“Home is wherever you take it.”
John Merris
CEO and Director
Solo Brands
.…on how his company buys businesses that make people feel at home wherever they go, via the ModernRetail podcast.
John Merris
Grapevine-based Solo Brands, a direct-to-consumer platform for rapidly growing lifestyle brands, went public in October 2021 in a NYSE debut that valued it at the time at $2.1 billion. While its stock has since come down to earth, its vision remains the same. Merris was recently interviewed about it by the ModernRetail podcast.
“What we’ve built is a family of brands that try to make it feel like you’re at home anywhere you go,” Merris says on the podcast. “Our focus is really around good moments and lasting memories, helping people put smiles on their faces with friends and family and people they love.”
“If we can do that well, whether it’s around a fire, on a paddleboard, in a kayak, or wearing some really cool men’s apparel, polo shirts or 5-and-a half-inch-inseam shorts, then we’ll do it.”
Founded in 2011 by brothers Spencer and Jeff Jann out of a Fort Worth garage, Solo originally made one thing—the Solo Stove, a smokeless, portable, stainless-steel fire pit. It went public as Solo Brands after acquiring Chubbies Apparel, Oru Kayak, and ISLE paddleboards.
As it looks for more businesses to acquire, Solo Brands keeps its at-home-anywhere mission in mind. But Merris adds another big factor it looks for:
“We do not buy businesses that aren’t profitable,” he says on the podcast.
Solo Brands plans to report its second-quarter fiscal 2023 financial results on August 3 before the market opens.
You can listen to the ModernRetail interview here.
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