Isn't it a little bit odd to own two companies, both of which make preworkout concentrates, both of which are then recommended by your salespeople as top preworkout products?
Or...both USPLabs(Modern BCAA), USPowders(Bulk unflavored aminos), and now PES (Amino IV) sell an amino product...they all claim to be awesome...so which one is actually the best?
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That said, here's some devils advocate points in favor of brand diversification.
Obviously there are significant business perks to horizontal brand expansion and it's something you see in all industries. You can target one set of your products to the mass market (USPLabs), another to forum bros (PES), another to price-conscious people (USPowders).
Another big reason for brand diversification is differences in product run size. A USPLabs product is going to be ordered and stocked at WAY higher volumes at WAY more retailers than a PES product ever will. So to manufacture and distribute a USPLabs product requires a way bigger initial investment, and as a consequence limits the amount of risk you can take.
On the contrary, and especially if you're a player as big as USPLabs and can afford small-scale trial and error, if you have a smaller brand and want to trial-run an ingredient and see what feedback is, you can distribute a product through PES, which requires way less investment to do so. Additionally, and we don't know specifics here so this is a possibility, if a smaller brand has some financial backing from a larger company with more cash, they are able to afford risk other companies can't with ingredients that wouldn't be financially feasible otherwise.
In the end, (IMO) companies should just be open with their brand diversification and own their brands publicly. It avoids drama over company ownership like we're seeing here.
Also, people on the forums need to understand the market and why bigger brands do what they have to do, and why smaller brands are able to do what they do.
Just my opinion.