How New York brands started with influencers

Glow Recipe wrote 600 emails by hand

When the brand was starting out, the two founders sent 600 emails to press and influencers, 300 each. By 2020 their whole team worked out of an office in New York.
Every one was personal. They already followed these influencers, so they knew their skin concerns, and sent each one a skin care routine made for them.
They got over 30% of them to answer, and met influencers for coffee when they traveled, to say thank you.
In 2020 they said the organic side far outpaced the paid partnerships, and they had done very few paid ones.

Source: Sarah Lee and Christine Chang, co-founders of Glow Recipe, on Earned by Tribe Dynamics, June 2020

When they graduated, the founders moved to New York, into a tiny apartment in Brooklyn.
Early on they sent product to small health and wellness influencers on Instagram. Gabi Lewis says it was him in the DMs, finding someone with 30,000 followers who might like it, with no pressure to share. If they liked it, they usually shared.
Their first week online probably did more in sales than they'd forecast for the whole first year. He puts that down to the launch, some press, some of the creators that got behind it, and ads turned on a little later.
Our own count: 107 YouTube videos whose own description names Magic Spoon as the sponsor, from 2021 to 2026.

Source: Gabi Lewis, co-founder of Magic Spoon, on Taste Radio by BevNET, February 2026

Ben Witte launched Recess out of his apartment in the East Village, and New York was its first retail market.
Before any paid or influencer marketing, Recess ran a pop-up in lower Manhattan called Recess IRL. It hosted three to four events a week with brand and creative partners, for six months straight.
His view: be cool yourself before you ask people to make you cool. Influencers and paid media come after, to speed up what's already working.

“I think people start with influencer marketing way too early”

Ben Wittefounder and CEO of Recess

Starting Small, December 2021

It did come later. Our ads board holds 24 Instagram posts marked as paid partnerships with Recess, from October 2024 to July 2026, and one creator made 6 of them.

Source: Our own count, influencer_ads, 2026-10-30

Away's CEO calls it a New York brand, with its office in Soho.
On TikTok Shop, a hard case for sunglasses went viral and went from a few hundred sales a month to thousands. 82% of the people buying it were new to Away, and 14% came back within two months to buy another Away product.
In February 2026 Away put a new luggage color, Island Pink, on TikTok Shop before its own website, then brought it to its site and stores.
Away is also the official luggage brand of the New York Liberty, the WNBA team.
Our own count: 159 YouTube videos whose own description names Away as the sponsor, 90 of them in 2025 and 68 in 2026.

Source: Away's CEO on the Operators Podcast, October 2026

Casper started in New York City and was early to ads on the New York subway.
Co-founder Neil Parikh says small radio hosts who talked about Casper to audiences outside the city, in places like Oregon, sold really well, while competitors stuck to New York and San Francisco.
A creator's followers can live anywhere too, so check where before you book.

Source: Neil Parikh, co-founder of Casper, on Clock Speed, April 2024

Start by hand: a short list of creators you'd follow anyway, and a message written to each one.
Send product first, with no pressure to post. The ones who like it tend to share it.
Have something worth talking about before you pay anyone to talk about it.
Look past the five boroughs, because a lot of your buyers may live far from the city.
Put a code or a link on every creator, so you know who to keep.