20 Things You Didnt Know About Suma Brands
Suma Brands refers to an e-commerce platform focusing on acquiring and enhancing the next generation household brands in the Amazon marketplace. According to Suma Brands, the concept is hinged on the analogy of the Sumauma tree which grows out from the Amazon Forest. The belief is that Amazon FBA businesses can be acquired and grown through understanding their goals and potential by engaging them and providing the necessary resources to move them to the next level, which makes them household brands. The following are 20 things that you didn’t know about Suma Brands.
1. Suma Brands CEO’s background is in e-commerce platforms
The founder of the Suma Brands, Andrew Savage, has a background in retailing and specifically e-commerce. He previously worked with Amazon leading teams including those dealing with selling of toys, championing Amazon efforts to penetrate the market costing of university students. He also worked with Target which is a retail merchandiser with stores in most of the states of the USA. He was also an executive at Doll Kill, which is an online retail company that grew from an unknown brand to a household brand.
2. Suma Brands advocates for businesses to focus on products other than processes
According to Buy Box Experts, one of the major concerns is how FBA business can be outstanding in the Amazon Marketplace. These brands have usually concentrated on working on the healthiness of their financial status, relying on customer reviews, and streamlining business operations to make their brand attractive to potential investors. Suma Brands’ position is that if you are seeking a long-term and sustainable FBA brand, you should focus on the product to make it outstanding in terms of value offerings. This is because no matter how attractive the marketplace is in terms of technologies, branding as Amazon has done, the bottom-line is the products being offered. Therefore, the idea of Suma Brands is leveraging on its expertise and experience in e-commerce and the FBA brand fundamentals to make it a more attractive household brand.
3. Suma Brands advice to the FBA brands
Suma Brands provides advice to the FBA brands on some of the considerations they can make before selling their FBA business on the Amazon Platform. This includes selling their business to potential investors when it is more lucrative and attractive to potential investors. Suma Brands believe that the marketplace is usually susceptible to market forces, thus the need for selling when it can fetch more. They also advise them to consider acquisition if their intention is to have a new venture as they would be getting an established FBA which one can grow to a household brand. Suma Brands usually are involved in walking one through such a journey and one would probably consider partnering with them. They also advise the founders to become part of the bigger team even after selling. They advise them to avoid moving away but have their involvement scaled down without losing the venture they have always dreamed of and invested a lot in. According to the CEO, the idea is to build something bigger where both the investor and the company can have something bigger to share.
4. Suma Brands has raised $150M Series A round to grow Amazon FBAs
According to Tame Bay, Suma Brands has managed to raise $150 M Series A round. The leaders of this round are Pace Capital, Material and i80 Group, a credit facility financing firm, that provides funds to finance innovative business. These funds shall be critical in aggregating the number of FBA businesses acquired and thereby enhancing their e-commerce collections. It will also come in handy in growing the acquired brands turning them to the next level of being household ventures.
5. Suma Brands value competition as a tool to create value for the businesses
The CEO of Suma Brands, Andrew Savage, did not consider the increase in the number of businesses a bad thing as it means an increase of the investors. This is because when more sellers want to sell their business, they have to enhance the value of these ventures by making them more attractive and visible which increases their value. The investors who acquire these ventures will make them even more valuable by enhancing the quality of their products which in turn increases the value for Amazon’s customers. In addition, it loops in more investors, leading to the growth of the Amazon marketplace.
6. Suma Brands’ business model does not involve having their startups
Suma Brands does not create new products from inception and grow them to a household brands. However, their model is that of taking other people’s ideas and seeking how they can be accelerated to become a household brand, creating mutual benefit to the entrepreneurs and the company. This is how the founder has differentiated this e-commerce platform by providing the necessary expertise together with a team of professionals who have been in this field and also injecting the necessary resources which most of these entrepreneurs might not have especially for beginners. The company is therefore passionate to ensure ventures reach their full potential and are not hindered by lack of the capacity of the owners or their busy schedules that don’t allow them to have enough time to grow these businesses,
7. Suma Brands does not consider itself an investment group but an operating group
Suma Brand does not consider itself as an investment company though it does acquisitions for FBA business in the Amazon marketplace. On the contrary, they view themselves as an operating group in that they usually pick on the ideas of the already existing ventures and injecting their expertise to realize their embedded potential to grow them to new levels. The company, therefore, acknowledges the contributions of each stakeholder whether those of the internal team or even external factors such as enabling technologies.
8. Quality deals based on established criteria escalate high potential opportunities
Suma Brands has strong networking in venture capital which often leads to a flow of introductions from companies seeking investments. This allows Suma brands to have a high volume of conversations and focus on the opportunities that matter. Suma brands knows the secret of creating a consistent flow of high-quality deals which is learning to prioritize and building high-quality deals that create a targeted approach to sourcing and deal management.
9. Conduct comprehensive operational and financial due to diligence of target assets
Suma Brands bring up diligence in their dealings by proving your company with new ideas for marketing your product and making your product be known in the market. They help you shape your products and sell them easily. You go out hunting for leads with inbound links to attract customers online. The outbound lead generation process always follows these three steps which are complying with a list of leads, reaching out to your list, and also marking engaged leads as prostates.
10. Principle place of business and contact information
Suma Brands need geolocation data and identification for your business so when they are working on your product, it will be easy to contact you. This also helps in ensuring there are personalized services and that you can walk the journey together through and after transactions.
11. Own outbound prospecting cold emailing and lead other lead generation tactics
Sales prospecting is also known as lead generation it is the process by which Suma Brands can contact ideal customers by turning them into qualified leads. This is effective through cold calling and cold emailing. This brings the end result or goal of booking a meeting to move them into the next stage which is your sales process.
12. Suma Brands is made up of a team with diverse experience
One of the reasons that Suma Brands is unique in its operations is that it has been able to build a team with different experiences but in the field of e-commerce. The founder has a wealth of experience in e-platforms and ventures having worked at Amazon. Co-founder Matt Salzberg and Andy Salamon are the chairmen of Blue Apron and Co-founder and adviser on startups that are technology-based and operational demanding respectively. Danielle Parks, the other co-founder is a People-first startup and business leader. The others like Derek Smith who is the Business development manager are well versed in building business relationships that ensure mutual benefit between the investors and e-commerce businesses. Philip Nguyen who is in charge of branding on the other hand is skillful in Amazon networks. This team, therefore, is able to bring in unrivaled experience to propel online businesses to the next level of becoming household brands.
13. Suma Brands hires people and not roles
Though Suma Brands is seeking to recruit a team to work with, they have developed job roles such as brand manager, business development associate, data engineer, and head of merchandising. However, according to Boards Greenhouse, the company does not necessarily stick to people with qualifications matching these job roles but rather focuses on people who are enthusiastic about consumer products, building brands, and raising startups to new levels of recognition. Therefore, Suma Brands goes beyond the conventional hiring mode to seeking staff that is self-driven, and able to keep up with innovation and dynamism in the e-commerce marketplace, and can multitask.
14. Suma Brands uses several technologies.
According to Built With, Suma Brands uses i9 technologies among them viewport Meta which provides the users with the ability to control the size of their viewport regardless of the device being used. Another technology is Sender Policy Framework (SPF) which is anti-spam technology that ensures that e-mails sent are authenticated to avoid impersonation by scammers.
15. Suma Brands has plans for expansion.
According to Tech MN, Suma Brands plans to expand its operation beyond its headquarters in Minneapolis by extending its operations in offices at New York City and Los Angeles. Considering that the company started in May 2020 this is not a mean achievement as it aspires even bring many e-commerce ventures to a point where consumers can identify with the products they are offering.
16. Suma Brands complies with legal requirements
It’s regulated by U.S Security and Exchange Commission having the current registration with the commission on the date 12th June 2021which gives assurance to the investors in dealing with the company. It is also an incorporated company in the state of Delaware with its financial year ending on December 31st.
17. Suma Brands comprises of several famous brands
Suma brands consist of several brands in their fold among them Lone Cone who are the leading online retailers and promoters of Kids rain boots who acknowledged the achievements they had made through the contribution of the company in terms of expertise. Turmaquik, a seasoned Golden Milk model, also appreciated the role Suma Brands had played in growing their business while conserving the original idea.
18. Suma Brands does not compete but complements Amazon
The model used by Amazon is providing quality products at affordable prices and this allows the company to benefit from economies of scale and have virtual shops. However, according to Tech Crunch, this efficiency has not been replicated in the FBAs as most of them find themselves working alone, struggling with marketing and branding issues. This is the gap that Suma Brands is filling by walking together with investors in FBAs to provide the necessary expertise as well as other resources.
19. Suma Brands intends to breach the gap between small merchant and bigger platforms
The disparity between small investors and big ventures is always there in the market as the latter enjoys the economy of scale among many things. Suma Brands intends to breach this gap by providing up-to-date tools that can manage activities such as marketing, and supply chains while pooling together resources to enhance buying power and capital.
20. Suma Brands raised funds is in form of equity and debt
The funds raised by Suma Brands come in form of equity and debt being $12.5m equity and $137.5 debt respectively. However according to Pace, the leading partner in raising this fund, after vetting the company, they are confident that the venture shall be successful.
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