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Better Together: The Best Partnerships of All Time
Words Kaye Holland
From Birchbox to Facebook, here’s how these successful women-led businesses were built.
![BirchboxLeading beauty box subscription service, Birchbox, has taken the market by storm since its inception in 2010 dragging ‘everyday’ men and women out of their beauty rut. Products are tailored-to-you, beautifully packaged and delivered directly to your door every month from just £10.The brainchild of Harvard Business School classmates and self-professed “non-beauty people”, Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna, today Birchbox boasts more than four million customers around the world and has built a reputation as a subscription pioneer – paving the way for other subscription businesses including Abel & Cole and Boombox Club. On increasing competition, Beauchamp had this to say: “Keep your head down and focus on your brand and your service or your product and what makes it unique and special. [...] Nobody can copy your vision.” www.birchbox.co.uk](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5e7a4a79263f97588375351f/1622369816443-NNIM75UU87LV28QOFLUC/Birchbox.PNG)
Birchbox
Leading beauty box subscription service, Birchbox, has taken the market by storm since its inception in 2010 dragging ‘everyday’ men and women out of their beauty rut. Products are tailored-to-you, beautifully packaged and delivered directly to your door every month from just £10.
The brainchild of Harvard Business School classmates and self-professed “non-beauty people”, Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna, today Birchbox boasts more than four million customers around the world and has built a reputation as a subscription pioneer – paving the way for other subscription businesses including Abel & Cole and Boombox Club.
On increasing competition, Beauchamp had this to say: “Keep your head down and focus on your brand and your service or your product and what makes it unique and special. [...] Nobody can copy your vision.”
www.birchbox.co.uk
Mark Zuckerberg launched the social media site as a sophomore on February 4, 2004 with the aim of connecting Harvard students through an online community. Fast forward 17 years and Facebook has become one of the world’s most influential social networks with a first lady – step forward Sheryl Sandberg.
Facebook’s COO had been working for arch-rival Google when, legend has it, she met Zuckerberg at a party in 2007. The American media magnate was sufficiently impressed by Sandberg to offer her a role – even though he hadn’t been looking for a COO.
Sandberg was charged with growing Facebook’s revenue and advertising businesses, while keeping its users content. It’s a huge and hugely tricky job, but one well suited to Sandberg who once famously said: “If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on.”
www.facebook.com
O Network
Not content with having her own eponymous TV show, a magazine known as O and a production company, Harpo (Oprah’s name in reverse), the indomitable Miss Winfrey launched a cable channel – OWN (The Oprah Winfrey Network) – in 2011. The goal was to create a feelgood cable network that would “inspire and entertain people.”
But by spring of 2012, Oprah found herself in an unfamiliar position: She was failing. Oprah ultimately helped steer the ship in the right direction by taking a more active role at the network, landing high profile interviews with the likes of Lance Armstrong and Lindsay Lohan and signing up writer-producer Tyler Perry whose programmes – including If Loving You is Wrong and Love Thy Neighbor – broke records for the network.
Oprah had heeded her own words: “If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race.”
www.oprah.com
Rent the Runway
Jennifer Hyman and Jennifer Fleiss set up Rent the Runway – a ‘Netflix for dresses’ – after Hyman’s younger sister, Becky, splurged $2,000 that she didn’t have on a designer dress to wear to an upcoming wedding.
The duo couldn't help but wonder “Wouldn’t it be so better if we could rent designer items rather than purchase them?” and so Rent the Runway was born. “We had entered the experience economy. People were getting married later and starting to value experiences like travel over owning things,” Hyman explained.
The company offers three plans – four items a month for $89, eight garments per month for $135 or 16 pieces for $199 per month. Customers make selections via Rent the Runway’s website or mobile app.
www.renttherunway.com
SoulCycle
Co-founders Julie Rice and Elizabeth Cutler started SoulCycle – a chain of luxury indoor cycling gyms – with one studio in 2006 on New York’s Upper West Side.
Fast forward 15 years and the pair are on the ride of their life having motivated people both sides of the pond – there are 91 SoulCycle studios in North America and two in London – to pedal their way into shape, as well as inspiring the likes of Psycle, Boom Cycle and 1Rebel.
Yet while riders may come for the workout, they stay for the community… and, arguably, the changing rooms that are kitted out with Le Labo body products, Dyson hair dryers and Drunk Elephant skincare.
www.soul-cycle.com