TOMS Eyewear? Warby Parker Responds

By Cara Davis | June 8, 2011 at 6:17 am

While in college at the The Wharton School in Philadelphia, Neil Blumenthal met three guys who shared his passion for traveling and making the world a better place. Together they founded Warby Parker last year, an eyewear company that, like TOMS shoes, donates a pair for every pair sold.

So when TOMS’s Blake Mycoskie announced they were no longer a shoe company, but a one-for-one company beginning with eyewear (specifically sunglasses), Warby Parker immediately came to mind. Coincidentally, Warby Parker is also unrolling sunglasses this month (we’re posting a comparison chart later this morning), beginning with a special edition pair with Invisible Children that launches tomorrow.

So we asked Blumenthal what he thought of the TOMS announcement, and here’s what he told us:

Meeting the vision needs of people around the world is a big task. Is there room in the market for additional companies with similar business models?

Neil Blumenthal: Absolutely! We’re thrilled that TOMS joined us to deliver eyecare to people in need. We started Warby Parker to radically transform the optical industry in the US by charging $95 for $500 glasses and in the process create a new model for how for-profit companies should behave. Our Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program is one of the things we’re doing to serve our many different stakeholders (customers, employees, the billion people in need of glasses, the environment, etc). With one billion people in need of glasses, we recognize we can’t solve this problem ourselves.

In 2003, I pioneered a model to train low-income women to start their own businesses selling affordable glasses to people in need through non-profit VisionSpring. This model has served hundred of thousands of people across four continents, but it’s only a drop in the bucket. We need to activate more and more people to solve this problem. It’s been 700 years since glasses were invented. It’s outrageous that 15% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to this simple, life-enhancing tool.

This post is part of an in-depth interview Halogen conducted with Blumenthal, which will be published soon.