Outdoor Voices CEO Tyler Haney: How I became a successful entrepreneur before I hit 30
Our series “How I became a …” digs into the stories of accomplished and influential people, finding out how they got to where they are in their careers.
Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Tyler Haney is a force to be reckoned with. A graduate of Parsons School of Design, the 30-year-old founder and CEO of Outdoor Voices saw a gap in the market and has pursued it, intent on inspiring people to be active without the pressures of performance.
Her company, Outdoor Voices, has expanded from a small essentials kit to a quickly growing brand that has attracted tens of millions of dollars in investment, with a booming e-commerce business and retail locations popping up across the United States.
USA TODAY caught up with the Forbes 30 Under 30 CEO to talk about everything from local nut milk and Maggie Rogers to showing up to investor meetings with a black eye and keeping kindness first.
Question: What is your coffee order?
Haney: The tallest possible drip coffee with a local brand of nut milk called Fronks.
Q: What is the last book that you read?
Haney: “Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman” by Yvon Chouinard. It’s probably my 15th time reading it, but I go back to it a lot.
Q: What are your favorite songs for a busy day?
Haney: My three favorites, currently, are: "Falling Water" by Maggie Rogers, "Juice" by Lizzo, and "Aurora" by Bjork. I listen to Chet Baker Radio on Spotify if I’m not super inspired by finding more music.
Q: Who has been your biggest mentor?
Haney: Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia. I have not met him, and I really want to. I think what stands out most to me about him, and has influenced the way I’ve built OV, is that he has this really strong set of cultural values at the company that have been intact for around 46 years. He’s been definitely the person I’ve sought kind of guidance from, even though not personally or in real life … yet.
Q: What are your favorite ways to get moving?
Haney: I always prefer to get outside, so, when I wake up, kind of my default way of thinking is, hey, I’ve got to get outside. So, a recreational 3-mile jog – I never go more than 3 miles, and it’s actually recreationally paced. Here in Austin, it’s around Town Lake, but wherever I’m at I like to jog. But then, mixing it up is important, and (so I like) a lot of trying new things, like indoor climbing or going to the rec center for an aerobics class, etc.
Q: What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever done?
Haney: Earlier this year, I went to a tunnel with Elon Musk and Frank Ocean, which was pretty cool.
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Q: What does your career path look like?
Haney: I grew up in Boulder, Colorado, which is a super outdoorsy town. I was a competitive athlete. I ran track, I ran cross country, played basketball, rode horses, and loved and was obsessed with Nike, mostly because of the psychological impact it had on you as a little athlete. You’re like, "when I put on my Nike uniform, there’s no doubt in my mind I’m going to cross the finish line first," and I loved kind of that superpower feeling.
Then, I realized that as I got older and got out of competitive athletics, activity took on a new meaning in adult life. I ended up going to Parsons in New York, which was a little bit of a U-turn in terms of being an athlete, but I woke up one day and I was like "holy shit, I have no inspiration or motivation to be active. I don’t have track practice, or a coach, or teammates. What’s going to motivate me?"
It dawned on me that there was no brand to really give you inspiration in your adult life to get up and move everyday. It all felt so overly competitive. I never thought I’d be in apparel, but since I couldn’t find the motivation to be active I had to solve for it, and focused on building Outdoor Voices around freeing fitness – kind of this traditionally competitive fitness space – from performance, and focusing on how we bring play, or this feeling of recess you have when you’re little, into our adult lives. I never thought I would be in apparel, but it goes back to when I was a little athlete.
I started with product. I found that, to keep myself active, I had to do a lot of different things because I would (get) bored of running on the treadmill every day or just doing one thing. I needed an outfit or uniform that could work across a variety of activities versus being, like, your basketball uniform, and focused on building a top and bottom – which I called the OV Kit, and we still have today – as kind of your “one outfit solved” for any recreational activity.
Q: What does a typical day look like for you?
Haney: We moved the company to Austin over the last two years. I always start every day with exercise, so I generally try to get outside first thing and then I structure more of my creative, product and brand meetings in the mornings. Then, interviews – so a lot of new hires, recruiting interviews, etc. – happen kind of in the early afternoon. I like to end the day with some sort of exercise, generally more low-impact or fun, like a dance class. I start and end with some sort of exercise, even if it’s just a lap around the block with my dog. There is a good amount of travel right now, and we have nine stores, so I do go show up to markets quite often, but this (Austin) is home base, and I’m mostly here.
Q: What has been your biggest career high and your biggest career low?
Haney: High: We hosted this summer an OV yoga summer series in downtown Austin in the big park, I think for five weeks in a row. It was 104-degree Texas heat, and I remember feeling most proud when every single week, there were more than 700 people at this park. Just seeing that, I guess people coming out in this extremely crazy weather but showing up because they loved #doingthings together, was when I felt most proud.
Low: When I went to raise our series A round of funding, I had been jogging the morning before on the West Side Highway in New York, and tripped over a dog’s leash coming the other way. I ended up getting this huge, gnarly black eye and I was like ... this has to be the worst timing of my entire life. I ended up going to this fundraise pitch with the investors, mortified, and at the time thought it was the worst thing in the world, but it ended up playing nicely with this story of a strong woman wanting to build the next great recreation brand. So, I’ve kind of twisted that in a high as well, but that was definitely a low in the moment.
Q: What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned?
Haney: Treat people with kindness. We have a value at OV called "human, not superhuman," and it’s all about leaning in to the kind of personality and quirks and flaws of people, and really embracing that within this recreation space. I’ve found that the people who operate personally with "treat people with kindness" seem to be the happiest, and most liked, and oftentimes most successful.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?
Haney: Compression of time creates value. That’s something that one of my mentors here in Austin said to me, and I’ve tested it out, and it’s important. It’s essentially saying, try things, fail and then apply the learnings. It kind of reminds me of a little kid – having this experimenting mindset, but being willing to fail, but learning quickly, is what I’ve found to be most valuable in the way I approach things.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Outdoor Voices CEO Tyler Haney: How I became a successful entrepreneur before I hit 30
