Squeeze’s CEO Brittany Driscoll Is Disrupting The Outdated Massage Landscape Offering A Franchise Model

Quiet quitting has been trending across business realms as people ditch the hustle culture. Even as 67% of U.S. workers quietly quit, the World Economic Forum reported that the number of female CEOs is rising. As of March, there were 74 female CEOs employed at America’s 500 highest-grossing companies compared to only 7 in 2002. Yet, the new high still only translates to around 15% female representation at the top of the country’s largest public businesses. Additionally, in 2020, just 5% of the CEOs appointed globally were women; at the CEO level, men outnumber women by approximately 17 to one. However, as more women launch small businesses and startups becoming CEO, they are laying the foundation and paving the way to increase the number of female CEOs running larger corporations.

Brittany Driscoll, cofounder and CEO of Squeeze, a tech-forward massage franchise, is creating a unique massage experience and offering a more sophisticated franchising experience for future entrepreneurs. Launched in 2019, Driscoll and her team are scaling through franchising to 300-500 units across the country. They currently have over 50 new locations in development. The company generated $1.6 million in revenue in the first year and almost 1,000 members at its first location.

“We were bullish about that idea then [in 2019]; post-pandemic, we’re living in a world now where that’s even more the case,” Driscoll shares. “The real opportunity is how we treat our people. At the end of the day, we’re in a people industry. I always like to say we’re not in the service industry; we’re in the people industry. There was a big opportunity to change that experience because I felt if employees were really happy, and they loved coming to work every day, and they felt valued and seen for who they were as individuals and then for the contribution they were making to the company, that we could do something pretty special. That inspired a lot of what is the foundation of Squeeze today, which is our values.”

During Driscoll’s junior year of college, she interned at an experiential marketing brand, which opened her eyes to the world of storytelling and creating memorable moments. After that, she worked in marketing and advertising on the agency side for the first ten years of her career. Some top brands she worked with included Disney, Hilton, Mattel and Coca-Cola.

“It’s funny how you look back on things and can connect the dots,” she states. “I’ve always been a very entrepreneurial spirit. The reason I was drawn to marketing was the idea that you get to create things and disrupt, if you will, in certain ways. And one of the projects that I worked on with Hot Wheels was called Hot Wheels For Real. Most people don’t know that the toy cars are actually designed to scale. So we built them for real, and we worked with some of the world’s best racecar drivers, from Mario Andretti to Danica Patrick. And we created a global online content series and the iconic double loop.”

Working on projects like the Hot Wheels example in a leadership role laid the foundation she needed to run marketing for Drybar for years. Before joining the blowout salon, Driscoll was a fan. She liked the concept and the culture. So when the opportunity arose for her to step into the head of marketing role, she didn’t hesitate. She helped take the company from $30 million to more than $100 million. Additionally, she opened more than 50 new shops and launched the Drybar product line internationally, as well as in Sephora, Ulta and Nordstrom.

After four years in the position, Driscoll looked for her next challenge; she wanted to work with another young brand that she could help scale. She conversed with Drybar’s founders, Alli Webb and Michael Landau, and expressed her desire for a new challenge. The two cofounders had another idea for an innovative massage shop that they wanted to launch. After many discussions and strategy sessions, Squeeze came into motion.

“How we viewed the massage landscape and where the personal frustration came from was on one end of the spectrum, there were low-end discount chains,” Driscoll explains. “I do like to give massive credit to what made massage accessible to the masses over the past 15 to 20 years, but ultimately lack a lot from a consumer experience standpoint and also an employee experience standpoint. Then on the flip side, you’ve got high-end hotels and spas, which are lovely but unattainable for regular routine experiences. So we took a lot of the learnings of building Drybar, creating those sophisticated, luxurious retail experiences with all of the built-in surprise and delight moments, a sophisticated, whimsical brand, and bringing all of that meeting in the middle at an affordable price point.”

Driscoll, along with Webb, Landau, Cam Webb, Josh Heitler and Sarah Landau, built out Squeeze’s operating model. The most significant differentiator is the company’s end-to-end platform that enables its guests to do everything from booking appointments to tipping all through the company’s app; everything is electronic. The cofounders also choose the franchise model to help others build their entrepreneurial portfolios. Additionally, for every membership sold, Squeeze is helping to provide canine support to an adult, child or veteran with a disability through their partnership with Canine Companions.

As Driscoll continues to expand Squeeze and pivot in her career, she focuses on the following essential steps:

• Lean into the uncomfortable feeling you may be experiencing; that typically means that you’re onto something and will experience tremendous growth.
• Don’t feel guilty for wanting to pivot to something new. If you’re feeling that way, you’re no longer serving the company because, most likely, you’re already checked out.
• Surround yourself with people who will help you level up.

“I believe the most successful people are the ones who just keep going, don’t lose heart and don’t give up,” Driscoll concludes. “That’s something that is so lost today, too. Everyone expects this immediate overnight success and that things look so much easier than they actually are.”

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Updated: 40; 50 new locations in development