ear-piercing
(4)
Anna Harman
Anna Harman is the co-founder and CEO of Studs, the New York-based ear-piercing and earrings brand she launched with Lisa Bubbers in November 2019. A former mutual-fund lawyer and Bridgewater Associates operator turned consumer-retail entrepreneur, Harman built Studs to fill the gap between Claire's and the tattoo parlor: a clean, needle-piercing studio paired with curated 'Earscapes' of affordable jewelry. The store was profitable in its first month and has since grown to dozens of locations nationwide, raising a $20M Series B in 2021 and roughly $25.6M in total funding.
Rowan
Rowan is a nurse-led ear piercing brand that applies clinical, medical-grade standards to a service long associated with mall kiosks and piercing guns. Founded by former Wall Street trader Louisa Serene Schneider, the company pairs licensed nurse piercers with hypoallergenic, nickel-free jewelry across 100+ studios nationwide, plus a direct-to-consumer e-commerce shop. Backed by VMG Partners and Kevin Durant's Thirty Five Ventures, Rowan turned a low-trust ritual into a safety-first, celebratory experience for customers of every age.
Studs
Studs is a New York-based ear piercing and earrings brand that pairs licensed, needle-based piercing studios with a large e-commerce and in-store catalog of flatback studs, hoops, huggies and clickers. Founded in 2019 by Anna Harman and Lisa Bubbers, the company coined the idea of 'Earscaping' - curating a personalized stack of piercings and jewelry - and positions itself as a modern, hygienic alternative to mall piercing-gun kiosks and tattoo-shop counters. It operates a fleet of profitable studios across the U.S. alongside a direct-to-consumer online store.
Louisa Schneider
Louisa Serene Schneider is the founder and CEO of Rowan, the ear-piercing company that hires registered nurses to do the piercing and runs its own medical advisory board. She started it from her attic in 2017 after a career in M&A and retail trading at Morgan Stanley and J.P. Morgan, and built it into a chain doing roughly $70-100 million a year with dozens of studios and hundreds of employees, more than half of them nurses.