Drive Episode 5: Warby Parker Founders on Forging Their Own Path | Drive
The Business of Fashion Podcast
The Business of Fashion
4.5 • 813 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2018
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, BoF's chief correspondent in New York, Lauren Sherman, speaks to Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, the co-founders of the disruptive eyewear company Warby Parker, which closed a $75 million Series E funding round in March 2018, valuing the company at $1.75 billion. Market sources report the business now generates north of $250 million in sales annually.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Business of Fashion, and welcome to Drive, |
| 0:06.5 | BOF's new podcast series, delivered by D.HL, where we hear the stories of fashion's most dynamic entrepreneurs in their own words. |
| 0:15.9 | When I think of Warby Parker, I think of the word disruption and how it took outsiders to disrupt a long-standing |
| 0:23.4 | business model. The fact that we were outsiders to the industry in a lot of ways, I think was |
| 0:28.0 | actually super helpful and beneficial because most people that we talked to that had years or decades |
| 0:32.5 | of experience, their first reaction was always to tell us why this idea would never work. |
| 0:37.4 | Really, we were forging our own way and really thought about what's going to make most sense for our customers |
| 0:43.0 | and the other stakeholders that we care about and the broader community that we wanted to positively impact. |
| 0:48.4 | Purely from a business perspective, we feel like the bigger we get, the bigger the ultimate opportunity we see in front of us is, |
| 0:55.0 | and we feel like we're just scratching the surface in terms of what Warby Parker could become. |
| 1:00.3 | For this episode, Bof's chief correspondent in New York, Lauren Sherman, |
| 1:05.2 | sits down with founders Dave Gilboa and Neil Blumenthal |
| 1:09.2 | to learn what it really takes to build a global fashion business from scratch. |
| 1:16.5 | So thanks guys for being here. It's really nice to be in the Warby Parker Library. |
| 1:21.8 | Thanks for having us. |
| 1:23.1 | So I guess to start, before we get into Warby, can you talk a little bit about how you met and how you guys know each other? |
| 1:32.8 | Sure. So we met at business school, I think in the first week of school at Wharton, we were getting our MBAs. |
| 1:41.2 | And there's a month really called preterm before school starts and we just became friends |
| 1:46.9 | socially along with Jeff and Andy or other two co-founders. And they talk a lot about, you know, |
| 1:52.6 | there was always four co-founders or two co-founders and one goes away and you guys are the co-ceeos. |
| 1:59.1 | What's going on with the other two co-founders now? |
| 2:02.6 | Well, Jeff and Andy really haven't gone away. They're still two of our best friends. They're on |
... |
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