Magnolia: Chip & Joanna Gaines. From House Flipping to Household Name

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2025

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when a charismatic home renovator marries a budding design whiz? You get the billion-dollar powerhouse that is Chip and Joanna Gaines.

The Gaines’ TV show Fixer Upper became a cultural obsession, turning shiplap and farmhouse sinks into a lifestyle movement that swept America.

When they walked away from that show at peak popularity, everyone thought they were crazy. Instead, they turned their business Magnolia into a thriving lifestyle brand, which includes a network, retail, restaurants, books, and a magazine. The Silos, their Waco headquarters, became an unlikely tourist destination, drawing millions.

Chip and Joanna proved that faith, small-town values and authentic storytelling could compete with coastal glitz. And they did it all while raising five kids.

You’ll learn:

What Chip and Joanna saw in each other—as business and life partners.
How a miserable semester in New York sparked the idea for Joanna’s first store.
How the Gaines’ almost went bankrupt after the 2008 housing crash—and refused to quit.
Why walking away from their TV show turned out to be a brilliant move.
Why faith is as important as luck.
Why betting on your hometown can be a superpower.

Time Stamps:

3:30 Chip’s failed dream of becoming a pro baseball player—and the unexpected path that followed.

8:20 How running a laundry in college taught Chip the economics of entrepreneurship.

14:35 Joanna’s Korean-American childhood, identity struggles, and how a toxic newsroom internship changed the course of her life.

24:10 The day Chip walked into her dad’s tire shop—and never left.

35:10 How Joanna’s first $25 “sale” encouraged her to open the first Magnolia store.

45:15 The housing crash that nearly ended their renovation business—and how they scraped their way back.

55:15 The moment HGTV called—and why Chip thought it was a scam.

1:09:10 How saying “no” to Fixer Upper opened the door to owning their own network—and their future.

1:13:09 The cultural backlash and the lessons that came with becoming America’s most famous fixer-uppers.

This episode was produced by Katherine Sypher with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Chris Maccini. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Kwesi Lee.

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Transcript

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1:52.5	Did either of you think a show based on us renovating houses? Like how are we going to, why are people going to be interested in that? 100%. I think we thought. Exactly the way we felt. Oh, wow. People in Waco are going to get to see our work on television. Central Texas. Never thought. My grandma. But did you even ask them, like, how do you turn that into a TV show?
2:18.8	Yeah.
2:19.7	And I didn't know, of course, because how could you know?
2:23.1	You'd never been on television.
	...

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