Michele Varian and Jay Norris are forging a path—and a platform—to revolutionize the relationship between stores and brands.

Stress in the retail market is no secret. Landlords want 10-year leases at sky-high prices; meanwhile, many retailers are returning to a consignment model because their rents have made it harder to buy inventory. At the same time, brands have gained direct access to consumers online, minimizing the margins for retailers, whose curated points of view may help a customer discover product but whose shops are no longer the guaranteed point of sale. Enter Guesst, an online platform developed by Michele Varian and Jay Norris that brokers pop-up opportunities between retailers and brands.

Norris was working in New York real estate as a tenant representative when he reconnected with his Detroit high school classmate Varian in SoHo, where she has run a retail store since 2001. After a collaboration that created retail opportunities for product designers micro-manufacturing in Detroit got them talking about the barriers to brick-and-mortar success, the pair set out to create a platform that would alleviate the pain points of the retail journey.