Hardware Podcasts

Crate & Barrel: Gordon Segal

How I Built This · 20 Feb 2017 · 29m

What this episode covers

Gordon Segal and his wife Carol founded Crate & Barrel in 1962, starting with a single store in Chicago to sell affordable, European-style housewares directly from factories. They bootstrapped the business using family loans and bank debt, avoiding outside investors for decades while expanding through high-risk store openings. The company eventually partnered with Otto Group in 1998 to gain scale and digital expertise, growing to $1.12 billion in annual sales before Segal stepped down as CEO.

Most relevant to

early-stage companies and companies scaling up

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
U.S. Bank, Otto Group, HackerBoxes

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