Dave Gilboa

Warby Parker started with a casual conversation among friends. Four Wharton MBA students were hanging out one morning on campus, and one of them, Dave Gilboa, happened to mention how annoyed he was with the high price of eyeglasses. They talked over the problem a bit, wondering if glasses might somehow work as an online business. "I remember going home and just constantly thinking about this idea, having trouble going to sleep that night," recalls Neil Blumenthal, who, along

Is there such a thing as having a launch go too well? That was nearly the case with Warby Parker when the über-trendy eyewear company began its try-at-home program. "We launched with these features in GQ and Vogue, and within 48 hours we were stocked out of all our home try-on inventory," co-founder Dave Gilboa tells TechCrunch. "We had a wait list of 20,000 customers for home try-ons. We kind of freaked out and didn't know what to do."