The Genius Who Gets Celebrities to Promote His Brand For $0 w/ Ryan Chen

Transcript

In 2024, we were the fastest growing company on TikTok Shop. And in 2025, we had 5 billion impressions. Ryan Chen is the co-founder and CFO of NeuroGum, one of the fastest growing supplement brands in the country. These guys have exploded over the last few years, popping off on Joe Rogan, Shark Tank, and recently on TikTok Shop. He came on the show to talk about the spillover effect that brands experience from investing in a platform like TikTok Shop, how they're approaching retail, how they're changing their product packaging to stand out more on the shelf. But what I found fascinating was how NeuroGum has been able to get their product in the hands of the rich and famous. They're in with Mr. Beast. They're in with all these different celebrities and athletes like Andrew Schultz. Ryan gave us their entire playbook on how they've accomplished that, starting with this story. So tell us about this Mr. Beast video. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, man. So Sunday, we have our first video coming out with Mr. Beast's philanthropy and then Neuro. So we're really excited. So we got to sponsor basically this whole mobile medical clinic, which came out of Texas A&M. And so Beast's philanthropy, I don't know if you guys know how it works, but they donate 100% of the proceeds that they raise to the philanthropy that they partner with. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] So we got super lucky. I'll kind of give you the backstory. But two years ago, I got to be a part of a Beast's philanthropy video for adaptive athletes. So I got into a spinal cord injury 17 years ago when I was 19 and broke my back. I was paralyzed from the waist down. And through the grace of a lot of amazing nonprofits, got into wheelchair racing, trained with the U.S. Paralympic team. And that was kind of the genesis of when Kent was sharing supplements to create Neuro. But yeah, I got invited to be a part of that video, saw firsthand what Beast's philanthropy was doing, supporting all these smaller nonprofits that might not get the light of day. And we're like, how do we work with Beast? How do we donate back to something like this? And so through this roundabout way, one of our investors, Jared Smith, the co-founder of RX Bar, his president was a guy named Jim Murray, who is the co-founder of Feastables with Mr. Beast. And so Jim connected me with the president of YouTube at the time, connected me to a guy named Darren, who is the head of philanthropy. And then we connected and we're just like, how do we give back and donate to you guys? And fast forward two years, now we've got this cool partnership and we ordered the sponsor first. With something like this, working with Mr. Beast on a video, do you get to think about the creative process with him? Or is it almost very hands-off and he runs with the ideation process, conceptualize and everything? [SPEAKER_01] It's crazy because they have a pipeline of probably 10 videos that they're working on concurrently. So they'll give us a list of, hey, we're thinking about sponsoring this philanthropy or this philanthropy, which one kind of resonates with you guys the most. [SPEAKER_02] And we're like, this mobile medical unit using old shipping containers sounds really cool. How do we partner with that? And so, well, you know, we'll give Jimmy and the team a bunch of things that we want to talk about for Neuro as a shout out as one of the sponsors. And we just let them rip. So we haven't even seen the final cut or copy. We've seen some snippets of it, but the video drops this Sunday. [SPEAKER_02] What's the CPM on a Mr. Beast video? [SPEAKER_02] I don't even know. So I got a deck recently and this stat is insane. So Mr. Beast in the last 90 days has reached 1.4 billion unique people. That's like 15% of the world's population. 1.4 billion. 1.4 billion. And that number is hard to comprehend, but 1.4 billion unique people have been reached in the last 90 days. So he's got 450 million subscribers on YouTube. And then the philanthropy is maybe 30 million. [SPEAKER_00] But right now they're trying to get the philanthropy to get more eyeballs. And so Jimmy and the team has made a big effort to combine that under one team. So, I mean, we're very fortunate because philanthropy has been a big part of our mission statement for Neuro. And then now to partner with probably the most viral philanthropy in the world is incredible. [SPEAKER_00] Kind of like the ultimate brand marketing play. I mean, you're just hoping this video goes mega viral. A bunch of people see NeuroGum. How are you evaluating the success of the video? I mean, assuming it's not just a pure passion play. Yeah, I think part of the idea is that if this video gets 10, 15 million views, and we calculate that by impression, but we're also doing this really cool collaboration. And you guys could probably snip it. But it's a Beast Philanthropy 10x Neuro. There's two variations on it. And it's a thumbprint and a wave. This idea is your action has a ripple effect on the things around you. And it's similar to Beast Philanthropy's philosophy on giving back. And so all the proceeds for those tins go to the philanthropy. So we'll sell the tins for $6. And our goal is to raise half a million dollars or more. So we've committed to the half a million, and we just want to capture as much upside as possible. Yeah, that's awesome. And so this isn't your first big partnership. I mean, obviously, you guys have worked with people like Joe Rogan. There's a bunch of athletes that, you know. We've never officially worked with Joe, by the way. Sorry, Joe Rogan has— [SPEAKER_02] And so all the proceeds for those tins go to the philanthropy. So we'll sell the tins for $6. And our goal is to raise half a million dollars or more. So we've committed to the half a million, and we just want to capture as much upside as possible. Yeah, that's awesome. And so this isn't your first big partnership. Obviously, you guys have worked with people like Joe Rogan. There's a bunch of athletes that. We've never officially worked with Joe, by the way. Sorry, Joe Rogan has- He just loves the product, which is the best case scenario. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_00] You've actually had a better outcome there where Joe Rogan just loves your product. [SPEAKER_00] But how do you guys? I think you've done an excellent job partnering with celebrities, influencers, thought leaders, stuff like that. [SPEAKER_00] How do you all approach these partnerships? Where do you find people? How do you structure the deal? [SPEAKER_00] That sort of thing. [SPEAKER_00] I mean, one, Rogan definitely doesn't know who we are as founders, but he loves the brand. [SPEAKER_00] And the first time he had dropped Neuro was February 2020. [SPEAKER_00] Right before the world shut down. [SPEAKER_00] And we had seeded him product back in November 2019 through our buddy John Beer, who started Jack Taylor PR. [SPEAKER_00] And we sent a bunch of product out there, crickets, November, December. I mean, it's Rogan. He's probably getting millions of stuff every day. There's no way he's going to get it. His garage is literally just full of venison and then random products. [SPEAKER_02] And somehow I think he started taking it and he just dropped us on the podcast with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. [SPEAKER_02] And I just remember my phone blowing up and getting all these text messages like, dude, Rogan just dropped you on the podcast. [SPEAKER_02] And you just see immediately. [SPEAKER_02] I was going to say, what do the analytics look like? [SPEAKER_00] It was insane. [SPEAKER_00] I think at the time, we were averaging five to 10 grand on Amazon a day. And we were hitting 7,500 grand days post that drop. And it was never any here, click a link below or use Rogan 20 for discount. It was just mentioning that name. And that's the power of how big his platform is. So what's more powerful, a Shark Tank shout out or a Joe Rogan shout out? Rogan shout out for sure. So when we did Shark Tank, we filmed it September 2019. And then we aired April 2020. So it was right around two months before the Rogan. And Shark Tank was great. I think we made a million bucks in the first week, week and a half post airing. [SPEAKER_00] And we had got two offers, but we rejected. So I can go into the analytics of what it is. Trust me, I've seen the TikTok clip 50 million times. Yeah. But we were lucky that we still aired because if you don't take a deal on camera, you're less likely to actually air on the show. So we kind of just played the scenarios in our head and we're like, you know what, we don't want to just take a deal on camera and kill it in due diligence. We want to be honest about the valuation. [SPEAKER_02] We're just like, we can't take it that low. But Shark Tank was about a million change. And then using the clips, but the Rogan effect is orders of magnitude bigger. Yeah. That's crazy. That's insane. I mean, it just kind of goes to show these traditional media publications, whatever they might be, are just dwarfed in popularity by what's organic, right? A creator on YouTube, the new media is just so much more powerful. I mean, you look at Jimmy and MrBeast. That's the platform. [SPEAKER_00] Instead of CNN, BBC, Fox, or whatever, people are following their creators that they want. [SPEAKER_00] So they have the share of voice. [SPEAKER_00] And so I think when we look at partnerships, we just kept sending Rogan product. We sent him a huge Pez dispenser of his head that spits out packs of NeuroGum. But we just try to find partners that love the brand. [SPEAKER_02] And that's the absolute bare minimum requirement. [SPEAKER_02] We don't want to work with anybody that doesn't know about the brand or doesn't take it. [SPEAKER_02] Because I don't want to force a partner to be like, hey, I'm going to write you a check. And I want you to talk about XYZ. I want you to take it organically. And then you tell me how it works for you. And then that makes for great content. When you're trying to develop these partnerships and you're trying to seed some of these bigger A-list celebrities, how are you thinking about getting in front of them? Like you said, you got in front of Rogan through, is it John Beer? Yeah. John Beer. How are you getting in front of Mr. Beast or the other big players in the game? Because it's not easy to get in front of those individuals. [SPEAKER_01] And you also have to stand out on top of that. [SPEAKER_01] I think some of these relationships are gatekept, right? [SPEAKER_01] It's like, how do you even get to Rogan? [SPEAKER_01] And it was just John had the relationship with Jamie and the producer had an address to send it to. [SPEAKER_01] And through luck and enough perseverance, we got through. [SPEAKER_01] And we were just with MrBeast in Ghana last month. [SPEAKER_01] So we were there for three days, spent some quality time with him, telling him about the brand, what we wanted to do, how we want to be a part of this philanthropy. And now we're doubling down and we're increasing what we're donating from half a million to millions going to the philanthropy. So we're very committed because once we saw firsthand, this is the real deal. [SPEAKER_02] He's sleeping in the car, Jimmy's not staying at the five star. [SPEAKER_01] And through luck and enough perseverance, we got through. [SPEAKER_01] And we were just with Mr. Beast in Ghana last month. [SPEAKER_01] So we were there for three days, spent some quality time with him, telling him about the brand, what we wanted to do, how we want to be a part of this philanthropy. [SPEAKER_02] And now we're doubling down and increasing what we're donating from half a million to millions going to the philanthropy. [SPEAKER_02] So we're very committed because once we saw firsthand, this is the real deal. [SPEAKER_02] Jimmy's not staying at the five star. He's going to drive out six hours round trip and sleep in the car tonight. [SPEAKER_02] And his team around him was 30 people. Five of them stayed in the car, filmed some stuff on the sunset. I'm thinking, man, that's commitment. I want to go home and shower, it's been a long day. But I have massive respect for his work ethic. So I think just partnerships in general, we find the right partner and just sheer will and finding different angles to get there. And sometimes it's not just a one degree of separation. It might be two or three, but figuring out the angle and being really honest and genuine. Hey, this is what we want to accomplish. We want to work with X, Y, Z. Can you make that introduction? And luckily people pitch it in a way where we get their attention. And fortunately we get these amazing partnerships. So I'd love to talk more about your brand journey in terms of the channels you've activated, because it seems like you all started DTC. [SPEAKER_02] Obviously you had Amazon, had the Rogan shout out, had the Shark Tank shout out or early on TikTok Shop. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Proceeded to then get into retail. And I'd love to hear from you, what were these revenue thresholds? What were those key levers that you pulled that really blew the brand up during that journey? Yeah. [SPEAKER_00] So we started the company in September 2015. It's been ten and a half years. We're going on 11 and we've always started with DTC. [SPEAKER_00] I would say the first two or three years, we didn't have any retailers. We had maybe some small bodegas here and there. [SPEAKER_00] Our first big account was CVS and Whole Foods. [SPEAKER_00] But even up until last year, 90% of the business was between Amazon or website, TikTok Shop, and then 10% was made up between 20,000 doors, like CVS, Whole Foods. Now Walmart. But this year, because we have enough brand awareness, now we're entering discussions with Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club, 7-Eleven. But no one would have taken us seriously because we're building this category. So retailers were like, we don't even know where to put you. [SPEAKER_02] CVS were like, we'll put you in the pharmacy memory section. And 7-Eleven was like, we'll put you by checkout. But Walmart was like, we'll put you in the candy and gum section. We're like, no, we're a functional product. We need to either be in the supplement section or checkout. But retailers are not going to listen to us at that stage. So they were like, you know, we'll put you where we put you. You'll be lucky to even have us. And what was your approach, because in a lot of those different places, you're in a really unique price point. You're probably not cheap, but you're very affordable in the supplements section. But at checkout, you're really expensive. The whole brand campaign that we have now is dumb is gum, neuro is smart gum. And first and foremost, we're a supplement. We're the only gum and mint company on a lot of these retailers that have a supplement label. [SPEAKER_00] So even with Target, when we were getting on target.com, we're the first brand to have a supplement label on a confectionery product. [SPEAKER_00] It took us a year to go through their legal department to even get cleared. And so when we're looking at the price point, yes, we're much more expensive than normal gum. But if you compare it to Red Bull or coffee, a pack is 4.50 or at a convenience store, we have a six count. So instead of the nine count, we have six count. It's 3.69. So it comes up to less than 50 cents per serving. And it's half a cup of coffee and a piece of gum. So if you have that value prop, we try to educate the consumer that way. You're actually saving money by buying Neuro Gum long term than going to Starbucks every day. All right. So over the last two years of building Nibble, shipping nearly 8,000 UGC ads and getting performance data on every single one of them, it became clear. [SPEAKER_02] There are two types of brands: those that understand creative volume and those that don't. [SPEAKER_02] The core difference was what they focused on. [SPEAKER_02] Brands that focused on volume plus hit rate were never complaining that Meta changed the algorithm. Their stuff just worked. [SPEAKER_02] And anytime we did work with one of those savvy brands, it was always on the same platform: Motion. Motion is by far the best tool to optimize your creative pipeline. It provides structure, visibility and insights that your creative team needs to make better decisions. [SPEAKER_00] I like to think of it as what Meta would actually show you if they cared about your success. [SPEAKER_00] All the key metrics like three second stop rate, winning angles, formats, competitor research, it's all built into their platform so you can make quicker and better decisions. [SPEAKER_00] They even just launched a new AI agent, Runneth, which functions as a 24/7 creative strategist providing recommendations to your ad account. [SPEAKER_00] Make sure to go check them out at motionapp.com. [SPEAKER_00] All right. Let's get back to the episode. [SPEAKER_00] Provide structure, visibility and insights that your creative team needs to make better decisions. [SPEAKER_00] I like to think of it as what Meta would actually show you if they cared about your success. [SPEAKER_00] All the key metrics like three second stop rate, winning angles, formats, competitor research, it's all built into their platform so you can make quicker and better decisions. [SPEAKER_00] They even just launched our new AI agent Runneth, which functions as a 24 seven creative strategist providing recommendations to your ad account. [SPEAKER_00] Y'all make sure to go check them out at motionapp.com. [SPEAKER_00] All right, let's get back to the episode. [SPEAKER_00] Where do you have that education show up? In your creator videos? [SPEAKER_00] Yeah, creator videos help. A lot of it's on the website, but a lot of it's trying to convey that message in that short ad. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. [SPEAKER_00] Price anchoring in a dollar per serving. [SPEAKER_00] Right. [SPEAKER_00] How did you start developing your positioning strategy? [SPEAKER_02] I think figuring out the price point was one, trying to be competitive with energy drinks, right? [SPEAKER_02] Back in the day when we were starting, we were like, okay, well, if Red Bull is 80 milligrams of caffeine for a can and we're 40 milligrams, half of Red Bull, but one piece of gum, how do we get competitive to Red Bull's pricing, but get a lot more value out of it? [SPEAKER_02] So we're trying to play around with that pricing model. [SPEAKER_02] Obviously it had to make sense for us margin wise to be able to scale up D to C. So we're reverse engineering backwards. [SPEAKER_02] We need this margin to survive to scale, but this is still a value prop better than coffee or energy drinks. [SPEAKER_02] But even from the beginning, you were looking at the Red Bulls, the Monsters. Those were our primary competitors. And we're working backwards. Now Five Gums as an example. Five Gums, yeah. And I mean, we built this category. NeuroGum was the forefront of trying to put supplementation in gum form. And it took so long for people to be like, oh, well, that makes sense. [SPEAKER_01] And then when we had people try it, we slowly built this base of subscribers. So I think we're over a hundred plus thousand subscribers just on D to C on our e-commerce platform. [SPEAKER_01] And those people are lifetime value customers that we depend on. [SPEAKER_01] Was there any inflection point in the market? Because this was also during the time where the Hubermans, the Atiyas were starting to talk about, for example, combining caffeine with L-theanine. Right. And there's a lot of products. I got to not piggyback off of that, but the culture was starting to get educated around health and wellness. Was there an inflection point that the education met what you had created and there was a rise? So when we first trademarked NeuroGum, we were the world's first nootropic gum. That was the tagline. [SPEAKER_01] And then no one knew what nootropics were unless you were a Redditor. [SPEAKER_01] And Kent, luckily my best friend and co-founder was really big on Reddit. And he was talking about nootropics, our nootropics, and talking about our launch on Indiegogo. [SPEAKER_01] But we're like, man, it's too niche. [SPEAKER_01] Indiegogo, yeah. We were on Indiegogo. That's a throwback. That's almost like LimeWire. We couldn't do Kickstarter, which was a much bigger platform than Indiegogo because they weren't supporting supplements. So we're like, we'll go to Indiegogo. Yeah. But luckily Kent and Tyler were heavy on that Reddit community. And then we just realized it's too niche. So how do we go with something bigger? [SPEAKER_01] And energy was always exploding, right? With energy drinks. And at the time it was Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar. And now you have Celsius, Alani Nu and hundreds of brands popping up every year. Okay. [SPEAKER_01] I have a question for you. Why are energy drinks so popular as a category? Not necessarily to the consumer, but everyone is like, I'm going to get a random celebrity and I'm going to start an energy drink. Is it just the margin profile? Is the TAM so big? Why is it so popular? I ask myself that question all the time. [SPEAKER_00] I think the education's there. Red Bull paved the path. They started Red Bull in 1987. Now everybody's like, you don't need to educate somebody. It's like energy drink. I know what it is. [SPEAKER_00] I think it's easier to get into the market, but through that process it's so diluted and saturated. It just seems so ruthlessly competitive. Our angle is, well, energy drinks are usually riddled with sugar, like 30, 40 grams of sugar. It's a lot of sugar. [SPEAKER_02] We have zero sugar in the product. One piece is half a cup of coffee or half a Red Bull. And people get that analogy. [SPEAKER_02] So we anchor ourselves like, hey, you know how energy drinks might not make you feel good and make you feel jittery? Try this product. And then, yeah, we've had success from people trying it and actually saying, I really like it, and switching over. [SPEAKER_02] Just to pivot real quick. I think we have a ton of brand operators and founders that watch the podcast. And I think you guys were one of the very first mainstream Shopify brands to nail TikTok Shop and create that virality and capture the spillover. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. Maybe tell us the story of how y'all got on the platform, what your first six months looked like, how you activated, what did you say? 1500 videos a day from creators? Just give us that high level summary. [SPEAKER_02] it and switch over. [SPEAKER_02] Just to pivot real quick. [SPEAKER_02] I think we have a ton of brand operators, founders that watch the podcast. [SPEAKER_02] And I think you guys were one of the very first mainstream Shopify brands to nail TikTok shop and create that virality and capture the spillover. Yeah. A, maybe tell us the story of how y'all got on the platform, what your first six months looked like, how you activated, what did you say? 1500 videos a day from creators? Just give us that high level summary. [SPEAKER_00] I mean, shout out to Jonathan, Kent, everybody making that effort to hop onto this platform because TikTok was exploding, but TikTok shop was still in its infancy. [SPEAKER_00] And we were, finance team was very close to saying, hey, we're not getting any ROI. [SPEAKER_00] We're about to cut this. I think for four months in early 2024, maybe tail end of 2023. [SPEAKER_00] Maybe share those clear numbers, what you were doing in revenue, spend. [SPEAKER_00] November, December 2023. [SPEAKER_00] We were like, okay, well, we got a sample NeuroGum to these creators. [SPEAKER_00] So I remember we had a budget of 300 creators that we're going to send free product to. Please make a video. You know, these are all on like a one pager of what the attributes of Neuro are. And it was January, February, March, April, nothing. And we're just sending all this free product. [SPEAKER_00] We're spending ads behind it. Nothing's working. And then finance team was like, you know, maybe we should cut it. And then boom, we had one video go viral. And then the rest was history. Do you remember what the video was? [SPEAKER_02] It was clipping Joe Rogan content, talking about it. [SPEAKER_02] And it wasn't us doing it, but it was a good creator talking about the product and then saying, Hey, what is this product that Joe Rogan's talking about? [SPEAKER_02] Green screening it? [SPEAKER_02] Green screening was really popular. Now, the TikTok algorithm changed, you can't do the green screening. But then they started clipping the Shark Tank episodes and we just started to see that momentum. So 2024, we were the fastest growing company on TikTok shop in the health category. And then 2025, we had 5 billion impressions, going from nothing and crickets to being the fastest growing brand by middle H2 of 2024. And then using that momentum in 2025, 5 billion impressions gave us so much of a halo effect that translated into website sales, but even more so on Amazon. So I think TikTok was still a platform for brand discovery. People are like, Oh, I've heard about it on TikTok. But they still weren't used to transacting on the TikTok shop platform. So they would be like, okay, let me Google it, find it on Amazon, one swipe click. What were some of those different concrete metrics? Like we hit a million in revenue and we saw a 25% boost to Amazon? Do you remember any of those? There were some days where we would see a correlation between every dollar that we made on TikTok was an incremental 40 cents on Amazon. It's not that anymore because of the halo effect not being as prevalent. There's obviously a ceiling to it. But when we saw a clear indication, when we would have a video go viral on TikTok that day, we would have a big increase of spikes. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. [SPEAKER_00] Because we've been on TikTok or we've been on Amazon for nine plus years. So we know what daily averages are like. It's a very consistent channel. [SPEAKER_02] Plus we had the subscription base, but the TikTok part was just, you would see this clip. [SPEAKER_02] What are some of the formats that are working then on TikTok shop and now continue to work on TikTok shop? [SPEAKER_02] Well, I'll tell you what worked really well back then was the clipping and the green screening. [SPEAKER_02] And I think now with the IP stuff, TikTok's being a little bit more sensitive on violations and trying to close that down. [SPEAKER_02] And I think they know what that leaky bucket was like when you would see it on TikTok, but then Amazon would get the revenue. [SPEAKER_02] So they're trying to be a little bit more siloed and trying to keep that transaction happening on TikTok shop. [SPEAKER_01] So the tricky thing right now is TikTok is a discount platform. [SPEAKER_02] So people want to get a deal. [SPEAKER_02] But then when you're so big on Amazon, you have the buy box. [SPEAKER_02] So if you price your product on target.com, walmart.com, or TikTok lower, then you lose the buy box on Amazon. [SPEAKER_02] So it's almost this math game of if we discount it too much on TikTok, we're getting more volume, but we lose that market share on Amazon, then how do we find that balance? [SPEAKER_02] It's just a math question. [SPEAKER_02] How did you find the balance? [SPEAKER_02] I mean, what was the equation? [SPEAKER_02] I think what we came to the conclusion is that TikTok is the best, the undisputed champion for brand awareness. [SPEAKER_02] So for us to continue to reach new customers, TikTok is still that platform. [SPEAKER_02] Of course, we're on Meta. [SPEAKER_02] We'll do stuff on Instagram, but TikTok is the king. [SPEAKER_02] And so when we have brand campaigns with TikTok, we'll participate in it, but we're very sensitive with the team upfront. It's like, this is the most that we can discount and you can do further couponing or whatever on your backend, but this is the lowest price that we can advertise without messing up our Amazon business. [SPEAKER_02] So it's being in constant communication. [SPEAKER_02] And I would say, shout out to the TikTok team, because then we have this internal relationship that we have that we don't have with Amazon, even though Amazon is a much bigger channel. We're on Lark groups with our direct account managers and the [SPEAKER_02] And so when we have brand campaigns with TikTok, we'll participate in it, but we're very sensitive with the team upfront. [SPEAKER_00] It's like, this is the most that we can discount and you can do further couponing or whatever on your backend, but this is the lowest price that we can advertise without messing up our Amazon business. So it's being in constant communication. And I would say, shout out to the TikTok team, because then we have this internal relationship that we have that we don't have with Amazon, even though Amazon is a much bigger channel. We're on Lark groups with our direct account managers and the head of health on TikTok to be able to help troubleshoot some of the issues that we have. So being able to have that constant point of contact makes a huge difference. That's always one of the biggest questions any brand has. They're at least somewhat aware that TikTok is this discount platform. They're at least somewhat aware it's a brand awareness platform. But at the same time, they're like, okay, well, do I go 30% off here? And then I need to recoup an extra 8% a day on Amazon. Just building out that equation is such a challenge for people when they're in the dark. Obviously you have a lot of historical data now on TikTok shops, you can make much more educated decisions. [SPEAKER_02] But I would say there'd be certain brand campaigns that we did with the spring campaign or the new flavors we launched exclusively on TikTok, like December 2024, the wintergreen spearmint flavors that we launched exclusively on TikTok for a month and we were promoting it and we were discounting it way more than we can even discount on a website. [SPEAKER_00] Right. Cause TikTok would then have subsidies, right? They'll be like, hey, you put in this much ad dollars, we'll help subsidize and cover some of that costs. Or else we would be losing money if we were to do that same pricing on D2C. So I think those days are starting to dwindle down because TikTok needs to make money as a platform. But I think we got lucky to ride that wave. I still see new brands popping up every week that go viral. Now it's a matter of, do you have a strong enough supply chain to be able to ride that momentum? Because I've seen companies go viral and then they can't keep up with the supply and then the demand fades and they make the supply. Now y'all already know we are super skeptical on this show about most AI tools promising the world. They have flashy demos, huge promises, and ultimately under deliver. But I do have to tell you about one that has blown me away and saved my team countless hours of time. And that's Rich Panel. Imagine a 24-7 customer support engine that handles all of your tickets seamlessly, escalates anything requiring human intervention. And here's the best part, upsells your customers in the process. [SPEAKER_00] Their onboarding process is frankly one of the craziest things I've ever seen. You input your brand and within 15 minutes, it has full context on the latest drops, product information, and plugs into all of your apps. That's not even to mention the cost savings. They're three times more affordable than their competitors. I couldn't recommend this enough. [SPEAKER_00] So if you're a brand looking to turn support into an asset, go check out richpanel.com and tell them we sent you. [SPEAKER_00] Talk about the parallel path between your explosion in popularity, retail interest, and then reaching mass retail. Now the Rogan thing happens. The brand is blowing up. The TikTok shop inflection point. When were retailers knocking on the door? And then when did that flip to now you're a darling in retail and they're like, how do we get you into Costco in some bundle, some big ass neuro gum, Pez dispenser with a Joe Rogan head on it? [SPEAKER_00] I think we've been working on Costco for a while, a couple of years, but timing wasn't right. Also we weren't dialed in on supply chain yet to be able to handle Costco. [SPEAKER_00] But I would say six years ago with the Joe Rogan Shark Tank, we had low single digits. Us brand awareness, unaided brand awareness would be three, 4%. So maybe 3% of the country would know what neuro gum is or maybe you've heard about it. Like now fast forward, we're at 16%. We became orders of magnitude higher. And I would attribute that to TikTok. The content wasn't new. It was taking the Rogan Shark Tank and then founder content did really well. So TikTok was a huge change. [SPEAKER_02] So then when you had 16% compared to 3%, there's a higher chance that retailers and the buyers have heard about us. So they're like, my neighbor takes this or my kids take this. Or I really love this product. I just don't know where to put you on shelves. I think in the 10 and a half years, we have a lot of data on CVS, Whole Foods data, now Walmart data. And so retailers are coming in like, we could put you here. We went from normally opening an account with a couple hundred stores to now 7-11 will be in 6,500 stores right out of the gate. Casey's, from zero to 2,500 doors right out of the gate. So I think it's a combination of timing and luck and getting the retailers confident enough to where, okay, I've heard about this brand. I've tried it. I like it. I've also seen the data and I'm willing to take that bet on you guys. [SPEAKER_02] How was your marketing budget allocation shifted from performance to brand as you've entered more doors and grown in revenue? [SPEAKER_02] I think it's a proxy. As we've increased subscription revenue, we have kind of this baseline. [SPEAKER_02] Casey's from zero to 2,500 doors right out the gate. So I think it's just a combination of timing and luck and getting the retailers confident enough to where, okay, I've heard about this brand. I've tried it. I like it. I've also seen the data and I'm willing to take that bet on you guys. How was your marketing budget allocation shifted from performance to brand as you've entered more doors and grown in revenue? I think it's a proxy. Because as we've increased subscription revenue, we have this baseline. So we know if we pull a hundred percent of marketing, we have a steady business. And so as we're able to pull some of that e-commerce into retail, this year our focus is to be maybe 35, 40% of our total revenue into retail. We have to pull a lot of that into retail spend. So for us to launch Walmart almost nationally, it's a huge investment up front. [SPEAKER_00] And it's a huge investment up front before getting that initial PO paid. So we're moving budget allocation. It's a constant discussion because e-commerce has certain KPIs we want to hit, but as a team, we have a total revenue goal. It doesn't matter where the revenue is coming from. So because retail is the big bet for us, we're just moving allocations around to support retail. What's your spend breakout by channel? And what's the goal for each channel? Are you looking at TikTok and saying, okay, this is going to be more of our awareness or driving foot traffic? Instagram, we're looking at for influencer partnerships, we're hoping does X. We use so many data platforms to calculate individual ROAS per channel. But the best way to look at it, and my recommendation is to just look at it as e-commerce as a whole, because if TikTok is your brand awareness play, the ROAS might not be there. But if you pull back from that, you'll see your ROAS go down on Amazon. So I think it's best if you're on multiple channels—website, Amazon, TikTok, maybe even Whatnot—just looking at it as a combined entity. But retail is a wild card. We're still trying to figure that part out. [SPEAKER_02] Someone like Walmart says, here, you're going to enter this store. You're going to have to put half a million dollars minimum to support this ad credit. It's pay to play. Unless you put in that half a million dollars, they're not going to do that end cap. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah, it's crazy. [SPEAKER_02] Same with Roundel at Target. [SPEAKER_02] Exactly. Stuff's the biggest scam in the world. But you pay to play. When you pay to play, the buyers want to see, okay, you're investing into this platform. We'll have a Times Square billboard coming out with our friends who's hooking us up with some spots. [SPEAKER_00] And if the buyers see that, they're like, oh, you guys are doing out of home advertising that's going to also drive to Walmart. And we're working with a couple of big celebrities. Andrew Schultz is a celebrity partner. Yuki Tsunoda, the Formula One driver for Red Bull. Jimmy, we're going to be like, hey, can you push some content that says we're going to be at Costco, Walmart, send those clips to the buyers and be like, hey, we're getting some of the biggest celebrities in the world to talk about how to buy Neuragum at your stores. [SPEAKER_02] All these things add up incrementally. And I think it comes down to just a good partnership on both sides, but also the relationship. [SPEAKER_02] We have the product right here. You guys just went through a big packaging brand refresh because of this retail. It was because of retail. A big part of it was retail. Our current packaging looked great and simple, but we just stepped it up. [SPEAKER_00] It looks a lot cleaner. It allows us to expand a lot more in terms of product offering and flavors. Before we had the flavor represented as the color, but if we expand more flavors, we're going to run out of colors. So instead we picked a set color for that function. [SPEAKER_01] Memory and focus is this light blue. You want to create the association with the benefit. And then the energy one is always going to be this neuro blue. And then from there we have subset colors that represent the flavor. Peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon, wintergreen. We had that with design psychology. And now that we have this format and process, it's going to allow us to expand more functions along the way. I think there's some things to pay attention to as well, where this feels like a supplement. From overall packaging and standing out in a supplement. It pops more too. Our team did an amazing job with the packaging. But if you put this next to, for example, the company Seed probiotic. [SPEAKER_01] It's a green pill, green pill, but it's almost the same packaging. But again, it fits on the shelf with a supplement brand, which going back to your positioning is key. [SPEAKER_01] I'm about to take this one and lock in so hard for this episode. This one's right. I do love the memory and focus product because for me, ironically, I'm caffeine sensitive, even though it's co-founded. Insanely ironic. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_01] It's a green pill, but it's almost like the same packaging. Not same packaging. [SPEAKER_02] But again, it just fits on the shelf with a supplement brand, which going back to your positioning is key. [SPEAKER_01] I'm about to take this one and just lock in so hard for this episode. [SPEAKER_01] This one's right. [SPEAKER_01] I do love the memory and focus product because for me, ironically, I'm caffeine sensitive, even though it's co-founded. [SPEAKER_01] Insanely ironic. [SPEAKER_01] Well, that's why the L-theanine is in there. [SPEAKER_01] So we have the L-theanine, but then the memory and focus one uses 50 milligrams of clinical grade ginseng. [SPEAKER_01] So it's called Syribus. [SPEAKER_02] Tastes so good. [SPEAKER_02] Really good. [SPEAKER_02] 200 milligrams a day clinically shown to improve working memory. [SPEAKER_02] So the company that we licensed this ginseng from has done a ton of research behind it. [SPEAKER_02] It's our most expensive active ingredient. [SPEAKER_02] How do you test products? [SPEAKER_02] All science-based. [SPEAKER_02] So for us to do a product and launch in a market at least takes a year in R and D at least. And so we have to look at all the active ingredients where we're sourcing it, if there's any claims. So this, instead of a normal ginseng, the Syribus one, we do a lot of data and analysis on this company, how they're sourcing it, the papers. And then of course we have to put it in the product. [SPEAKER_01] Are you running clinical trials? We did a white paper study with Harvard, MIT back in 2020. But we haven't done any other formal clinical trials. We would love to though. I'm super curious. I mean, so obviously Grunz just got acquired by Unilever. And probably one of the biggest mafia ruled rackets of all time is what Mars has in distribution. And with Hudson news and everything like the gum world, right? [SPEAKER_00] Like five gum, juicy fruit, whatever. I don't think we've really seen a lot of disruption on that shelf in decades. I mean, five gum was probably the most recent. [SPEAKER_00] And that was more a packaging play. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. [SPEAKER_00] And they did, I mean, they were crushing the brand, those ads in 06 were going crazy. [SPEAKER_00] The five senses. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. They did a really good job. [SPEAKER_02] And it broke into middle school and high schools. Like it was a status symbol in middle school. I remember to. [SPEAKER_00] You had a razor, you were chewing five gum. Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] You know, you were on the playground. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] Going crazy. [SPEAKER_00] Motorola razor. [SPEAKER_01] Going crazy. [SPEAKER_01] You had T-Mobile Fab Five and some five gum. [SPEAKER_01] You're talking about how you were shaving for the first time. [SPEAKER_01] You might have a sidekick. [SPEAKER_01] You might have a sidekick. [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. [SPEAKER_01] Yeah. [SPEAKER_00] Blackberry if you're lucky. [SPEAKER_01] But MNA in this category is the, well, and I mean, share whatever you're comfortable with, but is it going with a Mars? [SPEAKER_01] Is it going with someone like that? [SPEAKER_00] Or is it coming after them? [SPEAKER_00] Because obviously they have the distribution locked in, but you're in the supplement category. [SPEAKER_01] Like that would be the logical choice. [SPEAKER_00] I mean, without going into too much detail, we had talked to some of the biggest energy drink family offices in the world to talk about a partnership or an investment. [SPEAKER_00] And then we looked at your traditional CPG holding companies too. [SPEAKER_00] And then we found an amazing partner that owns and runs our government manufacturer. [SPEAKER_00] And that felt like the right play for us. [SPEAKER_00] We wanted to be more vertically integrated. [SPEAKER_00] We wanted to be able to control the supply chain. Mars and Wrigley, I think, as a private company, incredibly well run. Daniel Lubetzky, who's one of our friends and mentors. Yeah. We, hi Marga founder of Kind bar. [SPEAKER_02] He's now the main judge on Shark Tank. I told this story a while ago, but six years ago when we did Shark Tank, right after we aired, we got a trademark lawsuit from a drink company called Neuro. And I was freaking out because we're on a high from the Rogan and Shark Tank content. Now I have a trademark lawsuit. I was filed for bankruptcy. Highs and lows of business. Literally the highs and lows. And within the month of April 2020, I was like, oh my God, we're going to lose this business and signed away basically these massive retainers for legal that defend. And I just remember Daniel Lubetzky was like, Hey, on the show, by the way, he was like, if I really like you guys, if there's anything you guys need, I feel we'll cross paths. And I was like, is this guy for real? [SPEAKER_01] Is he saying this just on the show? But I had nothing to lose. So hail Mary. I DMed Daniel on Instagram. And that was on the, we just did a Shark Tank update episode a month ago. [SPEAKER_02] Really? [SPEAKER_02] I don't know why. [SPEAKER_02] Those are always sick. It just came. We're the, I think the first company in Shark Tank history to not take a deal on camera and still get an update episode. But we told the story of Daniel and I DMed him and I told him the whole scenario. [SPEAKER_02] And for 18 months he helped defend and he talked to the person suing us, the CEO of the company, their legal team, our legal team. [SPEAKER_01] And we settled and we own this government category. [SPEAKER_02] And that was on the, we just did a shark tank update episode a month ago. Really? I don't know why. Those are always sick. It just came. We're the first company in shark tank history to not take a deal on camera and still get an update episode. But we told the story of Daniel and I DMed him and I told him the whole scenario. And for 18 months he helped defend and he talked to the person suing us, the CEO of the company, their legal team, our legal team. And we settled and we own this government category. We were able to keep our name because they wanted to bully us to change the name. And through that process, yeah, it was insane. Daniel was the goat to help us. That's awesome. Yeah. Friends in high places. So nice. And don't be afraid to reach out to people because you never know if they're going to answer or not, but I had nothing to lose. I was like, Hey Daniel, I hope you're doing well. I don't know if you remember me from shark tank and you said if I could reach out to you, if I had some advice, I really need your advice on something. [SPEAKER_00] And that was literally what I texted and that's awesome. [SPEAKER_00] Came back to me. That's awesome. What's next? What's the future? What are you guys really excited about? You've always been ahead of the curve. So is it live shopping? Is there new incremental categories and marketing that you're excited about? [SPEAKER_00] I think for us this year is distribution. [SPEAKER_00] Yeah. We did a really good job educating consumers, and 16% that know about the brand, but now how do we get that incremental, huge pop size of the pie and a lot of them just haven't heard about the brand because they're not on social media or our ads or our content isn't targeted toward them. So I think when we're getting into the Costco, Walmart, Targets of the world, that's going to change the game. [SPEAKER_00] And it never gets old. Cause we were just at dinner last night and two of the people in the front, the hosts, were like, "Oh my God, we love neuro gum." And we're going downstairs and there's security outside. They're filming a music video. And we're talking about neuro and the security guard, with an armored vest, pulls out, literally. You think he's pulling out a gun? Yeah. I was like, what are you pulling out? It was a random container and we're like, that's not neuro gum. He opens it and it's a pack of pieces of neuro gum that he pops in there because he wanted different packaging to fit in his pocket. Yeah. And so it's like, that will never get old for us. And so how do we do that and just continue to grow as a brand? Cause our dream is what Red Bull did to create the energy drink category. We want neuro to be the category functional tablet. Yeah. Functional gum and mint. [SPEAKER_02] So that's the dream and the goal. [SPEAKER_02] And we've been at it for 10 and a half years. [SPEAKER_01] I say the next 10 years, it'd be really interesting for us. [SPEAKER_02] Nice. [SPEAKER_02] That's awesome, man. [SPEAKER_02] Well, thanks so much for coming on the pod. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] Thanks for having me. Yeah. I feel like we could talk for hours. [SPEAKER_00] We definitely could. [SPEAKER_00] We definitely could. [SPEAKER_00] I'm going to keep trying to pry more into the visits though. Well, cool. Tell them where we can find you. I think everyone knows, but go buy neuro gum on Amazon or where do you want them to buy it? Do you want retail? I think you want that retail, retail, baby. Well, check us out at www.neurogum.com. [SPEAKER_00] Amazon, make sure you buy from our actual neuro gum page. [SPEAKER_00] And then TikTok Shop. [SPEAKER_00] If you buy it from our page, you're not going to get a lot of these fake sellers. [SPEAKER_00] Cause we've been getting a lot of people trying to imitate us, literally copy our brand. [SPEAKER_00] So if you go with our branded page, you'll get the real thing. [SPEAKER_00] And at retail CVS, Whole Foods, and then Walmart, and then soon Costco. [SPEAKER_00] Nice. [SPEAKER_01] And follow you on Instagram. [SPEAKER_02] Yeah. [SPEAKER_02] Instagram, just neuro gum. [SPEAKER_02] Okay. [SPEAKER_02] All right. [SPEAKER_02] Awesome. [SPEAKER_02] Thank you guys. [SPEAKER_02] Thanks for coming, man. Thanks bro. We've been getting a lot of people trying to imitate us, literally copy our brand. So if you go with our branded page, you'll get the real thing. And at retail CVS, Whole Foods, Walmart, and then soon Costco. [SPEAKER_01] And follow you on Instagram. [SPEAKER_02] Instagram, just neuro gum. Okay, all right. Awesome. Thank you guys. Thanks for coming, man. Thanks bro. When were retailers knocking on the door? And then when did that flip to now you're a darling in retail and they're like, how do we get you into Costco in some bundle, some big ass like neuro gum, Pez dispenser with a Joe Rogan head on it? I think. I mean, we've been knocking on, we've been working on Costco for a while, like, you know, a couple of years, but timing wasn't right. Uh, also we weren't dialed in on supply chain yet to be able to handle Costco. But I would say, you know, six years ago with the Joe Rogan shark tank, we had like low single digits. Like you, like us brand awareness, like unaided brand awareness would be like, you know, three, 4%. So maybe 3% of the country would know what neuro gum is, or maybe you've heard about it. Like now fast forward, we're like 16%. And it's like, we became orders of magnitude higher. And I would attribute that to tick tock. Um, so it was like not the content wasn't new. It was like taking the Rogan shark tank and then founder content did really well. And so that like tick tock was a huge change. So then now when you had 16% compared to 3%, there's a higher chance that retailers and the buyers have heard about us. So they're like, you know, my neighbor takes this or my kids take this. Um, or I really love this product. I just don't know where to put you on shelves. I think, you know, in the 10 and a half years, we have a lot of data on CVS, Whole Foods data, now Walmart data. And so now retailers are coming in like, we could put you here. And it's like, we went, we would go from like normally opening an account with a couple hundred stores to now like 7-11 will be in 6,500 stores, like off the gate. Like, you know, Casey's like from zero to 2,500 doors, like out the gate. So I think it's just a combination of timing and luck and getting like the retailers confident enough to where, okay, I've heard about this brand. I've tried it. I like it. I've also seen the data and I'm willing to take that bet on you guys. How was your marketing budget allocation shifted from performance to brand as you've entered more doors and like grown in revenue? I think it's a proxy. Cause as we've increased subscription revenue, we have kind of this baseline. So we know if we pull a hundred percent of marketing, we have a steady business. And so as we're able to pull some of that e-commerce into retail, so this year, you know, our focus is to be maybe 35, 40% of our total revenue into retail. We have to pull a lot of that into like retail spend. So for us to launch Walmart in like almost, almost nationally, it's a huge investment up front. And it's a huge investment up front before getting that like initial PO paid. So we're kind of moving budget allocation. So it's a constant discussion because e-commerce is like, well, like we have certain KPIs we want to hit, but as a team, we have a total revenue goal. It doesn't matter where the revenue is coming from. So because retail is the big bet for us to share, we're just moving allocations around to support retail. What's kind of like your spend breakout by channel? And what's the goal for each channel is the other thing I'm curious about. Like, are you looking at TikTok and be like, okay, this is going to be more of our awareness or driving foot traffic, Instagram. We're looking at it for this influencers, partnerships, we're hoping does X. I mean, we use so many of these data platforms to kind of calculate like individual ROAS per channel. But like the best way to look at it. And my recommendation is to just look at it as like e-commerce as a whole, because if TikTok is your brand awareness play, the ROAS might not be there. But if you pull back from that, then you'll see your ROAS go down on Amazon. So I think it's best if you're on multiple channels, website, Amazon, TikTok, maybe even whatnot, just looking at it as a combined entity. But retail is a wild card. We're still trying to figure that part out. But someone like Walmart's like, here, you're going to enter this store. You're going to have to put half a million dollars minimum to support this ad credit. It's like a pay to play. Unless you put in that half a million dollars, they're not going to also do that end cap. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, same with like Roundel at Target. Yeah, exactly. Like stuff's the biggest scam in the world. But you pay to play. You don't have to say that. If you pay to, I think when you pay to play, then they'll also, the buyers want to see like, okay, you're investing into this platform. We'll have like a Times Square billboard coming out with our friends who's like hooking us up with some spots. And like if the buyers see that, they're like, oh, you guys are doing out of home advertisement that's going to also drive to Walmart. And, you know, we're working with a couple of big celebrities like, you know, Andrew Schultz is a celebrity partner. Yuki Tsunoda, the Formula One driver for Red Bull. You know, Jimmy, like we're going to be like, hey, can you push some content that says like we're going to be a Costco, Walmart, send those clips to the buyers and be like, hey, we're getting some of the biggest celebrities in the world to talk about how to buy Neuragum, but at your stores. So all these things like add up incrementally. And I think it comes down to like just a good partnership on both sides, but also the relationship. I mean, we have the product right here. We can see it in the wide shot. We'll put that on camera. Like you guys just kind of went through a big packaging brand refresh because of this retail. I was going to say it's because of retail. A big part of it was retail. You know, our current packaging, I think looks great, simple, but I think we just stepped it up. It looks a lot cleaner. Just, you know, it allows us to expand a lot more in terms of like product offering and flavors. So before we had the flavor represented as the color, but we're like, if we expand more flavors, we're going to run out of colors. So what we did instead is like we picked the set color for that function. So if memory and focus is this like light blue. Yeah. You want to create the association with the benefit. Yeah. And then the energy one is always going to be this, like, like our neuro blue. And then from there we have like the sub, like subset colors that represent the flavor. So peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon, wintergreen. So we had that just like, like almost like design psychology. And then now that we have this like format and process, it's going to allow us to expand more, more functions along the way. I think there's some things to pay attention to as well, where this feels like a supplement. Yeah. Yeah. Like just from overall packaging and standing out in a supplement. Yeah. Um, it pops more too. I think our team did an amazing job with the packaging. But like you put this next to, for example, like you could put this next to, you know, the company seed seed probiotic. Yeah. It's like, it's a green pill, green pill, but it's like almost like the same patting, not same packaging. But again, like it just, it fits on the shelf with a, with a supplement brand, which going back to your positioning is, is key. I'm about to take this one and just lock in so hard for us to episode. This one's right. I do. I love the memory and focus product because for me, ironically, I'm caffeine sensitive, even though it's, you know, co-founded. Insanely ironic. Well, that's why the L-theanine is in there. So we have the L-theanine, but then the memory and focus one uses 50 milligrams of like clinical grade ginseng. So it's called Syribus. Tastes so good. Really good. 200 milligrams a day clinically shown to improve working memory. So the, the company that we licensed this, uh, ginseng from has done a ton of research behind it. It's our most expensive active ingredient. How do you test products? All science-based. So, um, I mean, for us to do a product and launch in a market at least takes like a, a year in R and D at least. And so like, we have to look at all the, the active ingredients where we're sourcing it, if there's any claims. So this, instead of like a normal ginseng, the Syribus one, we do a lot of data and analysis on like this company, how they're sourcing it, the papers. And then of course we have to put it in the product. Are you running clinical trials? Uh, we did a white paper study with Harvard, MIT back in 2020. Um, but we haven't done any other formal clinical trials. We would love to though. I'm, uh, I'm super curious. I mean, like, so obviously Grunz just got acquired by Unilever. And I mean, probably one of the biggest like mafia ruled rackets of all time is like what Mars has in distribution. And, you know, with Hudson news and everything like the gum world, right? Like five gum, juicy fruit, whatever. I don't think we've really seen a lot of disruption on that shelf in decades. I mean, five gum was probably the most recent. And that was more like a packaging play. Yeah. Yeah. And they did like, I mean, they were like crushing the brand, those ads in like 06 were going crazy. The five senses. Yeah. They did a really good job. But, um, And it broke into like middle school and high schools. Like it was a status symbol in middle school. I remember to like. You had a razor, you were chewing five gum. Yeah. You know, you were on the playground. Yeah. Going crazy. Motorola razor. Going crazy. You had T-Mobile fab five and some five gum. You're talking about how you were shaving for the first time. You might have a sidekick. You might have a sidekick. Yeah. Yeah. Blackberry if you're lucky. Um, but like MNA in this category, like is, is the, well, and I mean, share whatever you're comfortable with, but like, is it going with a Mars? Is it going with someone like that? Or is it coming after them? Because obviously they have the distribution locked in, but you're kind of in the supplement category. Like that would be like the logical choice. I mean, without going into too much detail, like we had talked to some of the biggest energy drink, like family offices in the world to talk about a partnership or an investment. And then we looked at like your traditional kind of like CPG holding companies too. And then, you know, we found an amazing partner that owns and runs our government manufacturer. And that felt like the right play for us. Cause we wanted to be more vertically integrated. We wanted to be able to control the supply chain. Um, Mars and Wrigley, I think, you know, as like a private company, incredibly, incredibly well run. Um, Daniel Lubetzky, who's one of our friends and mentors. Yeah. We high Marga founder of kind bar. He's now like the main judge on shark tank. I told this story a while ago, but you know, six years ago when we did shark tank, right after we aired, we got a trademark lawsuit, uh, from a drink company called neuro. And like, I was freaking out. Cause like, we're on a high from the Rogan and shark tank content. Now, like I have a trademark lawsuit. I was filed for bankruptcy. Highs and highs and the lows and lows of business. Literally the highs and lows. And like within like the month of April, 2020, I was like, oh my God, we're going to lose this business and signed away. Basically these massive retainers for legal that like defend. And I just remember Daniel Lubetzky was like, Hey, on the show, by the way, he was like, if I really like you guys, if there's anything you guys need, like, I feel like we'll cross paths. And I was like, is this guy for real? Like, is he saying just on the show? But like, I had nothing to lose. So hail Mary. I DMed Daniel on Instagram. And that was on the, we just did a shark tank update episode a month ago. Really? I don't know why. Those are always sick. It just came. We're like the, I think the first company in shark tank history to not take a deal on camera and still get an update episode. But we told the story of Daniel and I DMed him and I told him the whole scenario. And for 18 months he helped defend and he talked to the person suing us, the CEO of the company, their legal team, our legal team. And we settled and like we own this government category. We were able to keep our name because they wanted to bully us to change the name. And but through that process, um, yeah, it was insane. Like Daniel was the goat to help us. That's awesome. Yeah. Friends in high places. So nice. And don't be afraid to reach out to people because you never know if they're going to answer or not, but I had nothing to lose. I was like, Hey Daniel, I hope you're doing well. Uh, I don't know if you remember me from shark tank and you said, uh, if I could reach out to you, if I had some advice, uh, I really need your advice on something. And that was like literally like what I, I texted and that's awesome. Came back to me. That's awesome. What, uh, what's next? What's the future? Like, what are you guys really excited about from, you know, I mean, you've always been kind of ahead of the curve, you know? So is it live shopping? Is there like new incremental categories and marketing that you're excited about? I think for us this year is distribution. Yeah. Like I, we did a really good job kind of educating consumers, um, and like the 16% that know about the brand, but now how do we get that incremental, you know, huge pop pop size of the pie and a lot of them just haven't heard about the brand because they're not on social media or our ads or our content isn't targeted toward them. So I think when we're getting into the Costco, Walmart's targets of the world, that's going to change the game. And, and it never gets old. Cause we were just at dinner last night and like two of the people in the front, like the hosts, like, we're like, Oh my God, like we love neuro gum. And we're going downstairs and there's security outside. They're filming like a music video. And we're talking about neuro and the security guard, like with like an armored, like armored vest pulls out, like literally. You think he's pulling out a gas? Yeah. Yeah. I was like, what are you pulling out? It was like literally like a random container and we're like, that's not neuro gum. He opens it and it's like pack of like pieces of neuro gum that he pops in there because he wanted like a different packaging to fit in his pocket. Yeah. And so it's like, that will never get old for us. And so like, how do we do that and just continue to grow as a brand? Cause our dream is like what Red Bull did to create the energy, energy drink category. Like we want to be the neuro wants to be the, the category functional tablet. Yeah. Functional gum and mint. So that's the dream and the goal. And you know, we've been at it for 10 and a half years. I say the next 10 years, it'd be really interesting for us. Nice. That's awesome, man. Well, thanks so much for coming on the pod. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we could talk for hours. We definitely could. We definitely could. I'm going to keep trying to pry more into the, into the visits though. Well, cool. Uh, tell them where we can find you. I mean, I think everyone knows, but go buy neuro gum on Amazon or where do you want them to buy it? Do you want retail? I think you want that retail, retail, baby. Um, well, check us out www.neurogum.com. Uh, Amazon, make sure you buy from our like actual, like neuro gum page. And then Tik Tok shop. If you buy it from our page, like you're not going to get a lot of these fake sellers. Cause we've been getting a lot of people trying to imitate us, like literally copy our brand. So if you go with our branded page, like you'll get the real thing. And at retail CVS, Whole Foods, and then Walmart, and then soon Costco. Nice. And follow you on Instagram. Yeah. Instagram, just neuro gum. Okay. All right. Awesome. Thank you guys. Thanks for coming, man. Thanks bro. 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