Feb 22, 2021 · 1h 28m · how-i-built-this
Boxed: Chieh Huang
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
This episode of How I Built This chronicles entrepreneur Chieh Huang's transition from corporate law and mobile gaming to founding Boxed, a digital wholesale club. Scaling the company from a suburban garage into a $600 million e-commerce enterprise, Huang disrupted traditional bulk retail while championing an employee-first corporate culture.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 32.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 4.9 Guest teaching 2.1 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:01:58 Chieh rejects the premise of adopting Costco's membership model
Chieh firmly dismisses applying brick-and-mortar warehouse membership strategies to e-commerce, explaining how variable shipping costs invalidate traditional retailer margins.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 51:41 Guy Raz challenges why suppliers would reject startup ordersGuy presses Chieh on why CPG manufacturers and distributors would ever turn away paying customers who want to resell their products.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 1:01:58 Chieh schools Guy on the '10-10-2' retail formulaChieh details the industry standard 10-10-2 warehouse club financial architecture and demonstrates mathematically why variable e-commerce logistics render it unviable online.
Guy holds their own ▶ 1:27 Guy Raz outlines Blue Ocean vs Red Ocean retail theoryGuy Raz presents a detailed structural analysis comparing uncontested market creation with Red Ocean competition, contrasting Boxed's curated SKU model directly against Walmart.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Special Announcement: How I Built This Virtual Event | 7 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz delivers an extensive framing monologue introducing Chieh Huang, comparing Blue Ocean Strategy with Boxed's Red Ocean e-commerce playbook and analyzing its SKU inventory economics against Walmart. | |
| Early Life and Upbringing in New Jersey | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy prompts Chieh on his family's immigrant background, childhood in Baltimore, and eventual move to Edison, New Jersey. The tone is entirely conversational and warm. | |
| College at Johns Hopkins and the JET Program | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Chieh explains getting into Johns Hopkins, fulfilling his mother's dream, studying economics without a clear plan, and spontaneously discovering the JET Program at the campus career center. | |
| Teaching in Japan and Personal Growth | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh shares his experience teaching in rural Japan, navigating Asian-American identity and belonging, and meeting his future wife. | |
| Law School and Corporate Legal Career | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy tracks Chieh's transition into law school and his start at Proskauer in September 2008, coinciding exactly with the collapse of Lehman Brothers across the street. | |
| Pivoting Away from Law to Mobile Gaming | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh details his decision to leave corporate law, considering a fine chocolate business before joining high school friends creating iPhone games. | |
| Launching Astro Ape Studios in an Attic | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy and Chieh discuss starting Astro Ape in a New Jersey attic, the reaction of Chieh's immigrant parents, and calculating personal financial runway. | |
| Developing and Launching Office Heroes | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy humorously questions the concept of an office simulator game and asks if they had an elaborate launch strategy. Chieh admits their launch strategy was purely hopes and dreams. | |
| Mid-Roll Interlude: How I Built This | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh recounts their server overload turning out to be Apple featuring them on iTunes worldwide, followed by raising an $800k seed check from a Japanese gaming executive who shared hometown roots. | |
| Scaling Astro Ape and Acquisition by Zynga | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh describes re-skinning game engines for rapid release and the surprise acquisition offer from Zynga for double-digit millions. | |
| Corporate Life at Zynga and the Mobile Commerce Idea | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh explains how corporate oversight increased prior to Zynga's IPO, prompting him and his team to leave gaming and pursue mobile commerce. | |
| The Genesis and Concept of Boxed | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh explains conceiving Boxed as a warehouse club on mobile for urbanites without cars, and raising seed money despite warnings about moving physical atoms. | |
| Garage Operations and Initial Inventory Challenges | 5 | 4 | 1 | 3 | Guy pushes back on why major CPG companies wouldn't want to sell products to a startup. Chieh schools him on traditional supply chain incentives built exclusively for behemoths. | |
| Securing Boxed.com and Early Sales Struggles | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh recounts negotiating Boxed.com for $35,000 from a UK squatter and the intense pressure of seeing daily orders drop to zero after taking friends and family capital. | |
| Mid-Roll Interlude: Upcoming Breakthrough | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Chieh describes their major breakthrough when Kathie Lee and Hoda endorsed Boxed on the Today Show, causing orders to surge and overwhelming his garage. | |
| No-Membership Strategy and Handwritten Customer Notes | 5 | 5 | 1 | 2 | Guy questions bypassing the profitable membership model used by Costco. Chieh breaks down the warehouse club '10-10-2' margin formula and explains why variable shipping costs break that model online. | |
| Expanding into Fresh Food and Launching Prince & Spring | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Guy and Chieh discuss expanding into fresh goods and launching the private label Prince & Spring out of necessity when major brands refused distribution. | |
| Industry Disruption, Whole Foods Acquisition, and Robotics | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | Guy inquires about Amazon's acquisition of Whole Foods and presses on Boxed's path to profitability amid thin gross margins and heavy shipping expenses. | |
| Company Culture, College Tuition Benefit, and COVID-19 Response | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about Boxed's college tuition assistance and emergency fund programs, and Chieh discusses warehouse operations and executive presence during COVID-19. | |
| Valuation, Future Outlook, and Reflections on Success | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about potential acquisition outcomes versus going public, and closes with the classic question on the balance between skill, hard work, and luck. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Law firm Proskauer rented Madison Square Garden for 2007 summer associates
“I mean, they've rented, I remember they've rented Madison Square Garden for us to play pickup basketball as a, as an event.”
Huang: Successful founders are big risk-takers, not unattainable geniuses
“And I felt like it was big risk takers and But I didn't feel like anyone was really like a bonafide genius, you know, of like, oh man, that's something no human can do.”
Founders focus on company runway but often ignore personal financial runway
“And also, I think the key was that a lot of entrepreneurs don't think about is your personal runway. And so you talk, you know, everyone talks about their company runway, how much money they're going to raise, et cetera. But the early days, you're probably not…”
Astro Ape Studios co-founders launched mobile gaming company with $13,000 each
“So I think they put in each, like, I think the buy-in, if I remember right, was about 13 grand.”
Astro Ape's initial plan was to release one game and retire
“The idea was to build one game, release it, become millionaires, and then retire.”
Astro Ape's mobile game Office Heroes launched with three daily active users
“Only three people registered as daily active users, and so someone's parents are lying to us, so it was not a pretty sight in the beginning”
Social games dominated Facebook but were rare on Apple's App Store
“They evaluated the game, probably liked the story of us just being a few country bumpkins in Jersey in a, in an attic trying to build for this new platform they were launching, and liked the fact that we were building a social game, which was wildly popular on…”
Zynga acquired Astro Ape for double-digit millions in cash and stock
“Yeah, it wasn't deep into eight figures, but it was definitely double digit millions, a mix of cash and stock.”
Mobile commerce represents a vastly bigger opportunity than gaming virtual currency
“People are gonna use these phones to buy things in the future, and that is way bigger of an opportunity than just virtual currency.”
Half of Boxed's seed funding came from investors writing blind checks
“Half of our seed investment were kind of What I call blind checks.”
CPG supply chains and bonus structures actively prevent sales to startup retailers
“When you're starting out in this industry, you have to understand that it's run by behemoths feeding other behemoths. And so the supply chain, the, how they're bonused, they're not incentivized to really sell each's to people. It's just doesn't move the needle…”
Boxed founders negotiated the purchase of boxed.com domain for $35,000
“And so we emailed him and said, well, buy this domain. Would you want to sell it? And he's like, I forgot it was like 200 grand. And we're like, we'll give you 30. And he's like, no way. And we said, come on, you sat on it for so many years. We'll write you a …”
Early Boxed orders averaged two to six daily before hitting zero
“So we were getting like two or three orders a day, Maybe as high as five to six, and then this dropped down to zero two days in a row.”
Huang: Average Boxed order contains almost 10 items
“The average boxed order has almost 10 items for the order, so it's not like you're checking in and out within 30 seconds.”
Traditional warehouse club 10-10-2 economic models fail in modern e-commerce
“The traditional model of how warehouse clubs work doesn't really work online because it never really I contemplated the variable cost being the main cost driver. So traditionally it's called the 10, 10, two model. So 10% cost, you get your 10% margin on your g…”
Huang: Adding handwritten customer notes to shipments is worth the cost
“With engineered standards and automated facilities, we know down to the second how much it actually costs us to write a handwritten note, but it's worth it. It's worth it to differentiate and to have that one-on-one connection with the customer.”
Limiting SKU assortment prevents customer decision paralysis and concentrates wholesale buying power
“We tried to curtail SKU's assortment because it made for an easier and smoother shopping experience. And so you didn't have this kind of paralysis by analysis. And so people would come through the app and hunt and pack and just build this, suddenly build a bas…”
Over 80% of Boxed customers repurchase private-label Prince & Spring items
“Over half of our repeat customers have a Princeton Spring item in their cart, and if you buy a Princeton Spring item, over 80% will buy another one in their ensuing shop.”
E-commerce grocery shipping costs necessitate multi-item baskets to achieve profitability
“The more items you buy from Box or any e-commerce company, the more effectively you can price the items, because all those different, different items in that box, quote unquote, share that shipping cost, which is the biggest cost in e-commerce. And so, if you …”
Boxed's newest fulfillment centers are 100% automated using proprietary in-house robotics
“Our newest fulfillment centers are a hundred percent automated by our own hardware these days.”
Boxed guaranteed employees will not lose jobs solely due to automation
“What we committed for everyone here is that you weren't going to lose your job solely because of automation. You will have to be retrained. You will have to learn how to operate, how to service the state of the art machines and work alongside of them.”