# Dan Leahy

> Dan Leahy is the co-founder and CEO of MakerSights, a San Francisco consumer-insights platform that helps apparel, footwear, and accessories brands decide what to make before they make it. His pitch is blunt: the fashion industry still builds product the way it did in the 1980s, guessing at what shoppers want and burning through unsold inventory in the process. MakerSights collects consumer feedback at scale and ties it to real sales data so brands like Ralph Lauren, New Balance, Everlane, and Madewell can produce less waste and more of what people actually buy. Before MakerSights, Leahy founded Savored, a restaurant yield-management startup acquired by Groupon, and cut his teeth in finance at Silver Lake and Brown Brothers Harriman. A Maine kid who once mailed handwritten letters to NBA stars begging for autographs, he built a career on the same stubborn premise: ask enough people for what you want, and enough of them say yes.

- **Role:** Co-founder & CEO at MakerSights
- **Organizations:** MakerSights, Savored (acquired by Groupon), Groupon, Silver Lake, Brown Brothers Harriman
- **From:** Maine, United States
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** MBA, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, BA, Economics, Georgetown University
- **Known for:** Co-founded and scaled MakerSights to work with 10 of the 20 largest global apparel, footwear and accessories brands, including Ralph Lauren, New Balance, Everlane and Madewell, Grew MakerSights to 70+ employees across San Francisco, Austin, London and Vancouver, Platform has captured 2 billion+ purchase-intent measurements

## Career timeline

- **2008** — Analyst at Silver Lake and M&A analyst at Brown Brothers Harriman early in his finance career
- **2009** — Founded Savored, a yield-management platform helping restaurants fill empty tables at off-peak hours
- **2013** — Savored acquired by Groupon
- **2016** — Co-founded MakerSights in San Francisco; began with 300+ retail discovery interviews and first customer Taylor Stitch
- **2020** — COVID accelerated adoption as MakerSights launched digital line-review tools for remote product teams
- **2021** — Raised Series B; total funding reached roughly $37-40M
- **2023** — Speaker at the Footwear News CEO Summit

## Achievements

- Co-founded and scaled MakerSights to work with 10 of the 20 largest global apparel, footwear and accessories brands, including Ralph Lauren, New Balance, Everlane and Madewell
- Grew MakerSights to 70+ employees across San Francisco, Austin, London and Vancouver
- Platform has captured 2 billion+ purchase-intent measurements
- Reported average ~5% margin lift for customers through better inventory allocation
- Founded Savored and scaled it to 1,000 restaurants across 10 cities before its acquisition by Groupon
- Raised roughly $37-40M in venture funding through Series B for MakerSights

## Latest updates

- **2023-11** — Appeared as a speaker at the Footwear News CEO Summit, discussing consumer-led product strategy.
- **2021-08** — MakerSights closed its most recent (Series B) funding, bringing total raised to roughly $37-40M.

## Links

- Website: https://makersights.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/djleahy
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/makersights
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/makersights/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/dan-leahy
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-07-01