Oner Active was founded in 2020 by Krissy Cela (3.2 million Instagram followers; 1.2 million TikTok followers). To hear Cela tell it, though, Oner was truly built over the 10 years prior, during which she built her personal brand on social media — for the first five years, she did not work with brands and focused solely on sharing her fitness journey and building her personal community.
All that time, she said, was research for the brand that would become Oner. And though the brand has reached $190 million in annual revenue, Cela is quick to correct anyone who thinks it was an overnight success. As a fitness influencer, Cela paid attention to the brands she worked with — “I was [watching] what [other brands’] communities were saying — what women were saying they love, what women were saying they didn’t like — and [paying attention to] the products that I liked and products that I didn’t like. And I utilized that as a way to then build my brand,” Cela said last week, on stage at Glossy’s E-Commerce Summit in Miami.
And, having started as a creator herself, Cela went in with a deep understanding of just how valuable creators can be.
One way that currently plays out at Oner is through its Move Ambassadors program, which receives about 30,000 applicants each time it opens. “They write about why they want to work with [Oner] and why they should be chosen,” Cela said. Of those 30,000 applicants — all of whom the brand receives email data from — 100 are selected to receive an Oner activewear set.
