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Warby Parker's Blumenthal: Bricks and Clicks Go Together(Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Bird business flash this. He's taking stock with Kathleen Hayes
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  Speaker 1: and Pimpox on Bloomberg Radio, E Comm, Earth and brick
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  Speaker 1: and mortar stores. One report from Mary Meeker the venture Capitalist,
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  Speaker 1: explains that Warby Parker made more money per square foot
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  Speaker 1: in its retail stores than Tiffany last year's. That's actually
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  Speaker 1: better also than Michael Core's stores, according to Meaker. Let's
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  Speaker 1: meet the co founder and the co chief executive of
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  Speaker 1: Warby Parker, Neil Blumenthal. Neil, thanks very much for being
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  Speaker 1: with us. Thanks for having me tell people about how
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  Speaker 1: a lost pair of eyeglasses led to what is estimated
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  Speaker 1: to be a company worth one point to billion, making
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  Speaker 1: it the second most valuable private venture backed e commerce
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  Speaker 1: company in the world. Um, well, you know, I think
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  Speaker 1: the best businesses solve real problems. And my co founder,
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  Speaker 1: Dave bal Boa was traveling and lost a pair of
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  Speaker 1: seven hundred dollar glasses in the seat pocket of an airplane. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: and we're talking about it along with our two other
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  Speaker 1: co founders, Jeff and Andy, and we thought that there
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  Speaker 1: was no reason why glasses should be so expensive. And
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  Speaker 1: we thought, what if we were to design the glasses
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  Speaker 1: we love, used best materials, uh, and build a business
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  Speaker 1: that could sell them for nine instead of five hundred UM.
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  Speaker 1: And that's sort of is how Warry Parker got started.
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  Speaker 1: The rest is history, not just offline. You've got what
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  Speaker 1: thirty seven stores across the country. You've been vied at
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  Speaker 1: one point two billion dollars. You were just telling me
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  Speaker 1: you've got eight hundred employees. Uh, you do to me?
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  Speaker 1: Have that? Also that element of social entrepreneurship, which means
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  Speaker 1: you can make money doing good stuff for people, that's
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  Speaker 1: not how how did that come in? And what does
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  Speaker 1: that role? And helping developing nation citizens get good eye
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  Speaker 1: care and good glasses, well something that was startling to
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  Speaker 1: my co founders, and I has that over seven hundred
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  Speaker 1: million people around the world don't have access to glasses,
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  Speaker 1: and we think that that's crazy. Right, classes were invented
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  Speaker 1: eight hundred years ago, So we're failing as a species
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  Speaker 1: if we can't get technology that's eight hundred years old
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  Speaker 1: in the hands of everybody that needs it. Uh. And
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  Speaker 1: we thought, what's the best way to serve of others? Um,
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  Speaker 1: what if we committed for every pair that we sell,
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  Speaker 1: distributing one to someone in need. Um And to date
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  Speaker 1: we distributed uh several million pairs of glasses to people
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  Speaker 1: in need around the world. Actually, prior to starting Warby Parker,
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  Speaker 1: I ran a nonprofit that would distribute eyeglasses in the
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  Speaker 1: developing world and that was my exposure actually to the
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  Speaker 1: optical industry and seeing the power of a pair of
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  Speaker 1: glasses to transform somebody's life. It's amazing, Right, there's a
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  Speaker 1: few things that have immediate impact that you put on
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  Speaker 1: a pair of glasses. People's faces light up and they
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  Speaker 1: can immediately work and be productive. You talk about power,
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  Speaker 1: and I want you to maybe talk about the power
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  Speaker 1: of marketing because I understand that there was an article
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  Speaker 1: that appeared in Vogue magazine that really lit the fire
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  Speaker 1: for Warby Parker. And what if you could describe. It
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  Speaker 1: was nine thousand orders in one day that had you
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  Speaker 1: all scrambling. Yeah, when we launched exactly six years ago,
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  Speaker 1: we were featured in Vogue and g Q, and the
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  Speaker 1: company took off like a that yip. We thought that
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  Speaker 1: we were going to have to beg our parents and
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  Speaker 1: our friends to buy, you know, maybe a couple of
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  Speaker 1: pairs a week. But what happened is that we hit
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  Speaker 1: our first year sales targets in three weeks. We sold
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  Speaker 1: out our top fifteen thousand four weeks. We had a
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  Speaker 1: waiting list of our twenty thousand people um And to
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  Speaker 1: to us, what this showed was that people were sick
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  Speaker 1: and tired of paying five dollars for a pair of
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  Speaker 1: glasses that you know we could offer for But how
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  Speaker 1: did you respond to that demand because you said you
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  Speaker 1: had a waiting list for twenty thousand and I just
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  Speaker 1: want to pinpoint it because sometimes you have a great idea,
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  Speaker 1: you've got a great business, it starts off, but then
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  Speaker 1: you don't know how to deal with success. Yea. We
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  Speaker 1: so at the time we were full time business students
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  Speaker 1: at Wharton. The first thing we started to do is
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  Speaker 1: cut class so that way we could respond to all
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  Speaker 1: these customer emails to help process the orders. Uh, and
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  Speaker 1: we ended up just apologizing a lot and explaining to people, hey,
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  Speaker 1: we just started. Uh, you know, there was a lot
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  Speaker 1: more demand than we were anticipated. And we found that
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  Speaker 1: the more that we explained to customer, the more connected
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  Speaker 1: they felt with the brand. It's almost the way that
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  Speaker 1: human beings build relationships with other human beings, which is
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  Speaker 1: really through vulnerability. So we've always tried to explain not
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  Speaker 1: just what we do, but the how and the why. Well,
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  Speaker 1: did you feel vulnerable to the recent New York Times
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  Speaker 1: piece that kind of said, you guys are just that
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  Speaker 1: the you know, you're the poster boys. You are you
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  Speaker 1: in body like hit cool? You're not cool. You gotta
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  Speaker 1: be young, you got a slim You gotta be a
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  Speaker 1: certain kind of person to to buy and wear a
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  Speaker 1: Warvy Parkers. Did that? Did that hurt your feelings? It did? Um,
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  Speaker 1: And what was amazing is that it seemed to rally
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  Speaker 1: sort of our our audience. So this columnist right that said, um, hey,
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  Speaker 1: you know, even though Warry Parker's glasses are affordable, there's
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  Speaker 1: this air of exclusivity around the brand. And we couldn't
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  Speaker 1: disagree more and this writer, who usually gets maybe seven
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  Speaker 1: comments on a particular article, got a hundred and eighty
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  Speaker 1: five from people saying that they love the Warby Parker experience,
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  Speaker 1: that they like the influence that where we Parkers having
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  Speaker 1: on the industry, which is forcing other optical change to
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  Speaker 1: um renovate their stores, lower their prices, and provide better
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  Speaker 1: customer service, which we think is a good thing. And
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  Speaker 1: you've also opened recent stores, one in Brooklyn, as Kathleen mentioned,
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  Speaker 1: and we're also looking at new locations. UM. Yeah. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: actually on the way here, I ran to the mall
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  Speaker 1: about twenty minutes ago and now I don't miss an
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  Speaker 1: opportunity to walk through the mall. You know, we think
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  Speaker 1: that the future of retail is the intersection of e
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  Speaker 1: commerce and bricks and mortar, and we've been trying to
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  Speaker 1: lead the way there. We just launched in the app
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  Speaker 1: this past week, UM that uses Apple Pay. That makes
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  Speaker 1: shopping more convenient. Uh, you'll begin to see just how
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  Speaker 1: much we can integrate those two experiences. Well, I'm sure
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  Speaker 1: Orange kind of Mere TREESA Jacob just on the show
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  Speaker 1: with us, will be very happy there opening store here
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  Speaker 1: in Orlando. And we're live at Pershing's Inside conference in Orlando, Florida.
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  Speaker 1: And Katheine Hayes. This is Pim Fox and this is
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Coming up on taking Stock, We're going to
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  Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders meeting with Harry Reid and find out what
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  Speaker 1: went on in that meeting with details the head