MakerSights is a San Francisco software company that gives consumer brands a Voice-of-Consumer platform for testing product ideas before they are made. Founded in 2015, it lets apparel, footwear and accessories teams put concepts, line plans and assortments in front of thousands of real target shoppers in hours, helping them make fewer wrong bets and cut down on overproduction. Its newer MakerLabs offering uses AI-trained digital twins to deliver synthetic consumer readouts in under an hour. Brands including New Balance, Madewell, Champion, Ralph Lauren and Hoka use it to align what gets made with what people actually buy.
Margaux is a New York-based, female-founded footwear brand making handcrafted women's shoes in a family-owned Spanish factory. Co-founded in 2015 by Harvard friends Alexa Buckley and Sarah Pierson, the brand is built around a simple idea most of the industry ignored: women should not have to choose between a shoe that fits and a shoe they love. Margaux offers one of the widest size ranges in the business (roughly US 3-14) across narrow, medium and wide widths, plus a fit concierge - turning sizing into a service rather than a compromise. Its bestseller, The Demi ballet flat, has racked up thousands of glowing reviews and a Vogue following.
Alexa Buckley is the co-founder and co-CEO of Margaux, the New York footwear label she started at 22 with her Harvard roommate Sarah Pierson. Margaux fixes a problem most brands ignore - fit - by offering made-to-order shoes in three widths and an extended size run, handmade in Spain and sold direct to consumers. The pitch grew out of the 'shoe shuffle' the two women watched office workers perform: pretty heels in a bag, ugly commuter flats on their feet. Buckley has been named to Forbes 30 Under 30 and has built Margaux into a brand that has raised millions across Seed through Series B rounds.
Joe Vernachio is the CEO of Allbirds, the once high-flying wool-shoe brand he is now trying to put back on its feet. A 30-plus year outdoor and athletic industry veteran who started as a product manager at Chouinard Equipment and has since steered product at Patagonia, Nike, Roots, Spyder, The North Face and Mountain Hardwear, he took the top job at Allbirds in March 2024 after three years as COO. He is part product geek, part operator, and an Everest aspirant who once spent a month getting through the Khumbu Icefall.
Mandy Cabot co-founded Dansko in 1990 from the back of a station wagon and built it into a $140M comfort footwear empire - then gave the whole company to her employees. Now she's running Silk Grass Farms in Belize, a vertically integrated agribusiness sitting atop 24,500 acres of protected rainforest. Chapter three of an already remarkable life.