Warby Parker cofounders set to regale Wharton graduation

Four guys walk into a bar. It's the former Roosevelt Pub on Walnut Street, not far from where the fellows are studying business at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. One had just lost a costly pair of glasses on a backpacking trip and could not afford to replace them.

"We went to the Roosevelt, had a Yuengling, and realized there was a massive opportunity," said Dave Gilboa, cofounder with Neil Blumenthal of Warby Parker, the ridiculously successful online retailer that brought $95 eyeglasses to the cybersphere. "We went our separate ways at about 3 a.m. Neil sent an e-mail, and I immediately responded. We couldn't fall asleep. Our minds were racing. We were incredibly excited and still are."

From that modest gathering came the origin story of Warby Parker, named in February as the most innovative company for 2015 by Fast Company. (The name is a mash-up of two Jack Kerouac characters, Zagg Parker and Warby Pepper.)

Gilboa, the guy who lost his glasses, and Blumenthal are keynote speakers for Wharton's M.B.A. graduation at the Palestra on Sunday. The two other guys at that fateful meeting went on to other green pastures. Jeff Raider cofounded Harry's, the online shaving-gear company. Andy Hunt just started his own growth equity firm.

At the start, the partners promised to "bust our butts" and remain friends no matter what, Blumenthal told Smartplanet.com in 2013. "The thing that had the biggest impact is that we'd go back to the Roosevelt every week, take a four-top [table], and surface issues," he said. "One of our core values is: Always presume positive intent."

That "intent" has paid off. Since launching Warby in a student housing flat in Philadelphia in 2010, the year Gilboa and Blumenthal graduated, the now-34-year-old co-CEOs have moved to New York City and steered the juggernaut to greater heights. In April, T. Rowe Price led a $100 million round of financing, taking Warby's valuation to $1.2 billion.

Warby's model was simple: make and sell affordable eyeglasses online (and now in 12 stores across the United States, including one at 116 N. Third St.), cut out the middleman, build a brand that appealed to Internet shoppers, and mix in community service. For every pair of glasses Warby Parker sells, a pair is provided to someone in need through nonprofit partner VisionSpring.

"We were really excited about bringing glasses to the developing world," Gilboa said from his New York office. "There are 700 million people who need glasses who make less than $4 a day."

Last summer, Warby announced that it had distributed a million pairs of glasses.

"Neil and Dave are exactly the kind of leaders that embody the spirit of Wharton - to do well and to do good," said Geoffrey Garrett, Wharton's dean.

"The day we launched, we got hundreds and hundreds of orders," Gilboa said. "Then we had these great feature articles in GQ and Vogue, and we knew we'd struck a chord with consumers. Within 48 hours, we had a wait list of 20,000. . . . We feel like we are really just scratching the surface."

Dubbed by GQ the "Netflix of eyewear," Warby uses a modern approach to customer engagement: Visit the website, select up to five frames, get them shipped free, choose the one you want, ship back the ones you don't. In 2013, Warby opened its first store, a 2,000-square-foot outlet in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood.

Warby hit it big with millennials who want to appear stylish on a budget. But the company, whose ads are ubiquitous on Facebook feeds, now seeks an older demographic as well. "One of the reasons for that was until last year, we weren't offering progressive lenses," Gilboa said. "Last year we introduced them, and they've become extremely popular."

Warby, with 500 employees, sells glasses in the United States and Canada, but has no plans to go public or international just yet. "We want to get everything right in the U.S. before we go to other countries," Gilboa says. "But that is something we plan on."

The firm will also offer children's frames and explore ways to do eye exams online, which could alter the landscape of vision correction and help the firm stay ahead of a swarm of start-up competitors.

Gilboa says there was much to learn after Wharton, "around values and treating people fairly, treating each other fairly.

"My role and Neil's role is to continue to evolve."