Freshly Picked

Ethan Moore

I joined Susan Petersen, the founder of Freshly Picked, in 2015 as the COO. The brand had taken off led by Susan’s organic social prowess and was just getting traction in premier wholesale partners. Through several years of trial and error, we grew the business to an “investable/acquirable” size.

Susan and I aligned on what the must-haves were for an exit, and with her blessing, I began to approach potential acquirers and field inbound interest. In preparing to pitch the business, we built a growth model forecasting our revenue and profit, as well as a presentation that outlined the key opportunities and drivers in the business.

I must have done calls with 30+ investment groups, and Susan and I together probably met with 15 of them. We narrowed the interested list down over the matter of 2-3 months, then focused in on one partner that was most likely to meet our needs.

After that partner delivered us an LOI to invest in Freshly Picked, the due diligence process took several months - negotiating terms, reviewing books, checking operations and more. All of this had to be done while preparing to launch The Diaper Bag, managing a growing team of employees, and filing annual taxes. The workload was immense but we made it to the signing date and celebrated the incredible outcome with the team.

Susan and I remained involved with Freshly Picked ongoing as the new partner began to support growth plans into the future. I learned so much through the process, including the volume of time required to run this process correctly, that I can’t wait to bring to other founders and their brands.