This story is part of CNBC Make It’s The Moment series, where highly successful people reveal the critical moment that changed the trajectory of their lives and careers, discussing what drove them to make the leap into the unknown.
Michael Kirban spent five years of his life painstakingly building his business from scratch. Then, his biggest rival struck a deal with one of the most popular brands in the world.
“Holy s—, we’re dead,” he recalls thinking.
Kirban, 48, is the co-founder and executive chairman of The Vita Coco Company, which started selling its namesake coconut water in 2004. After just five years, the business was bringing in at least $15 million in annual revenue, leading the still-nascent coconut water category at the time, says Kirban.
The Coca-Cola Company threatened to abruptly halt that momentum. In 2009, the beverage behemoth bought a 20% stake in Zico, a coconut water brand that launched around the same time as Vita Coco. In 2013, Coca-Cola purchased the rest of Zico outright.
The rivalry between Vita Coco and Zico was already fierce, bordering on dirty. Kirban and co-founder Ira Liran had a choice: Do we find our own big-money partner, or fight one of the world’s biggest companies on our own?
They opted for the latter.
Today, Vita Coco is a behemoth in its own right, sporting a $1.6 billion market cap as of Thursday afternoon. It commands nearly 50% of the U.S. coconut water market, according to the company’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Meanwhile, Zico struggled to differentiate itself under Coca-Cola’s massive umbrella. It was reacquired by its founder Mark Rampolla for an undisclosed sum in 2021.
Here, Kirban discusses the game-plan he built to take on a giant, how to create your own luck and why he wouldn’t change a thing in retrospect.
CNBC Make It: What was your gut reaction when you first heard that Coca-Cola was buying a stake in your biggest competitor?
Kirban: I was just stunned. Like, I was in shock. I put the phone…
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