FEW FIRMS have spawned an industry. Warby Parker, a millennial-chic spectacles firm, has a decent claim to be one of them. A decade ago the startup pioneered selling products directly to shoppers online, using the internet to avoid the costs of bricks-and-mortar shops and chip away at clunky consumer-goods incumbents that relied on distributors and retailers. Thousands of direct-to-consumer (DTC) companies followed in its footsteps. Venture-capital (VC) firms threw money at them; Warby Parker’s latest funding round gave it a valuation of $3bn. On August 24th, in the biggest test yet of market appetite for the business model, it opted to go public—appropriately, selling shares
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