How To Sell Your Brand To Rich People

What's up, fuckers? I sold a company, this brand right here, for $16 million. And here's what I learned in that process. You don't have to be a billionaire in order to do business with the big money guys. There are entire businesses whose business is to buy other businesses. So I'm making this video for you so that you can prepare to build your business in a way that attracts the big money from those big groups. Because if you know ahead of time that there's people who are counting on you to build a a big business? Well, you can build something that not only is successful, but also gets you a fat check. Today I'm gonna show you how to position yourself in front of those types of businesses so that if you've got something good, the big money chases you. All right, let's start with an example that all of you are familiar with. This is Heinz, the famous ketchup company. Ah, the evil big food corporations. She's married to John Kerry. Well, they are a big publicly traded company. One of their biggest investors is none other than Warren Buffett. But Kraft also bought a company called Primal Kitchen a couple of years ago. This was started by a blogger, Mark Sisson, and Mark Sisson had this paleo blog where he told me, he's like, "I make my living typing words on my computer screen." He was a blogger and he launched a condiment brand, and guess what? They bought this for $200 million. Kraft also owns Boca. Now, when all of the liberal vegans are upset about the big food corporations, you can remind them that If it wasn't for Kraft buying Boca in the 1970s, then all of these meat alternatives wouldn't be all over the shelves of every grocery store in America. It's because the big food company got involved with the small business, bought them, and gave them distribution, which is the reason why we have options like this today. You're recording? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Now, the greatest entrepreneur that you've never heard of is named Émile Frey. And Émile Frey, of course, invented Velveeta in the early 1900s. Now, if it wasn't for Kraft Heinz buying Velveeta in 1927, you and I wouldn't be able to enjoy the delicious goodness that is Velveeta. We put it on everything. You know who turned me on to Velveeta and made me obsessed with it? Layla Hormozi. She made this cauliflower cheesy chicken dish, and I was like, this is the greatest thing I've ever had. And she's like, look at the macros on Velveeta. And I was like, Sold. And that's why I eat it every day, to make me a better entrepreneur. So the reason I tell you all this about Kraft Heinz is because they're a big conglomerate whose business is buying other food brands. So if you're a small entrepreneur with a cool food idea, there are big companies who are counting on you breaking into the market so that they can invest in your business or acquire your business and put you on retail shelves and give you big distribution. So instead of seeing the big guy as the enemy, You can see them as a potential partner who can make your vision come to life and write you a big check in the process. Alright, so that was food. Now let me show you a completely different example. There's this company called Edgewell Personal Care and they own Schtick and they also own Cremo over here. Fascinating story, founded by Mike Boone. Look him up. He's the guy who invented the electric flickering candle and then he went and started a body wash company. Now Edgewell owns both of these companies. They also own Banana Boat, the sunscreen company. But check this out, a couple of years ago, Edgewell tried to buy Harry's and then the FTC came in and said, you can't do that, anti-monopoly, some nonsense. And they said, okay, well I guess we can't buy Harry's. So you know what we're gonna do? We're gonna buy Cremo instead. And they paid $275 million for this brand, and this brand was a lot smaller than Harry's. Why did they do that? Because they're in the business of personal care products and they needed to buy up brands in order to increase their market share. They lost out on Harry's, so they went to another competitor. Now, Harry's wanted to be sold. So you know what they did? They said, well, if we can't be bought by one of the big companies, we'll become one of the big companies. And now they own Mando and they own Lume, and they went out and bought the other brands that they wanted to create a conglomerate around. This is actually now the fastest growing private equity group in the last 20 years. So what does this mean for you? It means that if you're a small founder like Mike Boone, or if you're Shannon Klingman, the founder of Lumi, that means that there's companies like Harry's or like Edgewell who are counting on buying you. And so they're looking for you, they're watching, they're hoping that you break out because they're publicly traded companies and they need to increase their profits and they'll write you a big check so that you can be part of their bigger parent company. It's a beautiful world. It's a really cool thing. Now, it doesn't always work out. It doesn't always end in champagne. Dollar Shave Club sold to Unilever for $1 billion back in 2019. That's the headline that you see. What you don't see is that a few years later, they offloaded the brand to a company called Nexus Capital. That's the same business that's currently trying to buy Big Lots. The discount retailer. I mean, what that probably means is that this deal didn't go very well. There's another way that big companies will get involved with little brands. If you're still worried about the big brands taking over, here's another thing that they'll do. The company that owns Cinnamon Toast Crunch is General Mills. General Mills does buy other brands and businesses, but they also have a completely separate arm of the business. It's called their venture arm, and they will place capital into small businesses that are still emerging. And I'm gonna show you a couple examples. So General Mills, the same company that's pumping sugar into your kids' veins, is also putting Kite Hill, the vegan cream cheese, on the shelf. They also invested in Purely Elizabeth, this granola company. These were small businesses that really didn't have a shot unless a big company got involved. So when you see these small businesses that are catering to your diet or to your preferences, you can thank the big companies for injecting the capital needed to get them the adoption that was required. I mean, do you think that a small company like Purely Elizabeth can afford to launch all of these different SKUs? Do you think that they can afford to put these aggressive coupons on here to get your attention? No, they don't have the margins for that. Do you think that they have the ability to get all of this shelf space? They don't. They can only do that by partnering with the businesses that have been around forever. And this is what I love about capitalism. While socialism promises that people will participate in all of the rewards, capitalism actually does it. When you buy Purely Elizabeth because you want to support a small founder, you're also contributing to the success of General Mills, which is owned by pensions and retirements and people living off the dividends that those profitable companies pay. So when one small brand succeeds, everybody participates in the winnings. And I almost forgot, the venture arm of General Mills that invested in Curly Elizabeth, they specialize in investing in women-owned and minority-owned brands. So all of the, you know, social justice warriors who are like down with the big corporations, well, guess what? It's the big corporations who are helping Elizabeth become a multimillionaire. And in the venture arm, they make sure that the founder stays on as the leader of the business so that their vision doesn't get watered down. So this is a big company literally helping the small guy win, and they're winning together. So in all of these examples, you'll see that there's a big corporation, that their business is buying up other businesses that complement the rest of the portfolio. Now let's talk about a different way that rich people get involved in small businesses, and it's called private equity. Private equity is just a fancy way of saying groups that buy profitable businesses, and they may not necessarily complement one another. Private equity groups usually use debt to buy a business, and what they're counting on is that the business stays profitable enough to be able to pay back that debt. Alcatarron is a private equity group that owns Kodiak Cakes. They also own Just Food for Dogs, and ironically, they also own Thorne Supplements, the big supplement company that most of the biohackers use. So a company like that is in the business of buying other profitable businesses, and just like the publicly traded companies, they're counting on you building a profitable business so that they can acquire it. Doesn't always work out that way. I sold a company in 2017, made a bag, but then 3 years later it was bankrupt. And so I bought it back and fixed it up, and now it's a 7-figure business again. They're in the business of using debt and other people's money to buy profitable businesses, and they're counting on the profits of that business paying back the debt. That's their strategy. And they're looking for brands like you to buy. So instead of looking at them as your competitor or your threat, look at them as a potential partner or acquirer. I'm going to show you an example that just absolutely fascinates me. There's this supplement brand and they're all green. They're called Irwin Naturals. You'll see them here. Any time you see one of these really bright bottles, this is Irwin Naturals. They're here. Here's another one right here. They're all over this shelf. Here's a couple more right here. Now, Irwin Naturals went bankrupt last year. They were a really big business, but they spread themselves way too thin.. And they got commoditized down and they went bankrupt last year. So they were acquired by a company called FitLife Brands. FitLife Brands also owns this really popular brand on Amazon called Dr. Tobias. And that stood out to me. When I saw that, I was really fascinated because I tried to buy Dr. Tobias years ago when they were a small brand. They were listed for like $9 million. Gosh, I should have bought it, man. Would have been the deal of the century. But FitLife Brands owns Dr. Tobias, Irwin Naturals, and they also own MusclePharm. And get this, these brands were scooped up by one company and then they went public. You can look them up under the ticker FTLF. They're a tiny little publicly traded company at like a $200 million market cap. And when I saw that, I was like, I know all of these brands. And then I went, wait a minute, not only could I sell a business to a brand like this because I'm in the supplement space, I might have an exit to a publicly traded company like this. Made me also think, could I put together a group like that? And it just totally blew my brain of what was possible. When you start looking at brands like this, you stop seeing enemies and big nasty conglomerates. You start to see, oh my goodness, it's all connected. It's all people who are working together to bring something to life and make it bigger. You get to participate in that in whatever world you want. You can be a founder and have a big exit. You can work at one of these companies and look for the next investment, or you could even be at the top putting some of these brands together and having a roll-up or an exit or going public. It's just, or you can just be an investor and you can buy the shares of these companies and passively support some of these small businesses. That's what gets me so excited about this stuff. All right, let's tie all this together with an example. So if you're gonna sell your company to rich people, first you find the companies that specialize specialize in buying certain types of businesses. For example, there are publicly traded companies that just buy protein lines. In fact, one of them is called Simply Good Foods. They bought Quest and Only What You Need, and they own Atkins too. And I'm gonna make a weird prediction that this brand right here, Truvani, might be one of their next acquisitions. It just makes sense. So what do you do once you know the businesses that buy the brands? You look what types of brands they buy, and you create a business that specializes in that. Truvani, right here, this example, this was the first plant-based protein that actually tasted good. And as a result, they were different and better than everyone else, and they blew up and they got distribution. And so, you know what I think is gonna happen? The big money is gonna come a-calling. So if you find out where the money is and you build a brand in that space, and you start to get momentum by targeting a small group of people, you too can sell your brand to rich people. Hey, I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with Capitalism.com. I invest in physical product brands. I like playing that role of being the bridge between the, the big money and the small scrappy entrepreneur. I've played that game. I like showing entrepreneurs what's possible when they position their business for a big payday. And so if you would like my help, you can find resources around this video and introduce yourself in the comments. What you're working on. I would love to give you an opinion on how big it can get and if I can be a resource for you. Thanks for watching. I'll see you guys next time. Take care.