How I Built This
Searchable database of How I Built This entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship stories. Find episodes, founder profiles, and company histories from Guy Raz's iconic podcast.
Advice Line with Curt Richardson of OtterBox
OtterBox founder Curt Richardson joins Guy Raz on The Advice Line to help three entrepreneurs solve real business problems. Andy Jeremiah wants to scale his live game show company beyond local Florida communities. Marissa Valenzuela looks for ways to regain sales momentum after taking time off to have a baby. Vince Giudice needs guidance on whether to spread his sustainable baby gear marketing across multiple channels or go deep on one. Curt draws on decades of product-building experience to help each caller think through distribution, customer retention, and brand storytelling.
Toast: Aman Narang. How a Long Wait for the Dinner Check Launched a $2 Billion Business.
After waiting too long to pay his restaurant bill, Aman Narang thought there had to be a better way. His first idea - a mobile payment app - flopped, but that failure revealed a much bigger opportunity. Restaurants were trapped by outdated, expensive point-of-sale systems locked to on-premise servers. So Aman and his co-founders built Toast, a cloud-based operating system for restaurants from scratch. They worked from an unfinished basement, crashed their first launch, survived investor rejection and COVID, and grew Toast into a company that now powers more than 20 percent of U.S. restaurants.
Advice Line with Kenneth Cole
Kenneth Cole joins the advice line to help founders build lasting brands. Matt Jacobs of Pedestrian Project asks how to grow a bootstrapped wellness brand, Levi Case of Swing Sculpt wonders how to price custom golf jewelry, and Emma Fakwade of ISRAELLA KOBLA seeks advice on scaling a made-to-order fashion label. Kenneth shares lessons from 40+ years of Kenneth Cole Productions on storytelling, customer loyalty, and social purpose.
Aman Narang
Aman Narang is the co-founder and CEO of Toast, a point of sale platform for restaurants. After an earlier startup failed, he launched Toast in 2012 to fix restaurant checkout. Under his leadership, Toast grew from a Boston basement into a publicly traded company serving 120,000 U.S. restaurants.
1 episode
Tom Rinks
Tom Rinks is the co-founder of Sun Bum, the sunscreen brand he built from a Michigan startup into a $400 million business acquired by SC Johnson. He previously created the Psycho Chihuahua ad campaign and founded multiple design-driven brands.
1 episode
Krishna Kaliannan
Krishna Kaliannan, 35, founded Austin-based Catalina Crunch, a better-for-you cereal brand he launched after his Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. A How I Built This guest, he debuted the Pairings Cereal sub-line and stepped down as CEO to bring in former KIND exec Doug Behrens. Father of two.
1 episode
Joey Shamah
Joey Shamah co-founded e.l.f. Cosmetics with Scott-Vincent Borba, assisted by his father Alan. He led the one-dollar makeup brand as CEO from 2004 to 2016, growing it into a billion-dollar beauty giant. After exiting e.l.f., he founded Fit for Life via a joint venture acquiring GAIAM Americas' operating company. He attended NYU from 2001 to 2005.
1 episode
Toast
Toast, Inc. is an American cloud-based restaurant management software company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. The company provides an all-in-one point of sale system built on Android, serving restaurants, bars, and other food-service operators across the United States.
1 episode
Sun Bum
Sun Bum is a consumer goods company that makes sunscreen, hair care, lip care, and after-sun products. Founded in 2010 and acquired by SC Johnson in 2019, the brand is known for its beach lifestyle positioning and vitamin-infused formulations.
1 episode
Catalina Crunch
Catalina Crunch is a better-for-you cereal and snack brand founded by Krishna Kaliannan after his Type 1 diabetes diagnosis. The Austin, Texas-based company specializes in high-protein, low-carb, keto-friendly cereals, cookies, and snack mixes.
1 episode
e.l.f. Cosmetics
e.l.f. Cosmetics is an American cosmetics brand based in Oakland, California. Founded by Joseph Shamah and Scott Vincent Borba in 2004, the company sells bath and skin-care products, mineral-based makeup, and professional tools in 18 countries.
1 episode