Meet Lebanese entrepreneur Peter Rahal who co-founded protein-bar company RXBar with his colleague Jared Smith for only $10,000, and sold it for $600 million to Kellogg’s 4 years later.
RXBar is well-known for its minimalist packaging. The company was founded in 2013, according to “The Improbable Success of RXBar’s Peter Rahal” by O’Connor Rod (2017).
Peter Rahal and Jared Smith made the first RXBar in the basement of Rahal’s parents in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Rahal read that it only takes $10,000 to start a nutrition-bar business and both he and Smith invested $5,000 each to start up the company, Chicago Bar Co.
By 2017, the company was employing 75 people.
In October 2017, following their success, the major food corporation Kellogg’s bought their company for $600 million.
Peter Rahal is not just any entrepreneur. He was diagnosed with dyslexia before attending high school. However, he shared that, although he faced some hardships, there were advantages to this diagnosis.
“One is tremendous self-awareness, and then two, the actual cognitive benefit of the way dyslexics process information,” shared Rahal.
Rahal attended Wittenberg University in Ohio, where he obtained a bachelor’s in political science and government.
In 2018, he founded Litani Ventures — “a consumer investment company for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs.”
