Warby Parker Founders Earned Millions By Making Glasses More Affordable | TODAY

it was the year President Obama first was elected to the White House that for business school buddies were cooking up an idea that would change an industry we've all at some point had that brilliant idea that was going to change the world and make us Millions but very few of us get past the dream stage the guys who started the game-changing eyewear company Warby Parker started with a simple question why do I glasses cost so much the answer took them from a classroom study group to a billion dollar company I remember vividly we were in the computer lab at Jeff and I were talking Andy and Dave came up and said hey like why are glass is so expensive or you worked at a non-profit that distributed eyeglasses in the developing world and sort of paused said there's really no reason Neil Blumenthal Dave Gilboa Jeff Rader and Andy hunt were classmates at the Wharton School of Business in 2008 when they asked their questions his story goes day that you left a pair of glasses and a seat back on an airplane I'd spent a few months traveling before business school had left a seven hundred dollar pair of glasses on an airplane and I just bought a new iPhone but I paid $200 for that and it did all these magical things that I couldn't have contemplated were possible even a few years earlier meanwhile the technology behind a pair of glasses is 800 years old your first mistake of course was owning a 700 I think that was the less you should take away from that one yeah exactly it serves him right we had this personal pinpoint and we built Warby Parker to solve that for ourselves and then lots of other people Blumenthal knew there was a better way because of his experience working for Vision spring a non-profit there provides glasses to the poor in developing countries we were producing glasses for people living less than four dollars a day and literally ten feet away on the same production lines where some of the most famous names in fashion were being produced what's the typical markup on a pair of glasses 10 to 12 times from what they're being manufactured for it so just the markups in this industry are are crazy one company luxottica dominates the industry as the world's largest designer manufacturer distributor and Tayler of eyeglasses most consumers don't realize that most I wear brands that they've heard of including major fashion labels like Chanel Prada Dolce Gabanna are manufactured by the same company so from a booth at nearby Roosevelt's pub the four classmates plotted a shake up of the entire glass industry and Warby Parker was born what were some of the early reactions you guys got to the idea I think lots been like a cool project guys when you're on this entrepreneurial journey it's a roller coaster you have days where you're like this is awesome and then you have days where like we are the dumbest people on the planet introducing Warby Parker just 95 dollars per pair in stylish Styles both handsome and pretty they chose the name Warby Parker by combining two characters in Jack Kerouac snob old the Dharma bumps and for every pair of the $95 glasses a customer buys for more.we Parker another pair is donated to someone in need do you guys think you could make more money if you weren't giving away after glasses or is it because you give away after glasses that the business is doing well you think we certainly maximize short-term profits but we think we'd be making a mistake we really view it as a great long-term investment before Warby Parker had 20 sleek retail stores with 20 more planned this year the guys sold their glasses exclusively online working out of Neal's Philadelphia apartment the fact that we kept receiving from people as how am I gonna buy glasses online I want to touch and feel them I want to try them on what if we just sent people frames to try on at home that gets over this fit issue they'll touch the frames they'll look in the mirror and they'll be like this is great so this idea of a home Tryon really came from a moment of self-doubt and that gave us the confidence to keep moving forward everything changed one day in February of 2010 when GQ posted an article calling Warby Parker the Netflix of eyewear as soon as the GQ article hits I remember all of us are over in Neil's apartment and we have a mobile app that's showing us the orders as they come in it just kept going faster and faster and faster and you know there's a limited supply we had wait list of 20,000 customers we were out of inventory for about nine months and is it good problem to have but we were all terrified that we had all these early adopters that were really excited about our brand and we were leaving them with a disappointing early experience so they reached out to those customers personally every last one of them need to take Jeff off the phones because he would just give everybody free just dishing them out like whatever team or glasses you gonna wear so that we'd be sitting in a lecture all of us typing and you know the professor giving a lecture and we're answering customer service email so when's the breakthrough moment then where you say we're done with the bootstraps this is not a mom-and-pop shop anymore I mean the company shot off like a rocket ship we hit our first year sales targets in three weeks sold out our top 15 styles in four weeks it was mayhem last year Fast Company magazine named Warby Parker the most innovative company in the world over the likes of Apple Google and Alibaba and just five years after it was born Warby was valued at well over 1 billion dollars the bigger we get and each one of those milestones that we hit we realized that there's such a big opportunity in front of us and we're just motivated to continue to grow and have more impact over time one of our very first frames to Roosevelt's we're named after and that first bar that so we made the decision to start the business do you ever stop and say wow I can't believe we pulled this off a couple years ago we announced that we distributed million pairs of glasses to people in need throughout life in the FEHB program and just thinking about the scale that we had achieved and in such a short time period forced us to take a step back and and realize that we we've accomplished a lot and a creature of man time people often ask us well aren't you afraid of the big optical companies it's like no we're actually more afraid of four guys just like us you know sitting in a dorm room somewhere thinking up a better way to provide glasses to people show of hands who actually needs the glasses they're wearing today fifty percent not otherwise you're just walking billboards is that right that's right that's what accessories yeah advertise sorry guys had to ask Neil and Dave run the company while Andy has moved on to venture capital and Jeff has undertaken his next active disruption with the company Harry's which aims to do to the shaving industry what Warby Parker has done to eyewear and if you've dreamed of creating your own billion-dollar business want to get Neil's thoughts on how to do it check out our web extra at today.com slap hello today fans thanks for checking out our youtube channel subscribe by clicking that button down there and click on any of the videos over here to watch the latest interviews show highlights and digital exclusives

Channel: TODAY

Views: 69,959

Rating: 4.8613038 out of 5

Keywords: Today Show, Today, Show, Todayshow, NBC, Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie, morning show, entertainment news, news, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, interview, Carson Daly, Willie Geist, Tamron Hall, Today show recipes, Today Show concert series, Kathie Lee and, Neil Blumenthal, Dave Gilboa, Jeff Raider, Andy Hunt, Warby Parker, Warby Parker Founders, Warby Parker Owners, Glasses

Id: AWRF2wvUDxQ

Length: 7min 29sec (449 seconds)

Published: Mon May 02 2016