Warby Parker: Dave Gilboa & Neil Blumenthal (2016)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2018

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 2008, it was nearly impossible to buy a fashionable, affordable pair of glasses online. That simple frustration inspired the idea behind Warby Parker – and disrupted the eyewear industry. PLUS for our postscript "How You Built That," an update on Bellyak, a kayak where you lie on your belly and paddle with your hands. (Original broadcast date: December 26, 2016) 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 Year's 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, it's Guy here, and I've got a random bit of trivia for you.
0:30.0	So a year after Jack Kerwack wrote on the road, he came out with a second book.
0:35.0	It's called The Dharma Bums, and two of its characters actually inspired the name of a real-life company.
0:42.0	One character was Warby, and the other was Parker, and the company as well, I think you can guess.
0:47.0	And we're going to hear all about that in a lot more on this episode, which originally ran back in 2016.
0:57.0	We hadn't told anyone that the site was live.
1:00.0	We just wanted to drive any traffic to it because we weren't sure it would work.
1:04.0	So I get an order, and then 10 minutes later we get another order, and then another order, and then another order.
1:11.0	And we kind of go from this feeling of elatement to a crap.
1:19.0	We don't have this much inventory.
1:25.0	From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements that they built.
1:33.0	I'm Guy Ross, and on today's show, two of the founders of Warby Parker tell the story of how they birthed an idea,
1:45.0	an idea that disrupted the entire eyeglass industry in America, and grew into a billion-dollar company.
1:52.0	So back in 2008, Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa both arrived on the campus of the Wardens School at the University of Pennsylvania.
2:03.0	They were there to start business school, and they met each other and two other students, Andy Hunt and Jeff Raider, and the four of them would go on to co-found Warby Parker.
2:12.0	But in 2008, at that time, they didn't know that yet, but they did know, and something that they all had in common was, they were really frustrated with how eyeglasses worked.
	...

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