hey what's going on in this video I
interview Zack and Vincent from life
stack supplements
these guys are college students they're
still in college right now although
we're actually dealing with the Cova 19
situation coronavirus so I think they
were sent home it's been a little hectic
since we had this interview but these
guys started a nootropics company they
reached out to me I didn't know they
were in college that looked like they
had a cool product they tested it out I
really liked it by the way so a couple
of them that I dig are Flo and chill
those are the two different products
that they have I purchased some myself
they sent me a sample and I liked it so
I bought some more I'm sharing it with
some of my friends as well I encourage
you to check out life stack and I got a
20% discount code for you I'm an
affiliate so potentially I'll get a
commission actually I can't remember if
they told me that but I will just
mention that disclaimer just in case but
regardless you get 20% off and you can
use my coupon code it's in the
description and all that stuff these
guys are really cool they don't try and
push the product much I'm just
interested how you actually start a
company and my mind is completely blown
because I mean I don't even know what to
do now and those guys are like half my
age basically they're in college getting
done really amazing so I think you
could be inspired do check out the
interview if you're interested in
dabbling with some nootropics I think
these are great ones to get started with
the price point is a little bit lower
than some of the others so it's a good
place to check it out and you're
entrepreneurs out there so thanks a lot
to Zack and Vince it and without further
ado I'll send it to the interview
hey what's going on it's Doug Huntington
here for the Doug show and I am talking
to Vincent and Zak today how are you
guys doing well thank you and you guys
are in like a pro set up studio what's
going on over there were you located yes
so we're based at Williams College in
Massachusetts and we're then the
recording studio here a really good
setup
it's amazing you have a bigger
production crew than I do
yeah so who are you guys and why are we
talking today sure I'll take this one so
Vincent and I are both college students
we met here at Williams College he's a
senior I'm a junior and we're both sort
of excited young entrepreneurs that are
very interested in the health and
wellness space and so about a year ago
we got our start in the supplements
industry and that's what we're here to
talk about today cool so how how did you
guys meet we met at college Zac and I
met on sort of like a camping trip at
the beginning of college had an
orientation days and you know we share a
lot of common interests sort of like you
know fitness and and and health and
wellness isaq already said as well as a
bunch of other topics like philosophy
and things like that and so over the
years we've you know you know gotten
closer and started talking
entrepreneurship as well and that's how
we got into the industry together cool
and you guys reached out to me and I
didn't know you were college students
yeah which it doesn't matter by the way
but like I didn't realize you guys have
so much hair so much more hair than me
being so young but still still yeah yeah
um yeah basically I was like sure I'll
talk to you guys you guys have some
nootropics and supplements and stuff
like that so you sent me a couple
samples and I was like hey this stuff is
pretty great sure let's talk so how'd
you get interested in actually like
launching a company and putting out a
product sure so I guess the for this
particular product the origin was really
that we know a lot of kids that you know
are looking for performance enhancement
in one way or another
caffeine is the
a choice but some people also use more
illicit substances like adderall or
modafinil and Vince and I as
health-conscious people but also people
that need to be productive I thought
that we might be able to do something
better so that was sort of one side of
the origin story and the other side was
that we saw that in many of the people
we know weed in particular as it became
popular in the states with legalization
seem to have you know positive effects
for creativity and and mood but it also
created these sort of long-term changes
in terms of motivation emotional
blunting things like that and so we we
thought that maybe there's an
opportunity to kind of tackle that issue
making it a set of nootropics that might
be able to somewhat enhance the effects
of THC the positive effects while
mitigating the negative effects
and so that's how we came up with the
formulation for flow but we actually
realized that it worked for a general
population so it was that
performance-enhancing supplement that we
were looking for and it also had this
really awesome effect of enhancing the
positive effects of THC and mitigated
the negative effects okay so that was
flow and then you have another product
called chill and they're they're well
named so it's pretty clear what they're
about yeah so what was the intent with
chill yeah you know um the integra chill
was that you know people lead very
stressful lives and ultimately people
have a lot of sort of like have a hard
time sort of winding down at the end of
their days I have a lot of anxiety have
trouble falling asleep and so having
some expertise in the nootropics you
know space we were able to put out put
together a formula of you know natural
ingredients including CBD that works
really well to you know sort of relieve
some stress to help people wind down
sort of taking the evening and get a
good night's sleep cool
for me so I was never a big weed user
and I just want to like jump in real
quick cuz I know some of the listeners
are like you guys are stoners and what
are you talking about these college kids
but I live in Colorado and I was never
into weed like growing up didn't enjoy
it and just generally stayed away drugs
are bad all that stuff
and then as I got older I was like you
know what some of the data seems a
little bit off and I live in Colorado
now with in Boulder County and you just
go to a store and go buy like from a
dispenser it's not like at the grocery
store but you go to a dispensary it's
all highly controlled
I don't smoke anything I enjoy edibles
it's like going to a pharmacy like it's
to the milligram and if you know what
you're taking and understand sort of the
the timeline of when things are gonna
happen then it's great and I know again
just there's a lot of people that have
not experienced like an edible where
it's where you know what you're taking
because I've heard the horror stories
where someone eats half a cookie and
they wait like 15 minutes and then they
eat like two more cookies and then
they're blasted for a day and a half
then they're really in rough shape so
and I honestly don't know that you're in
Massachusetts right that's right yeah
it's recently legal and criminalized and
recreation at this point right that's
right yeah yeah yeah you know I think
you bring a good point
so weed has been legal for a couple
years now here in Massachusetts and
certainly one of the good things about
the sort of recent wave across the
country really in weed legalization is
that a lot of the stigma has sort of
like gone away but as a society really
we're still learning how to you know use
weed responsibly really so even though
you know a lot more people are using it
and a lot of the stigma around the the
Ron THC has gone away we're really still
figuring out and they're still sort of
like negative side effects that the
people grapple with and that's really
where life stacks particularly flow
comes in so you know people that are
getting into
you know that EHC community you know
might experience like sort of like
negative effects on their motivation or
a negative effects on their ability to
focus and that's really sort of where we
come in yeah okay and can you can you go
a little deeper so ability to focus and
I mean some of the notes you sent me
ahead of time some people experience
some depression and stuff like that too
so can you just go a little deeper yeah
sure yeah happy to so essentially it
many people are aware of many of the
stereotypes running being a STONER
perhaps that means you're a couch potato
lazy not so motivated now I think many
of these end up not being true or
they're overblown there's a ton of
high-functioning weed users but it is
true that some people do experience
emotional blunting or loss of motivation
some people even have some like
essentially emptying them out of their
emotional range so they that's anhedonia
where people just don't feel like the
highs are as high and that's commonly
reported with all sorts of obsessive
behaviors or any any sort of pleasure
seeking behaviors where you know that
sort of sucks the energy out of the
other things that you might do and so
flow addresses that in a number of ways
the first is weed has some
anticholinergic properties in parts of
your brain and so we supply a coaling
source people know that to be like the
brain vitamin it's not technically a
vitamin but we have Siddha choline which
has been used successfully in
Alzheimer's trials it also has been
shown to help memory even in youthful
people and that alone has been found to
have positive properties both for the
addictive properties of certain drugs
but also for the memory loss that comes
with certain drugs a pseudo carnitine is
a very similar substance that also lifts
the coaling levels in your brain and
then there's some other things that work
more on the dopaminergic system so these
are like sort of emotional enhancers
like rhodiola and jin-sang
and the whole combination really comes
together and synergizes nicely with the
properties of THC and flow actually
includes CBD in part for that reason
CBD as many people know is a really
solid pairing with THC it reduces some
of the negatives and certainly boosts
many of the positives cool and I I was
gonna say a lot of times with the
edibles I get what they called a 1 to 1
ratio so you end up with one milligram
of THC in one milligram of CBD and I
googled it I just looked it up on the
internet I think you guys could probably
like state it in a more clear way but
the pictures that I saw it looked like
the CBD sort of like ties to some of the
like neural connector like things that
go with THC and CBD so it kind of mutes
some of those impacts is that kind of
accurate at least yes it's it's
certainly dose dependent so I at low
doses of CBD it enhances many of the
positive effects of THC so people can
actually feel even higher and more
joyful when they have a small amount of
CBD along with their THC but totally in
high amounts it can blunt some of the
effects which is why we're careful in
our formulations to have a really
optimal dose 5 milligrams of CBD and
that pairs well with pretty much any
commonly consumed dose of THC perfect
and then and I was gonna say like it's 5
milligrams for each flow and chill is it
the same type of I guess for Irv I guess
I don't know how to describe it is it
the same CBD because I know there's many
varieties from from different plants and
all that stuff so is it the exact same
stuff or do you use different CBD for
each of the formula yeah we we do use
the same hemp extract in in each
formulation gotcha okay cool and have
you had any challenges by including CBD
or is that more acceptable now that you
can like order CBD across the nation and
hopefully the stigma is a little bit I
guess gone for CBD but I'm not sure what
have you ran into yeah so it tends not
to be a problem at all in our retail
sales channels so generally retailers
brick-and-mortar stores are very open to
the idea of having products that include
CB
so you you find CVD products and smoke
shops and you know sort of you you know
but even in like vitamin shops and and
more generalist stores as well it has
been more of a challenge online so CBD
products are not allowed to be sold an
amazon for example and we've said we've
had some issues with our payment
processor on our own website as well
we've solved those issues now but I
think even though there's more and more
legal clarity as well in that field
we're still some you know we're still a
few steps away from CBD actually being
sort of like a seamlessly sold product
even online yeah that makes sense and I
know we've gotten CBD for our dog who's
sitting at my feet right now she like
pulled her shoulder or something like
that yeah and your vet was like yeah if
you're giving her CBD that's totally
cool so they have it at like pet shops
and even at the dispensaries they will
have like CBD and or some THC for dogs
which seems weird but it's a super like
tiny tiny dose of THC yeah and how's
your how's your dog respondent great
overall just great I think they I can't
I think they they put it with like
coconut oil or something like that yeah
so just a couple drops on her food and
it seemed to help I mean time passed and
she rested and all that stuff so she got
better at the vet was like the the CBD
has virtually like no side effects and
he didn't prescribe anything else he
said keep going with a CVD like that's
what we should be using so yeah yeah
yeah yeah I mean it has many different
applications CBD does it's certainly not
like sort of a wonder drug that that
will cure every ailment or help any
person or animal but it does have very
you know very helpful specific
applications and and that's also really
the reason why we included it in our
formulations great so I want to shift
gears over to like the business side of
this so what's the team look like do you
have other employees or is it just you
YouTube founders right now yeah so Zack
and I found out the company about a year
ago we have now grown to a team of about
six people so they are other college
students both here in Massachusetts as
well as over in Illinois Illinois that
support our day-to-day operations so
there are people that do sales for us
and marketing for us there's people that
are responsible for social media things
there's people that are you know helping
particularly helping Zack with R & D you
know as a young and small company all of
us are wearing a lot of different hats
obviously um but as the team has grown
over the last few months you know we've
been able to assign responsibilities
more clearly which has been really
positive for our company I also want to
say Vincent said about six because we do
have a seventh person affiliate with the
company and you might have seen this on
our website or in our materials I
harbored psychiatrists actually tried
the product he endorses the product he
recommends it for patients his focus is
a DD but he finds it to be generally a
useful supplement all around and he's
not exactly on the team but he is a
helpful consultant when it comes to all
things pharmacology and so it really
helps us get our our hands around you
know how to think about supplementation
sustainability effectiveness and and
dosing yeah it's a pretty impressive
endorsement so it's probably awesome to
have him at least interested and
supportive absolutely yeah yeah it's
been great
so what are your majors by the way I'm
philosophy and economics I do history
okay yeah sounds like you guys were
aiming for pre-law or something like
that yeah you know yeah Williams College
is a liberal arts college so you know
our education is it tends to be pretty
broad across the humanities and Natural
Sciences has pros and cons cons that it
doesn't really prepare you for anything
specific so so once we graduate we'll
have to figure that out yeah sure yeah
okay so you didn't have I was like oh
those are any sort of biology or is
there someone in chemistry but you guys
are liberal arts and just interested in
this kind of stuff yeah that's that's
partly where the psychiatrist comes in
you know he gives us the sort of
credibility and the deep expertise that
we need to be sure that we're you know
moving the right direction or with our
formulations but I guess I also do you
want to add this is not our first rodeo
when it comes to formulating so I do
have experience actually developing a
different product that it's a chip made
from egg whites and that took months and
months formulation because you really
don't there's a reason you don't hear a
lot about chips made from egg whites
it's a it's a difficult thing to do and
so I think probably in in the in the
course of sort of learning how to work
with materials and to optimize desired
effects this kind of project became
something I could wrap my head around a
little more gotcha
and what you said chips like like potato
chip style
yes exactly except no potatoes no start
source
it's just protein and fiber actually
okay just egg whites oh that's right
yeah huh what would you do with all the
yolks
uh we just sourced the whites okay but
that's a conversation okay because I'm
like me and you can make a lot of ice
cream or a head of custard something
like that I don't know I cook a lot so
it's weird question all right
it is I get that dead didn't go anywhere
cuz you know it sounds kind of gross but
oh no actually yes it were in 250
retailers across country and growing oh
no I have no idea what I'm talking
about what are those called
huevos egg white chips I don't want to
distract from the main point here but I
guess it's a bit about our background no
that's a good plug yeah for sure huh
yeah yeah good I was gonna say yeah
we'll get a link for that too
okay we're sure egg white chips huh that
yeah I just can't imagine I get it I can
imagine my wife when I bring him in and
she's like what are these what are you
trying to feed me you maniac but okay
moving on yeah anything else about like
formulating such products or anything
like that
I I'd be happy to get more specific but
because it is a it's certainly an
interesting process I like to sort of
think of it as a you're sort of
navigating dark are blind in a
multi-dimensional space and so you
really have to make these really small
movements in any given direction to get
a sense of whether you're going up or
down and if you can't get a sense of it
with a small movement maybe you try a
big one and so it's it's certainly an
interesting very demanding process so I
guess as our as people you know here our
stalk about the product one thing I do
want them to think about is that our
most prominent goal in formulating these
supplements is really sustainably
effective dose ranges for our
ingredients and that's something I think
a lot of the other companies on the
market don't do either because they go
unsustainable so that you get that
initial great review but it's not
repeatable or if it is repeatable it's
negative eventually or the other thing
that you often see is that people
include ingredients just so they can
brag about them but it's not for the
marketing potential of the ingredient it
doesn't really have an effect and the
dose used and so I think we stand out
because we really do care about
delivering a profile effects that is
sustainable and effective okay and when
you mean when you're using the word
sustainable you're like hey I could take
this often on a regular schedule or
whatever so what
is that like how often do you guys take
flow for example flow for me is a
seven-day-a-week thing yeah I believe in
the ingredients were using to be healthy
and effective in the long run and so far
over six months that's that's proven to
be true yeah and for chill it's it's the
same for chill you I mean I personally I
don't think Zak you you don't take chill
daily I don't think I do but certainly
several times a week and it's a product
that can be taken
you know 365 days or three minutes 66
days are we a year as well and I'll do
that one other piece I found chilled to
be most useful when I was in my most
stressed last semester so I took for
about two weeks every single night and
that really did help to make those more
stressful periods much smoother and I
typically have trouble falling asleep if
you know I've got thoughts racing
through my mind about what I have to do
and this time around that that didn't
happen
great hi I enjoyed chill quite a bit and
I usually can fall asleep like pretty
quickly but a lot of times I'll wake up
in the middle of the night and that kind
of went away and I haven't taken it for
the last few days but it I don't know if
there's any sort of continued impact
have you heard anyone mentioned that but
I I've slept really well the last like
few nights and I haven't taken show at
all yeah there's a couple reasons that
might happen with the chill formulation
and these is worth saying part of
sustainable and effective is that the
benefits don't just go away overnight so
you get this sort of long grace period
after taking the supplements where you
still benefit from them so in the case
of chill helping to promote sleep even
after you stop taking it I'm guessing
it's the lithium orotate and the
ashwagandha lithium is a mood stabilizer
and it helps with themselves insomnia
and that's a that's an essential trace
mineral and so if you take it today
you'll still benefit from having it in
your system a week from now and then
ashwagandha lowers cortisol and so it
could help to reduce stress even after
you stopped taking it gotcha yeah and
doc if I could just add here just on the
formulation side as well the way we with
we you know with the free formulator
these products is really you know they
can be taking it sort of like an ad hoc
basis so for chill if you're feeling
very stressed or if you are having a
hard time falling asleep or with flow if
you need that extra energy boost but
what we've heard from a lot of customers
is that they've integrated both of these
products really into their daily
routines and that's sort of like how we
love thinking about our products you
know really as an integral part of like
sort of that daily routine just like you
know a morning cup of coffee would be
cool in does flow have any caffeine in
it by the way does not know no caffeine
okay cool I drink coffee like a monster
so that's something that I have to like
think about if I'm taking supplements
with stimulants I definitely noticed
some of the other products that I've
tested and tried where if I have a
little bit too much caffeine via coffee
along with the nootropic
I will be just very very irritable and
it hits you later so yeah like it's
something I figured out like too much
caffeine like most people okay I'll
tweak out a little bit and just kind of
be a nightmare to be around yeah I mean
that that is a concern with supplements
generally when you when you think about
flow it actually has some ingredients
that should smoothen out some of the
negative effects of coffee so some of
the jittery or jittery nests or anxiety
that people sometimes experience with
too much caffeine flow actually smooth
and solid so CBD for example does a
really good job of doing that so people
actually love pairing flow in the
morning with a cup of coffee and sort of
amplifies the the positive effects of
coffee and takes away some of the
negative effects how did you guys test
each each of the products and I'm
curious about like the sample size of
the test groups and how you gather the
data and evaluated you know some people
are going to react poorly or they don't
give good feedback so how did you deal
with that whole testing phase it sounds
really difficult especially in the short
time that the company's been around
absolutely so it's uh I do like the
metaphor of sort of navigating a space
for this reason sometimes you know when
you're gonna go to a new play new space
helps to have a map but it also helps to
have hands-on exploration
you know eyes open looking around and so
I I'd say our formulation process was a
combination of those things the map is
all the research that has gone into
these ingredients over the years so we
have hundreds and hundreds of studies
that we could read about for any of
these things dose ranges and in effects
lasting effects and then another I guess
another feature of the the map side of
things is that there are so many
supplements in the market and so we get
a sense of what has been used what
people say about those things how long
they use them and find them effective
and then in terms of the hands-on
feedback it's sort of in this in this
back-and-forth between high-level
thinking and then bottom-up feedback
we had hundreds of samplers in multiple
rounds of testing and then the the last
few of those rounds had people take it
for a couple weeks in a row just so we
could you know make sure that our our
theories were right about the
sustainability and effectiveness at the
supplement yeah okay and then I imagined
since you're you're in a university it
wasn't too hard to say hey you guys want
to study a little harder or you know
chill out so it was pretty easy to to
find volunteers yeah many of those
people have become our sort of early
adopters yeah for sure it has been you
know sort of you know certainly a
testing process was you know sort of
like heavily screwed towards college
students and college-age students but we
also tried to branch out into the
community and find people that are not
college students to to try our products
in sort of our beta testing phase and
give us feedback because really the
product isn't just for college students
at all it as applications sort of across
age range in age ranges and so we made
sure we we got enough people and got
enough feedback from people that fall
outside the you know 18 to 25 or so
range
all right any other I guess interesting
points along testing or your formulation
I guess one thing that I would add is I
mean the the the testing and formulating
never really stops right so you know we
are passionate about sort of like
optimizing our minds and optimizing our
bodies and so you know even though we
brought these these two products flow
and chilled to the market last summer
our formulating and our testing really
hasn't stopped so you know there's a lot
of other different products that we're
thinking about there there's a lot of
really interesting things in our
pipeline that we're excited about to to
to bring through the market in due time
awesome and you mentioned you're in some
retail spaces and you sell online too so
talk about the process of actually
getting into retail stores yeah
absolutely
so we just it's just some some more
contextual background to frame this so
we we really went to market with flow
and chill last summer and so there was a
team of four people that pretty
intensively worked on getting the
product to customers sort of full-time
last summer and it was a bunch of grunt
work to be to be honest so it was you
know figuring out what kind of retail
locations would be you know best
suitable to take on our product so we
narrow down our focus to you know a lot
of health and vitamin stores also more
general like grocery stores that carry
CBD products and then what it was really
about was you know reaching enough of
these retail you know targets by the
visitor visiting them personally are
reaching on out via phone and email is
just sort of cold calling them trying to
establish a relationship with them and
really sort of tailoring our valley
proposition to each you know specific
retailer because our product has sort of
like different use cases and obviously
retailers have different customer
profiles so we did we tried very hard to
sort of like tailor our value
proposition to each potential retailer
and yeah that's worked out pretty well
for us
and then just being in the store there's
tons of products right yeah it's
probably a competitive products which is
probably good since you know people are
going there to get some nootropic type
supplement how did you convince
hopefully you did those retailers to
sort of mention your product to existing
customers hey we got a new thing it's
really cool any strategies around that
yeah I mean I think it's a good point it
is certainly a challenge right to stand
out in a retail location an integral
part of our strategy and in that regard
was making sure that you know people in
purchasing but also just like general
store managers and store clerks actually
try out our products so we you know
usually gave away samples to people and
gave them the chance to try the product
and really once people try it we find
that the product sort of speaks for
itself and people really become fans of
it once they've tried it so we really
try to push hard to to make sure people
in the stores tried our products and
then could speak about the positive
effects of it to potential customers
excellent and was it was there much
friction to get them to try it or
they're like eh sure I mean we're
running a supplement store so we're
gonna try stuff definitely the latter
with the retail locations um it with
individual people sometimes there's a
hesitation to add a capsule to their
lives you know it's not pills aren't the
most consumable thing and people don't
really think oh you know I'm excited to
take some more pills which actually got
us thinking about some future product
lines which we'd be happy to mention
later but so yeah there's there's a
dichotomy that retailers are always
happy to try and then you really have to
find the right and willing individuals
to try the product yeah for sure but I
guess I do want to add ah the sort of
confidence that we've got in the product
is definitely our greatest strength it's
a the products are really really they
really work well so anybody that we
talked to anybody that tries them no
longer needs to be convinced that
they're effective but it's also sort of
a weakness that we've got at least in
terms they go to market because we were
so confident that this stuff works and
it's helpful and healthy that we didn't
exactly take the take the right approach
in terms of differentiation we just
relied on you know the the excellent
product but didn't didn't make sure to
pick out a specific consumer segment
that we wanted to target so you'll hear
us sort of talking about all the various
use cases but sometimes that makes it
harder for the customer to resonate
individually with with the product so
what is that specific thing did you
distill it down or yeah yeah I mean we
certainly found I'd say like three
target sort of customer groups that
we're very much targeting now in
tailoring our value proposition to them
one being the fitness community so
people love taking flow in particular
before their workouts
to really have a really sharp mind
during their workouts that tends to you
know increase their their physical
performance during the workouts and they
tend to have really good results from
that also you know athletes and fitness
people like taking chill for to recover
properly and get a good night's rest
that's a community that if we're
targeting very actively another
community is of course the TFC community
so people that like pairing our product
either with THC you or they want to
mitigate some of the negative effects of
THC when they just take the products on
their own that's community that we're
targeting very purposefully and I guess
lastly a relatively broad category which
is people that just need an extra
productivity boost usually at work so
those are the kind of people that would
usually you know drink 5 or 6 cups of
coffee and get really jittery and then
have an afternoon slump in the office
and can't really work anymore we're
targeting those kinds of people as well
because flow is flowing particularly is
a really great solution for that you
just take in the morning will be
energized all day you'll be motivated
all day you won't have an afternoon
slump and you'll you'll be really
productive throughout the entire day
gotcha okay cool and sort of shifting
again to challenges were there any
particular things where you thought it
was gonna be a little easier and then it
just ended up being like way more
time-consuming way more difficult or
just generally challenging I think the
the resonance with individual customers
that we were talking about just because
the bottle doesn't really call out to
anybody in particular like I said you
know we we took that to be sort of a
natural way to brand a product that we
thought would be sort of universally
useful and we still believe it is
universally useful but nobody feels like
they're individually you know the
universe they're just somebody who's got
particular needs and so that's been the
difficulty I think in terms of getting
this product to people when they try it
there's no problem they they buy it but
before they try it there's some
hesitancy so I think that's that's
somebody we didn't exactly expect during
the go-to-market process
cool how about you Vincent any yeah yeah
you know certainly there have been a
good amount of challenges in the in the
on the sales side as well particularly
in retail so retail is just a just
naturally a time-consuming you know sort
of you know things to do in terms of our
sales it's also you know even if even if
your products are selling relatively
fast retailers tend to be slow to
reorder your product and it really is
pretty pretty time consuming to build
relationships with them so I would
probably admit that we somewhat unate
just that the time commitment and the
effort that it takes to be in a lot of
retailers and to to get reorders for our
products but I think once we've sort of
adjusted our expectations and also
tweaked our strategy a little bit more
we willed we were able to be much more
successful on the retail side as well
that certainly sort of like a learning
opportunity that we took away and I just
want to frame this in the context of our
company at large you know we we founded
life's X about a year ago went to market
last summer about six months or eight
months ago really now and all of 2019
was an incredibly educational year for
us we you know got to you know sort of
like a hone our entrepreneurship and
business development skills really well
and we got really positive feedback from
customers and learned a lot through that
as well and so now in 2020 is it's
really where we feel like we we got
really great momentum out of that
learning process and so really excited
about what's ahead as well
excellent excellent let's see is there
anything that was like easier than you
thought it was going to be at the
reorder rate actually yeah so from
experience just in retail and then also
selling online it's difficult to get
people to come back and buy again but
this product has surprised us
you know people people make it a part of
their lives pretty quickly
and then as far as like
I guess hiring people dealing with staff
yeah especially you said across state
lines right yeah how was how was that
process how did you find the folks and
just how is it managing six other people
yeah for six people whatever yeah so the
the six people that work with us on a
day to day basis he's are also college
students and they tend to be you know
they actually I shouldn't say tend to be
but they're all friends of ours as well
that are that are interested in business
and interested in health and wellness
and and all sort of have their different
niches of expertise and bring their
their skillsets to the company so these
are people that we trust and that we
work with very well the the majority of
the team is based here in Massachusetts
and so we see them on a day to day basis
we we meet and discuss different things
about the company with regards to our
team over in Illinois we're in pretty
constant exchange with them as well we
do a video conferencing and we talk on
slack we tend to sort of like
we tend to operate let people operate
relatively independently and and really
sort of like exactly I try to manage
from a pretty high level where we
discuss strategy with people and sort of
like set goals and then usually people
go you know sort of like go forth on
their own and work pretty independently
that's sort of like a management style I
think that it's worked pretty well for
us I think that's really important
especially at an early stage and the
company were if you're a part of it like
you really have to be self-motivated and
have to be very passionate about the
company and I think that that is the
case with a group of people that we
found and and that's what we've gotten
really good coffee beautiful from from
all of them awesome yeah it's very it's
tough was tough working with people in
general yeah sir um but you know like
you mentioned they're they're college
students they have other stuff going on
and I could imagine it would be even
more difficult and I mean it took I'm
not I'm an okay manager I would say but
at this point I try not to have to
manage any people because I know how
difficult it could be so yeah that's
amazing like just building the team like
that yeah and you know it's it's
certainly challenging even though these
people are our friends you also have to
you know talk business and and and be
serious a lot of the time so striking
that balance between friendship and and
you know and having fun but also really
wanting to move our business forward
isn't always easy
but you know I think that's something
that we sort of manage on a day to day
basis and and and certainly we try to
have fun and keep people engaged that
way awesome as far as like the the new
product that you were mentioning do you
just want to talk about that a little
bit here yeah sure so Vincent a while
back mentioned how flow had some
properties that made it very good to
pair with coffee he mentioned the CBD
and then also l-theanine is a really
exceptional pair with coffee it's
actually the most popular nootropic
combination the caffeine l-theanine
combo
so we believed ahead of time this would
go great with coffee and then we heard
from another people that it in fact did
go great with coffee and so we got the
idea to make a more consumable format
essentially where we've taken many of
the ingredients that are in flow and
some additional ones that go really well
with coffee and mix them into a coffee
creamer so we are now prototyping and
testing with many of the same feedback
providers from from our earlier rounds
of of surveys we're testing this product
with them and so far so good people are
really enjoying it they do find that
it's much more effective than coffee
alone
we've had a unbelievable lack of anxious
reports or anything like that and many
of these people do typically get jittery
with coffee
so really the the proposition is working
out at least in these beta groups and
the hope is to go to market with the
product early this summer very cool yeah
it is it like is it is the creamer like
an MC tea based situation yeah
absolutely
MC tea based creamer that has many of
the constituent ingredients in it that
Flo already does in addition to a couple
of others yeah okay cool yeah and I
didn't even realize it but yeah often
times I would take two I started with
one flow in the morning along with my
coffee and that was fine and once I made
sure I wasn't gonna you know get too
anxious or anything up - - - and then
per your recommendations I have taken -
along with the coffee in the morning and
then in the afternoon you know like I
turned it to take any sort of stimulant
after say like 2 p.m.
yeah make sure you know I can sleep in
the evening
it may even said that on the label does
it yeah you shouldn't take Flo eight
hours before going to sleep because it
is energizing of course ok yep and I go
to bed at like 9:00 old man so yeah yeah
and I want to I jump around a lot as you
can gather here so you were producing a
consumable right you were talking about
launching another product yeah I'm like
Tara
fight of red tape and just all the
regulations especially with like putting
like chemicals into people's bodies and
stuff so yeah how is it that difficult
or is it just like a process that you
must follow yeah it's it's something
that we take very seriously the the
industry standard really is to be FDA
compliant so what that means is that all
the Constituent ingredients of your
product have to be sort of individually
FDA tested and approved and as long as
all the ingredients that you list are
within a certain range the end and sort
of art are approved by the FDA your
product as a whole will be FDA compliant
and we're meeting that industry standard
we're working with our manufacturer down
in Georgia as well who makes sure we're
compliant in all of these things as well
as with the psychiatrist at at Harvard
med school as well who helps with that
it's something that we take very
seriously but we actually haven't really
found to be that big of an obstacle
because as long as you follow so the
industry standard you'll be good to go
okay yeah so basically if if you build
the product with things that are FDA
compliant and you know those sourcing
companies are following the rules and
they're certified and their facilities
are good to go then you can manufacture
and you're having a company in Georgia
manufacture it and then package it and
all that business that's exactly right
Lee you know the coffee creamer is a bit
of a different story because it is it's
a caloric item the MCT provides some
calories we also use trickery route
fiber inulin and that's a dietary fiber
so that they are food items so there's
there's probably still some hurdles
ahead but like Vincent said it shouldn't
be a hassle so long as we know what
we're dealing with and you know comply
okay and then like when you're doing the
beta testing do you have to go through
the same rigors to make the product or
can you kind of just UX it up and test
it as long as you're not charging money
for it yeah so we're not selling example
we're not selling and and sort of like
this obviously
or you betta test something with a group
of people who are obviously a sort of
alpha testing so really the Zack and I
and the rest of the team were so the
guinea pigs that the it can he picks the
first stage and we've gone through all
of that but we're actually working with
a manufacturer down in Georgia who has
produced samples of our coffee creamer
as well and and so we've you know so if
taking these samples and given them to
the to the people that are providing us
feedback for it so you know even at the
beta testing stage we're totally sort of
like compliant and following the
regulations that's very important to us
for sure very good yeah like I said it's
just it seems so overwhelming if you
don't know the process at all and then
you don't know the contact but I suppose
if you contact the company like one of
the sourcing companies for the raw
ingredients you know they want you to
buy something what they want you to make
something so they they probably help you
along the process there yeah yeah we've
generally found people in the supplement
industry very helpful and friendly
there's some camaraderie there and you
know people obviously want to make
business and it's a good time for the
supplement industry so you know people
tend to be pretty collaborative awesome
any big mistakes along the way in the
last year or so uh nothing catastrophic
I'd say the the branding issue is
probably the closest thing to a mistake
it I think we were short-sighted
thinking everybody would see the appeal
immediately and so that's been a hurdle
in terms of getting the product out to
people and that it's been significant
but you know we're doing our best to
overcome that
cool in the sense of I mean that's not a
bad mistake you never know until you get
into the market and get actual feedback
and see how people react with the
product on the Shelf mm-hmm so yeah I
can't blame you for that there's as long
as there's no like you know you ordered
the wrong thing like a whole shipment of
you know just the capsules or some kind
of nonsense but no no crazy mistake so
no crazy mistakes yeah yeah and I think
sort of along the lines of what Zac just
said we in addition to not being sort of
like differentiated enough about the
type of customer were targeting I would
probably also say that we weren't
differentiated enough in terms of the
kind of sales channel we're targeting so
you know we thought that online is gonna
work for us and Amazon is gonna work for
us not even knowing really that CBD we
can't sell CBD on there and we thought
that you know brick-and-mortar stores
are gonna work really well for us and
and all sorts of retail stores gonna
work well for us so you know as we've
learned more about the market and as
we've learned more about our customer
we've been able to be much more targeted
in that regard as well and have seen
much better results because of it
anything else I should ask you guys by
the way well I guess like one of the
things perhaps we could I was just
curious to see what kind of supplements
you take on a regular basis Doug you
mentioned that sometimes you don't like
taking them with coffee or whatever I
mean I'd be curious to hear more about
your self consumption habits sure so
usually my I often take MCT in the
morning I do intermittent fasting
probably three to five days a week
yeah thing like that till about noon and
which is not a supplement it's the
opposite of that but I do take the MCT
occasionally if I'm not like like really
purely fasting and yeah taking fats in
yeah and then you know we talked earlier
what are your competitors formula I take
some of their supplements and one thing
that I like with them and with with life
stacks as well as like there are like
different stacks so formula has at least
four different stacks that call them
formulas and I enjoy that because
sometimes I want to like get benefits in
different areas and you know some of
them are like great for workouts but
they're not so good for having a
conversation right
in fact occasionally I noticed with one
particular formula I got it was the
logic formula and I got generally
impatient talking to people because I
was like kind of further ahead I was
like I get your point you're too smart
yeah yeah which is weird so I was like
okay I talked to people a pretty decent
amount so I should probably make sure
I'm working on spreadsheets if I take
and typically I'll take like one in the
morning maybe like three to five days
per week yeah and taking a couple days
off occasionally I'll take some in the
afternoon and then what I've started to
do is well like when I started to check
out yells products the live stacked
supplements I was sort of mixing and
matching and then taken a few other days
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