– Loyalty program. Outdoor Voices founder Ty Haney launched her second startup, Try Your Best (or TYB), more than three years ago. It was peak Web3, a space that Haney became highly interested in after she left the athletic apparel retailer that, in some ways, defined 2010s startups.
Today, Haney is still building TYB, with 38 employees—and it’s outlasted the rise and fall of blockchain/crypto/NFT-mania. The platform is intended to be a layer of loyalty infrastructure for consumer brands, what Haney calls “community commerce.” Two hundred brands use the platform, as do 2 million users—mostly Gen Z women.
Haney just raised an $11 million Series A for TYB, Fortune is the first to report. The round was co-led by Offline Ventures and Strobe Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Castle Island Ventures, and Unusual Ventures. This brings its total capital to $23.5 million.
Talking to Haney about TYB, you can feel her excitement. Years after the drama that engulfed Outdoor Voices, which included board battles and Haney’s exit and return, she’s thrilled to be at step one again. “I love this stage. I love building something from zero,” she says.
The brands that use TYB include several of the buzziest brands from the beauty industry—like Glossier, Rare Beauty, and Saie. “Beauty as a category has popped off significantly for us,” Haney says. “[Beauty] consumers are already creating so much content and participating in rituals around the brands.” There’s also Poppi, Urban Outfitters, Set Active. Coming soon to the platform are Crocs and Away.
Consumers on TYB participate in gamified challenges, earn collectibles, and have blockchain-enabled loyalty profiles that can potentially follow them from brand to brand. A TYB-using customer has 40% higher frequency of purchase and a 28% higher lifetime value, Haney says. Monthly engagement rates for brands crack 40%. Haney tells brands that TYB can drive 5% to 10% of revenue—“in a more profitable fashion than putting all your dollars against Instagram or Facebook.”
TYB is developing “affinity webs” that can map a user’s loyalty to one brand and apply it to another. “Within the Glossier community where I’m level three—can that mean something to Nike?” Haney explains.
She’s brought some lessons with her from Outdoor Voices and the tens of millions it raised. “I’ve become a lot more sophisticated, or precise, in terms of who I who I raise money from, how much money I raise, and ultimately considerate of ownership and as little dilution as possible,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- AI-assisted. For the first time, a woman has become pregnant with the help of AI, doctors at Columbia University Fertility Center report. Their technology is called STAR, or Sperm Track and Recovery, and it’s trained to detect the very rare sperm in samples from patients with an infertility condition called azoospermia. Time
- Coercion conviction. The founder and the top deputy of “orgasmic meditation” company OneTaste were convicted for coercing employees into forced labor, including performing sex acts, for over a decade; they plan to appeal. Nicole Daedone founded the sexual wellness company in 2004. New York Times
- Sale saga continues. 27 states, plus Washington, D.C., are suing 23andMe to block the sale of its genetic data. The DNA-testing company, previously led by cofounder Anne Wojcicki, is in the midst of a reopened bankruptcy auction. AP
- Bye, Bureau. The Labor Department is moving to eliminate the Women’s Bureau—even though Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer previously told lawmakers that the office, which was established in 1920 to advocate for women in the workplace, wasn’t going anywhere. Mother Jones
MOVERS AND SHAKERS
Disney+ named Angela Jain head of content, Europe, Middle East, and Africa. Jain most recently served as director of Unscripted, U.K.
Hyland, content solutions provider, appointed Sharon Brand as CHRO. Most recently, she was chief people officer at PlanSource.
Wisp, a women’s telehealth services provider, named Dr. Jennifer Peña chief medical officer. Previously, she was chief clinical officer at Vault Health.
SparingVision, a retinal diseases treatment developer, named Kalliopi “Kali” Stasi chief medical officer. She was previously chief medical officer at SalioGen Therapeutics.
Haircare company Tangle Teezer named Kathleen Moor head of marketing, North America. She was most recently Global Marketing Director at PZ Cussons.
Emissary Partners, which advises family offices, appointed Doris Meister to its board of directors. Meister was CEO of Wilmington Trust.
ON MY RADAR
A day with one abortion pill prescriber New York Times
Synthetic hair contains toxic chemicals. Black women are looking to ‘ditch the itch’ The 19th
How creatine became so popular with women Wall Street Journal
PARTING WORDS
“I think, as women, we suppress it and that’s probably why I have trouble accessing it—I’ve done that so much that it feels kind of foreign, like I’m not quite sure where to pull it from.”
— Actor Jodie Comer on rage
