Nick Cannon says he was a silent competitor to Beats by Dre in 2009.
During an interview on “The Diary Of A CEO” podcast, Cannon confirmed that NCredible Entertainment, his record label and television company, generated $100 million in 2009. What’s more, he says those sales were purely from headphones.
NCredible Entertainment had secured a partnership with Monster to release the bluetooth headphones, which had been sold at stores including Walmart and Radio Shack.
Features on the accessories included a built-in microphone, rechargeable battery for 15 hours of listening, and ear-cup controls, according to Walmart’s website. The product price point was listed at $32.99 in comparison to Beats By Dre’s Solo headphones, which were listed at $200 in 2009, per CNET.
Cannon says the “cost effective” product allowed the company to have an edge in the aforementioned stores.
“That was just in our headphone sales,” Cannon explained to “The Diary Of A CEO” host Steven Bartlett. “I did a headphone brand very similar to Beats by Dre with Monster as the parent company. They did Beats for $300 and they did NCredibles for $100. So, we were the more cost effective headphone. While Beats by Dre was making all the noise, we were quietly making noise in Walmarts and the Radio Shacks for selling an affordable product that was pretty much the same product, except for we made ours affordable. So, just so that alone, that was just in consumer electronics.”
Securing the bag is familiar territory for Cannon. As AFROTECH previously told you, he states the “Wild ‘N Out” franchise is a billion-dollar business. Restaurants have also been spawned as his talents independently carve their own paths.
“I didn’t think ‘Wild ‘N Out’ would be the billion-dollar conglomerate that it is because I was just creating a show to get my friends jobs because Kevin Hart needed money to pay his rent,” he explained on the podcast. “I was the only one that was seeing some success out of our generation at the time, and I was like ‘Oh let me shine a light on these dudes that are way funnier than me, that are way more talented than me and then I built a business out of it.”