Founder Bailey Ness Shares Cooldown’s Business Model and How the Run Club Helps Brands Connect with Runners

It takes a competitive drive to become a professional athlete. To put in the work, to get comfortable with experiencing discomfort, and to perform under pressure. 

The same can be said for succeeding in entrepreneurship. 

Participating in the 18-and-under division at the Pan American Games for Team USA, Bailey Ness realized that, while she loved running, training to be a professional runner like her dad wasn’t the path she wanted to take. 

“I’m definitely a super competitive person. I know that about myself,” Bailey shares. “But I really didn’t want to pursue [running] in a competitive way.” 

Instead, she says, “I felt myself being drawn in so many different directions. I’m passionate about so many things.”

Bailey continued to run throughout college, at the University of Minnesota and Colorado State University. She earned her undergraduate degree in retail merchandising, followed by a graduate degree in design and merchandising. 

Graduating during the pandemic in May 2020, Bailey faced the difficult timing of finding a traditional marketing job and began noticing a shift in how brands were approaching social media and digital marketing. She launched Nesscessity, a social media and branding agency, and worked with clients to develop their social media strategies and build their online presence. 

On the side, Bailey began designing a women’s running apparel line and launched a socially focused run club under the same name: Cooldown. The Run Club started in 2022 with a dozen friends who meet for weekly runs in Denver. But thanks to Bailey’s social media expertise, Cooldown Run Club quickly grew and then expanded to New York when a friend inquired about leading a new chapter. 

“After seeing how well it did in New York, I decided to reach out to some content creators in Austin, and then it did really well there,” Bailey shares. “It was just a snowball effect.”

Realizing the business opportunity in not only the apparel line but also the Cooldown Run Club, Bailey leveraged her social media marketing background and began working with brands seeking to engage Cooldown’s members. Suddenly, she had a growing business at exactly the right time in the post-COVID running boom.  

Cooldown expanded quickly in its first few years. But once Bailey sold her social media agency at the start of 2026 and committed to Cooldown full-time, it took on a new life. 

“I had spent years building other people’s brands, and it was so fulfilling, so rewarding, and I learned so much watching so many awesome entrepreneurs,” Bailey explains. “But I knew I wanted to fully lean into marketing my own thing.”

Building a Run Club Into a Business 

Only four years in, Cooldown has developed a community of 110,000 followers on Instagram and large weekly Run Clubs in more than 20 cities — many of which regularly host hundreds of runners. 

On the apparel side of the business, Bailey recently launched a new men’s line, which joins the ever-popular women’s tops, sports bras, and shorts. A new winter apparel line is in the works, and Bailey added two members to her team to help with events, partnerships, logistics, product, marketing, and content creation. 

The Cooldown Run Club’s city leaders are also part of the team. Serving as not only Run Club hosts but also brand sponsor representatives, they earn a percentage of their city’s brand sponsorship contracts and often identify potential brands to work with. 

“Our city leader model has been a huge part of our ability to scale while still keeping each Cooldown community authentic and locally driven,” Bailey explains. “They’re not just volunteering to lead a run — they have the opportunity to benefit financially as the community they’re building grows, which I think creates a much stronger level of commitment and entrepreneurship.”

With her full attention on expanding the business, Bailey is taking on new challenges in 2026. In August, Cooldown hosted its first race in Denver, which featured a 5K and 4x1-mile relay with various local run clubs in attendance. Then, in November, two dozen Cooldown Run Club members are headed to Greece for a villa-hosted running vacation. 

“I wanted to find a way to unite all the clubs together and give something that they all could go to,” Bailey shares. “We launched the Greece trip. We posted on our social media. It sold out in 10 hours — pretty crazy.”

Both the Denver race and the running vacation in Greece provide additional ways for brand sponsors to work with Cooldown. And while these events are experimental this year, they have the potential to expand the company’s business model moving forward. 

Bailey’s entrepreneurialism — and likely her competitiveness — is a driving force behind Cooldown’s development and growth, but she notes that other run clubs have the opportunity to follow a similar path. It just takes understanding your audience and connecting with brands that make sense.

“If you want to provide the most value for that brand, you really do need to lean into social media and grow your footprint there, because that really is what most brands are looking for currently,” she adds. 

Below, Bailey shares more on how Cooldown got its start, the business model, insights into how Cooldown works with brands, and her thoughts on why running provides the best opportunities for human connection.

What came first, the idea to start a running apparel line or a social run club?

Bailey Ness: It really was about the clothing at first, and nobody really knows that. I wanted to start a running clothing brand because when I was training for a marathon — I ran CIM — I was looking everywhere for a marathon outfit. I couldn’t find anything that was [in] super fun colors that also had pockets and things that could hold my gels and my phone. Anything that was super functional was like black, gray, boring colors. 

A clothing brand takes a year and two months to make, or it took us a year and two months to make. So, in the meantime, I started the Run Club and didn’t realize that the Run Club was going to end up being the bigger part of the business, and honestly, the thing that I do feel more passionate about, which is funny. I still am passionate about the clothing, don’t get me wrong. But I love the community part that we’re growing at Cooldown.

What is Cooldown’s business model?

Bailey Ness: We have the apparel side of the business, but then we have the completely different side of the business that is the Run Club. The Run Club is super cool because we are able to make money from a lot of the sponsors. 

We have that perfect target demographic for a lot of these brands. That age 22 to 35 or maybe even 40 is a super impressionable group, and it is a group that is trying to find companies that they’re then going to adopt for life. I’ve seen this with so many random companies we’ve worked with. Not only do we work with the obvious, like shoe brands and watch brands, but we also have worked with airlines, a portable charging company. 

It is so cool because then, all of a sudden, they’re able to get their product in front of that young audience. In a lot of cities, that audience is hundreds of people. So, our sponsorship tiers are kind of unique. You can just come to Denver, or you could just come to Minneapolis, or just Chicago, or whatever city you want to focus on. Or you can activate in all of our Cooldown cities all week long, and our leaders will act as the brand representative for your company. 

You can even partner with us for a full year, where you’re our exclusive sponsor in whatever category that is. There are so many different fun ways that we’ve been able to work with brands, and I have seen how much the brands do get out of it in return.

How do you ensure brand sponsorships don’t turn away Cooldown Run Club members?  

Bailey Ness: We’re definitely not saying ‘yes’ to anybody. If a brand reaches out that just doesn’t make sense, we don’t say ‘yes.’ We definitely only want to do things that we actually believe in or care about. So, there is that. And then, we’re also never pushy …. The people who come to Run Club are just happy that they’re getting all this free stuff from these brands. 

I don’t think it ever turns people away. If anything, we get more people when we have a brand come out. The brand is never selling anything to anybody, so it’s not like they’re coming to Run Club and all of a sudden they’re being pressured to buy something. That’s never the case. 

I was nervous about that at first — sharing that with our Run Club, that we do make money off these brands. But as of recently, I think, if anything, people are happy to see women actually making money and getting what they deserve for all the time and energy they put into things. And a lot of our run clubs are led by women, which is really cool.

What are your thoughts on running as a means for social connection, both personally and at Cooldown? 

Bailey Ness: It’s honestly been the best way for me to meet people, make friends, and form actual connections with people. I truly think running is the best way to really get to know someone. 

Going out to drinks and stuff is great and all, but going to meet up with somebody for a run, you’re so unplugged, you’re so connected. All you’re doing is talking and grinding through something together, and I think that part is so special. It’s just been a huge connector for me.

My most favorite part, and I think the most fulfilling part [about Cooldown], is seeing the relationships that have been forming. This girl who moved here like two months ago, I now see her with this huge friend group, and she didn’t know anybody when she first moved here. The first thing she did was come to Cooldown. I hear so many stories like that all the time. We’ll get DMs from people in other cities saying, ‘This is where I met my friend group.’ 

That part of it is really special and rewarding. I love that, and want to keep just leaning into that.

Follow @CooldownRunning on Instagram.

“I had spent years building other people’s brands, and it was so fulfilling, so rewarding, and I learned so much watching so many awesome entrepreneurs. But I knew I wanted to fully lean into marketing my own thing.” – Bailey Ness