Maxine Clark on Building the Build-a-Bear Workshop

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2022

⏱️ 64 minutes

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Summary

Stuff it, fluff it, stitch it, dress it: Build-a-Bear Founder and former CEO Maxine Clark built a retail-entertainment empire by letting people make their own furry friends. Two hundred million of them. What's the secret to her success? Listen as she tells EconTalk's Russ Roberts how she developed a customer-focused culture, why she sought to join (and not beat) her competition, and about some of the (seriously) strange things people have stuffed into their bears.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics
0:07.0	and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:13.0	Institution.
0:14.0	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.6	You'll also find our archives, but every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.6	Today's February 22, 2022, and my guest is entrepreneur and creative visionary Maxine Clark.
0:44.5	She's the founder and former CEO of Build a Bear Workshop.
0:48.6	I have a suspicion that some listeners have a bear from Build a Bear Workshop in their
0:54.3	lives.
0:55.3	He gets your own, maybe it's one of your kids.
0:57.7	I'd love to see a selfie of you and your bear, your kids bear, if you want to send it
1:02.2	along.
1:03.2	I'd love to see it.
1:05.0	This year is the 25th anniversary of Build a Bear Workshop.
1:08.2	It was started in 1997.
1:11.3	I thought it'd be fun to find out how it came to be.
1:15.6	Maxine, welcome to econtalk.
1:17.4	Thank you.
	...

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