Boxed: Chieh Huang

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 February 2021

⏱️ 90 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the course of ten years as a founder, Chieh Huang bet twice on the ubiquity of the smartphone. The first time was in 2010 with Astro Ape, a mobile gaming company that he founded with a few friends out of an attic. The second time was with Boxed, a mobile bulk-retailer that he co-launched in 2013 out of his New Jersey garage. Chieh and his tiny team scrambled to send out their first boxes of toilet paper and laundry detergent, gambling that they could compete with monster retailers by offering fewer items, competitive prices, and a hand-written note in every box. Since its launch 8 years ago, Boxed has sent out tens of millions of boxes of groceries, and has been valued at over $600M.

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0:27.0	Hey, everyone. Just a quick announcement before we start the show.
0:30.0	So a lot of you may know how much I miss seeing all of you at the live in-person shows that we do around the country during normal times.
0:40.0	So I am really excited to finally announce our first how I built this virtual event.
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0:50.0	Jay is a best-selling author, former monk and wellness coach, and if you're searching for purpose, peace, and clarity in your life, or you're struggling to find meaning and motivation at work, you will not want to miss this conversation.
1:03.0	Please join us. It's happening on Thursday, March 11th, and anybody around the world can take part.
1:09.0	For more information and tickets, head to nprpresents.org. And I hope to see you there.
1:23.0	I remember I was driving home from a meeting in New York, and one of the folks that quit his six-figure-paying job to join the dream and sit in my garage, called and said,
1:33.0	Dude, I refreshed the page, over and over. It's not broken. We got zero orders today.
1:39.0	Oh, wow.
1:40.0	This dropped down to zero two days in a row. And he was like, Dude, I risk my livelihood to do this. Are you sure this is still going to work?
1:47.0	From NPR, it's how I built this.
1:56.0	A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
2:03.0	I'm Guy Raaz, and on the show today, how Che Huang co-founded two companies, the first in a New Jersey attic, the second in a New Jersey garage.
2:15.0	And that one, boxed, is now an online retailer that's been valued at more than $600 million.
2:22.0	If you have a startup idea and you present it to someone you trust, there's a decent chance that person will ask you two key questions.
	...

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