Episodes

In this Advice Line episode, serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, founder of Beauty Pie, guides three early-stage founders through pressing business challenges. Victor Garcia of Sol Dias Ice Cream weighs expanding retail versus wholesale. Lydia Welsh of Clerstory struggles with fear of rejection in marketing her skincare line. Jack Boland of Wompy Bikes aims to optimize his custom bike bag sales funnel. Marcia offers a masterclass in practical founder coaching with advice on testing with ads, simplifying choices, and creating flagship experiences.

Matt O'Hayer turned 20 hens on a Texas scrub patch into Vital Farms, a nearly $1 billion pasture-raised egg empire. After a chance encounter with deeply orange yolks sparked his obsession, he built a business that treats farmers as partners and eggs as a story. The episode explores how he scaled conscious capitalism, pioneered radical transparency through traceability, and proved that even commodities can command premium when you educate the market first. His lesson: re-branding something as humble as an egg requires relentless education and unwavering standards.

Guy Raz brings together four legendary founders—Miguel McKelvey (WeWork), Alexa Hirschfeld (Paperless Post), and Chomps co-founders Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali—for a special mashup tackling one of the hardest challenges in entrepreneurship: communicating your value proposition. Three founders call in with distinct dilemmas: Megan Downey struggles to prove the ROI of time-intensive pop-up demos for her reusable gift wrap, Amanda Ballweg can't make her dog enrichment cards make sense to online shoppers, and Mark Goldfarb needs to hire help without sacrificing the artisanal quality that defines his premium pesto. Each conversation reveals how to translate intangible benefits into clear, compelling messages that customers instantly understand. You'll learn why leading with the problem you solve beats listing product features, how to turn live experiences into scalable content, and why hiring for belief matters more than résumé prestige at the early stage.

What happens when a failed experiment becomes your biggest success? Aaron Krause turned manufacturing mistakes into Scrub Daddy, Shark Tank's most successful product. Discover how a smiley-faced sponge with a texture that changes in water revolutionized cleaning—and proved that your biggest flop...

Hernan Lopez, founder of Wondery, dispenses crisp, actionable advice to three entrepreneurs at inflection points in this concentrated Q&A session. His guidance, forged through building a podcast network and navigating its acquisition by Amazon, centers on unit economics, brand...

Beryl Stafford turned personal crisis into a $100 million empire. After her marriage collapsed in her early 40s, the stay-at-home mom began baking oat bars with her daughter in their Boulder kitchen. What started as a humble hobby—wrapped in Saran wrap and sold to local coffee shops—gradually grew into Bobo's, a national brand through grassroots demos, Whole Foods expansion, and strategic leadership hires. By embracing authenticity over trends and learning every role herself, Beryl built a profitable, vertically integrated snack company that proves grit can outweigh credentials.

WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey dispenses unfiltered advice to three founders at growth plateaus. A high-end pants maker learns to embed her "why" everywhere, a grief care business discovers AI-optimized content could be its new growth engine, and a history merch brand $750K strong realizes polished Instagram is losing to raw storytelling. Miguel's prescription: tell your story so relentlessly that customers can't forget you exist.

Cameron Healy founded Kettle Chips with a $10,000 loan and a unique kettle-cooked process. He launched in the UK first—a risky move—before expanding across the US, where Kettle became the top natural chip. Healy also founded Kona Brewing, a craft beer brand that struggled for years before succeeding. His story reveals how curiosity, resilience, and betting against conventional wisdom can build a category king.

Guy Raz teams up with Alexa Hirschfeld, co-founder of Paperless Post, to tackle real challenges from early-stage founders. This Advice Line features three callers: Jess Walker of 5.Post on navigating brand identity in a collaboration, Carolyn Horesky of The Creative Garland Company on scaling handmade production, and Sayuri Tsuchitani of Sumo Yoga on educating consumers about an unfamiliar concept. Alexa offers insights on brand architecture, incremental scaling, and product positioning.

Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, lost a $2,000 sale when a customer wanted to pay with American Express but his studio only took Visa and MasterCard. That moment, holding his iPhone and realizing it couldn't read a credit card, sparked a question. Years later, that question became a $10 billion company. McKelvey shares how Square navigated regulatory mazes, built simple hardware, and turned a lost sale into a payments empire by inventing an entire stack, not just a product.

Guy Raz hosts an Advice Line special with Chomps co-founders Pete Maldonado and Rashid Ali, who offer real-time guidance to three founders facing growth dilemmas. Yadi Derisse contemplates expansion beyond her successful campus empanada shop. Zachary Bonder wrestles with e-commerce logistics for his frozen pies. Josh Shrenko seeks direction for his niche Smallmouth Bass apparel brand. The Chomps founders draw on their 13-year journey to advise on scaling thoughtfully, avoiding premature complexity, and staying close to core customers.

John Osher built Spinbrush into a $475 million toothbrush empire, then watched it unravel. Guy Raz explores how a garage prototype, in-store demos, and a fateful deal with Kellogg's created both extraordinary success and deep regret.