enRICHed: volume 72

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Mar 17, 2024

Volume 72

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! 🍀

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday morning. If you are celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, Sláinte! Today’s newsletter is going to look a little different, as inspiration struck with the announcement of Outdoor Voices shutting all retail stores. Would LOVE to hear your feedback on this format and your thoughts on the entire situation.

As a reminder:

HYCU, pronounced haiku: how the news impacts you and your wallet, aka How You Can Use
The Prosperitea: think discount codes, non-boring finance articles, sales, and personal links from the week. The fun stuff 😉
We love your comments, but please remember to keep it positive! And don’t take investing advice from anyone who isn’t your registered financial advisor!

Now that you’re up to speed, let’s get you enRICHed.

The Great Carry-On Debate 🧳✈️

This happened to me last year and I was not let on the plane until my lulu fanny pack was put into my larger carry on. Even though it easily slid into my backpack, they pitched a fit about my having three bags. Apparently that’s gonna start happening to everyone.
On February 22nd, Southwest began cracking down on the # of carry-on bags passengers could carry onto the plane. The memo to staff stated it isn’t about size, but about the number.
- Apparently, staff has leeway to add to the list, but Southwest’s website says personal items include briefcases, cameras, food containers or laptops.
- Some report that blankets and pillows were being counted as personal items on their flights
Southwest shouldn’t have huge issues, as they already allow 2 free checked bags to those flying with them. However, if the trend continues with airlines like Delta and American, who have announced new pricing of $35 first bag/$45 for a second, passengers are going to get annoyed.
- With the prices of checked bags going higher and higher, carrying on is the only option for keeping costs down.
With more people bringing hard suitcases as carry-ons to avoid checked bag fees, many airlines are introducing bigger bins to reduce gate-checked bags. However, those bins are not coming fast enough.
HYCU; want to bring more bags? You can pay extra for that! want to ensure you can store your carry-on on the flight? You can pay extra for that too! But if not, knowing this ahead of time will keep gate anxiety and unwanted last minute payments to a minimum.

Don’t. Get. Scammed.

According to new FBI data, Americans lost $12.5 billion to scammers in 2023! The top 5 scams were: phishing, personal data breaches, non-payment/non-delivery, extortion and tech support.
Investment fraud with a reference to cryptocurrency rose from $2.57 billion in 2022 to $3.94 billion in 2023, an increase of 53%.
- These scams are designed to entice those targeted with the promise of lucrative returns on their investments
Roughly $1.3 billion was lost in 2023 to scammers pretending to be from the government or tech support.
- If you don’t aren’t familiar with the technology you have recently purchased, you may believe that you need supplemental malware or wires. Or if you’re older and unfamiliar with your Medicare package, you could be susceptible to this type of scam.
The report shows it isn’t only older generations who are falling for scams. Only 40% of losses (with age data) came from +60 year-olds
These numbers are also only from those who report the scam, so the FBI believes they are missing a swath of people who don’t call due to shame or embarrassment.
HYCU; it seems like scammers are motivated by the obvious increasing results of their strategies. Everyone’s guess is that both easier access to personal data and AI tools are making it easier to carry out these types of plans. You can now even regenerate someone’s voice using their social media, and play that over the phone, which makes it easy to leverage loved ones’ safety. The government responded that it will never call, email, text or DM you for money; so any of those types of outreach should be an immediate red flag. Anything involving supposed urgent financial need via gift cards or crypto? Also a red flag.
- Just got scammed? Here’s Vivian’s step-by-step of what to do.

We’re going to do something different today… and go through a little think piece on investing, trends, and Outdoor Voices 🧢

The News

Athleisure brand Outdoor Voices has announced that it will shutter all 16 retail stores and move back to being exclusively online.
- Employees at stores in Austin, Denver, Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, Houston and San Diego told Axios reporters that their stores would shutter by Sunday (today)

The Backstory

Outdoor Voices had a clear brand from the start #doingthings, a die-hard following, and was one of the first DTC brands that realized their online community would meet them IRL too.
OV was a start-up darling, founded by Ty Haney in 2012, who powered the brand and all of its social media marketing. Haney had a compelling story as a female athlete and founder, and took the venture capital space by storm.
As Jia Tolentino put it, “Outdoor Voices is one of a few highly visible, female-centered, life-style-adjacent, digital-savvy millennial brands built around a charismatic founder and her story.”
Some VCs believed OV to be the next lululemon. The company once reached a valuation as high as $110 million in 2018. They raised $1.1M in their seed, $7.5M in their Series A round and $13M in their Series B. Google Ventures led their $34M Series C in 2018.
They had a lot of high-power executive backing. OV’s first general manager and its VP of community came from lulu; its VP of product came from Under Armor; its board included Mickey Drexler (previous CEO of Gap and J. Crew) and Nicolas Jammet (sweetgreen co-founder), and Pam Catlett (ex-Nike and UA) joined as president and COO (though, for only 5 months).
OV was one of the first brands that I can remember to leverage user-generated content via social. Anyone had the potential to be an #OVAmbassador and if you took a great shot on your hike in your OV set, you could potentially be reposted. It was about normal people doing things in their Outdoor Voices collection, which gave you the chance to be a bit of a micro-influencer.
However, Ty Haney stepped down as CEO in 2020, as Outdoor Voices was losing its footing. Despite all of the funding, OV was losing millions of dollars a month - it could not get profitable. The company was spending exorbitant amounts of money on Topo Chico and candles for stores that were barely open. Reports of interpersonal issues between Haney and the Board accused her of being “spoiled and mercurial.” And since Ty has stepped down, the company has kind of just floundered.

My Thoughts

This story is so interesting to me, and perhaps other millennials as well, as OV was one of the first DTC athleisure brands to hit the market. While it is not shocking that OV is pivoting (they do a lot of sales and their exercise dress, which everyone now sells a version of, is no longer novel) the news still stirred some emotion in me. It shows how most brands these days seem to have an expiration date, as trend cycles in both fashion and lifestyle evolve rapidly.
Now, a recent shift in the fitness world has been towards Pilates and low impact strength training, with brands like Alo and Bandier and Set Active thriving and building similar cult-followings. Outdoor Voices tried to evolve with the trends, but couldn’t keep up. The internal turmoil between strategic and business heads also drove OV into the ground. While we all thought they might be staging a comeback, or at least finding stability, news of the store closings leave us wondering whether OV is heading for bankruptcy after a roller coaster 12 years.
It’s also thought-provoking that these newly popular brands have higher price points, which could be reflective of current spend habits overall. Are people shifting towards more aspirational, luxury brands being sported by Hailey Bieber and Kendal Jenner, vs. OV’s “normal people” and more inclusive brand? Obviously OV leggings still cost $78, making them cost-prohibitive to a lot of people, but Alo can go up to $168/pair (not including a matching sports bra that can run you up to $88) and it seems to be the new sensation for the girls who have disposable income for activewear. Would love to see your takes in the comments on this!

Rich Tip of the Week: Level Up Your Income
Something I read this week: Women Aren’t Getting the Big Jobs at Goldman Sachs, and They’re Heading for the Exits by WSJ
I am shopping for summer and have been wanting a pair of black, simple sandals. These might be the winner (for only $69!)
Trader Joe’s tote bags are the new “it” item??? This story is crazy…
Something I listened to this week: I just finished listening to “Everything I Know About Love” by Dolly Alderton this week, and started listening to “The Celebrants” by Steven Rowley. Both are great, easy “reads” for my train commute!
- Tip: Use LIBBY to get free audiobooks and e-books through your local library

SEE YOU IN THE COMMENTS BESTIES