Wayfair: Niraj Shah & Steve Conine (2018)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 August 2020

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After selling their first small business and shuttering their second, former college roommates Niraj Shah and Steve Conine thought about getting "normal" jobs. But in the early 2000s, they stumbled across an unexpected trend: people were buying furniture online to get a wider selection. Within a few years, Niraj and Steve launched 250 different websites, selling everything from barstools to birdhouses. Eventually, they consolidated these sites into one giant brand: Wayfair. The company now carries more than 14 million items for and last year brought in more than $9 billion. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to how I built this early and ad-free on Amazon Music.
0:07.0	Download the app today.
0:09.0	New Year's is here, and with it brings the possibility of change.
0:13.0	As one behavioral scientist put it, first starts are really powerful.
0:17.0	So as you head into 2023, LifeKit is a great resource to help you plan your life and tackle changes, both big and small.
0:24.0	Listen to the LifeKit podcast from NPR.
0:28.0	So the how I built this team is taking a much needed and very short break this week, but we will definitely be back next Monday with a brand new episode.
0:38.0	As for today's show, well, some of you may remember a time not too long ago when e-commerce was supposed to be dead, like over.
0:47.0	But today's episode is about two guys who never stopped believing in the internet or in the many things that you can buy on it.
0:54.0	This one first ran back in April of 2018. Enjoy.
0:59.0	So, alright, I'm going to read some of the websites that you guys launched.
1:06.0	Hotplates.com. I'm assuming that sold hotplates.
1:09.0	Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All barstools.com.
1:13.0	You want to think that's old? Yes.
1:15.0	You're doing good. You're doing good. Alright.
1:17.0	My dinner plate.com? That's a classic.
1:20.0	I love this one. Everygrandfatherclock.com. A very hot category online.
1:25.0	Who knew people were searching for that?
1:29.0	We did.
1:30.0	From NPR, it's how I built this. A show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
1:50.0	I'm Guy Raaz, and on today's show, how an online search for bird houses led to college roommates down an internet rabbit hole that inspired what would become way fair.
1:58.0	An e-commerce company that now sells almost $5 billion worth of home goods each year.
	...

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