My name is Lennie Zhu, and this is my second time writing for this blog. Last time I was at the luxury brand Jil Sander, but this year I'm a few blocks over, working on shaking things up at the fashion world's revolutionary eyewear startup, Warby Parker.
I had my first day at Warby Parker yesterday. So far, my work has consisted mostly of customer experience training and listening to various branch heads present on the history and functions of their departments. While this process of employee culturization and orientation is fairly standard among most companies, I have been continuously awed by the amount of depth and passion that I have seen in every single presentation here at Warby. It is clear that the company places vast importance upon educating every single employee about the operations and long term vision of the company.
Within 2 short days, I have had the opportunity to watch fascinating presentations about everything from Warby's independent manufacturing process to specific branding initiatives to how to read glasses prescriptions. Throughout all of these talks, two things have stood out for me: (1) Warby's culture pervades everything- everything- that its employees do, and (2) Warby is a truly modern retail company.
In the first talk, we learned about the company's core values; namely, Warby Parker believes that its employees should take their work seriously, but never take themselves seriously. Beyond that, the company seeks to be a "Good Company" that infuses social good into all of its everyday processes. This is apparent in everything from the way it communicates with its customers ("kill them with kindness") to its nonprofit partnerships, B Corp certification, and Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program, to its carbon neutral materials. I have never before encountered a company that has so successfully integrated these values into its basic structure. The result is that Warby's employees approach their work with a highly positive, yet humble attitude, and also treat one another with the utmost kindness and understanding.
Secondly, I am incredibly impressed by the number of creative and modern solutions the company is constantly finding for its problems. For example, the company has been selling glasses through a truly multichannel platform that includes its website, showrooms, partnerships with pre-exisitng boutiques, its brick-and-mortar flagship stores, kiosks in the Standard Hotel, and bicycle baskets filled with glasses at Art Basel. Additionally, the company leverages technology seamlessly in its business model in a way that no other retail company currently does. It uses Youtube videos to respond to customer tweets, has virtual try-on tools on its website, and uses new age technologies to track customer shopping patterns in its new brick and mortar stores. There has also been talk of incorporating 3D printing into the production model.
With each new presentation, I become more and more confident that I am working at a company that has an unbelievably bright future. That confidence was further boosted by my visit to the company's visually stunning flagship store in Soho, which is pictured below:
Best,
Lennie
