How To Sell Your Brand For Billions

Every single one has the exact same pattern, the exact same strategy. And they're all billion dollar companies. And when you know that, when you see the pattern, you can go into any store, look at any shelf, and all these brands are a story of an entrepreneur that had a billion dollar thing and nobody saw it. But you'll see it as soon as you see the pattern. You seem to like grocery store content. It's not most of you stuff. I'm gonna give you what the people want.

Hey guys, my name is Alex and I'm the guy behind the camera. And what you don't see about Ryan.

Is that every time we go to.

The grocery store together, he freaks out. He's like a kid in a candy store. And so I've been begging him for months to make this video with me. And he finally said yes. And so we're at heb. We're gonna go through the store, see the brands and tell the stories. Hope you enjoy.

All right, let's look at protein. There could not be a more saturated market than protein. Look at them all. Look at all the different proteins, right? Why would someone start a protein powder company? I'll tell you an example of somebody who actually got into a saturated market and built a billion dollar company. I think, I don't know, I don't know the exact numbers, but this guy right here. Notice that it's almost out over here. Nice work. Trevani. I love this brand. As an example, first of all, started by Derek Halpern, there could not be a kinder, more lovable entrepreneur. I love the guy because he was like me. He had a podcast, he was talking about business and he hated it. So we shut the thing down. He said, I'm start a protein powder company now. It's the fastest growing plant based protein company ever. So what do they do differently? Well, number one, they partnered with an influencer and gave her equity. It's a great idea. It's something that we put all of our incubator brands through. Go partner with people who can help you get the word out really quickly. It's a great way to launch a business. Number two, they focused on where all the other brands were weak. They went for really good flavoring on a plant based protein. There were no other good plant based companies that actually tasted good. And then their branding, fantastic. They went with simple ingredients and that's what their market wanted. So they did a great job of entering a very saturated market and standing out. And now they have at least a nine figure company. Derek hasn't told me the numbers of the business. But they're definitely a nine figure company. It's just obvious because they're sold out everywhere they go and they're prominent on every retail shelves. They started E commerce only with a few influencers. That's what's possible when you build the foundation. Right. They didn't start off being in retail and being the best selling retail plant based protein company. They started online and doing really well. That's a good example of entering a very saturated market and standing out and building a really successful business. Great job, Derek.

So we talked about Truvani. Let's contrast this with a company like Ascent. Now they're in the same market, right? This is another protein company. This is also a really successful brand. Why can you stand out or how do you stand out in a supersaturated market? Well, first of all, the market's really big. Being in a really big market, don't view it as saturation, view it as market size and the total opportunity. So you can have multiple nine figure brands in here like Garden of Life, that is a nine figure company. There's Sub Premier Protein, that's a publicly traded company. These are huge brands and they're all selling the same thing. What did Ascent do? It's actually a very similar process that Truvani went through. They partnered with an influence. They didn't give them equity, but they gave a lot of money to Tim Ferriss and Tim Ferriss talked about them on the podcast. That was their big breakout into the market. They went with natural flavors when that was new. That was a new thing at the time. And they went with. They went super clean when nobody else is going super clean now everybody goes super clean. But at the time that was new and that's how they got some market penetration. So there are always ways to go into a saturated market and stand out. You just got to be a little bit different from everybody else and lean on that difference and get other people to talk about it. That's how you can break into a really saturated space and it might start totally online and then break into big time. It just matters that you get the difference right and then you stand out in a really saturated space. That's how you do it. Example number three here. I know we're talking about protein a lot, but again, this is a saturated space and you have all these big brands. It's a great example of what to do well. C4 Ghost Riot is another good one. They all leaned into flavor as their differentiating factor. What Ghost did really well is these partnerships. They were the first to break in with these partnerships to make a very unique flavor. So this one is the chips Ahoy. Check this out. This is Oreo. These are crossover promotions. Both brands get to benefit from having this collaboration of brands. It's a really smart idea to go into a market with a very specific brand branding, meaning the flavor, when nobody else is doing that. So Rise did the same thing.

But I don't see it on this one. They did a collab with Skippy for peanut butter because nobody does what. You found it. Oh, here. Okay. So here's the one that they did with Jet Puff. So this is the marshmallow flavor, but they also did one with Skippy because nobody does the peanut butter flavor well in protein. So they went out and partnered with Skippy. And then you've got this one here. C4 partners with Reese's. This one's obvious. They have Hershey's here. Now, this is kind of commonplace now, these brand partnerships. But Ghost was the first one to do it. And as a result, they carved out their space in a very saturated market. So that's what you'll see in a lot of these big spaces is someone will do something different and then everybody else will copy it. But that's how they carve out market share when everybody else seems to already have dominated the space. All right, we just talked about protein and how to stand out in protein. Another really saturated market is coffee. It's a big market, but still there are dominant players and opportunities to get a foothold in this space. It'd be the same playbook like bulletproof did, where they did a little bit of a spin and they had some exposure and some influence, and now they're a billion dollar company. But let me show you a brand that tried to do the same thing, and they did it horribly wrong. This one right here, Laird. Superfood. I have no idea what this brand stands for, but they have an influencer. They have a famous face of this company. Here's what they did wrong. They tried to sell everything. If you look up their website, they have a product for everything. They've got like 40 different SKUs. So I don't know what they stand for. I don't know what their difference in the marketplace is. And how is this different from the other functional coffees or healthier coffees. I know they have a celebrity behind them. Laird Hamilton. I know that. But what, like, what are their values? What do they stand for? They tried to go too wide too quickly rather than doing a Few products extremely well and standing on their values and getting a raving customer base. Dave at Bulletproof did that really well. They had a few products and they talked about them over and over and over until people knew what to trust about this brand. This brand did not do the same thing. And let me show you this stock graph of this company. So over the last couple of years, Laird looks like this. Can you see that?

Hold on.

That's not good. That's not good. Now, over the last year, they've started to figure it out because the stock has come way up in the last year. But this is an 80 million dollar market cap company. This is a small fish in this big pond. So what they need to do is go back to a few core products until they have brand recognition and values again and a core customer base. Then they can go wide. A big trap for entrepreneurs is launching too many products at once rather than doing a few extremely well and then widening from there. This is a case study of it going well. Muffins, let's talk about them. Let's eat them. Let's throw a muffin party. No one knows muffins like me, folks. Okay, I'm gonna stop doing that eventually by the end of this video. Let's look at this as a case study. Okay, first of all, what do you notice? You notice that you have a bunch of different brands all doing pretty much the same thing. These are all pre made muffin mixes, right? But you also notice that they're all going in different directions. Like this one is gluten free. Huh? Yeah. King Arthur author is gluten free. Foodielicious. That's a terrible name. That's going in the high protein direction. And then you've got Duncan Hines keto, and now you've got Halo top low calorie. All right, so first of all, there must be money in pre made brownie mixes or muffin mixes. But when I look at this, I say, I predict Duncan Hines crashes like that will not do well. And then these high protein ones or the low calorie ones, they're going to do well. Here's why. The high protein space is a growing market. The keto space is a dying market. So this brand will need to rebrand the approach of this formula if they want to stay relevant. Because keto is now kind of a small market market. Whereas high protein or lower calorie or just overall better for you is a growing market and it will grow for years to come. So when I look at this, I say, all right, these Are the brands that you're going to see more prominent, meaning the high protein with a clear audience, they're going in a specific direction. Those are the brands that are going to win. Whereas this was targeting a trend, the keto brand was targeting a trend. Never, never, never build a product line or a brand that is just there to capture a trend. It's risky. It works for a short amount of time. And some brands think, oh, all the money is in this growing market. No, a trend is different than a growing market. So I look for the brands that are going after a market that is growing rather than chasing a trend. And I can usually predict who's going to win based on that. Great case study. Kodiak has done this extremely well. Kodiak does the high protein approach to baked goods. And now look, they have most of the shelf space here inside of the better for you pre made muffins. So go after markets, not trends. That's how you win.

All right, we're going into the cereal aisle and Ryan loves to tell this one story about Kellogg's and I guarantee you he's going to talk about it. Oh, Here he goes. 3, 2.

Kellogg's is such a cool story. This company doesn't even exist as it used to anymore. Do you know Kellogg's split into two companies last year and now they're operating like a startup. The question about Kellogg's is gonna be, can Kellogg's actually create a footprint in new distribution vehicles? Because all the new cereal companies, Magic Spoon and Three Wishes, they start on E Commerce. Kellogg's can't do E Commerce. They don't know anything about E Commerce. But they're only valued at a billion dollars. Like their IPO is a billion dollars. For Kellogg's, Tony the Tiger is worth more than a billion dollars. That branding, like that brand authority is worth more than a billion dollars. But can they grow? Their distribution is going to be the big question because, like, they're not a growing market. They could be. They have all the backing in the world. They have all the branding in the world. But the E commerce cereal brands like we just talked about, they're the ones that are actually controlling the attention in the marketplace and can create more distribution. So it's gonna either Kellogg's is gonna buy those brands or those brands are gonna expand and Kellogg's is gonna shrink. It's gonna be really interesting to see how it plays out. I invest in food brands and supplement brands and E commerce brands, and there's a couple that I didn't invest in. That I wish I had. Here is one of them right here. This is the. Right here. Clusterbucks. So she came to us pretty early in the process and was raising capital at like a 4 or 5 million dollar valuation. And I didn't know that it was worth that. So I negotiated a little bit. We had a deal but she didn't like some of the negotiation that I wanted to do and I wasn't comfortable pulling the trigger on her target valuation. So she pulled out of the deal. And I want that one back. That's an investment that I wish I could get back because now this brand is, I see them everywhere and it's a really good product. So I, I tried to be a little bit too protective of my investors capital on that one. And this is the deal that got away. I wish I could go back and just, you know, back the entrepreneur who was on a good growth trajectory rather than, you know, be a little bit overly conservative. That was a mistake on my part. I missed, I missed the opportunity upside on clusterbikes. They're doing great by the way. She, she deserves all the credit. I got the upside though on own. I was a silent investor in this one. Like if you go call the founders, they have no idea who I am. I was a silent small partner in this one. But this is a brand that we invested in and had an exit and it was a great return. And they were acquired. This is a cool story. This brand was acquired by the same people who own these Quest and Adkins. It's called the Simply Good Foods company. They're a publicly traded company and they own three brands. Adkins, Quest and only what you need. I just love that stuff. I love seeing when a publicly traded company is buying up all these smaller brands. That's what makes me so bullish on E commerce and building a brand. We can innovate faster than the big companies can. And when you get a foothold in the marketplace, the big companies want to buy you. They don't try to compete with you, they try to buy you. So think about Quest. Quest was started by Tom Bilyeu, a small time entrepreneur. He has a billion dollar exit. Atkins was the same, I don't know who founded own, but they were bought by the same people who own those other brands. It's so cool when you start to see that the big companies coming in by the small entrepreneurs, like that's what's on the shelves. That's gonna happen to Derek too by the way. That's the kind of stuff I nerd out about. And thank you for doing well. It made me money. I don't know why I didn't think about this. This is the smartest innovation right here. Creatine gummies. How do you make a boring saturated product cool again? You change the delivery of it. It's such a small difference, but it can change everything about a product or a brand. Like hey, you have a heart time taking your creatine every day. Chew it. It's so dumb. Like why didn't I think of this? This is, this has to be a multi million dollar brand. Just on Amazon. Like we should look up the numbers of creatine gummies on Amazon. I bet it's huge. It's just so smart. Like this. What the heck is this? Ghost has their hydration something. These. These gum? No, this is a stick pack. Okay. I thought they were gummies. You know that would actually be a pretty good market. Hydration gummies. Someone's gonna do that. Someone's gonna do electrolyte gummies. Now these are stick packs. Remember when the only electrolyte product was Gatorade and then you had Ultima and element and liquid iv and now a. Of course jocko is doing it. So you change the delivery mechanism and all of a sudden it's this brand new market. Everybody thought oh, electrolytes, that's super saturated. And then one little change and it's a brand new multi billion dollar industry. So that's why when people say that things are saturated, that just means that it's a big enough market for there to be some little change so that you can get into that market and do something a little bit different and stand out from everybody else. The electrolyte space is a really good example of that happening. I have, I literally have a story of like every single thing on the shelf. This one right here, they pitched me for capital at a 10 million dollar valuation. I told them they were crazy. I was wrong. I'm sorry guys. You were right. I was wrong. They are crushing it. They're everywhere now. All right, if you're not seeing the pattern yet, you all have seen this brand, right? You've all seen Siete. This is an Austin founded company they founded in 2014. The founder had an autoimmune condition so she developed snacks that she could eat. Guess what? Ten years later they're bought. By who? PepsiCo. The big brand that couldn't compete. And they bought them for $1.2 billion. So this tiny little founder with an idea for solving a problem that she had starts and snacks ten years later is a billion dollar exit to PepsiCo. PepsiCo bought the snack company. Another example of a big brand coming in, buying the small one that is getting new market share. This is how it works, folks. You start a product that solves a problem for a specific, specific group of people. You get some exposure. It doesn't happen quickly, but it happens over time and it compounds. And then the big brands come in and buy you. You see in the theme, this is how it works. God, that's fun. I really wish I had invested in that, in that cookie company like this. I'm, I regret it. I'm sorry I was an. And I wish I could have it back. I'm sorry. To all the food brands. I said no to two that are now nine figure companies. Look what we found. We found Tara's company, Smart Suites started as a dream. She had a 300 million dollar exit just a few years into doing it. Tara's book at capcon last year. You can look up the the full Talk on the YouTube channel. Just search her name or SmartSuites and Capitalism.com. she gave an awesome keynote. It was my favorite one of the whole event. But she talks about how she started this basically in her grandma's case kitchen. And then a couple years later it's a multi nine figure exit. And then there's this brand joyride. They're an Austin company. Like they're, they're trying the same thing and they have the same playbook and if they get some exposure and they have some product differentiation, they're going to do just fine. Skinny, look, look.

This is, this is a brand that we're a part of. This is a brand that we invested in inside of the capitalism fund. They are doing an awesome job. So once again, you've got a really saturated space. This is Pasta. But they are going super low calorie and low carb. So what attracted me to this brand in particular was the fact that their main ingredient is cognac. And I was familiar enough with the food space that there's a lot of people, all of these brands use cognac, but they all do it terribly. They had a way to use it that looked really functional and that would create a dent in the marketplace. And they've done a great job. And Skinny has grown leaps and bounds since we invested in them. They've done a fantastic job. And in fact, if you want to see the full interview that I did with the founder of it, Skinny Pasta, you can find that on the podcast. It's a really good interview. There's something about making it into retail grocery, like you made it right. And what most people don't see is that almost everything on the shelf started as some scrappy entrepreneur just trying to make it happen. And so I started to see my friends and peers and colleagues pop up on the shelf and it was like, ah, they did it. And then you start seeing examples of like this dude, G. Hughes, his pictures on like this is some dude dude who started a brand of sugar free ketchup and now he's made it, you know, and food's hard. Food's probably the hardest. It's $6. There's, there's no margin on that. So if you make it in food you like really want. And that's why they have the highest valuations and they have all this distribution and retail stores. So it's just everything here is a story and it's somebody who just grinded it out and made it happen because they believed in it. That's why it's fun. Hope you can see that the story is pretty consistent. Good product, big space. Have a difference. Get some exposure. Billions. That's how it works. We can help some people make some gains too.

Guardians just signed Paul Seewald. Who the is that? They're paying him $7 million. That's what we shed miles straw salary for. Who is this person?

Paul Seawald. What the French toast.