How to Prepare for Overwhelming Success

Warby Parker: A Case Study

Founders spend a lot of time planning for failure. What if no one buys? What if we run out of money? What if the product doesn't work?

Almost no one asks: what if it works better than we expected? What if we can't keep up?

It's not the most common problem, but when it happens, it can be just as destructive as failure, and founders are usually less prepared for it.

The Warby Parker founders launched their online glasses store without advertising. They figured they'd start small and build from there. Instead, orders flooded in. Dozens, then hundreds of people trying to buy inexpensive prescription glasses.

Great news, except the website didn't have inventory tracking. No waitlist functionality. People were buying glasses that the founders had no way to produce, and there was no system to tell them that. By the time they added those features, the waitlist took nine months to clear. The founders became their own customer service, sales, and fulfillment teams, no breaks, no sleep, skipping classes to answer emails.

They survived. But they lost revenue, lost sleep, and spent months in crisis mode fixing a problem that could have been avoided with a few hours of planning.

Here's the question I want founders to sit with before they launch anything: what happens if this takes off faster than you're ready for?

You don't need a detailed plan for every scenario. But you should at least think through the basics:

• If orders double overnight, what breaks first?

• If you can't fulfill demand, how do customers find that out - before or after they've paid?

• Who answers the emails when there are suddenly five hundred of them?

The goal isn't to have all the answers. It's not be blindsided by your own success. Because "too much demand" sounds like a good problem to have, until you're drowning in it with no way to catch up.