15 Ambitious Upstarts That Are Disrupting The Status Quo

There must be a better waya solution thats more cost efficient, less stress inducing, more socially beneficial and less environmentally destructive. | The founders of the feisty, status quo-defying brands in Adweeks first-ever Challenger Brands issue started with precepts like these, identifying pain points in industries as varied as home insurance, group exercise, dentalhealth and womens cosmetics and finding completely new answers to everyday consumer problems. Now that they havesome with nine-figure revenue to show for their effortsall eyes are on them. | You get pressure from the top because the big guys wake up, says Courtney Nichols Gould, co-founder of Smarty Pants Vitamins, and theres pressure from below because youve cleared the decks. | See from these 15 examples how all that compaction created some fairly fabulous diamonds.

- T.L. Stanley

Allbirds

The footwear industry doesn’t use sugarcane, eucalyptus pulp and Merino wool—yet—and that’s where the disruption begins for Allbirds, a Silicon Valley startup with more than $100 million in sales in two years. “Our mission is to make better things in a better way,” says Julie Channing, vp, marketing. “There’s an opportunity to forget the old rules and just create things people can feel good in and good about.” Allbirds, which Time dubbed “the world’s most comfortable shoes,” hawks its minimalist sneakers direct to consumer and in two boutiques (New York and San Francisco), with plans to open eight more retail spots in 2019, the U.K. included. Partnerships with Air New Zealand, Nordstrom, Outdoor Voices and Shake Shack widened its reach, and celeb sightings (Gayle King gave Oprah a pair; Leonardo DiCaprio is an investor) have pushed it beyond its tech community roots. Copycats are welcome, Channing says, via its open-source sugarcane flip-flop ingredient that replaces petrochemicals because “we don’t win until more businesses adopt this kind of manufacturing.”

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