When Maxine Clark left a top job in retail to start a make-your-own stuffed animal store, people thought she’d lost her mind.

Investors doubted it. Friends questioned it. Retail experts couldn't understand how it would scale.

But drawing on more than 20 years as a retail executive, Maxine built a massively successful shopping “experience,” where kids could stuff, dress and personalize their own stuffed animals.

Today, Build-A-Bear has generated billions in sales, survived the decline of malls, weathered the financial crisis, and become a global brand.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

How a failed errand—and an offhand comment by a kid–inspired a business plan

How Maxine leveraged two decades of retail experience to launch Build-a-Bear

How Willy Wonka and Walt Disney were early inspirations

How she built a wedge against competitors

How she got through the financial crisis

How she knew when to step down as CEO– and how to collaborate with her successor

TIMESTAMPS:

• 03:27 - A mom Who Worked for Eleanor Roosevelt
• 06:53 - The Impromptu Interview That Changed Maxine’s Career
• 14:00 - Becoming One of the Few Female Fortune 500 Executives
• 16:18 - Why She Walked Away From Payless
• 19:02 - The Beanie Baby Disappointment That Sparked Build-A-Bear
• 23:49 - Designing the First Store: “Make it Like Willy Wonka.”
• 33:13 - Opening Day — and a Line Out the Door
• 35:13 - Defending the Brand Against Copycats and Lawsuits
• 41:13 - Scaling to Hundreds of Stores and Going Public
• 52:15 - Letting Go: Stepping Down as CEO and Building a Legacy

This episode was researched by Rommel Wood and produced by Kerry Thompson, with music by Ramtin Arablouei, and edited by Neva Grant.

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Today’s callers: Whitney in Utah wonders how to bridge the gap between pre-seed and institutional investment for her fitness/retail combo space. Then Chloe in the U.K. considers which markets to target for her at-home crafting kits. And Christy in Washington wants to convert gifters into repeat customers for her coffee flavoring brand.

Plus, Christina’s take on why Milk Bar is better served with her as Chief Experimenter rather than Chief Executive.

Thank you to the founders of The Beau Collective, Cotton Clara, and Vashon Island Coffee Dust.

If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.

And be sure to listen to the story of how Christina founded Milk Bar from our episode back in 2019.

This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.

You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com and on Substack.

In 2004, German programmer Tobias Lütke was living in Ottawa with his girlfriend.

An avid snowboarder, he wanted to launch an online snowboard shop, but found the e-commerce software available at the time to be clunky and expensive.

So he decided to write his own e-commerce software.

After he launched his online snowboard business, called Snowdevil, other online merchants were so impressed with what he built that they started asking to license Tobi's software to run their own stores.

Tobi and his co-founder realized that software had more potential than snowboards, so they launched the e-commerce platform Shopify in 2006.

Since then, it has grown into a publicly-traded company with over 7,000 employees and $11 billion in revenue.

Timestamps:

• 04:55 - Tobi discovers snowboarding–and meets his future wife–on vacation in Canada
• 09:00 - Building a new kind of snowboarding company
• 24:55 - Pivot point: skateboards or software?
• 29:45 - The night before Tobi’s wedding, Shopify switches business models
• 39:15 - The 2008 financial crisis hits… revealing a huge opportunity
• 52:45 - After a decade, Shopify goes public

This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant. This archive episode was produced by Katherine Sypher.

Follow How I Built This:

Instagram → @howibuiltthis

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Facebook → How I Built This

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