"A huge driving force for our entire founding team has been this concept of really being a force for good in the world," says Gilboa.
If all you know about Warby Parker is that it sells great-looking glasses at a fraction of the price found at the mall, then you're missing just how innovative this company really is. It disrupted an entire industry controlled by a handful of companies who were keeping prices artificially high, then the founders figured out a way to gift a pair of glasses to someone in need for every pair they sell. The result? "We hit our first-year sales targets within three weeks," says Warby Parker's 30-year-old cofounder David Gilboa, in this episode of Innovation Agents.
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In that first year the company also sent 85,000 pairs of glasses to people around the world who needed them but couldn't afford them. Now Warby Parker has been granted B Corp status, which is a relatively new designation awarded to for-profit enterprises that have a positive impact on the world. "A huge driving force for our entire founding team has been this concept of really being a force for good in the world," says Gilboa.
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