We've built brands from scratch

In 2012 Matson Tolman was an SEO guy who decided to sell his own products on Amazon. He expected a different animal. What he found was the same one wearing a Prime badge: rank, traffic, conversion, repeat. A relevancy engine. He already knew that game.

So EC started the least glamorous way a company can start. No thesis, no deck. A guy with inventory discovering that most of the "tricks" being sold were not tricks.

Gabe Ray came from the same neighborhood, selling online in college and running SEO accounts, and the two of them built the company on a deeply unsexy idea: do the fundamentals better than anyone else and let the algorithm do what it was always going to do. Roughly 30% paid, 70% organic. No secret sauce.

EC grew up in 2021, when a Cleveland family office took an equity position. Matson's own telling: "They allowed us to go through our teen years and our early 20s, and we thought we knew everything, and we actually didn't."

Through every stage of the company's growth, one belief has remained constant: great products deserve to be discovered. Today, Evolved Commerce brands reach more customers and turn that discovery into profitable growth. The experience gained from building their own businesses guides how they help others grow!