Founder interviews

Podcast

How Josh Hochschuler built Talenti from a Buenos Aires obsession to a $100M gelato brand

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 30, 2025

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Founder interviews 10

Pivoting 8

Bootstrapping 6

• Closing a failing gelato shop was the move that saved the business.
• A FedExed suit and $500K radio promise unlocked Publix distribution.
• Weekly tech-free Shabbat preserved his family through years of debt and chaos.

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Eric Ryan on brand building, finding mentors, and funding decisions

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 26, 2025

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Founder interviews 9

Niche selection 8

Product-market fit 6

• Advertising is a tax on an unremarkable product — design reduces it.
• Control or financial win: there is no right answer, only a personal one.
• Pacing the build — not the product — is the hardest entrepreneurial challenge.

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Origin stories

Podcast

UNTUCKit: how a non-fashion guy built a brand around one shirt length

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 23, 2025

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Origin stories 9

MVP & prototyping 7

Niche selection & positioning 6

• A single spec — 28.75 inches — was the entire product promise.
• Kept day jobs for years; slow growth let them fix defects before scaling.
• A $750M acquisition collapsed overnight when COVID hit in March 2020.

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Founder interviews

Podcast

Marcia Kilgore on pricing, fear, and conversion: advice for early founders

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 19, 2025

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Founder interviews 9

Conversion rate optimisation 7

Pricing strategy 6

• Beauty Pie caps markup at 3x cost — vs. industry standard 12–20x
• Fire bullets before cannonballs: test cheap ads before manufacturing at scale
• Reduce checkout drop-off by defaulting to the best-seller, not blank choices

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How Dylan Field built Figma from dorm-room idea to $20B offer

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 16, 2025

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Founder interviews 10

Management 7

Resilience & grit 6

• Four years of building before shipping — why slow starts can still win
• Microsoft threatened to drop Figma unless it started charging for itself
• Adobe's $20B acquisition was blocked; Figma filed for IPO instead

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Case studies

Podcast

Perry Chen on founder exits, scaling, and knowing when to let go

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 12, 2025

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Case studies 9

Fundraising & VC 7

Vision & mission 6

• Knowing what you want matters more than any financing structure.
• One-SKU hardware businesses have a structural ceiling — plan the exit early.
• Most founders grind past the point they should have stopped.

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Case studies

Podcast

Perfect Snacks: how a family built a bar business from a homemade recipe

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 9, 2025

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Case studies 10

Bootstrapping 8

Processes & SOPs 7

• Grew up homeless; invested last $100K in a candy-bar wrapping machine
• Hand-rolling bars with rolling pins until output hit 20 million per year
• A Salmonella scare nearly killed the company right before their first investor deal

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Competitive analysis

Podcast

How founders compete with giants: retail, restaurants, and the messy middle

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 5, 2025

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Competitive analysis 9

Branding 6

Cash flow management 5

• Retail buyers ignore single-SKU brands — here's how to fix that
• Chipotle next door isn't the threat; price competition is
• Cashflow gets worse before it gets better when you enter retail

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Origin stories

Podcast

How Vicky Tsai built Tatcha from a garage to half a billion dollars

How I Built This with Guy Raz June 2, 2025

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Origin stories 10

Bootstrapping 7

• Sold her engagement ring to import Japanese blotting papers that healed her skin
• Seven years in parents' garage, no salary, before reaching $70M revenue
• Why nearly selling the company early would have killed Tatcha

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How I Built This Advice Line: Steve Holmes on tariffs, branding, and building resilience

How I Built This with Guy Raz May 29, 2025

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Founder interviews 9

Cash flow management 7

Niche selection 6

• Stockpiling inventory pre-tariff saved Holmes's business from catastrophe.
• Viral moments like Oprah produce joy, not durable revenue.
• Honesty with yourself — not hustle — is the real founder superpower.

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Case studies

Podcast

How Calm went from a quirky website to a $2 billion meditation app

How I Built This with Guy Raz May 26, 2025

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Case studies 10

Pivoting 7

Growth hacking 6

• Sleep Stories unlocked meditation's largest untapped market: everyone sleeps
• A 30-second 'do nothing' Facebook ad made 2017's first million-dollar month
• Refusing VC money forced scrappiness that built a more defensible business

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How I Built This Advice Line: Three founders on scaling their businesses

How I Built This with Guy Raz May 22, 2025

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Founder interviews 10

Long-term planning 8

Bootstrapping 6

• Bootstrapping two more years beats giving up 55% equity now.
• Your brand story must compress to five seconds on a retail shelf.
• 800% domestic growth beats chasing international at 3.5% of sales.

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Case studies

Podcast

How Paul Hedrick built Tacovas from a Microsoft Paint sketch to $300M

How I Built This with Guy Raz May 19, 2025

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Case studies 10

Niche selection 7

Bootstrapping 6

• Why a $3B market had no modern brand for 20+ years
• Designing boots in Microsoft Paint, inspecting every pair personally
• The retail bet everyone said was dead — 42 stores later

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Founder interviews

Podcast

How I Built This Advice Line: RJ Scaringe of Rivian on scaling and strategy

How I Built This with Guy Raz May 15, 2025

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Founder interviews 9

Pivoting 7

Delegation 6

• The thing you love doing is often last the business needs.
• Right investors matter as much as the money — patience is key.
• Early-stage flexibility is a structural advantage big companies lack.

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Case studies

Podcast

How Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie built Substack into a writer-owned media platform

How I Built This with Guy Raz May 12, 2025

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Case studies 10

Business models 7

Fundraising & VC 5

• Making readers the customers — not advertisers — changes everything
• Elon Musk tried to buy Substack, then tried to kill it
• One writer's six-figure launch day validated the whole model instantly

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