Walking in the morning improves my whole day. I think more clearly, my points of view are sharper, and I'm more decisive.

Exploring emerging technologies like new refraction technology will enable people to get prescriptions cheaper and more conveniently, which will, in turn, provide increased access to prescription glasses.

At Warby Parker, we use the survey platform Culture Amp to take employee engagement surveys that help us become ultra-responsive to the needs of our teams.

Creativity is a business imperative.

Share your personality with interviewers, but keep a professional filter safely adhered to it.

I wanted to open up a stand to sell dried fruit and beef jerky where we lived in Greenwich Village. I was 8 years old. I had been flipping through TV channels and got mesmerized by this infomercial for a food dehydrator.

I want to go at least 11 hours without food. I sat next to Hugh Jackman at a conference, and he told me he fasted 12 to 14 hours when he was training for the Wolverine movies. I've deluded myself into thinking I can effortlessly achieve the same body type as Hugh Jackman if I keep up this eating schedule.

We have been very focused on eyeglasses in particular because it's a massive industry.

Self-aware employees make a self-aware company.

If faced with two competitive candidates, every company will hire the person who evinces more enthusiasm.

Theoretically, an open-plan office is a great format for a changeable work environment, a place where employees have a say over how they work and a place that can adapt to their needs and to the needs of the business.

Giving employees agency over their workspace encourages them to think carefully about the conditions in which they work best, and it gives them the tools to forge that environment.

From the beginning, we believed that it was possible to develop direct relationships with customers at a relatively cheap cost, and our plan was to build a lifestyle brand that was also an Internet company - a rarity for eyewear.

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.

All those articles that scold Millennials for their supposed entitlement? Forget them. Millennials are great employees.

The basic idea of a hackathon is to erase all routine obligations for the day so that employees can clear a mental space for creativity.

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

Hackathons are an amazing way to engage the team, foster collaboration, and knock out great work.

One of my favorite products at Warby Parker also happens to be our worst-selling item: the monocle.

In general, obsolete technology is obsolete for a reason. Monocles are no exception.

Millennials in particular get a lot of flack for their supposed entitlement and narcissism, but these evaluations have never matched my experience with hiring young people at Warby Parker.

We've built a company that distributes a pair of eyeglasses to someone in need for every pair sold; that purchases carbon offsets; and that hosts mentoring programs at the office.

I believe that the concept of 'design' encompasses every aspect of customers's exposure to a brand, from the moment they hear about us to the first time they visit our store to the process of ordering and anticipating the arrival of their glasses.

Warby Parker designs experiences, not products.

One of the core values of the startup world is that you must have a list of core values. Like all abstract ideas, they're easy to dream up and tricky to implement.

When we were creating Warby Parker, for us it was about having a positive impact on the world and having a strong social mission.

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.

Often, companies are trying to chase growth and get into other categories or go international too quickly, and they can get in trouble doing that.

Brands are only powerful if they're real and authentic.

The rules of optical dispensing vary from state to state. Dispensing eyeglasses is not that complicated, and even if it were complicated, there should be uniform rules.

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.

If you peek behind the curtain at any type of company, you'll see that things are far less organized than you'd expect.

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

Florence Nightingale. She is one of the most dynamic social entrepreneurs in history.

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

For every Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, there's 30 other entrepreneurs that started their business after working for several years.

Nothing creates cool like scarcity.

When a person has work, she has income and can achieve financial self-sustainability. She can prioritize her family's health and education. Her standing in the community is lifted, and so is her confidence.

I previously worked as the director of VisionSpring, a non-profit dedicated to distributing glasses to people in need.

No matter what product or service your company offers, people have a way of finding out if you are genuinely providing value.

We've built our own technology platform in-house, which operates our website and powers our retail stores.

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.

During times of plenty - when venture funding is abundant and startups multiply like rabbits - every business looks like a winner.

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.

If you don't plan to dive in and dedicate all of your time to your startup, you probably shouldn't be looking for funding. It's hard enough asking for money when you believe in an idea; asking for money to fund something you're iffy about is ten times more strenuous.

Asking for money can be especially intimidating.

Just because one company is able to succeed with a specific model doesn't mean others will follow with equal or any success.

I completely believe in the lean startup and minimum viable product; I just I think that people are setting the threshold for minimum viable too low.

At Warby Parker, we ask ourselves a number of questions when deciding whether or not to partner up with a designer, or a nonprofit or brand. Is the potential collaboration new? Is it unexpected? Will it result in something worth talking about over dinner? Will it do good? Will it introduce us to a new audience?

Creativity is always intense.