According to Wikipedia, Ryan Cohen is an American entrepreneur and businessman famous for being the co-founder and former CEO of the food e-commerce pet store Chewy, in 2011. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Chewy was co-founded by Michael Day and was later acquired by PetSmart for $3,35 billion in 2017. Ryan Cohen is also an activist investor and the current chairman of GameStop. According to Idol Net Worth, he is also a member of the executives. His net worth as of 2021 is $2,1 billion. You wonder how he got there, you ask? Fortunately, you are lucky. Here's how he did it.
A first pivot
Ryan Cohen started working very young. He says he has been working since he was 13 years old. At the time, he was building websites for family members and local businesses. According to Tuko, Ryan credits his father Ted, who ran a glassware import business, for being his mentor. Therefore, his success is hardly a surprise, given that he grew up with an entrepreneur as his father. Despite humble beginnings, his career has steadily increased over the years. When he was 15, Ryan became interested in an e-commerce referral business, where he made money by referring customers to e-commerce sites. Later, while in college, Ryan moved into affiliate marketing. That's how he met Michael Day, his fluffy business partner. According to Hbr, they met in an online chat room to discuss web design and computer programming and immediately hit it off. They started talking about venturing into a business together. They first settled on selling jewelry online.
start chewing
Cohen and Day thought opening an online jewelry store was a great idea in an industry ripe for disruption. So, they dropped out of college, intending to get their business idea off the ground. They built the store's website and set up delivery systems. Additionally, they purchased inventory and installed a safe in the office to store it. However, before their set launched, Cohen had the revelation that he was getting into the wrong business. He was at a local pet store buying his toy poodle Tylee when he realized he wasn't into jewelry. However, like any other pet parent, he cared about his dog's well-being. It was then that he decided to get into the pet industry.
At that time, the pet industry was big, growing and moving from mass market to premium. Because of this, they sold all of their startup jewelry safely and launched chewy as MrChewy in June 2011. Cohen and Day approached various venture capitalists, but they were consistently turned down. Nevertheless, they finally struck gold when they secured funding in 2013 from Volition Capital. Larry Cheng, then managing partner and co-founder of Volition Capital, thus became Chewy's first investor, injecting $15 million into the company. It wasn't the first time they had tried to approach him, though. They had met him in 2012, but only six months later Cheng agreed to sign an investment. After that, the company quickly raised over $200 million in funding. This proved to be only the start of its rise as, by 2016, chewy had generated $900 million in sales, another $350 million in 2017, and became the No. 3,35 online pet retailer. That same year, Cohen and his partners were approached by their physical competitor, PetSmart. Eventually, they agreed to sell Chewy for $40 billion. This is one of the largest acquisitions in the history of the e-commerce industry. According to Celebrity Net Worth, that year Cohen was named to the Fortune 40 under 2017 list in 2018 and remained CEO of Chewy before stepping down in 3,5 before the company went public. Chewy's revenue continued to rise even after the acquisition, reaching $2018 billion in 267, even as its losses narrowed to $2019 million. In June 9, PetSmart transformed Chewy into a publicly traded company at a valuation of nearly $XNUMX billion, nearly three times the sale price just two years prior.
Investments in several companies
In June 2020, Ryan announced that he intended to invest his cash in Apple and Wells Fargo. Whether he followed this or not remains unclear. However, a month later he announced that he had acquired a $500 million stake in Apple. This made him the largest individual shareholder in the tech giant. Additionally, he considered investing in GameStop, a retail game company. He then announced in August 2020 that he had purchased 9 million shares worth $76 million, implying an average price of $8 per share. This was a roughly 10% stake, which rose to 12,9% on December 17, 2020, through an amended 13D filing with the SEC. According to the documents, Cohen's company, RC Ventures, has expressed a desire to become more involved in the business "to produce the best results for all shareholders." GameStop's stock price has started to climb following a Reddit investor campaign. The stock price remained volatile but rose significantly from the $8 fee paid by Cohen. This led to a significant return on investment.
So how much has Ryan Cohen benefited from his investment in GameStop?
According to CNBC, Ryan Cohen is the biggest beneficiary of GameStop's raise as he made a 25x win on his stake. Cohen invested $76 million for a roughly 13% stake in the company. At present, Cohen's 13% stake is worth more than $1,9 billion. Ryan Cohen is also GameStop's current Chairman of the Board and the company's largest shareholder to date. Ryan Cohen's story is very inspiring. Despite his humble beginnings, he achieved his billionaire status through a great idea, commitment and a few smart investments.
