575: Ty Haney on Being Ousted From Her Own Company: The Lesson's Learnt & How to Bounce Back

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey, Founder fam, welcome back to another episode. Today, we're sitting down with Ty Haney. She's the powerhouse who turned Outdoor Voices into a$100 million cult brand. And And then it all came crashing down, but she didn't quit. She turned her public fall into fuel for an even bigger comeback. And this conversation is her raw blueprint for how she's starting over with new brands like TYB and Joggy. I loved this interview. I know you're going to too. So now let's jump into the show.

1:21Hear the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan. You built one of the most recognizable direct-to-consumer brands in the past decade with Outdoor Voices, turning over sub$100 million a year, and then you lived through what many would call a fall from grace. So when you look back at that time, what do you think the world got wrong with your story? Interesting. Well, I look back at that time with 90 % of my experience with Ovi as something exceptionally awesome. And I was lucky to have. I started Outdoor Voices at 23.

2:15I started Outdoor Voices at 23 out of New York City, having been a kid that grew up in Boulder, Colorado. very immersed in nature and really kind of recognized a pain point. When I got to New York City, I was going to school and no longer had team and coaches and practice in mountains to keep me active. And so really Outdoor Voices was born from the environment I grew up in, in my personal DNA and just this recognition that, you know, on a personal level, I needed inspiration to move every day. And so I look back at Outdoor Voices and I'm very proud of what we were able to build and the movement and ultimately the team.

2:57But quite literally, our mission at Outdoor Voices was to get the world moving. And I think in a lot of ways, a lot of people were touched and kind of part of that movement in an exciting way. I think what the world has gotten wrong. Hmm. How would I answer that? I feel as equipped and excited about being a founder kind of in the business building and consumer kind of world as ever. And so people probably haven't heard from me for a number of years and potentially are like, ooh, that was like a rough story. But I think ultimately, like I pretty quickly got back on the horse and I'm someone who very much loves tapping into a vision and building from zero.

3:44And so it's cool to like not have that type of scenario, like rock me in the way that probably some would expect. And so that's been something just personally I've been excited to kind of step back into and show that as a female founder, like challenges are normal. I had a particularly painful and public kind of downfall. but I'm excited to like show back up and show that it wasn't just you know a lucky chance that we were able to or I was able to build a company with that successfully kind of my first go and so yeah I think like normalizing challenges is something that I've recognized is just par for the course as a founder.

4:35And me showing back up kind of with my second and third companies very much to me, like, is an exciting way to kind of show a comeback story that I think maybe people didn't expect from that first kind of chapter of business building. So you started Outdoor Voices 2012, raised a ton of money, company grew super fast, um cult following incredible community and uh like many founders um you i guess what happens is you have the title ceo but you're not really the ceo and and and you don't really know especially as a first-time founder what is required to be a ceo and so oftentimes whether it's from investors or other team members that join the company you you go okay well let's bring in some senior leadership some proper executive uh support that you know have experience with with people that do this all the time that scale companies um so uh you know we don't have to go into the details or we can perhaps but um you know you eventually left the company um through through you know bringing on strong you know strong pedigree leadership do you want to talk about that because I think that is a that is a common arc where especially first-time founders you are the CEO but you don't really probably maybe enjoy that as the business scales that it's a it's a totally different transition right from going actually from founder to CEO yeah I think there's a lot to kind of unpack there, but I started Outdoor Voices at 23, was in a fortunate position, like early in Inns D2C and with a big, bold, ambitious vision that we were able to attract a lot of capital.

6:38That said, this was my first time doing it. I was exceptionally good at stating this vision, the product, cultivating and attracting a very creative team. and then bringing people around the table to fund it. What was really difficult and experience matters, I actually remember kind of an investor early on being like, I only invest in second-time founders. And to a degree that tracks, like, you know, that's a de-risked way maybe to invest. But I was 23 years old. No one didn't know that going into it. But the number one thing I've done differently in my new companies is make sure that we have that leadership team intact.

7:26And so it was interesting because we had a pretty strong board or like a board that certainly had a perspective on a lot of things. And so what we ended up doing was engaging these super expensive recruiters. and then almost hiring by consensus. And so I was the CEO, but I was essentially managing this board to like figure out the perfect unicorn for all of these positions across the leadership team at Outdoor Voices, which ultimately meant there were like large vacancies or like key roles that were vacant for way too many months or years at a time. When my second time around, the number one thing I prioritized was getting leaders, that leadership team, my direct five or six reports like in place out of the gates um so that that was something that i just looking back i wouldn't have known had i not gone through that um and a little kind of example there is the first the first kind of senior role that i hired at tyb my new company is our coo and she's like super experienced both in the consumer and gaming kind of tech software space and has many reps and tons of experience, knows how to manage people, knows how to hire people.

8:45And I wish I had recognized how important that was sooner and had a board that, you know, potentially helped me place those leaders in those roles sooner because we certainly felt the effects of not having like an intact leadership team out of the gates at Outdoor Voices. And you were essentially ousted in many ways. you resigned but you essentially ousted from the company that you started um talk me through like what was going through that time yeah um back to kind of your initial question i think um a lot of how the press positioned that ousting wasn't really you know fact-based which is fine like That's what press does.

9:34But we had brought on a chairman of the board, actually one of our lead investors, General Catalyst and David Fiaka, who I'm very fond of. He really was a software guy, so didn't have experience in apparel and had worked with Mickey. And so he brought Mickey on as our chairman of the board. And I was like so open to that. And obviously, he's a retail and merchandising legend. And initially, it worked. As we started to, like, get probably a year and a half in, we started to have kind of divergent views on how to build the business. And we had this community led kind of activate IRL, amplify through digital and social growth model that really was effective for us, where in a lot of ways, Mickey was pulling us more kind of to the traditional big box flagship expensive retail kind of growth strategy.

10:29And ultimately, we did not see eye to eye. And so that created a pretty difficult dynamic with the team where there were almost kind of like co-CEOs and then an even more difficult dynamic at the board level. And something I learned the hard way for sure is as a CEO, like your number one job is to, of course, raise money or keep the company funded. But number two is relationships with the board. And that's a hard thing to do when you're in the weeds operating and just like, like particularly at the pace that we were growing, like your head's down. And you're just like trying to, you know, whack them all of the challenges away when really you need to lift up and nurture relationships at the board level.

11:15And so I certainly found that out the hard way. And so what that ended up doing was Mickey was quite a sophisticated politician, I would say. And so he had spent time essentially at the board nurturing those relationships. And so when push came to shove, one, I had raised, you know, significant capital. So when you looked at the cap table, my ownership meant I was diluted significantly and just from a cap table and like company structure standpoint, no longer had control. And then, too, from more of a political and board relationship standpoint, I didn't have the influence that I should have worked to essentially have intact.

11:57And that ultimately led to a number of things where an article came out that kind of had been co-authored by Mickey. And that night I literally like looked at Google and looked up how to resign because I had never resigned from a company before. I didn't know what the formality was. And so I kind of have I have this in my phone as just kind of a souvenir of the moment, painful as it was, saying, I hereby tender my resignation doing things Thai. And so essentially the situation had become untenable and I I could see this. I also had commitment from the board members at Outdoor Voices to help kind of move Mickey out.

12:42It didn't happen soon enough. And so unfortunately I became kind of the casualty. But all that to say, like, yeah, it was a painful, but exceptionally helpful and kind of masterclass experience in, you know, sharpening kind of my ability as a businesswoman. And I know that it would be so painful watching a brand in a company that you put your life your blood your sweat your tears into and then watch it being morphed into something that is perhaps not your vision and you know i've even seen you post comments right on on certain content from outdoor voices um what compelled you to do that oh i mean I've had two kids so um I can kind of make this comparison but obviously starting a a company from scratch and then growing it uh over eight years like it's your obsession you're all the way in it's all I thought about for eight years straight um it's like a baby and so um you never imagine like having to leave or neglect that that baby that um you know you had birthed et cetera.

14:00And so in a lot of ways, it felt like that. After that first resignation, I actually was asked to come back. And so I did re-engage about seven days later. And, you know, in hindsight, should I have done that? I don't know. But that is kind of just to point out, like, when you've built something and committed your life and gone all in in that way, like, it's hard to leave and distance yourself. And like, from an identity standpoint, it's like, who am I? I pretty quickly found out that like my role within the company was not no longer going to be something that, you know, I wanted to commit to.

14:36And so I was kind of put in this box and ended up leaving again. But it took me a number of months and I think understandably to like reconcile, like how had this happened? I had been and thought of myself as just like so committed to the cause And we had had such an amazing dynamic and culture and team and fast paced, you know, growth trajectory, really scaling this mission to get the world moving. And so it took many months to kind of unpack that or like figure out how to be OK with that and with myself. And so I remember like shortly after my leaving, I just was still so emotionally connected to kind of how OV presented itself because it was the only thing I knew.

15:19um and so yeah I remember like commenting just like the the fabric's backwards um and I mean there's many examples of when kind of the founder is ripped out of the equation like a lot of the spirit the soul um and ultimately in a lot of ways the engine turns off for a lot of these consumer brands um which I I think happens too frequently but certainly happened in this case do you regret like writing those comments publicly and people saying no no I think um I think like one thing I'm excited about with more of the like state of today just from a general consumer and even kind of media standpoint is I feel like during that period of time like everyone was overly sensitive and over you know like a comment by me on the company that I founded it became like this massive and inflamed story.

16:19So no, I mean, I think given the background, like it was something that I was obsessed with and spent every hour thinking about. And so to see it like in going kind of the wrong direction was certainly painful. It did take me a number of years to like, not, no longer feel attached or connected to that. Yeah, look, I can only imagine, right? It would be just terrible, like so tough. and then even to see see the brand out there like it just must be so weird like you probably walked you know I know you guys don't have the retail stores anymore but like even walking past retail stores and you know you're based in the states right that would be such a weird feeling.

16:59I feel very proud for like what we were able to accomplish so I see exercise dresses all over still and doing things hats which are quite vintage by now. I mean I'm a deeply optimistic person and And in a lot of ways, it's like childbirth, like your body forgets kind of the trauma. But I mostly can tie a bow on those eight years and kind of the aftermath and very much am grateful to that experience. It again has like made me such a like sharper businesswoman and leader. And I'm really appreciative of that experience. so i'd love i'd be you'd be foolish of me not to talk about how you built this brand right and then i want to talk about you know everything you're doing with tyb and then and then also um you know you started another consumer brand jogging right so and obviously you're taking a lot into that as well but um you know when you look at outdoor voices incredible brands incredible products incredible movement incredible community um what are you taking that you learned from building outdoor voices to joggy and what can founders learn when when it comes to building a really strong brand yeah 100 i mean like product is the number one most critical piece here like full stop i think like i i'm friends with you on musk and i've been fortunate to kind of just see the way his mind works and he works with team and he doesn't believe in marketing whatsoever um he believes that mark like excellent product and like excellent technology will sell itself and i have kind of adopted that mindset that said once you have exceptional product um there's a really efficient and sticky way to bring it to life and that's with community um and community has been like a very buzzy kind of fluffy term for a lot of people.

18:59And with my new venture, TYB, one thing we've focused on is making community like a real measurable growth channel. Anyway, I think community can have massive impact on brands. And I've spent a lot of time thinking about kind of what that means. And so the formula for community building to me is four part. it starts with a very clearly articulated mission purpose or reason for being so with outdoor voices it was get the world moving it secondly requires rituals for activation both irl and digital and in the outdoor voices version that was we called it activate irl amplify through digital and social but you would see run clubs dog walking events um pilates yoga like these uh these rituals for activation IRL that connected to that mission and purpose that then would be amplified and help grow awareness.

19:58And so, you know, that can look different for various brands, but consistent, a consistent drumbeat of ways to engage around and in support of and activate that purpose or reason for being. We found, I found this like a key part of this community building formula. The third is connection. And so there's obviously like your ability as a brand to like say and communicate with someone that becomes your super fan. But the moment that you give them a place to connect with other lovers or people who are obsessed with the brand, there's this massive flywheel of engagement and kind of enthusiasm that happens.

20:35And so that connection, sparking bonds and allowing people to find like minded people who also love the brand is crucial. And the fourth is an incentive or reward. And so, you know, for the last 10 years, like Instagram's played a key role kind of in this brand building world. But on the consumer side, like I'm only pressing like for to kind of indicate my loyalty. So we've become really focused on kind of as part of this community building formula. How do you incentivize those kind of members or those loyalists for contributions and taking action? So community building to me that's that's the simple formula and I it's something that we found success with at Outdoor Voices didn't necessarily have a tool to like orchestrate this in an efficient way or measure it and now have done that in kind of my second chapter with TYB which allows other brands to tap into that community as a growth channel that really worked for us and scale kind of the impact of that program.

21:40I call what we do community commerce. And so obviously Shopify is at the core in terms of the ability to sell something. We wrap around with the community to activate and become the most engaged channel that then directly connects to increased frequency of purchase and higher LTV. And you've brought on some big brands using the product as well. You've got Urban outfitters gossier rare beauty but why software right like you would think you built you know a nine-figure econ brand wouldn't you would you start another econ brand right and you did but through tyb like yeah why why software because that's a very different beast in and of itself yeah i've always been someone who um is excited by ideas that solve for a personal pain point And so even with Outdoor Voices, I wasn't like initially like thinking that I'd get into apparel.

22:40And in fact, apparel is difficult. Ultimately, I was very much passionate about the bigger mission and purpose to move people. And the apparel and uniform for doing things became a vehicle for that. um and then with tyb similarly as like a founder who had felt firsthand the impact of community and i'll give you just a little bit of a story here um i traditionally ddc brands would spend 30 to 40 percent of their the their dollars raised on acquiring customers through instagram or facebook as you click into um a lot of those customers they're expensive to acquire and they're one and done. So it's not really a recipe for longevity.

23:22And I think in a lot of ways, like, we are starting to see that that direct-to-consumer playbook failed. And so meanwhile, at Outdoor Voices, we had this very engaged and kind of formalized ambassador program or community program. And as we were able to see when people interacted with this community program, either IRL first or through coming upstream in product development type processes, they were four times more valuable as a customer over time. And so that said, I did not have a tool to essentially orchestrate all of this engagement and then make it measurable in the same way that an Instagram or now TikTok would be, where if I put X amount of dollars in, what's my return essentially on that investment?

24:08And so I, again, was really focused on solving for this pain point as a brand and business builder. And that's how TYV was born. And so it's been interesting because we've been able to attract. We now have over 200 brands and top consumer brands on platform. And so it's certainly been a learning curve in terms of understanding how to hire technical talent. But I kind of joke, I went from a software, W-E-A-R, to software, W-A-R-E, founder. But ultimately, I know the pain point from doing it myself and have a really good sense for essentially what was missing when I was building Outdoor Voices. And that's how we've essentially been able to build or create a really exceptionally kind of effective toolkit with UIB.

25:00You've also talked about, you know, at the end of the day, it's building relationships at scale. And that's a really, I've often thought about this, like that's what business is, right? It's building relationships at scale. And the companies that win, the companies that continue to grow is, you know, like your community building formula, right? How do you build a deep relationship at scale? 100%. And so I have to ask you about product, right? Because I think this is something that especially early stage founders or aspiring founders, they'll be watching an interview like this or they see, you know, stuff, the stuff that we all see on social media.

25:41We compare ourselves to those people and you go, okay, I want to start a business. I want to start an e-com brand, right? It's a hot thing, you know, Shopify, you know, cha-ching, you know, waking up to the sale, all these different things. And I think it's often something that is really overlooked by early stage and aspiring founders around the importance of product. It is without a shadow of a doubt, out of all the super successful founders that I speak to, especially in the e-com space, they just spend a ridiculous amount of time that you wouldn't know on product, on speaking to customers, on surveys, on building a massive wait list because they've spent so much time.

26:26they've spoken to thousands oftentimes over 10 000 100 000 people to get the product right talk me through like how do you build product when you come when it comes to building an e-com branch yeah um i mean we're saturated with the world of uh lookalikes and so um firstly i think it's like again back to this pain point and and your ability to kind of uniquely create a moat around what you yourself know and somebody else might not and so I'll use Joggy as an example um Joggy is an organic energy brand that I started uh kind of for the fun of it again for solving for a personal pain point but I I think that's probably my number one my number one kind of reaction there is like I think people who do this best like it's in their DNA like the recipe comes from like deep soul searching and like deep understanding of a personal pain point or need that's unaddressed in the market it's not about um like I see a white space here I'm gonna go like try to fill that and so um Joggy's interesting because I was drinking Red Bull while running Outdoor Voices obviously clicked into the ingredients and was like, this is not a recipe for longevity.

27:52Like, I like feeling up. I like feeling bright. I like feeling focused, but I don't want synthetic caffeine or fake sugar. And so I really tapped into a science group based out of Austin to help me find the most premium organic, buzzy, steady energy caffeine. And so one, it's like unique personal pain point or DNA that can have like a perspective that becomes your moat in a space. And you have the essentially ability yourself to understand what that recipe for that product should be. Two, I think it's finding experts to then like give you a sharp point kind of within that recipe. And so on the joggy front, they helped me source this ingredient called Amity Max out of Peru.

28:47And it's not something that is widely used. And it gives you this beautiful, like buzzy, steady energy is how I describe it, an unfair advantage. And then I went to essentially market. And so I started, I started creating this product and then would get out there literally on university campuses and talk to people. And I think that third piece is like, get out there and get feedback. And I don't think enough people do that. And like, really want to, and kind of seek out critique. A lot of how we ended up with this formula that's now in Target and Erwan and really kind of like steadily, or more than steadily, quickly taking the energy drink world by store, is by being on university campus and like understanding that women don't want a 12 ounce can of liquid before they work out.

29:39So that informed our eight ounce, like smaller can. I'm obsessed with university as essentially like a testing ground. And so I've been fortunate to live in Austin with the university here in Boulder, Colorado with the university, like, and I just immersed myself with young now Gen Z women to help me kind of mold and get feedback on the product. So those are three points that come to mind. I can recap them. What's unique to you as the founder, your pain point that you're solving for that other people wouldn't have access to or that same perspective? Work with an expert to essentially sharpen and kind of differentiate the key ingredients, however that applies.

30:28And then closeness to customer, like get in the field, seek critique, seek feedback, be obsessed with it. I remember growing up with here in Boulder, a friend of mine's dad owned a number of Domino's chains. And every time I'd see him, he was reading like, whatever, customer complaints, but he had like a direct thing on like his direct email on on the site and at the stores and he wanted to hear all of that feedback and so every day it'd be like the craziest stories but I think founders who do this well and like have a serious commitment to the best product um are obsessed with critique and seek it out every way possible yeah I agree and can you paint a picture around like how many conversations you had to get to a place with a joggy where you were like yep like I think there's something here uh again like I knew that there was something here just uh personally not not having an option that was obvious to me in the energy drink space and I think it helps when there's tailwinds um so better for you has obviously turned on as evidenced with poppy and siete, et cetera.

31:46And then the energy category, a few things there, it's a super high growth category. And so I kind of fortunately fell into that as well as it's like traditionally male founded. And so from a storytelling standpoint, something that really worked with Outdoor Voices as a founder of an activewear band was Nike, Under Armour, Lulu, all of them were founded by men. And so similar in the energy drink space, as you think about Logan Paul, I'm spacing on the guy's name from Red Bull, Mastivist or something. But they're all like intense and macho. And so again, like I was able to bring a unique female perspective as founder and now story around it.

32:29That's really attracting this like Gen Z and millennial woman. And so there's a number of things that have gone into just this feeling like an interesting opportunity. I think it's been cool because I started TYB and Joggy was kind of the owned brand under TYB, testing the platform and tool. And so Joggy got to incubate without kind of the pressures of its own kind of dedicated investors before spinning out recently in September, which allowed us to test into different formats of things and really take our time to like immerse ourselves in people's feedback of the product. And I hadn't had that kind of luxury before.

33:11And so we went to market kind of officially at the end of last year and more recently into 900 targets. But we had been able to like take our time with product development and really lean into feedback, which, you know, was a pretty lucky and fortunate thing to be able to do. Yeah. So that paints a really good picture for people, right? like i think so many people they have this idea they hold on to it and they just want to launch it and they're just like it's just this fear of like speaking to people and and yeah you know what like do you think it's crazy that a lot of people are worried about having their ideas stolen oh yeah that's insane um i remember like feeling that early on but now like the coolest thing ever is to like build in public and like I think certainly a lot of the consumer brand business is about entertainment and like will continue to be and so it's equal parts like building in public making like bringing people in to like see the behind the scenes like content is such a beast and such a requirement now um there's this brand called Cluey I don't know if you've watched them but they're like very they've just kind of like had a meteoric rise in the tech space but it's just evidence that like narrative and entertainment is just becoming such a part of the formula and I think we've seen that with creator-led brands and celebrity-led brands like in a lot of ways like that's just par for the course as we think about successful consumer businesses today.

34:52So do you think that if you want to build a really, I guess, long lasting, impactful, you know, brand, DTC brand that gets cut through, you have to go down the founder-led content path now? No, not necessarily. But I think, I do think it doesn't have to be founder-led, but there has to be certainly compelling content. I think, I'm thinking, AumSolm is coming up for me And I think like what's also I'm seeing success with is just like niche and local. Like I feel like oftentimes people like want to feel as big as, you know, bigger than they are. But what's really resonating is like weird niche local and that that's getting like a ton of awareness.

35:37So that's another kind of potentially like sharp point for people wanting to start brands like feel small. that's cool like go go into a weird world and that ultimately will amplify you more than trying to be something to everybody i'd like to take a little bit of a shift and talk about i guess you're rebuilt right because that's that's that's a you know a big part of your story now right and you're really you know you're really forging new paths um so you've rebuilt with real vulnerability transparency like you're showing up right you're putting it all out there um what what work did you do to show up differently this time around um that's a good question uh the most like freeing moment in time kind of after the ob piece and again like there was that experience was exceptionally awesome um was when I was given the opportunity with um a writer from ink called Tom Poster to essentially like pen kind of my perspective on what had happened and the headline was I was able to like as the CEO like take full accountability and that was the most freeing moment like regardless of the detail and and And I just remember that moment in time as like, you know, before and after.

37:09And then it's like I've shed myself of kind of the just pressure of that kind of intense, very intense moment with Outdoor Voices. And I was free again. And so I definitely am somebody who like I just enjoy and am obsessed with getting reps. And so there was no option for me to start again and like follow my curiosity. And I'm really good at casting a big vision and assembling a team to go execute against it. And so I think, again, just like that first eight years was a master class in what to do and what not to do. I became I've become obsessed with ownership and ultimately like underestimated how much that matters.