Episodes

In this Advice Line episode, RXBAR co-founder Peter Rahal joins the show to share insights on building a clean-label snack brand from scratch and his new venture, David Protein. Callers ask about scaling a nutrition company, navigating acquisitions, and maintaining ingredient transparency while growing. Rahal offers practical advice on entrepreneurship, product development, and the challenges of disrupting the snack industry.

Frustrated by ill-fitting women's sports gear, Missy Park launched Title Nine in 1989, years before competitors like Lululemon or Athleta entered the market. After a disastrous initial launch that produced just 15 orders from 20,000 mailed catalogs, a last-minute catalog addition turned the brand around. She bootstrapped the independently owned company to roughly $100 million in annual revenue while remaining the sole owner.

Jeff and Curran Dandurand, co-founders of Jack Black Skincare, return to the How I Built This Advice Line to help three fellow founders tackle real business challenges. Inga Potter from Cold Current Kelp seeks guidance on scaling her Maine kelp farm and skincare brand, Ashley from Âme Atendre looks for strategies to grow her luxury tableware line, and Brent from GOSO Cookware needs direction on expanding his adventure cookware business. The Dandurands draw on decades of experience building and selling a best-in-class men's skincare company to share practical advice on retail strategy, product development, and maintaining brand integrity while growing.

Guy Raz sits down with Abhi Ramesh to unpack how an apple-picking trip revealed that millions of pounds of perfectly edible produce go to waste each year, and turned that insight into a billion grocery empire. After testing demand with Facebook ads selling ugly-produce subscription boxes at a discount, Misfits Market landed million in venture capital and scaled into a full online grocery store operating in 48 states with 1,100+ items.

Jeni Britton joins Guy Raz on the Advice Line to help three early-stage founders navigate marketing, fundraising, and PR. Jesse Koenig wants to focus his frozen fry brand's marketing. Casey White feels pressure to raise outside capital for her frozen pierogi company. Callie Zahar weighs whether to hire a PR firm for her purple sweet potato pet treat brand. Plus, Britton shares how her new fiber-forward company Floura is addressing a massive American dietary gap.

When a last-minute pandemic acquisition deal collapsed, dermatologist Dennis Gross and his wife and co-founder Carrie Gross feared they’d lose the brand they built from his New York practice. The pair bootstrapped Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare for over two decades after perfecting a non-irritating chemical peel formula that filled a 1990s skincare gap, growing the line into a $450 million Shiseido acquisition. Their story reveals how clinical expertise and spousal partnership can turn a niche clinic side project into a global beauty powerhouse.

TaskRabbit founder Leah Solivan returns to the HIBT Advice Line to help three founders solve real growth problems. Kate Pitner explains how her design background and pandemic-born greeting card app Poppy Notes struggle to stand out in the App Store. Sean Sarekli shares the unique acquisition challenge of My Love Your Love, a couples coaching app where every user needs a partner to join. Allan Ward asks how to recruit early adopters for Dynabuddy, a dinosaur-themed music education platform for kids. Leah draws on marketplace experience to offer practical advice on trust, storytelling, and finding the right first customers.

Guy Raz sits down with Niklas Zennström to unpack how he and Janus Friis turned peer-to-peer networking into two industry-shaking products: Kazaa disrupted music sharing, and Skype made international voice calls free for millions. After surviving lawsuits, an eBay acquisition, and a buyback, Zennström built Atomico to prove that world-changing tech companies could launch from Europe.

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Guy Raz sits down with Mark Lawrence to unpack how thousands of dollars in parking tickets and a failed bike trip across Africa led to the creation of SpotHero. From a single driveway rental near Wrigley Field to a platform that has parked 50 million cars across North America, Lawrence shares how resisting investor pressure to blitzscale and focusing on slow, steady growth allowed SpotHero to outlast better-funded rivals and become the dominant digital parking platform.

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Guy Raz sits down with Max Levchin to unpack how a Ukrainian-born computer prodigy helped build PayPal and launch the legendary PayPal Mafia. From surviving Soviet-era Ukraine to coding in a Chicago high school, Levchin’s journey includes the chaotic early days of PayPal, the intense merger with Elon Musk’s X.com, and the emotional boardroom ouster of Musk as CEO. After eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, Levchin faced a year of directionless depression before finding purpose in entrepreneurship again. The raw human cost behind Silicon Valley success comes into focus.