The unbelievable story behind California Closets

Anthony Vidergauz, California Closets, International Founders, Non-Tech

Today’s guest was working for a company called California Closets which was an unbelievable entrepreneurial story. It was created by a 17 years old kid who ended up on Oprah talking about how successful he was.

He ultimately sold the company to Williams-Sonoma and I remember reading a bunch of articles about how it didn’t do so well for them.

Well, today’s guest ended up buying it from Williams-Sonoma and turning the company around.

We’ll hear that story in this interview.

Anthony Vidergauz

California Closets

Anthony Vidergauz was CEO of California Closets which provides custom closets and home storage systems.

Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy where interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses. Joining me is . . . I don’t know if I’d call you an entrepreneur because you technically didn’t create the company, but you’ve got an interesting entrepreneurial story. So the person who I’m referring to is Anthony Vidergauz. Not even that hard. Anthony Vidergauz. Did I pronounce it right?

Anthony: Not quite. It’s Vidergauz.

Andrew: Vidergauz.

Anthony: That’s right.

Andrew: I phonetically wrote it out and I still got it wrong. Anthony Vidergauz. He was working for a company called California Closets which I remember reading about. It was just, like, unbelievable entrepreneurial story. This kid created it at 17 years old, he ended up on Oprah talking about how successful he was. I think at the time there was another entrepreneur on there saying,...

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