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Michael Kirban’s formula for success is simple: Bring me some fierce competition, and challenge me to beat it.
Turning competitive threats into motivational fuel helped drive Kirban, 48, and his coconut water company Vita Coco from a brand-new startup in 2004 to an industry-leading giant with a market capitalization of $1.52 billion, as of Thursday morning.
“Bet against us, and we’re going to do everything we can to kick your ass,” Kirban, Vita Coco’s co-founder and executive chairman, tells CNBC Make It, describing himself as a “‘win at any cost’ type of person.”
“When I set out to do something, I want to do it, and I want it to be the best that it can be,” he says.
That mindset isn’t just casual advice from a successful entrepreneur. It’s baked into Vita Coco’s DNA after nearly 20 years of tussling with a near-identical direct competitor called Zico, in an Uber-and-Lyft-type story.
Here’s how to use your competition to your advantage, according to Kirban.
The coconut water wars
Zico and Vita Coco were both founded in New York in 2004. Kirban remembers the first time he heard about his rival “perfectly,” he says: Roller-blading around New York with Vita Coco samples on his back, he pulled into a GNC store. The store’s owner declined to buy, because he’d just bought coconut water “from the other guy,” a Zico salesperson.
That moment lit a fire under Kirban. “I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get to five more stores before this [Zico] guy gets to those,'” he says, adding: “It was instant. Lights clicked, and I knew it was going to be a competition.”
From the very beginning, the two brands engaged in a years-long “street fight,” marked by dirty tactics on both sides — from undercutting each other’s prices to literally pulling opposing products off store shelves and hiding them in a stockroom.
“It was the craziest thing,” says Kirban. (“We didn’t do anything very illegal,” he adds, somewhat jokingly.)
The rivalry intensified in 2009, when beverage behemoth Coca-Cola bought a 20% stake in Zico, giving it the support of a global business with billions of dollars in revenue. Four years later, Coca-Cola acquired Zico fully.
The deal sent Kirban into “shock,” he says. Then, his concerns gave way to a determination to battle his rivals, both old and new.
“Quite a few people” told him that Vita Coco was in trouble, which is the sort of statement that “puts a chip on your shoulder,” he says.
Benefits of being an underdog
An “underdog” mentality can be useful, research shows: Intense rivalries produce more motivated participants who boost their performance as a result, found a 2014 psychological study at New York University.
In Kirban’s case, he analyzed the Zico deal from Vita Coco’s perspective. The con: His competitor would benefit greatly from Coca-Cola’s massive distribution network. The pro: Zico could get lost within the corporation’s large umbrella of brands, if Coca-Cola poured more resources into its flagship products than a coconut water upstart.
Competing, then, meant finding a partner that could match Coca-Cola’s reach — but safeguarding Vita Coco’s equity. The company signed a distribution deal with Keurig Dr. Pepper in 2010, and when it raised money from a group of celebrity investors that year, Kirban and co-founder Ira Liran kept a majority stake.
Vita Coco went public in 2021, and currently commands nearly 50% of the U.S. coconut water market, according to the company’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Meanwhile, Kirban’s prediction about his competitor came true: Zico founder Mark Rampolla eventually expressed regret over the Coca-Cola partnership, and ultimately bought back his company in 2021.
Embrace the fight
One potential downside: Taken to extremes, rabid competition can inspire people to cut corners or behave unethically, studies show.
Kirban insists his coconut water wars never quite reached that level, downplaying the actions on both sides as harmless side effects of “real, old school competition.” (Zico didn’t immediately respond to Make It’s request for comment.)
But since entering a competition makes you run the risk of losing it, you can’t just engage with your opponents, says Kirban. You have to embrace the fight, and train yourself to thrive under the pressure it creates.
“If I think about every wall we’ve hit in this business, it’s always that that keeps me going,” Kirban says. “It’s like, ‘There’s no way I’m going to give up, and we’re going to prove everybody wrong.'”
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