22 min
#080: Warby Parker – Losing your glasses sucks! Replacing sucks more. The Empire Builders Podcast
-
- Entrepreneurship
Imagine these four MBAs sitting in class when their phones start blowing up with orders for eyeglasses after they lost the business idea competition at the Warton School of Business for the same idea.
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.
[No Bull RV Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about businesses and innovation and ideas that take a business from tiny to empire. There's usually something that they turn on, something that they come across, they figure out. And it makes all the difference. Today we're talking about, boy, this is another one of those that bridges the brick and mortar and online world and a bit of a disruptor, if I'm not mistaken. You said we're doing Warby Parker today, and I know that they're an online eyeglass company and I don't know much else.
Stephen Semple:
Well, they are an online glass company and they now have, gosh, I forgot to look up how many stores they have, but they now have a few hundred stores. So, they've started to open brick and mortar. But the part of the story we want to talk about is what they did when they were just strictly an online business because they went to the brick and mortar later. So again, the idea of these stories is to talk about the early days, what turned them into an empire. And that was when they were online. So we're going to focus today on the online part, but they were founded in 2010 is when they started by Neil Blumenthal, David Gilboa, Andy Hunt, and Jeff Raider. And in September 2021, they went public with an evaluation of almost $7 billion. But when they went public, yes, 7 billion.
Dave Young:
7 billion.
Stephen Semple:
That's a little bit of a payoff, eh?
Dave Young:
Yeah, no kidding.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. So founded in 2010, 11 years later, $7 billion. So, the idea started in 2008. And basically what happened is the guys were together and they were sharing their frustration with losing glasses and the cost to replace them. And these guys all met at the Wharton School of Business. They were students there and they all had this common frustration of buying glasses and they kept losing them. And the example that got them started was Dave talking about leaving glasses on an airplane. He left his glasses on the airplane and they cost $800. And at the same time, now think about this, it's different today when we look at the price of an iPhone. But in 2010 you could buy an iPhone for $200 and he's standing there going, "This iPhone is 200 bucks and these plastic glasses are 800." This makes no sense to him.
And Andy who liked buying things online was frustrated that he couldn't easily buy glasses online. And they felt like the technology of how glasses were made and sold, felt so antiquated. And when they got talking about it turns out, talk about this weird connection. They get talking about it. It turns out Neil had experience in the glasses space. He had spent a number of years working for an eyewear nonprofit. So, he had been going to factories and buying glasses as cheaply as possible to be giving away in these third world countries. And this started a conversation and Neil would even be involved in the designing of this stuff and taking it to the factory. So he knew the business. And it turns out what he shared with them, is that the business was dominated by a handful of players. Companies like Luxottica. Luxottica is a $30 billion business.
They make Oakley's, they make Ray-Ban,
Imagine these four MBAs sitting in class when their phones start blowing up with orders for eyeglasses after they lost the business idea competition at the Warton School of Business for the same idea.
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those.
[No Bull RV Ad]
Dave Young:
Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about businesses and innovation and ideas that take a business from tiny to empire. There's usually something that they turn on, something that they come across, they figure out. And it makes all the difference. Today we're talking about, boy, this is another one of those that bridges the brick and mortar and online world and a bit of a disruptor, if I'm not mistaken. You said we're doing Warby Parker today, and I know that they're an online eyeglass company and I don't know much else.
Stephen Semple:
Well, they are an online glass company and they now have, gosh, I forgot to look up how many stores they have, but they now have a few hundred stores. So, they've started to open brick and mortar. But the part of the story we want to talk about is what they did when they were just strictly an online business because they went to the brick and mortar later. So again, the idea of these stories is to talk about the early days, what turned them into an empire. And that was when they were online. So we're going to focus today on the online part, but they were founded in 2010 is when they started by Neil Blumenthal, David Gilboa, Andy Hunt, and Jeff Raider. And in September 2021, they went public with an evaluation of almost $7 billion. But when they went public, yes, 7 billion.
Dave Young:
7 billion.
Stephen Semple:
That's a little bit of a payoff, eh?
Dave Young:
Yeah, no kidding.
Stephen Semple:
Yeah. So founded in 2010, 11 years later, $7 billion. So, the idea started in 2008. And basically what happened is the guys were together and they were sharing their frustration with losing glasses and the cost to replace them. And these guys all met at the Wharton School of Business. They were students there and they all had this common frustration of buying glasses and they kept losing them. And the example that got them started was Dave talking about leaving glasses on an airplane. He left his glasses on the airplane and they cost $800. And at the same time, now think about this, it's different today when we look at the price of an iPhone. But in 2010 you could buy an iPhone for $200 and he's standing there going, "This iPhone is 200 bucks and these plastic glasses are 800." This makes no sense to him.
And Andy who liked buying things online was frustrated that he couldn't easily buy glasses online. And they felt like the technology of how glasses were made and sold, felt so antiquated. And when they got talking about it turns out, talk about this weird connection. They get talking about it. It turns out Neil had experience in the glasses space. He had spent a number of years working for an eyewear nonprofit. So, he had been going to factories and buying glasses as cheaply as possible to be giving away in these third world countries. And this started a conversation and Neil would even be involved in the designing of this stuff and taking it to the factory. So he knew the business. And it turns out what he shared with them, is that the business was dominated by a handful of players. Companies like Luxottica. Luxottica is a $30 billion business.
They make Oakley's, they make Ray-Ban,
22 min