Local entrepreneur discusses founding Canadian Protein and acquiring BioSteel
When Dan Crosby dropped out of college, he watched on as his friends all seemed to be thriving, striving towards their various careers. He took on a variety of odd jobs, trying to find his way in the Windsor-Essex economic ecosystem—or at least find footing in it. Little did he know, years later, he would be operating a super-successful health supplement service and be the proud owner of Canada’s premier sports drink line.
As a child, Crosby attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic School in South Windsor, later moving onto Villanova in LaSalle. He grew up with an interest in design and becoming an engineer or architect.
“I always liked designing things, but that didn’t work out,” recalls Crosby. “I bounced around to multiple programs and finally dropped out. All of my friends were graduating in their early 20’s with great careers lined up, and here I was, a dropout without a career or education.”
Crosby took on a variety of part-time jobs— a stock boy at Zehrs, a downtown bouncer, temporary part-time at General Motors, and working as a personal trainer—and started saving money. As he learned how to embrace the hustle, he found that there was another interest of his that he had never explored.
“I was very interested in fitness and nutrition, so I opened a small store on Dougall Ave.,” he says. “It did very well, but I was making all of the products myself, so I would work at the store during the day and then make all of the products for the next day at night. We’re talking a minimum 16 to 20-hour days.”
Finding his niche, Crosby developed his business savvy. He realized that his brick-and-mortar business was good, but success would more likely be found in an e-commerce business. “I dove in with both feet,” he states. “I built the website and did all of the graphics myself, learning how to code and use Photoshop myself.”
Around 2007, the owner of the plaza he was operating his business at, was selling a portfolio of properties. Being at the height of recession, properties were severely devalued. Crosby was able to take all the money he had saved up over the past couple years, about $180,000, and purchase 15 condos in the Le Goyeau building.
“Everyone told me not to do it, but my position was: how could it get any worse when I was buying condos so cheaply?” he explains. “Simultaneously, I took the time used to operate the store, which I sold, and used that time to renovate multiple units myself, literally watching YouTube videos on renovations, and managed to increase the value, then pulled out equity and purchased my first blender to start blending more protein to meet the demand.”
Crosby says that around that time, he realized the importance of organic SEO and discovered an online trend of people searching for “Canadian Protein”, so he purchased the domain name and registered it as his brand.
As people Googled for domestic protein sources, Crosby’s business grew exponentially due to Google’s algorithms and Canadian Protein’s solid product line.
“Since then, Canadian Protein has seen significant growth over the years, even earning contracts with Costco Canada,” explains Crosby. “The way we grew the brand was never wavering from offering the best quality products for the best value. We always want our customers to feel like when they buy and use our products, they feel like they’ve gotten a great deal, not because it’s cheap, but because it’s great value for the quality.”
Canadian Protein, a business that Crosby has poured his soul into, has given him everything he could ever dream of. However, in the summer of 2023, an opportunity would fall into his lap that he would have never expected and could hardly believe.
BioSteel had made a name for itself as a big-time sports drink and supplement brand and a brand most professional athletes use on a regular basis. Spending hand-over-fist to get their name out, sponsoring everything they could, BioSteel’s profits couldn’t keep up with its promotional costs. Originally formulated and introduced in 2009 by Matt Nichol, then serving as head strength and conditioning coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the company had fallen on hard times by the summer of 2023 and ultimately declared bankruptcy.
“The whole BioSteel situation was extremely unexpected,” admits Crosby. “Last summer, one of my employees mentioned that the brand BioSteel was going bankrupt, and it was something that we should take a look at.”
Initially dismissed, later, the subject came up again. “We both thought, ‘You miss all of the shots you don’t take,’ like that famous quote from Gretzky, so I ended up submitting a bid. To be quite honest, I never thought we even had a chance.”
Crosby says that they landed the deal for multiple reasons. Canadian Protein runs a similar business model as BioSteel, they had the ability to meet the closing deadline with a clean offer, and had a proven record of success.
“Since taking on the business, it’s been an absolute around-the-clock job, putting the pieces back together and structuring the business the way that it should have been running in the first place but wasn’t,” states Crosby. “The way that BioSteel was operating in the past was extremely different from the ways that I operate my businesses.”
Maintaining a small team, they have kept their key relationships with Costco, Loblaws, Sobeys, Walmart, Metro, 7-Eleven, to name a few, and the Canadian Tire family of stores: Sport Chek and Pro Hockey Life, and strengthened their e-commerce footprint.
” The goal is to achieve steady, sustainable growth to once again reach nine figures in annual revenue, which we are close to accomplishing, ” he says.
Crosby is a busy man. His other ventures include Coachwood Capital, his real estate investment firm in the US, his real estate portfolio in Southwestern Ontario, and the Coachwood Golf & Country Club near McGregor, formerly known as Foxglen, rejuvenating a business that he says was based on old technologies, or lack thereof, and struggling financially, and bringing it into the 21st century with e-commerce and tech, making it profitable once again.
Crosby’s keys to success are broken down into three chief tenants: outwork everyone, because there is no replacement for hard work, stay fit, as it will help you control your mental, emotional, and physical stress, and to stay focussed, because you can’t be everything to everyone.
“I do believe at the root of it all, I have an undeniable fear of failure, and I use that fear to motivate me to push through adversity, stress, and all the trials and tribulations that the business world throws at me,” he says. “I’ve also never been a big believer in following your passions but a big believer in pursuing opportunities and seizing them once they present themselves. In fact, often, that passion becomes work and hard work at that, and it will lose its lustre. So, it’s better to chase and go after opportunities, rather than, in my opinion, wasting time, hopefully one day, trying to create a business out of a passion that may or may not work out.”
