So How are Marcus’s Growth Strategies Panning Out?

In this ninth, and I assume penultimate episode, of the third season, Marcus revisits three businesses from the first two seasons to let us know how they are doing.

Sweet Pete’s Candy

I was very impressed, as I am sure you were, with the rapid growth of Sweet Pete’s Candy. Pete and Allison are the kind of honest and hardworking people you really want to see do well in business.

Marcus initially purchased an old 22K s.f. mansion and moved the business in there. Since then sales have skyrocketed from $400K to a forecast $4 million for 2015.

Now Marcus is talking about purchasing a another historic mansion for a million and investing a further million into renovating it for a second location. In addition, he has introduced the company to an exclusive hotel and resort chain as the first step in entering the high end hotel market.

And on top of all that he has also introduced Sweet Pete’s to the local NFL franchise stadium management which sees potential in selling confections through the concession stands, private suites, and club.

Marcus has plowed $6 million into Sweet Pete’s but it’s paying off. I imagine that Marcus treats the real estate investments as his personal ones and doesn’t ask Pete and Allison for a bigger equity slice every time he sinks more money into the candy business.

I think he bought Dane B. out for $50K.

Pete is a real life Willie Wonka.

Pete shakes on it with stadium manager.

Car Cash

Car Cash was not only the first business Marcus invested in as part of The Profit, but it was also the subject of the very first episode. This company has also achieved spectacular growth since Marcus became a shareholder jumping from $13 million in sales to $20 million in the first 12 months.

During his visit Marcus learned that the brothers had received an eviction notice from the owner of their original location. Car Cash had been there over 30 years. At first Marcus attempted to work things out with the landlord but found him intransigent. However, Marcus having the Midas Touch quickly found a far better location for the shop. The result was that the business moved from a tough to find location on a narrow low traffic street to a new and better one where 200K cars would pass it daily. The new location would also allow them to process more cars each day.

I didn’t catch any word on how their national roll-out is doing.

courage_b

At first I didn’t understand if the chain was doing well or not.  Fashion is not a business I have any interest in. As the segment unfolded we discovered that Marcus was pretty upset with Nicholas the son for not having moved all the inventory from the NYC store to a shipper in the Midwest. Marcus and Nicholas then had to sort things out. It got emotional as last time. In the end, Marcus helped Nicholas load the goods onto a truck that would take them away.

Otherwise, the business appears to also be doing well.

So far, with almost three seasons over, Marcus has invested about $30 million into 17 of the 30 businesses he has looked at. Those are his numbers. I am not sure if he’s really looked at 30 businesses because this was the second or third review episode to date. Review episodes don’t introduce new businesses.

Marcus’s Growth Strategies

They appear to be working well. Even if there are a few companies in his The Profit portfolio that are heading south or sideways, he’s still doing better than your average venture capitalist.

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