Hello, and welcome back to Inc.’s 1 Smart Business Story. The growth of women’s sports has become one of the most compelling growth stories in the last decade. For three-time Olympian-turned-entrepreneur Chloe Kim, this year’s Winter Games served as a reminder that investing in women’s sports isn't just about breaking glass ceilings; it's a legitimate growth engine. 

Kim missed a historic three-peat at the Milan-Cortina Olympics, taking silver after narrowly losing to her 17-year-old protégé, Gaon Choi. A full-circle moment, as Kim supported Choi’s move from South Korea to the U.S. years earlier. 

Off the snow, Kim is a co-founder of Togethxr, the women’s sports-focused media and e-commerce company launched in 2021 with fellow Olympians Sue Bird, Alex Morgan, and Simone Manuel. In 2024, the company’s “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” merchandise generated $6 million in revenue and earned its founders a three-peat spot on Inc.’s Female Founders list. 

In this piece, you will see:

BY ALI DONALDSON, STAFF REPORTER

‘Chloe built something far more enduring than a medal count,’ says her co-founder. ‘She built a standard.’

Chloe Kim did not pull off a historic three-peat in Milan, but the Olympic snowboarder, who competed in her third Winter Games for Team USA, will still be heading home with some new hardware and perhaps an even bigger reason to celebrate.

The 25-year-old two-time defending champion, who won gold in the snowboard halfpipe in Pyeongchang in 2018 and Beijing in 2022, earned a silver medal in the same event, coming less than two points behind her own protege: 17-year-old Gaon Choi of South Korea. 

Choi, who made her Olympic debut at the same age Kim did, has credited Kim, the daughter of Korean immigrants, with inspiring her to start snowboarding in the first place. Over the past decade, Kim has become a mentor to Choi. Kim and her father, Jong Jin Kim, helped bring Choi from Seoul to the United States so that she could train with the Mammoth Mountain development team in Mammoth Lakes, California. 

It was a fitting full-circle moment, and for an athlete who spends her time off the snow elevating women’s sports and building a platform that enables female athletes to tell their stories, this “third medal matters more than her first.” That’s according to Jessica Robertson, co-founder and chief brand officer of Togethxr, the women’s sports-focused media and e-commerce company that Kim co-founded in 2021 with fellow Olympians Sue Bird, Alex Morgan, and Simone Manuel.

In less than five years, the Santa Monica, California-based startup, which is pronounced “together,” has become a well-known entity among sports fans for its viral “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” T-shirts and sweatshirts, which have been sported by celebrities, such as Dawn Staley, Serena Williams, Steph Curry, Paige Beuckers, Jason Sudeikis, Aubrey Plaza, and Chelsea Handler. 

The company turned that rallying cry into a cultural moment and a growth engine. In 2024, the “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports” merchandise line generated $6 million in revenue, helping the startup double year-over-year revenue and achieve profitability. Those efforts have landed the Togethxr co-founders on Inc.’s Female Founders list three times.

Kim, who is part of the growing cadre of elite female athletes who have become entrepreneurs, “has shown that you can be dominant without being one-dimensional,” Robertson wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “Chloe’s career is not a story of almost, or having ‘come up short.’ It is a story of achievement, resilience, reinvention, and responsibility. Chloe built something far more enduring than a medal count. She built a standard.”

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