The Knot: Carley Roney & David Liu

How I Built This · 12 Mar 2018 · 54m

What this episode covers

Carley Roney and David Liu, founders of The Knot, explain how their disastrous rooftop wedding inspired them to build a wedding planning platform for non-traditional couples, launching initially on AOL with a focus on community and irreverent content. They detail the company's evolution from a small digital studio to a public company, navigating the dot-com bust where their stock crashed to 26 cents and they were delisted from the NASDAQ, before eventually growing into the lifestyle brand XO Group. The episode also covers their strategic pivot to online gift registries and their expansion into other life stages like pregnancy and home decor, while highlighting the personal and financial risks they took as founders.

Most relevant to

founders before launch, early-stage companies, companies scaling up and established companies

Topics

Mentioned

Companies
AOL, XO Group, Mobile Vinyl Recorders, Smithsonian, Wedding Channel, Bloomingdale, Converse
Products
The Knot, Brides Magazine, Modern Bride, The Nest, The Bump, Sassy Magazine
Also
Martha Stewart, Nicole Miller, The xx, Coachella

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