Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their very own.
Girls have at all times confronted strain to fulfill slender and sometimes conflicting societal expectations. For feminine athletes, that strain presents a paradox — being sturdy on the courtroom whereas nonetheless being seen as “female” off of it.
“Rising up, I felt like when you had been good at sports activities, folks would label you a tomboy or say you were not girly sufficient,” says UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd.
Now, Fudd helps change that narrative. She’s on the heart of a daring partnership between UConn Athletics and status magnificence model Madison Reed that challenges outdated expectations and redefines what confidence can seem like.
Based by UConn alum and seasoned entrepreneur Amy Errett, Madison Reed is deepening its funding in ladies’s basketball by its Staff ColorWonder marketing campaign, increasing its roster for the 2025–26 season, and launching new initiatives with model ambassadors like Fudd and Paige Bueckers.
“This motion of athletes being celebrated for his or her confidence and sweetness continues to be new,” Errett says. “When folks consider Madison Reed, I need them to think about the aspiration to really feel assured — on their phrases.”
Associated: ‘Customers Deserve Higher’: How Famous person QB Patrick Mahomes Is Brewing a Higher Future for Espresso Drinkers
Highlighting what issues
Madison Reed was born out of a private downside ready to be solved. Founder Amy Errett noticed her buddies combating greying hair and pissed off by the tough substances in conventional dyes. She got down to create a greater various — one which delivered salon-quality outcomes with cleaner formulation and better accessibility.
Her first focus was the at-home market, which makes up roughly half of the ladies’s hair dye business.
“It by no means works if any individual buys one factor from you and would not come again,” Errett explains. “It is like males and shaving. Girls often have an everyday cadence for coloring their hair.”
After discovering early traction, she expanded Madison Reed’s attain by partnerships with Ulta, Walmart and Amazon.
Finally, Errett set her sights on the opposite half of the market: salons. After tons of of stylists reached out asking to purchase Madison Reed’s shade tubes, she had a realization — why not rent their very own cosmetologists?
What started as a product-focused enterprise developed into one which additionally affords companies, with Madison Reed now working nearly 100 shops. Whereas the service is beauty, the model’s success is rooted in what’s behind it: high-quality substances and a deep dedication to care, from offering entry to worker medical advantages to providing clients a 100% money-back assure.
“Customer support is a misplaced artwork,” Errett says. “If you present up on your clients, they keep loyal. And we have seen that.”
Equally necessary is how the corporate treats its staff — one thing Errett believes is commonly ignored within the business.
“We do not simply rent primarily based on whether or not somebody’s an awesome stylist, controller, marketer or knowledge analyst,” she explains. “We additionally rent for the ‘how,’ which is tradition.”
Madison Reed is grounded in 5 core values — Love, Pleasure, Braveness, Belief and Duty — displayed in each hair shade bar.
“So long as our cosmetologists are completely satisfied, and we give them profession paths, we have now a military,” Errett says.
Associated: This Small Gesture from a Stranger Modified How I Deal with Stress in a Excessive-Stress Profession
Athletes and aesthetics
As ladies’s sports activities exploded, Errett noticed a chance for Madison Reed to be one of many first magnificence manufacturers to enter the area.
“Feminine athletes embody every part we stand for,” she says.
A UConn alum and member of the UConn Basis’s Board of Administrators, Errett noticed the college as a pure match for the model’s first partnership, particularly with its powerhouse ladies’s basketball program, that includes stars like Azzi Fudd and WNBA No. 1 decide Paige Bueckers.
“Partnering with a model like Madison Reed is unbelievable,” says Fudd. “It was based by a lady, and its mission to advertise confidence in ladies aligns with the values of girls’s sports activities.”
The partnership goes past photograph ops and Instagram collabs. Madison Reed has secured naming rights for UConn’s Gampel Pavilion and XL Middle, changing into the primary female-founded and alumni-founded model to take action.
“One factor about NIL partnerships is that loads of them do not have aligned objectives,” Errett says. “The one approach this works is that if each the athletes and the college profit.”
On this association, Madison Reed can host photoshoots on the UConn courtroom, providing the college added publicity whereas simplifying logistics for everybody concerned.
Associated: ‘No person’s Ever Seen This Earlier than’: How These 2 NYC Sports activities Icons Are Infusing Swagger into Subsequent-Gen Eyewear
Fairness helps create empowerment
For the athletes, the deal is break up 50/50 between money and fairness, with franchising rights included for gamers who might need to open their very own retailer sooner or later.
“Speaking with Amy about fairness and potential franchise alternatives obtained me excited,” says Fudd. “It confirmed she’s not interested by only a transactional deal. She genuinely needs to empower ladies in sports activities, and he or she’s keen to share her information and be a mentor nonetheless she will.”
Bueckers’ partnership prolonged past her time at UConn and into the WNBA, together with her shade line, “Uconnic Blonde,” whereas Fudd is exploring a for-credit internship with the corporate to realize hands-on expertise in entrepreneurship and advertising and marketing whereas pursuing her MBA.
Fudd could also be younger, however she’s already earned a seat on the desk with a few of the most elite athletes and entrepreneurs in sports activities. One in all them is Steph Curry, whom she first met as one of many inaugural feminine attendees at his camp in 2018. He later invited her to a enterprise summit, the place she noticed a totally completely different aspect of the NBA star.
“I solely knew him as a basketball participant, so that have opened my eyes,” Fudd says. “Watching him performed a job in why I made a decision to pursue my MBA. I need to perceive my enterprise and never simply depend on folks I rent for assist.”
Conclusion
Madison Reed kicked off the second yr of its partnership on the 2025 ESPYs by internet hosting the UConn workforce at its Los Angeles-area Hair Shade Bar for a non-public “Get Prepared With Me” occasion. Gamers and coaches loved skilled styling, together with shade, gloss, therapies and blowouts earlier than the present.
“For a very long time, feminine athletes weren’t provided model offers in any respect — not to mention magnificence offers,” says Errett. “Now, they’re being acknowledged not only for their expertise, however for his or her confidence, magnificence and the inspiration they convey to younger followers and fogeys. Seeing somebody like Azzi celebrated for who she is — inside and outside — alongside so many different achieved ladies… how wonderful is that?”
