Podcast appearances and mentions of jeff raider

Today's episode comes from the Your Next Move vault and is a conversation between Inc. editor-at-large Tom Foster and the co-founder and co-CEO of Harry's Inc, Jeff Raider. He is also a co-founder of Warby Parker. Their conversation goes deep on topics like brand building, e-commerce, bouncing back after setbacks, and billion dollar valuations.

Harry's and Warby Parker co-founder Jeff Raider joins Guy on the Advice Line, where they talk with three founders grappling with strategic decisions.Today we meet Uli, who's trying to balance multiple revenue streams for her Los Angeles-based gelato business. Then Travis in Boulder, who just hired his first employee for his upstart package delivery service. And Karly from southern California, who's launching a children's book subscription that makes the full moon more magical.If you'd like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you'd like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.And to hear the founding story of Harry's, check out Jeff's first appearance on the show in 2023.This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch.You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

From feeling ripped off to inspired to Germany and then buying a manufacturing plant to stop the competitor. Wow, Harry's was ready to fight. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector, and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients, so here's one of those. [Irock Plumbing Ad] Dave Young: But welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast. Dave Young, along with Stephen Semple, and we share stories about people that have built themselves an empire. Stephen Semple: That's correct. Dave Young: And today Steve told me we're going to talk about Harry, Harry's razors. Stephen Semple: Yes, Harry's. Dave Young: Harry From Harry's. You know Harry. Stephen Semple: Harry from Harry's Razors. That's it. Yes. Dave Young: Yeah. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So- Dave Young: Do tell. I mean, I think I've peripherally heard it, but I don't think I've used the product. Stephen Semple: Yeah, I've not used the product either. And I also remember when they first came out and they were advertising primarily online, but now you see them in Walmart and in Target and whatnot, they become really quite a big deal and really a disruptive force in the shaving business. But in terms of a disruptive force, one of the main actors in this, we've heard of before, because it was founded in 2012 by Andy Katz and Jeff Raider, and Dave, you may remember the name, Jeff Raider. He was one of the founders of Warby Parker back in episode 80. Dave Young: All right. Stephen Semple: So Jeff, he's got a couple of big successes under his belt because Warby Parker as we know was huge. It was huge. So they launched in July of 2012 and 2016 they had 2 million customers. 2017, their product was launched in Walmart and Target, 2019 Schick was going to buy them for $1.4 billion, and that purchase was blocked by the FTC. So they became in seven years, a pretty big deal from startup to being a business worth, even though the sale didn't go through, still valued at $1.4 billion. And when they started, and frankly the market still is, but when they started heavily dominated by Gillette. Gillette was a 70% market share. Today it's been whittled down by companies like Harry and the Dollar Shave Club where Gillette is 50%, but still 50% of a market is big. Dave Young: It comes and goes in and out of style, but men are always going to be shaving their beards off. Stephen Semple: Yeah. Dave Young: They're always going to be shaving whiskers off. Stephen Semple: Right. Even guys like us, we're shaving part of our face, just not our entire face. Right? Dave Young: Yeah. It's not ever going to just be a fad business, I guess is what I'm saying. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So Harry's really pioneered the direct to consumer model. They were sort of one of the first into that because at the time Gillette was sold in retail, and Harry started online and did online advertising. That's how they started. And a lot of what they did is not as effective today, but really worked well a decade ago. So Andy and Jeff met at Bain and Company, and it was a consulting firm. They became friends and they both left to join private equity firms and then they were off to business school. Jeff, of course, starts Warby Parker with some buddies while he is in Wharton. And if anybody has not listened to that story go back to episode 80. It's almost unbelievable. They started this business online, and I wish I kept some of the old ads and they did this retargeting. So, which again, was much more effective a decade ago than it is today.

Two college-era friends set out to change the face of shaving—and in the process, took on one of the biggest companies in the world. In 2011, Andy Katz-Mayfield and Jeff Raider realized they shared a common frustration with an everyday purchase: razors. Locked behind counters like diamond bracelets, they were inconvenient to buy and expensive to replace, with branding that seemed more suited to James Bond than a regular guy. So Andy and Jeff took on the Goliath of the shaving industry, Gillette—and its parent company, P&G—to launch a direct-to-consumer razor company with a friendly name. As a co-founder of Warby Parker, Jeff had some experience with D-to-C, but nothing prepared either founder for the rigors of razor research, and the culture shock of partnering with a factory in a remote part of Germany. After weathering a failed merger, Harry's Inc. has grown into a force in the shaving industry both online and in-store, and has begun expanding into other household products. This episode was produced by Liz Metzger, with music by Ramtin ArabloueiEdited by Neva Grant, with research help from Katherine Sypher.You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram, and email us at hibt@id.wondery.com.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The presidential race is already heating up, and aside from the usual fanfare around frontrunners like Trump and Biden, there are long-shot candidates creating space for themselves on . . . podcasts, of all places. Yaz chatted with ‘Fast Company' contributing writer Clint Rainey to hear about his journey listening to some of these long-shot candidates on quite an array of podcasts. Harry's Razors is arguably one of the first companies to pioneer the direct-to-consumer model. This year, the company is celebrating 10 years. Yaz sat down with Jeff Raider, cofounder and co-CEO, to hear his thoughts on how the industry has evolved since Harry's first started.

The presidential race is already heating up, and aside from the usual fanfare around frontrunners like Trump and Biden, there are long-shot candidates creating space for themselves on . . . podcasts, of all places. Yaz chatted with ‘Fast Company' contributing writer Clint Rainey to hear about his journey listening to some of these long-shot candidates on quite an array of podcasts. Harry's Razors is arguably one of the first companies to pioneer the direct-to-consumer model. This year, the company is celebrating 10 years. Yaz sat down with Jeff Raider, cofounder and co-CEO, to hear his thoughts on how the industry has evolved since Harry's first started.

Jeff Raider co-founded multiple multi-billion dollar businesses. Jeff is the co-founder and co-CEO of Harry's, one of the leading men's shaving brands, and is a co-founder of Warby Parker, a leader in eyewear. Jeff joins Adam to share his journey and his best lessons and advice. Jeff and Adam discuss a wide range of topics: personal and professional discovery and development, leadership, entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurship, customer-centricity, differentiation, and more.

While in business school, Jeff Raider co-founded Warby Parker and watched the iconic glasses company take off. So when his friend, Andy Katz-Mayfield, G-chatted him one day with an idea to reimagine mens' razors, Jeff was intrigued. In 2013, the duo started Harry's to create exceptional shaving and personal care products that better meet the needs of modern men. The company has since reached tens of millions of people and become the #2 men's shave brand in the country. Jeff shares how they signed on a German factory to manufacture a million blades before writing a business plan, how their first referral program led to over 100,000 email sign-ups in a week, and how he found the silver lining when the FTC blocked a planned acquisition of Harry's in 2020.

Today's discussion is with Jeff Raider who's the co-founder and co-CEO Harry's and also the co-founder of Warby Parker. Harry's is a 1,000 person CPG company which offers everything from razors to face care, body care, and hair care for men and women. One of the things I found fascinating about Jeff is that he helped start not one, but two very successful companies over the past decade and I wanted to understand why and how he did it. In today's discussion we talk about balancing short term success with long-term growth, how to earn the trust of your customers, what it takes to turn an idea into something real, and why it's so crucial for employees to have a connection to what the company does. ------------------ Get ad-free listening, early access to new episodes and bonus episodes with the subscription version of the show The Future of Work Plus. To start it will only be available on Apple Podcasts and it will cost $4.99/month or $49.99/year, which is the equivalent to the cost of a cup of coffee.  ________________ To help you define and build your company's culture, I put together a totally free eight-part video training series. Sign up at helpmyculture.com to get access today. --------------------- Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com  Let's connect on social! Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8 Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8 Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

He didn't create just 1 unicorn company… he created 2. And it all began with a school project. Jeff Raider co-founded Warby Parker while in business school to disrupt glasses. Then he co-founded Harry's to disrupt shaving. Today, both brands are worth billions. If you wear glasses on your face, then he designed your shades — And if you groom your body, then he designed your blades. Curious about the 2 keys to great branding? This interview is for you. Craving a wild founding story that involves buying an entire factory? This interview is for you. Facing a major career choice or want to know the future of the Direct-To-Consumer (DTC) industry? This interview is for you. Or maybe you just want the secret to perfectly shave any part of your body for any gender — Then this interview is for you (FYI, we did a live demo at the end of the show for ya because… why not?). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine these four MBAs sitting in class when their phones start blowing up with orders for eyeglasses after they lost the business idea competition at the Warton School of Business for the same idea. Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, teaching business owners the not so secret techniques that took famous businesses from mom and pop to major brands. Stephen Semple is a marketing consultant, story collector and storyteller. I'm Stephen's sidekick and business partner, Dave Young. Before we get into today's episode, a word from our sponsor, which is, well, it's us, but we're highlighting ads we've written and produced for our clients. So here's one of those. [No Bull RV Ad] Dave Young: Welcome to the Empire Builders Podcast, Dave Young here, along with Stephen Semple, and we're talking about businesses and innovation and ideas that take a business from tiny to empire. There's usually something that they turn on, something that they come across, they figure out. And it makes all the difference. Today we're talking about, boy, this is another one of those that bridges the brick and mortar and online world and a bit of a disruptor, if I'm not mistaken. You said we're doing Warby Parker today, and I know that they're an online eyeglass company and I don't know much else. Stephen Semple: Well, they are an online glass company and they now have, gosh, I forgot to look up how many stores they have, but they now have a few hundred stores. So, they've started to open brick and mortar. But the part of the story we want to talk about is what they did when they were just strictly an online business because they went to the brick and mortar later. So again, the idea of these stories is to talk about the early days, what turned them into an empire. And that was when they were online. So we're going to focus today on the online part, but they were founded in 2010 is when they started by Neil Blumenthal, David Gilboa, Andy Hunt, and Jeff Raider. And in September 2021, they went public with an evaluation of almost $7 billion. But when they went public, yes, 7 billion. Dave Young: 7 billion. Stephen Semple: That's a little bit of a payoff, eh? Dave Young: Yeah, no kidding. Stephen Semple: Yeah. So founded in 2010, 11 years later, $7 billion. So, the idea started in 2008. And basically what happened is the guys were together and they were sharing their frustration with losing glasses and the cost to replace them. And these guys all met at the Wharton School of Business. They were students there and they all had this common frustration of buying glasses and they kept losing them. And the example that got them started was Dave talking about leaving glasses on an airplane. He left his glasses on the airplane and they cost $800. And at the same time, now think about this, it's different today when we look at the price of an iPhone. But in 2010 you could buy an iPhone for $200 and he's standing there going, "This iPhone is 200 bucks and these plastic glasses are 800." This makes no sense to him. And Andy who liked buying things online was frustrated that he couldn't easily buy glasses online. And they felt like the technology of how glasses were made and sold, felt so antiquated. And when they got talking about it turns out, talk about this weird connection. They get talking about it. It turns out Neil had experience in the glasses space. He had spent a number of years working for an eyewear nonprofit. So, he had been going to factories and buying glasses as cheaply as possible to be giving away in these third world countries. And this started a conversation and Neil would even be involved in the designing of this stuff and taking it to the factory. So he knew the business. And it turns out what he shared with them, is that the business was dominated by a handful of players. Companies like Luxottica. Luxottica is a $30 billion business. They make Oakley's, they make Ray-Ban,

Jeff Raider, co-founder and co-CEO of Harry's, shares how the idea to disrupt the male shaving industry came about after having already revolutionized the eyewear business by co-founding Warby Parker.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jeff Raider, co-founder and co-CEO of Harry's, shares how the idea to disrupt the male shaving industry came about after having already revolutionized the eyewear business by co-founding Warby Parker.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Harry's was founded in 2012, co-founders Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield were trying to connect the dots between quality razors, affordable prices and a brand that could connect with consumers. "I can tell you exactly where it was' it was a Rite Aid on 14th and Wilshire in Santa Monica, California. I had run out of razor blades and was wandering through the store, looking for somebody to unlock the case, because they were locked away," said Katz-Mayfield, regarding the brand's inspiration. on the Glossy Beauty Podcast. "They're locked away because they're so expensive and they get shoplifted all the time. It was this absurd experience. ... I was looking at the shelf and the brands that were on the shelf, and they didn't speak to me as a consumer. There was like a picture of a razor blade flying over the moon on one of the packages. Obviously, what the brand was trying to communicate was, 'Oh, there's all this space-age technology in this thing, and therefore you should pay $25 for a four-pack of razor blades.' But I was like, 'Should I really, though?'" Katz-Mayfield Gchatted Raider, who had recently co-founded Warby Parker, another early DTC disruptor. The two met while in college as consulting interns at Bain & Company. "We say he called me a lot, but actually, he Gchatted me. I was at work, and he said, 'Hey, I had this really bad experience in a drugstore, being overcharged for razor blades by these brands that don't really connect with me. Do you think you could take what you learned at Warby Parker, building [a] brand that people love, trying to do good in the world and for customers, and bring design and style to an industry that might have lacked it before, in razors and razor blades?' I remember reading that and thinking, 'Wow, this is an awesome opportunity,'" said Raider.  Though the brand is just nine years old, Raider and Katz-Mayfield have lived many lives with Harry's. The brand has gone from a best-in-class startup to an acquisition target and the focus of the Federal Trade Commission, to now a different type of parent company that acquires and incubates its own brands. Those have included Lume and Cat Person. "What Harry's and Flamingo both did was they found an unmet consumer need, an opportunity to do something that was actually better for somebody. … It started with delivering really high-quality products at a great value, and then also speaking to people how they wanted to be spoken to in these categories," said Raider. "We felt like we had the opportunity to build brands and unique products that differentially meet consumers' needs and do it on DTC. That could actually be applied anywhere in CPG."

What do glasses, razors, and cat food have in common? Well, they are all products of our esteemed guest today: Jeff Raider. Prior to co-founding Harry's, Jeff co-founded the massively disruptive eyewear company Warby Parker, once dubbed by GQ as the “Netflix of eyecare,” and now a publicly traded multibillion dollar lifestyle brand. Through Harry's Inc, Jeff also helps run Flamingo, a women's skincare and razor company; Cat People, a cat food and goods company; and Lumē, a natural deodorant company. On today's episode, Jeff discusses inventory challenges, his mission to create products with the best customer experience possible, and the overall lessons he's learned in the DTC space over the past decade. —Guest Quote“The approach I've been pushing our team on and trying to take is: first, let's figure out where there's an issue and fix it. Then let's figure out what the root cause is. And then before we move on to the next issue, let's figure out the process or the set of systems or redundancies that we want to put in place so that this thing doesn't happen anymore.” -Jeff Raider—-Time Stamps *(0:34) Intro to Jeff*(1:50) Intro to Harry's*(4:13) What Jeff is looking for in brands*(7:22) Metrics, metrics, metrics*(13:25) What surprised Jeff about the supply chain*(12:43) How supply chains influence the customer experience*(18:56) A Massive Demand Shock*(21:10) Segment 2: Houston We Have a Problem *(25:05) Redundancy > Diversify?*(27:03) Segment 3: Shit Show Stories*(29:11) Segment 4: Back to the Future*(34:58) Segment 5: Quick Hitters—Sponsor:This podcast is powered by the team at Stord. Turn your supply chain into a competitive advantage. Go to Stord.com to learn more.—Links Connect with Jeff Raider on LinkedInConnect with Alex Kent on LinkedinCheck out the Stord WebsiteCheck out the Harry's Website

Erika is in HQ this week breaking down a TON of thoughts. We hit on the latest Sundae Conversation ft. Machine Gun Kelly. We've got the man behind the show, Tom Mullens, giving us his takes on the popular series. Erika gives you a Barstool update, and talks everything from re-orgs, success, and how to give feedback. She also gives us her thoughts on Twitter and Elon Musk. What does free speech look like on social platforms? PLUS we've got co-founder of Warby Parker and Harry's, Jeff Raider on the show to tell us all about how he became such a successful entrepreneur. (00:00:19) MGK Sundae Conversation (00:02:07) New Merch! (00:02:57) Erika's Boardroom (00:09:52) Elon Musk & Twitter (00:17:57) Q&A (00:29:19) Jeff Raider (00:52:47) Circling Back

Jeff Raider & Andy Katz-Mayfield, Co Founders and Co CEO's of Harry's Inc., discuss their unique approach to building a more modern CPG company, as well as what strategies are needed in order to have a productive and successful relationship between co-CEOs. Raider, Katz-Mayfield, and host of #ThePlaybook, David Meltzer, share their insights on a range of topics including how the company remains true to the origins of Harry's Inc. while also evolving, how they incorporate their four core values into their business processes, and the role that Harry's Labs plays in driving innovation and creating new opportunities to move the organization forward. Tweet me your takeaway from today's episode @davidmeltzer  Email Me! david@dmeltzer.com Sign up for my Free Weekly Training https://free.dmeltzer.com/friday-training-1 Text Me! (949) 298-2905 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Recorded on 03/07/22 In this episode, we hosted Jeff Raider, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Harry's, a brand focused on high-quality men's shaving and grooming products. Key topics discussed include areas of growth opportunities for the brand, customer acquisition strategy, verticalization, product innovation cycle, new brands and platforms, and channel and distribution strategy. For Disclosures, click here bit.ly/3cPHkNW

Sometimes I meet successful people and I want to talk to them about what they consider the keys to their success. Maybe it’s for me to try to figure out just where I went wrong. Is my lack of success tied to my inability to better respond to emails? Ha! Jeff Raider is hugely successful but also just a regular guy. He’s a co-founder of both Warby Parker and Harry’s, two massive brands. The growth of those two businesses don’t seem to have changed him. Jeff is one of the most most normal, kind and helpful people you will ever meet. He’s always willing to talk about opportunities or problems and there with advice if you ever need it. He is proof that being successful and nice aren’t mutually exclusive. I also don’t want to miss an opportunity to praise Jeff’s Harry’s co-founder Andy Katz-Mayfield — who is also an amazing person. It’s no wonder that they have built not only a solid brand, but a successful company filled with good people. At this point Harry’s has a suite of different brands out in the world. There’s of course Flamingo, plus the cat food brand Cat Person and now a haircare line called Headquarters. Like Harry’s, all of these offshoot brands are lighthearted and irreverent. All of it is created around good design and quality. So many companies talk about having a good culture but it is rarely true. At Harry’s it’s actually real and the reality does match the expectations. People love working there. Everyone I’ve encountered at Harry’s is smart and good to deal with. It’s refreshing to experience and it makes supporting Harry’s even more worthwhile. Listen to Jeff and you’ll know it’s not bullsh/t. I like to hate on all things DTC, but the Harry’s universe is just different. Part of that is related to Jeff and Andy, and part of it goes back to the culture. I wanted to hear more about how Jeff sees the world so for the podcast we spoke about life, business, DTC and yes, inbox zero. Hope you like it. The ACL Podcast is more of an add-on to the newsletter than a full fledged podcast. You can listen in Apple Podcasts or via Spotify directly if you prefer that to Substack. If you enjoy this edition, please consider subscribing and sending to a friend who you think would like this. I appreciate your support.Thanks to Al James for lending me his music. The song is: Hard Working Dogs by Dolorean. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at www.acl.news/subscribe

In this episode of the Foundr podcast, Nathan Chan speaks with Jeff Raider and Andy Katz-Mayfield to find out how they scaled Harry’s into a $20 million brand, and how they created other multiple million-dollar brands.    The idea for Harry’s came about after Katz-Mayfield had a disappointing late-night shopping experience at the chemists, and noticed that all the men’s razors were overpriced and overdesigned. Almost 8 years later, Raider and Katz-Mayfield have multiple channels, over 1000 employees, and several multi-million dollar brands.    Listen in as they discuss exactly how they successfully scaled their brands, how they identified potential gaps in the market, the dangers of launching something just to make money, and why they decided to pull the plug on their Harry’s brand of lip balm. Get FREE, actionable advice from legitimate founders on starting and growing ANY Business… https://www.foundr.com/freetraining And… If you ARE enjoying the Foundr Podcast’, please make sure to leave us a 5-star review, and let us know who you want to see next. Website: http://www.foundr.comSuccess Stories: https://foundr.com/success-stories Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foundr/ YouTube:  http://bit.ly/2uyvzdt  Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/foundr Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/foundr LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/foundr/ Podcast: http://www.foundr.com/podcast Magazine: http://www.foundr.com/magazine

Harry's took a one-two punch in 2020 – right on the chin. First, the federal government blocked a $1.37 billion acquisition of the shaving and consumer products company; then Covid-19 lockdowns hit. Rather than reeling from the abrupt change in plans, though, Harry's kept its balance. Co-founder and co-CEO Andy Katz-Mayfield explains how the team launched new brands amid the pandemic, tapped into unexpected pockets of demand, and, most recently, raised fresh capital at a valuation well above the blocked merger deal. Now, with a war chest at their disposal, Andy and co-founder and co-CEO Jeff Raider, are looking to acquire brands, having switched from seller to buyer. It is a classic entrepreneurial feat, finding strength and new opportunities out of disappointment and disruption.Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dlirtX

Harry's took a one-two punch in 2020 – right on the chin. First, the federal government blocked a $1.37 billion acquisition of the shaving and consumer products company; then Covid-19 lockdowns hit. Rather than reeling from the abrupt change in plans, though, Harry's kept its balance. Co-founder and co-CEO Andy Katz-Mayfield explains how the team launched new brands amid the pandemic, tapped into unexpected pockets of demand, and, most recently, raised fresh capital at a valuation well above the blocked merger deal. Now, with a war chest at their disposal, Andy and co-founder and co-CEO Jeff Raider, are looking to acquire brands, having switched from seller to buyer. It is a classic entrepreneurial feat, finding strength and new opportunities out of disappointment and disruption.Read a transcript of this interview at: https://mastersofscale.comSubscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter at http://eepurl.com/dlirtX

There are some big-ticket items that most people have and need, but absolutely hate shopping for. Mattresses fall into that category. In fact, studies have shown that people would rather go to the dentist than buy a new mattress. Helix Sleep is trying to take the pain out of that experience. Adam Tishman is the co-founder and co-CEO of Helix Sleep, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he explains why his DTC mattress company is different from the rest, and why those differences matter. He explains the reason it was critical to spend time researching, testing, and perfecting a product before bringing it to market and how that upfront effort created priceless brand equity. Adam also dives into personalization, but he takes it beyond the need to simply give customers a personalized experience, and explains why data-collection and a personalization strategy that includes personalized products can help you expand your business more successfully when you are ready.Main Takeaways:Slow And Steady: With a physical product that is dependent on reviews, rushing to market could spell disaster. Take the time to do the research, test, iterate, and develop a product that is review-ready before you present it to your customers.You’re Not Me: With certain products, there is a specific customer set or type of person for whom the product is made. With mattresses, every person has unique needs, so the product has to be personalized as much as possible. Finding the best way to understand your customers’ needs should be a top priority, and through multiple touchpoints and quizzes, you can gather the data necessary to provide the best experience and product.The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship: By cultivating data and delivering personalized products and experiences for your customers, you are inherently forming a stronger relationship with them than a typical brand. Not only are you collecting insights that can be used to help you expand into new product lines, you are also creating a network of previous customers who are more likely to trust the brand and try something new.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Hey everyone. This is Stephanie Postles. Co-founder at mission.org, and your host. Today, we're chatting with Adam Tishman, the co-founder and co-CEO at HelixSleep. Adam, welcome to the show.Adam:Hey Stephanie, thanks so much for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm excited to have you. so I have never said co-CEO before, which I kind of want to start there. Tell me a bit about being a co-CEO at a company.Adam:Yeah, definitely. So we founded the business, myself and two other co-founders, out of business school. And over the sort of evolution of the company and where we've been over the past five years, we actually run it with myself and one of the other co-founders as sort of the two headed dragon as co-CEOs. And then our third founder is our CFO and COO. And it works really well because it allows us to sort of manage different areas of the business at the CEO level and also work really collaboratively together as well.Stephanie:Awesome. So you co-founded HelixSleep and that was back in 2015, right?Adam:Yeah. So it was founded by myself and, as I said, two other co-founders back in business school, back in 2015. The three of us had moved to a new city to go to school, went through the process of buying a mattress just for ourselves. And it was sort of uniquely terrible in many ways, whether it was really confusing pricing and really expensive pricing in the store, really just bad in-store buying experience. We actually found out later doing research that buying a mattress is actually rated as a worse experience than going to the dentist. And the last thing was, it was just really confusing. If you don't buy mattresses all the time, which no one really does, and it's something that you buy somewhat infrequently, people have a really hard time understanding how to buy it. And so for us, we sort of saw the problem, saw some of the solutions that others in our category were trying to fix this problem, and felt like we could sort of come in and solve it in a much better, more efficient way.Stephanie:Got it. So five years ago it feels like so long ago, what was the market like back then? I mean, who were some of the up and coming people and what kind of unique angle did you guys see in the market at that time?Adam:Yeah, definitely. So five years ago, I would say the direct to consumer, or just generally buying mattresses online, was pretty nascent. It was predominantly, people were going into stores. There was actually a while where people were buying beds on phones, but we sort of saw the market, which is very consolidated at the traditional brand retail level. So you have sort of Simmon's, Tempur Sealy, Sleep Number, Casper, which is the most well known and largest player of the D to C mattress brands head launched recently and had really done a good job at showing that this was a category that could generate interest online, somewhat of an atypical category with low, as I mentioned, low ecommerce penetration. What we saw as the issues that I mentioned earlier, we felt that Casper and a lot of the other brands that were starting to pop up were sort of maybe filling in one friction, but replacing it with a different friction.Adam:So all of us, including Helix, offer products directly to consumers at much better price points, helping out that value chain issue with traditional retailers. Everyone tries to provide a much better buying experience through a really good user experience on the website, 100 night trial, free shipping, et cetera. The issue where we really differentiate at Helix is around the product itself. So what Casper did and what pretty much every other planner space did was said, "It's really challenging to choose a mattress. So we're going to just get rid of choice altogether, and offer one type of mattress for every single person."Adam:And what we found doing a whole ton of research and talking to people, and it sort of makes sense that if you think about it implicitly, is that there really is a wide variety of needs and preferences as it relates to your mattress and to the way that you sleep, the same way that we all don't fit in the same clothing. We all don't have the same exercise routine that works best for us, the same diet. Sleep is quite personal. Adam:So one of our missions was effectively, could we help customers understand the right products for them through a sleep quiz that asks questions about things that you knew about yourself? So your body type, your height, your weight, do you tend to sleep on your back or your stomach? Do you get hot at night? Do you get cold? Do you have back pain? Do you like a bed a little bit firmer or softer? And then we take that information and effectively translate it into the best mattress for you. So the order of the layers in the mattress, the density of those layers, the types of materials, the density of those materials, are all really important for getting the best night's sleep and effectively that's what we're doing. So we like to think of it as sort of providing a technology enriched solution as a salesperson. So instead of going into the store and sort of hanging out with sales person, we do that online through our quiz.Stephanie:Very cool. And yeah, what I love about what I read about you guys was that you did a ton of research. I think I read that you went through 100 plus page PhD dissertations, and you partnered with researchers in Europe to make sure you really understood how to create this algorithm and this quiz. Tell me a bit about your thought process there, because I think that's so different than a lot of D to C companies right now who are just trying to get that quick launch, take advantage of the market, and are just going really quickly instead of taking a step back and doing the research and figuring out how to solve the problem.Adam:100%. I think for us, none of the three of us came from a traditional mattress background, right? And so we did what three nerdy guys would do, which is we started to do research. And we actually had this idea and stumbled across a PhD dissertation on sleep ergonomics, which is the study of the sort of spinal alignment of your back while you're sleeping. You hear a lot about spinal alignment and ergonomics and sort of office chairs, but this was really the first PhD dissertation on that, with bodies lying down. And we actually noticed that at the bottom of the PhD dissertation, the head author had left his email address. And so we emailed him.Adam:A couple of days later, we got on a Skype call with him. They were located in Europe and then about a week and a half later, we actually flew to Europe and met with them and effectively worked with them to translate their initial science into the crux of our initial algorithm, which over the last five years, we've sort of wholly taken ownership of, and refined quite a lot. And so it was sort of a funny story because it really was, we got on a plane and went to Belgium and had to figure out where we were going and all those types of things. But it was really important because we felt like we had a scientific base for the hypothesis that we were making.Adam:I think to your second part of the question, it's really interesting, this tension around, do I want to get to market as quickly as possible, or do we want to take a step back, feel really confident in the research, the development, the product testing? As you mentioned, we went through many, many versions of the mattress, many, many versions of the algorithm on how we matched people. And the approach that we took was that you really only get to come out to the world and present your product once, at least in physical products, that's sort of our belief as differentiated, perhaps, from a more technical product where you can have an MVP. We couldn't really sell a mattress that was only 50% as good as we wanted it to be one day, because we would get terrible product reviews, and we couldn't sort of build brand equity that way. And so we did a lot of work upfront to make sure that the product is where we wanted it to be.Stephanie:That's great. I mean, it seems like there's a lot of room to partner with researchers around a bunch of different topics, but what was that partnership like? I mean, when you went over to Belgium and you're essentially building out a model or an algorithm based on this person's research, were they like, "I want a piece of the pie, I want a little equity," or were they ready to give you all the information for free?Adam:Yeah, definitely. So we ended up working out a deal with them where effectively, they provided consulting services in exchange for equity in the business. Of course, that could have been consulting services for money. At the time, this was literally very, very early days. It was actually before we started working with them before we had raised our seed round. So there wasn't any money to pay them really. And so we went ahead with an equity relationship, which we felt made sense at the time. We still feel like it makes sense today. We don't really work with them at all and have not for a while, but it was really helpful to sort of supercharge our learning and understanding in terms of the development of the product and the algorithm.Stephanie:Very cool. I mean, have you had to iterate the model? Do you see people requesting different sleeping habits or behaviors? Have things changed for the past five years where you've actually had to change the model a couple times?Adam:Yeah, a lot actually. It's one of the biggest, from a consumer perspective, our differentiation is about providing personalization and a more custom mattress buying experience, but from a business bottle perspective, our ability to look at our algorithm or our model and effectively improve it is a really big lever to what makes us unique. And so if you think about what we're doing, is we're taking, as I said, information about yourself, matching it to a mattress. And so over the years, we've effectively, having sold hundreds of thousands of beds, we just have a lot more data. So we've been able to improve both the way that we match you, so person A with these attributes, are you getting matched to bed XYZ, and sort of edit, that as well as making physical product improvements to the beds themselves.Adam:So a lot of people talk about AB testing and talk about opportunities with using data to improve your product as it relates to your digital product, right? Your onsite conversion or your UX or something like that. We have taken that mentality to the physical product as well. And we've actually been able to reduce our return rate, improve customer satisfaction, improve average order value, all the main metrics associated with product and product satisfaction, by effectively looking at it in that light.Stephanie:Got it. And I also it was reading that the return rate, if you overemphasize how you have free returns and the 100 day, night guarantee and all that, if you overdo that, you'll be able to sell a lot more just because people have peace of mind. Even though I think I saw at least, I mean, it was a Casper stat, but it was only 10% of the people or less actually returned their mattress. Do you guys go about that same way of thinking of overemphasize things to make people feel like it's a risk free purchase?Adam:Yeah, I think there's two things there. I think that in our category, offering a fairly long return period, it's typically 100 nights, is kind of necessary, because you need to make someone feel confident in purchasing such a large, but really expensive item, right? Average order values in our category are really high. And so people want to feel really confident in the product that they're ordering. And that's why all of these brands are offering free returns, free shipping. In many cases, or in most cases, really generous policies around warranties, et cetera. It's just offering more opportunity to make someone feel comfortable with spending those dollars. So we definitely approach it that way.Adam:I wouldn't say that we necessarily overemphasize it. The reality is, most people need around two to four weeks to get used to a new mattress. And then after that, you don't really need another 70 days, but people tend to like that process. And in terms of return rates, you're right that return rates, they're honestly, I mean, Casper's return rate is probably higher than that number you said, but they're not as bad as retail, traditional apparel or something where return rates are 40, 50% or something like that.Stephanie:Yep. What happens when a mattress is returned? Where does it go?Adam:Yeah, that's a good question. So we do a few things. So when customers want to return a product, first, we work with them to see why, because there are ways we actually can improve the product experience after the fact. So we can send you a topper that adjusts the feel or other things along those lines, but in cases where mattresses need to be returned,, at Helix, at least we actually donate the vast majority of them. So we have a network of donation partners across the country where we will donate them. In some cases, we cannot donate them, either because there's state laws against it, or city laws against it, or if someone's located in a somewhat remote area. And in which case, we work with junk removal partners that end up recycling them. So all of our beds are technically, in the 100 night period, considered lightly used. So they're eligible for donation.Stephanie:That's great. So I was reading there's about over 100 companies now that sell mattresses online. How do you show how different your mattresses are and the algorithm that you have going on? How do you showcase that value proposition on your website or your advertising?Adam:Yeah, definitely. So it's a good question. And it's funny. That quote comes up a lot, the 100 plus mattress companies. It's one of those weird categories where there is a very long tail of players. So you probably have 10 to 15 players that have reached any semblance of scale, and then 80 that are very, very small. I mean, you would almost consider them, the equivalent would be like a mom and pop shop in retail world. What I will say is that buying a mattress is a long lead process. So when you decide you want to buy a bed, you're typically in market for it for a week, a few weeks, months even.Adam:And what that means is that you have many touch points with multiple brands, right? And you can imagine it's like buying a car, it's like buying anything that's expensive. And so across that journey, we feel like we do a really good job of sort of elevating our brand proposition and really personalizing our messaging specifically to consumers in ways that really speak to them so that our differentiation shines. The other thing is that, because of the way that we customize beds, and also that we really spend a lot of time on making sure that the product quality is excellent, is we just win a lot of awards. So we were named GQ's best mattress, Wired best mattress, whole host of others. And then we also get awards for specific affinity groups. So best mattress for back sleepers, best mattress for plus size consumers, or something like that. And we're able to elevate those messages on individual mattresses.Stephanie:Got it. Yeah. I saw, I think it was your organic line that won an award. How did you guys think about developing a new product that was organic materials? And also, launching like that, does it make your other products maybe not look as good? Or how did you guys think about that? Will it help or hurt us putting out an organic line? Because when I looked at it and I look at any organic products, it always makes you think, "Oh, well, what's in the other one if this one's made of natural materials and no chemicals?" So how did you guys think about that balance?Adam:Yeah, that's a great question. So we actually thought about that question a lot, and where we ended up and it's almost the core strategy of Helix is that throughout the first three and a half years of our business, we were holistically a single D to C brand Helix, right? Started out as just mattresses and then extended into other sleep products, pillows, sheets, box springs, adjustable bases, et cetera. And then about a year and a half ago, we took a step back, saw what we were building, which was this really fast, growing profitable brand, and in a category that we were sort of one of the leaders in, but what we saw under the hood was this really excellent collection of skillsets across our team, across our technology, some in-house built technology, across our supply chain capabilities and relationships. Could we view ourselves less as a single brand and more as a platform on which we could build a portfolio of home good brands?Adam:And that is the strategy that we are currently on. And so Helix is our sort of most well-known largest brand, but Birch, which is our organic line, or our organic brand, was launched about a year ago. And it is actually a sort of related, but completely separate brand. So if you were to go to birchliving.com, you would effectively see an entirely organic ecosystem with the goal of really feeling, I mean, truthfully feeling authentic to consumers that care about organic products, that supply chain is 100% sustainable. It's just a much different consumer. And so we want to make sure we talk to that niche consumer in a specific way that is perhaps different than a typical Helix consumer. And we've extended that process out more recently with the launch of All Form, which is our actually our first step out of the bedroom into the living room, which is a modular furniture brand.Stephanie:I love that. I mean, that seems so smart because it's different consumers are looking for different things and like you were just mentioning, if you're comparing the two, then you might actually walk away feeling bad if you went with the one that wasn't organic, but when you have it on a completely different site, you're really meeting the needs of the person who's coming there instead of trying to put everything on one site. So I love that.Adam:Yeah. I think it's certainly a slightly different strategy, but we just feel like consumers, especially online consumers, want niche experiences and want experiences that really speak to who they are, and their preferences. And we were sort of already doing that on the product side with Helix, but it made sense to do it in this scenario on the brand side with Birch as well.Stephanie:Yep. How do you keep track of everything that's happening under the different brands and the different websites? I mean, how do you make sure any learnings that happen at Birch are maybe transferred over to Helix and over to the furniture line? How do you keep it cohesive when you essentially have now three or four different businesses running?Adam:Yeah. It's hard for sure. I think we're currently operating under a shared services model, so we don't have a team that just does Helix and a team that just does Birch or a team that just does All Form. We're just not there. The other two brands are just not at that scale yet, but so that makes this actually a little bit easier because you have the same people that work in a functional area,, working across all of the brands, but it's certainly challenging, for sure. And we've been able to take a lot of learnings from Helix specifically, which is an older brand. It just has a lot more data. It has more customers on a daily and monthly basis, and leverage those learnings across the other brands, which it's typically in that direction from a [inaudible 00:22:02].Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, there seems like there's a big opportunity to also re-target prior customers because you already know how to talk to them. You've already sold to them before, and then showing them your new furniture line or the pillows or bed frame, even if it's on a different website, you kind of already know how to communicate that to them in a way that has converted in the past.Adam:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that's the core business case, right? And from a business perspective, we like that because it allows us to acquire a customer, build a lot of good will with that customer, and then sell them more products, right? Obviously, but from a consumer perspective, we also think it adds a lot of value to the customer journey because customers that are in market for things like mattresses tend to be in market for other home good products. Maybe you're moving, maybe you're renovating, maybe you got married, maybe you had a kid. Something is predicating your reason for being in market. And in many cases, if we can sort of create a lot of good will with you and then offer you more products, it's not just good for our business. It's also good for the customer because it makes shopping easier, right? it makes your purchase cycle and shopping and all of that a lot easier. And so that's what we're starting to do now. And where we're excited to move in the future.Stephanie:Okay, cool. So I also saw that you guys, I don't know if you still have showrooms, but you did have some showrooms in New York. And the process was that a customer would come in and they would take the quiz and then they would go to the showroom and maybe hang out for an hour, take a nap, try out the mattress. How has that model changed? And what's going on with maybe not having the ability to bring people into a showroom and try it out?Adam:Yeah, definitely. So we had a showroom in New York. It's obviously been closed for the last nine months. It was a really unique experience because it felt extremely personal, because it was really personal. It almost felt more like you were getting a piece of clothing tailored because you would show up, in many cases you would actually make an appointment in advance. We would have your information. We would actually build the bed for you on the spot. You'd be part of that process. And then you could hang out, test it, et cetera. And we tried to make the experience really, really great. It's unfortunate that we've had to close it. We have plans of moving into a more aggressive thoughts around potentially showrooms or retail units going forward.  Stephanie:And so when thinking about your marketing toolkit, what are some of your favorite channels to get in front of new customers right now?Adam:Yeah, so I think that we approach marketing extremely holistically. We have a very, very diversified marketing approach. Part of the reason for that is we think it just mitigates risk. It's very scary when 80% of your marketing budget is in one single channel, especially if one of those channels is a technology marketplace, or if it's Google or Facebook, and all of a sudden the Google algorithm changes, or Facebook gets rid of a targeted audience and that's it. And that actually happened in the home goods category a few years ago on Facebook.Stephanie:What did they take away?Adam:Yeah, I think it was 2018. They took away, there was a way that Facebook could help identify new movers, and they took that away, and we weren't super hit by it, but I know a lot of home goods brands and a lot of mattress companies, it was overnight, 30% of your ads disappeared, that kind of thing. So we don't do that.Stephanie:That's interesting that we're even talking about new movers because I'm in the process of moving right now and thinking about, "Do I just want to buy a new mattress, so when we get there, it's already set up?" Because it's going to take maybe a week or so to get all my stuff there. That's very smart to target people like me.Adam:Yeah. And so we try to avoid that just being too aggregated in a single channel. And so we're really diversified. The other thing is we operate almost all of our channels in house. It's just really important to us to be internal and holistic about it. So yeah, I mean in terms of channels that we love, it's nothing crazy. We're obviously across all the digital channels, radio, podcast, direct mail, all of those. I think if there is magic, the magic for us is really around thinking through the customer funnel holistically and making sure we understand and attribute accordingly with a pretty diversified marketing stack.Stephanie:Cool. So when thinking about 2021, what kind of trends are you most excited about, or new behaviors that you've seen occurring that you guys are excited about?Adam:Yeah. I think there's a lot. I think obviously just in general, COVID has really accelerated ecommerce adoption in atypical categories. And so I think that's pretty exciting to see where that settles once, hopefully, the world gets back to normal. I think a few areas that we're particularly interested in is there's a lot of movement on payment options and better opportunities for people to pay, which is sort of exciting. Another one is really around blending products and services. So sort of offering services and attaching them to products and using those as ways to better convert customers, and the tools available to do that are pretty interesting.Adam:Yeah, and then just for us, it's really around continuing to personalize our web experience, provide better customer experience, and those types of things. So I think 2021 is going to be a really interesting year. I think it's actually going to be two distinct years in one, the first half and the second half will be just completely different for a lot of businesses. And I actually would encourage anyone that's thinking about either starting a business or budgeting for a business to think about the world that way, you might actually want to have budgets for a beginning of the year plan and a second half of the year plan, because it's just really hard to know where we'll be. I feel confident in knowing where we'll be for the next three to four months, but after that, it's going to be a completely new experience.Stephanie:Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. So I want to dig a bit more into, you were just mentioning about merging products and services, and I haven't heard anyone talk about that yet. So I want to hear more, what are you thinking around that? What kind of tools are popping up that you have top of mind?Adam:Yeah, so I think for us, merging products and services, there's a few forms of it. One, which is at its most face value, it's just offering more services as if they were products. So that would be things like white glove delivery, things like old mattress removal, those types of services, which technically aren't really physical products, but they help convert customers into buying your physical products. Perhaps the more interesting areas as it relates to customer experience, and can you empower your customer experience team to provide service as opposed to just being an answer center? Right?Adam:So I think a lot of people view customer experience or customer service as an area where people go and ask questions, but can you be more proactive in providing service, whether that service be design consultation, be helping think through answering questions, or whatever it might be that really activate almost a little bit more a sales channel. I think that that's really interesting as well for us. And then I know a lot of other people are thinking about other types of services they can offer. Obviously, this is just what we're thinking about. But I think that you're going to see a lot more web experiences that are trying to provide a service-like experience to a consumer in addition to a product.Stephanie:Got it. Yeah. And it seems like once some of those services start happening, though, a lot of times, they can become commoditized where then the consumer just starts to expect it. I mean, I'm even thinking about contactless delivery and things like that, where it might cost some businesses extra money to be able to do that, or take a mattress away or whatever it may be. But I think eventually it will become standard, and that businesses need to start planning for, what are the consumers looking for now? And what will eventually have to be absorbed into the margin because it's commoditized?Adam:Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think that if what you're adding is something that can be easily commoditized, it certainly will be. If what you're adding is differentiated, unique, and valuable, then you should be able to charge for that value, right? It's sort of that simple. And so I think the example I use, white glove delivery, that's not unique to us. We're not the only people that can do that obviously.Adam:And so offering that, perhaps, could be something that becomes table stakes, or something that consumers come to have a level of expectation, but offering really niche opportunities to engage with someone on our CX team to help you through the buying process, that's not a commodity, right? That's something that you can really get to an amazing place through training and through branding and through just the entirety of your ecosystem, in my opinion. And so I definitely agree that some of these things could be monetized, but if you're doing them right, you should be able to, either, it should show up in your financials somewhere, whether it's you can charge more, your conversion rate is better, et cetera.Stephanie:All right. Let's move over to the lightning round, brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Adam?Adam:I hope so.Stephanie:All right. First up, if you had a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Adam:If I had a podcast, I mean, this is a boring answer right now. It would be on effectively what I was just talking about, which is the future of D to C. And my first guest would probably be Jeff Raider from Harry's.Stephanie:Oh, that's a good one. Awesome. What's up next on your Netflix queue?Adam:I'm about to finish the last episode of Queen's Gambit and I love it. It's really cool. I like it a lot.Stephanie:So good. I like that too, it's awesome. What topic or trend do you not understand today that you wish you did?Adam:I dabbled in high-level cryptocurrency a year and a half ago and I just don't understand it at all. So I wish I knew it better because I think there's opportunity there, but I'm not sure I'm the guy that's going to find it.Stephanie:What's the nicest thing someone's ever done for you?Adam:Wow. The nicest thing someone's ever done for me?Stephanie:I get that response a lot. "Whoa, deep."Adam:Yeah, I mean that's deep. I don't know. I mean, my wife married me. That was pretty nice. I'm pretty happy about that.Stephanie:What a nice lady.Adam:I know, right? What a nice... I guess that the nicest thing... I'll just bring it back to Helix. I don't know if that's a boring answer or not, but we had some pretty awesome early advisers that really didn't need to give the time that they gave, and it was just immensely valuable. So I'll go with that.Stephanie:That's a good one. All right. And then the last one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?Adam:Well, the real answer is COVID and the vaccine, that is the answer. And I think that anyone that tells you it's not macroeconomic facts is lying. From an internal standpoint, I'll go back to something I said earlier. I think that the movement in payment processing is a pretty big deal and not a lot of people are thinking about it, and I think that's going to be a big deal.Stephanie:Yep. Cool. All right, Adam. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Helix?Adam:Yeah, definitely. So come check us out. It's HelixSleep.com for Helix. For Birch, it's BirchLiving.com. And for All Form, the modular sofa brand, it's AllForm.com. Yeah. And that's sort of the best place to check us out and learn more.Stephanie:Awesome. All right. Well, thanks so much and have a great night.Adam:All right. Thank you so much.

Jeff Raider is the co-founder of two highly successful direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands, Warby Parker and Harry’s, both being valued in the Billions of $. He studied at Wharton University where he met his tutor, marketing professor and DTC-guru, David Bell, who himself invested in both of Jeff’s companies. Two protagonists of the DTC space talk with us about what it takes to be successful with a direct-to-consumer brand, about how important Amazon is, if DTC is a chance or threat for already established brands of multinationals and what potential social commerce has in an omni-channel strategy.

Why are glasses so expensive? Dave Gilboa could not stop asking himself that question. After leaving his $700 pair of eyeglasses on an airplane while returning from Southeast Asia, he could not wrap his head around why a technology that was so archaic could cost him more than his iPhone. Within his first weeks as an MBA student at the Wharton School of Business, he repeatedly brought this question up among some of his new peers. Gilboa, along with fellow students Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt, and Jeff Raider, had all shared in the pain of losing or breaking glasses and had all agreed: the high markup made no sense. Inspired by Gilboa’s pricey misfortune, the four of them founded Warby Parker. Now led by co-CEOs Gilboa and Blumenthal, the billion-dollar empire with 2,000 employees is revolutionizing the prescription glasses industry by selling stylish eyewear online at affordable prices. The New York City-based company is also on a mission to combat the global problem of impaired vision through its charitable Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program. Since the company’s start, the program has distributed over 5 million pairs of glasses to those in need by donating a pair of glasses for every one sold. But long before they could build an ecommerce giant, the team would first have to learn how to even build a website. A Moment of Clarity Prior to going to Wharton, all four co-founders had already spent some considerable time in the workforce. This allowed for each of them to gain valuable real-world experience, and it helped guide them to understanding if they had an actual problem to solve and a business to move forward with. However, it was Blumenthal’s experience while running the nonprofit VisionSpring that would become crucial to the early concept of Warby Parker. During his time with the company, they trained low-income women in the developing world to start their own businesses. Participants were to take their new skillsets back to their rural communities and administer vision screenings and sell glasses. But it was something else Blumenthal had witnessed that would have a lasting impression on him. “I had been to the factories,” Blumenthal says. “Here I was producing glasses for people who were making less than four dollars a day, but 10 feet away were factories that were producing…the $700 pair of glasses Dave had. So we knew something was awry.” A light bulb went off and the classmates soon pulled together $120,000 and went to work on developing Warby Parker in 2008. The problem they wanted to solve: How can we make glasses we want, but at a low cost? Eager to launch, but more focused on preparation and planning, the founders began sketching out all the main aspects of the company. With limited funding, they knew they’d have to really refine and plan each facet of their business before revealing it to the public. Their first steps were to design glasses that they’d want to wear and then find a manufacturer who could produce them for less, starting with Blumenthal’s connections. The next step would be trying to figure out how to sell their glasses directly to the consumer. The answer was simple. “This magical thing called the internet,” Blumenthal says. The founders all knew that ecommerce was an innovation they wanted to take advantage of for their direct-to-consumer brand. Had they come up with this idea 10 years prior, the company may not have gone any further than an idea. With a brick-and-mortar store requiring a lease, utilities, and other costs, they knew it would be hard to make their new dream a reality with limited capital. “If we did , we would have one location that we might be able to attract some local customers, but with the power of the internet, we were able to all of a sudden, launch a store to the entire US,” Gilboa says. But there was a small problem. None of them knew how to build an online store, nor did they understand the many other details that came with creating an online shopping experience. “We started talking to friends on how you build a website,” Blumenthal says. “And then we started visiting a bunch of websites that we would normally already go to. But now with a critical eye, we were understanding, okay, what’s the shopping flow?” Over the next year and a half, the four of them kept chipping away at all the details of Warby Parker. Nothing got overlooked. They spent countless hours going over the vision and mission of the company, and worked on all the brand architecture of what they wanted their company to be. In addition, the group constantly sought out feedback from friends and professors. Could something like this work? One glaring concern that kept surfacing was whether or not a person would actually buy a pair of glasses online. With fit being so important, it would be hard for a person to gauge on a computer screen if a pair of glasses would fit their face and feel comfortable. This forced them to reconsider their business model, and ever the problem solvers, the home try-on program was born. Breaking new ground, Warby Parker would allow a customer to select five pairs of glasses from the website and then ship them free of charge, allowing five days to test out the frames. This was a major ecommerce innovation that would get them past the biggest challenge facing the business’s core premise. But there was one other challenge that would prove nearly impossible to overcome—agreeing on a name. Thank You, Jack Prior to Warby Parker’s launch, brands had already started to emerge that were selling glasses online. Customers were able to purchase glasses from sites such as 39DollarGlasses.com and FramesDirect.com, but they were sacrificing other elements, such as quality and customer service, for their lower prices. The founders wanted to take a different approach with their company. They wanted to launch a fashion brand that not only offered great quality, prices, and service, but also one that made the world a better place. The company vision was clear and ambitious. But they could not come up with a name. “We wanted kind of a proper name and didn’t think Gilboa-Blumenthal, our last names, really rolled off the tongue,” Gilboa says. They sought out inspiration and ideas from historical authors and artists. People who represented the brand ideals that they were trying to carry out. One author that stood out to them was Jack Kerouac, the novelist and poet who was a pioneer of the beat generation. Coincidentally, the New York Public Library was holding an exhibit one afternoon with some of Kerouac’s private diaries and journals. Seeking inspiration, Gilboa made a visit to the exhibit and stumbled upon some of Kerouac’s unpublished works, finding some interesting character names. Two jumped off the page: Warby Pepper and Zagg Parker. “So I took those back and the four of us were discussing,” Gilboa says. “We all loved those names and were debating, do we pick one of those, and we decided to combine the two and make it our own. And the URL happened to be available for nine bucks.” After six months of debating and with over 2,000 names rejected, Warby Parker came to life. Getting Noticed The challenge for any new brand is figuring out how to gain exposure. With a small marketing budget, the co-founders had to be strategic about finding a cost-effective way to maximize their exposure in such a competitive industry. Realizing glasses are an accessory and that the fashion industry was an insider’s game, the team hired a fashion publicist to help set up meetings with editors and writers at major publications. In February of 2010, WarbyParker.com officially went live. Within days of launching the website, they were featured in GQ, where they were dubbed “the Netflix of eyewear.” Soon after, another profile appeared in Vogue. From there, things went viral. “We ended up hitting our first year’s sales targets in three weeks,” Blumenthal says. “Sold out of our top 15 styles in four weeks and it was just complete mayhem.” Soon, they found themselves sold out of all their inventory with a waitlist of over 20,000 new customers. Warby Parker was an overnight success, a year and a half in the making. Onward & Upward Today, Warby Parker is valued at over $1 billion and has cemented its place among the top glasses retailers in the world. Even after they made it to the big time, however, the team kept innovating. In 2013, Gilboa and Blumenthal began to expand their brand with more storefronts, having now opened close to 100 stores in the US and Canada. And within some of those stores, they’ve begun to employ their own optometrists where states allow it. On the technology side, they’ve found new ways to cater to the customer. Within the Warby Parker app, any customer with an iPhone X can now virtually try on any one of their frames. In addition, they’ve made a move into telemedicine by allowing eligible customers to take eye exams from their phones, allowing a licensed doctor to write them a prescription remotely. But no matter how large the company becomes, the team’s underlying values remain the same: they do whatever it takes to make customers happy. 3 Tips for Standing Out From the Crowd When Neil Blumenthal, Dave Gilboa, Andrew Hunt, and Jeff Raider founded Warby Parker in 2010, they knew it wouldn’t be easy. But with the right planning, execution, and maybe some good luck, they felt they could make the world a little better, one pair of glasses at a time. The founding team knew that in order to get any attention in the noisy fashion industry, they had to be different and they had to stand out. Here are Blumenthal and Gilboa’s tips for helping your new startup gain exposure. Be Novel From the beginning, the founders knew that it would be hard to get any immediate attention in the fashion industry without the help of insiders. They knew their service and product would be different from any other retailer before them, but if no one knew who they were, it wouldn’t matter. So the team hired a fashion publicist to get them meetings with top fashion publications. By being able to tell their story directly to their target audience, and through a medium that their audience trusted, it was a giant step in the right direction. And since Warby Parker was so different from its competitors, once it got on the insider crowd’s radar, it wasn’t hard for them to draw media attention. “There was a bunch of things that we were doing that were novel,” Blumenthal says. “Selling glasses online, in 2010, was pretty novel. Having this home try-on program was really novel. Providing a pair of glasses for every pair we sell, was really novel. Charging $95 instead of $500 was really novel. So they really wanted to write about us.” In today’s startup world, it’s never been more crowded and harder to stand out. Be different with your concept and separate yourself from the fray. Don’t Get Distracted  Although WarbyParker.com went live in February of 2010, the four co-founders spent over a year and a half focusing on their company’s mission, product, and business model. And after they found success, staying focused became an even more important priority. “We got some advice early on that if you’re walking down a path towards a giant pot of gold, you shouldn’t stop to get distracted by any shiny little coin that you see along the way,” Gilboa says. It would have been easy for Warby Parker to launch dozens of different products or to expand into new markets for monetary gain. However, that would’ve brought about great distractions that could have pulled them from their main goal, which is to solve their customers’ problems by offering them quality products and experiences. “We’ve just seen so many businesses that have failed due to lack of focus,” Gilboa says. “But it’s rare that you’ll see a business that fails for being too focused.” Remember the problems your business is trying to solve and stay focused on it. By always learning and iterating, you’re working towards providing the best service possible for your customers. Above All Else, Make the Customer Happy From the very beginning, the Warby Parker team knew they had to keep their customers happy. They understood that they had to not only provide a great product, but also provide superb customer service. In the beginning, all four co-founders were directly in touch with their customers. They each replied to customer emails and even set up an 800 number that would be sent to their personal cell phones until someone picked up. They were willing to do anything to make sure the customer was always satisfied. “Do whatever it takes to make customers happy and make them feel good,” Blumenthal says. “Smile, personal notes, whatever it takes.” Interview by Nathan Chan, feature article reprinted from Foundr Magazine, by Nick Allen Key Takeaways How losing a pair of $700 glasses led Blumenthal and Gilboa, along with fellow MBA students Andrew Hunt and Jeff Raider, to identify a major business problem How Blumenthal’s experience of running a nonprofit informed the early stages of Warby Parker A look into the 1.5 year process of bringing the co-founders’ business idea to life Why the team decided to merge eyewear and ecommerce The process of familiarizing themselves with the world of online shopping and websites How the name Warby Parker came to be, and why it took brainstorming over 2,000 names to get there The team’s cost-effective approach to marketing and launching the website How powerful press placement led to a sold-out inventory and a waitlist of over 20,000 new customers within weeks What’s in store (literally) for the future of Warby Parker The single piece of advice Gilboa and Blumenthal received that helped them be successful, and how other entrepreneurs can apply it to their own business

Jeff Raider is helping you see and shave. He's the co-founder of Warby Parker, an online retailer of prescription glasses and sunglasses, and the co-founder and co-CEO of Harry's, a shaving and men's grooming products company. They then launched Flamingo, a hair grooming and shaving company for women. Jeff is the definition of a modern entrepreneur; an online savvy, hard working, business innovator. He tells Bobbi about going up against th e big razor companies and how his entrepreneur spirit and risk taking has kept him and his companies successful.

Jeff Raider is a serial entrepreneur. The first company he cofounded was Warby Parker which is a lifestyle brand that offers designer eyewear at a revolutionary price. With over 2,000 employees, the company has raised $300 million from top tier investors at what is rumored to be a valuation of almost $2 billion. Jeff is currently the cofounder and CEO at Harry‘s which allows users to buy razors, German engineered blades and shaving creams. The company employs over 1,000 people and has raised $375 million with a valuation of over $1 billion.

Jeff Raider is a serial entrepreneur. The first company he cofounded was Warby Parker which is a lifestyle brand that offers designer eyewear at a revolutionary price. With over 2,000 employees, the company has raised $300 million from top tier investors at what is rumored to be a valuation of almost $2 billion. Jeff is currently the cofounder and CEO at Harry‘s which allows users to buy razors, German engineered blades and shaving creams. The company employs over 1,000 people and has raised $375 million with a valuation of over $1 billion.

Jeff Raider Co-Founded Warby Parker (eye-glasses) and Harry's (shaving), two billion dollar companies before the age of forty. What's Jeff's secret, and why on earth did he leave a rocket ship like Warby Parker to create another company? If you're not familiar with Harry's, they have over a million customers (me included) and is competitors with Gillette and Dollar Shave Club, which was sold to Unilever in 2016 for a billion dollars. But Jeff's entrepreneurship journey didn't begin in the board room. His mom started a company when he was 11, which had many bad months with no sales leaving Jeff and the family on an entrepreneurial rollercoaster. In this episode Jeff shares his story, what he learned and his favorite lessons for aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs. Enjoy!

Jeff Raider is the cofounder and co-CEO of the razor company Harry’s, an online subscription service that sends high-end razors to customers at a low cost. The company raised $112 million earlier this year to move the brand beyond shaving to include all kinds of men's grooming products. Before cofounding Harry's, Raider also pioneered the eyewear company Warby Parker, which became successful using a similar model of online retail. Raider's focus is on building brands he'd like to use in his own life. But before he became an entrepreneur, he was at Wharton Business School on a typical path to finance.

Jeff Raider, formerly of Warby Parker, took his success at the eyeglass startup and leveraged it to launch a razor company -- a crazy endeavor considering the space is dominated by industry giant Gillette and online rival, Dollar Shave Club. But cofounder Raider felt Harry's could infuse soul into the shaving experience combined with great attention to craft going out of his way to purchase a 100-year-old razor company in Germany because the cofounders felt it made the best blades in the world. Hear Raider talk about how he's tackling the shaving industry prioritizing customer experience and quality product.

Jeff Raider has helped pioneer a high quality, low cost model for selling consumer products like glasses and razors online. He tells Jonathan Moules how he did it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode of the Tony Robbins Podcast, we are bringing you back to Business Mastery, where Tony recently led a panel discussion with the business leaders behind some of today’s fastest growing companies. And this time, you’re going to hear from one of the founders of a company that changed the eyewear business forever. If you have ever worn eyeglasses, then you know that the traditional process is expensive and inconvenient. On average, a pair of glasses costs nearly $300. And the trips you have to make to the retailer to sift through the pairs, try them on, and order your final choice can really stack up. It’s a real pain point for a lot of people. But that is exactly why four friends at Wharton Business School decided to start a business that did something about it. Neil Blumenthal, Dave Gilboa, Andy Hunt and Jeff Raider launched Warby Parker in 2010. The premise was simple - offer customers high-quality eyewear at affordable prices, and establish a convenient, direct-to-consumer model so that customers could get eyeglasses anytime and anywhere. But what made this company so special was how focused they were on perfecting the customer experience and the massive amounts of research and experimentation they did to find that sweet spot.  In this episode, you are going to hear from Neil Blumenthal on the vision behind Warby Parker, why it was so critical for them to optimize every single dollar they put into the company and the tools and strategies that helped them build Warby Parker into a billion dollar business.

Jeff Raider is the co-founder of Warby Parker and Harry's. This episode goes deep in the weeds of building a company and building a brand . We talk about Jeff’s journey building 100 year brands at Warby Parker & Harry’s, mistakes and lessons learned from building and scaling those companies, his philosophy on hiring and firing, and much more. Edited by @AlexKontis Lavish Praise to @JeffreyRaider Constructive Criticism to @Eriktorenberg

In this week’s edition of FAST FORWARD, FOX Business Network's Jo Ling Kent talks to Jeff Raider, co-founder of Harry’s, a company focusing on men’s shaving products. In the Reboot segment Jo discusses how the most popular social media sites are being used by terrorists. Plus, which of your favorite streaming services is moving to add premium cable channels? Jo has all the details. Subscribe and get automatic downloads of this podcast on iTunes Join FOX Business Network's Jo Ling Kent with this edition of Fast Forward FAST FORWARD is a podcast on tech, innovation and media. Every week, FAST FORWARD, digs into today's stories with the most dynamic leaders and voices. Featuring the inventors, innovators and investors who shape the future while we wait patiently in the present, we leverage our Fox Business intel to explore what happened, why and what's coming next. And robots. Lots of robots. Follow Jo on Twitter @JoLingKent #FOXFastForward Click here for more “Fast Forward” with Jo Ling Kent

Join us for this episode of Movember Radio as we chat to Jeff Raider, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Harry’s, a men’s grooming company with products designed and formulated for a quality shave. A successful entrepreneur, Jeff believes in giving back to the community, which he does through Harry’s and his other co-founded company, Warby Parker. Tune in to find out more about the impact Jeff and his employees are having and how he got involved with the Movember Foundation. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jeff Raider is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Harry’s. Harry’s is on a mission to make the shaving process easier: all you have to do is enter the number of blades you want and how often you want to get them, and Harry's will send razors right to your door. Before starting Harry’s, Jeff was one of the co-founders of Warby Parker, and many are now calling Harry’s "The Warby Parker of shaving."

Today on Cause Talk Radio, Megan and Joe talk to Jeff Raider, co-founder of men's grooming brand Harry's, on their signature cause platform Give a Shave, which supports causes with one percent of sales and one percent of volunteer time. Jeff shares how they are rolling out this program with their newest partner, City Year. Jeff talks about the companies that inspired Harry's to have a strong cause connection, including his first venture, eyewear company Warby Parker. They also discuss the challenges cause businesses like Harry's face and how causepreneurs need to lead with an outstanding product, transparency and a commitment to social impact. If you run or are interested in cause businesses, or are a budding halopreneur hoping to one day to be a causepreneur, this episode is for you! Tune in now.

Dan and guest Jeff Raider, one of the founders of Warby Parker and Harry's, discuss startups, investors, and timing as it relates to quitting your job to work on your dream. Links for this episode:Designer Frames & Online Eyeglasses - $95 Rx Glasses | Warby ParkerMeet the Founders | Warby ParkerHarry's - Great Shave. Fair Price. Simple.Use this URL and Dan will get some blades as a referral bonus. Jeff Raider (jeffreyraider) on TwitterSponsored by Shutterstock (use offer code DANSENTME4 for 30% off) and Ting.