In the Room with Ty Haney and Breana Teubner
In our final episode of the eighth season, we were thrilled to welcome Ty Haney and Breana Teubner as our special guests. Ty Haney is the Co-founder and CEO of TYB, while Breana Teubner serves as the COO of TYB, a dynamic community management platform that offers a wide range of features for customer acquisition, engagement, and retention. Their platform enables businesses to leverage the power of community and transform it into a valuable growth channel.
Ty’s upbringing in Boulder, Colorado, played a pivotal role in shaping her trajectory as a remarkable founder today. Surrounded by the beauty of nature and immersed in a culture that embraced outdoor activities, Ty developed a profound appreciation for movement and sports, which became an integral part of her daily life. Moreover, being raised in an entrepreneurial family, with both her parents as founders, Ty inherited a visionary mindset and a profound understanding of goal setting and execution. Following her high school graduation, Ty embarked on a new chapter by moving to New York to pursue a design education at Parsons Design School. However, the absence of structured sports practices posed a challenge, making it difficult for Ty to maintain an active lifestyle she had grown accustomed to. Determined to address this issue, Ty ventured into founding her first company, Outdoor Voices. With a dedicated focus on inspiring individuals to embrace daily exercise through enjoyable and inclusive experiences, Outdoor Voices quickly made a mark and equipped Ty with the tools for success in her subsequent ventures.
Breana grew up in Orange County, California. Her upbringing was marked by a family of creatives. With a mother who was a writer and a father who worked as an architect, Breana grew up surrounded by an inspiring atmosphere that celebrated diverse perspectives. From an early age, she witnessed the transformative power of creativity and developed a deep appreciation for the significance of embracing different viewpoints Ultimately, Breana made the decision to forge her own path in the world of business. Her remarkable career trajectory includes experiences in management consulting and working with renowned enterprises like Walmart and Banana Republic. Additionally, she played a pivotal role in scaling Skillz, a gaming platform, from a private company to a public company. From these opportunities, Breana gained invaluable insights into scaling companies and aligning visions with a broader market.
Ty and Breana joined forces to establish TYB after recognizing the importance of community for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. Drawing from her experiences, Breana observed that the key to success for brands lay in truly understanding a community — their needs, challenges, and desired brand experience. Meanwhile, Ty’s firsthand experience at Outdoor Voices sparked her desire to create a better business model for brands where community could be a growth driver over traditional advertising. Fuelled by these compelling insights, TYB was born — a groundbreaking platform that harnesses the power of community as a growth channel. TYB enables brands to directly incentivize their loyal fans, fostering organic growth, while providing fans with tangible value in return for their support.
In today’s episode, we delve into themes such as leveraging communities as growth channels, acquiring long-term customers in e-commerce, and scaling effectively with an early-stage board.
Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Lets open the door.
Theme 1: Leveraging communities as growth channels
Ty explains that TYB serves as an all-in-one platform that allows brands to effectively engage and reward their fans for valuable actions. These actions can range from hosting or attending brand-related events, sharing content on social media, to writing reviews. A key feature of TYB is its measurement capabilities, enabling companies to understand the impact of both real-world interactions and digital engagement, ultimately providing a clear return on investment. Ty envisions a future “where all brands, regardless of shape, size or scale, will have community as what we know today as part of the return on ad spending model. And they’ll know for every dollar that they invest, they’re getting X percent back on their LTV, whether that’s an average order value or an increased frequency.”
By leveraging TYB’s powerful tools, brands can proactively engage with and manage their communities, while also gaining valuable insights into the impact and effectiveness of their community-driven initiatives. As a founder, it is crucial to recognize the tremendous potential of community in driving growth and creating value for your company. Integrating tools like TYB into your strategic approach can prove highly advantageous, allowing you to unlock the full potential of community as a potent growth lever and catalyst for value creation within your business.
Theme 2: Acquiring customers that last in e-commerce amidst data privacy changes
Breana emphasizes that in the e-commerce industry, companies face a common challenge of needing to understand their customers on a deeper level to drive sustained growth. However, with privacy changes from platforms like iOS and Google, traditional tracking methods like cookies are becoming less effective in attracting and retaining customers. As a result, high customer acquisition cost (CAC) models are no longer a sustainable way for brands to grow. To address this problem, Breana elaborates on why focusing on community-integrated commerce, where brands prioritize building a community that gives members the feeling of being part of something larger than themselves and the brand, is the way to win.
With the customer engagement landscape shifting, community driven approaches are revolutionizing how companies are connecting with their customers and driving long term customer acquisitions. The future of successful businesses may rely on community integrated commerce key performance indicators (KPIs). As a founder, recognizing the significance of building a strong community and seamlessly connecting it with your entire conversion funnel can be crucial for driving sustainable growth.
Theme 3: Scaling effectively with an early-stage board
Throughout the various stages of a company’s growth and scalability, boards play a crucial and increasingly important role in its lifecycle. Entrepreneurs are recognizing the value of establishing boards even during their initial rounds of funding. In this context, Ty and Breanna share invaluable lessons they have learned from their experiences working with board members.
First, they highlight the significance of defining what winning means for each individual involved. This topic serves as a pivotal starting point for board meetings, ensuring that both the company and the board are aligned with a shared vision of success. By centering discussions around achieving this vision, the company can set clear objectives and work towards them together.
Additionally, they emphasize the importance of healthy tension within board discussions. Ty explains, “We have wonderful board members that create that lovely tension for us and keep us honest in the sense of are we building something that’s going to scale in a market that receives funding in this way.” This acts as a powerful tool to foster open discussions, build a product that can scale and attract funding, and ultimately deliver the best possible product to the customers.
Ty and Breana highlight the significance of establishing shared goals and harnessing diverse perspectives to foster innovation and make strategic decisions. These insights are especially valuable for individuals seeking to effectively scale their operations with an early stage board. By embracing these principles, entrepreneurs can position themselves for long-term success and unlock their company’s full potential in various aspects, such as product development, market growth, and stakeholder engagement.
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