Company Background
In 2006 H.A.R.D. Nutrition was acquired by Denver based DC Brands International, and the talents of Dr. Bob were paired up with the entrepreneurial vision of DC Brands CEO Richard Pearce and his team. Mr. Pearce has started several businesses from scratch and built them up and sold them ranging from the cash registers industry, to a successful software venture “featured in Success Magazine in August of 1995” where his garage start up grew into over 130 employees and received an evaluation from Equitable Securities of over $125,000,000 in less than three years. After making it through the Venture Capital world, Pearce later sold the vast part of his holdings and moved on inventing and developing, of all things, portable snow melting mats, and from of all places Saint Petersburg Florida. After each successful venture Pearce reinvested his earnings to start a newer bigger venture.
In 2002 Mr. Pearce had gone into the energy drink business which gave him his 1st glimpse into the beverage industry. As an avid health enthusiast nutrition is at the core of his life style, as his energy drink business started to grow Mr. Pearce found himself in a business he did not personally believe in.
Pearce has often said “ I found myself selling products I would not take and would not let my own children take, “ I have to believe in what I am doing with every fiber of my being, I have to be passionate about it or I can’t make it successful and I believe in H.A.R.D. Nutrition.”
Having broken his back in a Motocross race almost 18 years ago and undergoing two separate back surgeries Mr. Pearce was told that he would never be able to ride his motorcycle or ski again. Refusing to believe the doctors over the next 15 years or so, Mr. Pearce sought out ever type of possible treatment known to mankind while enduring constant pain in his back and legs. Staying as active as he could, the injury took its toll and at age 44 the 6’2 Pearce found himself ballooned up to 268 pounds and approaching 43% body fat and he was just miserable.
In 2004, determined to do something about his physical health Pearce joined a local gym, and in a chance encounter at the gym with a former pro football player, Pearce learned for the first time about Dr. Bob and what was then known as Health Advantage. Although he was highly skeptical at the time due to many years of unfulfilled promises from doctors, Mr. Pearce reluctantly agreed to meet with Dr. Bob to try one more time to find relief.
Dr. Bob told Mr. Pearce, this is not an overnight cure, these are not prescriptions, this is a lifestyle change we are talking about. Dr. Bob explained another of his core beliefs being that supplements are called supplements for a reason; a good diet is essential to good health. With a strict diet, specific instructions, and supplements for joint repair (among others) Pearce stuck to the routine and in less than a month, the relentless pain was gone! Not diminished, not controlled, gone! Over the next year, Mr. Pearce became more active in the gym and started feeling like his old self again, and today still enjoys all of his favorite activities including motocross and skiing.
To make a long story short, although it sounds like a cliché, based on his own personal experiences with the products, Pearce believed so wholeheartedly in the products and Dr. Bob that he bought the company.
Once Pearce bought the company he decided to mix the supplements with hydration to make is easier for the consumer to understand. People tend to walk around dehydrated most of their lives which is bad enough, but if you commit to a supplementation routine and swallow 4-6-8 pills and capsules at a time with just a quick gulp of water you have compounded the problem many fold. Now you have a knot of pills in your stomach with nothing but stomach acid to dissolve it. This is directly where the unpleasant experiences some people report from vitamins and supplements come from. If you do that you may feel nauseas, have a runny stomach, a feeling of cold sweets etc. It is like putting three drops of water on an Alka-Seltzer and expecting it to dissolve. After buying the company Pearce became like a sponge wanting to learn all he could from Dr. Bob but looking at each product as a practical application and the best way to bring it to market.
Over the next two years the company worked diligently not only developing and perfecting and ultimately patenting their new “Magic Cap” system but also the combinations of products that should go inside the caps for each specific purpose. As with any R&D process much was learned along the way and once the caps were perfected far more learning lay ahead in perfecting the manufacturing process of putting temperature sensitive vitamins, herbs and supplements through a pasteurization bottling process which has also now been perfected.
Today, H.A.R.D. Nutrition enjoys a great following and the world’s only “Functional Water System” and is poised to roll their products out into retail.