When Coach Soak’s previous owner, Jordan, had reached the point of deciding to sell his business, he was in a position that any entrepreneur would be proud of being in. Coach Soak had established a strong brand identity, it had been successful in a major marketplace and the products had been validated through thousands of positive use cases and reviews.
This success didn’t mean that there wasn’t space to grow. With new product development and strategic brand building we could help lift Coach Soak to become a global leader in the muscle recovery category.
After having Coach Soak be part of our brand house for the last year, we wanted to discuss the success story of Coach Soak, and hear from Jordan on why he decided to sell his business and more specifically, why did he sell it to eBrands?
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P: Once you’d decided to sell your brand, what was your reasoning behind choosing eBrands?
J: I received several offers for my brand, so I was able to compare and contrast the experience among a few interested buyers.
From the initial call with eBrands, I was impressed with the level of genuine interest the team had in my brand. They took the time to outline several specific ideas for how they would incorporate the brand into their portfolio and grow it. They also listened to my desires for deal structure, and took that into consideration when presenting their offer.
P: You would assume that most of the buyers act in a similar fashion, how did eBrands differ?
J: I was attracted to the focused approach of eBrands. You aren’t trying to spread yourself too thin among many categories like other buyers, and you have a focused criteria for the brands you want to bring into your portfolio. This specialized focus made me feel comfortable that eBrands was the right home for my brand.
P: Especially for first time sellers, the process can be intimidating. Can you describe the process from due diligence to migration?
J: It was very easy to work with eBrands during the migration itself. They had team members dedicated to different parts of the handover, and they established a clear and detailed step-by-step process for handling the migration to prevent any hiccups. It was a smooth and seamless experience.
The deal structure was fair and transparent. I was pleasantly surprised with how they approached the negotiations, and that their desire was to minimize friction and complexity in the process. The contract language was very clear and easy to understand, and they exceeded what was expected of them.
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It's been one-and-a-half years since we bought the business and a lot of things have happened since. We’ve taken Coach Soak to new continents and extended its product portfolio both with incremental developments to the existing brand and product line, and creating new product lines for customers.
After Coach Soak joined eBrands, we wanted to increase it’s exposure and speak with the people who use the product, especially athletes who aim to get that extra 1% improvement in performance for a competitive edge.
Visiting the largest sporting expos around the world let us go deeper in our understanding of muscle recovery as well as increasing awareness of a natural recovery method. We also used this exposure to validate new products and develop relationships with new brand ambassadors.
We have an omnichannel approach at eBrands, meaning that if your business is a pure Amazon play, our ambition is to improve the brand’s strengths and efficiencies in its current sales channels, find new marketplaces and sales channels that suit the brand’s identity (for both B2C and B2B), and introduce the products to new geographical regions.
This allows us to find and develop options for the brand that can compliment each other, and create better reach and possibilities to grow the business. One of the highlights for the original founder and ourselves is that since Coach Soak joined eBrands, we’ve been able to make it possible for customers to pick up the brand’s products in a physical store, as well as online.
Thinking about selling your consumer brand?
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