How I Built This with Guy Raz

Marcia Kilgore, serial entrepreneur who built Beauty Pie, Bliss and Soap & Glory, offers concise branding and go-to-market advice. She breaks down Beauty Pie’s warehouse pricing and sourcing high-quality products without luxury markups. She helps founders choose retail vs wholesale, overcome fear of scaling, optimize purchase flows, and test ideas quickly with low-cost experiments.

Matt O’Hayer, serial entrepreneur and founder of Vital Farms, shares how he turned pasture-raised eggs into a premium brand. He revisits carpet cleaning, barter, travel, and charter boats. He talks about 9/11 wiping out his business, how Whole Foods became a crucial early partner, and why packaging, farmer partnerships, and customer buzz helped eggs stand out.

Founders call in to figure out how to prove the value of their products and themselves. Conversations cover reusable gift wrap pop-ups, showing dog enrichment cards in action, and scaling an artisanal pesto brand. Experts debate retail vs experiential channels, messaging that converts, manufacturing trade-offs, margins, and hiring the right people.

Aaron Krause, inventor and entrepreneur who turned car-detailing tech into Scrub Daddy. He tells the improbable origin story of a failed scrubber turned kitchen sensation. Hear about in-store demos, QVC mishaps, a Shark Tank breakthrough, patent battles, negotiating with 3M, and how he fought copycats to build a category-leading brand.

Hernan Lopez, media executive and Wondery co-founder, reflects on founding a major podcast network and his legal vindication. He talks podcasting’s future and AI, DTC strategy and unit economics for a retail pain-relief brand, rebranding advice for modest school uniforms, and new revenue ideas for a farmer-owned seed cooperative.

Beryl Stafford, founder of Bobo’s Oat Bars who turned a four-ingredient family recipe into a national snack brand. She talks about starting from homemade bars and humble demos. She describes scaling pains: packaging bets, shared kitchens, Whole Foods break, distribution surprises, burnout, outside investment, and the high-stakes Costco moment.

Miguel McKelvey, WeWork co-founder and mentor to founders, and Melissa Jenski, co-founder of Good Grief, an online care-package startup. They tackle scaling local premium apparel, reviving customer acquisition after ad performance drops, SEO and AI-friendly content for discovery, partnerships and B2B gifting, and lowering CAC ahead of big sales moments.

Cameron Healy, entrepreneur who built Kettle Chips from a $10K start and later co-founded Kona Brewing. He talks about learning to fry perfect kettle chips by trial and error. He explains the bold move to launch in the UK before the U.S. and how that sparked global growth. He also describes rescuing a losing brewery by shifting production and scaling the business for sale.

Alexa Hirschfeld, co-founder of Paperless Post and returning advisor on product, branding, and AI. Jess Walker, founder of Five Dot Post, makes empathy-driven cards for people facing cancer. They tackle collaborations and brand decisions. They discuss AI as a creative accelerator and making casual gatherings easier. Practical advice on scaling production, protecting design, and marketing niche products.

Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square and entrepreneur who helped build the mobile card reader that transformed small-business payments. He tells the story behind losing a $2,000 sale that sparked Square, the headphone-jack hack that bypassed Apple, breaking into a closed payments industry, and the candid pitch listing 140 reasons they might fail.