The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Blumenthal: Warby Parker Customers Ranked Social Mission Last in Buying Decisions
“After survey after survey, what we found was what mattered first and foremost was how these glasses look on your face. Second price you know, third quality last, if at all Would be the social mission.”
Gilboa: Social missions benefit talent recruitment more than direct consumer sales
“The biggest impact is in our ability to attract and retain some of the most talented, passionate, Driven people in the world who want to work for a mission driven organization. And so that's where we tend to see kind of the biggest benefit from a business stan…”
Blumenthal: Customers prioritize appearance and price over a company's social mission
“What's most important to customers. And when they're buying glasses, what's most important is the glasses look good on their face. Then how much do they cost? And then is it good quality and is it good service? Lastly, you know, is there a social ethos behind …”
Gilboa: Warby Parker unit economics are comparable across retail and e-commerce
“We find that the economics for us are pretty comparable regardless of channel that, that customers are shopping in.”
David Heath: Enduring brands grow slowly, unlike VC-backed Away and Warby
“The one consistent Thing that we found in those companies that was different than our peer set of, you know, the aways and the Warby's of the world is that they didn't grow by raising hundreds of millions of dollars of capital and trying to skyrocket the highe…”
Blumenthal: Bold corporate statements often cause distraction rather than real impact
“Making bold proclamations or performative statements can sometimes not lead to desired impact and may actually lead to disruption and distraction.”
Warby Parker is partnering with Google to launch AI smart glasses
“We're working with Google to launch AI glasses. They're sort of Warby Parker branded intelligent eyewear.”
Dunn: Warby Parker and Harry's succeeded by price-disrupting incumbents
“If you think about why, why did something like Warby Parker work or Harry's work? It's because they price disrupted Luxottica and Gillette respectively.”
Scott Tannen: Early DTC brands won via customer acquisition arbitrage
“Warby Parker, Bonobos. Yes, they're making a product, but they're playing customer acquisition arbitrage. They are just trying to acquire a customer for a little bit less than they're making and scale that profitability. And they're playing in categories where…”
Blumenthal: Physical stores cause brief e-commerce cannibalization but expand overall demand
“What we found is that if we're going into a new market and we open up that first store, there is some e-commerce cannibalization for a short period of time.
The way to think of it is there's a certain size pizza in that market.
The store comes.
There's a bunch…”
Gilboa: Warby Parker executives report to only one co-CEO
“So every department, every executive only reports into one of us. And that allows us to kind of spend more time in those parts of the business.”
Razor blade prices were historically inflated by an effective monopoly
“There is a single player that really dominates this industry. And that was also true of Warby Parker. And one of the reasons why prices were so inflated is that there was effectively a monopolist.”
Multiple early Warby Parker investors passed on investing in Harry's
“But we had a bunch of Warby Parker investors who, I, you know, in retrospect are gonna do great on Warby Parker, who invested early at Warby Parker, not invest in Harry's.”
Grant: I declined an opportunity to invest in Warby Parker
“I was definitely not ready to party when, you know, Warby Parker went from an idea that I had declined to invest in to a unicorn.”
Fulop: Bedding lacked a consumer brand like Warby Parker before Brooklinen
“There's no Warby Parker, there's no Nike, there's no brands that people can align with and say, I like the look, I like the value, I like the price point that, like, it speaks to me as a customer. There was just nothing out there that did that.”
Carter Was an Early Investor in Spotify, Uber, Dropbox, and Slack
“Spotify, Warby, Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Slack really great companies that we're proud of.”
Warby Parker Amassed 20,000-Customer Waitlist in Four Weeks
“Within a four-week period, we'd sold out of
Our best-selling styles.
We had a wait list of 20,000 customers.”
Gilboa: No company offered a home try-on program before Warby Parker
“And that's when kind of this light bulb went off for the home try-on program, which really no, no company was offering until that time”
Troy Carter Was an Early Investor in Spotify, Uber, and Slack
“Yeah, yeah, Spotify, Warby, Uber, Lyft, Dropbox, Slack really great companies that we're proud of.”
Blumenthal: Warby Parker's valuation crossed $1 billion
“Our last valuation was over a billion dollars.”
Gilboa: No company offered home try-on before Warby Parker
“And that's when kind of this light bulb went off for the home try-on program, which really no, no company was offering until that time”
Gilboa: Warby Parker reached a 20,000-customer waitlist within four weeks
“And so we place an emergency call to our developer, and miraculously was able to build in this waitlist functionality on the fly, and within a four-week period, we'd sold out of Our best-selling styles. We had a wait list of 20,000 customers.”
Blumenthal: Warby Parker owns and operates all 300+ retail stores
“Warby Parker owns and operates all of our own stores, of which we have over 300.”
Raider took student loans to fund Warby Parker despite sponsored Wharton tuition
“I'd worked at Charles Bank, as we mentioned. They had paid for me to go to business school, and then I'd agreed to come back afterwards for a couple years, and so I had business school paid for it, so what we did, what I did was took out loans that otherwise I…”
Warby Parker Crowdsourced Early Frame Choices on Tumblr and Facebook
“And then, like, our community would, like, help them pick, and that was, like, a big thing on on Tumblr and Facebook. Like, we would basically crowdsource what frames people should buy, and we just built this, like, really loyal, really engaged community, and …”
Luggage Industry Mirrored Legacy Eyewear's High Markups and Weak Brands
“All the same things that we saw with eyewear, we were seeing with luggage. Like, crazy markups in the industry. Like, no brands that people really loved. Like, a really awful shopping experience.”
Blumenthal: Warby Parker priced at $95 over $99 to avoid looking cheap
“So one thought was, should we charge 99 dollars? And we felt that was too discounty and cheap, and we were building an aspirational brand. So we actually settled on 95 dollars using just our instinct, thinking that this doesn't sound cheap and that it looks de…”
Warby Parker Took Nine Months to Clear Initial Waitlist
“For a lot of those customers, it took us upwards of nine months to get through the wait list.”
Gilboa: Warby Parker was eliminated in Wharton's business plan semifinals
“We entered the Wharton Business Plan Competition. And we got eliminated in the semifinal round.”
Blumenthal: 17 of 18 banks rejected Warby Parker for lacking tax history
“We went to 18 different banks, and only one would talk to us, and again, this was 2010, so soon after the financial crisis, and what all these loan officers said is, hey, we've never seen such a beautiful business plan, we've never seen a company That has such…”
Gilboa: Warby Parker founders invested $120,000 and took no salary for 18 months
“We invested a 120,000 dollars between the four of us to get the business off the ground, and, you know, we worked for a year and a half with Outpaying ourselves a salary. We didn't have an office. We did win a couple of grants from Wharton, so that, that helpe…”
Gilboa: Warby Parker eliminated in Wharton business plan semifinals
“We entered the Wharton business plan competition and we got eliminated in the semifinal round.”
Warby Parker name originates from two Jack Kerouac characters
“Two early Jack Kerouac characters that Dave actually discovered when he went to the New York Public Library exhibit on Kerouac, and two of the characters were Warby Pepper and Zag Parker.”
Warby Parker priced glasses at $95 to avoid seeming cheap
“So we actually settled on 95 dollars using just our instinct, thinking that this doesn't sound cheap and that it looks deliberate and visually looks decent.”
Founders bootstrapped Warby Parker with $120,000 and took no early salary
“We invested a 120,000 dollars between the four of us to get the business off the ground, and, you know, we worked for a year and a half without paying ourselves a salary.”
Gilboa: Warby Parker took upwards of nine months to clear launch waitlist
“And for a lot of those customers, it took us upwards of nine months to get through the wait list.”
Blumenthal: GQ dubbed Warby Parker the 'Netflix of eyewear'
“GQ actually called us the Netflix of eyewear in the article they put.”
Blumenthal: Warby Parker applied to 18 banks and 17 rejected them
“We went to 18 different banks, and only one would talk to us”
Warby Parker progressive lenses start at $395 versus $1,000 elsewhere
“We launched with 95 dollar glasses we still sell 95 dollar glasses today. Now we've introduced some additional frames that have more complex construction that cost more to manufacture, like our precision progressives offering which is a top-of-line progressive…”
Smith: Cotopaxi was inspired by Warby Parker and TOMS
“It was, I was inspired by Warby Parker, my classmates in school. I was inspired by Tom's shoes and I thought, you know, this is a way I can make a meaningful impact in the world.”
Warby Parker co-founders tested over 2,000 candidate names before launching
“I think we still have our spreadsheet of over 2000 names that we tested on our very patient friends.”
Gilboa: Warby Parker met with almost 50 PR firms before launch
“We had meetings with almost 50 PR firms, and part of it was us evaluating them, but at the same time, we had to sell ourselves to those PR firms, and, right, there's nothing less sexy in the fashion world than four MBAs from Wharton.”
Warby Parker name originates from Jack Kerouac characters Warby Pepper and Zag Parker
“Two early Jack Kerouac characters that Dave actually discovered When he went to the New York Public Library exhibit on Kerouac, and two of the characters were Warby Pepper and Zag Parker.”
Gilboa: Warby Parker secured a $200,000 SBA loan to fund inventory
“We ended up getting a 200,000 dollar SBA loan.”