ann wehren

startup founder, advisor, and operator. commercial builder designing products, partnerships, and businesses that scale.

I've spent my career selling: in consumer retail, brands, and startups in NYC.

I founded and scaled In-Seam, a VC-backed e-commerce marketplace for luxury's MVPs: personal shoppers, stylists, and sellers. Before I pivoted into tech, I spent 10+ years building sales engines for brands and retailers, navigating shifts from physical to digital and from wholesale to DTC dominant distribution.

I use data to see where the market is headed and build new infrastructure to help businesses move where the puck is going.

When + Why

2000s

Mall Retail

MN → PA → NYC

Worked the shop floor of chain stores and indie boutiques throughout high school and college.

2010s

7th Avenue Wholesale

NYC

Built global wholesale businesses (Michael Kors, DvF, Opening Ceremony), navigated shift to digital and the 2008 recession, revealed the first cracks in wholesale-dominant distribution.

2010s

Selling Nationwide

Coast-to-Coast

Cold called + sold door-to-door. Delivered salesfloor trainings at every major department store across the country: learned the valuable role of the retail seller and personalized service.

2015

Fractional VP of Sales

NYC

Launched fractional VP of Sales consultancy for brands across many categories. Executed omnichannel growth as DTC grew in importance and wholesale declined.

16 global brands

2018

Pivot to Buying

Dallas, Aspen, Miami, NYC

Flip from sales to buying for mini-dept store Forty Five Ten, covering 100 emerging designer brands (Jacquemus, AREA, Christopher John Rogers, Nike, Eckhaus Latta).

+50% same-store sales YoY

Spring 2020

Covid Trigger

NYC

Covid lockdowns shutdown Forty Five Ten stores. I started building. The top 20% of our customers who drove 80%+ of sales never visited the stores (or website). They relied on a personal seller to send product to their homes. Insight to MVP: retail built for B2C but the data showed the majority of sales moving through a B2B2C model. This behavior and demand had no formal infrastructure.

Summer 2020

Founded In-Seam

NYC

In-Seam

Founded In-Seam to connect brands directly to hidden, high-value 3rd party sellers. Created a new creator-adjacent affiliate distribution channel for brands. Built + self-funded marketplace MVP with $4k on a hacked private Shopify custom TBYB payment flow, universal cart, and full vendor catalog access.

MVP live in 2 months

2020 – 2023

Product & Partnerships

NYC

In-Seam

As the only brand partnerships sales leader for the first three years, I pitched brands from $10M emerging designers to $100B global luxury houses. We dropshipped from 250+ partners at a +20% gross margin advantage.

Incld. Dior, The Row, Khaite

2022 - 2025

Raised + Scaled

NYC

In-Seam

Accepted into Techstars NYC venture accelerator, presented to 500+ at demo day. Raised $2.5M from marketplace VCs + strategic angels.

Grew 200-260% YoY

2026

Fractional GTM Advisor

NYC

Commercial strategic advisor with hands-on GTM support for founder CEOs of tech products, services, and brands. Helping luxury brands convert ShopMy from a passive gifting tool into an active, measurable sales channel.

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