Tyler Haney

Outdoor Voices Founder and Former CEO Tyler Haney was always an athlete, but stopped resonating with the neon/black/mesh apparel on the market and the harder, faster, stronger mentality that went with it. She realized that what inspired her to stay active was completely different – more balanced, fun, and freeing – than the pressure to perform that once fueled her competitive edge. While studying at Parsons School of Design, she became obsessed with technical fabrics and shortly after graduation set out to create a new category of activewear.

It’s the spirit of the Doing Things hat that ousted Outdoor Voices founder and CEO Ty Haney is channeling with her Web3 venture Try Your Best, a blockchain-based community management platform she founded in late 2021, and which recently became available to a broad base of brands via Shopify.

Web3 might seem like an unlikely space for the Austin-based founder, whose unique color-blocked designs helped the company she founded at 24 rise to athletic apparel fame. But it’s a pivot that makes perfect sense, because TYB digitizes a superpower she was able to unlock for Outdoor Voices: turning community into a growth channel.

"That physical blue hat becomes something that’s digital", Haney said. "It’s a really elegant way to use [blockchain technology] to create real value".