服装租赁网站Rent the Runway的梦幻成名路

    大四注册那天，纽约世贸中心遭到袭击。海曼说，这起恐怖袭击事件对她的职业轨迹产生了切切实实的影响。这位社会学专业学生毅然放弃了起初的论文计划，转而撰写了一篇以新闻网络如何报道911事件为主题的学术论文——她先后采访了新闻主播特德•科佩尔和约翰•斯托塞尔。然而，她并没有产生投身于媒体的念头，而是开始思考一些商业问题。“911事件给这个国家的许多产业带来了灭顶之灾，我一向认为，动荡中必然蕴含着创新机遇，”她说。“所以我想寻找最动荡的行业，因为我觉得我将从中学到很多东西。这个行业必将发生大变革，大转型。”

    于是，海曼开始四处寻找有待解决的问题，最终把目光投向了旅游业，因为911事件对这个行业造成的负面影响再明显不过了。没过多久，海曼就在喜达屋酒店集团(Starwood Hotels)谋得了一份参与制定公司战略的差事。在那里，她与时任CEO、曾参与创办W酒店管理公司(W Hotels)的巴里•斯特恩利希特形成了非常默契的工作关系。“由于他的缘故，这家公司当时极富创业激情，”她说。“所以，即使它是一家大公司，但各级员工都被视为创新源泉，有机会将自身的创意付诸实现。”

    海曼在营销和合作项目的不同组别轮值了一年之后产生了一个想法：为喜达屋酒店集团创建一个婚礼事业部。她认为，喜达屋优先顾客奖励计划( Preferred Guest)应该针对最近订婚的伉俪，以及与婚礼相关的活动，包括单身派对、婚庆、蜜月，不一而足。海曼主动联系所在部门总裁，希望获得200万美元拨款，同时授权她在喜达屋酒店集团内部启动这样一个小型企业。她当时22岁，来这家公司还不到一年。这番举动确属大胆。但海曼说，她当时想：“也许有人觉得我这样做过于激进，但最糟糕的事情莫过于老板否决这项提议。要是那样的话，我一定要想法子说服他。”她的提议最终获得肯定。这个事业部面向新订婚夫妇的奢华蜜月服务大受欢迎，第一个财年就斩获1,300万美元收入。时至今日，它依然是喜达屋酒店集团的重要一员。

    按照海曼如今的描述，在喜达屋工作期间，她经历过一个对其职业生涯产生重大影响的时刻。有一回，在一场有资深员工参加的重要会议上，海曼一如往常，毫无保留地表达了自己的想法。会后，一位任职时间更长的女士把海曼拉到一边，说她开会时讲得太多，“让人觉得锋芒毕露，爱出风头，希望你意识到这一点。”这番话当然是出于好意，但海曼表示，这位女士也“想告诉我，如果大家觉得你一个22岁的小女生竟然如此咄咄逼人，一定会招致许多员工的不满，尤其是那些男上司。我基本上没听她的。”

    离开喜达屋酒店后，海曼还曾先后在初创公司婚礼频道网(WeddingChannel.com)和运动与时尚经纪公司国际管理集团( IMG)短暂工作过一段时间。2007年，她进入哈佛商学院。海曼的妹妹贝基认识弗雷斯（一位朋友的朋友），觉得她们两人肯定很合拍。海曼承认，她最初的反应非常冷淡：“我现在的朋友够多了，都应付不过来了。有机会碰到的话，认识一下也行。但我不会专门去结交她，”她对贝基说。然而，开学的第一天，她们两人碰巧坐在同一个分区，很快就成了好朋友。

    弗莱斯出生于肯塔基州，从纽约霍勒斯曼学校(Horace Mann School)毕业后被耶鲁大学(Yale University)录取，专修政治学和英语。大学毕业后，她进入银行业。“我生来好强，总喜欢追逐最好的东西，做最难办的事情，”她说。“从耶鲁出来后，大家都想去高盛(Goldman Sachs)这样的投行工作。”大四前那个暑期，她获得了一个在高盛实习的机会。第二年春天毕业后，她进入摩根士丹利公司(Morgan Stanley)战略规划部，开始从事内部并购和咨询业务。一年后，也就是2006年，她跳槽至雷曼兄弟公司(Lehman Brothers)从事类似的工作。

    On registration day of her senior year, the World Trade Center was attacked. Hyman says it had a real impact on her career trajectory. A social studies major, she completely scrapped her planned thesis and instead did one on how network-news outlets covered 9/11—she interviewed broadcasters like Ted Koppel and John Stossel. But instead of deciding she wanted to go into media herself, she began thinking about business. "What Sept. 11 had done is wreak havoc on many different industries in the country, and I always think that in chaos there's innovation," she says. "So I wanted to find the most chaotic industry out there, because I felt I would learn a huge amount. There would be a lot of change and transformation."

    Hyman was searching for a problem to solve. She looked toward the travel industry because 9/11 was having such an obvious impact on it, and landed in corporate strategy at Starwood Hotels. There she hit it off with then-CEO Barry Sternlicht, who had also started W Hotels. "The spirit of the company at the time was very entrepreneurial because of him," she says. "So even though it was a huge company, there was an expectation that people at all levels of the company would have ideas and bring those ideas to fruition."

    One idea Hyman had, after a year of rotating through various groups in marketing and partnerships, was for Starwood to create a wedding division. She felt the company's Preferred Guest rewards program should aim for recently engaged couples and their wedding-related events, from the bachelor and bachelorette parties to the wedding to the honeymoon. Hyman approached the president of her division and asked for $2 million to start a mini-business within Starwood. She was 22 years old and had been at the company for barely a year. It was an audacious move. But Hyman says she was thinking, " Someone thinks I'm being too aggressive? The worst thing that could happen is he says no. And then I'll figure out how to make it into a yes." She did get a yes, and the division she came up with -- a honeymoon registry combined with luxury services for newly engaged guests -- thrived, generating $13 million in its first year. It is still in place at Starwood (HOT) today.

    While at Starwood, Hyman had what she now describes as a pivotal moment in her career. After an important meeting with some senior people -- during which Hyman, as she often would, spoke up and contributed ideas -- a woman who had been with the company longer than Hyman took her aside. She told her that when Hyman speaks out in meetings too much, "it comes off as being too aggressive and too pushy. And just be aware of that." The woman was trying to be helpful. But she was also, Hyman says, "trying to tell me that if you're perceived as being this hard-charging 22-year-old girl, that's going to be very off-putting to a lot of people in this company, especially people above you who are men. I kind of ignored her."

    After Hyman worked briefly for the startup WeddingChannel.com and the sports and fashion agency IMG, she entered Harvard Business School in 2007. Hyman's sister Becky knew Fleiss as a friend of a friend, and thought the two would hit it off. Hyman admits her first reaction was icy: "I already have more friends than I need right now. If I meet her, I meet her. But I'm not going to specifically look out for her," she told Becky. Yet on the first day the two of them happened to land in the same section and they became instant friends.

    Fleiss had grown up in Kentucky and New York, where she went to the Horace Mann School, then college at Yale, where she focused on political science and English. After graduation, she went into banking. "I have a pretty competitive personality in general, and I'm always trying to go after what is the best and the hardest thing to get and to do," she says. "And coming out of Yale, everyone wanted to work in investment banking, like at Goldman Sachs." The summer before her senior year, she got a Goldman internship, and the next spring, after graduating, she went to work at Morgan Stanley (MS) in the strategic-planning group doing internal M&A and consulting. After a year she moved on to a similar role at Lehman Brothers in 2006.