Consulting, advising, and investing in consumer brands.

Growth

We get behind good and wholesome ideas. With years of experience scaling and investing in young companies, we understand the nuances of scaling early-stage ventures and can partner with you as a senior operating executive, advisor, or investor.

Balance

We believe lasting growth is nuanced and holistic and happens through a delicate balance of:

Bias towards action + Long-term strategy and scalable process
Data-driven decision making + Creative excellence
Brand-elevating storytelling + Rigorous growth optimization
Hiring functional experts + Developing strong people managers

Meet our founder, Mark Chou

The third employee and first executive hire at Away, Mark scaled the travel and lifestyle brand from launch to $150 million in annual revenue in less than 3 years while hitting profitability, before leading Away’s international expansion – managing 40 employees across seven teams over the course of four years as part of the company’s founding team. That was after he scaled cult brand ONA (where he oversaw growth marketing, brand marketing, PR, editorial, and digital product) to a successful private equity acquisition in 2015.

However, Mark is more than just a senior operator, with a background in M&A at The Blackstone Group and VC at the New York City Investment Fund. Having been on both sides of the table, he embodies the balance that Bradhurst Ventures brings to early stage ventures and their management teams.

But Mark’s proudest achievement of all? Being photographed by Bill Cunningham for the New York Times’ On The Street.

Mark graduated from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and lived in New York City for nearly 15 years before recently moving to Nashville, where he lives with his wife and two children. Find him on LinkedIn and Instagram.

Consulting

Bradhurst Ventures provides:

Project-based consulting (marketing audits, budgeting strategic planning, org design and hiring, etc.)
Interim leadership (stop-gap exec leadership while you’re backfilling for a senior leader)
Fractional COO / CMO (when you need an experienced right hand but not a full-time exec)

Advisory

Bradhurst Ventures advises both early stage companies and investment firms on topics ranging from talent acquisition and org design to marketing and digital strategy to international expansion and strategic planning, especially in a high growth context. Available to companies worldwide.

Investing

Bradhurst Ventures invests primarily in pre-seed through Series A rounds of consumer startups with a strong foundation in brand and compelling economics, as well as the software companies serving them.

Find a full list of Bradhurst Ventures portfolio companies here.

Testimonials

“After HATCH assumed operational control of two maternity brands in 2023, we asked Bradhurst to identify the brands' greatest opportunities for improvement. Mark brought a thoughtful, broad-ranging commercial POV to the table, identifying not just channel-level opportunities to boost marketing and e-comm performance but also other key strategic considerations to improve the health of the business overall. Mark's audit was such an actionable summary of the business opportunity that we then hired him to assist our leadership team on a fractional basis.”

- Lindsay Bressler, COO at HATCH Collective

I first met Mark when we were colleagues at Blackstone over a decade ago, and after launching SENREVE, I reached out to Mark to consult for us in 2017. We loved working with Mark, ultimately bringing him aboard as an advisor in 2018 and following our Series A, as our Interim Chief Growth Officer in 2020. At SENREVE, Mark has improved both strategic decision-making at the corporate level and tactical rigor in multiple functional areas, and I would highly encourage founders hoping to thoughtfully scale their brands to partner with Mark and Bradhurst Ventures.

- Wendy Wen, Co-founder at SENREVE

“Having led Comcast Ventures' seed and Series A, B, and C investments in Away, I have had a front row seat to the company's incredible growth. As an investor, I have worked with many management teams, and Mark stands out to me as an executive who has been able to provide strategic guidance to the company’s co-founders and also oversee the execution of that strategy – even executing by himself as needed. Personally, I’ve also found him to be a valuable source of insight, and I know that other investors and operators will, too.”

- Daniel Gulati, Managing Director at Comcast Ventures and Founding Partner at Forecast Fund

“As the first senior leader hired at Away, Mark was the backbone of the company from its early days, sending the company on its steep trajectory and shaping its high performance culture. He has many super powers, and as a people leader the one I admired the most was his ability to build strong and diverse teams. Mark is uniquely skilled at not only identifying and successfully hiring top talent, but also developing them. Mark's teams were always among the highest engaged in our regular employee surveys.”

- Erin Grau, Former VP of People & Culture at Away

“As Away's third employee, Mark played a pivotal role in building and growing our business and serving as a true player-coach across many functional areas, from marketing to digital to international. In addition, he served as a valued strategic sounding board to both Jen and me as Away scaled from launch to serving millions of customers. Mark is unique in his proficiency in both left- and right-brain disciplines, and this versatility would be a tremendous asset to any early-stage founder or team.”

- Steph Korey, Co-founder at Away

Select Press and Case Studies

How Startups are Recalibrating Their C-Suites, Modern Retail
Why DTC Brands Are Partnering Up, Modern Retail
The New Growth Marketer, Modern Retail | PDF
The Books to Read Before You Start a Business, Wall Street Journal | Print Edition PDF
Online Startups Vie for Shoppers' Attention on Prime Day, CNBC
How Luxury Brand SENREVE Found Growth in Asia, Forbes
SENREVE Appoints New Chief Growth Officer, WWD | PDF
Next Generation Luxury Brand SENREVE Appoints Industry Veteran Mark Chou As Chief Growth Officer, PR Newswire
Contributor Twenty: Mark Chou, Bradhurst Ventures, Le Cinq
How DTC Growth Experts Built Their Brands, Faraday
Away: Scaling a DTC Travel Brand, Harvard Business Publishing

Speaking Engagements

Consumer Connection: Creating Brand Longevity, 3686 Festival (LaunchTN)
Brand Strategy: Identity & Ideology in the Marketplace, Praxis Accelerator
Building the Team: Hiring for Scale, Praxis Accelerator
Organizational Culture: Designing for Excellence, Equity, and Joy, Praxis Accelerator
DTC in the Year of Change: 2020’s Impact on Consumer Appetite for DTC, Diffusion PR
Direct Currents: DTC Growth Strategies, Faraday
Retail Brand-Building, Wharton Graduate Retail Conference
Leveraging Technology for More Effective Marketing: Speaking to Millennial Consumers, Wharton Marketing Conference
The Future of Retail: Understanding the Evolution of Physical Space in Commerce, Blackstone Real Estate Innovation Series (w/ NEA)
Testing New Digital Marketing Strategies To Drive Acquisition, eTail East
Marketing Playbooks for All Sizes, CommerceNext
Customer Experiences in an Omnichannel World, Kustomer Direct-to-Consumer Summit

Writing

As a writer, Mark has contributed to publications such as Sprezza and Ivy Style, with a focus on menswear coverage.