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Episode 864 · How I Built This with Guy Raz

YETI: Roy and Ryan Seiders. How Two Brothers Turned a $400 Cooler Into a $2 Billion Brand

24 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 25 min

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Episode notes

Roy and Ryan were avid outdoorsmen who wanted a cooler that wouldn’t break. So they built one themselves.The result was YETI: a high-end cooler that early retailers thought nobody would buy. But serious outdoorsmen did—and eventually YETI escaped its niche, becoming a status symbol at tailgates, beaches, and soccer fields.In this episode, Roy and Ryan explain how they bootstrapped YETI, survived the sudden loss of their only manufacturing partner, and later stumbled onto the $30 product that supercharged the business. WHAT YOU'LL LEARNWhy solving a problem you personally experience can be…

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How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery · Business · English

Guy Raz interviews the world’s best-known entrepreneurs to learn how they built their iconic brands. In each episode, founders reveal deep, intimate moments of doubt and failure, and share insights on their eventual success.

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