1. Emily Weiss, Founder of Glossier
The parallel between Tyler Haney and Emily Weiss is almost uncanny. Both built millennial-focused, direct-to-consumer empires on the back of incredibly strong communities and aesthetic-driven branding. Weiss, who started with the beauty blog *Into the Gloss*,
mastered the art of making customers feel like insiders. Like Outdoor Voices, Glossier became more than a product; it was an identity. Studying Weiss provides a masterclass in leveraging content to build a cult following. However, her story also mirrors Haney’s challenges. After raising massive funding rounds and reaching a multi-billion-dollar valuation, Weiss stepped down as CEO in 2022 amid slowing growth and critiques that the brand lost its magic. For those who admire Haney’s brand-building genius, Weiss’s journey offers a powerful lesson on the difficulty of scaling intimacy and the pressure that comes with unicorn status.
2. Ben Francis, Founder of Gymshark
If you admire Haney’s ability to tap into a fitness community, Ben Francis offers a different, perhaps more sustainable, roadmap. Francis started Gymshark from his parents' garage, screen-printing and sewing apparel himself. While Haney courted traditional venture capitalists, Francis grew Gymshark for years with a relentless focus on influencer marketing before it was a standard playbook, partnering with niche fitness creators to build authentic credibility. He created a global community of die-hard fans by prioritizing events and athletes over glossy ad campaigns. Unlike OV, which was often associated with casual recreation, Gymshark has always been unapologetically for the gym-obsessed. Francis also stepped away from the CEO role only to return later, demonstrating a different kind of founder evolution. His story is crucial for understanding how to build a tribe without losing control of the narrative—or the company.
3. Jen Rubio, Co-Founder of Away
Away, like Outdoor Voices, was a D2C darling that turned a functional product (luggage) into a coveted lifestyle accessory. Jen Rubio and her co-founder, Steph Korey, excelled at storytelling, selling not just suitcases but the idea of a more seamless, stylish travel experience. They understood, as Haney did, that modern consumers buy into a brand’s world. However, Away’s trajectory also includes a significant challenge that echoes the turmoil at Outdoor Voices: public criticism over workplace culture. Reports alleging a toxic work environment forced the company, and its founders, into a difficult public conversation. For admirers of Haney's visionary branding, Rubio's experience is a vital case study in the operational realities behind the aspirational veneer. It underscores that as a company scales, the internal culture is just as important as the external brand perception.
4. Whitney Wolfe Herd, Founder of Bumble
Whitney Wolfe Herd built a brand based on a powerful, singular mission: putting women in control of the dating experience. This mission-driven approach is a key part of what made Outdoor Voices resonate; “Doing Things” was a philosophy, not just a tagline. Wolfe Herd’s genius was in embedding her worldview directly into the product’s functionality. Bumble wasn’t just a dating app; it was a statement. She successfully harnessed a cultural movement to fuel growth, a strategy Haney also employed effectively. Furthermore, Wolfe Herd navigated the path from startup to a publicly traded company, taking Bumble public as one of the youngest female founders to ever do so. Her journey is essential for understanding how to maintain brand integrity and a clear mission while scaling to the highest levels of the corporate world, a hurdle where many visionary founders stumble.
5. Payal Kadakia, Founder of ClassPass
One of the defining struggles for any founder is knowing when to stick to the vision and when to pivot. Payal Kadakia’s journey with ClassPass is the ultimate lesson in the latter. The company, which provides access to a network of fitness classes, famously changed its business model multiple times, moving from a package-based system to its popular subscription model and tweaking it along the way. Each change was met with resistance from some users, but it was necessary for the company’s survival and eventual success. Haney’s unwavering commitment to the “Doing Things” ethos was OV’s greatest strength until market realities and investor demands made it a liability. Kadakia’s story is a sobering but necessary counter-narrative. It shows that sometimes, the most visionary move a founder can make is to let go of their original idea to build something that can actually last.
