Education

At Female Founder Collective's The 10th House, we know that breaking into the technical outdoor apparel space sounds impossible when you're twenty-four with no fashion background and hundreds of thousands in minimum order quantities. In our exclusive conversation with Ariana Ferwerda, co-founder and CEO of Halfdays, we discovered how she and her Olympian co-founder transformed a shared frustration into one of the most exciting modern outdoor brands, raising over $15M, collaborating with HOKA and ILIA, and earning a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30.

Ariana's track record speaks for itself. After surveying over 200 women skiers and uncovering an insight about barriers to entry that became their entire brand mission, Halfdays built 4,000-6,000 Instagram followers before even launching a product. Their first production run required seven thousand units at several hundred thousand dollars, forcing them to raise VC capital pre-launch when most apparel founders bootstrap. Within six months of launching, retailers like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Backcountry were DMing the brand asking to carry the line.

With technical apparel requiring massive upfront inventory investment and 90% of fashion brands failing to reach scale, understanding how to validate demand, sequence fundraising rounds, and build authentic community has never been more critical for emerging apparel founders trying to survive their first three winters.

The Strategic Decisions That Actually Built a Breakout Brand (Not the Overnight Success Story)

Most fashion founders think pretty product photos and influencer seeding will build a brand. Ariana's philosophy is different: build something people emotionally resonate with first, and they will come. In a market where technical outdoor brands dominated by men left women feeling alienated, and fashion brands couldn't deliver performance, Halfdays found white space by deeply understanding their customer's emotional barriers—not just their functional needs.

The journey she's navigated reveals a playbook for category creation. What worked in 2020—posting mood boards and vintage ski imagery to build pre-launch buzz—was just table stakes. The real breakthroughs came from mission-driven positioning ("bringing more women to the mountains"), relentless product quality focus, and understanding that awareness should be your number one goal until you're doing $100M+ in revenue.

Here's what Ariana revealed about building standout consumer brands:

• Validate with emotional insights, not just functional feedback—the "why" behind behavior matters more than the "what." Ariana and her co-founder Kylie surveyed over 200 women skiers expecting to validate their frustration with poor-fitting, unfashionable ski wear. They got that confirmation, but the real insight came unexpectedly: women said things like "my fiancé's family are big skiers, but I haven't done it since I was sixteen and they're going for the holidays. I just don't want to do it. I don't have the gear, haven't done it in a long time." There was an insane barrier to entry. That became everything: their entire mission ("bringing more women to the mountains"), language, product development, and marketing strategy. Every decision filtered through: does this make the outdoors more approachable for women? The lesson: survey and interview relentlessly, but listen for emotional insights that reveal barriers you can remove, not just product features you can add.
• Build it before they come—invest in brand and product quality before marketing. The biggest mistake Ariana sees early founders make? "They try to go straight to marketing. You have to build it before they come." Halfdays spent months ensuring products were fashion-forward, in great colors, really well-fitting, and would resonate with their exact audience. They developed brand positioning, Instagram visuals, and customer language with crystal clarity before going live. Then they started posting content that resonated, building 4,000-6,000 followers before even launching product. "If you focus on building a brand and product that people have a reason to want to be a part of, these people are going to come to you," Ariana explains. Retailers will reach out, investors will DM, customers will sign up for waitlists. Build something meaningful first; marketing amplifies what's already working.
• Get technical expertise through freelancers when you lack it—don't let inexperience stop you. Neither Ariana nor Kylie had apparel backgrounds beyond wearing it. As such, they found two designers on LinkedIn (one from Arc'teryx and another from Lululemon) and hired them on freelance capacity. These designers had connections to factories that produced for North Face, Peak Performance, and Salomon, immediately giving Halfdays legitimacy and access. They attended fabric trade shows, found materials used by technical ski brands, and ensured proper waterproofing and breathability standards. The key: recognize what you don't know, find people who do know, and pull the pieces together. Don't downplay your ability because you lack deep category experience.
• Community isn't for every brand and it's expensive and hard to track. "Building a community is not for every brand and I don't think some brands should build a community," Ariana states bluntly. "If I was launching a phone case brand, I'm probably not going to build a community." But Halfdays has a mission-driven business (bringing more women to mountains), making in-person community events natural. They spend significant money on community with very difficult ROI tracking. Her criteria: only build community if your mission inherently requires it AND you can offer genuine value-add (their ski meetups help women who moved to new cities find skiing partners). They run an ambassador program with two ambassadors per market, paying primarily in product, who rotate hosting events. Early on, it was Ariana and Kylie hosting everything in Denver themselves. Start small, prove value, then scale through ambassadors.
• Raise capital strategically based on your business model (for example, technical apparel requires different funding than DTC beauty). Halfdays raised $1M pre-launch because their first production run required seven thousand units at several hundred thousand dollars. "No one was giving two twenty-four year-olds a loan for half a million dollars with no financial backing," Ariana explains. They went straight to VCs (unconventional for apparel) because they had a compelling story, niche opportunity, and no other option. They used more than half that million buying inventory, paid themselves modest salaries, and stayed extremely scrappy. However, inventory lenders require collateral, creating a chicken-and-egg problem ("you need $2M from VCs so you can have collateral for a $2M line of credit"). They raised subsequent rounds when they absolutely had to fund inventory expansion, then Series A when they had proven traction and massive opportunity ahead. Know your unit economics and capital requirements before choosing a funding path.

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How to Actually Sequence Wholesale and DTC Growth

The conventional wisdom says build DTC first, then add wholesale. Halfdays' path looked different. Within six months of launching, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, and Backcountry were DMing the brand asking to carry the line. "Build it and they will come," Ariana repeats. "If you're building something meaningful and people want, they will come."

The mistake founders make: forcing wholesale too early or rejecting inbound interest because "we're DTC-first." Ariana's philosophy: "If you have the opportunity to go into wholesale, I wouldn't hesitate." Contribution margins end up comparable because DTC customer acquisition is expensive, and wholesale provides brand awareness that feeds DTC growth anyway. The halo effect works both ways.

Today, DTC is the majority of Halfdays' business, but wholesale introduces the brand to new audiences who become repeat DTC customers. The key: be channel-agnostic and follow where your customer wants to buy. "If someone can't find it on our site but they can find it on Revolve, like great," Ariana notes. The goal is getting product in customers' hands, not winning a channel strategy debate.

The Real Math on Team Building and When to Hire

Halfdays is now twenty-eight full-time people, but Ariana's first hire reveals everything about smart early-stage team building.

Her first hire was an ops associate fresh out of college who "was ready to be in a retail business and kind of jumped in." They threw everything at her: Shopify management, wholesale account connections, 3PL management, customer service emails. Today, she runs much of the operations for the business. "Early stage utility players who can do gritty work compound into leaders when nurtured," Ariana explains.

Her hiring philosophy comes down to two questions: Does the person get the brand and are they passionate about what we're building? "That's been the number one indicator of someone doing really well in the role." When people lack that passion, the role doesn't work out. Second: willingness to roll up your sleeves. "If someone is coming to me with 'I love Halfdays so much, I want to build what you're doing in the outdoor industry,' they're going to roll up their sleeves and work hard."

How does she vet for this? "You have to really trust your gut. You can sense it when you're meeting someone." The excitement and willingness to do unglamorous work go hand in hand.

They still use consultants for roles that don't require full-time headcount (currently a freelance graphic designer), using them as stopgaps while scaling. The balance: consultants for specialized expertise you need occasionally, full-time hires for roles requiring daily execution and deep brand understanding.

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