![]() In 15 years, I want BODYARMOR to be the number one sports drink globally.Most stock quote data provided by BATS. “.Gatorade has been the number one sports drink for 50 years, but in 10 years, I want BODYARMOR to be the number one sports drink in the United States. That’s what we’re doing here with BODYARMOR,” Repole said. “Building brands and building teams are a lot of fun. Last year, the company hauled in $10 million in total sales, already ahead of the pace set by Repole’s vitaminwater in the early 2000s, which eventually became a billion dollar brand.Īs 2014 winds down and with the new calendar year fewer than 80 days away, the head coach of this still infant brand will look to keep thinking big and dreaming bigger as he competes with the two Goliath's of the sports drink category. The brand also counts Los Angeles Lakers guard, Kobe Bryant, as the company’s third largest shareholder. In its first three-plus years, BODYARMOR has signed a list of star athletes who are both endorsers and equity stakeholders in the company: Rob Gronkowski (New England Patriots), James Harden (Houston Rockets), Kevin Love (Cleveland Cavaliers), Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts) and Richard Sherman (Seattle Seahawks). Plus, I felt that there would be a consumer demand and a consumer need for a better, healthier sports drink.” “To come in there and try to compete with two companies who have been around for a while - Gatorade at 50 years and Powerade at 30, 35 years - was an incredible challenge. ![]() “People are tired of the same old sports drink,” Repole said. The lack of variety coupled with drinks containing artificial flavors and ingredients inspired Repole to create a coconut water-based drink filled with electrolytes, vitamins and amino acids. ![]() Throughout the past 25 years, Repole has seen consumers constantly focused on the sports drink category. Now, enter BODYARMOR, which was originally launched in the summer of 2011. In 2013 B&G Foods acquired Pirate’s Booty for $200 million. In less than five years, he helped grow the brand 400 percent. It was 600 families’ lives that were changed. Whether vitaminwater is here five years from now or 50 years from now, a lot of generations are being changed because of the success that we had.”Ī year later, Repole joined Pirate’s Booty all-natural snacks and became the largest individual shareholder and operating manager. It wasn’t 600 employees’ lives who were changed. “It wasn’t about what I made, but it was about what these 600 employees made. “I’ve always been taught by my parents and grandparents that success is best when shared,” he said. Repole called it one of the “proudest moments” of his career in business. The sale to Coca-Cola meant every employee could capitalize on his or her stock options, with 400 employees making over $500,000. The biggest championship was May 27, 2007, when we sold this little company for $4.1 billion to Coca-Cola.”Ī small company that started with just two employees grew to roughly 600 in a decade. “…We were very blessed and won a bunch of championships, so to speak, over that time. “We were on fire,” the 45-year-old Repole now says. Year one, vitaminwater did a million dollars in sales. With vitaminwater, Repole and his partner, Darius Bikoff, created the ‘enhanced water’ category and experienced exponential growth early in the company’s founding. Ninety-nine percent of the people laughed at me and the other one percent was probably too nice to laugh.” …When we started vitaminwater, I said that we wanted to have a billion dollar brand. “In a way, vitaminwinter was my first sports team, and I was the head coach for 10 years. “I soon fell in love with marketing, sales and building brands and building teams,” Repole added. He was living his mantra of, ‘Think big, dream bigger’. In the late 1990s, a 28-year-old Repole finally started to make a name for himself in the beverage space as he co-founded Glacéau vitaminwater.Īnd while he wasn’t standing behind a college basketball bench coaching a team of 15 or sitting in a board room executing a blockbuster baseball trade, Repole equated his new position to the sports’ positions he wanted to hold as a young kid. ![]() “The beverage aisle was an action aisle.” “I loved watching how some brands just flew off the shelves and how some brands, you had to dust them off every week and figure out why some brands were selling better than other brands,” said Repole, who remembers restocking the likes of Pepsi, Coke and Gatorade multiple times a day. Repole recently reminisced about being a young stock boy back in Queens, making less than $4 an hour as he kept a close eye on one particular aisle. With no plans following graduation, he spent the next 18 months living at home, “mastering Nintendo” and figuring out his next career move, with the mindset that the beverage space was an area he’d like to possibly pursue.
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