Fred Ninow and Ken Dunn have launched Ocean Avenue, a Utah-based health and nutrition company operating on a network marketing model. The venture plans satellite offices in Canada and Indonesia, with a Canadian launch set to occur soon. This new company follows a familiar blueprint for the founders.
Ninow spent 29 years as an entrepreneur and former investment banker. His most notable prior success in multi-level marketing came as co-founder of Max International, which started in early 2007. That company sold glutathione supplements under the Max GXL brand. Ninow led its sales team to over $100 million in revenue within three years. He then vanished from public records around 2010, without any announcement or explanation for his departure.
Ken Dunn's career path mirrors Ninow's. Dunn began at Max International as a master distributor under Ninow. He also left around 2010. Dunn then joined EvolvHealth, another MLM operation. An EvolvHealth blog post at the time called his arrival "a tremendous win for the company," stating he and his partners were top earners in the industry. But Dunn's tenure there was also short. By late February 2012, he appeared as a finalist in the "e84 Fuel Challenge" on the EvolvHealth blog, then that relationship ended.
Now both men are behind Ocean Avenue. Its product line targets common health and wellness areas, including weight loss, immune support, and mental focus. WheyBeyond is the company's flagship product, marketed as "The King of Whey." Ocean Avenue claims it contains double the ORAC antioxidant value of any superfruit and uses natural flavoring with high protein. WheySmart, a flavored smoothie, is for weight management. Empower targets the immune system, with claimed benefits for autoimmunity, inflammation, and anti-aging.
This business model is well-established in the multi-level marketing sector. It focuses on recruiting distributors, selling them inventory, and then having them recruit more distributors. Money often moves upward to the top recruits, rather than stemming from actual product sales. Participants frequently find themselves holding unsold inventory. Many also struggle to build their required downline.
Ninow and Dunn understand this industry intimately. They have profited from it before. Ocean Avenue is their third major MLM initiative. Whether the company thrives or fails, and if participants truly earn profits, remains to be seen. Industry history suggests most will not. The structure ensures this outcome. What is clear is that Ninow and Dunn hold positions at the top, where the money in these schemes typically collects.