Bahamian entrepreneur Alexiou Gibson, 34, got the Shark Tank seal of approval after his company The Transformation Factory got a 20 percent buy for $600,000 from sharks Kevin O'Leary and actor Kevin Hart.
Gibson’s million-dollar company has taken a common Bahamian product and turned it mainstream by producing fruit-flavored sea moss gels, which Gibson said he was looking to take retail.
Gibson, who was born and raised in The Bahamas but currently lives and works in Florida, told the sharks that his company has had $3.5 million in sales just 11 months into its formation, with a 35 percent profit margin.
“Its all direct to consumer and 100 percent online,” he told the sharks while appearing on Friday’s episode of season 13 of the hit ABC network television show.
With more than half a million per month in sales, Gibson told the sharks he was seeking to sell five percent of the company for $500,000 so that he could take the product retail.
“The way this actually started, my 80-year-old grandmother was visiting from The Bahamas, who has a lot of comorbidities and takes a lot of medications. So, I knew I wanted to protect her, so I would put this in her coffee every morning. I was sharing online Instagram stories just showing sea moss lattes every 8 o’clock in the morning and people were like, I know what sea moss is, I keep hearing about it, can I please stop by and get some,” he told the sharks.
“I was giving this away for free not even thinking this could have been a business. It wasn’t until I was getting about 60 orders a week that I said why don’t I open an online store to make the process simpler? It exploded. From there we started running ads and started getting more SEO [search engine optimization] traffic. We had 800 percent growth from February to March when we started running ads.”
Impressed by the company’s margins, actor and investor Kevin Hart said, “This is a culturally driven product. In our community, the African American community, this is something that is now being raved about and we are now seeing growth in. So I’ve actually purchased it, it was in a plain jar and it was an exclusive buy.”
Gibson said he is most excited to work with the sharks and investors to see his company’s mission come to fruition.
“When I was 21 years old, I weighed over 500 pounds and was told I wouldn’t live to see 30. I wanted to do something right away to get my life back. I started working out more, eating healthy and even went vegan. During my transformation, I found a nutritious ingredient that had 90 percent of the minerals that our human bodies need, and I incorporate it into my life every single day,” Gibson said.
“What is it? It’s called sea moss. Sea moss is a powerhouse marine alga that exists in our oceans and has 90 percent of the essential minerals that the human bodies have. I want everyone to have this product so that they can be the best versions of themselves as well, which is why I created The Transformation Factory, a line of mouthwatering sea moss gels that you can take to get 90 percent of your nutrients with two tablespoons everyday.”
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