RAW Nutrition is said to have started as a complete accident. Its founders had sworn they would never sell pre-workouts or protein powders, because the market felt saturated. Six years later, RAW is doing over $200 million a year and has launched nationwide in every Target store in the US.
This breakdown covers how RAW turned Chris Bumstead from a sponsored athlete into an owner, how it grew without spending on ads at the start, why retail became its growth engine, and how the founder's own content feeds the brand. It finishes with the Meta ads, the giveaway, the acquisition, what we'd change about RAW's retention, and four lessons you can apply at any size.
From the outside, most of RAW's sales appear to come through retail rather than its online store, and that's a big part of what follows.
Kris is the co-founder of Mage Loyalty. I spend most days talking to merchants, and making sure our customers get real results. If you run a Shopify store or Agency we should chat!
The story
The story behind RAW Nutrition
RAW Nutrition is said to have started as a complete accident. The founders had sworn they would never sell pre-workouts or protein powders, because they felt the market was overly saturated. Six years later, that very company is selling exactly those products, doing over $200 million a year, and has just launched nationwide across every Target store in the US.
It wasn't Dom Iacovone's first business. Dom had run a number of businesses before RAW, and in 2017 he and his co-founder, Matt Jansen, started a vitamin brand called Revive MD. It was relatively successful and customers absolutely loved the product. But the one thing they kept asking for was protein and pre-workout.
The problem was that the sports sector was already saturated, with tons of proteins and a number of brands that already had a hold on the market: Myprotein in the UK, Optimum Nutrition, and Ghost, which was coming up too. So the founders initially planned to avoid what they felt was a massively saturated market. But when they realised customers kept asking for these products, they decided to launch RAW Nutrition.
From 2019 to every Target in the US
The RAW Nutrition brand was born in 2019. It had its first official launch in 2020, and in 2021 Chris Bumstead became an official partner. From there the brand really started to ramp up, and in 2022 it secured its first retail partner, The Vitamin Shoppe.
In 2023 RAW launched BUM Energy, which is still one of its most popular products today. In 2024 it introduced its endurance line. From 2025 onwards it has launched in more retail stores and secured various high-profile partnerships, and in May 2026 it launched nationwide in Target stores across the whole of the United States.
That's massive growth for a brand over a relatively short time.
- 2017Revive MD founded
- 2019RAW Nutrition born
- 2020First official launch
- 2021Chris Bumstead becomes an official partner
- 2022First retail partner, The Vitamin Shoppe
- 2023BUM Energy launches
- 2024Endurance line
- Apr 2025The Quality Group acquires a majority stake
- 2025 onMore retailers and high-profile partnerships
- May 2026Nationwide in Target
How Dom built his first business
Most people only know Dom from his founder videos on YouTube. What many don't know is that he studied molecular biology. After graduating, he went on to earn a doctorate in chiropractic, so he would officially be referred to as a doctor for holding that degree.
One of Dom's first businesses to find real success was a hormone therapy clinic. The way he made it work was by turning it into a subscription business: rather than paying upfront, customers paid on a monthly plan.
Dom also says he was one of the first people in that industry to think ahead and start running Facebook ads in that sector of business.
The Chris Bumstead partnership
The key decision RAW made was that, rather than simply sponsoring Chris Bumstead and bringing him in as an athlete to promote the product, they made him an owner.
Chris and Dom already had a relationship, as Chris was already working with Revive MD while Dom was running it. Dom offered him a 25% stake in RAW Nutrition.
Dom has explained his reasoning on a podcast. He didn't want to build a brand around a single person whose contract could expire, leaving the brand to lose everyone who was following it for that one influencer. By making Chris one of the owners, he gave him a reason to stay beyond any contractual period, and made him heavily invested in the brand's growth.
While growing RAW Nutrition with Dom, Chris Bumstead went on to win six Mr. Olympia physique titles. Winning Mr. Olympia six times while growing a brand at the same time is a crazy achievement.
The plan
Dom seems to be the business mastermind who plans the execution, the strategy and the go-to-market. The initial plan looks like this: use Chris Bumstead's fame to bring the first customers in, then let RAW, as an extremely high-quality product, stand on its own and retain them. From there, the hope is that those customers refer their friends, talk about the product and spread the word about how good RAW Nutrition is as a brand.
Apparel as advertising
RAW also expanded into apparel, and Dom has said a single drop can make up to $1 million. One of the core reasons he expanded into apparel is that when people wear the clothing in the gym, outside or while filming content, it acts as an ad. The RAW Nutrition brand is being seen live, in the gym and out in the world, and people will look it up and wonder what it is.
You can be a walking advertisement for your own brand. And if you can encourage other people to wear your apparel, or carry a sports bottle, or use anything with your logo on it, that's free marketing and free impressions for your business.
Turning influencers into business partners
If you're launching your own ecommerce brand or running your own Shopify store, you probably can't replicate this model easily. You can't just find a Mr. Olympia and give them 25% of your company.
But you don't need to give away a quarter of your business. Instead of offering blind sponsorship deals, where you sponsor a couple of videos, you can bring top creators in with a percentage stake. Then they're not only motivated to advertise your business, they're motivated to grow it and to invest in the product line you're selling.
How to copy it
Look at your portfolio of creators, or identify a leading creator in your niche, and offer them a small stake in your company. It doesn't have to be 25%.
Growth without ads
How RAW grew without paid ads
One of the most interesting things about RAW Nutrition is that, at the very start, it didn't spend a single dollar on Meta ads. Dom said so himself when he spoke to Entrepreneur in November 2025: "We didn't spend a dollar on Facebook ads."
Instead, three things did the work: Chris Bumstead's existing audience, making videos people wanted to watch, and focusing on retail.
So rather than focusing only on the Shopify store and influencer marketing, RAW used the audience Chris Bumstead already had, made videos people would actually want to engage with, and focused on retail channels and retail partners, getting the product into physical stores across the United States.
Growth and revenue
In the first few months of 2020, when RAW first started, it was doing around $300k in revenue. In year two it grew massively, almost 25x, to $7 million.
In 2021 Chris Bumstead signed on, and shortly afterwards RAW was doing $2 million a month in online sales, which is around $24 million a year. That's extremely fast growth. Bringing Chris on, maybe even at the peak of his popularity, is really what exploded the brand in 2021 and into 2022.
In 2024, RAW was listed as one of the top 5,000 fastest growing companies. In 2026, it's doing over $200 million in reported revenue.
- 2020, first months$300kin revenue at the start
- Year two$7Malmost 25x
- After Bumstead, 2021$2Ma month online, around $24M a year
- 2026$200M+reported revenue
One of the most interesting factors in that success is that when Chris Bumstead was riding the peak of his popularity, winning his Mr. Olympia titles, his name was on the product and he was leading the brand.
Cutting the price of the pre-workout
One of the most interesting things Chris did when he first joined as co-owner was cut the price of the pre-workout. Brands almost never do this. When a product performs, they normally only raise prices. They very rarely cut the base price.
But because Chris had such a loyal following, he could get a lot of feedback very quickly, and the most common feedback he heard was that it was simply too expensive.
That kind of data and feedback from your customers is vital to your brand's success. With an audience as engaged as Chris Bumstead's, RAW could capture a ton of customer feedback very quickly. They could onboard lots of new customers, iterate on the feedback and constantly improve the brand.
How to copy it
Listen to what your customers are saying. You may not have a massive engaged following like Chris did, but you can reach out to the people buying from your brand and ask them: what's the reason you buy? What's holding you back from buying again? Collate their feedback, see which answers come up again and again, and those are the areas you need to optimise around.
Building a brand through content
With Chris Bumstead, RAW started making viral videos on the RAW Nutrition YouTube channel. They made very smart collaborations with other leading creators of the time, such as the NELK Boys. At one point they even bought a Cybertruck, when it was one of the hottest products on the market, and made a video around it.
You can see it across the videos: a training day with the NELK Boys, "We got a Cybertruck", a heavy push day with Matt Jansen, an Olympia weekend recap. They were making interesting videos about the things people wanted to watch.
These videos aren't structured as ads. They're not shoving RAW Nutrition down your throat to sell you a product. They're interesting, fun videos, made with other creators, on hot topics like the Cybertruck and Mr. Olympia, and RAW Nutrition is introduced naturally, advertised so subtly you barely realise it.
- A training day with the NELK Boys
- We got a Cybertruck
- A heavy push day with Matt Jansen
- An Olympia weekend recap
In 2024 they filmed a high-production, full-feature documentary following their journey building the RAW Nutrition brand. They were heavily invested in organic, natural content that brought you into the company without feeling like they were just trying to sell you another sports nutrition product.
How to copy it
Most brands start by buying ads and paying influencers to push a product. RAW's strategy was to make content people actually wanted to watch and engage with, like the feature documentary, so people are introduced to the brand naturally once they've bought into the story.
Retail first
Why retail became the growth engine
RAW doesn't publish how its online sales on the Shopify store compare with its sales in retail. But from podcasts, from the brand itself and from going through the RAW Nutrition store, it looks like most of its sales are done through retail.
The history of the brand backs that up. Most of the big steps RAW has taken since 2022 have been new retailers. It launched with The Vitamin Shoppe in 2022, then shortly afterwards with GNC, Walmart and Sam's Club. In 2026, just a few months ago, it launched in Target nationwide across the US.
Costco came in 2026 as well, with a special collaboration: a Costco-only, 18-can BUM Energy variety pack. RAW is in Circle K too. And one of its most interesting collaborations was with Gymshark: through Chris Bumstead's association with RAW Nutrition, they released a dedicated energy drink flavour.
RAW is clearly heavily focused on retail. In his own YouTube videos, Dom talks a lot about his deep connections with the leaders and executives at these retailers, and you can see him in frequent meetings with Target, Costco and 7-Eleven.
This is one of his clear key plays. He seems to be taking the brand away from traditional advertising that drives people to the Shopify store, and going almost all in on retail. RAW still has a Shopify store, and it seems to still drive traffic to it, but the focus is on retail.
If you're building a brand and you're not focused on retail, this could be a hint that it's an area you need to push harder on.
RAW's retail strategy
Dom's own podcasts and videos give three lessons on retail.
Wait until you're asked
RAW is able to wait until it's asked. It lets retailers come to it, and then it sets its own price. Not everyone can replicate this. RAW is in a fortunate position where it gets approached, but it shows how all that brand building has created something so valuable that retailers actually want to work with it.
Be careful with exclusives
Dom has said explicitly that exclusives can backfire. RAW once made a retailer-only product a little too fast, and it hurt margins and confused customers.
Not every store fits
A Walmart shopper is not the same as a Target shopper, so a product line that works in one store might not work in another.
Test in one store, then roll out
In his interview with Entrepreneur last November, Dom said The Vitamin Shoppe acts almost as RAW's test store. RAW launches a product there first, and in his words: "If something hits there, then we roll it out to Walmart or Costco." That has likely expanded to Target and many more retailers since.
So RAW runs a small test with one retail partner to see how a product sticks, and to see how consumers buy, before rolling the line out to all its retail partners. It doesn't want to burn its retail partnerships. It wants to keep them healthy, push only products that actually work, and have a good idea from the data of which products will work in which stores.
To analyse how something is performing in a retail store, Dom checks IRI and SPINS every single week. That gives him store sales data and consumer buying behaviour, so he has a ton of information to work with. In his interview and on his podcasts, he rarely talks about his Shopify dashboard. He always seems focused on retail data and how consumers buy in retail.
How to copy it
Before you launch your own retailer exclusive, ask yourself what it does to your margin, and whether it affects traffic to your own store. If you sell mainly through your own store and start launching retail exclusives, you might end up driving consumers away from buying direct and towards retail only. That's likely where customer confusion starts to creep in. If a customer can't find a product on your own store, you've pretty much handed that customer straight over to your retail partner.
The role of Shopify and the online store
With all of this, you might start to ask what the RAW Nutrition website is even for.
When most of a brand's growth comes from retail, you need your Shopify store to do all the things retail can't. That means capturing subscription purchases, and selling bundles that don't go together well on a retail shelf. You couldn't walk into a Target and buy a bundle of protein powder, a protein shaker and a pre-workout. It just doesn't work as well. On your own store you can sell bundles like that, and introduce customers to a wider range of the products in your collection.
It also lets you capture first-party data, like emails and phone numbers for SMS, so you can start to learn who your customer is and build dedicated remarketing campaigns around how they buy from your store.
If you run a loyalty program, you can also reward customers for uploading receipts from in-store purchases. It does two things. It connects you with buyers who only purchase in retail, and it rewards them immediately, which gives them a reason to buy from your online store directly. You get the data exchange, capturing first-party data and learning how your customer buys, and they get a small kickback through your rewards program. Everyone's a winner.
How to copy it
If you're going to invest heavily in retail, decide early what your Shopify store, or your ecommerce store, is actually for. It's probably best to focus it on subscriptions, bundles and exclusive drops before launching with wider retailers. And use it to capture all the customer data you can, so you know what your ICP looks like.
The founder as media
How Dom built his personal brand
One of the most interesting angles on RAW Nutrition is that Dom, the CEO, films his entire week and uploads the whole thing to YouTube. He's heavily invested in organic content and building a personal brand.
He has around 56,000 subscribers and around 1,000 videos on the channel, which is a lot of content, especially when some of it runs up to an hour. He posts weekly videos, and they can be 30 to 70 minutes long. That's a lot of content, and it can all be clipped into shorter pieces and distributed.
The titles are very founder-focused, and very focused on the business angle: "Week in the life of a 10 figure CEO", "Day in the life of a 10 figure CEO", "Running multiple businesses from a villa in Turks and Caicos" and "What got us to 300 million won't get us to 1 billion".
- Week in the life of a 10 figure CEO
- Day in the life of a 10 figure CEO
- Running multiple businesses from a villa in Turks and Caicos
- What got us to 300 million won't get us to 1 billion
Why it works
In a market where everyone is selling you something, customers don't buy a product just because it's cool. There are loads of cool products out there, and tons of choice in pre-workouts, energy drinks and protein powders. Consumers like to buy from a person. They invest in an individual, and that influences how they buy.
It works on retail too. Retail buyers and senior leaders in retail are likely watching these videos, seeing how the whole operation works, seeing their competitors sign deals with RAW Nutrition, and wanting the product on their own shelves. That's what drives retailers to approach RAW, rather than RAW having to go out and sell its product to them.
That's a key strategy if you're trying to get into retail. Most brands are trying to get into retail. It's very rare to flip it so that retail is trying to get your product on its shelves.
How to copy it
Start filming. Document the entire process and share your passion for the brand. If you've got a good product and you can show your passion, and the story of everything you're doing, buyers and senior executives at retail partners will want to stock your product, and they'll start approaching you.
Lunedi and the network
Dom, being the clever businessman he is, has also made these videos feed into something else he runs: Lunedi, his private members club for consumer brands doing over $5 million a year.
Members get one-to-one onboarding with Dom and monthly P&L reviews. They even get access to his entire private network: top buyers, 3PL, logistics and his agency contacts. That's something money can't really buy: exclusive access to an incredibly powerful network.
In all of Dom's videos, he talks about how strong his network is, and how he can contact any of the top executives at the largest retailers he works with. He's extremely well networked. So with Lunedi, people are drawn in not only by the wealth of knowledge he's built up over years of building RAW, but by the chance to buy into his contacts and the network he's built along the way.
The content is incredibly valuable, and building a private members club around it was the perfect play, because of the value it can attract into the club.
How to copy it
Dom has a big team to help him put out all this content. If you're trying a similar strategy for your brand, don't panic, and don't feel you need to put out vast amounts of highly produced content every week. Just try to film one real business decision you make each week. That could be a factory visit, a flavour test, or preparing to launch new packaging.
Anything you do, or any decision you make in your business, can be content you share on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram or TikTok. There are plenty of places to share it and take the early steps of building a heavily engaged audience.
Founders who are comfortable showing their work and the behind the scenes are the ones who get noticed. It's not just your brand logo that does the work. You, as a founder, have a great story to tell, and that can accelerate your brand faster than anything else.
Product, ads and offers
Product strategy
When RAW first started, it was focused on being a brand for bodybuilders. Now it's expanded much further. There's pre-workout. There's not just standard protein powder, but protein bars. There's creatine, as a powder and as gummies, and sports gels, which target HYROX athletes and runners. There's the bottle and the apparel line.
Further into the range there's cream of rice, pump, amino acids and ready-to-drink protein shakes. RAW has really expanded its offering and its product line. BUM Energy is still kept separate from the RAW Nutrition line, and there's also BUM Pouches, used as an energy supplement.
- Pre-workoutSour blood orange, with Sara Saffari
- Pre-workoutThavage
- Protein powderIsolate
- Protein bars12-pack
- CreatinePowder
- CreatineGummies
- BUM EnergyKept separate from the RAW line
- Pre-workoutThuper Thavage
Limited edition flavours
RAW also runs limited edition flavour launches. It partnered with bodybuilder Sam Sulek to launch a white cherry creatine monohydrate, and previously launched a sour blood orange pre-workout flavour with Sara Saffari.
With these exclusive launches, RAW expands its audience into each influencer's audience.
Subscriptions and the online store experience
Almost every product RAW pushes on its website is advertised as subscribe and save. It isn't going for one-time purchases, because the one-time offer is normally a terrible deal. Why would you spend $40 on a one-time purchase when you could subscribe and get 25% off every single order? RAW is clearly trying to encourage subscription upsells through its Shopify store.
Whenever you select a product on the site, subscribe and save is always the default option. You can see straight away that subscribing gets you the best offer.
A store that doesn't upsell
What surprised us is that, for a Shopify store, RAW's website really isn't very exciting. It feels dull and outdated. It doesn't pop, and it doesn't do a good job of upselling you on much else.
Switch to the one-time purchase and hit add to cart, and you get a strange little popup saying it's gone into the cart. Close that and open the actual cart, and you get the proper cart experience: you can clearly see what you're getting, with upsells on trending items. There's not a lot else there.
We think they could do a lot more to make the cart inviting. We'd add dedicated cart goals to increase AOV, like a free gift or a free bottle once you spend over $100. And rather than small upsells labelled "trending", we'd change the label to something like "pairs well with" or "popular this month with other customers". That feels more relatable than simply "trending".
And when you take the least favourable option for the brand, a one-time purchase, and add it to the cart, nothing incentivises you to switch to a subscription. Normally you'd want to surface something like "switch to a subscription and save X%", and sell the benefits, to capture that repeat purchase. Nothing happens in the cart, and that's definitely a change we'd make.
BUM Energy has no subscription
The BUM Energy product doesn't support subscribe and save. There might be a business reason for this, but we can't see why a brand so focused on selling subscriptions through Shopify, with a great opportunity to sell BUM Energy on subscription, doesn't offer it. We'd introduce it, to give consumers the option.
A new flavour, not a new product
On the same product line, RAW runs another dedicated influencer partnership, with Ella Langley, on a special peaches and honey flavour. RAW has done a great job of expanding its range through new flavours. Rather than introducing a whole new product, like an Ella Langley pre-workout, it takes a product that already works and introduces a new flavour with an influencer.
How to copy it
You don't need to launch a dedicated product for every influencer you work with. Take your hero product, the one that's already working, and introduce a variant in collaboration with your chosen influencer.
The rise of BUM Energy
BUM Energy was RAW's first energy drink, launched in 2023, and it started to move RAW away from being just a gym-focused brand. It initially launched only in gym and nutrition stores, but has since expanded into Circle K, Walmart, Target and more.
Most bodybuilding and gym-focused pre-workouts focus on energy: a heavy caffeine hit that gives you a burst of energy to get through your workout. BUM Energy is positioned differently: less caffeine and more focus, with zero sugar and low calories.
That keeps it relevant for someone in the nutrition and sports sector, who wants to drink it for a workout and knows RAW Nutrition from the fitness side. But it also lets RAW sell to office workers, and to people doing other things who want the focus from a smaller energy boost that doesn't hit as hard. RAW has even worked with influencers like a country singer and an NFL running back, to put the product in front of a different audience from the casual gym-goer.
22 flavours, one product
From everything we could find, BUM Energy has launched around 22 flavours on this one product.
With your own brand, you don't always need to introduce new products. Variants of a product, like flavours, colours or different types of the same hero product, can sell better and carry far less risk than launching lots of new products that might flop with your audience, cost you a ton of money and end up as dead stock.
What Dom has done is build a very powerful horizontal market around one hero product, expanding it with flavours rather than launching lots of new products that would just make the brand confusing.
How to copy it
If you want to reach a new audience, try a limited flavour launch with an influencer slightly outside your niche. RAW Nutrition used a country singer to sell an energy drink to people with no interest at all in bodybuilding.
Meta ads
At the start, RAW didn't spend a dollar on Facebook ads. That was a long time ago. Today, RAW Nutrition has run over 3,000 ads on Meta in total. We pulled a mix of its longest-running ads and some of its newest, and grouped them by what each ad is actually selling.
Always a deal, never a discount brand
Most of the longest-running ads are running some kind of deal or sale: a birthday kickoff ad at 20% off, stack up to 25% off sitewide, 20%, 40%. They're always trying to entice the customer with a deal.
A lot of these ads point to a specific page marked as today's deal. When we visited that page, there was no deal on it any more. So the deals are time-limited and run for a specific period. That's good, because RAW's customers won't see it as a discount brand that always has a deal on. The page is updated when a specific deal is running, and the ads are built around it.
Chris Bumstead and the mindset ads
The next group is ads built around Chris Bumstead himself. These work almost as motivational mindset and training videos, bringing Chris Bumstead's audience into the RAW Nutrition brand.
One ad shows "POV: how it feels to train with RAW Nutrition", with shots of different types of people using the product: a male bodybuilder, a runner, someone on the bench press, a female bodybuilder. The point is that RAW Nutrition products are for you, whoever you are. Runner, female or male, the product is for everyone.
"The truth"
"If you tell yourself the truth, and the truth is I'm not happy with where I'm at. The truth. The truth is I can do more. The truth is I can be in better shape. The truth is I can work harder than I'm working right now. The truth is I can do more for my family. The truth is I can do much better than I'm doing right now."
The RAW brand flashes up briefly, so you get an impression of the logo, and then the product is introduced and shown.
This kind of high-production, cinematic ad gets you bought into the brand and shows you who the product is for. It's motivational: you see the brand, and you see someone using it and training. Anyone going through the difficult stage of trying to achieve a goal, especially in bodybuilding, can relate to it. It builds an image of the brand that feels exciting, and makes you feel you can buy into the mindset that comes with the products.
- VideoPOV: how it feels to train with RAW Nutrition
- VideoThe truth
Creator ads
Then there are the creator ads, with influencers explaining how they use the product. It isn't just Chris Bumstead. There are videos of Chris explaining the products, but RAW uses a variety of influencers to talk about them too, to expand its market. It's not just a Mr. Olympia pushing the product. Women, men, different age groups and body types: all kinds of people advertise and use it.
The mocha protein ad
"This isn't your average protein, and it isn't your average coffee either. It tastes like mocha. It hits like your favourite latte, but it's an easy and clean 25 grams of protein and a great caffeine boost, made for mornings that don't slow down. Go to getrawnutrition.com. Buy it before it's gone. Love you guys. Stay caffeinated."
This is a great ad because it has nothing to do with bodybuilding. She's talking about your morning coffee, getting caffeinated, getting started for the day and hitting your protein. It's an amazing way to move away from the gym and the fitness angle, and reach people who aren't even thinking about the gym.
The Chris Bumstead pre-workout explainer
"Today I'm going to pick six of our top products and explain to you guys how to use them. I'm going to start with our Essential pre-workout line. This is our line that has citrulline, beta-alanine and tyrosine in all of its products. It's a cost-effective but also effectively dosed pre-workout."
This is a longer ad, and a good explainer that breaks down which product is best for you. RAW has different types of a similar product, and here it's advertising what looks like three different pre-workouts. The ad helps the consumer avoid confusion about which one they need, with Chris, the hero of the brand, breaking down how each one works. He specifically points out that one of the pre-workouts is great for endurance, not just workouts, so it targets runners and people doing other kinds of fitness.
It's a very good video, but likely to perform best as a retargeting ad, shown to people already familiar with the product line. Or to retarget existing buyers, introducing them to another product in the line they didn't realise fit their needs. Overall, a great explainer ad for the product line.
The isolate protein ad
"Here's a quick one for you guys on why I like to use the RAW isolate protein powders. First off, it's a very easy and convenient way for you to hit your protein goals when it's really busy. I also like the fact that they are very clean. They're easy on my stomach and they taste amazing. So it's a no-brainer at that point. Also, it's a little nicer than eating chicken and plain fish all the time. You get a little bit of substance and flavour with the different things like red velvet cake, pecan pie. There's a bunch of other flavours to choose from. I really enjoy them, and they make life so much easier to hit my protein goals, especially when it's high. Training gets hard and I want to recover. It's an easy, no-brainer, fast fix."
This plays into RAW's wider content angle. It's very low production, very relatable, very raw. He didn't even cut out the moments where he paused to think. It feels like a mix of educational content, covering when and how he takes the product, and why, and it overcomes objections like flavour: it's better than eating chicken over and over.
- VideoMocha protein
- VideoPre-workout explainer
- VideoIsolate protein
The $125K giveaway
One of the most unique ads, and a very clever marketing angle, was a massive giveaway: buy RAW's products for the chance to win a $125,000 truck.
"Picture pulling up to the gym"
"Picture pulling up to the gym in this $125,000 TRX. The entire RAW Nutrition site is 40% off for Black Friday. Every dollar you spend automatically gets you one entry to win a fully custom $125,000 TRX. Whether you're stocking up on Thavage pre-workout or finally trying that full stack you've been eyeing, every purchase gets you closer to driving home in this beast. Enter now and save 40% off by clicking below."
It's a great way to encourage customers to buy. Not only is there a sitewide deal at 40% off, but every dollar you spend gets you an entry into the giveaway. The brand drives a ton of sales, and at the end of it, it gets to reward one of its customers by giving away something massive, which is always a great feeling.
- $125,000fully custom TRX to win
- 40%off sitewide for Black Friday
- 1entry per dollar spent
The deal and what we'd change
The Quality Group acquisition
Dom has made clear that one of his goals is to keep building RAW, potentially into a billion-dollar brand.
In April 2025, The Quality Group acquired a majority stake in the RAW and BUM companies. It was an interesting acquisition, because it also made Dom and Chris Bumstead co-owners of The Quality Group. They didn't simply sell the company and wash their hands of it. They're still operating and building the business, and they became co-owners of The Quality Group itself.
It was a strategic move on Dom's part, because he specifically wanted a strategic partner. The Quality Group already had over €680 million in revenue in 2023, and likely much more now. The acquisition gave Dom an expansive network, and access to a wide range of experience and people who had already grown fitness brands to massive revenue.
He also said what came next after the acquisition was Target, Costco and a women's supplement brand, and eventually, in a perfect world, an IPO. Fast forward to today: Target has already happened, the BUM line is in Costco, and Dom has expanded into a range of different areas. The acquisition was clearly a very clever move.
The numbers
The latest figures we could find show The Quality Group doing over €850 million in just the first half of 2026, up almost 40% on the same period. That revenue is across all its brands: ESN and More Nutrition, which it already had, and now RAW and the BUM line. All of these brands sit under one corporate umbrella, but each operates completely independently of the others.
How the deal was structured
On a podcast, Dom said they sold around 55% of the company, then reinvested part of the rest into The Quality Group itself. That's how they came to own part of the parent company and become co-owners.
How to copy it
If you're going through an acquisition, or thinking about getting acquired, only take money from people who have already done what you're trying to do. Dom chose The Quality Group because it had already achieved the mission he set out to achieve, and it was only going to help him get there faster.
What we'd change about RAW's retention
Here's what we'd change to improve retention on RAW's online store. Some of these might help you too, if you're not already using these best practices on your Shopify store.
Put BUM Energy on subscribe and save
BUM Energy is one of the hero products people use most often, yet for some reason it's one of the products you simply can't subscribe to. If you could subscribe to a 12-pack every two weeks, with a discount big enough to make it attractive, some of RAW's retail fans would become direct customers too, buying straight from the brand with a repeatable, bulk supply of the product they love.
Turn giveaway entries into points
We'd keep the giveaway strategy, but change entries into points. That essentially makes the giveaway permanent. Rather than customers earning entries into a raffle with only one winner at the end, every customer earns points back on every purchase, which they can redeem for free products that push the brand forward.
We wouldn't offer the hero products that already sell well as free rewards. We'd use things like apparel that doesn't sell out as well, drinks, and bottles with the logo clearly visible: things that are low cost to produce, but advertise the brand whenever the customer uses them.
If customers can earn free sports bottles, water bottles or clothing, then when they go to the office, commute to work on the train, or train in the gym, the product is in front of everyone around them, 100% free. Giving away one bottle that might cost you $4 to produce could bring you a customer who goes on to spend hundreds of dollars with your brand.
Bring retail shoppers online
We'd add a QR code, or some other incentive, to drive retail customers to the online store, then use the loyalty program to retain them and keep them buying direct. They'd still buy in retail on the go, when they're doing their supermarket shop, or popping into a Circle K. But for repeat deliveries, and when they're at home scrolling at night and want to make a purchase, we'd introduce them to the online store and let them build up loyalty with the brand.
You could also introduce receipt scanning, so customers can upload their retail receipts and still earn points for those purchases through your online store. That also lets you collect first-party data on the customer, like their email and phone number, so you can remarket to them.
Give the cart a dedicated job
This is a huge opportunity. We'd add a free shipping bar at a certain spend, and maybe a free gift once a customer spends over a certain amount. And we'd absolutely encourage customers making one-time purchases to switch to subscribe and save. Don't just upsell the subscription on the PDP. If a customer adds a product to the cart as a one-time purchase, upsell them into the subscription in the cart, and surface the discount they'd get.
If you run a loyalty program, you can also show in the cart the points or store credit the customer will earn with this purchase, or how close they are to their next reward.
If you don't want free shipping based on cart spend, you can base it on lifetime value instead: give your highest spenders over a 12-month period faster, upgraded free shipping. Everyone loves receiving their order sooner, and upgraded shipping might not cost you much, but it can make a world of difference to that customer.
Remember, if your customers mainly buy from you in retail, they're mostly invisible to you. Bring them online, get them buying from your store, and capture their data, so you know exactly who is buying from your brand.
Four lessons you can apply to your brand
Whether you're just starting or already running a huge brand, here's what you can take away.
Give your key partner equity, not just a fee
This one is very situational. You can give your key partner equity instead of just an influencer fee or a sponsored post.
One of the reasons Dom built so much success with RAW is that the partnership with Chris Bumstead was never structured as just an ad campaign. Years on, Chris Bumstead is still heavily invested in pushing the brand and the story, driving it forward and having his input on where it goes, purely because Dom made the decision to bring him on as an official partner.
If there's a specific creator in your niche, or an influencer you think could take your brand to the next level, don't just put them on a contract. Offer them a percentage of the business, as an incentive not only to produce content that pushes your product, but to build a long-lasting relationship with you and be fully invested in the brand's growth and success.
Film how you run the business
Everyone makes the mistake of not doing this. In 2026 and beyond, we're in an attention economy, where attention matters more than ever and can make you a lot of money. If you're building a business or a product, you have a story to sell, and at the end of the day, people buy from people.
Film everything you do. Film your day to day. Every time you make a big decision, pull out your camera and record it. You don't need a camera crew, expensive equipment or a professional editor. You can do it all yourself, on a very low budget. Creators are making millions of dollars filming on their phones and editing the videos themselves.
The key is to get comfortable treating everything you do as a potential advertising campaign. Whatever you do in your day, even if it feels boring or menial to you, could be interesting to someone else. Start recording everything.
Treat apparel and accessories as advertising
If you have something like a drinks bottle, or clothing with your logo on it, get it to as many people as you can. Offer it as a free gift on purchases over a certain amount, or let customers redeem it with points as a free product if you run a points-based loyalty program.
Your goal is to get your logo and brand name in front of as many people as possible, in as many situations as possible. If your customers go to the office and put their drinks bottle down on the table, you have a chance to market your logo to everyone in that office. Everyone who walks past your customer on the way to work can see your logo. On the train or in the gym, if they're using your bottle or wearing your clothing, that's your logo out in the real world, seen by potentially tens of thousands of people over time.
Use these products as free gifts or rewards, but tie them to your AOV and your profitability, so you recoup what it costs to provide the product for free and ship it. You don't have to give it away at a loss. You can tie it to customer lifetime value or customer spend, or only give it once a cart passes a certain value. You don't have to give it away blindly.
Run subscribe and save on everything replenishable
If you're a subscription brand, run subscribe and save on any product customers would buy again. If you sell something replenishable, like vitamins or protein powder, default the PDP to subscribe and save, and make a clear offer, so subscribing is clearly more enticing than a one-time purchase. You want to incentivise as many subscription purchases as you possibly can.
You can get very clever with this, and offer further discounts based on quantity. Say you sell a protein powder. Make a three-month supply of three tubs on subscribe and save a more attractive purchase than one tub every four weeks. Think about ways to incentivise not only starting a subscription, but the quantity of items customers put on it.
- Entrepreneur, Nov 2025: interview with Dom Iacovone
- Dom Iacovone's YouTube channel and podcast interviews
- getrawnutrition.com (product pages, cart, today's deal page)
- Ad data: Meta Ad Library, RAW Nutrition page
