American Originals Holiday Special w/ Mike Rowe
Theo Von hosts a holiday special focused on American-made products, joined in-studio by Mike Rowe as they highlight small U.S. makers and talk about what it means to support American manufacturing. Throughout the episode they share stories from entrepreneurs and craftspeople behind items like gloves, cherries, hot sauce, cutting boards, pottery, and more, emphasizing resilience, ingenuity, and the "American dream" in action. The conversation closes with reflections on America as something citizens must actively maintain through everyday choices, including where they spend their money.
Nuts.com: Jeff Braverman. From Corner Store to Snacktime Powerhouse
Host Guy Raz interviews Jeff Braverman about how he transformed his family's small Newark Nut Company, founded in 1929, into the large e‑commerce brand Nuts.com. Jeff describes growing up in the store, his early experiments putting the business online, and eventually leaving a lucrative finance job to overhaul operations and focus on direct-to-consumer internet sales. He explains key inflection points, including aggressive use of Google Ads, quirky marketing stunts, a major rebrand to Nuts.com, navigating COVID-era challenges, and eventually transitioning from CEO to chairman while keeping the business family-owned.
Magnolia: Chip & Joanna Gaines. From House Flipping to Household Name
Guy Raz interviews Chip and Joanna Gaines about how they built Magnolia from a small Waco, Texas home goods shop and house-flipping operation into a large lifestyle brand. They trace their journeys from childhood and early scrappy businesses through near-bankruptcy during the housing crisis, the rise of Fixer Upper, and the creation of Magnolia Market at the Silos and their media ventures. They also describe hard decisions like closing Joanna's first shop and ending Fixer Upper, how their faith and partnership guided them, and how they're thinking about the next decade of their lives and business.
Advice Line with Stacy Madison of Stacy's Pita Chips
In this Advice Line episode of How I Built This Lab, host Guy Raz and guest co-host Stacey Madison, founder of Stacey's Pita Chips, answer questions from three entrepreneurs about scaling personality-driven brands, positioning a little-known spirit, and reviving a heritage snack company. Stacey also briefly reflects on her own journey, including her pivot from a food cart to pita chips, burnout from a pandemic-hit energy bar business, and the importance of listening to customers. Callers include the founder of a fast-growing pizza steel and content brand, the co-founder of a Peruvian pisco label, and the fourth-generation leader of Stucky's pecan snacks seeking to modernize while honoring legacy.
Faherty Brand: Alex and Mike Faherty. How Jersey Shore + Manhattan Chic grew to 80 stores.
Twin brothers Mike and Alex Faherty describe how a high-school dream of blending surf culture with Manhattan-quality fashion became Faherty, a surf-inspired clothing brand with around 80 U.S. stores and roughly a quarter of a billion dollars in sales. They walk through their deliberate 12-year preparation period, early careers in fashion and finance, the decision to pursue a multi-channel model combining wholesale, e-commerce, and retail, and scrappy tactics like a mobile beach house store and a print catalog. The conversation covers cashflow struggles, a pivotal hero product, the impact of COVID on their business, rapid store expansion, family dynamics, and their desire to keep Faherty a long-term family-run brand.
Poppi: Allison and Stephen Ellsworth. From Farmers Market Vinegar Drink to $2B Soda Sensation
Allison and Stephen Ellsworth describe how a homemade apple cider vinegar drink that helped Allison's health issues evolved into Mother Beverage and ultimately the prebiotic soda brand Poppy. They walk through bootstrapping production in their house, early traction at farmers markets and Whole Foods, a pivotal Shark Tank deal with investor Rohan Oza, a complete rebrand and shift to cans, and rapid growth fueled by Amazon, Shark Tank exposure, and TikTok. The episode concludes with their creation of a new "modern soda" category, Poppy's sale to Pepsi for nearly $2 billion, and reflections on building a generational brand as a married co‑founder team.