gen-z
(60)
Shai Eisenman and the advantage of being wrong
Before Bubble reached thousands of store shelves, Shai Eisenman let young shoppers dismantle her assumptions. The founder’s next ambition is measured in decades, not launch days.
Dedy Shwartzenberg and the strange return of the fitting room
He left finance for fashion, built Adika, and started again with Edikted. His next bet puts a generation raised on the scroll in front of an actual mirror.
William Utomo and the business of belonging
A call from his brother brought William Utomo back to Indonesia. Twelve years later, the IDN co-founder is still working on the same question: what does a younger generation need next?
Team Whistle sells the sport between the games
An athlete serving burgers, a soccer star talking sleep, a creator touring World Cup cities. Inside the DAZN-owned company that turns the life around sport into a media business.
Seventeen Magazine sold advertisers on teenage girls. Then the girls changed the rules.
A fictional reader helped Seventeen sell a real market. Eight decades later, the teen media brand offers a lesson in listening to the people you hope to influence.
Starface made the pimple patch worth showing off
A yellow star turned a private skin problem into a public accessory. Starface built a refill business around that small act of defiance - and attracted a $105 million investment.
GAMURS Group bought the gaming conversation. Then it changed the plan.
A gaming social network became a buyer of familiar publishing brands. Now GAMURS is selling some of those names and betting on where young audiences go next.
NowThis killed the homepage. Can it build a habit?
The social-video publisher learned to meet people in their feeds. Its next wager is that a familiar show can make them come back - and give advertisers a reason to pay.
The App That Won Quarantine and Lost the Future
Houseparty made video calling feel less like an appointment and more like wandering into a kitchen. Then the pandemic handed it the perfect world - just before its owner decided the better prize was the room, not the app.
The PR Habitat is building the network you weren't born into
Damaryan Benton turned a LinkedIn post into a community for young communicators. Its real subject is everything a PR degree leaves between the lines: introductions, unwritten rules, and who pays to keep the door open.
Myntra wants to dress you before you know what to wear
The Indian fashion marketplace once shut its website to force a mobile future. Now it is chasing a more human problem: finding the right outfit, then getting it to you while the occasion still matters.
Blavity Built a Media Company - Then Learned the Real Product Was Access
A newsletter for overlooked stories became a portfolio reaching culture, careers, conferences and connected TV. Blavity's useful lesson is not “build an audience” - it is what to build after the audience trusts you.
Archrival Turned a $500 Car-Wash Stunt Into a Youth-Culture Machine. Now Havas Owns the Next Move
The Lincoln agency learned youth marketing by getting a cease-and-desist, refusing a fat bank contract and betting on people over ads. Its new majority owner, Havas, is betting that the same playbook can travel.
Hepmil Singapore
Hepmil is a Singapore-headquartered influencer, content and social media agency that grew out of the viral comedy platform SGAG. Through its Hepmil Creators' Network of 3,000-plus creators, it connects more than 450 brands with young audiences across six Southeast Asian markets, blending local humor, culturally-tuned content and social commerce. Founded in 2015 by Karl Mak and Adrian Ang, the group was acquired by Publicis Groupe in October 2025 to form the region's first end-to-end influencer solution.
IDN Media
IDN Media is Indonesia's largest youth-focused media and entertainment technology company, reaching more than 70 million millennials and Gen Z each month. Founded in 2014 by brothers Winston and William Utomo, it grew from a single news blog (IDN Times) into a multi-platform ecosystem spanning digital media, live streaming, short drama, entertainment and live experiences, and the creator economy. Its stated mission is to democratize information for a better Indonesia.
American Eagle Outfitters Inc.
American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (NYSE: AEO) is a Pittsburgh-headquartered specialty apparel retailer that has spent nearly five decades selling jeans to teenagers and young adults - and, more recently, learning how to sell a great deal more than jeans. Founded in 1977 by brothers Jerry and Mark Silverman, the company now runs a five-brand portfolio: the namesake American Eagle denim and casualwear label; Aerie, the intimates and swim brand built on unretouched imagery; OFFLINE by Aerie in activewear; Todd Snyder in premium menswear; and Unsubscribed, a slow-fashion experiment. Fiscal 2025 revenue reached roughly $5.5 billion across about 1,168 company-operated stores, 357 internationally licensed locations, and a digital business spanning ae.com, aerie.com and toddsnyder.com. The company describes its flagship as the leading jeans brand for US shoppers aged 15 to 25. Its recent story is one of divergence: Aerie crossed $2 billion in trailing-twelve-month revenue and posted 25% comparable-sales growth in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, while the American Eagle brand has been flatter - even after the widely debated Sydney Sweeney denim campaign of July 2025 delivered what management called unprecedented new-customer acquisition.
Figure8
Figure8 is a New York-based, experience-first development company founded by Maryellis Bunn and Manish Vora, the team behind the Museum of Ice Cream. It designs and operates 'experiums' - large-scale immersive, multi-sensory spaces built to draw people offline and into shared, playful, in-person moments. Backed by a $40M Series A at a reported $200M valuation, Figure8 builds and scales its own experiential brands while taking on commissioned activations for outside partners.
Pinterest is a visual discovery and inspiration platform where people find and save ideas for projects and interests, from recipes and home decor to fashion and travel. Founded in 2010 and headquartered in San Francisco, it lets users organize images called Pins into themed collections called boards, and increasingly acts as a shopping-and-discovery engine powered by visual search and AI. Publicly traded on the NYSE, Pinterest reached roughly 631 million monthly active users and $4.2 billion in 2025 revenue, earning nearly all of that from advertising.
Curtsy
Curtsy is a mobile-first, peer-to-peer resale marketplace where Gen Z and young millennial women buy and sell secondhand clothing, shoes and accessories. Founded in 2016 and originally a dress-rental service, it pivoted to resale and built its edge around making listing fast for casual sellers - using machine learning to suggest prices, fill in item details and estimate shipping weight, backed by human review. Sellers keep more of their money than on rival platforms (a ~19-20% commission), buyers save up to 70% on brands like Lululemon, Free People and SKIMS, and the app carries a 4.8-star rating across tens of thousands of reviews. Curtsy raised an $11M Series A led by Index Ventures in January 2021, part of $14.5M total funding.
The Nudge
The Nudge is a San Francisco company that texts its members curated plans for real-world fun - hikes, date ideas, restaurants, events and hidden gems in their city. Founded by siblings John and Sarah Peterson in 2018, it began as a $9/month SMS subscription pitched as an 'anti-startup' to get people off their phones, and has since grown into an AI-powered advisor and locals-only social network with roughly a million users across cities including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin and New York.
Try Your Best (TYB)
Try Your Best (TYB) is a community rewards platform that lets consumer brands turn their most obsessed fans into a measurable, on-chain loyalty layer. Founded by Outdoor Voices creator Ty Haney in 2021, TYB rewards shoppers for participation - reviews, referrals, user-generated content, challenges and purchases - with collectibles, brand coins and access to exclusive drops. Around 200 brands including Glossier, Rare Beauty, Poppi, Urban Outfitters and Saie use TYB to reach roughly two million users, mostly Gen Z women, with the company reporting higher purchase frequency and lifetime value for participating customers.
UMe Tea
UMe Tea is a California-based bubble tea chain founded in 2019 by former Silicon Valley engineer Jiachun 'Summer' Li. Built around fruit-forward, less-sugary recipes tuned to American palates, the brand pairs handcrafted drinks and snacks with viral marketing - most notably a surprise bunny plushie hidden in the bottom of its cups. Bootstrapped and profitable for its first four years, UMe grew to roughly 30 Bay Area stores before raising a $10M Series A led by Conductive Ventures in 2025 to fund team-building and regional expansion.
Ditto
Ditto is a Berkeley-born AI matchmaker that skips the swiping. Students text their preferences, and every Wednesday Ditto sends one curated match over iMessage - with the time, place, and coffee-date logistics already handled. Founded by UC Berkeley students Allen Wang and Eric Liu, it went viral through sorority group chats, grew to roughly 100,000 users across about ten campuses, and raised a $9.2M seed led by Peak XV. Its bet: dating apps optimize for time-on-app, but people actually want a good date in real life.
DIVE Studios
DIVE Studios is a Los Angeles-based digital media company built around Korean entertainment and global K-pop fandom. Founded in 2019 by brothers Brian, Eric, and Eddie Nam, it produces artist-led podcasts and video shows - including the flagship Daebak Show with Eric Nam - plus original talk, game, and travel series. The company reaches tens of millions of monthly viewers worldwide, runs the DIVE X creator and influencer agency for brands, and spun out Mindset, a celebrity-narrated mental-health audio platform.
Meeno
Meeno is an AI-powered relationship mentor founded by former Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg. Built on large language models with input from clinicians and relationship experts, the app gives people private, non-judgmental, 24/7 guidance on friendships, family, work and romance. After finding that most of its users were young men, Meeno leaned into voice-based practice for dating and social confidence - positioning itself as a 'Duolingo for dating.' It is backed by Sequoia Capital, Andrew Ng's AI Fund and NEA.
Krishna Dosapati
Krishna Dosapati is the founder and CEO of Clockout, a New York-based networking app for Gen Z+ professionals that has crossed hundreds of thousands of downloads, hit a Top 20 App Store ranking, and reached seven-figure ARR within its first ten months. Backed by Evite, Gaingels, and Baytech Ventures, Clockout pitches itself as the antidote to LinkedIn noise: AI-powered matchmaking, real-world events, and community over content.
Katrin Kaurov
Katrin Kaurov is the Estonian co-founder and CEO of Frich, a New York based social finance app that lets Gen Z anonymously compare how their peers spend, save and invest. A former international model who worked across 20+ countries before age 18, she went on to Harvard's entrepreneurship program and built Frich with co-founder Aleksandra Medina out of a shared NYC apartment.
Allen Wang
Allen Wang is the cofounder and CEO of Ditto, a swipe-free AI matchmaking service for college campuses that plans real, in-person dates over iMessage. He dropped out of UC Berkeley after starting the company with cofounder Eric Liu - reportedly to help a roommate find a girlfriend before graduation. By early 2026 Ditto had grown to roughly 42,000 students across University of California campuses and raised a $9.2 million seed round led by Peak XV Partners, with Gradient Ventures and others participating, on a bet that Gen Z wants fewer screens and more real dates.
Brian Nam
Brian Nam is the co-founder and CEO of DIVE Studios, a Gen Z media company born from K-pop and built for global fandoms. A former Division I soccer recruit and finance-track Columbia grad, he walked away from an elite private equity offer to build a podcast network with his brother, the K-pop star Eric Nam. DIVE has grown into a multi-platform media company spanning Seoul and Los Angeles, with hit shows like The Daebak Show, hundreds of millions of views, and a wellness app, Mindset. He is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree.
Renate Nyborg
Renate Nyborg is the founder and CEO of Meeno, a generative-AI app teaching people - mostly young men - how to build real relationships, which she frames as a fight against loneliness she rates 'on par with climate change.' She was the first woman to run Tinder and previously led Apple's App Store subscriptions in Europe and built Headspace's first international product and marketing org. Half Norwegian, half Dutch, raised across four countries and fluent in five languages, she studied philosophy at Cambridge in her third language. Meeno has raised about $5 million from Sequoia, Andrew Ng's AI Fund and NEA, and has pivoted from text advice toward voice-based practice scenarios it calls the 'Duolingo of dating.'