252: The Refinery29 Story—From Bar Napkin Sketch to Media Empire, with Philippe von Borries and Justin Stefano

Media, Refined How four founders turned a sketch on a cocktail napkin into an iconic digital media brand. One night in 2004, in a bar in New York City, three ambitious entrepreneurs huddled around a cocktail napkin and sketched out a vision. They essentially wanted to translate the concept of the mall for the internet, only instead of catering to big name brands and retailers, it would connect visitors to all of the amazing independent brands and makers that were flourishing at the time. That initial sketch—it started as a picture of a virtual mall—has evolved a lot since that night, and the team solidified around four dedicated co-founders. But 15 years later, the dream of Justin Stefano, Philippe von Borries, Christene Barberich, and Piera Gelardi has become a reality, and so much more, in the form of now-iconic digital media company Refinery29. “One of my biggest regrets to date is that we didn’t save the napkin,” Stefano says. Since they set out on that journey, the team has created an online space where media targeted toward women is distilled, removing the impurities of stereotypes, taboos, and shame. Initially focused on fashion and style, Refinery29 has since expanded to a staggering breadth of content. Covering almost every topic imaginable—from skin care to the latest in immigration legislation—Refinery29 is a comprehensive digital media company dedicated to elevating women’s voices. It’s built an international audience of more than 550 million across all its platforms, which include all major social media, a YouTube channel with nearly 2 million subscribers, an award-winning podcast in its fourth season, a short film series, an app, and more. But Stefano and von Borries, the two who initially had the idea for Refinery29, didn’t come from a background in publishing or fashion. In fact, as you may have noticed, they aren’t even women. But they saw a need, set out to meet it, and connected with the right partners to realize their vision and help it evolve. Refiners Assemble In the early 2000s, Stefano and von Borries were just a couple of friends from high school, who had recently graduated from NYU and Columbia, respectively, and were embarking on their first post-grad endeavors. Von Borries headed off to Washington, D.C., to work for a political startup called The Globalist, and Stefano took a position with the Civilian Complaint Review Board in New York City, where he investigated complaints against the NYPD. Despite the distance, the duo stayed close, and maintained a group of friends who were mostly in the creative space. They began to notice a frequently recurring topic of conversation among the group: dissatisfaction with media coverage, especially when it came to fashion. “Most of the media companies that existed, most of the magazine businesses, were fairly mainstream,” Stefano says. “They would write about big designers that bought pages in their magazines. That’s how the model worked.” Stefano and von Borries found that many of their friends still read these magazines, but not because they felt particularly connected to the content. “They didn’t think it was good. They didn’t think it was interesting,” Stefano says. “It was just what they were forced to read, because that’s what you could buy at a newsstand.” Their friends hungered for something with a more independent edge and authenticity, but couldn’t find it anywhere. So the pair had the spark of an idea: What if they created something that appealed to young New Yorkers by focusing on serving their audience rather than on serving big companies and brands. But with no experience in publishing or fashion, they knew they needed to call in reinforcements. At the time, Piera Gelardi was dating von Borries (they went on to get married), who worked as the photo director at CITY Magazine. When von Borries shared their idea and asked for her advice, she encouraged him to reach out to her former boss and mentor at CITY, Christene Barberich. Her knowledge of fashion and brands, as well as the world of publishing, would prove invaluable to the pair. Barberich says that she was already paying close attention to the transformation happening in the media landscape. She noticed that with the rise of the internet, the one-way nature of traditional publications, with outlets talking at their audiences instead of with them, was slowly being set aside in favor of platforms offering more conversational approaches. So when von Borries and Stefano shared their idea, she had a gut feeling that they were on to something big. She immediately reached out to Gelardi and told her that she didn’t just want to consult. She wanted to become a partner in the endeavor. Barberich’s infectious excitement for the project then made Gelardi reevaluate her own position as a consultant. “Because she wanted to sign up, it showed me that bigger vision and also reminded me to think about my own value in the equation,” Gelardi says. “Now we have four co-founders.” Building the Brand With the team assembled, the quartet was anxious to get their vision off the ground as quickly as possible. But all four of them still had day jobs, so much to learn, and very little money to put toward the project. They met in a coffee shop every night after work and on every weekend as they powered toward their goal. “It just became an obsession until we got it live,” Stefano says. They called in all kinds of favors with friends who were programmers, engineers, and graphic designers, and built the first iteration of Refinery29 over a period of six months. “It felt like forever,” Stefano says. “That six-month period, I think it felt years of work went into that.” But in June 2005, the wait was finally over, and the team celebrated the launch of Refinery29 at a bar called Union Pool over pizza and beers. Looking back at nearly a decade and a half and several waves of changes since, the founders are still proud of the original website they launched that day. “When you look back at the first iteration of Refinery29, it just really, deeply warms my heart, because I think it’s still beautiful,” Barberich says. While the website received some fanfare on launch day, growth was a slow, gradual process, and they struggled to be taken seriously, especially by traditional media outlets. “Most of the traditional publishers saw digital as a phase,” Gelardi says. “It’s so laughable now, but truly we would go talk to people, and they would act like we were trying to sell them a carpet or something. They thought it was a scam.” Challenges aside, the untested nature of their business model was also a blessing in disguise. “I think we were able to really pioneer this new space because it was, you know, an open road,” Gelardi says. Barberich agrees. “When you start out and you really are at the beginning of something, you have so much freedom to just test things,” she says. “I do credit that period—the first two years when we were essentially flying under the radar—as this really important testing ground for us.” They gradually tried out new content, such as a segment called “Neighborhood Watch,” in which local creatives shared fun activities and events they loved, and “Spotlight,” a section featuring products by homegrown, independent makers. “The products that we would feature would sell out overnight,” von Borries says. “That was the first time that something we had created had really been validated. So we started to look into commerce.” In early 2006, they decided to raise capital for the first time to fund a marketplace on their website, and in 2006, it launched, taking Refinery29 into its next phase. “We didn’t engineer this thing at all to be what it is today,” von Borries says. “In fact, I think the journey for us has been sort of going down the river and hitting different moments of momentum in the business and seeing the world shift.” And as the world shifted, so did they. Experiments and Expansions Before long,