The massage industry was not exactly known for feeling modern. For a long time, the experience often came with friction baked into it. Booking could feel clunky, preferences had to be repeated every visit, checkout could interrupt the relaxed mood, and the overall brand experience rarely felt as polished as what customers had started expecting from beauty and wellness businesses.
Brittany Driscoll saw that gap clearly.
Before launching Squeeze, she had already spent years inside a fast-growing consumer brand, helping Drybar expand and sharpen its identity. That experience gave her a front-row seat to what happens when a service business gets the branding, customer journey, and consistency right. Instead of treating massage as a sleepy, old-school category, she approached it like a modern consumer brand waiting to be rebuilt.
That mindset helped turn Squeeze into more than just another massage studio. It became a wellness brand built around convenience, personalization, and a smoother guest experience from start to finish.
Who Brittany Driscoll Was Before Squeeze
Long before Squeeze started making noise in the wellness space, Brittany Driscoll had already built deep experience in branding, marketing, and consumer-facing businesses. Her background included work across major brands and agencies, but one chapter stands out more than the rest.
At Drybar, Driscoll helped lead marketing during a period of serious momentum. It was the kind of experience that teaches more than textbook business advice ever could. She saw how a service brand could become recognizable, scalable, and emotionally resonant all at once. She also learned that customers do not just pay for the service itself. They pay for how easy it feels, how memorable it is, and how consistently it delivers.
That lesson would become central to the way she built Squeeze.
Her time at Drybar also gave her something equally valuable: pattern recognition. She had seen what happens when a company spots a stale category, simplifies the experience, creates a strong identity, and gives people a reason to return. That kind of learning is hard to fake, and it shaped the way she approached her next move.
How the Drybar Playbook Helped Inspire Squeeze
The roots of Squeeze are closely tied to the team behind Drybar. Alli Webb and Michael Landau, the sibling founders behind the blowout brand, were part of the idea from the beginning. Driscoll had already worked closely with them, so there was trust, shared experience, and a common understanding of what a modern service brand could look like.
Still, Squeeze was never meant to be a copy-and-paste version of Drybar in a different category. The point was not to repeat the same business with a new service. The point was to take the broader lessons that had worked before and apply them to a space that still felt outdated.
That meant asking smarter questions. Why should massage still feel inconvenient when consumers are used to seamless digital experiences? Why should a regular massage fall somewhere between a bland discount chain and a high-end spa that feels too expensive to visit often? Why should guests have to repeat the same preferences every single time?
Driscoll and the founding team saw an opening in that middle ground. They were not just building a place to get a massage. They were building a brand that could make the entire process feel more thoughtful, more consistent, and much easier to enjoy.
The Problem Brittany Driscoll Saw in the Massage Industry
One of the biggest reasons Squeeze resonated is that it was built around real friction points people already knew too well.
Traditional massage experiences often came with a few familiar frustrations. Guests had to explain what they wanted again and again. The quality could vary depending on where they went. The environment sometimes felt dated or impersonal. Even small things like checkout, tipping, or choosing add-ons could take someone out of the relaxing mood they came in hoping to find.
At the same time, the market felt split. On one end were lower-cost chains that made massage more accessible but often lacked a more elevated consumer experience. On the other end were luxury spas that felt beautiful but expensive and harder to fit into regular life.
That gap matters more than it may seem.
Modern consumers are not just comparing massage studios to other massage studios. They are comparing them to the best experiences they have anywhere. They compare them to the ease of booking a ride, ordering food, or managing appointments on an app. Once people get used to convenience in one part of life, they start expecting it everywhere.
Driscoll understood that shift. Instead of accepting the massage category as it was, she treated its pain points as a brand-building opportunity.
How Squeeze Was Designed to Feel More Modern From Day One
From the beginning, Squeeze was built to remove friction before it had the chance to become part of the guest experience.
That started with booking. Rather than making customers jump through hoops, the brand leaned into a digital-first system that made scheduling feel simpler and faster. But the modern feel of Squeeze was not only about getting someone in the door. It was about making the entire journey feel more connected.
Guests can set their preferences ahead of time, which changes the tone of the visit before it even begins. Instead of having to remember every detail on arrival, they can share what kind of pressure they like, which areas need focus, which areas should be avoided, and other personal preferences in advance. That may sound like a small thing, but it completely changes the experience.
When a service business remembers people well, it feels more personal. When it does that through a smooth system, it also feels more professional.
Squeeze also paid attention to details that many brands overlook. In-room settings, add-on touches, and the overall flow of the visit were designed to support a more seamless and more relaxing experience. It was not about making massage flashy. It was about making it feel easy, current, and guest-centered.
Why Technology Became One of Squeeze’s Biggest Differentiators
A lot of brands say they use technology. That alone is not interesting. What matters is whether the technology actually improves the experience.
In the case of Squeeze, it does.
Technology became one of the clearest ways Brittany Driscoll separated the brand from more traditional massage concepts. Guests can book online or through the brand’s app, save preferences to their profile, and handle tipping, rating, and reviews digitally after the service. That means fewer awkward moments at the front desk and fewer interruptions to the calm feeling a guest wants to hold onto after a massage.
More importantly, the technology supports personalization rather than replacing human service. Therapists are not working in the dark. They go in with context. They already know what the guest prefers, what areas need attention, and what kind of experience the person is expecting.
That creates a better starting point for the therapist and a smoother visit for the customer.
It also helps the brand feel more consistent across locations. In any service business, consistency is one of the hardest things to scale. Technology does not solve every challenge, but it can help protect the customer experience when it is built around the right details.
That is a big part of why Squeeze feels modern. The tech is not there for show. It is there to remove friction, support customization, and make the brand easier to trust.
How Brittany Driscoll Turned Customer Experience Into the Brand’s Core Strength
Some founders build around product. Others build around price. Brittany Driscoll built Squeeze around experience.
That shows up in the brand positioning. Squeeze sits in a smart middle space. It is more elevated than the standard discount chain experience, but it is still meant to feel more approachable than a luxury hotel spa. That balance matters because it widens the audience without making the brand feel generic.
It also shows up in the tone of the brand. Squeeze does not feel cold, clinical, or overly serious. It feels cheerful, polished, and intentionally welcoming. That kind of emotional tone matters in wellness because people are not just buying a service. They are buying relief, comfort, routine, and a little bit of escape from the pace of daily life.
Driscoll clearly understood that a modern wellness brand has to do more than deliver a treatment. It has to create a feeling people want to come back to.
That is where customer experience becomes a real competitive advantage. When booking is simple, the brand feels approachable, the service is personalized, and the exit is seamless, people remember it. They talk about it. They return. In many service businesses, growth starts there.
Building a Brand That Therapists and Customers Could Both Believe In
A massage brand cannot work if it only thinks about the guest side of the equation. The therapist experience matters too.
That is one of the more thoughtful parts of the Squeeze story. Driscoll has spoken about mission, philosophy, and culture as core parts of the business. That suggests the brand was not only built to attract customers. It was also built with an awareness that service quality depends heavily on the people delivering it.
In a business like this, culture is not a side note. It affects retention, consistency, morale, and ultimately the guest experience itself. If therapists feel supported and prepared, that confidence carries into the room. If systems are clear and expectations are aligned, the entire business runs with less friction.
This is one reason the Squeeze concept feels more complete than a simple consumer-facing rebrand. It was not just about giving massage a prettier wrapper. It was about building a service model that worked better from the inside out.
How Brittany Driscoll Helped Squeeze Grow Beyond a Single Location
Plenty of strong concepts look good in one location. Far fewer can scale.
That is where Driscoll’s experience became especially valuable. She had already lived through growth at Drybar, so she knew expansion is not just about opening more doors. It is about protecting the brand while systems, teams, and expectations get more complex.
Squeeze leaned into franchising from the beginning, which made its ambitions clear. This was not meant to stay a boutique local idea. It was built as a scalable wellness concept with the potential to grow nationally.
That decision also says something important about how Driscoll viewed the business. Franchising only works when a brand can be taught, repeated, and supported with enough consistency to travel well. It pushes a company to think carefully about systems, training, design, operational standards, and brand control.
By building with that structure in mind, Squeeze gave itself room to expand without losing the parts that made it appealing in the first place.
And the growth story did start to take shape. As the brand matured, it moved from concept to real expansion, with multiple locations open and a much bigger development pipeline behind them. That kind of momentum does not happen by accident. It usually means the positioning is clear, the consumer demand is real, and the business model makes sense to both customers and operators.
What Helped Squeeze Stand Out in a Crowded Wellness Market
The wellness space is crowded for a reason. People are spending more on self-care, recovery, and experiences that help them feel better. But crowded markets do not only create competition. They also reward clarity.
Squeeze stood out because it was clear about what it was offering.
It was not trying to be a luxury spa for special occasions. It was not trying to win on discount pricing alone. It was not trying to become everything to everyone. Instead, it positioned itself as a more modern, more personalized, and more seamless massage experience.
That clarity gave the brand an identity people could understand quickly.
The visual branding helped. The cheerful tone helped. The digital-first experience helped. The idea of “walk in, float out” helped. Together, those things made Squeeze feel like a brand built for today’s customer rather than a traditional massage business trying to catch up.
In other words, Driscoll did not just modernize operations. She modernized perception.
Challenges Brittany Driscoll Had to Navigate While Building Squeeze
No growth story is clean, and the Squeeze story is no exception.
Launching a high-touch service brand is already difficult. Doing that in a category where trust, consistency, hiring, and real estate all matter makes it harder. Then there is the added pressure of standing out in a market where many consumers already have assumptions about what massage chains and spas are like.
On top of that, Squeeze had to navigate pandemic disruption not long after getting started, which could have derailed a younger brand completely. Instead of backing away from the vision, Driscoll and her team stayed committed to it and kept building.
That kind of resilience matters in entrepreneurship. It is one thing to launch with optimism. It is another to keep going when timing gets tough and the business still needs to prove itself.
For Brittany Driscoll, part of the success of Squeeze comes down to that willingness to stay focused on the bigger opportunity even when the path got messier than expected.
What Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Brittany Driscoll and Squeeze
There is a reason the Squeeze story stands out.
It is not just about opening massage studios. It is about seeing a familiar category with fresh eyes. Brittany Driscoll recognized that consumers were no longer willing to separate convenience from quality. They wanted both. They wanted personalization without awkwardness, consistency without boredom, and wellness experiences that fit into real life.
She also understood that brand building is not just about how something looks. It is about how it works. The best part of the Squeeze model is that the branding and operations support each other. The cheerful identity, the tech-enabled platform, the therapist preparation, the seamless checkout, and the franchise-ready systems all move in the same direction.
That is what makes the business feel coherent.
For founders, that is a useful reminder. A modern brand is rarely built on marketing alone. It is built when the promise and the experience actually match.
And that is exactly what helped Brittany Driscoll turn Squeeze into a modern massage brand people could notice, understand, and keep coming back to.
