The run club that brands pay to be part of: how Millie built She Runs in Sydney

Millie is the founder of She Runs, a women’s community in Sydney that started as a run club two years ago and has since grown to nearly 400 events, a travel club, and a roster of brand partnerships. Most of her weekly events are free. I spoke with her about how she built something that women show up for in the hundreds, and how she got brands to fund it.

Zelda: You started She Runs two years ago in Sydney. What made you start a run club when you weren’t even much of a runner?

Millie: Honestly, it came from two things happening at once.

The first was COVID. I did my university degree for three years online. I was in campus for one week and then they closed it down. I remembered feeling like I had been robbed of the uni experience and just, as an adult, making friends. That need for community became so clear to me through that time.

The second was that as things started opening back up in Sydney, run club culture just exploded. There was this club I was going to with hundreds of people at 6am on a Friday morning, running across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I’m talking 500 people at 6am. It was wild. And I started making female friends through it, and I just thought: what about a space just for women? This energy is so contagious. I want this.

So I decided I was going to start something. I wasn’t even a big runner. But if that’s how you make friends, I’ll try it. And that’s literally what I did.

She Runs went from 20 women on a Sunday walk to 200 within a month. What happened?

The weekly Wednesday run was already going, but the real turning point was when I added a Sunday morning walk. That format didn’t really exist in Sydney the way I was imagining it. And within a month, we went from 20 women to 200 showing up on a Sunday morning in the city. Then we had a walk with Benefit Cosmetics. They reached out and said, we love what you’re doing, and they handed out makeup products for free to the girls. That had 400 women show up.

It just kind of spiraled from there. And eventually running everything alongside my full-time marketing job became impossible.

The part that’s bittersweet about growth is what I call the dating app effect. It’s almost like we’re designed to be deleted. Girls find their best friends through She Runs, and then they don’t need to come back as much because they’ve found what they were looking for. Which is beautiful, but it does mean I don’t always hear back from the women whose lives have changed the most. When I do hear from them, it’s everything. They’re becoming roommates, bridesmaids, going on trips around Australia together, helping each other find jobs and visa sponsorships, running marathons for the first time. That’s the stuff that gives me goosebumps.

Walk us through what a She Runs event actually looks like.

There’s a formula that has become really core to who we are and what we do. I’ve been to enough clubs and groups over time to know what felt missing, and I’ve also read this great book called The Two-Hour Cocktail Party, which is this deep dive into building events where people genuinely connect in a short amount of time. That influenced a lot of how I think about this.

The first thing is icebreakers. A lot of these women are coming alone. They don’t know anyone. So as soon as they arrive, I’m over there waving and smiling, making sure they come over to the group, bringing them in. Then I lead two or three questions before we start. And these don’t need to be smart or complex. At 6:30am for a run club, it’s literally: what are you currently enjoying for breakfast? What’s your favorite restaurant in Sydney? Something you’ve bought recently that you love. Simple.

The point isn’t the question. The point is giving everyone permission to speak, putting them all on the same platform so no one feels like they’re walking into a group where everyone already knows each other. Because that’s the worst feeling. When I went to clubs before starting She Runs, I’d show up and everyone was already in groups and in conversations, and I didn’t know how to break in. That was my number one thing I wanted to fix.

I’ll also ask: put your hands up if you came alone. And most of the time, it’s most of the group. That moment does something. It shows everyone, okay, I’m not the only one. It’s okay to be here.

Then we head off on the run or walk, and I encourage the girls to drop in on conversations, introduce themselves, find the women they connect with. After, we always finish at a cafe. After a great morning of exercise and connecting, you get to sit down with a pastry and a coffee and just keep talking. The girls pull chairs, they form these massive circles, and honestly I don’t have to do anything from there. They’ve sorted themselves out.

Route matters too. For our weekly Wednesday run, it’s a five or six kilometer scenic loop that ends right at a cafe. That’s stayed the same because it works. With our Sunday walks, it’s a new route every week, and I’ve had to really think through logistics. If you have hundreds of women, you can’t stop at every traffic light. You have to find parks or open areas where the group can move together, especially if there’s a brand activating a pop-up. I’ve used ChatGPT, I’ve gone out and tested routes myself. It takes more planning than it looks.

You’ve expanded well beyond running, to walks, pilates, a travel club, financial literacy events, movie nights. How do you decide what to add?

It’s a mix of gut feeling and community feedback. I’ve always really leaned into my intuition because it’s helped me identify what other women are craving. I was the target audience when I started this. I wanted to find friends. So I ask myself: would I go to this? Would I pay for this? Do I enjoy this format? If no one else were coming, would I still show up?

I genuinely think there’s a crazy demand out there. Everything we’ve done has sold out. But I’ve also had to learn to cut back, because you can’t do everything, and not every idea that comes in is the right idea for right now.

The travel club, She Travels Club, has been one of the most exciting new directions. We did our first trip to Japan with 11 women in January. We are also heading on a Sri Lanka trip in November this year. It’s given the community a way to connect beyond just Sydney, which feels really meaningful.

You’ve kept most of your events free and built revenue through brand partnerships. How did you figure that out?

Yes, our runs and walks have stayed free. I’ve added a pilates class which is only $19, to keep it accessible compared to what classes cost in Sydney. And then we have one to two monthly special events that are more premium, usually under $100, and those sell out in an hour or two. Those events often involve brand partners providing really great goodie bags, products, outfits, activations.

“Once you’ve built a community, you realize you’re of massive value to brands who start wanting to be part of what you’ve built.”

You’re giving them a highly engaged audience of women who are their core demographic, in a trusted space, with a reputation behind it. That’s genuinely valuable.

But it took me a long time to believe that myself. Imposter syndrome was real. I had to work through this feeling of, am I allowed to charge for this? Is this a cute run club or is this actually a business? And it’s both, right? It’s a community and it’s an asset for brands who want real alignment with women.

What helped me was sitting down and really preparing. I put together a deck. I worked out what I was offering, what a long-term partnership could look like, what value a brand would actually receive. Having that written down built my confidence to present and ask. And I think for every five nos, you’ll get a yes. It’s perseverance. Brands who don’t have a budget or who just want free content will always be out there. But founders deserve more than that. That’s something I’ve had to learn to say out loud.

I’ve started having these conversations with other community builders and it’s been so valuable. You can benchmark, share what you’re charging, share who’s great to work with, share opportunities. The more we shift from seeing each other as competition to seeing each other as allies, the better we all do. That abundance mindset is something I’m actively working on this year.

What would you tell someone who wants to start a community like this?

Three things.

First, be really clear on your why. On the hard days, when it’s early and cold and you’re the one who has to show up, you need to know what you’re doing it for. And when you know, it shows. People are drawn to authenticity. They can feel whether you mean it.

Second, love the process. It won’t feel like work if you love it. I worked for eight different female founders before She Runs, worked in women’s leadership environments, wrote in my notes app since I was 14 about wanting to create something like this. I love this project, and it feels natural for me to run it.

Third, have your village. Being a connector is incredible, but you also have to keep yourself connected. You wear other people’s emotions when you’re the one holding the space, and that is genuinely exhausting. Community builders need to be part of other people’s communities too, places where they don’t have to hold the room, where they can just exist. Setting boundaries, having a support system, knowing when to hand something to a volunteer: those things aren’t optional. They’re what makes this sustainable.