MVP & prototyping

Podcast

Founder advice on funding, manufacturing, and growth strategy

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 23, 2025

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MVP & prototyping 8

Bootstrapping 8

Supply chain 7

• Start with the simplest product — complexity kills early momentum
• Niche podcasts beat broad social spend for small marketing budgets
• Going all in means finding flexible income, not quitting bills cold

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How Ben Leventhal built Eater and Resy from restaurant obsession

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 20, 2025

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Founder interviews 10

Product-market fit 7

Business models 6

• Resy's surge-pricing model collapsed within five months of launch
• Restaurants told Ben exactly what to build — he listened
• Selling to Amex for $200M right before COVID was perfect timing

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Jack Conte of Patreon on community, product-market fit, and scaling advice

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 16, 2025

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Founder interviews 10

Product-market fit 8

Niche selection 7

• Speed of iteration beats strategy when searching for product-market fit.
• The creative middle class — not mega-stars — drives most of Patreon's payments.
• Selling to schools requires a completely different playbook than selling to parents.

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Case studies

Podcast

How Bombas built a $250M sock brand by fixing what nobody noticed

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 13, 2025

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Case studies 10

Bootstrapping 8

MVP & prototyping 6

• VC rejections forced profitable growth — and saved the company.
• Socks are the most-requested item at homeless shelters; that one fact launched Bombas.
• 137 prototype iterations just to get calf tension right.

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Scaling a food brand: lessons from the founder of LÄRABAR

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 9, 2025

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Founder interviews 9

MVP & prototyping 7

Branding 6

• Use an early market as a testing ground before expanding.
• Product quality matters more than founder personality or brand story.
• Getting placed in the wrong retail category can kill a product.

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Case studies

Podcast

How Todd Graves built Raising Cane's on a single menu item

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 6, 2025

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Case studies 10

Business models 8

Bootstrapping 6

• Four-item menu outperforms every fast food chain except Chick-fil-A
• Funded the first restaurant by working dangerous Alaskan fishing boats
• Bought back most franchisees to keep full control of quality

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Case studies

Podcast

Brett Schulman of CAVA on scaling focus and fighting self-doubt

How I Built This with Guy Raz January 2, 2025

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Case studies 9

Resilience & grit 8

Business models 7

• What you don't do matters more than what you do.
• Imposter syndrome is healthy — overconfidence is what kills businesses.
• Scaling physical businesses demands capital before revenue can support it.

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Case studies

Podcast

How Mighty Patch grew from a $50k bet to a $630 million exit in five years

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 30, 2024

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Case studies 10

Business models 9

Growth hacking 7

• A $50k bootstrap reached $100M revenue without venture capital
• Owning a category beats launching new products — dominate first
• Rejected all COVID-era term sheets; sold for $630M two years later

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Marc Lore on pivoting, hiring stars, and backing your edge

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 26, 2024

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Founder interviews 10

Pivoting 9

Hiring & recruitment 7

• Staying on a failing path is riskier than pivoting to the unknown.
• Dominate one region deeply before chasing thin national distribution.
• Top 5% performers define companies — track record beats interview chemistry.

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Steve Case on early-stage growth: finding focus before scaling

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 19, 2024

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Founder interviews 9

Growth hacking 8

• Build a tiny loyal fanbase first — big businesses start small.
• Grandparents buy gifts; remove friction to convert their interest.
• Target parents before college drop-off, not after.

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Case studies

Podcast

How two injured baseball players built Marucci into MLB's official bat brand

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 16, 2024

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Case studies 9

Supply chain 7

Business models 6

• Louisville Slugger's 140-year monopoly ended by a backyard bat hobby
• Sending only perfect bats — 7% of wood — built a cult pro following
• A competitor-triggered decertification crisis nearly killed the company in 2012

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How to build a niche brand: advice from Dermalogica's Jane Wurwand

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 12, 2024

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Founder interviews 10

Niche selection 9

Bootstrapping 7

• Why niching early and educating customers beats selling
• Premium baby food founder: avoid big retailers, sample relentlessly
• No real experts exist — you know your business better than anyone

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Origin stories

Podcast

Norma Kamali: building a 50-year American fashion career

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 9, 2024

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Origin stories 10

Long-term planning 7

Identity & self-belief 6

• Why walking away at the right moment saved her career repeatedly
• Staying deliberately invisible kept her relevant for five decades
• Walmart gave her more quality control than her $11M licensing deal did

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Gary Erickson of Clif Bar gives advice to three early-stage founders

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 5, 2024

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Founder interviews 10

Branding 8

Niche selection 6

• Why Clif Bar turned a competitor's lawsuit into 700 new accounts
• Co-op alternative to Etsy faces the classic chicken-and-egg problem
• Self-funded pet-hair tool inventor needs one great hire to scale

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How five college friends built Dude Perfect into a YouTube empire

How I Built This with Guy Raz December 2, 2024

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Founder interviews 10

Resilience & grit 6

Culture building 5

• Every shot is 100% real — one fake would destroy all trust
• Four years of weekend drives and day jobs before anyone quit
• Shared faith was the only thing that kept five founders together

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