Invest in Battle Tested®

Before I ever started Battle Tested as a brand... friends, family and strangers who had tried our homemade barbecue sauce, told me for me decades that I should be selling my sauce in stores.

The idea never left my head... and I finally decided to put that idea in motion realizing the impact my family recipe could have on the public and especially the veteran community.



Since rolling out in 2019, we've been battle tested (pun intended) by some of the largest retailers in the country already and have been selling out in their stores. In fact, Food Lion just increased their order and added the 3rd of our 4 sauces.

I was as shocked as anyone seeing the speed in which our initial success happened right out of the gate, and I attribute it to our focus on using high quality & all natural ingredients over artificial ingredients and chemical flavoring to drive down production costs... which we will never do.

There are 1,000's and 1,000'sof BBQ sauce labels on the market, but I believe the above is why we're winning (even at a higher retail price point) with consumers who have never had the brand before. It's what they consistently tell us.

I'm continually humbled by the people and organizations who reach out to us to help scale our brand, such as FOX & friends.

And awards...? Yup, we've got those too!

We've won several 1st place awards, including North Carolina's Specialty Foods Association 2022 Barbecue Sauce of the Year. We were also selected as the sauce of promotion by Tops Friendly Markets, Presenting Sponsor at "The Taste of Syracuse" in Upstate New York (a 200k+ person festival). My van was LOADED with sauce (a pallet of 125 cases) plus, all our show equipment, suitcases and various other things my wife thought I should bring (always be mindful when you ask, ("Honey, do you need me to bring anything?"). The van was packed so full, I don't think I could have slid in an additional piece of paper! I wasn't sure about making the 1,000 mile trip, but made it we did (me and our rescued 3 year old Jack Russell Terrier, Sami) and we sold out at the festival! Hey, people ask... and I deliver.

Yea, let's talk about a couple of areas where we've come up short. Anyone who says they haven't had any failures in business, hasn't been in business. Our biggest challenge is that we've been approached and had to reject orders worth $100k+

Why?

We didn't have funding to fulfill them.

That's why we're raising capital and that's one part of where you come in. 

We're already in large retailers and have onboarded CPG rockstar Catherine Vieira who has helped land & scale brands in even larger retailers, worth millions of dollars.

I got connected to Catherine Vieira through a former top executive at Frito-Lay, General Mills and Colgate-Palmolive, Frank Pollack, who said to me, "If you want someone who knows the ins and outs of the food business, has the connections to get your products in stores and grow your company, you need to talk with Catherine Vieira. So I reached out and we talked back and forth for a couple of months until we were both comfortable to move forward. Catherine had been approached and rejected several other sauces who wanted to work with her. After telling her our story she loved the quality of the sauce and mission behind it. Her husband Chris, a US Army combat Vet, was on board as well!

Catherine has direct customer management contacts with all US national retailers including Walmart, Target, Publix, Kroger, Ahold, 7-Eleven, CVS, Walgreens, Costco, BJ’s Wholesale, Whole Foods, Dollar General and many others.

• Pepsico Top Sales Person 1998, 2000 and 2002

•Winner of Target Vendor of the Year in 2006

•Awarded “Best in Shopper Marketing” by Path to Purchase Institute in 2012

•Successfully brought start up brand from $4 million to $40 million in 3 years

•Successfully brought start up brand from $0 to $3 million in 18 months

With funding, our goal is to scale from 1,000 to 10,000 stores in the next 24 months.

But it doesn't stop with just big box retail. We have direct to consumer options right on our website and are currently working on Amazon.

BBQ influencers aficionados like Matt Groark, who was featured on FOX's Next Level Chef starring Gordon Ramsay said, "Mike, I want to join your team."

Why?

He had never seen a brand scale as quickly as Battle Tested®, especially on a bootstrapped budget... he's a huge supporter of our our veteran mission to help prevent veteran suicide and working with not for profits who help veteran with PTSD and, he absolutely loves our sauce. This is no "pay to play per sale actor" though, he's a Battle Tested® equity holder, in this for the long term, bust or successful exit of Battle Tested, just like the majority of our team.

Matt has scaled his audience following to over 5.5 million followers across his social media channels, because of his love for grilling, smoking meat and BBQ. True to his handle name @groarkboysbbq, he's simply a father, with a passion to share the joys of trying new things with BBQ with his family, friends, and others. Check out Matt's 2 min video below on why he partnered with Battle Tested®.

We have others who we're in discussions with.

This takes time. We don't have influencers join the team because of their influence, size of audience, etc.. That's important obviously, but focusing only on that aspect would be opposite of our company values.

It's about alignment around vision, mission, values, personality and culture. Influencers joining our team, are TEAM MEMBERS 1st.

You have influence and are more powerful than you know. Here's the 2nd part of where you come in as an investor / ambassador.

• Do you enjoy grilling with others?

Yes!? Great.

• Try our sauce if you haven't already. It's in Food Lion, Lowe's Foods, select Harris Teeter locations on the local section and at Tops Friendly Markets or you can order Battle Tested on our website at battletestedbbq.com
• If you don't absolutely love our sauce. Stop. Please DO NOT invest.
• If you absolutely love our sauce and want to share it with others, here's my ask for you to help build the Battle Tested® brand.
• Use the Promo Code: WeFunder on your 4 pack order and save 15%

Steps to Build Battle Tested Together

• If you think we have a shot at building a scaling brand, consider investing
• Grill with buddies
• Post to social

That's it!

Grilling / sharing the sauce with others is how the company has grown to date and how the recipe made it through the years since the 1930's. Now I'm opening that opportunity + the ability to be at the table as an investor.

Note: We're still an early stage company with limited cash, small team, and many knowns and unknown hurdles to get over to a successful exit. Never invest more than you can afford to lose. While we believe in our brand, if Battle Tested fails as a company, we'd never want that (loss of your investment) to ruin your passion for the sauce or brand.

Sure, I could have said, let's build a $1 Billion brand... but stepping stones people...stepping stones. LOL!

Building a successful exit has a long road ahead, but just like we've scaled to 1,000 stores via blood, sweat, tears, and a ton of determination, the way we get there is with community.

• Community got me into the business
• Community has helped land 1000's of customers, 1000's of storefronts, national media recognition, and a kicka$$ team of raving ambassadors
• Community (existing and YOU) joining our team is our opportunity to get to the next level together

Our exit goal is to join the ranks of other $100m+ & $1bn+ veteran-owned and branded companies.

Will we get there? That depends on numerous factors, but the #1 factor in all of our control is grilling with others and telling others about the sauce.

Ideas are cheap.

Execution is key to a successful exit.

Veterans like myself are trained to be battle tested (there's that pun again!) in the field of battle. Failure in the field has devastating ramifications.

I've taken the same mentality to building Battle Tested®. My aim is to create a brand with multiple products that joins the ranks of other successful veteran owned companies. If we do, we'll create a scaling impact through our mission + values-led company.

How do we plan to deploy funds for growth?

• There's costs in ramping up our brand presence online which also helps drive retail store orders. Having a team to support our investor-ambassador efforts is key. We don't plan to spend very much (if any) money on ad-spend. We'll spend it supporting our community of ambassadors to amplify their efforts.
• There's upfront costs in hitting the street and working the channels (e.g. like NASCAR) which help sell into big box retailers. Part of our funding includes onboarding a 30yr experienced CPG veteran to target WalMart, Winn Dixie, Publix, Costco and more.
• Scale production to support the entry to 10,000 retail stores. We have to produce sauces ahead of the sale so we don't have to reject large ($100k+) orders. Our sauces have a 2 year shelf life, so even if we don't land every potential big order, we plan to sell inventory (in time) direct to consumer.

Thank you. I'd be honored to have you part of our team as an investor-ambassador. In whichever direction you join us, I appreciate you. You have influence. Go use it for good.

Here's a bit about how we use Battle Tested's influence for good

I touched briefly on our history above, but here's more of the story. You can also find more about it via the video on https://battletestedbbq.com

I wouldn't be doing this if I had a different opportunity which could have the same potential scaling impact.

By growing a solid profitable company, we'll have a scaling impact on military veterans and their families in ways that I can't even imagine yet.

We already giving away a percentage of our sales (not profits) as we grow. Sure do we need the cash to grow. Yes, but every little bit counts in the life of another so I've taken the stance that we have to start give-back from the beginning even if it's small to start.

Our attorneys told us to include the following. Seriously, don't invest if you're not willing to potentially lose the cash. Invest if you're willing to take on the risk for the potential rewards that go with that risk. Is failure an option? We'd like to think no, but with any business it's always a possibility.