159: Shaking Up the Contact Lens Industry with 👓 Hubble Contacts 👓

159: Shaking Up the Contact Lens Industry with 👓 Hubble Contacts 👓

Background on Jesse Horwitz of Hubble Contacts:

Jesse Horwitz is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Hubble Contacts, the e-commerce contact lens company. As a serial entrepreneur, Jesse co-founded Hubble in 2016, which has raised over $75 million from groups including Wildcat Capital, FirstMark, Greycroft, Founders Fund, and Colgate-Palmolive, and serves hundreds of thousands of consumers around the world.

A graduate of Columbia University, Jesse previously worked for several years at Bridgewater Associates. He also spent several years on the investment team for Columbia University's endowment, focusing on private equity, venture capital, hedge funds, and real estate.

Today, Jesse consults with major Fortune 500 retail companies on how to adapt “selling naked” strategies into their own marketing and brand mix. He is also a co-founder, board member, advisor, and investor in other direct businesses, including Mockingbird strollers, Andie Swim, January coats, EBY underwear with Sofia Vergara, and BZR, a direct brand marketplace.

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

[1:55] Jesse Horwitz is the Co-Founder of Hubble Contacts, which offers daily disposable contact lenses to consumers.
[2:43] Hubble is operating in thirty countries and has more than 20 employees. Jesse didn’t expect his company to grow at this scale and size.
[4:32] Jesse went into Harvard law and had an internship in Bridgewater Associates.
[5:53] Jesse shares some of the lessons he learned when working at Bridgewater.
[12:42] Hubble started as a concept when Jesse and Ben, his co-founder, was still employed.
[15:10] Putting in the work and a lot of diligence to find the right manufacturers turned Hubble from an idea into reality.
[19:24] Facebook and Instagram were mostly responsible for the growth of Hubble Contacts.
[21:40] They were able to raise about $3.5 million to build up their product.
[23:36] It was a roller coaster experience during the early years of the company and Jesse had to deal with a couple of problems along the way.
[26:27] The first year after the launch of their product, Jesse felt so overwhelmed.
[27:19] According to Jesse, upon launching their brand, it always feels as if everything is going to stall and they wouldn’t get any further.
[31:44] Three to four months into the business, their customer acquisition was stalling. Jesse thought that’s as far as they could go.
[33:20] Jesse believes that Facebook and Instagram are the dominant players in marketing. He gives some useful insights when it comes to marketing.
[35:06] Until now, Jesse did not believe they would grow to this size since he is always a pessimist.
[38:00] Jesse gives his last words of wisdom to the listeners.

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Fabulous 4 Questions:

1. 📖 📚 Favorite Book(s)? Titan (Rockefeller by Ron Chernow
2. 🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? All the books
3. 🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Facebook/Instagram
4. 💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Same growth marketing headaches we all get to deal with every day

Key Point from the Interview:

“It’s good to try to get diversified. But be realistic if at the end of all that you’re spending some marketing dollars with no return at all, that’s not diversified, that just means you have some part of your marketing budget that’s working and another part that your just kind of incinerating.”

Resources Mentioned:

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