The argument in one line.
When trust in institutions collapses, the personal brand holding company -- a creator who aligns their authentic life with a suite of products -- becomes the most durable ecommerce model because people buy from people, not brands.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You have an existing audience from personal training, fitness, or hospitality and want a blueprint for turning that trust into a product business.
- You are an ecommerce founder in health and wellness wondering whether to invest in paid ads early or build community first.
- You are considering a PE deal and want a real example of how to structure aligned incentives and keep operational autonomy after the transaction.
- You are evaluating which products to build next and need a framework for separating 100-year bets from five-year fads.
SKIP IF…
- You want a tight tactical playbook with specific ad spend numbers -- this is philosophy and case study, not a media buyer guide.
- You are building in SaaS, content, or any category disconnected from physical wellness products.
The full version, fast.
Promix grew from a sub-million-dollar project to nine figures without paid ads for the first several years by following one rule: build the community before you build the product. Devon Levesque and Albert Matheny had hundreds of personal training clients who told them exactly what to make. They found a wild-harvested African superfood (baobab) with a compelling origin story, built D-Bloat around it, and let word of mouth and genuine scarcity do the marketing. That same philosophy -- simplicity, long-horizon ingredient selection, gender-neutral positioning, and creator equity programs -- now powers a portfolio including Rhythm Health (at-home blood diagnostics) and Monroe Earth (Austin premium wellness). The lesson: choose partners who align on vision, pull marketing levers in the right sequence, and only build things that will still matter in 100 years.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
00:45guestDevon Levesque
38:00guestAlbert Matheny
00:00hostAlex Garcia
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 00:45
01 · Intro -- The Personal Brand Holding Company
Host frames the thesis: trust in institutions is low, personal brand companies are rising.
00:45 – 08:55
02 · The Promix Partnership Origin
How Devon and Albert met, complementary backgrounds, early days sub-$1M. The Kilimanjaro trip, baobab discovery, and D-Bloat origin story.
08:55 – 15:30
03 · Personal Brand and Organic Marketing
Devon's Instagram origin. The direct correlation between social posts and business inbound. FOMO and word of mouth as the first two marketing levers.
15:30 – 19:02
04 · Turning Ideas Into a Business
Community-first framework. Pre-launch product testing with 100 people. Seeding product and gathering organic feedback before spending on ads.
19:02 – 23:05
05 · The Success Behind Rhythm Health
Devon joins as co-founder after the back-end is built. At-home blood diagnostics, HIPAA/CLIA, 24-hour results. AI concierge with no brand opinion.
23:05 – 32:00
06 · Creator Armies and Deal Structures
Evolution of influencer relationships over 10 years. 10% commission on attributed ad spend. Sweat equity for top creators. 500-follower creator generates $150K.
32:00 – 38:00
07 · How to Position Wellness Brands
Gender-neutral positioning as TAM expansion. Five personas per brand. Mars Men vs Promix. The scientific plus cultural credibility stack.
38:00 – 44:00
08 · Step-by-Step Product Creation Process
Albert joins. Ingredient quality and efficacy as the two non-negotiables. Devon's culture pulse vs Albert's science pulse. Liposomal as the next category.
44:00 – 48:30
09 · The New Age of Credibility
Lived experience vs laboratory credibility. Thorne vs Lemme as archetypes. Promix as the next generation of Thorne.
48:30 – 55:10
10 · The Next Phase -- PE Deal and Growth
Phen Sports Partners deal. Full operational autonomy. Aligned incentives. No forced retail push. Story-telling about ingredient sourcing.
55:10 – 59:20
11 · Relevant Selling Channels for Promix
Bullish on TikTok Shop, Amazon, D2C. Boutique gyms as physical brand touchpoints. Retail is a lever, not a first move.
59:20 – 1:10:20
12 · Monroe: Premium Wellness Experience
Austin gym/sauna/cold plunge. No social post for grand opening -- 500 people from personal network. Thousands on waitlist. Simplicity strips confusion and price barriers.
1:10:20 – 1:20:39
13 · Executing at a High Level
Devon: no calls before 11 or after 3, 15-minute Calendly max. Albert: 4am-9:30pm routine. Delegation as the growth lever.
1:20:39 – 1:26:37
14 · Mistakes to Avoid
Do something you like. Find a complementary partner. Do not take it too seriously. Know your intention. A buddy sold for $300M and his back hurts.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Start a community first and build a product off of it -- founders who launch a business then try to find an audience are doing it backwards.
- Word of mouth and FOMO never appear on a P&L, but they are the two most powerful marketing forces available to a new brand.
- Scarcity that comes from genuine ingredient constraints beats manufactured scarcity every time because it is true.
- A creator with 500 followers generated $150K in sales from one video and earned $15K in commission -- audience size is not the variable that predicts creator ROI.
- Paying creators a 10% commission on attributed ad spend gives them unlimited upside, which produces better content than any flat fee arrangement.
- The question 'will this still matter in 100 years?' is the most effective filter for deciding whether a product trend is worth entering.
- Gender-neutral positioning doubles your addressable market in health and wellness -- the categories that are truly gender-specific are usually the smallest ones.
- The entire health industry creates confusion; the brand that strips it back to readable ingredients and simple rituals wins the customer who has tried everything else.
- PE partnership only works when the investor used the product before writing the check -- aligned incentives require personal conviction, not just financial thesis.
- Retail is a lever you pull when digital channels are saturated; pushing it early to hit a number is how brands lose margin and messaging control.
- Complementary co-founders need a Venn diagram overlap on core values but clear separation in running lanes -- overlap on everything and you have two generalists competing.
- The lived-experience credibility stack outperforms the laboratory credibility stack with younger consumers today.
- Block your calendar with family, adventures, and birthdays first -- whatever builds the business fills in around those, not the other way around.
- A business generating $1M per year in profit may fully satisfy your actual goals; scaling to nine figures without clarity on your why is how founders arrive at the exit broken.
Build community first, then build the product.
WHAT TO LEARN
The founders winning ecommerce today did not launch a product and find customers -- they already had the customers and then built the product for them.
02The Promix Partnership Origin
- Before you spend on ads or even launch a product, get 100 people using it for free for 60 days -- the feedback you collect is your marketing bible, your positioning, and your first campaign.
- A unique origin story attached to a specific ingredient creates a defensible moat that generic competitors cannot copy -- the baobab discovery is not just a story, it is the product.
03Personal Brand and Organic Marketing
- Word of mouth and FOMO do not appear on a P&L, but they are the two most effective marketing forces for a new brand -- engineer them deliberately through genuine scarcity and community events.
- Social content becomes a business asset the moment you notice a direct correlation between what you post and who reaches out to hire or buy from you.
04Turning Ideas Into a Business
- Start a community before you start a product -- a run club, dinner club, or group of personal training clients is your market research and your first customer list in one.
- When 80 out of 100 beta testers say the same word about your product, that word becomes your headline, your ad, and your email subject line.
05The Success Behind Rhythm Health
- At-home diagnostics are exploding because people are competitive with their own biomarkers -- the same psychology that drives fitness tracking now drives blood testing.
- A brand that gives you data without an opinion earns more trust than one that gives you answers with an agenda.
06Creator Armies and Deal Structures
- Influencer relationships generate better content when the creator has unlimited upside (commission or equity) rather than a flat fee -- the incentive structure determines the quality of the output.
- Audience size is not the variable that predicts creator ROI -- a creator with 500 followers can outperform a macro influencer when the content is credible and the incentive is aligned.
07How to Position Wellness Brands
- Gender-neutral positioning is not indecision -- it is a deliberate choice to maximize addressable market, executable through multiple targeted personas.
- The categories that are truly gender-specific are usually the smallest ones -- gut health is for everyone; running gels are for 3% of the market.
08Step-by-Step Product Creation Process
- Product categories that will not exist in 100 years are fads -- the filter separates legacy businesses from five-year money grabs.
- The best new products are built at the intersection of what you personally experience in culture and what the science actually validates -- you need both lenses.
09The New Age of Credibility
- Lived experience outperforms laboratory credentials with younger consumers today -- 'I do this and it changed my life' creates more initial trust than 'I studied this for seven years'.
- Branded ingredients let early-stage brands bypass clinical trials by licensing pre-validated formulas.
10The Next Phase -- PE Deal and Growth
- PE deals work when the investor was already a customer; aligned incentives require personal conviction from the partner, not just a financial thesis.
- Retail is a lever you pull when digital channels are saturated; pushing it early is how brands lose margin and messaging control.
12Monroe: Premium Wellness Experience
- The health industry's biggest weakness is complexity -- the brand that makes things simple enough to change a daily habit wins retention.
- A physical space does not need to be priced for exclusion; it needs to be priced so you can hire people who genuinely want to be there, and that is what creates the culture.
13Executing at a High Level
- Co-founder complementarity is about running lanes, not personality -- when one person owns marketing and another owns product, there is no contested territory to slow decisions.
- Delegation is not a nice-to-have -- the moment you catch yourself editing a social story or rewriting copy, you are doing the wrong job.
14Mistakes to Avoid
- Build the calendar with adventures, family, and birthdays first -- the business fills in the remaining space, not the other way around.
- Know what you actually need financially before you scale -- a business generating $1M per year in profit may fully satisfy your real goals.
Terms worth knowing.
- Personal brand holding company
- A business structure where a creator uses their personal audience and credibility to launch and operate multiple product businesses that all serve the same customer base, rather than building a single brand.
- Unique mechanism
- The specific, story-backed ingredient, process, or method that makes a product different from competitors -- not just a new product, but a new reason why this one works.
- Baobab
- A wild-harvested African superfood seed containing roughly 65% fiber, vitamin C, potassium, B12, and natural prebiotics; sourced from village cooperatives in South Africa and used as the hero ingredient in Promix D-Bloat.
- D-Bloat
- Promix hero SKU -- a gut health supplement combining baobab (natural prebiotic), three probiotic strains, turmeric, and organic fruit flavors, positioned as a daily digestive reset.
- Sweat equity (creator deals)
- A deal structure where a creator receives a small ownership stake (typically 5-7% from the equity pool) in a brand in exchange for content and promotion, aligned with top-tier performance rather than a flat fee.
- Liposomal
- A delivery format that encases nutrients in a lipid layer to improve absorption; cited as a product category with real clinical backing that Promix is exploring.
- CLIA certified
- Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certification -- the federal standard required for labs performing diagnostic testing on human specimens, which Rhythm Health holds for its owned lab.
- Branded ingredients
- Pre-tested, proprietary ingredient blends licensed by supplement brands that carry third-party clinical data, allowing a brand to bypass running its own clinical trials.
Things they pointed at.
19:02productRhythm Health
59:20productMonroe Earth
24:13toolTribe (creator platform)
45:50productThorne
45:20productLemme
1:24:05bookJesse Itzler Big Ass Calendar
Lines you could clip.
28:05
“When you look at a P&L sheet, word of mouth and FOMO are never listed, but I think they're the two strongest ways you can market.”
18:31
“Start a community first and then build a brand off of your community.”
38:00
“There are 8 billion people in the world. Why would you cut your audience in half?”
1:07:40
“There shouldn't be a price barrier to the health industry.”
1:24:54
“Don't lose your values and who you are when building a company.”
24:13
“We have creators that have 500 followers. We just paid someone last month -- she created $150,000 worth of orders with her one video.”
49:45
“Will this be around for 100 years? That's what I think about when doing companies.”
Where the conversation goes.
00:00 – 08:55densePersonal brand holding company thesis
08:55 – 19:02denseOrganic community marketing
19:02 – 23:05denseRhythm Health deep dive
23:05 – 32:00denseCreator deal structures
32:00 – 48:30denseBrand positioning and product ideation
48:30 – 59:20steadyPE deal and growth strategy
59:20 – 1:10:20denseMonroe Earth and hospitality philosophy
1:10:20 – 1:20:39steadyExecution and time management
1:20:39 – 1:26:37steadyFounder mistakes and life philosophy
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00:00A new business model has been quietly exploding over the last 3 years and I like to call it the personal brand holding company. It's when a large creator aligns their interests and their audience and launches a suite of businesses to serve the two. The reason this is exploding is because trust in mainstream institutions is at an all-time low.
00:15And so when you have a strong personal brand, people are naturally drawn to it because it feels more authentic. And in turn, they're going to choose the products and the experiences that that person is going to promote. One of the most prominent examples of this is Devin Levesque and Albert Matheny, the founders of [music] Promix and Monroe Earth.
00:30Promix is a multi nine-figure supplement brand while Monroe Earth is a premium fitness experience. Now, their partnership is the blueprint for the personal holding company, but you won't believe how it got started. >> First thing I want to get into is just like, how did you and Albert's partnership come together?
00:50Like from inception all the way to kind of where it is now. >> For sure. Uh Albert and I were both personal trainers in New York City.
00:57He had a gym, I had a gym. Um he was working on supplements. He He ran track at uh University of Florida um and then for Team USA.
01:06I played college football and baseball. Um and so we both had the sports background. I went more the training route, hospitality route after college.
01:15He went more um you know, mixing these ingredients together. Um and so back in 20 20 end of 2019 uh we we got linked up from our friend Chris, our mutual friend, and um you know, Albert's amazing at putting products together and putting in raw ingredients together and mixing formulas. Um you know, food scientist, registered dietitian, he has all the background to do that.
01:46And then I really enjoy marketing and and and bringing awareness to good products, good just good um I don't know. People feeling good. I I I I I >> Like a product that delivers an outcome.
02:02>> Yeah, like I I I I used to work in hospitality, right? In in night clubs and restaurants and and I just love, you know, when people come in and you put a smile on their face and you know, they they eat a really good dish or, you know, they have a great cocktail and they're just having a good time. And I think that's always made me feel really good.
02:20I love hosting dinners at my house. Like I I just like bringing people together. And our products make people feel good.
02:26>> Right. >> You know what I mean? And like that that's the ultimate selfishly feeling for me is when people feel good off of something you're doing.
02:34>> What What What stage was the business at when you guys came together? Like was it kind of starting to take off? >> Yeah, very very very early.
02:42Yeah, sub sub million in revenue. Sub Uh maybe probably half a million in revenue. It wasn't It was not big.
02:50Um it was Yeah, very small. Defi- Definitely a um definitely a hobby. >> Right.
02:56>> Definitely not a real >> Not to what Not what it's grown into today. Where cuz you guys recently sold a chunk of the business to a private equity group. You're scaling well into the mid I mean, I don't know if you're at nine figures yet, but like you're getting >> Yeah, oh yeah.
03:09Very very very much past nine figures. >> Yeah, so I mean, the business is like exploded particularly in the last few years. Like what do you feel like was the major inflection point?
03:18>> Yeah, um you know, we started off with grass-fed whey protein. That was like the first main ingredient. Put it on Amazon.
03:25>> Right. And it was like the cleanest >> Cleanest. It was one ingredient.
03:29And so that that took off decently well. Um we tried a couple other puff, you know, with the puff bars. We tried a chocolate bar out.
03:37We tried um you know, pre-workout, stuff like that. But really 4 years ago, 5 years ago, um I think it was 2021, I went to Africa um to climb Kilimanjaro. Nice.
03:50And after Kilimanjaro, I went back to this village that my my Kilimanjaro guide was a part of. Um, and I actually I got them a goat as a thank you for, you know, helping me reach the summit. >> [laughter] >> And so, it that was just that's what they requested.
04:09>> It's great. >> and so I gave them a goat. I I got them a goat.
04:13And so, I go I go and do this cookout with them in their village. Full third world country. >> Were you cooking the goat?
04:18>> Well, yeah. So, so >> We we you know, we we we harvested the >> the goat. Harvested the goat.
04:24Ate the goat. >> Yeah. And as we're doing this cookout, this these kids were running up to me and they were trying to sell me this fruit.
04:30And it was like this hard seed. And I you know, bought the seed and you know, the guy I was with was like, "Oh, that's high in vitamin C, high in potassium." And so, I opened the seed and I tried this powder, this white powder on the inside. And it didn't really taste like anything.
04:46I was so fascinated by it because everyone in the village was just talking about like, "Oh, that's the baobab seed. That's so that's so nutrient dense. We've been, you know, eating it for centuries and, you know, our whole lives and it's good for gut health." And I've always wanted to do a gut health product.
05:00Gut gut health as a whole, I think is the most important health you need to focus on in the human body. Not just biceps, not just, you know, brain health, not just, you know, blood health. Like gut health.
05:11Everything's formed from the gut. Diseases, um, mood, acne, everything is starts in the gut. And so, if you can have a good microbiome, like that's a great base for someone to start off, um, at if you're on a health journey.
05:23>> Yeah. >> And so, we took the baobab seed, brought it to, um, I brought it to Albert. He tested it out.
05:31And yeah, it has high amounts of vitamin C, potassium, about 65% fiber, um, vitamin B12, like all these different vitamins are in this, uh, in this seed. And I'm like, we should do a gut health product. Now, with the gut, you need pre- and probiotics.
05:46And so, we have natural prebiotics from the baobab seed. We have three strains of probiotics. We add turmeric in it.
05:53And then we have organic oranges, organic peaches, hibiscus, etc. Um that flavor it. Um and that was our our our hero product.
06:02That's D-Bloat. >> Yeah. >> That is a great That was a great um inflection point for the business because it's an easy product.
06:10Everyone easy product for people to consume. Uh you can take it every day. It tastes really good.
06:18>> Mhm. >> It You can feel it immediately. >> Mhm.
06:22>> It literally flushes you out. You take it and you're probably going to have to go to the bathroom within the next 20 to 30 minutes. Um over a 20 to 30-day period, you start to feel a little bit more clear.
06:32Your food digests better. Your stools are better. >> Right.
06:35>> Um and so that was a great product to introduce people to Promix. And that that quickly became our hero hero SKU. >> It's really interesting.
06:45We talk about something like called the unique mechanism on this podcast a lot where it's like, you know, people have tried probiotics. People have tried de-bloating products for years, right? There's like a million of those, but your story about, you know, this >> gathering >> Yeah.
07:00>> in Africa, you know, like that's like a very unique discovery. Like >> Super. >> You have a great story accompanying this ingredient.
07:08There's kind of this, you know, non-Western medicine angle to it as well. It's like, why are why is this not in our system, you know, like And so, that builds intrigue for the product. Builds trust, right?
07:17Because it's like, oh, they've been using it for centuries. Like, of course. >> It's It's It's It's the oldest superfood on the planet.
07:25I mean, these baobab trees are 1,000 2,000 years old, literally. >> Yeah. >> Um and what's even more cool about the whole thing is it's wild harvested.
07:36>> Mhm. >> And so, they the the the fruit sprout in January and they normally drop around April. Once they have to drop, right?
07:47Once they drop that means the powder's dried up at the perfect amount on the inside for you to take it. And so, they drop in say April, May and then the locals, there's like 2,500 of them. >> Yeah.
08:00Is this like a straight village? >> There's many villages cuz it's all across South Africa. And so, all these villages collect the seeds and then they they sell them.
08:10And that's how we It's all wild harvested. And so, all we just created 2,500 jobs with just these seeds. >> first to market with this ingredient?
08:18Like for Dandy >> No, I mean there's definitely other companies that sell that sell baobab, but I don't but no one else does the baobab pre probiotics turmeric like for the gut health specifically that I think tastes that good and you know, and we just put it through a 3-week triple blind clinical trial. Um >> Yeah.
08:37>> Which which went amazing. Um 83% of people found digestive comfort relief, yeah. Which was which is, you know, a great It's incredible.
08:45I mean no placebo, you know, you know, full triple blind which is which is the the highest of the highest we can >> What were some of like cuz so we can back it up a second. So, you you have a very large personal brand and you know, you've kind of accumulated that over time on Instagram, all these different channels.
09:04And was were you making a lot of the initial ads from your personal brand for Dandy Flow for weight pro like like how did that kind of structure work initially? Interplay of your personal brand and Promix? >> Yeah, you know, we never really did ads for the first three or four years in the business.
09:22Like zero ads. We didn't That's not how we launched it. We We took Yeah, all organic, more natural approach where I would do events at my farm or at the One Hotels or random cities around the world we're doing runs or sauna sessions or whatever it is.
09:38Um word of mouth is big. Like just people talking about it, feeling it, etc. Little FOMO.
09:46I think we have FOMO, you know. When you look at a P&L sheet, word of mouth and FOMO are never listed, but I think they're the two strongest ways you can market. Absolutely.
09:56You know, um FOMO meaning like we just had limited runs cuz it's raw ingredients. So you can't we don't have unlimited um >> Which also builds that narrative about quality. >> Right.
10:05>> Right, like we're not going to compromise and scale this thing too much because we just can't, you know, we would lose the integrity of the product. >> Correct. And so FOMO and word of mouth I were were our best friends uh from the beginning and then >> It's hard though.
10:19It's hard. It's like delayed gratification. >> hard It's hard to trust that, but you have but I think when you're building a brand, let me back up.
10:28I think there's there's too many people or founders that go in and say, "Okay, I'm going to launch a business and I think people are going to jump in to this community." versus starting a community first and then building a brand off of your community. Meaning start a run club, start a dinner club, start a book club, start bringing people together in person, 10, 15, 20, 100 people.
10:52Start building that up and then see like what would work with them, right? And I think with Albert and I, we both had clients that we were personal training. And everyone was asking, "What do I take?
11:05What What should I What should I drink every morning? What protein should I have? What Like what should I use?
11:10What should I be eating? What's my nutrition?" And so we had this base, you know, I had hundreds of clients in New York City, he had hundreds of clients in New York City and we're like let's like we we have our clientele here, now let's give them a product. You know what I mean?
11:24And that's I think why Promix worked from the beginning. It wasn't because we did it opposite. We already had the clientele base, we were training 10 hours a day, we had it.
11:32>> I mean, you launched with the customer. >> Right. You had all of your customers right there.
11:36>> Exactly. >> Not necessarily saying they were immediately buying from you, but you knew like okay, this is what they want. >> had the market research sitting right in front of us.
11:44So like we weren't guessing. We're like this is what they want, this is what we like. Let's mesh let's let's mesh those.
11:50Um from my personal brand side, you know, I never knew I was going to have like in college we didn't even I didn't know what social media was. I remember a girl came up to me in college and she's like hey, look at this new app and she it was Instagram. I was like oh cool, what is it?
12:03She's like you can just share photos. I'm like cool and I remember I was in art class at the time and >> You're in art class? >> in art class and >> Were you like draw what what what are >> No, I was just it was like a elective or whatever >> Yeah, yeah.
12:14>> taking in college and I remember I like we were painting something and I paint I painted my hand green and I like put it on a brick wall and I like took a photo and I posted I'm like oh that's my first like Instagram >> first gram? >> Yeah, that was that was the first gram. I'm like oh you can share photos.
12:29I'm like >> Yeah. >> I remember she was like it's for artists, it's for like musicians. Like Instagram's for like creative.
12:35I'm like all right, let me get let me get artsy real quick. >> Right, right. >> And so I did that.
12:38>> Slapped the green hand. >> And then I didn't really I didn't really think about Instagram, you know, when I when I was in you know, when I was running nightclubs and restaurants. >> not a part of you building your initial businesses?
12:49Like cuz you were doing hospitality, personal training, Instagram wasn't a place for you sourcing clients. >> Not really. No, I mean I would I would post like our flyers or like things we were doing at the restaurant or food photos, but I never really thought of it like that until my friend came up to me at a bar one day and was like hey, you do crazy workouts in the gym.
13:07Like you should post these workouts and I'm like these are just my normal workouts. No one's going to care about like what do you mean? He's like Instagram just launched videos and so you should post these videos.
13:18And I might have like 5 6 7,000 followers at that time just from like being in the hospitality world. People knew me whatever.
13:24>> Yeah. >> Um and I remember I posted one and did okay and then I posted another one and Barstool reposted it and then ESPN reposted and then SportsCenter reposted and like overnight it was like 20, 30, 40, 50,000 followers quick and I was like, "Whoa, that's kind of crazy." >> Yeah. >> But then I saw when I posted I had a real business going on.
13:45I was training people, right? And we were doing I was doing meal preps. And so I saw the impact from when I posted and all the DMs started to come in of like, "Can you train me?
13:53Wait, what food should I eat? Wait, you're in you're in really good shape. What should I do for workout?" I'm like, "Oh my god, there's there's a direct correlation of social media to a business." That's the that's the only reason I I have social.
14:05Like cuz it is an asset for the business. Um >> It's insane leverage. I mean, you're basically getting all of this market signal inbound, right?
14:12Where people are telling you exactly what to build, exactly what their problems are. >> Exactly. What they're like struggling with when they experience that problem, too.
14:20>> Exactly right. Cuz I think that's where a lot of entrepreneurs don't take the next step is they understand that people are having a problem, but like we talked about earlier, what's that unique mechanism? Cuz they've tried to solve bloating, you know?
14:32Someone has tried to solve it before, but they never tried a baobab. >> Right. >> And a base product.
14:36And so now it's like you have a new solution for them. >> Yeah, it's it's really hard to get someone to change their habits. You wake up, you you know, whatever you do whatever your morning routine is, you you know, you go to bathroom, you brush your teeth, you have your coffee, whatever.
14:50Like switching someone's habits is one of the hardest things to do. And I think the way we were able to switch people's habits is showing, not telling. You know?
15:01And so Albert and I live this, you know, he both both him and I put our health first. We eat real whole foods. Um we work out pretty much daily, sauna, cold plunge, daily.
15:12Like we live this lifestyle, so we're showing it versus just telling you to do it, you know? We're trying to snake oil you in. It's like, "Look, we're doing this.
15:20It works for us. If you want to do it, cool. Um and and I think we've led by example and that's that's what's helped us totally.
15:28>> You know, quite a bit. I mean, I think that's a really cool thing when you kind of examine what you guys are doing is you've basically turned your personal brands and a lot of these things that you stand for that you do in your real life into almost like a wellness empire like holding company, if you will, right?
15:44Like we have so many different things. There's Promix, there's Monroe Earth, which I mean, we haven't talked to the audience about yet. There's Rhythm, like these are things that kind of like you said, you had those 100 personal training high-end clients.
15:56Every single one of them would want one of your several different businesses. >> Right. >> And your content has kind of built this world overall.
16:03Like would you say that was a super intentional thing with the way that you were creating content over time or was it just kind of you living out, you know, your passions and doing the things you would have already been doing? >> Yeah, I No, it it was not it was not planned. It I always put me living and my adventures and my fun first.
16:22Like that's my top priority. My family, my friends, my adventures. Like that's first and foremost.
16:29And I'm able to when I do that and having real connections with people and physically being in the gym and like being like doing these meetings and traveling and I'm in the trenches. I'm not like I'm not sitting in a a boardroom. I'm not on computer.
16:47Like I'm physically there seeing how how humans are interacting. I I think human psychology is super fascinating. Just people watching, but on, you know, 10x is what I do.
16:58I really just I watch on how consumers work and how they look at things and what they're thinking about and is this a trend or is this just something that's going to be quick? Will this product work? Will it not?
17:08How are they buying the product? How are they even seeing it? Who are they seeing it from?
17:12Like all these things are constantly going through my brain of you know, what's the the psychology when you're um when you're thinking about health. >> Yeah. >> And there's thousands of companies that pitch.
17:25I know Albert and I annually I pick maybe one to invest in, max. Um or him and I will start something. >> Right.
17:35>> It's it's it's it's a lot of uh it's a lot of >> What's the criteria? >> it's a little it's a lot of sitting back and watching and not being you don't always have to be the first to market. You know?
17:47Let Let someone else be first to market. See if it even works. You know what I mean?
17:52See if See if it's just a trend, a fad. Is it Is it just it you know, is there studies behind it? Is this something Is it too early?
18:01Is it too late? You know what I mean? Um I think how we've how I vet and I'll speak for me cuz I was not here, but is this something that will last for a hundred years?
18:11Is what I think about when doing companies, when um starting investing in businesses. If it's not, then I probably won't get involved. I'm not looking for a quick win.
18:20I'm looking for a a legacy. >> Yeah. >> You know?
18:22>> Yeah. >> And that's the truth. Like you know, there Could I launch, you know, a a tallow lotion right now and probably make 10 million bucks?
18:30Probably, you know? Could I go, you know, could I hop on the cryotherapy trend? Probably, you know?
18:35Can Could I jump on, you know, this whole um colostrum trend? Probably. Do I think these things are going to be around for another hundred years?
18:43Probably not. I think they're like these quick five-year wins that people are trying to do a you know, a quick money grab. Which is you know, whatever do you know, do what you need to do.
18:52But I think when I look at businesses um I I want to be a long-lasting you know, 50 to 100 year >> Yeah. >> you know, biz. >> One thing I think uh across I mean, dude, I I'm personally a huge believer in Rhythm.
19:08>> Thank you. >> When I saw that business, I was like that just is going to explode. Like, you.
19:13>> Like I mean, at home diagnostic, painless blood work, like >> Yeah. >> And then obviously there's going to be probably, I mean, >> Yeah. >> You get your blood work done and then you can go buy Promix.
19:23>> Right. I mean, you could 100% or buy whatever you need, right? And I think the the thing at Rhythm, I I have one partner, Robbie.
19:31Um He started the biz. I came in after he set >> he come to you as like a, "Hey, invest >> Yeah, he want he wanted me to be his co-founder. Um he he had the whole back-end infrastructure set up.
19:44Um HIPAA compliant, you know, Clea certified, you know, this this the whole logistics. Um we own the lab. Everything from A to Z.
19:51He just needed awareness, growth, um a microphone. And so he came to be to be the co-founder. Um >> How's that business going right now?
20:01>> It's exploded. >> Rocket ship. >> It's it's [laughter] crazy.
20:05It's it's the fastest growing business I've ever been a part of. I've ever seen. >> I was an early investor in all the pop, this is growing faster.
20:13Like this is insanely >> This is it's insane um how many people are using Rhythm. And it's and it's >> Why do you think that is? >> I There's many reasons.
20:22I think when I was a kid and I thought of the future, I thought of flying cars. Um now I think of the future of when I think of future, I think knowing every little tiny thing that's happening inside your body and being able to live to 150. I I like we're living in it right now.
20:42And I think this is bridging that gap. Whoop is bridging that gap. Oura Ring's bridging that gap.
20:48These personalized health devices are bridging that gap to people understanding what's going on inside their body, making adjustments, and taking what they need to take. Rhythm, we don't have an opinion on health. We don't um If you're doing you know, keto, if you're doing paleo, if you're taking peptides, if you're taking vitamin, we don't care.
21:07We just want to give you the data of what's happening inside your body in the most simple easiest possible way. And that's why you know you put it in your arm you click a button fill up a vial you send it into our lab. You get the results in 24 hours.
21:22It's quick. It's easy. There's no needle in your arm.
21:26It's so simple. I think the reason it's it's exploded is because people are competitive with themselves. They want to know okay.
21:37If my testosterone's at 500, how can I get it up to 900 by next month? Okay, I got it up to 800. How can I get it up a little bit more?
21:44>> guys layering in the recommendations? >> Uh there's AI. >> There is like kind of a AI concierge.
21:49>> There is yeah. >> Nice. >> But we don't we don't tell them what companies >> that was really interesting you said that we don't have an opinion.
21:55>> Yeah. >> You know, we're just we're just the data layer. We're just going to give you the facts.
22:00>> Yeah, when you go into Quest or LabCorp they're not trying to upsell you you know peptides at you know when you walk in. >> No, they're just they're just like here's your blood. This is these are the results.
22:08>> The problem is >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> Correct. >> Quest peptides coming soon.
22:12>> Yeah, definitely. I wouldn't I wouldn't be surprised. Um but you go in and you trust the data.
22:19The problem is the the the customer experience at those places are brutal. >> Oh, it's terrible. >> You know.
22:24>> It's the most sterile thing of all time. >> Yeah. >> know.
22:27You you feel like you're in trouble like just for being in there. It's like is this a drug test or am I trying to like you know? >> Right.
22:33And so and they're taking the six vials of blood and you know it might take an hour. >> out. >> Yeah, you're taking time to go there come back.
22:40So we just we we've simplified that process for people and and so I think the simplified process people are competitive with themselves. >> Is that business growing purely organic right now are you layering in paid and influencer and stuff like that? >> we have paid yeah quite a bit of paid.
22:54>> Full full entire marketing stack. >> Hundreds if not thousands of creators on that wanted that wanted to come on. >> I bet the inbound interest was Yeah, talk about I mean, I'd love to hear more about like just cuz Promix has a great ambassador program.
23:09Sounds like Rhythm is building that. Like how do you go about building, you know, a creator army promoting your products? >> Yeah, you know, 10 years ago uh the way that you brought on influencers was you'd send them product.
23:22And they'd just post. They didn't really know their worth. Five years ago, you give them a code.
23:28They get commission. They have to post their channel. Now, you can somewhat um help assist creators in how their content's going out.
23:37Whether you're helping with the editing, whether you're helping um you know, not so much scripts, but like giving them talking points and educating them on what the product is. And so they get more in-depth, you know, with you at the company. And then giving sweat equity, no pun intended, like for real.
23:59>> Yeah. >> It's It's I think the evolution of creators has gotten much deeper than just posting to their channel. It's now like a lot of these creators want to be partners.
24:09They want to be a part of something. They want to grow something. They don't want >> sharing their trust.
24:14>> Yeah, they they don't Yeah, correct. >> Yeah. >> They don't want to just post and get a bunch of likes and views and whatever.
24:19Like they want to they want to help build. Um and so we we we give everyone that opportunity, you know, the better that they do the the better we do with with their content, the better they do. >> I think a lot of our listeners would actually be super curious in like some of those deal structures.
24:35>> Like Everyone's different. >> Yeah. Everyone's different.
24:38>> based on the the tier of influencer and like kind of >> Yeah. >> [clears throat] >> Yeah. So So, you know, if if you're signing a, you know, an A-lister or or a B-lister, you might be tapping into your equity pool.
24:49You know, normally it's 5 to 7%. You have, you know, on the side for, you know, C-suite execs or celebs you're bringing on to the brand. or high you know, high converting influencers.
25:01And so there might be a little sweat equity deal there. Um then um right now you can get 10% commission on whatever your ad spends. And so if if a creator >> You guys are using Tribe for that, right?
25:14>> Tribe, yeah, yeah. And so if yeah, so if you're um submitting content and and you're you're a user of our product and we and we approve that content and it goes out and it generates $100,000 of sales, you're making $10,000. >> It's the craziest opportunity that's ever existed.
25:31>> It's unbelievable. I mean we we have creators that have 500 followers. We just paid someone last month.
25:36Uh she created $150,000 worth of uh orders with her one video. She has 500 followers. Literally 500 followers and we just gave her 15 grand.
25:46>> It's insane. >> like that's life-changing for people, you know? And so like you don't have to be like an A-lister or like a macro influencer or whatever.
25:54Like these are just regular people that are using our product that are like, "I want to talk about it." >> And for the creators, that video can keep going. You know? It might run it up to 300k next month.
26:03Like it it just it's an ad. So I mean it's like this unbelievable moment in time. >> Correct.
26:08And like, you know, we we want to support the creators and and the edits and and making sure they have the product and educating them. I mean we have calls with the creators all the time just the lab industry is confusing. >> Right.
26:21>> Right? And so we we have we have to educate. They're interested.
26:24It's It's It's ongoing education on, you know, what biomarkers do we have? How does the process work? What is this even doing?
26:30What What do you do if your B12's low? What do you do if your testosterone's high and you're a female? Like what do you do in these cases?
26:37And so it's it's constant educating and I think that's probably one of the more fun parts of the business. Like it's your brain is just expanding into understanding what personalized health really means. Um and so it's just educating the creators.
26:50But the creators that we bring on have unlimited upside. >> Yeah. >> The more the >> Of course.
26:55>> the better the content they create, the more content, the more that they're I don't know, invested into the company. >> Yeah, I mean it just It in turn it like it gives them in the proper incentive to try and produce that banger. >> Correct.
27:06>> Right? Cuz if they don't have that and you're like, "Hey, I'll give you $300 flat fee for your video." Right. Okay, cool.
27:11I'll just submit it to you as soon as I can. We're done. >> Right.
27:14>> And you know what? That That worked 2 years ago. >> Yeah, exactly.
27:18>> 3 years ago. You're like, "Oh, I'll give you a thousand bucks for a video." >> Yeah. >> Right?
27:21You're a user, cool. You want to make a video, great. Here's a thousand bucks.
27:24Now there's unlimited upside, you know? And by the way, it's probably going to change in a couple years, you know? It You have to I think the key to marketing within that's worked for Promixx and Rhythm is staying relevant and staying ahead of what's happening on Meta, on Google, on you know, on within AI, ChatGPT, Claude, you know?
27:44Um ads marketing is is are billboards working? Is email marketing working? Is SMS, you know?
27:52Like when I look at marketing as a whole, you know, there's I There's seven like main marketing avenues. Email marketing, text, guerrilla marketing, word of mouth, ads, that breaks out into multiple different avenues, um events, you know what I mean? Like there's there's multiple.
28:12It's understanding based on what's happening in culture, what's happening in meta updates, what's happening in is the world getting saturated with all these brands? Is there trends going on? And so you just have to stay relevant on what levers to go up and down.
28:28And I think we did that really well with Promixx. We literally did not do any ads at the beginning. Zero.
28:34It was all organic. The event lever was up, the word of mouth lever was up, the community lever was up. We just started emails, so that lever was up.
28:42>> interesting you say that because I think a lot of people, especially in the last like decade, rushed to paid to be the first lever because it's the quickest dopamine hits quickest row as that you can get out of anything you just kind of made a good point you're not not advertising just because you're not spending on paid you know there's all these other things that you can kind of do at the beginning I agree and and you know what which builds trust long term and actually probably increase your LTV to those customers right because I mean retention is the name of the game in the supplement space or really anything and if you're going to build trust up front those gorilla marketing those community building initiatives that's a lot more trustworthy stuff to invest in and then those customers going to stick around with you a much longer time all right so over the last two years of building nibble shipping nearly 8,000 UGC ads and getting performance data on every single one of them it became super clear there are two types of brands those that understand creative volume and those that don't the core difference was what they focused on brands that focused on volume plus hit rate were never complaining that meta changed the
29:41algorithm their stuff just worked and anytime we did work with one of those savvy brands it was always on the same platform motion motion is by far the best tool to optimize your creative pipeline provide structure visibility and insights that your creative team needs to make better decisions I like to think of it as like what meta would actually show you if they cared about your success all the key metrics like three second stop rate winning angles formats competitor research it's all built into their platform so you can make quicker and better decisions they even just launched a new AI agent run it which functions as a 24/7 creative strategist provided recommendations to your ad account y'all make sure to go check them out at motionapp.com all right let's get back to the episode >> if I started a new company right now the like a random company if you and I are like all right let's start a t-shirt company I'm going to post on social or send an email out and say I need a hundred people who want to be a part of my new business I you know I'd love feedback you're going to get free merch or free you know you're going to get free product and I just want you to test it out for 60 days before I even launch it
30:39right you know like I'd have a a hidden website I'd I'd help them go through the process, order the stuff, they get all free stuff, they try it out, and then they I'd get their feedback. >> Right. >> And then I'd do another iteration, and I'd do it again for another 30 days with the same 100 people.
30:54And then I'd probably do it one more time. And at that point, I've now I understand what the product is, I understand what people are saying, why they were enticed by it. Now I Now I have >> It's like a marketing Bible.
31:04You have You have everything you need. >> now I know what type of marketing material we need, why people are coming, you know, into the product, what people are saying about it. You know, if they if I'm doing a t-shirt company, and they're like, "Man, I love the shirt.
31:17Like, it's cool-looking shirt, but damn, it's so soft. It's such a soft shirt." >> Right. >> Boom.
31:22That There's There's a marketing There's the ads. There's the emails. There It's the world's softest shirt, right?
31:29It's It is a soft Like, now I'm leaning into soft because 100 people 80 of those people just said soft soft soft soft soft, you know? And so, I think it doesn't have to be zero to a million, it needs to be zero to like I don't know. Like, 1% and understanding who who your audience is and what your product is, and then you can spend effectively and efficiently versus just go and spend a million bucks on ads, and you don't even know if they're going to work or not.
32:00>> Yeah. >> You know? >> So, one thing that uh you guys have done really well across all these brands, Monroe, uh Promix, Rhythm, is like you you have a general gender-neutral positioning.
32:11And I'm super curious, like, is that intentional? Like, did you want to be scientific, trustworthy, or how did you go about positioning these brands from the get-go? >> Yeah.
32:22Um always gender gender-neutral, always. You know, never I never want to launch just like a male-focused brand or just a female-focused brand. Same with the gym.
32:34Like, I I enjoy having females and males in the sauna, and you know, in the in the steam and the >> More so that I think a lot of people say like you you want to go like hyper niche these days. Everyone's kind of like, oh, you want to lock in on a target customer. Like, I want to sell to, you know, moms in, you know, the Midwest, right?
32:52Or I want to sell to like young fathers or something like that. But you all have purposefully kind of gone the other direction. >> Yeah, I think um sex sells.
33:02>> Mhm. >> It's like the most common marketing term. >> Of course.
33:05>> Sex sells. Sex doesn't happen you know, without a male and a female. You need to appro You need to approach it from both sides.
33:14And especially in health and wellness, Equinox I think does an amazing job with it. Um I think within Promix like we don't want people to just think, oh, this is a male focused brand or a female. Like, no, this is everyone can take this.
33:28Your whole family can take it. Your friends, your mom, your dad, everyone, you know? And so neutral colors, um it also I think from a marketing uh like copy perspective it gives you two different alley ways to go down, right?
33:45Um D-blo impacts women maybe a little differently than men. They they use it, you know, in in in in different ways, right? Um >> Are you creating different funnels for different personas in that way?
33:57>> For sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would say there's probably five personas that we have with Promix, probably five personas we have with Rhythm.
34:05And like yeah, you you you target out each one. You know, the the female that lives in Kansas City that's 25 that goes to yoga each morning. She makes, you know, 100,000 a year.
34:14Um you know, she's, you know, maybe dealing with a little acne and like boom, that that's a that's a real persona, you know? Um but I you know, I think from a male and female perspective and why we've kept it neutral, I think that's just our vibe. You know what I mean?
34:30Like I I I've never wanted just a male focused brand or just a female focused brand. There's 8 billion people in the world. Why would you cut your audience in half?
34:38>> Totally. >> That doesn't make sense to me, right? And I get getting niche, but it's the same thing with like people are like, "Well, why haven't you launched Promix like running gels?" Well, it's just a very small addressable market.
34:50Like very small. Like obviously if you're a runner, yeah, you see gels everywhere, but like that's a super super super small. Right.
34:57I bet you people watching it 3% of the people actually take gels. You know what I mean? How many people take protein?
35:03How many people have a gut and focus on gut health? Probably 97% of people. You know, so like you have to understand the addressable market.
35:10Male and female, you just immediately open the addressable market and you're making it approachable. Not too feminine, not too masculine. I'd say both brands Rhythm's a little bit more male heavy right now, but >> [clears throat] >> Promix is 50/50.
35:24>> Do you think that's Do you think that's more of indi- indication of the broader like blood testing >> No. It's No, it's it's because No, it's it's when we first launched I brought more of males onto the biz like from an ads perspective and and we did quite a bit of Ironmans at the beginning. We sponsored Ironman and so that was just a more male heavy audience and so naturally it was more male, but women's is now skewing quite up.
35:53>> Yeah. Yeah. >> And then so with Monroe, like that's hospitality.
35:58It's kind of your bread and butter. And we have the other guy >> behind Monroe Earth right here. >> Uh what's up, baby?
36:05>> Are you good? >> [snorts] >> Welcome. Welcome.
36:07Little bit of traffic today in New York City. >> Yeah. Yeah, it was a nice 6-hour travel.
36:11>> Yeah, Al, let's talk on Monroe. We were talking on like why we're so gender why we're so gender neutral. >> I don't even see gender.
36:21>> Yeah, I don't even You're right? Like I don't know. I said like sex sells.
36:25Like I don't know. Like and can't have sex without male and female, really. >> I just think of like, you know, I mean, Albert, I'm sure you've seen [clears throat] like Mars Men, right?
36:31Like, they're like hyper hyper masculine. And then, like, you know, you contrast that with some other ones that'll be like hyper feminine, like a Happy Mammoth. So, I was more so saying I think what's cool about you guys is you went scientific, trust, gender neutral positioning.
36:45And that's allowed you to, to your point, like, everyone's got a gut problem. So, now we're just positioned to win on, well, we're just the cleanest and we have this unique mechanism, right? I was I was curious if that was like something you did intentionally or just kind of like materialized over time.
37:01>> I I'm sure Devin probably said some variation of this, but um I mean, I guess like big big picture framework, like, when we think about the products we want to make, the places we want to create, and how it all feeds together, that there's not like a we're we're pretty open to everybody. That's kind of been our point of view.
37:20Like, the stuff that we work on represents how him and I are in general. So, we're kind of just happy with everyone. Um and we don't feel like it needs to be like really specific.
37:32It just needs to be to our standards of quality and benefit to the world and all that type of thing. So, I think that inherently just has like doesn't have like a specific niche in it. And we think it can reach a lot of people, like, whatever we're working on.
37:45That's like across anything that we do, I think. That's >> And is that like kind of your product ideation framework? Like, how many total people Like, size of the pie >> Yeah, like and that's not even from a business side.
37:59It's just what we like to work on. >> Cuz I think you've come up I mean, y'all have a great product suite. Like, and I think our audience could really benefit from just hearing like, what is your step-by-step process for like arriving at what's a good product to sell?
38:11>> Yeah. Um I'll touch on that. One thing, like you know, I'm friendly and I think Ben from Mars Men is great.
38:19I know his co-founder is a killer. >> Yeah. Um I think a lot of times you know, there's not like a harder or easier, but like if you have a more defined product, it's easier to just say this is what we do and it's like very specific and you know who you're marketing to.
38:34Like I think they have a very clear customer focus and I think that can lead to extremely fast growth. A lot of times which they they've had. I think a lot of times like with Promix and and then other projects, it's it's like a platform and we know that we can build upon that and so there's this big base, but because it appeals to wide range of people, you can't just have like one message necessarily or it doesn't cut as deep with that message is like, you know, with Promix it's no artificial anything.
38:59Like that represents a lot of aspects of the company, but it doesn't, you know, it's not like, "Hey, this is Mars men." You know, or something where it's like very targeted and you know exactly who you're talking to. Um when the products when we think about products, it's um you know, big part of it is ingredient quality and efficacy.
39:17Those are like the two words that always pop into my head and um you know, Devin's told the story with the baobab and him finding that really as an ingredient and then building a product around that. >> Which is cool. Yeah.
39:29>> One goat donation and all of a sudden you got a hundred billion dollar business. >> [laughter] >> So yeah, go find a goat. >> But uh that's that's like the base framework is how can we we never want to make something that kind of already exists in the market that we don't think moves the market forward and helps people.
39:49So that it's easy for us. We're not good at I I'm I have an inability to like tell you you need something if you don't really need it or or don't think it's actually the best. And so for us we don't feel good about a product unless we know that it's like the best version of what you can get from that product.
40:06>> As far as like sourcing the problems though cuz I think one thing you said earlier was like you guys both had this data set almost real-world clientele. You're like, "Yo, I my gut's messed up. Like I I need something to fix it.
40:18You're like, "Okay, well we have the right product." Like, do you have any other ways of kind of researching trending problems right now cuz you guys have a lot of hero SKUs right now, but like I'm sure the next tranche of growth could come from getting into, I don't know, like straps or calm or something like that. Like, how how are you kind of looking at that road map?
40:34>> Yeah, I think you know, Devin I have a really good dynamic and we look at kind of different things and they often come to the same answer from different points of view. Devin's got his pulse on a lot of stuff. He's really aware of that.
40:46And I kind of look at science things. Like I see what other people are interested in. I People ask me health questions all the time.
40:53So, I think both of us get that. We're we're getting little early signals about, "Hey, people are asking about this more." We kind of like get general health questions all the time. >> like pretty excited about right now about tackling?
41:05>> Uh I think one of them is again kind of like a new category for us, which is in liposomal. Because, you know, we've seen that as an interest for people. And that all is rooted in not people Customers don't necessarily choose things based on like what's best for them.
41:22It's often just like form factor and ease. Like, we're you know, we live in America. Like, convenience is I think number one.
41:29People like things that taste good. I think greens is a great example of a product that tastes so good. It's a snack first, you know.
41:36That's kind of how people position it. >> Fiber and a gummy bear. >> Yeah.
41:39Um >> 1.2 billion. >> Yeah. I was going No, I was just going to say like the cuz you you're asking the pulse of you know, how we I think I'm I'm I'm pretty saturated in culture and like I'm I'm seeing kind of I I used the analogy earlier.
41:53Like, I'm in the trenches. I'm showing up to these events. I'm meeting new people.
41:58I'm showing up to the the you know, the the private equity get-togethers with you know, 20 billionaires and they're all talking about what's next, what they want to buy, what they you know, what what they're doing. And then I'm also at like, you know, Diplo's event or, you know, I'm you know, I'm at, you know, some other, you know, influencer event >> A lot of tastemakers.
42:19>> I'm just at a you know, a coffee shop and I'm just overhearing some [ __ ] Like I'm just in it. I'm hearing it. And so I have that like real-life in the trenches pulse.
42:28>> Right. >> And then he has a scientific pulse. And so when you combine those two things and then just our backgrounds, you know, we both play college sports, we both come from a very healthy background, we both believe in like get sunshine, eat whole foods first and foremost, you know, move every day, take care of your body, take care of your skin, like very holistic approach to health.
42:49And so we have the same approach to health. But then I'm seeing like the more more culture side, what's what people are talking about. He's seeing the more scientific.
42:57Like he's always reading real studies on what's what works and what doesn't. So I could call him and I'm like, "Yo, what like what do you think of this whole colostrum thing? Should we do a colostrum?" And he'll he'll he might be like, "You know, I think it's just a fad.
43:10>> Right. >> stuff. Like I don't know if that's scalable.
43:13I don't know if this is actually impacting XYZ. Like I say we put that on pause. But like what I am seeing Dev is like the liposomal.
43:20Like there's real studies behind this. There's, you know, this can actually impact people. Like Dev, what like go go kind of do your thing for a couple weeks and see what you find as well." And then we come back together and we're like, "Okay, cool.
43:32Let's do these three products in this space from what we And it's literally just it's like we're not Harvard grads. We're not like going back to the [ __ ] boardroom and like I don't think we've ever written on a board. >> But weirdly enough, I think the fact that you're not necessarily Harvard grads does actually work better in today's day and age.
43:50Like I think your credibility stack is more so lived experience. >> For sure. >> Instead of you know, oh well, I was in a lab for seven years.
43:57So now you can trust me. It's like no, like we're two bros who are like in crazy health and like this is exactly what we do to get there. And weirdly enough, I do think that's kind of the new age credibility.
44:08You know, I think that's really where it comes from is lived experience. Like did you guys ever, you know, I'm sure there's been a lot like you just ran a clinical trial for example. And I I'm curious like if you're a brand starting out, would you recommend they go sort of more your credibility route where it's like I'm this person, I've lived this experience or should they launch with maybe more scientific proof, maybe more doctors?
44:31>> I think it depends on the product that they're launching. Um you know, and and what what category you're launching in. Um say it's like uh >> I mean, I think you know, Lemme has obviously done a very good job of like Lemme curb, right?
44:44It's a GLP-1 uh mimetic, right? There's a lot of these mimetics are coming out right now cuz the peptide space is so hot. Like I don't know if Lemme is really referencing a lot of clinical trials.
44:55I think they're just saying this is going to reduce your appetite and I'm, you know, is it Khlo Khloé or Kourtney? I don't even know, but you know, she's like, "Look at me.
45:04Like I look hot. Right. You want to look hot?
45:07Yeah. >> I I think you you can take couple approaches to it. One is a much more brand like let me throw up the brand on your face and you'll see it everywhere.
45:17It's like cool cool colors, cool logos, cool people on brand, like it's it's they create a little FOMO, they create a little like this is the [ __ ] coolest thing since sliced bread. Like you got to do it. And then there's the other side which is like um no, this this works.
45:33This >> It's kind of like It's almost like a Thorne versus a Lemme. Right. Like Thorne is just like, "Hey, we are This is physicians." Yeah.
45:41>> By the way, both brands are doing great. For sure. So, it's I I So, I genuinely think it just it depends on what direction those founders want to go.
45:49>> Yeah. >> I think we've taken the approach of like both. >> Yeah.
45:52>> You know, we we kind of know what's culturally relevant, cool, like what we would take. And then we also take the science approach. Like that's us.
46:02But like that we're we're just, you know, uniquely we were uniquely given those cards. Meeting, you know, obviously meeting each other and building Promix and like that's just the [snorts] cards we currently have. But, like if him and I both came from, say, an agency background and I was a graphic designer and he, you know, creates logos and or a photographer or whatever, like we'd probably have a much more brand-centric that, by the way, could probably work extremely well.
46:28But, I think with my background, his background, this is just the mixture that works for us and I think, you you know, as a founder, you just have to understand what your strengths and weaknesses are. Like, I'm not trying to be a graphic designer. I'm not I'm also not trying to be a scientist.
46:40I'm just I'm, you know, I like to adventure, I like to climb mountains, I like to run marathons. Like, I like to feel good and healthy and then, you know, use the products that we create for all that, you know? And that's my unique approach to it.
46:52Um he has his unique approach to it, you know, running track for Team USA, Florida, being a dietitian, reading all these studies. Like, he [ __ ] likes he likes to read the studies. I'm not reading the studies.
47:05He gives me the SparkNotes on the studies. Like, he he likes doing that. And so, like he's playing into that strength, I play into my strength, and then we combine.
47:14Um I don't think there's a right or wrong way to go about it, though. Um right? I mean >> Yeah, I think Yeah, to your to your like original question, that made me think of like what worked with Promix and why did it work?
47:24And it it's always a combination of that stuff. Like, I think like the Lenny example's really great. Just to note on their stuff.
47:31They use They can you can bypass doing clinicals if you're using branded ingredients. And that's kind of their play. So, they use branded ingredients.
47:38Yeah. Um but and then with Thorne, you know, they built up their brand through a different channel because it was a different time that they built their brand. And then they're trading off that that brand equity that they have.
47:49And we always view ourselves as like the next generation of Thorne. Because Yeah, that that has been like in our heads for a while because >> I totally agree, >> too. You're like a You're like a sexier version.
48:00>> Right. Because it's it's more marketing. They built themselves through >> Sex sells.
48:05>> doctor channels, retail, especially retail or all that type of thing. And they they kept this kind of like high bar of like it's kind of almost through a doctor. And then they were able to build that into a brand that they're able to trade off now.
48:18But their consumer demographic is older. People still trust it, but the younger people want a brand that also relates to them and sells to them a bit more. Thorne doesn't really sell.
48:28They're >> Yeah. >> No, not in touch with that. >> Like they would just sell like a baobab extract.
48:33>> Yeah. There's not like a story. >> Yeah, there's no story to it.
48:37Um So, one thing that I think I mean you guys have gone through an acquisition recently. That that information's public. Um we don't I don't really want to get into the numbers.
48:46I'm actually much more curious about like how that sort of changed how you operate the company and like the vision for it. Because once a company comes in, takes a big chunk, >> Yeah. >> we're going to get you into retail, we're going to scale this thing across all these doors, like etc. etc.
49:00The The goals kind of change like what is kind of the next phase of growth look like for you guys? Like is it is it retail? Is it new products?
49:07Like what what's kind of the the priority? >> Well, I'll I'll also say like with with that with with the partners we brought in, Pain Schwartz, um Kevin Schwartz, the the you know, the main partner at at PSP. I used to train them.
49:22>> Oh, wow. >> ago, yeah. And so he he was a client of mine.
49:25That's full circle. And then James, who helped put the deal together, is also a friend. So like there was them and then there was a couple other people looking, you know, to to come in and partner with us.
49:36But I think when Albert and I look at looked at it, we weren't necessarily looking just to sell a big chunk in the biz. We're we're just looking for guys that we could or guys or girls that we could um just vibe with and and grow this way then we have the same vision and they're not going to try to make us, you know, fix what's not broken, change the formulations.
49:55And so, they're just good partners. Um they're not you know, obviously if the business was doing bad, they'd come in and you know, try to adjust, but like it's business as usual, you know, and that and that I think was our goal with it is like let's continue to run it together and and grow this thing and continue to help people and come out with products that we want to come out with and that's the autonomy they they really give.
50:19So, I think I just wanted to say that because, you know, a lot of the times you sell or you know, you know, you chuck your company and like you do have to switch things up. There's different titles, a new CEO comes in, a new CMO, they try to switch up the whole, you know, profitability um projections.
50:37Like everything switches up. They still give us full autonomy and and that's why we chose them as partners. Um and it's, you know, we've been partners with them for almost, you know, almost 2 years, year and a half.
50:49And so, I think I don't know. I think I think that that was just like a really positive outcome. But the next the next phase >> Well, then you guys, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's aligned incentives, right?
51:02Like they like obviously took a part of the business, but there's a lot more once you guys continue to smash it. >> That's why it's so important to have that type of partner where, you know, cuz everyone thinks like, oh, like you sell a business and that's just kind of it, right? It's like, no, most of these deals like particularly obviously what's going on with Nutribol Bloom, it's like, yeah, there's upfront cash, but like if you smash it, there's a big big big big upside.
51:25I think that's what happened with you guys, right? Same thing. >> Yeah, there's always upside for sure.
51:30Yeah, big upside. >> Have to have that aligned. >> Right.
51:33And like who who's going to know the business more than us? You know what I mean? We've been we've been doing it for years and so, um yeah, I think we're we're just trying to continue to grow it and and reach as many people as possible and continue to come out with good that we enjoy that are going to be around for decades to come, you know, not just quick quick, you know, money grabs.
51:55Like real real legit products that are going to help people. So, I think that that's a big one. Um continue to Yeah, grow the team, build a strong infrastructure behind the team, everything in house, everything um everything kind of just flowing.
52:10And then I think tell continue to tell the story of where we're getting all of our ingredients from. I think that that's a big core of who we are, you know, whether it's going out to the Unimak Islands of Alaska to get our fish oil or to Africa to get the baobab or New Zealand to get the, you know, our beef liver or protein or um you know, we we enjoy telling the stories.
52:29I like to travel. I like to, you know, be out there in the field and just, you know, telling that story, and I know he likes formulating products. Like I to be honest, if we sold the business or not, we'd probably still be doing this, you know, like it's just it's just fun, you know?
52:43And so, I don't know. That's my perspective on kind of where where it's all going. Um yeah.
52:49What are your thoughts? >> No. Um Yeah, Phen Sports has been great.
52:53You know, they they are focused on you know, like Kevin like Dev said, like Kevin is someone who used our products, and they like it because it's a good quality. So, that was a big thing where it was like, you know, they're not going to change the quality, and then um they they saw what our vision was and just are there to support it.
53:15Basically, as as Dev said, like business as usual, and that doesn't mean retail right now. Like we get to a certain scale, I think it makes sense, but we we know the channels that we know now, and I think that focus is really important. And I think a lot of times you see brands like push the retail button if things are not going well in other channels, and you need to kind of like keep keep the number number go up kind of vibe.
53:40Um so, we know our channels, and we there's a lot of green pasture left in those and you know, you can continue educate people digitally and it's a lot easier to pivot, change things, like control the messaging and all that versus like going through, you know, in retail as you're you're moving through their systems for and things which are pretty complicated.
54:02Yeah. >> entirely. It really is.
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54:43So if you're a brand looking to turn support into an asset, go check out ridgepanel.com and tell them we sent you. >> And me, we we had a Ryan from Neurogum on and like they just went through a massive like pre-packaging rebrand. Like changed the, you know, packaging that they'd done their first several hundred million in revenue on just because people in retail were like, "Yeah, we want this to like eye-catch a little more in the >> Yeah, totally.
55:06>> you know? It's like holy [ __ ] like we just completely changed the entire thing. >> of the product, right?
55:11>> Right. >> Um, and it's definitely a different beast for sure. And if you I mean that's >> That's cool.
55:16So, what channels are you still super excited about? Like where do you see a white space for you guys? Like is it TikTok shops?
55:22Is it like an Amazon business? Is it just continuing to grow the D2C subscription side of things? >> Yeah.
55:28>> Yeah, I was going to say I'm bullish on TikTok. Yeah, yeah, Amazon, D2C. I mean those are all three different channels.
55:35I mean TikTok overflows into Amazon, but right. Amazon and D2C are, you know, the there's still so much growth to be had there and and people to reach and of course what not. Um Yeah.
55:47Boutique Boutique shops. Like we we like we like small gyms. We're in Barry's Bootcamp, Soho House, 1 Hotels.
55:53We're in um I mean we're in I'd say hundreds of these like small gyms around the nation which we love working with. I think that's just more of a >> scale that? Like how did you kind of like get into those?
56:07>> A lot of inbounds. >> People want to like carry the product and then yeah. >> Yeah, those are like real customers that own gyms or recommendations or outposts and all like hey, we're going into boutique, you know, spots and you know, we'll put we'll put our retail um our retail, I guess uh manager on it right and she'll she'll help kind of divvy those deals up, but yeah, I don't know.
56:31I think those those channels >> Yeah, um I think what Devin said about the boutique things or cool partnerships like we talked about New York and our backgrounds like having been in fitness and health and wellness for a very long time. Like we have a lot of random connections to people in different things that it's it's cool to see all that come together.
56:52So a lot of it's like oh, this my buddy's opening a gym. This guy knows a gym. This and that's, you know, like where we feel like anything the stuff that we're working on is all aiding back to each other which is cool cuz it's just stuff that we like to do.
57:06>> Yeah. >> When you view a gym is it is it like a really good opportunity to drive trial? And then ultimately recapture that customer?
57:13>> It think about I mean like the retail side is kind of a repres a physical representation of like, you know, we have a very digital brand. And most people almost everyone sees Promix from digital first and then they experience and Devin talks about different touch points. You got to see it. you got to have someone refer it, all that type of thing.
57:34>> Yeah. >> But, yeah, I think the gym type thing is like a really cool place to show how that brand is embodied in like a different way, I guess, you know? And to get people it's immersive, you know, it's like, oh, like this is we try to keep that really high-quality bar against anything that we're doing.
57:52So, it it all makes sense and it all tracks cuz it's like, well, this fits together with that because this is how that kind of the the ProMax customer would enjoy a gym, yeah, you know? >> Of course. >> And it's also the lever, the levers I was talking about.
58:06Like re- you know, going into a boutique gym is a or an event or an event pop-up is a is a lever. >> Yeah. >> You know, guerrilla marketing is a lever, email is a lever, ads is a lever, you know, the and I think at the beginning I was I was saying like we didn't do ads for the first >> Yeah.
58:21>> many years of this, like zero ads. It was more just like pop-ups, it was word of mouth, it was seeding product, it was bringing some influ- influencers on that use the product already. >> Yeah, and it was it was through like our us both being in gyms and like you meet so many people and that's part of like why we did Monroe is like it's not just a it's not like, oh, this is going to be a great numbers business, it's a great community builder and it's such a Austin's, you know, now one of those kind of hubs where at least for health and wellness I would put it very close to a New York or LA or something like that.
58:56And the number of people that come through there and >> They arrest you if you're not jacked. >> Yeah, on Ladybird Trail. >> No, they do.
59:03>> It's crazy. >> You don't have that problem. >> It's unbelievable.
59:06>> He hasn't got arrested [laughter] yet. >> See this guy in the collective locker room every day is the best motivation in my life. >> Uh so, let's talk a little bit more about Monroe.
59:14I I mean, I think it's like so interesting like this whole new premium wellness experience space. Like we're we're in the K-shaped economy, right? People either want way better stuff or they want, you know kind of like the cheap stuff and I mean my personal theory on obviously we're friends with the guys at K like you know I think a gym like Collective could have charged I don't know a thousand bucks and most of its members probably wouldn't have batted an eye right and that would have unlocked a lot new revenue for them to continue to invest in that business I think like you see this with Soho House it's like charging 5K a year like could they charge 12 and like deliver a way better experience to their customers like how are you guys kind of going about building Monroe as like a premium wellness you know experience physical space?
1:00:02>> Yeah I think Devon has a great background we both were in hospitality as well we like hosting people he's a super host I like running some of the ops and different things like that but it starts with the people that's like the main thing like I think that's probably where a line that the quality of of of a space is it's about the community is defined by the people that are in it that's probably the most thing >> um >> how do how do you service those people though are there some specific kind of hospitality insights?
1:00:32>> I'll give my quick little rant cuz I think it's really important and it's how I've always thought about businesses and like consumer psychology if you go into a restaurant and you order a grilled cheese you want that you want the grilled cheese that your mom made you growing up like that's what you're thinking in your brain you don't want a grilled cheese with like ran like 10 random ingredients in it you're going to taste something like [ __ ] like all right that's good but like that's not my mom's grilled cheese you know what I mean you want simple you want what what you're used to I think for the for hospitality and health it's gets really complicated you're thrown all these things at you you're like peptides colostrum tallow this that what the should I be drinking this in the morning should I be taking this at night like what this gym it has 50,000 pieces of equipment what should I be on this more?
1:01:23Like, it's so confusing. The whole health industry is confusing. So, there's confusion and then there's a price barrier.
1:01:29>> Yeah. >> Then it's like, wait. Should I be paying 20,000 a year to be have access?
1:01:33Is this actually going to help my lifespan? Is this going to help me as a whole? I think both those.
1:01:38So, there's the there's the barrier to entry with money, right? Cost. And then there's the confusion.
1:01:44I think when you strip those away and you're like, look. We're going to make it really simple. It's equipment that you understand.
1:01:50>> It's >> you know, for Monroe or it's ingredients that you understand for Promix, right? It's just simple. You know it.
1:01:57You can read the turmeric. You can read the baobab. You can read the um organic oranges.
1:02:01Like, you know what those are. You ate those growing up. You're like, oh cool.
1:02:05That's I think where Promix is winning. Is you just understand it. It's not It's not too confusing.
1:02:10Monroe is winning and the reason that we have thousands of people on the wait list to come in is because it's simple. It's a sauna. It's a steam room.
1:02:19It's a gym that's not like crazy equipment. It's just like equipment you expect. There's a nice open outdoor area.
1:02:25>> Mhm. >> Bone broth, steaks in the restaurant, and a place you can sit down. It's not like We're not upselling peptides.
1:02:31We're not upselling like, you know, this this crazy concierge doctor that's going to try to upsell you a $10,000 membership for like some blood transfusion [ __ ] It's just simple. It's like, for him and I, I want to wake up. I want to have my D blow.
1:02:44I'm going to have my cold brew. I'm going to go in, do some weights like I did this morning. Maybe hit a little bench, hit a little squats, maybe some lunges, hit the sauna, have a you know, jump in the cold plunge, take a shower, and I start my day.
1:02:57It's very simple. It's not like I'm not injecting myself with [ __ ] I'm not like overcomplicating like, I need to take these 50,000 vitamin It's very simple. Get some sunshine, make a maybe maybe call my mom, feel good.
1:03:09Like, it's very simple. And and I think this whole health industry is making [ __ ] so complicated. And we're just trying to pull it back.
1:03:17You know, with the ingredients that we sell through Promix, very simple. It's you can read them all on the on the ingredient list. And with Monroe, it's like you know what you're going to get.
1:03:28And we're not making the could you know, could we make the price of entry a couple thousand bucks a month and like really divvy out people? Yes, but we're not judging people based on their income.
1:03:40We're judging people based on the quality of human they are. >> Yeah. >> What values they have.
1:03:44You know, there shouldn't be a price barrier to the health industry. >> So with Monroe, you're kind of you're saying like you're evaluating a lot of the members like on a vibe check almost. >> Yeah.
1:03:53I mean >> Yeah. And like I think it it you know, it's it's like the book The Secret. It's what you put out in the world is what you attract back.
1:04:00>> Yeah. >> We didn't do a social post for the grand opening. We didn't like we sent some messages out to our friends and all of a sudden we have 500 people there that we know personally.
1:04:09We didn't post about we don't even have posts up on social right now. >> Yeah. >> Cuz we don't want it.
1:04:14Like we're we're building the community from within of people that we've known for 15, 20 years. You know what I mean? Like these are our this is our these are our homies.
1:04:22And so like when you build that reputation, then it's it's really easy to fill a space with good quality people cuz what what we put out in the world is who we attract back in. And so if we're you know, you can take it how you want with you know that. But like I I think we we we attract good people that we like into the space and that creates the environment.
1:04:41I was saying at the opening speech that we just had like it's not like you know, we're launching with artist and you know, musicians or you know, real estate people. Like it's it's you good?
1:04:53>> Yeah. >> We're good. We're we're we're not launching based on the industry.
1:04:57We're launching based on the just the values and the quality of the people in the space, you know, and try not to overcomplicate it. Like you go into a gym, what are you going to do? You just you probably want a sauna, a cold plunge, some weights.
1:05:09You go in, you put your music in. You leave, you know, maybe you want a shake at the end. It's very simple, you know?
1:05:14It doesn't It doesn't have to be complicated and there doesn't have to be a There shouldn't be a price barrier to entry for your health. >> I I I know what you >> I totally agree. I think what I meant by the price thing was more so that like functionally that would allow them to invest more in the quality of the experience.
1:05:32Like, uh have you guys gone to Urban Golf Performance in Austin? >> Uh UGP? >> Sick.
1:05:38>> I was going to say. >> You should honestly check it out because like it's probably the best hospitality experience I've ever gone to. >> Wow.
1:05:45>> And um they just they cater exclusively to like you know, I'm working out >> Yeah. >> doing like some plyo you know, someone athletic >> Yeah, yeah. >> and the guy next to me is like the founder of Solana.
1:05:57>> Right. Like this, you know, crypto billionaire or whatever and >> Yeah. >> they really market to that high-end clientele which I'm not necessarily qualified, but I love golf.
1:06:06And so, what was crazy about it though is like, dude, you you you roll up they come get your clubs out of your car. They get your clubs out of their trunk. There's like four bros that meet you at the door.
1:06:17They dap you up. They're like, "Dude, you looking good today. The flows look nice.
1:06:21Like, hell yeah, bro, you're the man." Like, you walk in and there's like seven more dudes like at the front. They're like, "Welcome in, Brian. Like, you're going to have a great day today.
1:06:29Like, super excited for you." And it's so high-touch. You know, it it's very very very like you feel included. You feel very prioritized.
1:06:40>> And >> To the point where I'm like laughing at these guys. Like, this is ridiculous. >> You're just gassing him >> Yeah, yeah, you don't like me.
1:06:45>> That's what That's what Buck Mason does. >> Yes. >> Buck Mason loves doing that.
1:06:48>> 100%. Like, they just gas you up immediately. Yeah.
1:06:51And you know, I think they're able to do that because like you guys said, it's all about the people. They hire a very specific person. You know, they hire someone who's excited to do that.
1:07:01Um but they also charge to a level where they can pay those people, you know, you hire a specific person cuz they're getting paid a good amount to work that job and I think a lot of gyms necessarily maybe skip that part. Like they try and you know, hire people who for like 40k, 50k and it's like, well, if this was an 80k hire, would it make your members like it that much more and would this in turn become that much better of an experience?
1:07:23That was more so like a pricing thing, not necessarily like let's exclude people who can't afford it, more so the business is healthier and can then invest in the experience. >> Yeah.
1:07:32I we've brought in amazing hires that we just attract good people there and you know, they're >> Right. >> They're just >> of being great operators and like building something people believe in. You know, there's a vision that you guys are kind of portraying I would say, which is like a You said it earlier, like live to 150, like total control of your health, like Monroe is absolutely like a stack right in that overall vision, right?
1:07:56It's like >> Yeah, and I I just think like man, life's already complicated. >> Yeah. >> We're just trying to simplify it.
1:08:02>> Yeah. >> Like I don't know, right? Like it's >> Yeah.
1:08:06>> Where you know, we don't it it just shit's already complicated. >> Right. >> Just make it simple.
1:08:13In front of you, there should be an easy checkout process, there should be an easy, you know, easy way to get in and out of the gym, there should be an easy way to just go about when you're when you want to um introduce a new habit into someone's life, it needs to be easy cuz it's nearly impossible to >> Yeah. >> switch someone's habits.
1:08:33And so how the hell are you going to do How are How the hell are you going to switch someone's habit to Okay, they're nor they normally wake up, they do their stuff, they go for a run, they go into another gym on the other side of the town. How are you going to switch them to come over here? Well, you're going to make it simple for them.
1:08:49You know what I mean? That's it. You can just You need to make it simple.
1:08:52>> Right. >> The The only thing I added on what Dev When he says simple, I think to me that also means just like honest and straightforward. That's kind of how we are.
1:09:02Um so I think that's what it's about where I think about materials a lot like that. Like, you know, is it like a real piece of wood or a real piece of metal? And then, things like >> from Hogwarts right here.
1:09:12>> Yeah. Yeah, this is insane. So, so I think there's a lot of that.
1:09:17And I think that's refreshing for people and that's what makes people stick around. That's You think about You go to Europe or something and it's not necessarily the flashiness. It's like, "Oh, like it actually tastes better or it actually has some realness to it." So, I think doing the things that are true to us, you end up attracting people that are excited about things.
1:09:35You work on something positive that brings more people in. But, being honest and clear about things, I guess, is kind of it. Cuz there's a lot of brands and companies in all different worlds that can hype it up a ton.
1:09:46>> Right. >> I think, you know, I am A or something right now is like doing crazy numbers. They're [ __ ] full gas marketing.
1:09:52They've got Messi. They've got >> It's back and you know, it's like unbelievable. The claims are out of this world.
1:09:57>> But, it's like I don't know. Like, I'm just like I I think most people are not as deep in the space where I'm so kind of jaded to that stuff where I'm like >> A lot of smoke and mirrors. >> But, yeah, I think it's you can If as long as you keep the gas on, it kind of works.
1:10:11But, like we're we like to run businesses that are profitable and, you know, self- um sustaining. >> I mean, a few years from now, I think that they'll probably experience some of the aftereffects of, you know, outrageous claims, right? Like, if it doesn't change my life, then I'm kind of disappointed.
1:10:27>> Yeah. [laughter] Yeah, totally. That's That's the expectation. >> Uh if I don't become Giannis, then I guess I'm going to blame I am A.
1:10:33>> Exactly. You're Yeah. You said it.
1:10:36>> Um so, you guys are running like multiple businesses. I mean, several between the two of you. Like, how are you blocking off your time?
1:10:43Like, how are you actually showing up to your team members in the way that you want? Like, how are you executing at such a high level? >> Yeah.
1:10:50Um Uh for me, personally, I I don't take external calls before 11:00 or after 3. Um and before 11, I'll do calls with Albert or my other partner at at Rhythm. But that's it, you know, I leave that time for internal stuff I need to do, like things I personally need to do and after 3 I or things I need to do.
1:11:18Um and then it's just delegating and finding the best possible people for you know, the roles that you're not necessarily the greatest at, you know, you want to build a team around you that's everyone should really be much smarter than you in certain categories. >> Um what are you doing between 11:00 and 3:00? >> 15-minute calls.
1:11:39I use Calendly and I send a link um you know, to to you know, whoever is trying to book and I give them max 15 minutes unless I have a board meeting or unless like it's something, you know, where we actually need an hour or more, but I I I'm a big believer in like 90 plus percent of the time you can probably get what you need to get done in 15 minutes or less.
1:12:02>> Yeah. >> Yeah, I mean some of these dragged out calls to have a call to have a call to have an email is just [ __ ] wasted time and it's just not it's not realistic when you're building businesses. Um time you're not getting time back and so you have to maximize, you know, why are you getting on a call?
1:12:18What's the reasoning? Do like do do we really need to be, you know, in person or on a call for this or can we get it done via email? Like can someone else on the team handle it?
1:12:28Like why do I actually have to be on this 15-minute call? Um is I think about that quite often. I look at my calendar and I'm like, oh, this someone else can handle this or I do not need to be on this call or why is it booked in for 30 minutes?
1:12:41We can probably get this done in 10. Um or if I see something on my calendar um and I'm like, wait, I can literally call this person right now and just sort it out, I'll do that.
1:12:50And so I'm pretty efficient with that. >> Nice. >> Um I also don't use a laptop, really.
1:12:55>> Okay. >> [laughter] >> I'm a I'm a cell phone guy. I'm I'm always moving and shaking.
1:12:59I'm traveling a ton. I mean, it's just this year alone, I've been on I think 53 flights. >> 50?
1:13:04Okay. >> You know, like 3 months into the year. >> Approximately 10 a month.
1:13:07>> Yeah. >> Yeah, more more. Yeah, I mean >> Yeah.
1:13:10>> What do we >> 10 a month. >> Yeah, more than Yeah. >> And so, um I'm always moving and that's just That's that's what works for me.
1:13:17Not everyone has high energy or has that opportunity to do that, but that's what works for me. >> Uh >> Al's different. >> Yeah, I prefer to be in the same spot.
1:13:27I just I'm extremely routine. Uh I don't even think about it like that. It's just what I naturally gravitate to.
1:13:33>> Yeah. >> Um >> What's your routine? >> Like at 4:00 a.m., have a coffee, work until I don't want to I don't want to bore you with all the details.
1:13:42>> No, please please. I mean, people need to learn I mean, CEOs that are like executing [clears throat] at extremely high level, I think more people should learn from their routine so they can at least judge what they're doing. >> Right.
1:13:52Yeah. I'll give like the the quick note. I caught up with again, Ben from Mars men the other day.
1:13:58And I go, "Yeah, you're having a good time." You know, he he does a good job putting out what's fun on social. And uh then I know he's a complete like I'll say like degenerate on work, too. Where like literally any time that that photo and that where he's at is not happening, he's sitting on his computer.
1:14:15>> Right. >> And that's kind of how I am with So, I wake up at basically, you know, my schedule shifted to accommodate my family. Um and so, I would naturally like to work later at night and maybe sleep in.
1:14:29They don't That doesn't work. So, I have to wake up at 4:00. Um I basically just try to work until they get up at 6:30 or something and make them breakfast and that kind of stuff.
1:14:38Um dog walk. On the dog walk, I'm often doing emails or taking some calls. And then I try to get in a spot and try to be unbothered and just work and there's always stuff to do um but I basically just sit on the computer uh the whole day.
1:14:55>> That's like 11:00 to like >> No, it's like so it's 4:00 to 6:00 and then walk the dogs, do all that. I'm back on I'm doing calls and things during the dog walks and stuff and then I'm physically sitting at the computer 9:00 to 5:00 or 6:00 and then then it's all like family time at night and I go to bed at 9:30 or 10:00.
1:15:17>> Yeah. >> Um but you're you know, your ability to concentrate evolves over time the more things that happen. I think the stuff that's helped me has been one if you have a lot to do, you start to get better at prioritizing.
1:15:29You know, I used to think me spending 10 more minutes trying to figure out the copy on the email mattered. It doesn't typically. You know, I think depending on how your brain's built, some people are like throw everything at the wall and they very quick iteration.
1:15:43A lot of people who like to build things maybe get too specific on stuff that doesn't matter. You don't have enough like real world feedback from customers.
1:15:52Um but you get older, you get better at kind of like locking in um and you know, we both Devin loves um we both like are excited by like pressure too. You know, like if we don't [clears throat] have a full schedule, it's not good. Devin especially.
1:16:08Like Devin can't be alone. He needs He'll make He'll make problems to then solve them. You know, so it's [laughter] like that's a real thing is like you got to find that flow.
1:16:19For me like we both like things to do. I know I need that. Like there's some I would say legitimate fear around not having things to do that we both have where it's like it's it's bad.
1:16:31Like you know >> I'm doing things feels like momentum. >> Yeah, it's just good to we like to keep positive momentum, but you just start I think delegation is extremely important. Like we know what's important, we we do that.
1:16:43Um yeah, with the businesses like, for me like, we put Promix first um and just make sure that works and we get really great people and then we get to niche down farther and farther in what we're really good at. Devin's connecting people, he's doing all this stuff, he's going on trip trips, like creating a story. >> prioritization with your capabilities.
1:17:05>> Yeah. >> I'm hearing. It's like, you know, yeah, maybe you write eight out of 10 email copy and your email marketer writes 7.5.
1:17:13>> Yeah, the more you can get away from that because like, the more that I just stepped out of that cuz it's not what I'm I can do it, it's just not what I'm best at. And that's where the company's really taking off. You get people who are the best at doing that and they just start doing it and everyone's also happy.
1:17:29So, always like, if we're working with people, I always want to know like, what do you hate doing? What do you like to do? What are you good at?
1:17:36And hopefully the good at and like to do are the same and then you end up working those roles. Um but >> Yeah, we I I'd say a common theme with both of us is yeah, we do make ourselves busy.
1:17:46Productive. We make ourselves like, we have to like, like it's just a you know, >> Yeah, I I'll give like just other anecdotes for people trying to think about. I don't enjoy a lot of stuff.
1:17:58Like, I don't watch sports anymore, I don't watch movies. Like, legitimately haven't I Vanilla Sky in a movie theater was the last movie I saw with a couple when that came out. >> Was that like 20 years ago?
1:18:08>> Yeah. >> I also don't By the way, >> [laughter] >> by the way, I also don't watch sports. I watched the Superbowl for >> Yeah.
1:18:16>> like, a quarter. >> like talking with people. You're there because of the people there.
1:18:21>> and I don't play video games. Like, I don't I don't know. >> Like, there's so much time that when I was younger in college, I would like play Halo and like, I'm like, bro, how many hours did I spend playing Halo?
1:18:31And like, so you actually have the time. >> It's kind of fun to mob on online though, with the Halo with the fellas. >> Yeah, [laughter] that's super fun.
1:18:38>> But like, yeah, if you're focused on something like just look at how many different things you do that don't matter. I know for like me having a wife like you spend a lot of time a lot of head space thinking about how do I get you know massive >> Be a good dad, be a good husband, all that stuff. Like you just genuinely don't have time for these kind of outside distractions or other interests, right?
1:18:57>> Yeah. So you got to like Well, and then there's the other piece you got to make sure that you're happy, right? I mean, you've got to take care of yourself and like work out and like, you know, a lot >> Yeah, the consistency is is super important.
1:19:09Devin and I both do that. I think a lot of people don't have that and we both need fitness and health for mental health, you know, like not in like I'm not that kind of guy that talks about that stuff, but like legitimately that's the best thing you can do. >> Of course.
1:19:22It's like chemical imbalance. >> It's really simple. It's literally just chemicals.
1:19:25>> Yeah, like it's neurochemistry. >> So having that consistency every day keeps your energy up, keeps everything going. So just kind of like yeah, keeping keeping in motion.
1:19:34You're meant to be in motion. So we keep that as like a big pillar of it. I think it's hard if people go really spiky.
1:19:40Just like your sleep, just like anything. Like your body gets used to a rhythm and it's so if you're just kind of in like fourth and fifth gear the whole time and sometimes we go you know, into sixth gear and it's like a little too much and then we got to back it off a little bit, but like you got to stay like moving for sure.
1:19:55>> Yeah, 100%. >> Yeah. >> Fill it just fill it up.
1:19:58You got to fit like there's there literally is always something to I always find myself if I'm if I'm like critiquing a like social media story or like some like something that's just like I probably should like the team is handling that, but it's not that it's minuscule. Everyone has Everyone has their job and it's important, but like I find myself if I'm critiquing like a social like a something on our story or feed, I'm like I'm too bored.
1:20:24I need to fill time with something. >> or grumpy. >> [laughter] >> I'm like I got to I got to refocus and like go find something else to do.
1:20:32>> Yeah, if you if I start tooling around with emails or it's like >> Yeah, not doing the right stuff. >> Yeah, like this is the problem. >> Okay, before we jump like one thing we have a lot of young entrepreneurs that watch this podcast.
1:20:42A lot of people are super established operators as well. Like I always like to ask our guests like what are some mistakes that you would say like you made along the way that people should look to avoid? You can take some time to think about it.
1:20:54>> No, I got I mean um >> Let me pull out my notes. >> the the like one that immediately comes up is just make sure you're doing something you really like to do cuz it's going to take a lot of your time and like effort and it's hard to I'm not good at doing things that I don't like. My brain just kind of shuts off and that's why I do a pretty narrow set of things cuz it's what I like to do.
1:21:14Um I think just like a real world reference if you're ever in class and you would get sleepy like I just get tired when I'm bored. >> Right. >> Like Devin's super high energy.
1:21:23If he's bored then he's like not. You know, it's like that. Um and then I think the other one is just knowing what you're good at and just finding people that are complimentary.
1:21:32I found that work in relationships. Devin and I are complimentary where it's like a Venn diagram where you overlap in some core areas but we're very different. >> Yeah.
1:21:40>> And that means that you all have clear running lanes that you're working in and that you're good at and that you also are you know, you can you can do more because you've got a a wider brush where if like the marketing's going great, great, we can do that but but that's got to have a product that anchors it and like so I think that's hard because most entrepreneurs are good at like one thing and sometimes it's the right time in the market and everything where it kind of hits but like often if you find someone else like a lot of guys that I think we know can really get the eyeballs but then they're [ __ ] at operations.
1:22:10It's like you can't keep the product in stock. You're out of stock. You got all these issues.
1:22:14It's like well, you need someone who's like doesn't know anything about marketing and just like is good at like Excel tables and stuff. >> Exactly. Yeah, modeling.
1:22:22>> Yeah. >> Like so that's what I've learned from as things just grow and but at every stage and obviously when you're younger and you have one person or two people they have to wear a lot of hats but as soon as you can get to that point bring in more people and yeah. >> Yeah, I think um those are I was going to say those as well.
1:22:42But on top of that man, don't take it that serious. >> [laughter] >> Yeah. Like it's we're all dying at some point and I think I see some of these founders put all their eggs in one basket for 10 years like all of them and they don't travel, they miss time with their family, maybe they become a little unhealthy.
1:23:07They they really go all in on this biz. Um and then maybe they do sell it and you know, maybe they do make a hundred million or whatever it is. Um but then they're out of shape.
1:23:18They you know, they their their hairline's receding, they feel unhealthy, they ruined relationships that they've had. They they just missed 10 years of their life um with their mother or father. Like they like don't lose your values and who you are when building a company.
1:23:35You know, I I love Jesse Itzler's big ass calendar cuz it does give you a good um way to visualize what your year is and I always suggest putting adventures and travel and family time and birthdays on it first and don't [ __ ] miss them. Cuz it really does go by quick and you're going to look back and be like shoot, man.
1:23:58Like yeah, I have this business and I have a hundred million but like damn, like >> Yeah. >> I I ruined this relationship or I I [ __ ] this up. Yeah, like Yeah, like life.
1:24:07Like you're you know, and and also the second thing I'll say is like make sure your intentions are right. You know, everyone wants a business. Not everyone but founders, whoever's listening, like I want a big business.
1:24:19Well, big business means bigger problems. More money, more problems. More employees, more problems.
1:24:25Like Build a business that makes a million bucks a year. Cash. Profit.
1:24:29Like what else do you need? You know what I mean? Like build that.
1:24:33You don't You don't need to make a business that's making a hundred million a year, you know, profit. Like it's It's okay if, you know, what What do you need? What's your intention?
1:24:42Why do you want to make money? Like, you know, like what's what's your real intention? I know I genuine I want I want financial freedom um to host my friends and like host my family more.
1:24:51Like that's genuinely the only reason why. I'm not like a big I don't know. That's just That's my why.
1:24:56Yeah, I I I love that stuff. I love hosting people. So like that'll and I just love building stuff with him.
1:25:01I love health. My dad was a pro weightlifter. My mom was a pro weightlifter.
1:25:04Like I just I've been doing this [ __ ] my whole life. And so I just I would be doing this whether I was making money or not, you know what I mean? It's just fun.
1:25:12Um I host a weekly call with founders and like we talk and I make no money from it. I just think it's super fun, you know? And so I think it's it's understanding your your intention and like don't forget to have a little fun along the way cuz it does go by.
1:25:25I mean I I know a buddy that just sold his company. He made 300 million.
1:25:27And I'm like, "How you doing?" He's like, "I'm good but my [ __ ] back hurts." And I'm like, "Damn." I'm like, [laughter] "That's He's like, "I have I have like a slip something." And I'm like, "Damn. Like that's That's real. That's real as fuck." Like >> No amount of money is going to fix the fact that like you kind of woke up and couldn't get out of bed.
1:25:42>> Right. And lit none, you know? That That's going to be your first, you know, first thing on your mind.
1:25:49So I don't know. Fun. Intention.
1:25:51>> Yeah. >> You know? >> Amazing.
1:25:53Well, guys, that was awesome. That was really great. Where I mean, I guess Devin Levesque on Instagram.
1:25:59>> Yeah. Yeah. Devin >> Levesque on Instagram.
1:26:01>> Levesque. Levesque. Le >> Whatever you want.
1:26:04>> Follow Albert too for fitness >> Albert a follow. >> Yeah, I do a lot of reposting of Devin's stuff. >> Yeah.
1:26:09Yeah. Repost me. >> Promix.
1:26:10>> My wife and dogs. >> Promix. Rhythm and Row.
1:26:15Sweet Honey Farms. >> Sweet Honey Farms. >> Yeah.
1:26:17Yeah. >> Check us out. >> We'll link everything in the description, but I mean that was really fun.
1:26:20>> Yeah, absolutely. >> Appreciate you, my brother. >> Thanks, man.
1:26:22>> Sorry, really good to see you. >> Thanks, guys. >> Later, that was great.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The opener names a shift most ecommerce founders are feeling but cannot quite articulate: when trust in institutions collapses, the person you follow becomes the brand you buy. Devon Levesque and Albert Matheny are the working proof -- two former personal trainers who turned their client relationships, an African cookout, and a goat into a nine-figure supplement company.
How they asked for the click.
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