How Ridge, Grüns and Bloom scaled: three different playbooks
Most brands that stall try to fix it with more ad spend. The brands that broke through did something more specific. Ridge kept selling to the same customer and gave them more to buy. Grüns kept one product and found hundreds of reasons to buy it. Bloom found a customer the whole market ignored, and built everything around her. Here is how each one worked, and how to tell which one fits your brand.
Three brands, three levers
All three brands grew into nine figures and more. None of them did it the same way. The difference is the lever they pulled when growth from their first product and first customer slowed down.
Three ways to find the next customer
One lever each, pulled hard.
One customer, many things to buy. A wallet is bought every few years, so the growth came from what else that customer carries.
Lever: lifetime valueOne product, many reasons to buy it. Hundreds of ads, each speaking to a different person with a different problem.
Lever: reach at a stable CACA crowded category, one customer nobody served well. Then new products and trends for that same person.
Lever: a market of its ownRidge: more products for the same customer
Ridge started with one product, a minimalist metal wallet, launched on Kickstarter in 2014. The wallet did very well: by 2021 the company said it had reached about 1% of the global wallet market. Then it hit a problem every durable-goods brand hits. A wallet lasts. Its CEO has said customers buy a new one roughly once every seven years.
Ridge: from one wallet to an everyday-carry brand
Same customer, more to buy.
So Ridge stopped asking “how do we find more wallet buyers?” and started asking “what else does our wallet buyer carry?” Over the next years it added phone cases, key cases, rings, luggage and backpacks. By 2024, the company said its ring and travel lines were each 8-figure businesses, and it expected wallets to drop below half of revenue.
Why more products beat more wallet buyers
The math behind product expansion.
A wallet lasts years. A customer buys roughly once every seven years.
Rings, cases, bags, luggage. Something new to buy every few months.
Higher lifetime value, so the brand can pay more for the first order than competitors can.
What made it work: every new product fits the same person and the same promise (slim, durable, well made). A Ridge customer who liked the wallet doesn’t need to be convinced again; the brand has already earned the trust. That lowers the cost of every sale after the first.
When this fits your brand: customers rarely reorder, your hero product has built real trust, and there are obvious neighbor products the same person buys. Most apparel, footwear and accessories brands are in this position without using it.
Grüns: more angles and avatars for one product
Grüns launched in 2023 with one idea: daily greens nutrition as a gummy, in single-serve packs, instead of a powder or a pill. It entered retail in December 2024 (Sprouts, then Target and Walmart in 2025) and in April 2026 agreed to be acquired by Unilever for a reported $1.2 billion, less than three years after launch.
The product line stayed narrow for a long time. The growth came from the ads. Grüns reportedly runs well over a thousand ads at any time, many of them made by a large network of small creators, and each ad speaks to a specific person with a specific reason to buy.
One product, many reasons to buy
Real Grüns ad headlines, sorted by the person they speak to.
The avatar: a parent whose child refuses anything healthy. The angle: it tastes like a treat.
The avatar: a parent who knows the diet has gaps. The angle: one pack fills them.
The objection, said out loud in the headline, then answered with an offer.
For the reader who studies labels. The mechanism is the whole ad.
For the person who needs proof that others went first.
A kids’ line themed around a famous animated franchise. Attention first, then the product.
The format itself is an angle: greens for people who never finish a tub of powder.
New products later followed the avatars the ads had already found.
Look at the headlines together and a pattern shows up. A parent fighting a picky eater, a label reader who cares about the form of folate, a skeptic who wants proof, a price doubter who is answered head-on. Same product, a different avatar and angle in every ad. On Meta today, that is what lets a brand spend more without the cost per customer climbing: each new angle reaches people the last one didn’t.
Notice also what came after the ads: kids’ gummies, immunity, energy. The new products followed the avatars the ads had already proven, which is the Ridge lever arriving later.
When this fits your brand: one product with broad appeal and many different reasons to buy it, and the creative capacity to test new angles every week. The process for finding those angles is in our avatar and angle tutorial; ready-made openings are in the ad hooks library.
Bloom: one underserved avatar in a crowded market
Supplements were one of the most crowded categories online, and most of them were built for the same person: a man in the gym, with dark tubs and aggressive branding. Bloom started with a pre-workout for women, then moved into greens and everyday wellness in 2020, still for the same woman. That customer existed in huge numbers and almost nobody spoke to her.
Bloom: new products, same woman
The products followed the trends. The avatar never changed.
From there, Bloom followed what its customer was already doing. Greens powders were rising, so greens became the hero. Energy drinks were booming, so in 2024 it launched a canned sparkling energy drink with a major energy-drink maker, and it sold more than 35 million cans in its first year, largely through retail stores. The formats changed; the woman they were made for didn’t.
What made it work: Bloom didn’t try to beat the category leaders on their terms. It changed who the category was for. That is a blue ocean: instead of fighting for the same customers as everyone else, it served a customer the market was ignoring, which made its ads cheaper and its word of mouth stronger. We cover how to find one in our blue ocean strategy guide.
When this fits your brand: your category is crowded, the leaders all look and talk the same, and there is a clear group of buyers they serve badly. Then one avatar, served better than anyone else does, beats a broad message.
Which playbook fits your brand?
| If this is true for you | Start with | Like |
|---|---|---|
| Customers love the product but rarely reorder | More products for the same customer | Ridge |
| One product, many different reasons people buy it | More angles and avatars in the ads | Grüns |
| Crowded category where every brand looks the same | One underserved avatar | Bloom |
| Ads work, but costs rise when you spend more | More angles before more budget | Grüns |
| High ad costs and a low order value | Bundles and a second product first | Ridge |
In practice the three levers stack. Grüns added products once its avatars were proven. Bloom kept one avatar and kept adding products for her. Ridge tests new angles for every product it launches. The order matters more than the choice: pick the lever that matches where your growth is stuck, go deep on it, then add the next one.
What a $1M–$30M brand can take from this
- Before adding budget, add reasons to buy. Ten angles for ten different people will usually outperform one ad at ten times the spend.
- Before adding customers, add orders. A second product, a bundle or a refill raises what each customer is worth, and what you can afford to pay for the next one. Our AOV offer library has 22 ways to do it.
- Before copying the leader, look for who the leader ignores. The cheapest customers to win are the ones nobody is talking to.
- Keep the page congruent with the ad. A new avatar needs its own landing page. Sending a parent’s ad to a generic product page throws away the angle.
Sources
Modern Retail, “We’ve never touted a DTC flag” (Ridge, March 2024); Shopify blog on Ridge’s growth; Wikipedia entries for Grüns and Bloom Sparkling Energy; BeautyMatter on Bloom’s retail expansion; Food Dive on Bloom’s energy drink partnership; Meta Ad Library (Grüns, US, September 2026). Figures described as reported come from company statements or press and were not independently verified.
The short version
- Ridge scaled by selling more products to the same customer, because a wallet is only bought every few years.
- Grüns scaled one product line with hundreds of ads, each aimed at a different avatar and reason to buy.
- Bloom won a crowded market by serving one customer the category ignored, then following trends for her.
- Pick the lever that matches where your growth is stuck: lifetime value, reach, or a market of your own.
- Every new angle or avatar needs its own congruent landing page, or the ad’s work is wasted.
FAQ
How did Ridge grow beyond wallets?
Ridge added products for the same customer: phone cases, key cases, rings, luggage and backpacks. Because a wallet is bought only every few years, new products raised lifetime value and let the brand sell to people who already trusted it. By 2024 its ring and travel lines were each 8-figure businesses.
What is Grüns’ marketing strategy?
Grüns kept a narrow product line and scaled through ads: reportedly more than a thousand live ads, many made by small creators, each speaking to a specific avatar such as parents of picky eaters, label readers or price doubters. New product lines later followed the avatars the ads had proven.
How did Bloom Nutrition stand out in a crowded supplement market?
By serving one underserved customer. Most supplement brands were built for men; Bloom built for women, first with pre-workout, then greens, then a sparkling energy drink that sold more than 35 million cans in its first year, mostly in retail.
Should a DTC brand add products or add ad angles first?
Add angles first if one product has many reasons to buy and ad costs rise as you spend more. Add products first if customers rarely reorder and trust the brand. In a crowded category, start by choosing one underserved avatar.
What is an underserved avatar?
A group of buyers that exists in large numbers but that the leading brands in a category don’t speak to well, like women in a supplement market built for men. Serving them better than anyone else is one of the fastest ways to lower acquisition costs.