Stay ConnectedGuy Raz interviews the world’s best-known entrepreneurs to learn how they built their iconic brands. In each episode, founders reveal deep, intimate moments of doubt and failure, and share insights on their eventual success. How I Built This is a master-class on innovation, creativity, leadership and how to navigate challenges of all kinds.
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When she was just 19 years old, Melanie Perkins dreamt of transforming the graphic design and publishing industries. But she started small, launching a site to make yearbook design simpler and more collaborative. Her success with that first venture—and an unexpected meeting with a VC investor—eventually landed her the backing to pursue her original idea, and the chance to take on software industry titans like Adobe and Microsoft. Today, Melanie's online design platform Canva is valued at $6 billion, joining the list of Australia's "unicorn" companies.
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Music manager and entrepreneur Troy Carter spoke to Guy last June, as the pandemic was worsening and the country was shaken by racial unrest. Troy spoke about the profound impact of these events on him personally, as well as on the music industry. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.
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Over the course of ten years as a founder, Chieh Huang bet twice on the ubiquity of the smartphone. The first time was in 2010 with Astro Ape, a mobile gaming company that he founded with a few friends out of an attic. The second time was with Boxed, a mobile bulk-retailer that he co-launched in 2013 out of his New Jersey garage. Chieh and his tiny team scrambled to send out their first boxes of toilet paper and laundry detergent, gambling that they could compete with monster retailers by offering fewer items, competitive prices, and a hand-written note in every box. Since its launch 8 years ago, Boxed has sent out tens of millions of boxes of groceries, and has been valued at over $600M.
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After retiring from professional soccer, Beverly Leon shifted her focus in a big way. In 2018 she founded Local Civics, an ed-tech start-up that uses game-based learning to encourage kids to strengthen their civic leadership skills. Her mission is to get students civically involved long before they're eligible to vote. She talked with Guy about the business model of an education start-up, how her business has responded to today's challenges, and why she thinks we need a more inclusive democracy. These conversations are excerpts from our online How I Built Resilience series, where Guy interviews founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In 2012, 22-year-old Katlin Smith was growing restless at her consulting job, so she started experimenting with grain-free, paleo-friendly muffin recipes in her Atlanta kitchen. A buyer at a nearby Whole Foods agreed to sell Katlin's muffin mixes and placed an order for twelve bags. She then hustled to expand the business: hand-mixing almond flour and coconut sugar in food-grade barrels, slinging wardrobe boxes of muffin mix into a rental car, and standing by helplessly while shoppers scarfed down more samples than anticipated. 8 years after launch, Simple Mills has expanded to include cookies and crackers and other treats; it's available in 28,000 stores and does roughly $100M in annual revenue.
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Strava is a social fitness platform with more than 76 million users in nearly every country worldwide. Co-founders Michael Horvath and Mark Gainey spoke with Guy about the recent surge in users joining their virtual fitness community. They share how they've focused on creating new content and features to meet peoples' increased need for connection in a socially distanced world. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.
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In 2001, Mike Cannon-Brookes sent an email to his college classmates in Sydney, asking if anyone was interested in helping him launch a tech startup after graduation. Back then, entrepreneurship wasn't a popular career path in Australia; and Mike's only taker was Scott Farquhar, a fellow student who shared Mike's passion for computers and his frustration for the corporate grind. Together they launched Atlassian, a two-man tech support service that they managed from their bedrooms at all hours of the night. Unable to make money, Scott and Mike decided to pivot and sell some of the software they'd developed for themselves. Out of that grew Jira, a project-management tool that's used in all sorts of endeavors, from pizza delivery to the exploration of Mars. Today, Atlassian is valued at over $50 billion and Scott and Mike are Australia's first startup-to-IPO tech billionaires.
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M. Night Shyamalan spoke with Guy as part of NPR's Storytelling Lounge at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Night is known for writing, producing and directing blockbuster films like The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Split. Despite his many successes, Night shares that he still faces self-doubt, fearing every new project may be his last. He spoke with Guy about the production of his new film Old and the new season of his Apple TV Plus show Servant, both of which were filmed during the pandemic.
These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and industry leaders about how they're navigating turbulent times.
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When Norma Kamali studied fashion illustration in the 1960s, she never expected to become a designer. So when a job as an airline clerk came along, she was glad to accept it—along with the perk of dirt-cheap flights from New York to London. On those weekend trips abroad, she discovered fashion that was exuberant and eye-catching, so she started loading her suitcase with clothing to sell in the U.S. By the 1970s, she was designing her own pieces out of a shop in New York; soon she was selling them to celebrities like Cher and Bette Midler. Today, after more than 50 years in the fashion industry, Norma Kamali is known for iconic designs like the sleeping bag coat, and the bold red bathing suit popularized by Farah Fawcett.
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Fourth generation cattle rancher Loren Poncia and his wife Lisa transformed Stemple Creek Ranch into one of the few carbon neutral livestock ranches in the United States, and have since made their ranch carbon positive, sequestering more carbon than they emit. Lisa and Loren spoke with Guy about how consumers are helping drive the sustainable farming movement, and how they doubled down on online retail after many restaurants shut down. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating turbulent times.
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