Today I sit down with Jason McCann, Co-Founder and CEO of Vari - a company that started when his business partner stood at a cardboard box complaining of back pain and turned that moment into a brand that has shipped millions of desks and transformed over a thousand offices.
Jason built Vari direct-to-consumer in an industry that had never seen it. He bootstrapped the company while every instinct in the market said raise capital and burn cash. He became the fastest-growing company in Dallas, survived COVID after just putting $15 million into a TV campaign and opening 12 showrooms, and came out the other side as a fundamentally different leader.
We go deep on what it actually takes to innovate legacy product categories, how he recruited the former Chief People Officer of Southwest Airlines over a cup of coffee, and why an introvert had to learn to over-communicate when hundreds of families were counting on him.
I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did.
Links:
Vari - https://www.vari.com/
Jason on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-mccann-vari/
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Topics:
00:00 - Intro
03:48 - How Vari was started
09:01 - How entrepreneurs should think about product development
11:43 - How Jason approaches AI
24:26 - Developing the standing desk
37:12 - Jason’s approach to manufacturing
47:35 - How Vari develops new products and services
57:18 - Bringing on the head of people of Southwest Airlines
01:04:50 - How Vari thinks about innovation vs. leaving products alone
01:15:14 - The future of work in 2026
01:20:09 - The reindustrialization of America
01:23:55 - Jason’s unique leadership style
01:29:06 - Why Jason only wears black
01:32:11 - What a week looks like for Jason
01:41:05 - How Vari runs exec meetings
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