hey what's going on welcome to the Doug
show in this interview I talked to Dan
freed and Dan is the co-founder find my
formula Dan's story is super interesting
because he now has I think like two
masters degrees he studied at Yale and a
few other very prestigious places the
cool thing is he dropped out of high
school and somehow made his way into
these great programs at Yale and the
other school which I don't remember but
the cool thing is he formed a companies
he created a start-up after he got into
nootropics and a lot of the conversation
is about nootropics and then just his
story in general now you may remember
ago because I talked to his co-founder
Adam Greenfield so if you haven't
watched that and you like this sort of
topic nootropics and productivity and
stuff like that you may want to check
out that interview as well
a quick note I'm an affiliate for find
my formula I'm also a user I find my
formula in fact that just took some of
the logic blend the logic formulas stack
earlier today and I got a crazy amount
of work done so I'm very happy with that
the cool part is if you happen to when
try it out you can get a discount you
just use the coupon code that I have
just dug so follow the link in the
description you could check it out they
do like a quick question here I think
it's like about four minutes to complete
they have several questions about what
your goals are and then they can
recommend the right formula stacks for
you so for me it ended up being logic
clarity creativity and energy so those
you know are great for different areas
depending on what I want to try and get
done ok let's get to the interview and
talk to Dan to hear his story hey what's
going on
it's Doug Huntington here and I'm
sitting with Dan freed how are you this
evening I'm good how about you doing
really well
doing well we were just talking about
the weather like I always do
with basically everyone and it's it's a
little warm here today in Colorado and
in New York it was rainy most of the day
so it's warm and humid but it hasn't
rained for a while so that's a change
which is nice and you need the rain I
guess every now and then so cool well
you're from find my formula right yes
okay I just wanted to make sure cuz I
know there's a little bit of rebranding
which we may come to in a second just
because I'm interested in all those kind
of details too but for the people that
don't know you Dean can you give a
little intro about yourself and then
also about find my formula so my my
story of how I got here is not that
brief but I can I'll keep it as tight as
I can for as long as I can remember I've
had trouble focusing in school you know
every once in a while I would do okay
but for the most part it was just a
struggle I couldn't retain information I
hated studying I would procrastinate on
my work and when I was 16 I ended up
dropping out of high school and I mean
at that point I think I was failing all
of my classes and then I ended up
working in fast-food I was a sandwich
artist at Subway and I I don't even know
how many sandwiches I made how many
onions pounds and pounds of onions I
used to cut every day and then you know
through a couple of really lucky breaks
I ended up becoming a chef and I I
traveled around the world for about ten
years cooking in different restaurants I
was fortunate enough to work in a
Michelin three-star restaurant in France
I worked on cruise ship so for a while
it was constantly traveling and then in
my late 20s I decided to switch careers
given that you know I never went to
culinary school I never went to college
I didn't even have a high school diploma
my options were really limited and I
decided to go back to school it was you
know I was already very successful as a
chef making good
money had a great lifestyle and didn't
really make sense for me to go to a
community college or even afford
four-year school and then come out and
I'd be making significantly less money
so I you know called a couple schools
and I found one in the UK that agreed to
admit me directly into their MBA program
and you know that sounded it sounded
much more interesting to me and the
opportunities I would have afterwards
was exactly what I was looking for and
the one so they interviewed me and the
room one requirement they had was that I
had to get an 80th percentile on the
entrance exam so I can remember my
ex-girlfriend my she was my girlfriend
at the time she had studied for the test
and she just gave up so she had all
these books and she me and I sat down
and I tried to take a practice test the
first day and I couldn't even make it to
the end
it had high level math combinatorics
permutations all these things that I
have no idea how to do and I've been out
of school for so long so I I mean I I
almost gave up but I I tried out so many
different things just to see like you
know I had always struggled with not
being able to focus and I was just done
I was like there has to be something
that's gonna help me other people can do
it I should be able to do it and that's
when you know among other things I got
really into nootropics
and I came up with a system of testing
different if anybody doesn't know
nootropics are cognitive enhancers so
they're things you know some of them are
vitamins some of them are different
types of supplements that you can take
to improve your cognition and I found a
couple that really worked it wasn't just
that they worked it was like a game
changer for me and before I knew it I
started scoring better on the test for
once I could like sit for four hours and
complete it right and eventually when I
took the test I ended up getting in
99th percentile which dramatically
changed my options for schools I was
accepted into one of the top MBA
programs in the world INSEAD and so I
started in Singapore I finished in
France and from there I got a
scholarship to get another master's
degree at Yale and you know I had never
been in school as an adult and I found
like the academic experience was amazing
like once I could actually sit through a
class and participate in it and
surrounded by all these amazing people I
loved it so I continued my education at
Yale and I kind of dope into cognitive
science neuroscience public health much
deeper and then moved to New York and
worked in a few startups before I
finally start by oh gosh wow this is
pretty amazing and yeah I just I
actually don't have that much trouble
focusing and did pretty well through
school slightly over achieving like
through high school and stuff like that
then College kicked my ass but it's very
interesting that you had like the
opposite cuz I was like I'm not gonna go
to grad school ever like I've had enough
so yes super interesting and did you
find like people were like really
surprised to hear like your story and
how you got there like your peers in
grad school and everything yeah that was
something that you know before well I
can remember when I got to INSEAD you
know my my peers were from investment
banks consulting companies I didn't even
know what McKinsey was when I got into
the school and I'm surrounded by all
these people and their lives you know
INSEAD zerilli - first school so it's
full of people from all over the world
but it was very difficult for me to
adjust that type of environment and
be constantly surrounded by those people
with a very different background from my
own yeah those extremely diplomatic way
to put it so nice so how did you start
like testing some nootropics do you
remember some of the early ones that you
tried were they off the shelf and then
how did you develop your like testing
protocol which I found like super
interesting is I was doing research to
prepare for the interview here I was
like oh that's that's brilliant how you
did that so can you kind of take people
through that yeah so I I think the first
ones I bought were off of Amazon I
bought some out of GNC and you know I I
just kept switching brands I couldn't
find something that worked really well
there were some things that kind of
worked so I knew that there was
something there
and what was really what really did it
was I bought all of these different
things and and they were accumulating
and I started buying like the raw
ingredients so like you know single
ingredients not a pre-formulated stack
and getting into some of the you know
reading the clinical trials and all this
but what really did it was I just took
everything and I gave it to my roommate
like all of my supplies and I said
listen you know at this point I don't
know what's working or not because I've
done all this research I have this huge
placebo effect why don't you just take
these put them in bags for me label it
like day 1 day 2 day 3 and I'm gonna
take them and I have no idea what I'm
taking and I hooked up a bunch of
productivity tracking apps to my
computer and I just kept journals and
notes of all these different things you
know how many times start check social
media how long are my study or work
sessions things like that and I said if
these things are working
I should notice the difference the data
will show what's actually working and
after a couple of months I I went back
and I
books and it was really clear some
ingredients had a huge impact on my
overall productivity and well-being some
things just didn't work for me and that
that was kind of how I started the
company my friends saw that I was doing
this at the at that time when I was
doing like the fully blinded trials a
lot of my friends were academics and so
there they said hey like this looks
interesting can you make me one and so I
started making these trial packs for
friends out of my apartment
and these people loved it and before I
knew it like people are texting me like
wow this was amazing where can i buy
some and I started selling them and then
one day you know I I was working in a
bunch of different startups at that
point and I was like I have these people
texting me trying to buy this thing like
why don't I just do this I put up an ad
on I think our first one was on AdWords
on Google Google and then we got our
first real customer and then we got more
and more and before I knew it you know
we had hundreds and then thousands of
people going through this trial and
that's how the company started Wow and
how long ago was that was it pretty
quick to ramp up so we had we had a lot
of setbacks it ramped up really quick in
the first couple of weeks once once I
put up that ad we had live customers you
know some people loved it some people
hated it the packaging wasn't right
there were tons of little glitches to
work out we were profitable from i think
week 2 and this was also you know
nootropics were relatively new and so
the people when I think of our packaging
like I was making this stuff at my
apartment putting pills into different
bags it wasn't really professional at
all and it's amazing that these people
would do something like that like trust
me for such a young company with their
brains it still amazes me
yeah and then you know my co-founder
came on board shortly after that my
first co-founder and we started building
out the technology product and and
scaling up very cool and one thing that
I assumed you could tell me if I'm
incorrect or correct but yeah I saw some
like off-the-shelf nootropics from like
GNC and I almost bought it and then it
was like doing a tiny bit of research
and kind of I was like it has to be a
compromise right because there are so
many different ingredients in there they
it has to be like just barely effective
and just like I said a compromise for
every aspect where one thing I love
about formula is it's like specifically
sort of each formula you will save in a
in a better way damn but like basically
each formula has its strengths and
weaknesses and it's a different set of
ingredients and that makes perfect sense
to me versus like okay every day I try
and take nootropic from like GNC or
wherever it will just be a compromise
across the board so is that a correct
assumption or not not correct yeah you
explained it really well the way I look
at it it's it's absurd the way these
companies like the the standard way most
nootropics companies operate is they get
a formulator so usually somebody with a
PhD is something like that they'll go
through and they'll read the clinical
trials they'll say hey these ingredients
have shown to improve cognition let's
throw them all in a pill we have the
best formula it's gonna work amazing for
everybody take it every day and your
brain just doesn't work like that so
your brain is different from my brain
like you said you were able to focus in
school that wasn't your problem that was
in your limitation mine was completely
different
and that's because of my unique brain
chemistry and so what we did you know
the first we tested more than a hundred
different ingredients on thousands of
people can God
instant feedback on what's working and
what's not so we eliminated all the
ingredients that weren't having a
noticeable impact on people and then we
started bundling them together into
stacks which are basically formulas that
have a synergistic effect and people
started reporting you know and this was
amazing to me people were like listen
when I take this pack and back then I
think it was just numbers you know so
it's like when I take the number one
pack I so much energy and I'm really
social when I take the number two pack
like I just want to sit down and get
work done and then that was kind of like
the next step where we started making
these stacks for specific goals where
people could you know and it still
basically works like this where we
recommend them a number of different
paths to try and then they tell us which
ones they like the best very cool and
yeah and I generally tried to follow
like you know there's a logic formula
pack and like if I'm doing like
spreadsheet work or analytics or
something that I'll take that and then
if I'm doing like you know writing or
maybe doing some brainstorming or
something than the creativity so I found
it to be you know relatively like what I
expected so you know this one reason why
we're talking by the way I was like hey
this is great it's actually working for
me so what do you do Dan like on a daily
basis do you do you take one two packs
like how do you wait what's your sort of
regimen so I try to and this is probably
what helped me out the most aside from
just nootropic so you know we didn't
touch on different workout routines
dieting things like that but I try to
structure my days around specific types
of tasks so you know I'll have a
creative day where I'm doing a lot of
content blog post podcast things like
that I'll have you know an analytics day
where I'm optimizing our ad campaigns
I'm working in spreadsheets stuff like
that and I found you know structuring my
week like that around specific types of
tasks
the nootropics just fit in it's like a
natural I know like okay I'm gonna be
doing a lot of riding today it's my
creativity sack the the one that I use
more as needed is the energy one so you
know if I'm not sleeping that much which
sometimes is common I'll take an energy
pack the next day I also use that for
any type of heavy workout got it cool in
that yeah it totally makes sense as well
and actually since you mentioned diet
and working out and stuff like that
definitely interested in hearing about
that as we were doing the soundcheck
earlier I asked you what you had for
breakfast you said nothing and you
haven't had anything you're a couple
hours different so it is solidly
dinnertime so what are you doing right
now are you intermittent fasting or
passing for a little longer or
I'm just hungry so I fast I do short
fast long pass intermittent fasting a
lot of different types it has a lot of
benefits and it's helped me out a lot
today it was just from the second I woke
up I've been running between meetings I
was late to this and I just did not
physically have time to sit down and eat
which I would not recommend okay it's a
little different so I'm keeping you from
dinner so alright we will we'll be quick
about this cool and I was gonna say I've
been like experimenting with some
intermittent fasting and really have
found it helpful just overall like from
a Productivity standpoint but also it
made it really obvious when I was eating
like a bad combination of food maybe
it's really tasty like say pizza which I
love but if I have like some pizza or
like a big sandwich with a lot of carbs
and bread and stuff like that I would
just be like I want to take a nap all
afternoon which now you know it's it's
obvious to me now that I've done this
for a few weeks and I'm fasting like
maybe two to four times a week but
really helpful
so I guess from your perspective and
experience is there a way that you would
recommend someone like dabble and
intermittent fasting if they want to try
it out maybe get some of the same
benefits yeah I mean so with diet I was
I was lucky you know I always I've never
been overweight in my life
and I can remember one of the courses I
took at Yale I was with their public
health school and was on interventions
for obesity and we were evaluating all
these different interventions we accept
doctors who did Harry after surgery come
into the class and we we had all these
different types of things and you know
we talked to patients so we talked to
people who were obese and just from like
a cognitive science standpoint like all
these people were so motivated to change
their behavior and to get slim like some
of them were literally dying because
they couldn't change how they they
consumed food and and there are some
that had disorders and things like that
so I don't want to just lump everybody
in but for the most part these people
were trying for behavioral change and
they couldn't do it so that's when I
said well I've never been on diet
let me try some stuff and see what it's
actually like so I did more of an
experience and then the benefits I got I
mean I did I did all these you know
crazy fad diets juice cleanses I did the
Master Cleanse where you're drinking you
know cayenne pepper and and all these
different types of caloric restriction
and I found a couple things that were
really helpful for me ketosis is amazing
I never stay in it for more than a month
or two but I go back and forth you know
for cognitive benefits and also just for
energy levels and I'll go into full
ketosis so I prepare all my meals and
then I
basically just take a crock-pot put a
huge chunk of meat in fresh vegetables
and usually like I do a lot of curries
Thai curries something like that for
flavoring cuz it goes good with coconut
milk which is pure fat and then I just
eat that for a week and then I cook
another batch nice and for the people
that don't know what is ketosis so
ketosis is when your body switches over
from running on glucose to running on
ketones it's basically like starvation
mode it was a diet that was first it's
still prescribed today for certain
disorders especially around like
epilepsy yeah and it I can feel my body
switch over so when I go into ketosis
you know and there's ways to test they
have the P sticks they have the blood
test now they have where you can test
the ketones in your breath but I feel
different and my energy levels and my
performance change and in some ways it's
good in some ways it's not that great
gotcha in like I imagine it's pretty you
know it can be difficult to eat that
diet so is that why you only stick to it
for like a month or so or are there some
other reasons to the it is difficult
especially with my lifestyle right now I
live above a bakery so that's that's
also kind of difficult the main thing is
I usually hit a point where I've clocked
o so at the gym ketosis isn't great for
weight lifting and putting on weight and
usually I'll go into ketosis I'll lose a
lot of weight really quick you know
sometimes it's actually usually it's
about 15 pounds in the first month or
two and then I noticed my lips just
plateau like I'm not making any more
progress and that's usually when all
pull myself out there gotcha Wow 15
pounds in is it mostly like fat and you
just like lean up or do you is it kind
of like across-the-board it's across the
board so a lot of it is water weight
that comes right back afterwards and
just there's a bunch of different things
that happen to your body usually after
about six weeks in ketosis I get a
six-pack which is great so time that for
like beach beach weather and then like
winter time you could put on the fat
yeah I mean keto is not for everyone
my body responds really well to it it's
similar to like brain chemistry you have
to find a diet that works well for you
I don't suffer from keto flew very often
and when I do I have minerals that I
take that that mitigate it but if you've
never tried it I would recommend it and
one of the interesting things some of
the nootropics will impact me
differently when I'm in ketosis and we
don't exactly know why but we've had
enough customers tell us you know when
I'm in ketosis and I take this stack I
feel amazing interesting and I guess it
kind of I mean it I guess it makes what
you you would know right does it make
sense like your brains running off like
ketones instead of glucose right so all
that would change along with the
nootropics that you're taking I guess
great it does we it's unclear exactly
what the mechanism of action would be
that would have such a dramatic impact
but it's like the interesting thing so
our company I look at it as a
bioinformatics company and we're
basically the way that the data
structured is very similar to a clinical
trial so we have this massive data set
of people doing all these different
types of activities from doctor studying
for their board exams lawyers studying
you know for the bar and we keep track
of all of these things so they say
this is my goal this is my demographics
this is like what other things I'm doing
in my life whether it's Kido what type
of diet they're on all of that stuff and
then we see which nootropics work best
for them and over the course of the
company we have thousands of profiles
like that and every once in a while we
notice something like hey you know the
people who are going for this goal a lot
of them are saying that these nootropics
are working sometimes we've been able to
kind of like to deuce why it is that
that's working and sometimes we haven't
we just see a very strong correlation
interesting gotcha
so for the people actually before we get
into some of the recommendations and
stuff where did you get the first sets
of ingredients and stuff like when you
were making your own formulas and stacks
and you were experimenting in that first
set and then you know where do you
source everything now the first set came
from powder city they're out of business
now they were the largest nootropics
manufacturer back when I was getting
really into it anybody that's been
around nootropics for I think they've
been out of business part of two years
now but of the people that were starting
in nootropics around that time everybody
knows them and now we we have so my
background as a chef I have a lot of
experience with supply chain and one of
the decisions we made early on is we
want you know a very clean supply chain
and so what that means is all of our
ingredients are third-party lab tested
for purity
we actually one of our customers is a
PhD student I believe in chemistry and
one of his projects that he did as a
side projects were for his professor for
his class was to test all of our
ingredients and so he ran these tests he
sent us the spectrometer readings all of
that
and they're pure which we pride
ourselves in so if you buy a product
from our company you know what's it what
it says on the label is exactly what's
in there nothing else we test for heavy
metals all of us up
we also source all of our ingredients
from the US from suppliers in the US
which makes it more expensive but it's
just a much better supply chain from our
perspective cool that is another thing
that I appreciate it again if you're
just I mean you could try to buy stuff
on Amazon but who knows where it comes
from and I'm like well I don't want to
just take stuff and maybe be taking too
much and like kill my liver I enjoy
drinking beer so I just want to yeah let
my liver work on that the beer not the
nootropic so anyway for people that
would want to get started and maybe test
out nootropics and they've never taken
anything before like what's your
recommendation do so of course our
products my recommendations for people
that are new to nootropics like on a on
a high level are try more than one so in
our starter kits there's always at least
two different formulas usually three or
more a lot of people and this this is
probably the biggest thing that I see is
people will go and they'll buy something
from GNC or they'll buy it off of Amazon
and it'll be expensive they'll take a
couple of pills and it won't work and
then they just give up and you know I'm
so grateful that because I had that same
experience and instead of giving up I
took like this systematic approach and I
kept trying it but it's expensive don't
just give up nootropics work like the
question by far the question I get the
most is you know do nootropics work the
question people should be asking is
which nootropics work for me gotcha
and
I guess is there like a guideline for if
it doesn't work because obviously
certain formulas tax are not going to be
like right for a certain person
obviously like if you have an upset
stomach and you get a headache like
that's bad like there's something that's
not work you know working with your
system on that are there any other like
symptoms that someone could observe or
side effects that are not positive that
would tell someone like hey this this
particular stack is not for me yeah so
we we've mapped out all of the side
effects and you know the leading
indicators that something is a good fit
so when somebody takes new peps which is
one of our star ingredients it's a
peptide very powerful nootropic and they
get a headache that's a probably genetic
response it's never gonna get better so
that means every single time you take it
you're gonna get a headache and it's not
a good fit for you when somebody takes
our creativity formula less than 5% will
report mild nausea the first time if
they report that we tell them try it a
couple of times if you're comfortable
with it and it usually goes away the
logic formula we found that an indicator
that it's a good fit is super sensory
perception which is amazing I haven't
actually experienced it I'm very jealous
but people will take it and they say
like colors just seem more vivid I think
my hearing is better I noticed smells
like their sentences are heightened and
again that's not the majority of the
population that's a smaller minority but
for people who experience that we know
hey that's that's great
so we've we have this wealth of
information there's some ingredients
that you'll notice benefit or side
effect immediately some it will take you
know a week or two to show up and we
know which one
those are so we know you know somebody's
taking piracetam and after the first
week they're reporting these three
benefits it's gonna get better if they
take it for four weeks in a row
gotcha and I remember reading that in
the documentation that you guys had
where like you said some of them it
takes a little while is it like that
needs to sort of like build up in your
system or you're exactly oh yeah and
sorry which formula stack was that one
that had the piracetam perhaps in the
logic so the logic stack for you is oxy
racetam and piracetam
the porosity you're not gonna really
notice benefits immediately but the oxy
racetam you are so all of our formulas
are have at least one ingredient that's
gonna give you an immediate impact some
of them when taken regularly have
long-term benefits and we we help people
cycle and all of our customers can text
us email us and we're working on
building out an app where they can track
it so we tell them you know take this
for one week take this how to cycle back
and forth between the different formulas
okay and then just curious about you
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