Outdoor Voices shows community only gets you so far

Like many online brands, Outdoor Voices recently launched a lifestyle publication, The Recreationalist, featuring how-tos, interviews, playlists, and city guides. It looks nice, and I believe in the power of content, community, and commerce. But it’s too removed from the brand and product.

What’s the solution? For Outdoor Voices, I’d posit a combination of faster and broader product development, more wholesale in the right places (it’s on deep discount at Nordstrom Rack), retail expansion (if the stores are working), sharper marketing, and international growth.

The goal is to make people feel like they’re a part of something — and like you’re part of their identity. And the payoff — if all goes well — is in the form of fierce loyalty, word-of-mouth promotion, organic curiosity and attention, higher lifetime customer value and share of spend, lower acquisition costs, etc.

The latest example: Outdoor Voices founder Tyler Haney, who launched the athleisure brand in 2014, is stepping down from her role as CEO; the company has reportedly raised a “down round” of funding from its existing investors at a lower valuation, and was said to be losing money on around $40 million of sales last year.