How His ‘Unoriginal’ Product Sold $100 Million In a Year

Bloom Nutrition began as a supplements brand. Then it got into beverages, and everything changed.

In 2025, the company moved more than 155 million beverages. Its Sparkling Energy line went from zero to eight figures in six months, surpassed $100 million in sales in its first year, and now drives the majority of total company sales.

None of that happened because cofounder and CEO Greg LaVecchia invented something new. In fact, LaVecchia will tell you plainly: “I don’t think there’s a ton of original ideas left.” That’s why he’s built a systematic approach to entering markets that already exist and are proven — then finding the white space that first movers missed, and out-executing them.

That approach embraces what’s known as the “second mover advantage.” It’s what drives his product strategy at Bloom, and it led directly to the energy drink line that redefined the company. And he says it should give you the courage to enter crowded markets — and even to see your competition as an advantage.

“When you are launching a new idea to a total addressable market, so much of your marketing has to go toward educating the consumer,” he says. “So when I see a saturated space, I think that someone has already done so much education for me.”

Let someone else do the expensive work

To appreciate the power of the second mover advantage, rewind to Bloom’s beginnings. The brand started when LaVecchia was watching a different marketplace: greens powders.

Athletic Greens (now called AG1) was dominating the category. The company was marketing on major podcasts, landing celebrity endorsements, and spending heavily to explain to consumers why greens powders mattered. “But they were $100 and only direct- to-consumer,” LaVecchia says.

That’s where he spotted his white space. AG1 had educated the market, but it had left a gap in accessible pricing and retail availability. Bloom launched its own greens powder at a lower price point and took it to mass retailers — Target, Walmart, Costco — where consumers were now looking for exactly what AG1 had taught them they needed.

That’s because the second mover advantage isn’t just about copying what works and doing it cheaper. It’s about identifying the specific variables that first movers got wrong or ignored entirely.

Pivot to a new market

Fast-forward a few years, and LaVecchia saw the powder market softening. That’s why his team looked at energy drinks. The shelves were already filled with Monster, Red Bull, and Celsius, but he asked that critical second-mover question: Who wasn’t being served by the current offerings?

“We felt like the female consumer wasn’t being properly addressed with a slightly better-for-you formula in the can,” he says.

So that’s what he took to market — targeting this new consumer with the familiar, thin aluminum cans that have become synonymous with energy drinks. That’s another bonus of being the second mover: You also have the advantage of adopting recognizable market signals like packaging.

“I’m a big fan of not recreating the wheel,” he says. “Just taking the wheel and trying to make it a better version of that wheel.”

The second mover advantage won’t work for every entrepreneur, LaVecchia says. It requires an honest assessment of where white space exists, the discipline to focus on a few variables rather than trying to reinvent everything, and the willingness to move on before the current opportunity peaks.

But LaVecchia wants entrepreneurs who feel intimidated by crowded markets to see things differently: Competition isn’t something to fear. It’s actually the proof of concept that you need.