No road to entrepreneurship is the same, that’s why Pivot Capital is on a mission to talk with as many founders as possible and spotlight their different experiences, journeys, and perspectives in hopes to inform and inspire others. Allen Amun, Co-founder of Pivot Capital recently talked with Richard “Richie” Harrington, Founder and CEO of Adapt Brands in this episode of the Pivot Spotlight video series.
Watch the full interview here:
Being raised by two successful entrepreneurs, Richie had a front row seat watching how a legacy brand is built – but that didn’t mean he had a golden road laid for him, he’s been paving his own entrepreneurial journey brick by brick.
Upon moving away to attend college and play football at Oregon State University, Richie had a string of injuries end his athletic career. Having a terrible experience with opioids and seeing several of his athlete friends struggle with and even die from opioid addiction, Richie turned to hemp and cannabis products as an alternative to opioid medications given by his surgeons.
To him, and now Adapt Brands, hemp and cannabis is the original superfood and he was confident that he could help solve the opioid epidemic by creating a product athletes could use and was safe by using this powerful superfood.
But like many entrepreneurs, just as Richie invested in research and development, branding, packaging and started putting products in the market starting in January 2020, COVID-19 shut it all down. It felt like the ultimate blow, but that had quite the silver lining for Richie. He used this opportunity to rejoin the workforce and learn everything he could about the operations of the beverage industry making him even more equipped to lead Adapt Brands when it was time to re-engage.
About a year and half later, he was back to running Adapt Brands full time and with a stroke of luck there was an announcement waiting in his inbox that NSF would start certifying hemp products safe for sport. The company quickly jumped into action and is proud to announce that their hero product, Adapt SuperWater, is the first hemp beverage to earn NSF Certified for Sport® certification.
He credits much of his success to strong strategic and production partnerships sharing, “Reliability is one of the best abilities you can have.”
Be sure to check out Richie and Adapt Brands – we know they are just getting started!
Born and raised by two entrepreneurs in Santa Monica, CA, Richard “Richie” Harrington learned what it takes to run a business at a young age. Upon moving away to attend college and play football at Oregon State University, Richie had a string of injuries end his athletic career. Richie turned to hemp and cannabis products as an alternative to opioid medications given by his surgeons. In 2018, Richie met an experienced Superfood formulator who had been experimenting with cannabis and hemp products as a natural alternative to opioids and saw an opportunity with these new alternative superfoods which possessed functional traits such as pain and inflammation management, cognitive function support, a boost of energy, boost metabolism, and providing mental clarity. Adapt Brands was started to help combat synthetic beverages, supplements and opioids with natural, plant-based alternative products with real functional benefits, promoting a healthy way to live!
About Allen Amun, Cofounder of Pivot Capital: Allen Amun is a founding member of Pivot Capital LLC and is a Managing Director with the Firm. As an experienced and successful entrepreneur, Mr. Amun brings 25 years of experience in every aspect of business. He is highly experienced in business development, operations, and program/project management. He has successfully led multiple enterprise buyside & sell side acquisition integrations. He is experienced and successful at working with Fortune 20 companies in Banking, Healthcare, Telecom and Energy sectors.
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