Neil Blumenthal

I was captain of the soccer and basketball teams in high school, and I was the equivalent of class president.

What happens when kids don't have glasses - they get bored in class. They disengage and they may be disruptive. They may be misdiagnosed for A.D.D. or put in special needs classes.

Regardless of what you plan to use it for, the goal should always be to raise money right before you need it. You don't want to get into a situation where you need cash and you're unable to raise it - or you're unable to raise it on favorable terms. As with any negotiation, you want to raise from a position of strength.

Asking for money can be especially intimidating.

At the end of the day, an entrepreneurial journey is all about de-risking: How can you spend the least amount of time and money to accomplish your goal? The more information you can gather, the more comfortable you'll be investing time and money into a particular offering.

We have never met with politicians. I don't know the first thing about how to get heard. My suspicion is that it's to donate a lot of money.

Nothing creates cool like scarcity.

Successful entrepreneurs are pretty methodical about the problem they're trying to solve.

I'm not as smart as I think I am.

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

Building a consistent experience and firm identity was instrumental in our ability to swiftly build our online presence, open four stores as well as a mobile store in a converted yellow school bus, and launch six shops-in-shops.

Warby Parker designs experiences, not products.