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 Cynthia Tice built Lily's Sweets into a $400M sugar-free chocolate brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 30, 2024
Case studies
10
Bootstrapping
8
Business models
7
- Launched a $400M brand at age 58 with no outside funding
- Stevia alone tastes terrible — erythritol blending cracked the formula
- Profitable from year two with four employees and zero office space
Founder interviews
Podcast
Founder advice on brand building, visibility, and self-belief
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 26, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Branding
7
- Build demand before pitching retailers — they come to you when you're on fire
- Self-doubt is a backpack of boulders: drop it early or carry it forever
- 1,000 passionate customers beats 100,000 indifferent ones at the start
Graduate Hotels: how Ben Weprin built a college-town hotel brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 23, 2024
Case studies
9
Niche selection
7
- Why no one had built a hotel brand around university nostalgia — until now
- Each hotel built around a central character: Jordan, Parton, Prefontaine
- Sold the brand to Hilton for $200M while keeping every property
How I Built This Advice Line: Branding, pricing, and finding your audience
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 19, 2024
Social media
8
Branding
8
Pricing strategy
8
- A great name and product still needs a deliberate brand voice.
- Premium-priced games need trial before purchase, not donations.
- Being your brand's face is unavoidable early — and temporary.
How Barefoot Wine turned outsider ignorance into a billion-dollar brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 16, 2024
Case studies
9
Blue ocean strategy
8
- Starting $300K in debt with zero wine knowledge paid off.
- Marketing wine like beer unlocked a mass market nobody else saw.
- Donated wine to fundraisers beat paid advertising — repeatedly.
Advice Line: three app founders on user acquisition and product focus
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 12, 2024
Niche selection
9
Growth hacking
8
Case studies
6
- Why narrowing to a niche beats broadcasting to everyone.
- Requiring two people to onboard at once quietly kills growth.
- Gift-a-classroom: how to get product in schools without a sales team.
Groupon's rise and fall, and Andrew Mason's second act with Descript
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 9, 2024
Post-mortems
9
Pivoting
7
- Scarcity was the business model — clones destroyed it within two years.
- Mason turned down Google's $5B offer, then lost the company anyway.
- Descript was born from internal tooling built for a failing audio tour startup.
Scaling food brands: lessons from MOD Pizza founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
September 5, 2024
Niche selection
9
Supply chain
7
Branding
5
- Saturate your home market before expansion — depth beats breadth.
- Mission-driven brands must educate consumers before charging a premium.
- Store-level EBITDA of 20%+ and 2-3x revenue-to-build ratio are key benchmarks.
Funding, press, and bias: advice for early-stage founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
August 29, 2024
Fundraising & VC
9
PR & media
8
Business models
6
- Why non-strategic investors can still be the right move
- Affiliate programs and cold outreach beat a PR budget
- Less than 2% of funding goes to women — use it as fuel
Founder interviews
Podcast
Insomnia Cookies: building a $350M late-night delivery brand from a dorm room
How I Built This with Guy Raz
August 26, 2024
Founder interviews
10
Pivoting
8
Bootstrapping
6
- Why a frozen yogurt pivot nearly killed a winning cookie idea
- Stopped paying himself 18 months; drove dough deliveries at 2am
- The iPhone turned a struggling niche into a mainstream on-demand business
Crowdfunding, pricing, and growth advice from Ring's Jamie Siminoff
How I Built This with Guy Raz
August 22, 2024
Pricing strategy
8
Niche selection
7
Growth hacking
7
- Focus beats breadth: one niche customer beats five half-served ones.
- Ethical sourcing authenticates a brand but flavor closes the sale.
- Only chase certifications when the return clearly outweighs the cost.
Holly Thaggard of Supergoop advises three early-stage founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
August 15, 2024
Growth hacking
9
Branding
8
Niche selection
6
- Why picking one channel beats spreading across many early on
- Selling safety without fear: inspiration changes behavior, alarm doesn't
- Regulation as distribution — turning a niche gadget into a legal requirement
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Harry's Co-founder Advises Early-stage Founders on Growth
How I Built This with Guy Raz
August 1, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Culture building
7
Growth hacking
7
- Receivables financing can unlock capital without giving up equity
- Do the customer-facing work yourself before delegating it
- Retention economics determine how much you can spend on acquisition
How P&G's immersion research method builds world-class brands
How I Built This with Guy Raz
July 26, 2024
Market research
9
Branding
7
Niche selection
6
- Consumers want brands aligned with their values, not just better products.
- Spending time in consumers' lives — not surveying them — surfaces transformative insights.
- In social media, brand strategy stays constant; only the tactics change.
Influencer & partnerships
Podcast
Practical growth advice for early-stage consumer brands
How I Built This with Guy Raz
July 25, 2024
Influencer & partnerships
9
Niche selection
7
B2C sales
6
- Community and product seeding must come before paid ads or wholesale.
- Wholesale only works once your brand has enough pull to survive it.
- Price point and retail tier must be aligned or shelf space is wasted.