Byte Foods

Simple business pivots can sometimes take businesses to a different level. That and a rebranding and renaming. That’s exactly what happened for Byte Foods. Founded in 2014 as a meal-on-demand business called 180Eats, ended up being a logistical nightmare. Even though there was rapid success — the company says they were delivering 400 to 500 meals a night — it was unsustainable for the amount of delivery drivers they had. So the wife and husband founding team of Megan and Lee Mokri pivoted to a workplace vending and delivery model for health foods. The shift worked. Since the move in 2015, the company has gone from just the Morki’s to 40 employees and nearly $8 million in venture capital backing.

Megan Mokri came up with the idea and worked through the setbacks and problems of the startup while earning her degree from the University of California-Berkeley Haas School of Business. In particular, adjust professor, William Rosenzweig, who is also dean and director of the Food Business School, helped Mokri.

“I went to business school knowing that I wanted to start a business in that environment and leverage as many resources as I could,” Mokri, now CEO of Byte, told us last January.

Harper Wilde

Call it the Warby Parker-effect. Each year Wharton professors tell googly-eyed, entrepreneurial-minded newbie MBAs about how the unicorn was founded within Wharton walls. It’s certainly spawned some fledgling ventures with big upside. Besides Burrow, mentioned above, one of our favorites this year is Harper Wilde. Jenna Kerner and Jane Fisher both came to Wharton with startups on the brain, but mainly to join one instead of starting their own. And like so many others, the idea came from a frustration. The particular frustration for Kerner and Fisher was bra shopping.

“Frankly, right now, bras are incredibly expensive,” Kerner told us last April before the company fully came to market. “We’ve been wearing bras since we were teenagers — most women have. It’s something you have to deal with every single day. But a lot of women have taken it as the status quo that you just have to pay $70 for a bra.”

According to Ibis World, the lingerie market, which includes bras, is a $13 billion industry and is growing at a clip of 3.3% a year. The main stalwart, Victoria’s Secret, is vulnerable, the duo believe.

“Why is there a man standing at the door of Victoria’s Secret — you know, the security guard — watching women shop for bras? Why is the whole industry hyper-sexualized? Why is a woman’s product marketed towards men?” Kerner said. “I mean, there are so many things that when we really started to pick it apart — and when people we speak with do the same — they’re like, ‘Wow, you’re right, it’s crazy that this has been going on for so long.’”

Perhaps not much longer.

Dia&Co

It wouldn’t be a startup list without Harvard Business School. The Boston-based startup beast stakes claim to many successful ventures. Dia&Co is on deck to make that storied list. Manhattan-based Dia&Co was founded in 2014 by Lydia Gilbert and Nadia Boujarwah to do something not many other companies do: Offer highly fashionable clothing in the plus-size market. According to Boujarwah, two-thirds of U.S. women where sizes 14 or larger. Yet, only about 17% of clothing purchased is in that size range. Dia&Co only sells clothing in sizes 14 to 32.

“When the idea for Dia crystallized, it was clear that being able to dedicate myself to a customer that I cared about so deeply was incredibly energizing and I knew my job search was over,” Boujarwah, who graduated from Wharton’s undergraduate program and was an investment banker before enrolling at HBS. Gilbert, her co-founder, agreed.

Taking a Stitch Fix-esque business model, Dia&Co has vaulted into the market. They have sales in all 50 states and in 75% of the country’s zip codes. During 2016, they multiple sales by 35. And they’ve raised $20 million, led by Sequoia Capital to boot.