January 11, 2022 – 2 Minute Read
Hi everyone, during shelter in place, we changed up our format a bit in hopes of sharing ideas and valuable information to strengthen our community while supporting fellow entrepreneurs and businesses that may have been struggling during COVID-19.
I’m Tarek Morshed with The Morshed Group at Sothebys, where we specialize in representing entrepreneurs and founders in residential Real Estate. Welcome to The Entrepreneurial Home Podcast where we interview Austin’s most successful men and women and discuss their business journeys and the entrepreneurial home that empowers them to thrive – both in business and in life. On this special edition we have local entrepreneur, Ryan Gnesin, the Founder and CEO of Elevate Brands.
In 2016 Ryan Gnesin took a giant leap into the unknown. He left a lucrative, 11-year career at Glencore to move to the States and pursue an unexpected business venture: retail arbitrage of name-brand shoes on Amazon. From there, he and cofounder, James Stein, scaled the business to +$15m revenue—in just one year. On the heels of this colossal success, and always with incredible foresight, Gnesin capitalized on his newfound expertise, pivoting to the role of the fresh-on-the-scene business model of Amazon aggregator. And so Elevate Brands was born.
Today, Elevate buys consumer-leading CPG brands and elevates them to their full potential with the support of a growing 110+ team of operators in 10+ countries. With more than 25 brands on the roster and a Series B round fresh behind him, Gnesin’s sights are set on becoming a top-ten global consumer products company by 2030.
(0:27) Zoom Introduction
(1:15) Who is Ryan Gnesin to The Morshed Group
(4:59) Entrepreneurial Journey
(10:30) Advice from a mentor
(12:02) Amazon conferences
(17:09) Wholesale model success
(19:30) Making mistakes is okay
(25:55) Moving to Austin Texas
(32:42) When COVID happened
(37:39) Pivot when you got to
(43:55) Anything you hate doing, there is probably someone who loves it
(47:44) Ways to skin the cat
(50:10) Getting into the workflow
See our previous and full EHP Interviews and see future episodes here at my website.
Check out more at https://themorshedgroup.com/