The Founder's Are Back, and They MEAN BUSINESS

In 2025, many entrepreneurs who left—or were pushed out of—their companies are buying them back with a vengeance.

- David Lidsky

It wasn’t on my radar.” Ty Haney is talking about how she felt when the new owners of Outdoor Voices, the direct-to-consumer apparel brand she had founded in 2013, reached out last year to ask her to return. After Haney grew the company to a $110 million valuation, she endured what she’s described as a “public and painful” exit in 2020 amid a dispute with her board chair. She had moved on and was building a loyalty business called TYB and an energy drink brand, Joggy. “Initially, my reaction was not ‘Hell, yes,’” she says. “My reaction was not even curious. It was ‘No.’”

But Haney decided to talk with the new owners, Consortium Brand Partners, which bought Outdoor Voices in 2024, when it was close to bankruptcy. After many conversations, she “started to feel energized.” She’d matured as an entrepreneur and saw an opportunity to reconnect with her original vision. “I was much better at being able to structure and prompt the right conversations just based on having eight years of experience as a first-time founder and CEO,” she says.