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Key Takeaways Giving Chris Bumstead (CBum) equity turned an endorsement into ownership.
Patience in retail ultimately gave RAW leverage.
Learning to say no kept the brand focused.
RAW Nutrition happened by accident. In 2019, Dom Iacovone and his partner, Matt Jansen, were running Revive MD, a small vitamin company built on ingredient transparency.
When fans of his product kept asking for pre-workouts and protein powders, Iacovone had to decide whether to stay in the vitamin lane or cross over into the cutthroat sports nutrition space. “If we were going to do it, we were going to do it right,” he says.
The turning point came when Iacovone partnered with burgeoning bodybuilder Chris Bumstead (known as CBum). At the time, Bumstead wasn’t yet a six-time Mr. Olympia champion, but he had that rare mix of authenticity and social media savvy.
Iacovone saw an opportunity to collaborate with CBum that others missed. “Chris was getting paid well by other companies, but he didn’t own anything,” Iacovone says. “I didn’t want to build a brand on someone who’d leave a year later. I wanted to build one together.” So he gave Bumstead equity in the company, making him a true partner instead of a paid muscle.
Related: How Celebrity Partnerships Can Take Your Brand to the Next Level
The investment delivered results. RAW Nutrition brought in about $300,000 in its first few months, then jumped to $7 million in year two.
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