Neil Blumenthal

Online eyewear retailer Warby Parker isn't known just for innovating eyewear shopping. It's also known for making another typically boring thing super cool — the annual report. Three years ago, it released its first annual review online, a surprisingly transparent look back that included not just the year's highlights, but missteps, as well as a slew of quirky factoids about life spent at the company. It proved so popular and successful marketing-wise that the brand has continued to release the reports each year. 

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

Eyewear marketer Warby Parker has built four physical stores in the last five months, but there was a time when its founders thought they would connect with consumers only through the web and by mailing out home try-on kits, according to Neil Blumenthal, co-CEO at Warby Parker. "We didn't originally think we were going into stores," Blumenthal said in this interview from the Ad Age space at Advertising Week.

In 2010, Neil Blumenthal and three friends launched Warby Parker, which stated by selling eyeglasses online and, unlike most web retailers, is now moving into brick-and-mortar stores. The company offers its own line of vintage-inspired frames that sell for just $95 a pair, including prescription lenses, in contrast to designer glasses that can go for more than $700. Blumenthal, 32, won't reveal revenues and says that while the company has been in the black, right now it is

When Warby Parker opened a flagship in New York City, many people were shocked. No one expected the digital eyewear disruptor to expand its business to a brick-and-mortar store. Speaking at Internet Week this week, Neil Blumenthal, one of Warby Parker's founders, said the move was strategic. "We believe the future of retail is at the intersection of e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar," he said. "People think it's crazy that we went and signed a 10-year lease in SoHo, next to Ralph Lauren, across the street from the Apple Store. But we have actually

When the founders of a start-up that sells eyeglasses online, Warby Parker, began investigating why designer glasses cost several hundred dollars, they discovered that everyone in the process was taking a cut: designers, manufacturers, brands, wholesalers and retailers. But what if they left out most of those people? "I had been to the factories and knew what it costs to manufacture glasses and knew the cost didn't warrant a $700 price tag," said Neil Blumenthal, a founder of the company. Inspired by glasses they found in their grandparents' attics, the founders

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