How I Built This

NEW @howibuiltthis EPISODE ALERT! Think the cowboy boot capital of the world is in Texas? Close, but the real answer is León, Mexico, a global powerhouse of leather and shoemaking. When @paul_hedrick Paul Hedrick visited in 2014, he couldn’t get a single factory to work with him. No experience, no track record—just a big idea: build a premium cowboy boot brand, sell direct-to-consumer, and cut out the markup. He kept calling, kept knocking on doors… until one small bootmaker finally said yes. That was the start of @tecovas Today, Tecovas is on track to sell over $300 million in boots and apparel. Hear how Paul Hedrick turned persistence into a booming brand on How I Built This with Guy Raz. Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and follow @guy.raz for more.

🚨 From vinegar to a $2 BILLION soda brand 🚨 Allison Ellsworth hated the taste of apple cider vinegar… so she reinvented it. 🥤 She started mixing it in her kitchen with fruit + sparkling water. 🛒 Within weeks, Whole Foods came calling. 😳 Then came sleepless nights, near financial collapse, a Shark Tank pitch while 9 months pregnant… and finally, a rebrand that changed everything: Poppi. One viral TikTok later, Poppi became the #1 soda on Amazon. By 2024, sales hit $500M. A year later, Pepsi bought it for just under $2B. This is how a homemade gut-health drink turned into one of the biggest beverage success stories ever. 🎧 Hear the full story now on How I Built This with @guy.raz

From near bankruptcy to Magnolia: the empire Chip and Joanna Gaines built. They didn’t just renovate homes—they rebuilt an entire culture around them. Before they were household names, Chip and Joanna Gaines were nearly broke—renovating houses in Waco during the 2008 crash. Most people would’ve quit. They didn’t. They doubled down—on their partnership, their faith, and their hometown. Then came Fixer Upper: 5 million viewers a week, a cultural movement around shiplap and small-town charm. But when they walked away from the show at its peak, everyone thought they were crazy. They weren’t quitting TV. They were building Magnolia—a billion-dollar brand rooted in storytelling, family, and the belief that “home” can change everything. 💡 The lesson? You don’t need the spotlight to build something lasting. You need conviction, patience, and a story people want to belong to. 🎧 Hear how Chip and Joanna Gaines built Magnolia—now on How I Built This with @guy.raz .

🚨 🚨 NEW EPISODE ALERT 🚨 🚨 John Gabbert didn’t build Room & Board because he wanted to disrupt furniture retail. He built it because one trip completely changed how he thought about the business. John grew up inside his family’s furniture company in Minnesota. By his twenties, he was already helping run it. Then, in the 1970s, he traveled to Sweden and visited a retailer that barely existed in the American consciousness at the time: IKEA. What fascinated him wasn’t just the furniture. It was the system behind it: modern design, direct manufacturing relationships, lower prices, and products built for a younger generation furnishing their first apartments and homes. John came back convinced that this was the future. So he started experimenting with a small modern furniture concept inside the family business. That experiment became the early version of Room & Board. But when it came time to inherit the larger company, his father refused to sell. So John made a difficult decision: instead of taking over the family business, he walked away from it. He traded his ownership stake for the small Room & Board division (roughly $800,000 worth of inventory and assets) and started over. At first, the company resembled IKEA in many ways: affordable modern furniture, flat-packed products, self-assembly. But over time, John noticed his customers changing. As they got older, they wanted something different. Furniture that lasted. Better materials. Better craftsmanship. A more permanent version of modern design. So Room & Board evolved too. The company shifted toward solid wood, full-service delivery, and partnerships with smaller American manufacturers. Today, more than 90% of its furniture is made in the United States. And after building the company into a business doing roughly half a billion dollars in annual sales, John made one more unusual decision: He gave it to the employees. Room & Board is becoming 100% employee-owned. It’s a story not just about modern furniture — but about recognizing when the market changes, and being willing to evolve with it. Hear the full story on How I Built This with @guy.raz .

New episode with John Gabbert of Room & Board drops on Monday! John Gabbert grew up working at his dad’s furniture store in the suburbs of Minneapolis, selling classic American-made furniture with flowery prints and curved legs. But a trip to Sweden in 1972 changed everything. There, John discovered IKEA—and saw a radically different future for furniture: simple, modern, affordable, and vertically integrated. The only problem? His dad completely disagreed. That disagreement led to a 10-year family rift—and eventually the creation of Room & Board, a company John built without outside investors and without chasing growth for growth’s sake. In this episode, you’ll learn: 🔸 Why the right move for your business can become the hardest one for your family 🔸 How John connected with young boomers—not their parents 🔸 The key to long-term success: growing slowly and learning to say “no” 🔸 Why John refused private equity money 🔸 Why Room & Board transitioned to employee ownership Listen to the episode on Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Most founders eventually leave the company they started. Jonah Peretti stayed at BuzzFeed for more than two decades because, in his view, the company never stopped changing. That’s the interesting part about building in digital media: the platform keeps moving beneath you. What started as a simple website posting a handful of articles a day eventually had to adapt to mobile, then social media, then video, then platform distribution. Along the way, BuzzFeed launched entirely new businesses — including Tasty and BuzzFeed News — while expanding globally and constantly rethinking what internet content could look like. For Jonah, staying wasn’t about maintaining the same business. It was about continuously reinventing it. And that’s what still excites him now. Instead of thinking like the CEO of a mature media company, he still approaches things like a builder — experimenting with apps, incubating new ideas, and asking the same question he asked in the beginning: What would you create if you were starting from scratch today? One of the newer examples is an experimental app called Conjure Camera, which gives users daily photo challenges through a surreal, game-like experience. That willingness to keep rebuilding — instead of protecting what already exists — is probably why Jonah never felt the need to leave and “start something new.” He just kept starting new things inside the company he already had. Hear the full conversation on How I Built This with @guy.raz . Thank you to the founders of @motion.flix , @catsumo.co , and @unrefinedfoodsco for joining us on the show.

🚨 🚨 NEW EPISODE ALERT 🚨 🚨 Gregg Renfrew didn’t build BeautyCounter the way most startups were being built in the 2010s. At a time when every consumer brand was chasing the direct-to-consumer playbook: Facebook ads, sleek websites, endless customer acquisition… Gregg went the other direction. She built relationships. Before Beautycounter, Gregg had already worked across fashion, media, and consumer brands, including roles connected to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and early conversations that helped shape The Honest Company. So when she launched Beautycounter in 2011, she understood something many founders overlooked: beauty products are often sold through trust. Instead of relying only on e-commerce, she built a massive network of independent sellers — women hosting gatherings, introducing products to friends, and growing the brand community by community. It worked. Within a decade, Beautycounter had tens of thousands of sellers, nearly 100 products, and hundreds of millions in annual revenue. In 2021, The Carlyle Group invested roughly $600 million, valuing the company at $1 billion. And then things unraveled. Gregg was pushed out. Sales declined. The company eventually collapsed into foreclosure, wiping out Carlyle’s investment. Most founder stories end there. This one didn’t. Because after losing control of the company she built, Gregg got an unexpected call: did she want to buy it back? She said YES. It’s a story about growth, power, and what happens when a founder loses the company that once felt inseparable from their identity. Hear the full story on How I Built This with @guy.raz

New episode with Gregg Renfrew of Beautycounter (now Counter) drops tomorrow! Gregg Renfrew started a movement by making better-for-you cosmetics—and built an army of women to help scale the business through direct sales. Beautycounter became one of the biggest names in clean beauty. Then, after selling the company, Gregg was pushed out of the business she created. What happened next is something almost no founder gets to experience: she bought the company back… lost it again… and took the risky step of rebuilding it into a completely new brand called Counter. In this episode, Gregg Renfrew talks candidly about ambition, identity, second chances, and the lessons she learned from working with difficult people—including, at times, herself. In this episode, you’ll learn: 🔸 How to build a movement—not just a product 🔸 The hidden risks of “growth at all costs” 🔸 Why direct sales, done right, can outperform traditional DTC 🔸 The emotional toll of being fired from your own company 🔸 How to rebuild your identity after losing your business 🔸 What it takes to come back—and do it differently the second time Listen to the episode on Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

David Neeleman doesn’t build airlines by copying existing ones. He studies what the industry leaves behind. After helping launch Southwest Airlines, JetBlue, and Azul Brazilian Airlines, David had already spent decades learning the economics of aviation. And one of his biggest insights was surprisingly counterintuitive: New airplanes can actually be cheaper than old ones. Lower maintenance. Better fuel efficiency. Better customer experience. But the deeper lesson came from watching how airline networks evolved over time. Larger planes. More hub-and-spoke routing. Bigger markets getting all the attention while smaller cities slowly lost service. David saw an opening. Millions of travelers in secondary markets were being forced to connect through hubs for flights that used to be nonstop. At the same time, travelers were increasingly willing to pay a little more for a noticeably better experience. That combination became the foundation for Breeze Airways. A modern fleet. Smaller underserved markets. More nonstop routes. Simpler travel. But what’s interesting about David’s approach is that he doesn’t talk about disruption in abstract terms. He talks about accumulated lessons. Every airline he built taught him something: Treat employees well. Own the market when possible. Design around underserved customers. And pay attention to where the industry is consolidating too aggressively. Breeze wasn’t built from scratch. It was built from pattern recognition. Hear David’s updates and his advice to 3 aspiring founders on this week’s episode of the How I Built This Advice Line with @guy.raz . Thank you to the founders of @foodplayproductions , @ultimateninjas , and @getgotchies for being a part of our show.

🚨 🚨 NEW EPISODE ALERT 🚨 🚨 They didn’t start a fashion brand. They just hated wearing ties. In the late ’90s, Shep Murray was on Wall Street. Ian Murray was in PR. Same routine. Same commute. Same uniform. And the same thought every morning: Is this really it? Every tie looked identical—dark, serious, interchangeable. It wasn’t style. It was a signal: you’re playing the game. Then on a trip to Anguilla, they had a different idea: What if a tie didn’t feel like work? What if it felt like freedom? No fashion experience. No investors. Just $8,000 on credit cards. They quit. Bought a Jeep. Filled it with ties. And started selling them out of the trunk—beaches, bars, anywhere someone would stop. But they weren’t really selling ties. They were selling a feeling: “I’d rather be somewhere else.” That feeling became Vineyard Vines. $1M in sales within a few years. Hundreds of millions today. 100+ stores. Still owned by the two brothers who started it. They didn’t follow the dress code. They rewrote it. Hear the full story on How I Built This with @guy.raz

New episode with Shep and Ian Murray of Vineyard Vines (@vineyardvines ) drops on Monday! In the late 1990s, Shep and Ian Murray looked at a shrinking category—men’s ties—and saw something everyone else missed: a tie isn’t just functional, it’s expressive. With no fashion experience and no outside investors, the brothers started making colorful designs inspired by their childhood summers on Martha’s Vineyard—whales, sailboats, and island life. What began as a scrappy side project turned into Vineyard Vines—a half-billion-dollar lifestyle brand with more than 100 stores and national distribution. In this episode, you’ll learn:
🔸 Why great businesses can start in categories everyone thinks are dying
🔸 How to build distribution when you have no roadmap or connections
🔸 What bootstrapping teaches founders that outside capital often doesn’t
🔸 How improvised marketing can create outsized attention
🔸 The difference between a fashion brand and a true brand Listen to the episode on Monday, wherever you get your podcasts.

Eric Ryan doesn’t start with products. He starts with patterns. As the co-founder of Method, Olly, and Welly, Eric has built a career around reimagining categories most people ignore — cleaning supplies, vitamins, bandages — and turning them into design-forward, culturally relevant brands. But the way he finds those opportunities is surprisingly systematic. He looks at macro trends first. Where is consumer behavior heading over the next three to five years? What’s shifting culturally? What feels outdated or overlooked in a category? Then comes the second step: pattern matching. Instead of trying to invent the idea himself, Eric looks for founders who are already building in that direction — people who instinctively understand where the market is going. That’s what he looks for when he invests. Not just a good product, but alignment with a larger shift that’s already underway. Because the best brand opportunities don’t come from forcing something new into the world. They come from recognizing what’s about to change — and getting there early. Hear the full conversation on How I Built This with @guy.raz . Thank you to the founders of @havynco , @pidgintoes , and @reservedforhumans for being a part of our show.