Trio of Harvard grads create welcoming environment for college-aged women
Diane Kilgore | August 2, 2016
The three founders of Her Campus. (Courtesy photo)
HerCampus.com is a digital magazine mapping college culture for women and their parents. It’s self-described as the “#1 new-media brand for the empowered college woman. Written entirely by the world’s top college journalists — with 7,000+ contributors and counting, Her Campus features national Style, Beauty, Health, Love, Life, Career, Entertainment, News, DIY, LGBTQ+, High School and After College content supplemented by local content from 300+ campus chapters nationwide and in eight countries.”
Because of the entrepreneurial collaboration of its three founders’ synergistic smarts and their 24/7 commitment to plain, old-fashioned exhausting, thankless, un-sexy hard work, the digital site’s slogan “College is hard. We make it easier” is one Windsor Hanger-Western, Annie Wang and Stephanie Kaplan-Lewis can rightly boast. The history of Her Campus began at Harvard University, where the three critical-thinking co-ed’s ran the college’s lifestyle and fashion magazine, Freeze.
Working from their Quincy House dining hall, the go-getters transitioned the old-school student publication founded in 2005 into its cool new digital format in 2007. The ambitious triad parlayed skills acquired running Freeze into a business plan worthy of consideration in Harvard’s Innovation Challenge competition. Together Windsor, Annie, and Stephanie won first prize for their strategic proposal of Her Campus, which granted them rent-free, on-campus office space for a year.
Soon after being knocked off their stilettos by the elation of the win, reality grounded the three. Sharing a tiny New York apartment the co-ed’s summer-interned at Bloomingdales, a hand-bag designing firm, and at Self magazine. For them, 9-to-5-ing was only part of the learning curve. Eager to push potential into production, after work they dedicated themselves to their project of passion. Kaplan-Lewis said their award-winning idea required constant polishing and refinement of its basic start-up “to-do list.” Without reservation the partners invested their hot summer-in-the-city energies into working long days through sleepless nights to perfect the evolving image of their shared dream.
The entire Her Campus team at a work retreat. (Courtesy photo)
In the fall of 2009 the co-founders returned to Cambridge’s campus life. As the fledgling company of three students assessed their pay-less business risks they felt they had a bit of a nest egg but time on campus and family financial support would soon be running out. Elevated by their talents and tenacity the DNA of the eclectic domain soared. Kaplan-Lewis said it didn’t bother them they “had no idea how to do what was needed to be done to launch a business,” they “were determined to learn on the fly.” For her, the emotional support of the partnership sustained the company through multiple disappointments. When one of the three was in crash mode, her two partners reminded her of there mutual accomplishments and the power of their core values to be action-oriented, passionate overachievers.
Ups and downs of launching a business taught the tiny sorority to rely upon untapped reserves of energy, harnessing their abilities to get dirty, work harder, and with more creativity. They divided labor assets between themselves with an understanding they’d all do anything and everything that needed to be done at anytime. For them setbacks became learning opportunities. Together they understand start-up business have inherent pluses and minuses, these three have learned to adjust to both, allowing neither side of the ledger to alter their determination to remain diligent. Annie of Dayton, Windsor of Asheville, and Stephanie of Newton, who once hoped to win a college competition in Cambridge, now employ 20-25 full-time, collaborative, innovative women in their pink-power, plus-one man Boston office.
These mothers of invention intend to expand Her Campus by adding more chapters to bring more traffic to the multi-platform site to drive revenues. Eventually they plan to expand their brand to include books and dorm furniture, targeting a major department store. Looking at the digital page’s mosaic of articles from each college chapter’s contributors forms a sampler-sized snapshot of semi-unfiltered campus cultures offering a variety of perspectives on school sensibilities.
Condensing the macro-cosmic quilt of experiences of women two years prior to college life and a few years beyond those formative years reveals trends within the cohort. Its portal annexes distaff consumers with brands seeking to interface with customers who have become detached from home-phone lines, out-dated e-mails, and ever-changing addresses. Her Campus sees themselves as an advertisers dream linking women who will become progenitors of businesses and families to companies craving access to the brand-loyal allegiances of the carnivorous demographic.
These entrepreneurs determined to broadened their brand have serendipitously become mentors. The model-pretty role models are testament to what applying smarts, a sterling work ethic, and a positive attitude to ambition can turn into. Stephanie says without specialized education, without experience in business, journalism, or marketing they are realizing their dreams.
Designed to empower college woman, the message of Her Campus flies well beyond co-ed courtyard culture. Its time-sensitive pages offer a gender-neutral, timeless reminder that committing to plain old-fashioned, exhausting, thank-less, un-sexy hard work is often the key mapping the path to realization of life’s coolest dreams.
