How I Built This with Guy Raz
Guy Raz asks founders how they actually built the thing, and the answers are more specific than the highlight reel: real revenue numbers, near-death quarters, recalls, lawsuits, and decisions that only look smart in hindsight. We cover the founder-advice episodes and pull out the claims worth checking — the price hikes, the manufacturing hacks, and the numbers behind them.
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The best How I Built This with Guy Raz episodes
- e.l.f. Cosmetics: the fake Bloomingdale's rumor that turned 300 orders a week into 18,000 a day
The strangest growth story in the show's catalog was not a growth hack at all. Co-founder Joey Shamah traces e.l.f.'s breakout to a chain email, a price panic, and a logistics scramble nobody planned.
- YETI: the murder, the blamed raw materials, and the 15 percent price hike that proved pricing power
The cooler origin story is famous, but the revealing part is what Roy Seiders did when his manufacturing partner was murdered and the blame landed on raw materials — he raised prices into the crisis, and demand did not blink.
- OtterBox after the $1.1 billion peak: revenue fell, profit rose
Curt Richardson gave the rare founder update that explains what actually happens after a breakout product becomes boring — and why the post-peak years were healthier than the headline number suggests.
- MadeGood: hand-wiping wrong date codes off 200,000 Costco bars
Before the organic snack giant existed, its founders were in a new factory rescuing a massive Costco order one alcohol wipe at a time — the most literal possible story about quality control.
- Sweetwater: sales engineers making nearly $500,000 in Fort Wayne
Chuck Surack's best argument against Amazon is not nostalgia for phone calls — it is a compensation model where a sales job looks more like a paid residency, and the numbers back him up.
- UNTUCKit: tariffs pulled $9 million straight out of the bank account
A grim little postcard from the new retail math: Chris Riccobono walks through exactly what tariff policy does to a clothing company that owns its inventory.
- Toast: revenue fell over 90 percent during COVID before cutting 55 percent of staff
Being essential software for restaurants was fantastic right up until restaurants were legally unable to open. Aman Narang's survival story is the clearest pandemic case study in the show's archive.
- Jeni Britton tells a beef-tallow fries startup to sell taste, not seed-oil panic
The Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams founder's advice cuts against the current wellness wave: food fads are too fickle to build a brand on, and she has the decades in frozen desserts to say so.
- Bobbi Brown: not every business has to be a rocket ship
Brown pushed young founders away from Target envy and viral growth panic toward the unsexy religion of testing small — counterprogramming for an audience raised on blitzscaling.
- Sun Bum: the Taco Bell Chihuahua lawsuit a jury priced at $30.1 million
Tom Rinks says Taco Bell could have settled the Chihuahua fight for $200,000 before a jury awarded thirty times that — a masterclass in how trademark disputes actually escalate.
Latest episodes
- Seventh Generation: Alan Newman and Jeffrey Hollender. A Partnership that Flourished—until it Failed. (2021) Sep 28, 2026
- Advice Line with Danny Meyer of Shake Shack Sep 24, 2026
- Banza: Brian Rudolph. The Chickpea Pasta That Nearly Turned to Mush Sep 21, 2026
- Advice Line with Michelle Wahler of Beyond Yoga Sep 17, 2026
- Thrive Causemetics: Karissa Bodnar. How a Beauty Business Made Millions for a Mission Sep 14, 2026
35 episodes tracked · 34 guests covered · 28 pieces published, latest 2026-09-28
All How I Built This with Guy Raz coverage
Alan Newman says his 23 percent of Seventh Generation paid him about $200,000 before its $700 million Unilever sale
The How I Built This replay turns an eco-brand origin story into a very expensive co-founder breakup.
Danny Meyer says a business is not a family because families don't fire people
The Shake Shack and Union Square Hospitality Group founder has a cold little corrective for warm workplace language.
Brian Rudolph says Banza sales dropped 30 percent in one week after a glyphosate report
The Banza founder frames the 2024 pesticide scare as a brutal lesson in food trust, lab timing, and why a CEO now has to live in Reddit threads.
Michelle Wahler says founders don't need to raise money because investors make the exit the focus
The Beyond Yoga co-founder, who sold the brand to Levi’s for about $400 million, made the least Silicon Valley argument imaginable: build something sustainable before you start worshipping the cap table.
Karissa Bodnar says an iPhone eyeliner ad took Thrive Causemetics from $150 days to $30 million in months
The founder’s version of the Thrive Causemetics breakout story is less girlboss magic than inventory anxiety, unpaid labor, and one very lucky eyeliner ad.
Kip Tindell says The Container Store hasn't done well since he retired
The Container Store co-founder blames a painful post-retirement slide on new owners, Amazon, and a retail world that forgot how much good salespeople matter.
Kim Vaccarella says she turned down over $100 million rather than sell control of Bogg Bag
The Bogg Bag founder says she walked away from life-changing money, spiraled afterward, then sold a smaller stake after the company hit $50 million in annual sales.
Ben Goodwin says Olipop is well over a half billion dollars in gross revenue and aiming for $1 billion
The Olipop co-founder used his Advice Line return to put a real number on the prebiotic soda race, and to argue that selling after Poppi’s PepsiCo deal is not the only acceptable ending.
Nicole Bernard Dawes says Late July would have failed if its organic tortilla chips flopped after a $3.5 million loan default
The Late July founder tells Guy Raz that crackers and cookies left the brand exposed, then tortilla chips turned a near-default into a $100 million snack business.
Daymond John says big-box retail puts more small brands out of business than it puts in business
The FUBU founder told a Chicago salsa company that the dream of getting on big-store shelves can become a margin-crushing trap.
Roy Seiders says YETI raised prices 15 percent after its manufacturing partner was murdered and blamed raw materials
The YETI origin story has bootstraps, bears, and a very expensive cooler, but the revealing part is a crisis price hike that became proof of real pricing power.
Carlton Calvin says hacky sacks are coming back in a huge way, and Razor is already shipping them
The Razor founder is trying to turn his kid-culture radar into a system, which is either founder wisdom or the world's strangest succession plan.
Laura Modi says Bobbie’s FDA recall got the only U.S. formula contract manufacturer to make its product
The Bobbie founder’s best origin-story twist is that the disaster that could have killed the company became the thing that made it manufacturable.
Bobbi Brown says not every business has to be a rocket ship
On How I Built This, Brown pushed young founders away from Target envy and viral growth panic, and toward the unsexy religion of testing small.
Salma and Nima Fotovat say MadeGood's first factory hand-wiped wrong date codes off 200,000 Costco bars
Before MadeGood became an organic snack giant, its founders were in a new factory trying to rescue a massive Costco order one alcohol wipe at a time.
Sarah LaFleur says premium kidswear brands should skip influencers and sell through trunk shows
The M.M.LaFleur founder gave the quiet luxury kidswear playbook a very offline answer: find the elegant school-drop-off parent, not the algorithm.
Lily Kanter says a rescue deal made it impossible for Serena & Lily to raise another dollar
The prettiest crib bedding company in America got dragged into the ugliest corner of startup finance.
Chris Riccobono says tariffs pulled $9 million from UNTUCKit’s bank account
The UNTUCKit founder turned an advice episode into a grim little postcard from the new retail math.
Chuck Surack says Sweetwater sales engineers can make nearly $500,000 a year in Fort Wayne
The Sweetwater founder’s best argument against Amazon is not nostalgia for phone calls, it is a sales job that looks more like a paid residency for music gear obsessives.
Curt Richardson says OtterBox revenue fell after a $1.1 billion peak, but profit rose
The OtterBox founder gave the rare founder update that actually explains what happens after a breakout product becomes boring.
Susan Griffin-Black says EO Products went from a $30,000 packaging account to owing $2 million after COVID sanitizer whiplash
The EO Products founder turned a sanitizer surge into a warning about the ugly math behind sudden growth.
Joey Shamah says a fake Bloomingdale's buyout rumor sent e.l.f. from 300 orders a week to 18,000 a day
The e.l.f. co-founder says the strangest growth hack in the brand's history was not a hack at all, just a chain email, a price panic, and a logistics nightmare.
Aman Narang says Toast's revenue fell over 90 percent during COVID before it cut 55 percent of staff
The Toast CEO's survival story is a reminder that being essential software for restaurants is fantastic right up until restaurants are legally unable to be restaurants.
Ronnen Harary says Spin Master became too rigid after he stopped being co-CEO
The PAW Patrol co-founder’s most revealing advice was not for a caller, it was the quiet admission that a hit-making toy company can get housebroken.
Krishna Kaliannan says he first coated Catalina Crunch cereal in a washing machine
The Catalina Crunch founder's weirdest manufacturing hack is also the cleanest explanation of why making a modern keto cereal is much harder than making a pitch deck.
Jeni Britton says seed oil panic is too fad-like to build a frozen-fry brand around
The Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams founder told a beef-tallow fries startup to sell taste first, not online wellness panic.
Kenneth Cole says wholesale won't build your brand if you don't own the customer relationship
On How I Built This, Cole gave a very department-store-era warning to modern founders: revenue through retailers can look like momentum while quietly leaving the brand in someone else's hands.
Tom Rinks says he would have settled the Taco Bell Chihuahua lawsuit for $200,000 before a $30.1 million jury award
Before Sun Bum became a sunscreen juggernaut, Rinks says Taco Bell could have ended the Chihuahua fight for a fraction of what a jury later awarded.