Today I sit down with Jason McCann, Co-Founder and CEO of Vari - a company that started when his business partner stood at a cardboard box complaining of back pain and turned that moment into a brand that has shipped millions of desks and transformed over a thousand offices.
Jason built Vari direct-to-consumer in an industry that had never seen it. He bootstrapped the company while every instinct in the market said raise capital and burn cash. He became the fastest-growing company in Dallas, survived COVID after just putting $15 million into a TV campaign and opening 12 showrooms, and came out the other side as a fundamentally different leader.
We go deep on what it actually takes to innovate legacy product categories, how he recruited the former Chief People Officer of Southwest Airlines over a cup of coffee, and why an introvert had to learn to over-communicate when hundreds of families were counting on him.
I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
Links:
Vari - https://www.vari.com/
Jason on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-mccann-vari/
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Topics:
(00:00:00) - Intro
(00:03:29) - How Vari was started
(00:08:42) - How entrepreneurs should think about product development
(00:11:24) - How Jason approaches AI
(00:24:07) - Developing the standing desk
(00:36:53) - Jason’s approach to manufacturing
(00:47:16) - How Vari develops new products and services
(00:56:59) - Bringing on the head of people of Southwest Airlines
(01:04:31) - How Vari thinks about innovation vs. leaving products alone
(01:14:55) - The future of work in 2026
(01:19:50) - The reindustrialization of America
(01:23:36) - Jason’s unique leadership style
(01:28:47) - Why Jason only wears black
(01:31:52) - What a week looks like for Jason
(01:40:46) - How vari runs exec meetings
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