The search for a better shave led a husband-wife team to build a successful direct-to-consumer brand that now has a new owner.

Fort Worth’s Supply, a men’s grooming product company that garnered national attention and an investment on “Shark Tank” with its single-blade razor, has been acquired by Dallas-based acquisition platform Foundry Brands. It’s a move that founder and CEO Patrick Coddou says will help Supply enter “a new phase of growth.” Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

“While our outcome won’t make TechCrunch, I believe it’s the most attainable representation of the American Dream: Have an idea, work your tail off for years, scale it to millions, sell it for millions,” Coddou wrote in a Twitter thread announcing the deal. 

Supply’s launch was supported through crowdfunding

[Image: Courtesy Supply]

After leaving a corporate job at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Patrick Coddou launched Supply in 2017, while co-founder and Chief People Officer Jennifer Coddou was working full-time as a math teacher. Offering razors with a lifetime guarantee that promised a smoother shave without the hassles of clogging or tedious blade changes, Supply found early traction via a Kickstarter campaign that blew past its initial $10,000 goal by raising more than $256,000 from about 2,400 backers in just 45 days.

“We built Supply out of our spare bedroom, stored products in our garage, and shipped them out of our laundry room,” Patrick Coddou wrote. “We didn’t have any special training, celebrity endorsers, wealthy family members, or venture capital connections. We did have plenty of supporting friends—and most importantly, each other.”

From there, Supply expanded its product lineup to include things like skin care treatments, travel kits, and other grooming accessories, selling tens of thousands of items in more than 40 different countries.

Entering the ‘Shark Tank’

[Image: Courtesy Supply]

Then came an experience that Jennifer Coddou said the co-founders “will always cherish,” in a blog post. After receiving rejection letters two years in a row, the company was tapped to appear on ABC’s “Shark Tank.” Getting interest from multiple sharks on the show and competing offers, Supply accepted a $300,000 deal with Robert Herjavec in exchange for a 15% stake in the company.

Continuing its growth with the goal of launching an upgraded version of its single-blade razor, Supply again went back to crowdfunding, raising more than $200,000 from around 2,000 backers on Kickstarter last November.

“Our ‘superpower’ is the same power that anybody can harness: Relentless dedication to building something that customers will love,” Patrick Coddou wrote.

‘We’re going to move faster’

With the Foundry Brands acquisition, Patrick Coddou said in a Twitter thread that the entire Supply team “is sticking around,” adding that “nothing is changing except that we’re going to move faster, grow quicker, and get better.”

Focusing on companies in spaces like pet, home, outdoor, and personal care, Foundry Brands says it helps build brands with revenues between $1 million and $50 million through capital and expertise. The company was launched last July with $100 million in debt-free equity capital from LightBay Capital and Monogram Capital Partners.

Patrick Coddou said the Supply journey has been “a rollercoaster,” adding that his “strengths lend themselves more to starting, as opposed to scaling” a company. On Twitter, he wrote that the decision to sell now is due to the co-founders’ “personal risk tolerance, personal stress tolerance, market timing, and business timing.”

“I’ve laid a solid foundation for the business, and now I get to help to take it far beyond my limitations,” Patrick Coddou wrote. “My dedication to my customers is still the same as it ever was.”

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