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.
Advice Line with Bill Creelman of Spindrift
Host Guy Raz and Spindrift founder Bill Creelman co-host an advice line, taking calls from three founders about their growth challenges. They discuss ingredient integrity and defensibility with a fast-growing pickle beer brand, hiring and marketing strategy for a flannel-aloha apparel startup, and focus and simplification for a kombucha company juggling multiple revenue streams. Bill also reflects on his own journey, emphasizing the importance of narrowing focus and solving the biggest problems rather than trying to do everything.
Introducing Business History: How Free Whisky, Hot Pants and Low Fares Led to Southwest's Success
Hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith trace the rise of Southwest Airlines from a Texas intrastate startup sketched on a cocktail napkin to one of the most consistently profitable airlines in U.S. history. They explain how regulatory structures, low fares, aggressive legal battles, operational innovations, and a deliberately unglamorous business strategy gave Southwest a durable edge in a notoriously bad industry. The episode then examines how those same strengths later exposed vulnerabilities, culminating in the 737 MAX grounding, a holiday meltdown, activist investor pressure, and strategic changes like adding assigned seating.
Every Business I Tried Before Making My First Million
Sam walks through roughly ten different companies and side projects he tried before making his first million at around age 31, sharing how much money each made and what he learned from them. The conversation covers early hustles like flipping sports equipment, running a hot dog stand, selling white whiskey online, organizing an Anti-MBA book club, building a roommate-matching app, launching niche products like poison ivy treatment, and eventually creating The Hustle and this podcast. Along the way, Sam and Sean discuss developing money-making skills, scrappiness, project selection, risk reduction, and how entrepreneurship is largely about enduring uncertainty and fear over many years.
Gymshark: Ben Francis. From pizza delivery to billion-dollar fitness brand.
Ben Francis tells the story of how he went from a student delivering pizzas and building websites to founding Gymshark, a global gymwear brand. He explains how Gymshark began as a dropship supplement site before pivoting into apparel, leveraged early YouTube fitness influencers, and grew rapidly while remaining bootstrapped. Ben also describes bringing in experienced operators, learning each function of the business, navigating a co-founder split, and eventually returning as CEO to lead Gymshark as a multi-hundred-million pound company with global reach.
TIP769: How Home Depot's Founders Built a $300 Billion Company from the Ground Up w/ Kyle Grieve
Host Kyle Grieve provides a narrative deep dive into the origins and growth of Home Depot, drawing heavily from the founders' book "Built from Scratch". He traces Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank's early careers, their firing from Handy Dan, the creation of the Home Depot concept, the role of key partners like Ken Langone and Pat Farah, and the company's early financing and expansion challenges. The episode then examines Home Depot's competitive strategy, supplier relationships, management philosophy, and long-term performance, extracting lessons for entrepreneurs and investors about culture, pricing, competition, and disciplined growth.
Advice Line with Chet Pipkin of Belkin International
This Advice Line episode of How I Built This Lab features Belkin founder Chet Pipkin helping three early-stage entrepreneurs work through practical business challenges. They discuss adoption and positioning for dissolvable shampoo tablets, inventory and cash-flow planning for a fast-selling sports accessory, and how a massage tool company can expand into B2B and corporate wellness markets. Throughout, Chet shares lessons from building Belkin around solving real problems, managing capital constraints, and relying on grassroots demand instead of top-down sales pushes.
Backroads: Tom Hale. How a desk worker became a trailblazer in active travel
Guy Raz interviews Tom Hale, founder and CEO of Backroads, about how he turned a spontaneous idea into one of the largest active travel companies in the world. Hale describes leaving an unfulfilling environmental planning job, bootstrapping bike trips through U.S. national parks and later internationally, and building a logistics- and people-intensive business without outside capital. He also explains how Backroads survived major shocks like 9/11, the Great Recession, and COVID-19 while expanding beyond bike tours into hiking and multi-adventure travel.
TIP766: Intelligent Fanatics: How Great Business Leaders Win w/ Clay Finck
Host Clay Fink summarizes the book "Intelligent Fanatics" by Ian Cassel and Sean Iddings, explaining how extraordinary business leaders build durable competitive advantages through culture, incentives, and long-term thinking. He dives into case studies of Herb Kelleher at Southwest Airlines, Les Schwab at Les Schwab Tire Centers, and Chester Cajot at QuickTrip, highlighting their unconventional strategies and employee-first philosophies. The episode distills common traits of intelligent fanatics and connects them to how investors can better evaluate management teams and business quality.
Are Two C.E.O.s Better Than One? (Update)
Stephen Dubner revisits the question of whether companies run by co-CEOs perform better than those with a single chief, exploring both supportive evidence and strong skepticism. CEO advisor Mark Feigen and several current and former co-CEOs describe the benefits and pitfalls of shared leadership, while Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld critiques the model as creating role confusion and undermining decisive authority. Computer scientist Lori Williams adds evidence from pair programming, showing how working in pairs can improve quality and satisfaction, raising the broader question of when two leaders might truly be better than one.
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.
Advice Line with Michael Dubin of Dollar Shave Club
Host Guy Raz speaks with Dollar Shave Club founder Michael Dubin, who shares what he has been working on since selling his company, including writing a screenplay, advisory and board work, exploring new company ideas, and starting a wildfire-focused nonprofit. Together they field calls from three entrepreneurs: a founder launching Syrian cheese into U.S. grocery stores, a mobile mini-golf business owner scaling service quality through employees, and a former wildland firefighter making custom fire uniforms who is struggling with production capacity and growth. Dubin and Raz offer practical advice on marketing in a noisy digital world, brand storytelling, customer experience, hiring and incentives, and when and how to think about fundraising and manufacturing partnerships.
Brainstorming $100M Ideas with the $1B+ King of Brands
The hosts interview consumer brand entrepreneur Eric Ryan about how he repeatedly reinvents everyday product categories like soap, vitamins, and bandages into large, culturally resonant brands. Ryan explains his simple but disciplined model for spotting category white space, stealing inspiration from distant industries and geographies, and balancing familiarity with novelty, then applies that thinking in a live brainstorming session for new $100M+ brand ideas. He also discusses the challenges of execution, leadership, and funding, including a recent failed retail jewelry venture and his current shift toward incubating brands and investing via a new consumer fund.
Pressbox and Tide Cleaners: Vijen Patel. The $1.99 Gamble That Built a National Brand
Host Guy Raz interviews entrepreneur Vijan Patel about founding Pressbox, a dry cleaning and laundry startup built around 24/7 locker access in residential buildings. Patel explains how he and co-founder Drew McKenna bootstrapped the company, focused relentlessly on unit economics and quality, and expanded across multiple U.S. cities before being acquired by Procter & Gamble and folded into Tide Cleaners. He also describes the burnout of running a 24/7 service business, the competitive battles with venture-backed rivals and P&G itself, and his current focus on investing in "boring" but essential, asset-heavy businesses through his fund, the 81 Collection.
Advice Line with Tony Xu of Doordash
This Advice Line episode of How I Built This features DoorDash co-founder and CEO Tony Hsu joining Guy Raz to coach three early-stage founders through strategic decisions. They discuss when to expand a product line beyond the core offering, how to think about raising capital versus using debt while maintaining control of a growing CPG brand, and how a small, mission-driven meat company can differentiate and educate consumers in a crowded "grass-fed" market. Tony also reflects on DoorDash's evolution, his approach to managing stress, and what he wishes he'd known as a first-time founder.
The Hospitality Principles That Build Billion-Dollar Startups
The host interviews restaurateur and author Will Gudera about the philosophy and practice of "unreasonable hospitality" that helped his restaurant Eleven Madison become a top destination. They discuss how small, highly personal gestures can matter more than perfect execution, how to build a culture of rigorous feedback and care, and how to operationalize hospitality through roles like the "Dreamweaver" and systems such as one-size-fits-all, one-size-fits-some, and one-size-fits-one experiences. The conversation also explores applications in other industries, the economics of restaurants, and the broader pursuit of excellence in life and business.
He turned a broke team into a billion dollars
The hosts profile Jesse Cole and the Savannah Bananas, tracing how he transformed a struggling summer-league baseball operation into a massively in-demand entertainment phenomenon. They describe his decade of experiments with the Gastonia Grizzlies, the all‑in risk he and his wife took to launch the Savannah Bananas, and the fan‑first innovations that led to Banana Ball and a huge touring live show business. Along the way they draw parallels to MrBeast, Steve Jobs, Will Guidara, Dan Porter, Monster Jam, and Feld Entertainment to explore strategy, hospitality, showmanship, and building AI‑proof live experiences.
Advice Line with Randy Hetrick of TRX
Host Guy Raz speaks with TRX founder Randy Hetrick on an 'Advice Line' episode where they take calls from three founders seeking guidance on scaling their businesses. Randy first updates listeners on his journey selling TRX to private equity, starting a new outdoor fitness venture, and eventually buying TRX back in a turnaround. Together, Guy and Randy advise the founders of an emerging low-caffeine energy drink brand entering Target, an Australian meat pie franchise looking for strategic investment, and an adaptive apparel company debating how narrowly to focus its target markets.
The Side Hustle King: 11 Easy Businesses Anyone Can Start
The hosts bring back their "side hustle king" guest Chris to share a series of concrete, small-business and side-hustle ideas ranging from seasonal porch pumpkin decorating and backyard sport courts to in-ground trampolines, male "dollhouse" building kits, liquidation arbitrage, and mobile fuel delivery. They discuss how these seemingly simple service and niche product ideas generate substantial revenue, how Chris validates demand with short-form content and paid ads, and how he structures operations with subcontractors and partners. Later, Chris describes his RV park investments, his interest in AI automation services for small businesses, and his plans for an AI-enabled QuickBooks competitor.
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.