How I Built This with Guy Raz
About this creator
How I Built This with Guy Raz shares founder stories, company-building lessons, and practical insights from entrepreneurs behind iconic businesses.
Why they're in the library
Included for practical lessons from founder stories, company-building decisions, and candid reflections from entrepreneurs behind iconic businesses.
Showing 222 digests for How I Built This with Guy Raz.
How I Built This Advice Line: Three founders get real-world coaching
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 28, 2024
Branding
9
Niche selection
7
Pricing psychology
6
- Nail your brand story before raising capital or scaling stores.
- Bone broth in coffee cups: make your product a visible street ritual.
- Wholesale strips margin and control—find strategic money, not dumb money.
How Koel Thomae built Noosa from a holiday taste to a national yogurt brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 25, 2024
Case studies
9
Bootstrapping
7
Scaling infrastructure
6
- One taste of Australian yogurt sparked a decade-long obsession.
- Why pulling out of ShopRite saved the entire business.
- No decision-maker, no equity plan — growth exposed every gap.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How to scale a passion-driven business: lessons from three founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 21, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Hiring & recruitment
6
Growth hacking
5
- Build talent pipelines before you need managers, not after.
- Let retailers come to you — brand pull beats cold outreach.
- Business failure gives you seven years of what not to do.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Athletic Brewing: building the non-alcoholic craft beer category from zero
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 18, 2024
Founder interviews
10
Niche selection
7
Resilience & grit
6
- Why a hedge fund trader quit to reinvent a category nobody wanted
- Buying back your own beer off shelves to survive early retail
- NA beer will exceed 50% of all beer — here's the logic
Founder interviews
Podcast
Gary Hirshberg on building consumer brands and staying focused
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 14, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Business models
7
Hiring & recruitment
6
- Protect the mothership: cashflow before mission expansion
- Consumer pull beats pushing into retail — build loyalty first
- Pathological optimism is the founder's biggest liability
Brian Scudamore advises three early-stage founders on focus and growth
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 7, 2024
Niche selection
8
Delegation
7
Founder interviews
6
- Solve the production constraint — don't pivot to an easier product.
- Delegate once your hourly rate exceeds what a hire would cost.
- Founder story and brand voice drive trust that hired guns cannot.
How Matt Meeker built Bark from a dog toy box to a dog airline
How I Built This with Guy Raz
November 4, 2024
Case studies
9
Niche selection
8
Bootstrapping
7
- Why staying dogs-only for a decade was the real competitive moat
- How prepayment tricks funded inventory with almost zero capital
- Burning $194M a year — and turning it around in two years
Founder advice on investors, scaling, and knowing when to let go
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 31, 2024
Fundraising & VC
9
Delegation
8
Long-term planning
7
- Why picking the wrong early investor can sink your business
- Niche brands must plan expansion before they need it
- Delegating roles you can do is how founders unlock growth
Black Diamond Equipment: Building a brand from bankruptcy
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 28, 2024
Case studies
9
Business models
7
- Why Peter personally guaranteed a loan he only owned 10% of
- How a industry insurance crisis forced competitors to cooperate
- Being too successful in a niche can destroy you as fast as failing
Building buzz and brand in direct-to-consumer businesses
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 24, 2024
Branding
9
Niche selection
8
Product-market fit
7
- Great product beats ad spend—every time, at every stage.
- We're a decade into an attention economy that rewards celebrity over authenticity.
- Customers reveal what they actually value—and it's rarely what founders assume.
From home hobby to $160M tequila exit in three years
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 21, 2024
Case studies
10
Branding
7
- A doctor's advice to quit wine sparked a $160M tequila brand
- Targeting moms, not bars, was the overlooked gap in tequila
- Three years from shelf to Diageo acquisition at $160 million
Founder interviews
Podcast
Scaling a food or beverage brand: advice from the founder of LÄRABAR
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 17, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Deep work & focus
6
Fundraising & VC
6
- Great product beats founder personality every time
- Wrong retail placement can kill a brand before it starts
- Asking for help is a skill — start small, go where energy flows
Founder interviews
Podcast
Three founders share growth advice on the How I Built This advice line
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 10, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Delegation
7
Niche selection
6
- Reframe medical products as lifestyle habits to reach far more customers.
- Investors bet on the jockey, not the horse — confidence must come from within.
- Creative founders can't scale alone; apprentices and ops partners are the unlock.
Paperless Post: building a premium digital invitation business from scratch
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 7, 2024
Pivoting
8
Business models
8
Fundraising & VC
8
- Why investors were wrong that no one would pay for digital invitations
- Killing a working revenue model mid-launch to save the company
- COVID erased a decade of growth in one month — how they survived
How I Built This Advice Line: reaching new customers across three businesses
How I Built This with Guy Raz
October 3, 2024
Case studies
9
Branding
8
Prospecting & outreach
7
- Mission alone won't acquire customers — lead with quality and credibility first.
- A single farmers' market advocate unlocked a Nordstrom pop-up sellout.
- Corporate travel benefits beat consumer social media for a medical kit startup.