Warby Parker, once online-only eyewear, sees hundreds of more stores

In this weekly series, CNBC takes a look at companies that made the inaugural Disruptor 50 list, 10 years later.

At its inception in February 2010, Warby Parker’s approach to business was simple: sell eyeglasses direct to consumers online, skipping the wholesale market, for a fraction of the price.

Founders Neil Blumenthal, David Gilboa, Andrew Hunt and Jeffrey Raider, who met as classmates at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business, saw that large retailers like EssilorLuxottica, which owns brands including Ray-Ban, dominated the eyeglass industry and marked up prices by hundreds of dollars. Fighting back against these high price tags, Warby Parker marketed their frames, including lenses, starting at $95.

The business immediately took off. Three weeks after launching, Warby Parker had already reached its first-year sales targets and had a waitlist of 20,000 customers – all while the founders were full-time students, working out of their Philadelphia apartments.

Warby Parker’s direct-to-consumer business model was among the first of its kind. Through its “Home-Try-On” program, customers can select five frames that are then sent to their homes at no additional cost, allowing them to “test-run” different styles before selecting which one they’d like to purchase. The company’s framework pioneered the way for other internet-born businesses, such as sneaker brand Allbirds and athleticwear retailer Fabletics. It’s now an archetype for online retailers.

However, as the business grew, Warby Parker eventually expanded beyond the internet-only sphere. When customers began calling the founders and asking if they could try on their glasses in person, they invited them into their apartments.

“We laid out the glasses on our dining room tables and found that people love getting to meet the people behind the brand,” Warby Parker CEO David Gilboa said recently in an interview with CNBC. “We learned so much from these face-to-face interactions.”

The company moved to New York, and in 2013 – the same year Warby Parker made the inaugural Disruptor 50 list – it opened a bricks-and-mortar location on Greene Street in New York City. The company made the Disruptor 50 list again in 2014, 2015 and 2017.

Today, with more than 2.26 million active customers, 3,000 total employees and 190 storefronts, Warby Parker has pivoted to focus on becoming a “holistic vision care company.” The business now offers in-store eye exams and prescriptions. The company launched its own brand of daily contact lenses in 2019, and now offers progressive lenses as well as an app that allows customers to virtually try on frames. Warby Parker works with more than 100 optometrists across the country and is making large investments into in-person exams.

In 2019, more than 60% of Warby Parker transactions were taking place in-store. The company moved back to being entirely online in 2020 due to the…