How Native went from USD 0 to a USD 100 million acquisition by P&G in 2.5 years
Moiz Ali, born in Pakistan to entrepreneur parents, immigrated to the US at 3. He grew up seeing his parents work persistently and learned a lot about work ethics and business — how to market products, how to negotiate with vendors and everything about supply chain.
After working at his parent’s gas station during high school, Moiz went to Harvard. After graduating, he joined a law firm where he worked for 2.5 years. He was discontented and wanted to pursue something on his own and thus started his entrepreneurial journey. He started Caskers, an e-commerce business with his law school classmate, where they sold craft spirits online. Eventually, one of their customers ended up buying their business for a profit.
Later one day, Moiz was glancing at the ingredient list of Axe’s deodorant label while standing in a checkout line and couldn’t understand majority of the components. At that very moment, he decided to come up with his own deodorant, an idea which turned out to be one of the fastest growing deodorant companies in the US.
The initial product was subpar at best. However, after continual research and factoring critical customer feedback into the deodorant they found the right formula and mix of ingredients. This quintupled the company’s revenue.
Native, positioned itself as an online distributor of deodorant. With more than a million customers since its launch 2.5 years ago, the company was able to use profits from the business to reinvest in growth. In November 2017, they got acquired by Proctor & Gamble (P&G) for USD 100 million, the first acquisition by a global MNC in nearly ten years. According to market rumours, the company tripled the brand’s growth since its acquisition in 2017.
Attention to detail, listening to customers and factoring their feedback in the product helped Moiz create an exclusive product, lucrative for the masses but also couldn’t resist the MNC to acquire it in a multi-million dollar deal.
