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What nutrition brands aren't telling you: Dan Murray-Serter and Joel Freeman #7
Jun 10, 2025
What do brains, guts and start-ups even have in common?
Most entrepreneurs tell you to follow your gut instinct, but these founders told Jennifer Sieg and Emmanuel Nwosu to only follow your gut if your brain is healthy. According to their studies, there is a significant connection between both organs.
Dan Murray-Serter and Joel Freeman founded their health and wellness brand Heights on a mission to highlight the importance of the connection between your brain and gut.
In this episode, they explain how they managed to make it work.
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Produced by: Jennifer Sieg, Emmanuel Nwosu, Joseph Curay Teneda, Joe Lee
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0:00
Dan enjoyed eating but wasn't impressed with the nutritional value of the food at school at seven years old well you're
0:06
a Critic right yeah I was like these School dinners are not good enough for me where's the supplement
0:13
version I thought you were I was like of the story didn't like the food at school
0:19
this was his esoteric joke I obviously thought that he was going to break the joke and tell the rest of the story not
0:24
come up with his own joke and then expect me to finish off the story the cheapest worst supplement in the world can make exactly the same claims as the
0:32
best supplement in the world there's no difference so as long as you're putting in the minimum legal requirement of the
0:38
product to be able to make a marketing claim you don't need to put in the scientific dosage that actually achieves
0:45
the goal when you spend £40 on a single supplement and you look at it next to A10 one and go they both say they do the
0:53
same thing why am I spending 40 she's like you're basically getting four times as much which is the scientific dose which is what you need
1:03
[Music] hey y'all welcome back to founder favorites podcast um today we have a
1:11
very special episode talking about brains guts and startups um and we have
1:17
two co-founders joining us they are from the health and wellness brand Heights um
1:22
they specialize in very interesting supplements um hence the brain guts and startups um and their names are Dan MCE
1:29
serter and Joel Freeman um so what are you looking forward to most today Emanuel I mean learning a lot about my
1:36
gut you knows my brain a little bit about startups but yeah I mean the thing is I've never
1:42
actually taken like you know supplements in that way I mean I remember as a kid my mom used to like give me like you
1:49
know those like vitamin C and gummies and all that kind of stuff but I've never like you know taken it seriously
1:54
where I'm like actively you know getting my supplements in and you know well I usually take one for like two weeks when I'm like when I'm actually sick and then
2:01
I I'm not sick anymore and I just forget it so I just don't do like the whole preventative measures yeah I might yeah I might like
2:07
take some if I'm like I'm like dying in bed and then as soon as I'm well I'm like well who needs this and I and I
2:13
throw it away yeah yeah well if you are a listener or a viewer and you want to learn a little bit more about how to
2:20
possibly make a brand in a market that's very crowded with a lot of supplement Brands yeah today is your episode um so
2:27
yeah tune in closely yeah should we invite them man yeah Dan and Joel um who wants to tell us a little bit about what
2:33
Heights is and what you guys do first Joel do Dan D does Dan rock paper
2:39
scissors Dan does okay Heights is a brain and gut health company we started in 2020 and uh we
2:48
have grown I think we're very proud how we've grown especially this year so
2:54
we're up to 30,000 customers who between them have 40,000 subscriptions which we
3:01
can explain what that is or why you talk about it in that way as a supplement company um and our alltime customer
3:08
number is just shy of 990,000 people so basically 90,000 people have tried Heights but just over 40,000
3:16
subscriptions are like active so we have like this unbelievable rate essentially
3:21
of people trying the product and then just sticking with it for life so I think that's where we're super unique and different to other supplements in
3:28
general in the category the typical numbers are if 100 people buy the
3:34
product in month one only 40 are left in month two whereas our rates are you know
3:40
basically those those kind of numbers but for lifers so I think what we set out to do right at the start was focus
3:48
on quality and cut zero corners and be exceptionally patient which is super
3:53
difficult for both of us um and any entrepreneur and we were always playing a long game and we always had this idea
3:59
that so long as you do the hard things and you stay patient and you don't get greedy or excited or any other things
4:05
it'll compound overtime and we're now in month in year four and I'd say the last
4:10
four months five months have been essentially us finally being like glad
4:16
we made all those decisions they're finally all compounding at the same time and it feels like we made some really
4:23
good strategic decisions about the product about quality and keeping our customers super happy um but obviously
4:30
with all decisions like you know you also sacrific loads of different things at the beginning instead so uh that's it
4:36
in a nutshell I feel like 2020 is an interesting time as well to start a wellness brand why what happened maybe everybody was like really focused on
4:42
their health during the pandemic or something of the sort I don't know regularly so we had this genius
4:49
idea when we started so I'm not sure if you've seen the bottle so we basically designed it and when we designed it
4:54
we're like okay we've got this idea so all other brands are paying to acquire users online we're to design a bottle
5:00
that's so great that someone in office is going to buy it put it down on their desk and everyone's going to ask them about it and we came up with this idea
5:06
of like office influencer and that was behind the design so then if you think about the timing we spent all the time
5:11
designing this bottle took ages to make ready to launch January people started buying in February and then obviously
5:17
covid happened so we had this amazing plan that was basically extinguished by like an act of God effectively so it's
5:24
like you know when you think about something very smart for ages and then you don't know what's going to come out and it's one of those things you just can't plan for like at all um yeah it's
5:32
interesting like Dan said it's like you make loads of choices like early on and like some of them pay off and then some of them don't Beyond things you can
5:38
control we had a call with someone the other day who was like I keep my bottle out here he was in his little office right and he was like keep it out
5:43
everyone asked me about it and we're like yeah it's amazing isn't it that was our plan in 2020 and it took about 3
5:48
years for anyone to go back to an office and for that to happen so but it was quite nice to hear someone be like everyone does ask me about make sense
5:56
well and just in terms of scale um I was flying back yesterday from G I didn't have anything to do so I was trying to work out how many pills we were shipping
6:02
and so it worked out we're now shipping about 2 million capsules a month wow so for us that's like absolutely huge mm so
6:09
what is it that made you guys want to go into a supplement brand like I'm aware that you were friends beforehand did you just have like a lunch table
6:15
conversation you're like let's do this or where did it where did we were seven since seven years old this is R for we
6:22
had more than one conversation since 37 quite a few lunches more than Lunes so Dan enjoyed eating but wasn't impressed
6:29
with him value of the food at school at seven years old well you're a Critic right yeah I was like these School
6:35
dinners are not good enough for me where's the supplement I thought you I was like the
6:43
story didn't like the food at school this was his esoteric joke I obviously thought that he was going to break the
6:49
joke and tell the rest of the story not not come up with his own joke and then expect me to finish off the story I was I was I was very confused okay
6:56
so just seven yeah yeah that's it that's it so you hated the food at school and then
7:03
you guys just came up with Heights exactly and then the interview's over and thank you very much uh so we both
7:09
basic yeah we were both running uh tech companies and at the same Tech at the age of seven no no that would you know
7:15
this is this this precocious child yeah this precocious child is becoming unlikable at seven yeah um no our last
7:22
company was a tech company um we were loving it it was going well it was
7:27
scaling fast and then it all imploded and we basically it failed and it was horrendous and we both had like lots of
7:33
different stressinduced events from it as you would um Joel had really bad gut
7:38
health issues stress related which are common like as in it's it's a thing but you don't really we don't know about it
7:44
as in he didn't know about it I think now it's well known I think about six or seven years ago when it happened to you
7:50
it was quite rare so you'd have to go to a doctor and if you have got health issues to go to a doctor and they tend
7:56
to say go see a nutrition specialist like a dietitian or a gastroenterolog or whatever um was I was having really bad
8:02
mental health issues and I had insomnia for 6 months and so I went to the doctor and then none of the options were
8:08
nutritional interventions so I went to psychologist psychiatrist sleep therapist you know sleeping pills like
8:13
all of these different things but none of them were nutrition and none of them worked so six months later I was having dinner with a friend and she said sounds
8:20
like you got a brain health issue you should go to a dietitian and I was like why um and she like well you know they
8:25
deal with sick people but with nutrition and you haven't done that right so it's on your list you tried everything else
8:31
why not go I did and that dietician basically told me all the things which I've just explained essentially she's
8:37
like you tried all the psychological interventions it could quite possibly be a biological intervention that you need
8:42
also you've not tried it so just do it and she said you need these three supplements DHA omega-3 because your
8:48
brain is 60% fat and 90% of that fat is one compound which is called DHA so she like that comes from omega-3 take that
8:55
supplement you need B vitamin complex because you've got insomnia your energy is not regulated properly right it's all
9:00
over the place so you need that and blueberry extract which was Niche but she was like that's an antioxidant and
9:06
it will clean out your lymphatic system of your brain which basically I asked her to dumb it down for me don't worry and she said uh that's like giving your
9:13
brain a car wash overnight and I was like okay nice nice nice nice antioxidants they'll clean your brain I
9:19
was like okay cool cool cool um I'm going to go to Holland and Barett and get these things now she's like no no no
9:24
you need to go to planet organet or Whole Foods and I was like lady I just told you I work in a startup then I
9:29
don't shop a Planet Organic what the hell um and she's like no you you basically you can't get the quality of
9:35
stuff you need on the High Street you have to go somewhere like Whole Foods Planet Organic or these Amazon links I
9:41
can send you but there's a big discrepancy between price and quality in
9:46
supplements which is synonymous across the whole industry based solely on very
9:51
logical the more you pay the more you get in the product and there's a really weird loophole in supplements which is
9:57
kind of the thing that got us really fascinated which is the worst supplement in the world the cheapest worst
10:03
supplement in the world can make exactly the same claims as the best supplement in the world there's no difference so as
10:10
long as you're putting in the minimum legal requirement of the product to be able to make a marketing claim you don't
10:16
need to put in the scientific dosage that actually achieves the goal so
10:22
there's no Financial incentive for people making supplements really to do the right thing and so you need to
10:28
become a bit of a supplement nerd hence this expert being like go to Planet Organic when you spend £40 on a single
10:34
supplement and you look at it next to A10 pound one and go they both say they do the same thing why am I spending 40
10:41
she's like you're basically getting four times as much which is the scientific dose which is what you need so she's like just trust me so I spent £120 on
10:47
three supplements which is insane um it worked I sleeping within three days
10:53
first night sleep until 7 speaking to Joel about this being it's absolutely just fascinating and this is just such a
11:00
weird industry which we knew nothing about at all and it kind of just went on from there like this is just so bizarre
11:06
how is this a thing I can't stop thinking about all of the like just colorful gummy vitamins that I've I've
11:12
bought on Amazon and I'm just like this one's going to fix me this month gummies half of them and then I just don't like
11:18
ever again so it's why so why do you think they're kind of maybe just it's just for like cost cut in reasons that
11:24
they don't put you know that famous quote by Warren Buffett which is show me the incentive I'll show you the outcome
11:30
in the supplement space there is no incentive to make a better product because if you say you know help support
11:38
healthy brain function right normal medical claim we can't make no one is
11:43
able to make beyond that claim right that's the language that you're specifically allowed to use if you make
11:49
the worst product or the best product so you have a really hard job as a brand
11:54
communicating value and quality to a consumer in a legal framework that gives
11:59
you those words as the copy paste things you can do so if that's the case people
12:05
just gravitate towards the cheaper product because why not it you know it's hard how how many consumers are going to
12:11
spend their time dealing with this amount of nuance like no one no one take supplements so that they can become
12:16
supplement nerds right they're trying to they're trying to just like fulfill an outcome of like General Health needs
12:22
they don't want a bloody PhD on supplements they just want to get on with their lives and so the big claim on
12:27
the front creates this sort of Gap in what would be a responsibility from companies it's a really weird industry
12:32
like that in most other spaces if you make a better product and it's higher quality and you can prove it you'd be able to tell people so the incentive
12:39
would be there to do that so you both were in Tech spaces and then I mean you just mentioned just now no one wants to
12:45
actually become a you know supplement nerd including us we did not expect to be either right we were in Tech we were
12:50
like we don't want to be in this space or become nerds so then what then this you know made the both of you kind of come together and say let's leave our
12:57
current jobs and build I think it was understanding the impact that it had on our lives so as Dan was
13:04
saying you know struggling with insomnia as having these gut health issues it led to a physical attack so I was in bed
13:09
wearing the same clothes for like three days spiking fever and in so much pain and that was all linked to gut health
13:14
issues so I think we saw like how big an impact it had on our lives and we saw what good we could do for other people
13:21
especially in the founder Community because we're understanding that we were under a lot of stress so many people were under so much stress and you you
13:27
interviewing people all the time and I imagine that's something that comes up a lot so for us knowing that we could
13:32
create products or we thought that if we got the right people together we could create products that made a difference
13:38
and for me it was this sort understanding of before that been working on shopping app and understanding what a difference you can
13:45
make if you have a desire to make something great and that's always a starting point which is if you believe that you can make something great and
13:51
get people around you you can make a products so much better than so out there on the market at the moment so I
13:56
think for us it was kind of seeing that there was this very serve space a lot of people that could get so much more out
14:02
of life if we could s get in there find the right people and I think that was the the starting point for us which was
14:07
like who could we bring together to do this project and um Dan there amazing story about how we brought the first
14:12
Chief science officer on and that for us was like a real key moment in terms of you have to believe you can make
14:17
something great but you have to find the right people to work with to do it yeah I think we got quite uh you know
14:23
especially in the early founding story you know the very very different skills that Joel's very um very focused on uh
14:30
sort of he gets a idea in his head and then it's very unreasonable you know position of but this is what we're going
14:36
to do and so in the supplement space that didn't seem that unreasonable at the time because we're both from
14:41
Outsiders from the industry so like most people who make supplements have been in the nutrition space or our medical
14:46
doctors or whatever um we have nothing to do with any of it so we actually have which has been a benefit but so you come
14:53
from a place of well why can't we do this it seems pretty reasonable to say why don't we just make the best product
14:58
and put all together and not have caking agents and not have all of these other things and then you go to all these
15:04
conferences where you meet suppliers and you meet everyone and every single one of them is computer says no and just going back on this so starting the
15:10
meeting so you go out there okay who's the best people in the world that you could work with and kind of get them in the room and you say okay we're going to
15:16
make the best product that's ever existed and they will smile and you're like okay why is that so funny and
15:21
they're like okay this is very refreshing because this never happens so they never start off a project being like can we make something really great
15:27
and just doing that got everyone really engaged and enthus in the project I think it's that sort of moment that makes you realize that you're on to
15:33
something and it's it does make you wonder like so many products are made in the world with so little enthusiasm
15:38
that's just trying to fill maybe there's like a gap maybe there's a cost they're trying to get to but just being like
15:44
okay there's this problem we know that it can be fixed we're going to get in there and make something like phenomenal let's do that and gets everyone like
15:50
really really jazzed and that for us is always a good starting point and we broke down like the The Logical steps
15:55
that you take to be unreasonable about making something really great and so obviously you know your version of great
16:01
is different to someone else's version of great we sort of just broke down Joel basically looked after product so you
16:06
know what does great look like why are these specific ingredients chosen not those specific ones um how does physics
16:14
work as in literally how much can you fit inside a capsule like all of these things what is you know what what are
16:19
our non-negotiables as a brand like what are things that we would never do and one of the things we found really Insidious in the category as a whole is
16:26
there's a constant exploitation of putting put in the minimum amount dose to make a claim so the perfect example
16:33
is the most common thing that that happens with is magnesium magnesium is
16:39
highly potent you need tons of the product it's highly volumous just like one to two full capsules with nothing
16:45
else in it is essentially your magnesium dosage but most multivitamins will put in this minuscule amount that covers the
16:51
claim that does nothing for you but now they can make zillions of Health claims because they put magnesium in it so when
16:56
we were starting everyone's like you need magnesium in this you can't incredibly have a product that's good for brain and body without magnesium and we're like but it doesn't wouldn't work
17:04
as You' just be making a claim and you wouldn't be making an impact on people so we made lots of strategic decisions of things we won't put in the product
17:10
just to get a tick and we only put in things that we could put in the entire scientific dose in or we wouldn't put it
17:16
in um that was a really good product philosophy of how we started um the
17:22
stuff kind of all compounds right so at the same time I was like we need to build an audience of people who'd be interested in this stuff we need to in a
17:29
credible way we need to accept we're not influencers right we're not and even if we were we wouldn't be credible influencers around nutrition no one
17:34
would trust us why should they um so let's just start a newsletter let's do
17:39
this idea of building in public so we are going from you know we're going to we're going to own the truth the truth
17:45
is we don't know what we're doing and we're not from this space and so we're not going to pretend to people that we do or we are that we are on a journey to
17:51
learn and so we're going to share all the things we're learning the good the bad the ugly I'm going to put it all up on LinkedIn and Twitter and write in a
17:58
newsletter about our process trying to figure out how to make a great product in this space and it really galvanized
18:03
people they really enjoyed it and then the newsletter turned into something we sent every single week which was one
18:08
thing you need to learn about your brain gut or mental health in general from PubMed so the public medical science
18:15
journal so the process was we go on PubMed we find an official scientific study that is super interesting and
18:21
relevant and will help you live a better life because it's a fact and we'll rewrite it in plain English with some
18:26
LOLs Millennial chat that kind of stuff in three minutes so the proposition was um I think the tagline at the time was
18:33
don't waste time with science we'll do that for you three minutes in your inbox every Sunday one thing from science that
18:39
you can do to improve your life brain gut whatever um over a year we built up
18:44
an audience of people who were just really enjoying getting this sort of Weekly Newsletter of the things that we were learning and the things that we
18:50
were sharing and through this process we were attracting super high quality
18:55
intelligent people um into our world to were kind of curious like how do two
19:00
entrepreneurs who don't know anything about this space approach this stuff and as a result we ended up meeting this lady called Dr Tara wart and this lady
19:07
called Sophie Medlin and Tara ended up becoming our chief science officer and Sophie became our head of nutrition and
19:14
they're both so respected in their field and at the time they were already very respected um taret had bestselling book
19:20
and she was a top neuroscientist with a PhD and neuropharmacology which is exactly what you would need for this
19:26
kind of product um and Sophie has 17 years of you know in clinic gastro
19:33
gastroenterology colar rectal dietitian Crone Specialists nickname is Queen of Pooh at King's College lovely for her um
19:41
and and you know since then both of them have become like really well known Tara is now her interview on di the CEO is
19:48
the most watched one ever this is 14 million views and Counting like this one let's hope so let's hope so right yeah
19:56
exactly um so you know we we we picked really well but it also like they came
20:02
to us as well on the basis of they were enjoying our approach to how we were sharing this stuff and then I think the
20:08
final point of this was we were really really um curious like we always owned
20:14
to the fact that we don't know what we're doing but we are really good at asking questions and we actually you
20:20
know do you remember like well of course you do around the city we were like really curious how do we had certain
20:26
idea of who the people we wanted to ask the habits and it was actually journalists it's probably like 100% C
20:33
readers it was journalists Bankers Traders uh lawyers and accountants
20:39
because we that's us yeah because because we had a thesis which is so as
20:44
entrepreneurs your job is to get stuff wrong all the time humility no big deal and you just throw stuff at the wall and you're just like whatever sticks and you
20:50
figure it out where we like those five careers are like the opposite of that you have to like that you have to be
20:56
right uh it's like so often you have to be thorough you have to be really convinced you have to do the research
21:01
you know there's just a lot as like there's a real overlap of the type of person who basically has to use their
21:07
brain like in a serious way differently to us so let's see what they do what are
21:13
their habits what are the supplements they take and we did all of our research with them and one of the things that we uncovered was they most of them took
21:21
supplements and then they showed us like their supplement draw or they explain their supplement cupboard at home and
21:26
they were the archetypal it take supplements I know I'm taking supplements I understand the jobs it
21:31
does but after about 5 days I forget to carry on taking it and we were like why me because we're not and again because
21:37
we're not from the supplement space we were both like I don't understand that why is that and like we asked all the right questions eventually just became
21:44
so obvious they all look the same and people just forget the jobs to be done and like why they're taking them and they just forget the story and it just
21:50
they get out of that habit and if you get out of the Habit it doesn't happen anymore so really early on you know Joel
21:55
focusing on what the best-in-class product is we're also focusing on like what are the customer behaviors that would help us create an amazing company
22:02
and that's where the bottle design came in we're like you know everything we learned from our last business which was basically mobile app everything there is
22:10
about habit formation so you have these things called day zero day seven day 30
22:15
habit tracking right basically that's your retention numbers like if you can't keep a customer past a seven you go back
22:20
to zero and figure out how to get them through the first seven days and if you get them from seven days how do you get them through to 30 days just the entire
22:26
job so you're like if you take that approach to supp supplements we had a really big gamble and guess about it
22:32
we're like you can basically design the actual product both the capsules and the
22:37
bottle in such a way that people don't want to put it in their drawer and they don't want to keep it out and if they so
22:43
don't they want to hide it and if they keep it out they'll probably see it and the best kind of supplement you can take is the one you remember to take so like
22:50
that simple thing which was a big gamble and a massive guess and I'm sure that
22:57
you know the product as well plays an enormous part but like our retention rates for customers has been literally
23:05
miles better than any other company in the whole category globally since we started and everyone when we started
23:11
said it's nice but as you scale like those numbers won't stick and now we're
23:16
at scale and we have exactly the same retention numbers as we did when we first started and you can't really point
23:22
to an exact thing right but actually turns out the simple philosophy of making something that's beautifully
23:28
designed that people remember to see and therefore remember the Habit was a pretty good intuition and how long do
23:34
you have to take the supplements to actually feel something cuz now that I'm thinking about it like maybe I always
23:40
say every time I take I don't actually feel anything differently but maybe I'm also just not taking them long enough because I'm also the one that will keep them dra and you might be taking not
23:46
very high quality ones and so the official gummies my melatonin gummies
23:52
the states are so good well I think they're one of the only yeah I think melatonin gummies are one of the only use cases where they actually do okay
23:59
good I was say I will I will go to my grave the first the first part of the the question is kind of going back to
24:05
what we were saying before about like why do people make gummies do they work and I think UK is quite a cynical market
24:10
so what we kind of see is there's like a subp part of the market where there's a lot of people mostly Brits that don't
24:16
expect vitamin to work so they don't want to spend that much on them and then there's a whole bunch of companies that be like you don't expect them to work
24:22
will happily sell you something that probably doesn't work and that makes up like a lot of the current market yeah and our products you know different I
24:29
guess this a a Dan question because well the official answer is 3 months but then the actual nuanced answer is it does
24:36
depend on you and your current diet or I mean and also depending on the product but in general um if for example to give
24:44
you anecdotal rather than scientific fact because the scientific answer is three months but the actual customer
24:50
data we see if you're vegetarian or vegan or even pescatarian to be fair so
24:56
basically not omnivorous or you have a pre-existing mental health issue and
25:01
that could be anything from like you know low energy poor sleep ADHD bipolar
25:06
like you know the full spectrum of things but including like relatively minor things you tend to feel the impact much faster so you know those kinds of
25:14
customers both from ones who are like probably not getting everything they need in their diet and or are currently in a place where they're not feeling
25:19
their best they tend to feel different inside weeks not months your general
25:25
healthy you know going to the gym all the time on top of the world feeling great it's usually within month two or
25:30
three that you actually notice things and and those people who are already feeling really good it's quite hard to notice the marginal gains and so those
25:36
people are usually the ones who are tracking on their wearables and are like damn like that is more RM sleep or whatever the thing is Right CU typically
25:44
in this day and age those people are tracking stuff and before you both went into this space was there any doubts you
25:51
know any kind of like second thoughts like oh this might not work you know we probably shouldn't leave our our current
25:56
jobs while you're running your newsletter though did you do that for so that that
26:02
was part of it yeah that was that was the start of it basically that's while we're doing product development stuff it's funny by the way Joel says no and I
26:08
would have said yes and then we have a joke together which is I get imposter syndrome and he gets imposer syndrome so he's like very sure things are work and
26:14
I'm always like but are they I'm like the anxious nervous one but will they you need a little bit of anxiet there was there was just there was so much
26:20
evidence that um having the right amount of B vitamins Omega-3s make such a big difference in people's lives so we'd be
26:26
reading the literature and what we're finding is like none of the products have the right amount and then you're looking at the US where it's probably
26:32
like an more of an advanced market and people are buying products they really see as part of the health Journey so we
26:37
kind of felt that if we can make the right product there was no doubt that we could be successful but obviously making the right product is is definitely thing
26:43
that would be challenging but when you start you have to have a view that you are going to make it otherwise it's quite good to get going so it's kind of
26:49
almost this mix of belief that you can do anything with a cold sense of reality
26:54
which we kind of try and I guess between us get to I think as well the the you know Jo's like technically speaking in
27:02
science or nutrition and stuff like it is fact so it's a bit like if we do all
27:07
the things and cut zero corners and do all of them it really like that should
27:13
create the greatest Health outcome for a customer because you're doing all those things but you still like don't know and
27:19
so it really helped us having Sophie and Tara who were also like 100% and we're like and we're sure that other people
27:24
don't do you know it was like incredible having two people with that level of confidence but also you know between
27:30
them like pretty much 40 Years of of experience in the space to be like yeah 100% because to give you an idea as well
27:38
it took us just over 14 15 months or something to get vitals out which was our first product which is the the
27:44
supplement with Omega-3s B vitamins blueberry extract etc etc but it took three and a half years to bring out the
27:50
prootic so to give you an idea of confidence and nerves and all of the
27:55
things that was that was much harder because three and a half years is a long
28:01
time for a startup to only have one product in the market and that's another thing that we're super different to
28:06
everyone else about every other supplement company startup Etc has so
28:12
many products that's how you grow revenue and we never ever we said from the start we're not that company like
28:17
that's what everyone else already does so like you can go in this space you can go broad or you can go deep and so we're
28:23
like everyone already goes broad let's just go deep and then the commitment will be these are the best products in the world and you can only in credibly
28:30
do that if you reinvest all your money into the same thing over and over and over again so instead of launching a new
28:36
product we were like let's do trials on this product you know we updated the first product four times based on doing blood trials with omnivores vegans like
28:44
did you know different age groups and stuff um and getting data you know and being like right okay I mean we already
28:49
had a lot of vitamin D in that product but the data says that people are still under with vitamin D with lot of was it
28:56
B B1 and B2 yeah yeah like you know there's so many bees isn't there there's a lot of bees that's why that's why it's
29:01
called get so nervous that's why it's called B vitamin complex it's complex to remember how many there are I take another one that has a B B vitamin in
29:08
I'm going to like overdose on B vitamins but is that you're just we possible okay yeah there other things like iron that
29:13
you need to worry about you know like there's nothing bad I we're not nutritionists but yeah nothing bad you just wee that stuff out D was saying so
29:20
we did a trial in 2021 so the idea was okay we take blood from people that aren't taking supplements at the moment
29:26
like variety of diets age range and the point of the trial was okay the starting point is take the blood understand where
29:31
they are give them Heights for three months or vitals and and then see what the difference has been but when we did
29:37
the first blood draw what we found was so many of that sample were severely um deficient in B1 and B2 which really
29:43
impacts your ability to create energy and and to sleep and and what was fascinating was kind of a catch 22
29:48
because people don't generally test B1 and B2 because Public Health says everyone gets enough of it so it's generally not tested so we tested it and
29:55
we found out that people didn't have enough of it and that's kind of why people are having potentially so such good results so early with Heights is
30:01
because actually as a population we're quite deficient in B1 and B2 and is impacting our ability to sleep and the
30:06
energy that we have every day so that was kind of the part of the trial was to do the second part but actually the first part became such a big thing and
30:13
we're still writing it up and it's going to be published in a journal later this year and I think that's what sort of separates Heights from other companies
30:19
in the space is like we're doing the research we understand that it's really impactful if we can communicate it well
30:25
uh and we kind of want to show that we're different we do really care so for us it's not even just about people that
30:30
take Heights this was a population of people that weren't taking supplements in general that had different types of diets and really really kind of want to
30:36
show what the impact of the nutrition has on your body whether it's for people that are going to take Heights or people
30:42
that can just make better choices and that's very much part of our our mission and we've actually just hired an internal head of research and their a
30:49
full-time role that's kind of coordinating with other universities and the thing is like how can we allow people to reach more of the heights
30:55
whether it's the greater population or people that take our products because going back to when down was seven or when we started Heights now we're
31:01
getting there I knew it yeah people just don't know enough about what's going on in their body and you know people are
31:07
really impacted by like technology impacted by stress there's so many things that are going on in the world and as you see in all the data that's
31:13
coming up around like mental health low energy people just aren't feeling great and we feel like we've got a really key role to play in that it's like okay how
31:19
can you provide data how can we provide information to people to make better choices and you mentioned um you
31:25
mentioned earlier just basically about how the public consensus is that we have
31:30
enough B1 and B2 um but in your research you found out that we didn't so why
31:36
would the public consensus be that if that's not the truth it's good question so that is a great question so I don't
31:41
know if you saw um an article last year where they just updated the the public health just updated the guidance on
31:47
vitamin C and they basically went back on the research the last research they done on vitamin C was 60 years ago and
31:53
it was yeah very a very small sample very long time yeah and I think this is
31:59
that's really normal that's what once you get into this stuff is that's actually normal it's insane like the research on vitamin vitamin C I swear I
32:06
take it every winter and I yeah so so what they're saying is you didn't need that much of it and and actually what
32:12
the change is is for Heights we're saying okay in a healthy population that are just trying to get as much done or achieve as much they can or reach their
32:18
own Heights what do they need and a lot of the research that's been done over a long period of time is really in people
32:23
that aren't well and being like okayy what if you're not well what do you need what do you need not to become well and the thinking is kind of different which
32:30
is like what do you need to really thrive in your life and we just think that it's a very underfunded area so
32:35
universities aren't funded enough to provide research and why we think that's really part of our mission is if you look a lot of where like the research
32:42
money is spent it's on like drugs Pharma the big things that going to make a difference in terms of curing people
32:47
once they're sick but actually what's underinvested is prevention so for us we think that a big role is stimulating
32:53
investment whether it's Heights investment Heights in partnership with the University or becoming part of a
32:58
network that's talking about it which is how can we provide the research and the evidence around prevention because I think at the moment prevention feels a
33:05
bit more wooly to people which is like okay is it gummies you know is it green juice like what are the things I need to
33:11
do to to be at my best and I think for us we're trying to stimulate more of a debate which is evidence evidence-based
33:16
because we think that can have the biggest impact and just putting it into context we're looking at a time in 2024
33:23
without want to go too deep that we've got these really long NHS waiting lists that really star to funding people are
33:29
waiting like months if not years to see people to talk about the situations they're in so they're living in discomfort and not saying that
33:35
prevention at that point is going to help everybody but it just feels like a small amount of investment here which is
33:41
how do we find out what the right levels of B1 are and B2 that could make such a big difference to so many people and
33:47
just last point on this is that if you look at um the vitamin C Dru that was 60 years ago and if we look at the way that
33:53
we live it's completely different so we do things differently we behave differently we eat junk foodk yeah
33:59
completely yeah ultr processed food right which is an increasing phenomenon in our diets and you know the way that
34:05
people uh Market this stuff like it's just normal it's just so irresponsible
34:11
it's a really odd catch ring too I mean we we we exist in it where you know see yesterday Mr Beast KSI and Logan Paul
34:19
launch nationally you know a new brand that is essentially positioned as
34:25
healthier than something that already 100 million kids take but is just a chocolate bar and an energy
34:33
drink but with Le but with less sugar and less calories and you're like what
34:38
like what and at the same time if you make supplements and sell them people will go out of their way to tell you
34:43
that you're scamming them and you're like what what world is this like these are literally Health supplements that no one's forcing you to take you don't have
34:49
to have them make your own choice but at the same time it is glamorized to be selling sugar even though most people
34:58
are completely educated on this point now about sugar yeah we're all aware everyone's aware right and awareness is
35:03
a great first step it doesn't take away necessarily the behaviors and the addiction that we have as a society to those things but you know it's a good
35:09
it's a good natural step but it is a really backwards Framing and as literally two people who you know lots
35:16
of people go through um a Health crisis during their life and I think what's nice is if you're lucky like I was like
35:22
Joel was it's not final and we're not saying at all by the way that especially from a mental health side my happened to
35:28
be nutritional I'd had previous multiple previous mental health issues had nothing to do with my nutrition they
35:33
were completely psychological I got a therapist you know I got over them so it is going to be all and end all but when
35:38
I went through that process at the end of six months I was just annoyed because I was like how does my doctor not know
35:44
to say go see a psychologist and a dietitian in day one why not like it
35:51
makes no sense to me why like why is that not an option why is nutrition not one of the things that they'd be recommending and there is a lot of
35:59
scientific evidence I think when we started the newsletter and started reading it I was like this is like it's not it's not
36:05
hidden away science is actually really well-published well-known science there's like endless content scientific
36:14
trials about supplements about ingredients about the different Nutri like nutritional benefits on pretty much
36:21
every single type of mental health disorder you can imagine as well as obviously all the stuff on longevity Etc
36:27
so well known it's just that doctors don't get trained in nutrition they get something like 6 hours in seven years so
36:33
it's just not their thing and so until we can actually position nutrition as
36:38
part of you know growing up healthily you know when you get sick you go to the doctor of course pharmaceutical products
36:44
are really important when you're sick Etc but so is some level of nutritional information and you don't get it from your doctor but I don't know about you
36:51
guys but you know you go to a doctor in a moment of weakness you really genuinely you trust them you listen to them you do you follow their advice so
36:58
if they were to say and try these things you'd listen and I think that's like a really big gap and an opportunity but it
37:05
isn't something that's in our system and it's not going to change and so it creates this really weird space where
37:10
consumer brands have to figure out a way to cut through the noise tell people the facts which also then of course create a
37:19
really cynical point of view because Brands make profit and like consumers are smart they know that you're going to
37:25
talk about why people need your product no matter what you make you know whether you make a shoe or a supplement your job
37:30
is to Market it and so there's this whole mistrust and cynicism around the
37:36
health space like people should be you know really cautious about you selling
37:41
them Health Products and my opinion people should be super cautious about people selling them sugar not Health
37:46
Products well you mentioned that that consumers are smart and they are um but
37:52
also not necessarily because you you explain everything that Heights is doing that stands out from the market get to
37:58
us in a 45 minute podcast we get it I'm about to honestly go buy Heights after this because I need some supplements
38:03
before the winter starts but how do you portray that message to the the other just random consumer that's shopping
38:09
online or Googling supplements you're actually especially now what especially not with over commercialization that you
38:16
touched on on like you know the supplement industry where they're just kind of creating supplements just for the sake of it and then you're saying
38:22
you're different but how do they know that you're just saying 100% so it's a great question I think like since it started like the whole thought process
38:28
is like if you have 45 minutes to tell someone then yes but you have like 6 seconds and I think for us like the
38:34
4year period that being in is adapting to that which is in the beginning started with a podcast and was doing
38:40
podcast for Heights into being really interesting people and it's like being in that conversation if someone watch the whole thing depending on what the
38:46
topic is or you're in a conversation with someone they like okay yeah I'll go get it but in again without wanting to
38:51
overuse it in 2024 you probably have about six seconds at Best of someone's time so I think for us is like two
38:57
things like one understanding is what do we need to communicate in that six seconds to get someone to understand and
39:03
then the other part is more of like a medium-term like slower burn which is we have to do the hard work in the background you know we have to do the
39:09
research we want to get um the data turn it into papers get that published in journals and for us that's two key
39:16
things like one is what are the things that build trust with our customers which is okay I want to see what you're saying in those six seconds but once
39:21
I've seen that what the other things that build trust and build trust is one of our values but the other part is once
39:27
we've done the research once we've got all that information and then Dan can go speak to someone for 45 minutes who is
39:33
the person he goes to speak to for 45 minutes and now we become informed Sports certified so athletes can take
39:38
our product so for us it's a bit like can we show more than what can we tell you and and Dan's a lot Dan's time is
39:45
then going and going 45 minutes 45 minutes with the people that he can talk about the product who are more influential in the space yeah like a lot
39:52
of my time this year has been spent um using the research the evidence that we have on our probiotic especially we
39:57
evidence that literally shows that it's 5050 times more effective than the next
40:03
best the bestselling prootic in the UK but also we paid a lot of money on Trials independent trials against the
40:10
top liquid the top capsule and the top powder probiotic and showed you know
40:16
were between 5 50 times or 100 times more effective at getting our bacteria
40:22
basically from your mouth to the colon which is what it needs to do it needs to survive a very acidic stomach journey is
40:27
boring science stuff that you consumers don't want to know about right terrible terrible campaign terrible campaign yeah
40:33
terrible right and so and so yeah so we learn yeah we learn no no one cares which is to totally reasonable right so
40:39
the question is okay so who cares and the answer to that question is health and science journalists whose job it is
40:44
is to basically review these things see what's the best actually tell people credible stuff after doing their research and also all the elite
40:51
nutritionists and dietitians and health experts in the UK who are responsible for the training programs the elite
40:59
athletes Etc and so we had this unbelievable um data and I've spent most of my time doing you know was lot of it
41:05
45 minutes one to one with someone but also being like now here's the research I'm obviously biased I know that you
41:11
know that I'm biased go validate it like these are independent so go call them up and go ask them without me being there
41:18
telling you what to ask or whatever and as a result we've had uh over 70 pieces of press this year so far predominantly
41:25
around the story of having the best prob IC and then also started collecting you know the the England team taking the
41:31
product for the Euros the England rugby team about to sign up the whole team for the Six Nations where the Ireland team
41:37
signed up for the Six Nations as well as basically the best rugby team in the world really started a few Formula 1
41:42
drivers you know these are not people making their own decisions not to insult them but like you wouldn't right you have literally hired an entire team of
41:49
the world's greatest experts to figure out for you how to get the Alchemy in your body to this exceptional
41:55
performance level that can't be compromised in any kind of way and they're picking Heights and so our our
42:02
feeling around this is like there's a real compounding story there where you guys and us as like normal consumers
42:08
aren't like I want this story Ram down my throat it's a bit more like who do I
42:14
trust that's taking this product and that's one side of it and then the other side of it which has been basically our
42:19
game changer this year I think last year we struggled a lot because we're so proud of the science that we were trying
42:25
to Ram it down people's throats and we it took us I think probably too long to accept that people don't want that right
42:30
we're like but we are a science organization why don't people care and they just don't and you know we sort of
42:36
went back to our roots of like well we did this beautiful design brand because we were like we need to be a consumer Lifestyle brand and we need to give
42:42
people something that they want and what people say they want is science but they don't actually they just want to feel
42:47
good and they want to feel like they trust the brand and all of that kind of stuff and you know not have to like I
42:53
said earlier get a PhD on supplements to buy into the product so we took a really different approach in January this year
42:59
we said okay we're basically a consumer brand consumer Lifestyle brand like that's our positioning like on the front
43:05
end to Consumers and stuff and in the back end we're a deep science Le company
43:10
and so when anyone credible you know who needs the data and research and you know wants to dig deep a journalist an expert
43:17
whatever like we can open the doors to all of that stuff give them all the information um even educate customers
43:22
after they've become customers on this stuff right but that's not the right approach to try and bring people into
43:28
the world of heights um instead we got very lucky like along our journey we've
43:34
picked up tons of celebrity customers um and those celebrity customers have had big Health outcomes right really
43:40
positive Health outc a few we can name drop a few Ashley will tell me whether I am not allowed or not but yeah okay
43:46
Ashley yeah well I mean look we we start we start our first ever customer who's still a customer today and is like our
43:52
literally our best ever customer is Steven fry so we started off with tons of credibility he's the type of person
43:58
people trust so much not because he's a health expert but because he's someone whose opinion you couldn't buy he doesn't do ads and commercialization and
44:04
all of this stuff but he had a phenomenal customer experience and has been massively supportive and given us
44:10
you know rights in perpetuity over his testimonial his customer view all of this stuff right so that's helpful
44:15
Steven bartler in the first you know 18 months when we got going he was massively supportive did loads of stuff
44:21
for us you know who was just really like enthusiastic customer obviously until H were like you got to stop this which is
44:26
fair enough um and um you know in more recent times you know just this year for example um
44:32
Matt Willis so the you know the frontman from bus did he went on a um a massive
44:37
Health Journey he was taking 20 supplements this is totally random he found up ads online was taking 20
44:43
supplements stopped taking them bought Heights Turk Heights before he went on a 20 stage stadium tour last year and
44:50
during this period busted went back up to number one in the UK and he was like I had the most insane you know
44:57
difference between this time and the last time I did the tour I felt so much better and and this is a miracle he
45:02
tracked all of it on his wearables and his health data was insane from before Heights to after Heights it that's the only change I made so he had this
45:09
incredible story starts dming me on Whatsapp um on Instagram and sharing the stuff and then sharing his data and
45:15
we're like this is such a great story can we find a way to tell it in an engaging way and that was kind of for us
45:20
the the big unlock which is the way to connect with consumers actually is we
45:26
have a personality a tone of voice that's like not overly serious it's fun it's quirky but it's like you know it's
45:32
still storytelling people want to connect with people let's get Matt to tell his story in his own words in his
45:39
own engaging way and put together content with his data and his information about what it's like to be
45:45
Matt customer of heights and what that did for your health outcomes um that content absolutely flew and the Insight
45:53
was we barely sold Heights in any of the ads it was just telling it's just like a wicked story from a really interesting
45:59
person doing something really impressive reaching his Heights again right they had not been in the charts for 20 years you got back to number one in the UK
46:05
it's a perfect example of you know reaching your Heights again at 40 that was the story like that's really interesting and so this year there's
46:12
been a bunch then we did you know Vogue Williams and then Spencer Matthews most recently he was doing 30 marathons in 30
46:18
days in the desert as a world record Guinness World Record um his coach and his um Elite dietician told him he has
46:25
to take Heights in order to in order to achieve this and so he did and the whole stories around him achieving this
46:32
Guinness World Record literally a couple of weeks ago is all through the lens of you know I took Heights for this thing
46:38
right and so we have a lot of these stories now and they're all compounding because what we've learned is again
46:44
people want to hear from actual people whether we like it or not because this is something that we both struggle with
46:49
because we started off we started off us we started off a little bit yeah we started off a little bit anti- influencer right so we're like you know
46:56
we like science but actually you can't like if you want to build a brand you have to understand culture and that is
47:03
essentially I think the big unlock for us this year is like we don't want to stray too far we we're like we're the
47:08
antiv vitabiotics brand right we would never pay someone money to stand with our product in a picture and just like
47:16
hey do that we're like if you are an actual customer and you've been a customer for six months and you have a
47:22
story to tell about your own health stuff and you want to do all of that stuff we'd love to do it and so all of our campaigns this year have been people
47:29
who have enormous dedicated followings but are legitimate customers telling really interesting stories told over
47:34
many months so it's become this like really great narrative vehicle and we got so many more of them in the pipeline
47:41
because obviously as you grow those things all compound and so we're starting to get into like a point now
47:46
where we have these I mean almost too many stories to film which is a nice thing nice position to be in but it's
47:52
like these are all just completely legitimate customer stories but from interesting people doing quite unique things and athletes as well and I think
47:58
you don't really think about what I mean actually the other day I was at Taylor Swift concert and I did ask what
48:04
supplement she probably takes because there's no way she just does that I often wonder the same thing so it's not Heights yet no no no it's not and I do
48:10
often wonder the same thing yeah what was the answer uh nobody knew I was just like I wonder I like I wonder what
48:16
supplement she's taking because going and going and going I it plays on me a lot cuz her boyfriend uh has a podcast
48:23
called New Heights he does and so I'm always just like this is just like one step away genius whoever can get that thing for it
48:30
it's just so obviously matchmade in heaven somewhere but yeah speaking like more you know scientifically what would
48:36
you say is kind of the relationship between our brains and our guts and you know CU that was like a big thing for
48:41
the both of you mental health and you know your gut issues what would you say is the relationship between the two and
48:47
how does like having a nutritious diet help that I can H that in a very unscientific way which I know is not the
48:52
question what he asked I wanted the hard science okay people don't
48:58
care people click off as SN that's that's the answer people don't
49:06
care but um the way that I think about it is you know the way that you're feeling can really impact your your gut
49:13
so it's like if you're very stressed you've got a lot of anxiety that can really upset your gut it can give you like a bad stomach it can cause all
49:18
kinds of issues and that can lead to this kind of things that people don't link to gut health so gut gut health can be like muscle pain can be fever it can
49:25
be aches it can be tiredness and all that can come from like mental health Stress and Anxiety and what's also like
49:31
very interesting about that is I don't feel stressed or anxious even at the point that I'm very stressed and I think
49:36
a lot of people can have this absorption of it so people might go through stress and like okay I'm quite anxious by this
49:42
I feel like I've got certain issues connected to it and a lot of people can go through life and they're like oh I'm fine I'm in this environment I'm really
49:48
thriving but actually your body is sort of absorbing all of it and you can lead to like other physical ailments all around your body but then there's the
49:54
other link which is if you've got a bad it can cause mental health issues as well so if you got a bad summer it can
50:00
cause anxiety it can cause stress and that's the most basic level so they they're linked through the Vegas nerve and there's loads of emerging evidence
50:06
about the impact of the microbiome on on brain brain activity mental health so when we designed um biotic some of the
50:14
strains are linked to the impact of Stress and Anxiety on our body so because I've been through that Journey when we designed biotic I wanted it to
50:20
be something that took care of cut Health in in general also um improved immunity because that's also linked to
50:26
the microb but also just this Improvement of the impact of Stress and Anxiety so not a scientific answer I guess I'll I'll add
50:33
some signs to it quite scientific but what what I want you to take away from it is this a very biral flow and a lot
50:39
of the times we don't realize it so it's kind of like we're not conscious of the impact that the way that we feel about things can impact our stomach a lot of
50:45
times we are because you know talk about things like gut instincts there's a lot of like common law about the way that we feel in our gut and that impacts but
50:51
generally people aren't as conscious of it and also surely nobody likes being sick like whenever I'm sick I get really stressed out out like I'm missing work
50:58
I'm I'm not feeling good like everything just sucks so yeah I mean just to add to that on the bir directional flow uh your
51:04
gut send signals to your brain considerably faster than the other way around which is why this concept of gut
51:11
instinct is so apt and it's a perfect example I'm sure you can imagine um or have had this experience yourself where
51:18
something happens and you have a gut instinct to do a thing but then you sit with that for a few seconds and you talk
51:25
yourself out of it rationally your mind typically speaking when you look back on those decisions the gut instinct was
51:31
actually the correct thing to do and often you T yourself out of it through fear or through whatever the thing is but it's so certain that's why when
51:38
people walk around you know you you you're very impressed by people who are intuitive um and those people who have
51:44
simply trained themselves to understand that the true intelligence and knowledge comes from the gut because there it's a
51:50
scientific fact the information goes from your gut to your brain faster than the other way round so it's a really interesting phenomenon and if you train
51:56
yourself to be more intuitiv listen to your gut instead of you know the Neurosis that comes when your your mind
52:03
starts to chatter you tend to make better decisions and then the other side of the the question you know got Joel
52:09
mentioned immunity and mental health so 70% of your immune system comes from your microbiome and 90% of your
52:16
serotonin so it is considerably more responsible for your immunity Therefore
52:22
your health and how often you get sick or stay well and for how you feel 90% of your serotonin how you feel your mood
52:30
your general mental well-being those things come more of the impact from your microbiome than some of the actual
52:36
lifestyle behaviors that you're making so it is this emerging science but it's absolutely fascinating and it's this
52:44
bizarre you know world that people are still unraveling and and becoming so curious about right but where it's
52:50
different to for example vitamins and you know I always say to people when uh
52:55
when you're talking about um vitamins right and they're like do I need vitamins like well tell me your
53:01
diet like tell me what do you eat every day because most people have this Ideal World of like I can get everything I need from my diet I'm like I know you
53:07
can now tell me what you ate today like you can but did you choose to do those things did you eat that volume of food
53:12
did you eat the right things and some people do right and I'm like you don't need vitamins you're fine um but feel like do I need a probiotic that's very
53:20
different you cannot eat enough cafir or drink enough kombucha or have enough
53:25
yogurt that specifically scientifically has the strains you can be sure of that
53:31
uh make an impact on your immune system or your mental health or your skin and nails or whatever right that's actually
53:36
the really interesting thing about probiotics is that you can isolate the specific bacteria from your gut that do
53:42
those jobs and you cultivate them in a lab inside a capsule and then when you take a capsule like biotic you're eating
53:48
the bacteria that feeds the bacteria already in your gut that do those specific jobs so there is no way to eat
53:55
whole food diet and get those kind of job outcomes so usually even though I'm a massive proponent for Vitamins because
54:01
of my own mental health story you know the the actual truth is do I need vitamins totally depends tell me what
54:07
you eat do I need a probiotic that does those things yeah increasingly I think for 99% of people and have this
54:15
conversation with real elite athletes you know tell me what you eat do I need vitamins you're like no I mean your job
54:20
is to eat listen to the things you eat it's unbelievable I wish I ate you know my private Chef this and that but do I need a probiotic I'm still like yeah
54:26
100% do you want to stay well like if 70% of your immune system comes from your gut and this is a probiotic that we
54:33
can prove has the strains that affect your immune system the number one most
54:38
dangerous thing that can happen to you as an athlete or a Hy performer whatever is you get sick if you get sick you're
54:44
not getting paid you can't do the fight you can't win that race you can't play that game so why would you risk it you
54:49
can't do that you know 70% that's s 30% error but like you just most common sense people who their career is in
54:56
important to they don't take risks with their health like that like and that's kind of where Joel was coming back to earlier where we've moved from a space
55:02
of how do I treat people who are sick to how do I as a sensible person who wants
55:07
to feel good as often as possible take my Wellness seriously in the best way possible and I don't need to be PhD
55:14
level on everything I just need to make good choices that keep me healthy at work keep my mood up make me feel like
55:19
I'm I'm well and happy and you know I'm more likely to do my best work if I feel
55:24
good do you guys see new customer Spike like in the new year when everybody's going through like their New Year resolution we're going to be really
55:31
healthy we February it's a very sore it's a very sore topic for us because
55:36
every single year since we LA Prep it's going to be huge and then something happens we never quite every year we' we
55:42
screwed up our own January and February every single year since we launch yeah honestly we're so we're so excited to
55:50
finally understand what it's like to be a wellness brand in January we have genuinely we've had an internal issue that's of our own making year so far and
55:57
we've always missed out on this January February thing but we always suffer in November December so we get the worst of both we November December a waste of
56:04
time for us next year but yeah we're just really excited to to work out if this is actually true or the whole
56:09
Wellness industry is always lied to us for me I would want to know like kind of what was the most interesting you know
56:14
fact that you've learned throughout your journey you know on all this like deep dive research you've done about our brains about our guts know say you have
56:22
like you do you do the the newsletters you give you people like lifestyle update you know information they should
56:27
know about them you know about their own body you know what my my my favorite um you know I guess semi esoteric story but
56:35
is you know I mentioned to you that doctors don't understand nutrition and they don't understand the impact of
56:40
nutrition and mental health right as in broadly speaking you know if you have a mental health problem a doctor isn't
56:46
going to recommend you a nutritionist or dietitian they're going to recommend you to a psychology or psychiatrist so I
56:53
find that really interesting particularly because I learned in one of the newsletters I was I was researching
56:59
so you know have either of you ever tried a vegan diet for any period of time okay if you go vegan people say to
57:05
you you have to have B12 that's like a thing so it's a it's a big thing like there's no chance going vegan without
57:11
someone running up to you after the street being like remember you B12 all right mate chill out um you really only
57:17
get B12 in meat so it's very very important it's virally impossible to get it in a plant-based diet so who cares
57:22
like you know you might be missing out on other things why does it matter so it turns out that if you don't get enough B12 as a
57:30
human body um you can often go into psychosis so have a complete and utter
57:37
mental episode like an absolute nutcase and doctors know and and hospitals know
57:44
and nurses know and everyone apparently in the medical industry knows that if that happens to you and you go into psychosis the first thing they do is
57:49
they give you an injection and b12 and you come back to normal and so
57:55
as soon as I found that I was like hold on a second psychosis is like a very intense mental health problem so all
58:02
doctors are actually trained that if someone goes into psychosis the first thing you do is you inject them with B12 so there is a connection like people
58:09
have been medically trained to actually understand clearly that mental health and nutrition is so obviously linked
58:15
there but yet the rest of the connection is kind of just lost in The Ether I find that I find that so interesting what
58:22
what are the like odds of that though like if you don't well rare and also genuinely there is not a vegan alive
58:27
that isn't told to have B12 I was going to say cuz I feel like that's got to be a common thing how how do they so how do
58:33
they then get B12 just by having supplements yeah yeah just a B12 supplement yeah okay they have height
58:38
yeah they're not injecting in their necks yeah it's not it's not nothing extreme yeah yeah a normal supplement um
58:43
I mean my you know one of my final questions would kind of be just what has it been like being a founder and what do
58:49
being a Founder mean to you whatever the favorite things of you know finding your own company managing your own company
58:54
been to you um I guess getting things wrong I think
58:59
that's been a defining feature science yeah not on the science never enjoying a
59:04
January yeah um I think it's it's a learning curve and I think it's like you're working in a spotlight that
59:10
really shines and the things you're good at that shines really brightly and also the things you're not good at that shines really brightly so it's a really
59:17
fast learning curve and I think the thing that I've learned you know over like three or four years is you can get things wrong in both directions so you
59:24
can get things wrong when you scale too quickly and that becomes really obvious and oh you hired too fast or you spent too much on this or you went too quickly
59:31
but what I've seen over the last 12 months is suffered from those kind of problems and now we're growing really really well but I think almost slower
59:37
than we could have done because got things wrong the other way which is potentially a bit too slow bit too slow to hire bit too slow to buy enough stock
59:44
to support the growth so I guess what it comes down to is you get a lot of things wrong which gives you ability to learn
59:49
so for me it's been a great journey but I've learned so much from it so quickly and we're in a game where we've got lots
59:55
of customers like people notice a lot of things so yeah I describe it as a massive learning opportunity that at
1:00:01
times is amazing but there's always things that are going on that are almost like sewing the seeds of a mistake that
1:00:07
you might make in the future which I think sounds a bit overly negative but for me that's a massive positive because
1:00:12
where else could you get that in your career where you know a year people say it's like a year in startup it's like dog years it's like seven years of like
1:00:19
normal life I feel like being a Founder maybe that's like 14 years maybe that's cat years I'm not an expert or or a vet
1:00:24
but I think yeah it's been an amazing gift um to be a founder and to learn so much so quickly yeah I think I I enjoy
1:00:32
the chaos of it it is chaotic um and over time you recognize there's a very clear pattern which is every time
1:00:39
something sucks really badly it's quite often just before something great happens and then you have this really
1:00:44
weird relationship because you know that every time something great happens you're about to have a massive [ __ ] up and it's going to be super painful so it
1:00:51
actually you know at the beginning you go through that cycle of Labette and it feels really annoying and Bittersweet cu
1:00:56
like you're actually praying out when things are going well because you're like you know it's about to go bad and so you can't really enjoy it but the
1:01:02
flip side of that is like when things go really badly you learn not to panic and it is a you know you end up very even
1:01:07
killed and so when you you imagine like that much emotional trigger happening to
1:01:13
you like up and down up and down up and down on a monthly basis over years you
1:01:18
really manage to stem your nervous system quite well right you learn you you learn how to behave in the world in
1:01:25
a much more I think present and capable way because things don't affect you that
1:01:31
much because most things are not that bad but also we have the right products to take to get that's also an important
1:01:38
feature except last week when we ran out of stock and I was going a holiday didn't have any Panic message Dan I was
1:01:44
like and he didn't have any either yeah thereally none none in the world yeah it's true there's a first the first time
1:01:49
I've actually felt under the weather in like literally 5 years I'm like what is wrong with me I haven't felt like this in Asia like we're out stock products
1:01:56
and you not being able to take them even us like there's like a global shortage and everyone's just like you guys have
1:02:01
right hidden away like no we we're also looking for something um I mean to wrap it up you
1:02:07
know what would be your advice to you know Entre entrepreneurs and founders of companies who are just starting their
1:02:13
you know their own Journey listen to your gut y l gut yeah um I think it's it's
1:02:21
patience everyone wants things really quickly I think the the the absolute reason Heights are successful today and
1:02:27
the absolute reason why it's working is um from day one we played the long game
1:02:32
one product super unglamorous to have one product no one else was doing it it
1:02:37
was a really good decision we're like we're going to find the right investors who understand that this is totally our
1:02:43
position on the thing and we're going to go slow to go fast eventually and that how you win in this space is by quality
1:02:51
and being able to completely stand by your your your values and the the way that you do things and that only works
1:02:57
if you're willing to play a long game on time and I think everyone really obviously wants things to happen super fast and super fast and I understand
1:03:04
that but at the same time how you win over the long term is not all the quick easy wins it's actually standing by the
1:03:10
right brand decisions over time and try not to panic about it yeah and I think mine would be I think linked to what I
1:03:16
was saying is be be willing to take complete responsibility for everything that happens because when something goes
1:03:21
wrong you know in the beginning like oh like is it that person or this person or what happened and it's Joel's fault yeah
1:03:26
but then but then at the end that you hired that person or that person didn't have enough training or you didn't hire quick enough or it's too slow and I
1:03:32
think what I realized is the quick you get to that point then something bad can happen but you can take learnings from it and you can only take learnings if
1:03:38
you really accept that everything does end up at your door so once you start taking learnings it can be a bad
1:03:43
situation but if you can take learnings from it then it means it won't happen again but if you can't take responsibility then you'll be in that
1:03:50
Loop where the thing happens over and over again because you didn't quite get to the point of what actually happened that you could do better next time
1:03:56
I mean you any questions I think that we both have to dash unfortunately um and
1:04:02
we can play that on Joel as well yeah okay has to Dash um but no I think that gives a good wrap up so thank you guys
1:04:09
for coming my guts and my brains and I'll trust them my brains my brains yeah
1:04:14
very [ __ ] I have two brains thank you guys for coming thank you so much much
1:04:21
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