How To Sell Your Brand For Billions

every single one has the exact same pattern the exact same strategy and they're all billion dooll 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 on most viewed stuff I'm to give you what the people want hey guys my name is Alex and I'm the guy behind

the camera and with 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 the 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 HB we're going to go through the store see the brands and tell the stories hope you enjoy it 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 well I'll tell you an example from somebody who actually got into a saturated market and built a billion doll 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 trani I love this brand as an example first of all started by Derek Halper 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 going to 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 as 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 fig company Derek hasn't told me the numbers of the business but they're definitely a nine figure company it's just obvious cuz they're sold out everywhere they go and they're prominent on every retail uh shelves they started e-commerce own 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 it 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 trani let's contrast this with a company like a scent now they're in the same market right this 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 super saturated

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 fig brands in here like Garden of Life that is a N9 figure company there's s Premier Protein that's a publicly traded company these are huge brands and they're all selling the same thing what did a scent do it's actually a very similar process that trani went through they partnered with an influencer they didn't give them Equity but they gave a lot of

money to Tim Ferris and Tim Ferris 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 knew 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 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 you have all these big Brands it's it's a great example of what to do well C4 ghost rise is another good

one they all lean 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 aoy 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 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 a collab with uh skippy for peanut butter cuz nobody does what you found it jet puff 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 cuz 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 lired 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 they tried to sell everything if you look up their website they have a product for everything

they've got like 40 different use so I don't know what they stand for I don't know what their difference in the marketplace is how is this different from the other functional coffees or healthier coffees I know they have a celebrity behind them lared 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 on 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 layard 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 the the stock has come way up in the last year but this is an $80 million 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 in 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 WR 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 going to 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 glutenfree uh-huh yeah King Arthur is gluten-free bootylicious that's a terrible name that's going in the high protein Direction and then you've got Duncan hindes 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 hindes 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 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 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 serial aisle and Ryan loves to tell this one story about Kelloggs and I guarantee you he's going to talk about it oh here he goes three two kog is such a cool story this company doesn't even exist as it used to anymore do you know Kellogg split into two companies last year and now they're operating like a startup the question about Kelloggs is going to be can can Kelloggs actually create a footprint in new distribution vehicles cuz all the new serial companies magic spoon and three wishes they start on e-commerce Kells 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 at a billion dollars for Kelloggs 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 cuz like they're not a growing Market they could be they have all the shocking in the world they have all the branding in the world but the eCommerce serial 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 going to either Kelloggs is going to buy those brands or those brands are going to expand and Kellogg is going to shrink it's going to 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 here this is the girl that got away right here cluster bucks so she came to us

pretty early in the process and was Raising Capital at like A4 or5 million 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 uh 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 uh

I tried to be a little bit too protective of my Investor's 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 upside on cluster buges 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 Quest and Atkins it's called the Simply Good Foods company they're a publicly traded company and they own three brands Atkins 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 Bilu a smalltime entrepreneur he has a billion dollar exit Atkins was the same I don't know who found it 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 buy the small entrepreneurs like that's what's on the shelves that's going to happen to Derek too by the way like that's the kind of stuff I ner out about and and thank you for doing well it 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 hard 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 doll 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 and like this what the heck is this ghost has their hydration something but these these 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 going to do that someone's going to 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 of course Joo 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 this is 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 every everybody else the electrolyte space is a really good example of that happening I 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 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 cette 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 10 years later they're bought by who PepsiCo the Big Brand that couldn't compete and they bought him for $1.2 billion so this tiny little founder with an idea for solving a problem that she had starts and snacks 10 years later is a billion another 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 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 seeing the theme this is how it works God that's fun I really wish I had invested in that in that Cookie Company like 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 that are now nine figure companies look what we found we found Terrace company spark sweets started as a dream she had a $300 million exit just a few years into doing it terce smook at capcon last year you can look up the the full talk on the YouTube channel just search her name or smart sweets 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 kitchen and then

a couple years later it's a multi9 figure exit and then there's this brand Joy Ride 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 look this is uh this is a brand that 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 KAC but they all do it Terri L 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 I There's Something about making it into retail groceries 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 oh they did it and then you start seeing examples of like

this dude G Hughes his pictures on like this is some dude who started a brand of sugar-free ketchup and now he's now he's made it you know and food's hard food's probably the hardest just 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 out and made it happen cuz 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 different get some exposure billions how it work we can help some people make some Gams [Music] too Guardians just signed Paul seald who the is that they're paying him $7 million that's what we shed mil straw salary for who is this person Paul sea Wald what the french toast