Quotes from Neil Blumenthal

At Warby Parker, we ask ourselves a number of questions when deciding whether or not to partner up with a designer, or a nonprofit or brand. Is the potential collaboration new? Is it unexpected? Will it result in something worth talking about over dinner? Will it do good? Will it introduce us to a new audience?

It's not easy to keep good sleep habits as an entrepreneur, especially at the early stages when there's always a fire to put out.

All companies - and not just startups - face the same eternal challenge: resource allocation.

For many startups, ideating is the fun part: coming up with ingenious schemes to grab eyeballs and start conversations. But before you dive into that stage, take a step back and define your goals.

The basic idea of a hackathon is to erase all routine obligations for the day so that employees can clear a mental space for creativity.

In general, obsolete technology is obsolete for a reason. Monocles are no exception.

Creativity flows when curiosity is stoked.

By creating a feedback culture within your office, you ensure that people continue to learn, grow, and challenge themselves.

No matter what product or service your company offers, people have a way of finding out if you are genuinely providing value.

Just as a company needs a strategy to capture market share, a company needs a strategy to encourage actions that reflect their core values.

I personally try to buy the best-quality items at the best price that do the least harm and from companies that are striving to do good - many of those companies are run by young entrepreneurs.

The rules of optical dispensing vary from state to state. Dispensing eyeglasses is not that complicated, and even if it were complicated, there should be uniform rules.

There are two elements to nailing a job interview: form and substance. 'Form' describes the outer layer of your character - your manners, your demeanor, your social skills. 'Substance' describes the inner core of your character - your intellect, your empathy, your creativity.

I completely believe in the lean startup and minimum viable product; I just I think that people are setting the threshold for minimum viable too low.

Every day, write down a few frustrations. And then at the end of the week, you'll have maybe 10 problems. By the end of the month, maybe you have 40 to 50 problems. And then you can spend time thinking about, Is there a viable business in solving any of these everyday frustrations?

Self-aware employees make a self-aware company.

I wanted to open up a stand to sell dried fruit and beef jerky where we lived in Greenwich Village. I was 8 years old. I had been flipping through TV channels and got mesmerized by this infomercial for a food dehydrator.

If you're entitled, you likely think you know more than you do.

The word 'hackathon' was born out of 'marathon' for a reason. It's exhausting.

For every Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, there's 30 other entrepreneurs that started their business after working for several years.