{"id":20487,"date":"2016-12-16T14:09:31","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T19:09:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/company\/stories\/warby-parker-turning-affordable-eyewear-long-lasting-legacy\/"},"modified":"2022-03-04T23:12:46","modified_gmt":"2022-03-05T04:12:46","slug":"warby-parker-turning-affordable-eyewear-long-lasting-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/company\/stories\/warby-parker-turning-affordable-eyewear-long-lasting-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"How Warby Parker Is Turning Affordable Eyewear into a Long-Lasting Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='bbg-row bbg-bg--white  bbg-row--margin-top-none bbg-row--margin-bottom-none' data-anchor='row-6a09aa4a1f4e9'>\n  \n\t\n\t\n\t<div class=\"bbg-row--content\">\n\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class='bbg-column bbg-column--width-8 bbg-column--offset-2'>\n\t<div class='bb-wysiwyg'>\n    \n    <p>Warby Parker\u2019s Neil Blumenthal envisions his hip eyewear maker becoming the world\u2019s biggest optical company.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are not building <a href=\"https:\/\/www.warbyparker.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Warby Parker<\/a> and our brand to scale and flip it, but to last and be around for a hundred years\u2014and hopefully have a big impact,\u201d said Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO, at the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg speaker series.<\/p>\n<p>After guiding the disruptive industry innovator to a $1.2 billion valuation through five rounds of funding, Blumenthal believes it\u2019s vital to continue growing Warby Parker, but without abandoning the brand\u2019s core values: great products, attainable prices, strong customer experiences and social entrepreneurship. The key to the company\u2019s continuing success, he asserts, is keeping intact many of the company\u2019s \u201ctraditions and rituals,\u201d while also accepting change.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChange is inevitable and happening faster than ever before,\u201d Blumenthal told the audience in Bloomberg\u2019s headquarters in midtown Manhattan. \u201cWe have to welcome and embrace it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<style>#bloomberg-video-6a09aa4a28edb .bloomberg-video__wrapper { background-image: url('https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/-EiyG9r0RSY\/hqdefault.jpg'); }<\/style>\n<div class='bloomberg-video' data-aspect-ratio='16:9' data-service='youtube-video' id='bloomberg-video-6a09aa4a28edb'>\n\t<div class='bloomberg-video__wrapper bloomberg-video__wrapper--core'>\n\n<a\n\tclass=\"bloomberg-video__link\"\n\thref=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-EiyG9r0RSY\"\n\ttarget=\"_blank\"\n\trel=\"noopener\"\n\ttitle=\"\"\n\tdata-video-id=\"-EiyG9r0RSY\"\n\tdata-video-title=\"Bloomberg Cornell Tech Series: A Conversation with Neil Blumenthal (Teaser)\"\n\tdata-orientation=\"Horizontal\"\n\tdata-modestbranding=\"0\"\n\tdata-controls=\"1\"\n\tdata-is-playlist=\"0\"\n\tdata-playlist-starting-video=\"\"\n\tdata-start-time=\"0\"\n\taria-label=\"Play Video\"\n><\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class='bb-wysiwyg'>\n    \n    <p>Next year, Warby Parker will expand in a new direction, launching and scaling its first optical lab to cut and insert lenses into its frames. By supplying its own lenses, the company will be able to deliver glasses faster to its customers who, Blumenthal believes, have heightened expectations about speed thanks to the likes of Amazon and Uber. The new lab could also help the company gain ground on optical empire Luxottica, which boasts $9 billion in sales and owns such eyewear brands as Ray-Ban and Persol, in addition to numerous retailers, including LensCrafters and Pearle Vision.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the next step in our vertical integration,\u201d said Blumenthal.<\/p>\n<p>In 2010, Blumenthal started Warby Parker with co-CEO David Gilboa and two other fellow MBA students at the University of Pennsylvania&#8217;s Wharton School. The company\u2019s e-commerce model offered fashionable, affordable glasses with frames, made in-house, for as low as $95. Today, the New York City-based firm has raised a total of $215 million\u00a0and employs more than 1,000\u00a0people. Amid ongoing speculation about an IPO, Blumenthal maintains Warby Parker is \u201con the path to profitability,\u201d with healthy gross margins and an expanding and extremely loyal customer base.<\/p>\n<p>A pillar of its expansion has been migrating from being solely online to selling in 49 brick-and-mortar retail stores\u201447 in the U.S. and two in Canada. That move has helped service more customers and drive greater brand awareness.<\/p>\n<p>As a rule, however, Warby Parker is slow and deliberate about launching new products and services. Over the years, it has gradually introduced sunglasses, transitional lenses that shift from light to dark, and, most recently, progressive lenses &#8212; a segment which accounts for half of the eyewear market. \u201cWe believe in doing it right rather than fast,\u201d said Blumenthal.<\/p>\n<p>The company is also exploring new technologies to improve the customer experience, including the potential for developing an app that would allow vision screenings and other eye tests to be performed on a mobile device. The goal, Blumenthal said, is to eliminate the pain point of needing to visit an eye doctor to secure a valid lens prescription, which many customers could then get remotely on their own.<\/p>\n<p>Even as Warby Parker expands into new areas, Blumenthal and Gilboa are maintaining their unique co-management structure. Blumenthal contends the two executives make it work by focusing on communication and regular interactions. For example, they sit next to each other in the company\u2019s SoHo headquarters, which reduces friction and provides \u201crelease valves,\u201d as he put it. What\u2019s more, he explained, \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have two people who are the face of the company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blumenthal insists Warby Parker will remain committed to its social-impact mission as it grows. Since its founding, the company has helped finance the distribution of more than two million pairs of glasses to people in developing countries. As a certified B Corp, it also enforces rigorous standards concerning the environment and its supply chain, as well as employee hiring and welfare. For instance, to ensure a more diverse workforce, the company has adopted a policy of blindly reviewing resumes in an attempt to eliminate unconscious bias while selecting candidates.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Too many companies try to separate the doing-good part from their day-to-day business,\u201d said Blumenthal. \u201cWhen that happens, the social mission gets isolated. It&#8217;s not engrained in the company, fewer resources are dedicated to it, and there&#8217;s less impact.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>You can view the entire interview <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=W-ySF7WvRRA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warby Parker\u2019s Neil Blumenthal envisions his hip eyewear maker becoming the world\u2019s biggest optical company. \u201cWe are not building Warby Parker and our brand to scale and flip it, but to last and be around for a hundred years\u2014and hopefully have a big impact,\u201d said Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO, at the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg [...]","protected":false},"author":313,"featured_media":20038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1466],"tags":[1786,1470,1572,1471,1783,1665,1784,1473,1785],"class_list":["post-20487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-at-bloomberg","tag-chief-technology-officer","tag-cornell-tech","tag-cto","tag-general","tag-ui","tag-user-experience","tag-user-interface","tag-ux","tag-ux-ui"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.11 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How Warby Parker Is Turning Affordable Eyewear into a Long-Lasting Legacy | Bloomberg LP<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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