flagship event can move up to 250,000 items—essentially two businesses in one: a retail marketplace and a full logistics operation.
Rapid growth came with real costs: complex regulatory battles, 100-hour workweeks, and enough physical toll that therapy and executive coaching became non-negotiable.
Franchisees come from wildly different backgrounds—accountants, teachers, stay-at-home moms—and the model is built to let each of them take real ownership.
When things go sideways, the instinct that's carried her through three decades is simple: don't panic, just figure it out.
Teaching herself the fundamentals before scaling
Rhea Lana didn't hire expensive consultants to figure out franchising. She read Franchising for Dummies, then tested her first replication an hour away from home before expanding further.
Her original flagship event became a living laboratory—the place where new technology got piloted, corporate staff got trained, and new franchise owners got real support before ever opening their own location.
Running two businesses inside one event
A single flagship event can move up to 250,000 items, which means Rhea Lana is effectively running two businesses at once: a high-volume retail marketplace and a full logistics and production operation behind it.
That scale came with real growing pains—complex regulatory battles across 26 states and stretches of 100-hour workweeks that took a genuine physical toll.
Don't panic, just figure it out
Managing that kind of growth required more than operational systems. Rhea Lana has leaned on therapy, executive coaching, and strict digital boundaries to sustain the pace.
When problems inevitably surface, her approach stays consistent: stay calm, then solve it. That mindset, more than any framework, is what's let her coach franchisees from wildly different backgrounds into confident business owners.
— Rhea Lana Riner, Ep. 108
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