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How I Built This with Guy Raz

Minted: Mariam Naficy

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.831.1K Ratings

🗓️ 4 June 2018

⏱️ 51 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2000, Mariam Naficy sold her first company, an online cosmetics store called Eve.com, for $110 million. Several years later, she got the entrepreneurial itch once again: she founded Minted, an online stationery store that solicits designs from artists all over the world. Today Minted is one of the biggest crowdsourcing platforms on the Internet. PLUS for our postscript, "How You Built That," how Vanessa and Casey White turned their grandfather's pierogi recipe into Jaju Pierogi. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.

0:07.0

Download the app today.

0:09.0

New years is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.

0:13.0

As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.

0:17.0

So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.

0:24.0

Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.

0:27.0

Hey, really quick before we start the show, I want to let you know about a new addition to our already amazing lineup for the how I built this summit in October sponsored by American Express.

0:38.0

Eric Ryan and Adam Lowry, the founders of Method Cleaning Products, will be joining me for conversations on the main stage, along with founders of companies like Airbnb, Stitchfix, Lyft, and many others.

0:50.0

You can get your tickets and see the full list at npr.org slash summit.

0:57.0

So April, 2008, you launchmented and you're like the doors open, the shingles out, you're excited, you pop the champagne corks, and...

1:06.0

Nothing. Nothing absolute, dead silence.

1:09.0

No orders.

1:10.0

There was not a sale to be had, it was terrifying and horrible, horrible.

1:15.0

And we almost, I really contemplated that moment, this is a failure, we need to shut this business down, we need to give whatever remains of the money back to investors, because it's a total failure.

1:25.0

From NPR, it's how I built this, a show of innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements we built.

1:40.0

I'm Guy Ross, and on today's show, how Maryam Nephisi turned her online stationary store into one of the biggest platforms for emerging artists on the internet, and in the process, transform the business of personalized stationary.

1:56.0

Back at the end of the 1980s, at age 13, I was getting ready to officially become a man.

2:08.0

This is the age of which, according to Jewish tradition, boys enter manhood and they have a bar mitzvah.

2:14.0

This is a big party, you get hoisted up on a chair and paraded around a dance floor, you serve salmon or chicken, you get the idea.

2:22.0

Anyway, about eight or nine months before the big day, I remember going with my mom to a stationary store to look at tons of invitation samples.

2:32.0

We checked out fonts, paper stock, colors, we ended up going with burgundy, black, and gold. She put down a deposit. It was a long process.

2:42.0

Now, compare that to when my son was born, 25 years later, I went online, I uploaded a photo of his pink little face, a pic of layout, uploaded my address book, put it in my credit card details, and bam! Within like three days, everyone on my list received a beautiful birth announcement in the mail.

...

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