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.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Richard Branson's advice on brand, marketing, and staying bold
How I Built This with Guy Raz
May 8, 2025
Founder interviews
9
Branding
7
Business models
6
- Every Virgin venture must be better than the last — no exceptions.
- Stunt marketing beats ad budgets when creating a new category.
- Divide founders between two brands before trying to scale both.
How Brad Baxter built Litter-Robot into a $300M pet tech brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
May 5, 2025
Case studies
10
Bootstrapping
7
Product-market fit
5
- A rotating globe sifts waste — no raking, no broken clumps
- Twenty years of self-funding through a parallel consulting business
- One influencer campaign doubled sales in a single year
Founder interviews
Podcast
Luis von Ahn on scaling Duolingo and advising early-stage founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
May 1, 2025
Founder interviews
9
Pricing strategy
8
Pivoting
6
- Watch behaviour, not surveys — users say they want live tutors but don't use them.
- Charging more beats raising capital when margins are the real constraint.
- Monetising too late cost Duolingo five years of mission-critical growth.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Danny Weiner built Hexclad into a $500 million cookware brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 28, 2025
Founder interviews
10
Pivoting
8
Bootstrapping
7
- Every investor said cookware can't be sold direct-to-consumer — they were wrong.
- Spending their last $1M on ads during COVID turned $1M/month into $5M.
- Failure of the juicer business made Hexclad's success possible.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Sweetgreen's Jonathan Neman advises early-stage food founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 24, 2025
Founder interviews
10
Business models
8
Processes & SOPs
6
- Scale often destroys the thing that made your business special.
- Lead with flavor, not sustainability — taste drives purchase decisions.
- LTOs beat permanent menu additions for testing trends without complexity.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Evan Spiegel built Snap by rejecting social media's logic
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 21, 2025
Founder interviews
10
Business models
7
- Why Snap turned down $3 billion from Facebook and survived
- Messaging close friends beats competing for the biggest network
- AR glasses: Snap's decade-long bet on post-smartphone computing
Founder advice on apparel, alcohol, and food brands from Andy Dunn
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 17, 2025
Business models
8
Founder interviews
8
Work-life balance
7
- D2C e-commerce rarely works — wholesale unlocks the unit economics.
- Giving an influencer 10–40% equity can 10x a brand's value.
- Price to the market, not the margin, to break into grocery.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How William Wang built Vizio by cutting the cost of flat-screen TVs
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 14, 2025
Founder interviews
10
Business models
8
Bootstrapping
6
- Stripping supply-chain layers cut plasma TV prices from $15K to $2.5K
- Surviving a plane crash that killed 83 passengers refocused his priorities
- Costco partnership gave Vizio a retail edge incumbents refused to match
Startup founders get tactical advice on scaling, channels, and messaging
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 10, 2025
Growth hacking
9
Niche selection
6
Processes & SOPs
5
- Sample before you spend: organic seeding beats early paid ads
- Amazon is non-negotiable; optimise it, don't abandon it
- Messaging failure is usually a hidden channel strategy problem
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Missy Park bootstrapped Title IX into a women's sportswear pioneer
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 7, 2025
Founder interviews
10
Bootstrapping
8
Business models
6
- Why refusing outside investors meant slower growth but full control
- A last-minute sports bra addition saved a nearly failed catalog launch
- Slow, single-focused growth beats venture-backed scale — but requires peace with limits
How Jack Black Skincare founders advise early-stage consumer brands
How I Built This with Guy Raz
April 3, 2025
B2B sales
9
Niche selection
7
Case studies
6
- Sales and distribution must lead before marketing investment pays off.
- Too many SKUs kills cash flow and wholesale conversations early on.
- In-person community building outperforms influencer spend for premium brands.
How Misfits Market turned ugly produce into a $2 billion grocery delivery business
How I Built This with Guy Raz
March 31, 2025
Case studies
10
Business models
8
Automation & tools
6
- USDA grading discards edible produce on looks alone — that's the opportunity.
- Perishable logistics, not grocery, is the real business Misfits had to master.
- COVID doubled the customer base overnight and compressed years of growth into months.
How to grow a food brand without losing control
How I Built This with Guy Raz
March 27, 2025
Case studies
10
Business models
7
Branding
6
- Seed-oil marketing is a fad risk — lead with taste instead.
- Nine years of bootstrapping beats a bad investor deal.
- Your founder story is your best PR — use it.
Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare: building a $450 million dermatologist-led brand
How I Built This with Guy Raz
March 24, 2025
Case studies
10
Bootstrapping
7
MVP & prototyping
6
- A two-step acid peel with no downtime disrupted 1990s skincare.
- Bootstrapped for 20 years — neither founder took a salary.
- TikTok-viral LED mask tech originated from NASA-funded research.
TaskRabbit founder Leah Solivan advises three app-based founders
How I Built This with Guy Raz
March 20, 2025
Niche selection
9
Product-market fit
8
Case studies
8
- Why a crowded app store demands a wedge, not more marketing
- Selling a 'vitamin' app when couples only seek help in crisis
- The 1,000 early adopters rule that creates real momentum