I'm happy when I look at the evolution of the supplement space. It seems like the consumer now is more educated and wants better quality. And thankfully too, I appreciate this, that kind of positive look at the industry. And we got to see kind of organic get into Costco, you know, organic become this like, and also get into by like having a whole department of Costco become organic focused and where it is today, it's like massive, right? And even see organic beef be less expensive than traditional beef and sprouts. Like that's wild to me, right? That shows consumers power, which I'm so grateful for. And again, being at farm level, like, I know it takes that, right? So this is kind of in some ways, like everything I've hoped for. Welcome to the studio. And before we got on right now, I'm so glad we got these mics going because we didn't even realize it. We've been working together this long. I had no idea that you were at the very first event that you guys crossed paths with potentially not, I think not potential. She named the name of it. Let's see. Okay. So this was, was it 11 years ago, Doug? Well, no, it was about 10 years ago, 10 years ago, not nine years. So let me paint the story. So Doug and I obviously, who's my client? And then we decided to put together a product. This was maps and a ball. So our audience knows it's one of our top selling workout programs is before mine pump. Before I even talked to Adam and Justin, it was just Doug and I, very beginning and Doug goes, Hey, there's this internet marketing, like conference, I guess you would call it down in San Diego and Andy Philsame and Mike Philsame and Andy Jenkins. They put, they were putting, I didn't know who they were. And they're putting this thing together and we can go down and learn about like internet marketing and how to, you know, promote this product and blah, blah, blah. And so I said, yeah, let's do this. So we go down. And this was the first time that I'd met Drew, who is the founder of organifi. So I met him there because they used him as an example of like really effective ways to sell products and communicate what you're doing through the internet space. So that's when I first met him and you're saying you were there. This is actually our origin story. That's crazy. Yeah. So they brought me up on stage at one point.  And I got up on stage. I don't know if you remember any of that. He looks like 30 years younger back. It was only 10 years ago. I'm going to say it was unforgettable. It was about nine or 10 years ago. But yeah, I was, I was working with Drew the founder at the time. So I would have been there. Wow. That's our origin story now. Just so we're all clear. That's a big deal. I mean, that's kind of crazy that we all, we all have found each other like that now. I know. I think that's so wild. It's quite a history. And you guys are now, I believe officially our longest standing partner now. I think we're five years now. That's a huge honor. Thank you guys being partners and just really cool to see what we've built since then. My goodness. Oh, no, it's been the time when you were on stage. Yeah. It was embarrassing. They put me up there and it was like a whole picture of me and I'm like, Oh my God. Okay. So tell me a little bit because I didn't know that you were literally like employee one. So what did you do with Drew before at Fitlife and then talk to me about the transition to running the company eventually?  This hair has held all the hats, all the hats have sat on this hair. No, it's actually a fun story because Fitlife TV was the start and really how I met Drew. I was in the personal training industry and was working at Lululemon at the time and Drew was living above the Lululemon downtown in San Diego. So he would come down into the Lululemon studio and he would be filming videos for YouTube like super early days. He had an HD flip cam and he'd be like, Hey, can you guys shoot me doing these yoga moves? And we were like, who is this dude? What is going on? You actually see lots of random people? Yeah, yeah. That's so Drew. Yeah. Yeah. Magical Drew. And it was actually really, and like the compelling part was watching him literally share his transformation process, like his health journey. And he was just doing it live. So I got like firsthand experience witnessing Drew in his sweet spot, making YouTube videos. And I was pretty fascinated by just the online community he was creating. He was making great educational videos and sharing what he was learning live. I was in the personal training industry, as I said, and there was this like limitation with training one-on-one where I knew there had to be a better way of connecting with more people and getting more into the, like there's so much more to change than simply working out in the gym. It's a huge part. And again, talking to you guys is obviously ironic about this, but I knew there was probably a bigger conversation to have. And so I ended up staying in touch with Drew after he moved out of that apartment above Lou Lemon. And I reached out to him maybe a year later and was just curious what projects he was working on. Our first project together was actually a corporate wellness program. He had developed an online, as you were mentioning, even at this conference he was probably talking about, the program he was running was a digital marketing, like a digital product essentially that walked people through transformation. And so they'd buy a digital e-book and follow his steps. He wanted to roll that out to companies. And so I came on. My first project was building this out for a business. And I kind of built the program for him and gave him my first invoice and he was like, what's this? I'm like, I've been working for you for like two weeks or three weeks. And he's like, okay. And so that was the start of our relationship. Yeah, maybe he was used to people working for free. I'm not sure. I was like, here's my invoice, man. We just like rolled out of two companies and I've been working like, you know, every day. It's super, super fun. Where did you train? Were you in big boxes? Were you training in big box gyms? Yeah. Yeah. Originally I trained at USD. So though just the university down in San Diego. And then 24 of fitness was like my big box experience. And then we're at a private gym from there. So how long were you at 24 of fitness? About a year, year and a half, not long. What years were that? Do you know what years? What year can you remember? Yeah, 2010. Okay. Yeah. Which location? The PB1, Pacific Beach. You know that we all started at 24, right? No, I didn't know that. Oh my gosh. That's why I asked you because I was like, and so the names... I was late 90s. Ben Randall was down there around that time or right around that. So I don't know if you worked with him or not. Who? Ben Randall. Who was your DM and VP and stuff? Do you remember some of the names? No, it's funny. So that's why I met my husband as well. And my husband has a way more context for the gym.  So he could tell you who the trainers and the master trainers were and even the GMs were, but I would have to like recognize the names. Oh, we're 100% connected to a ton of those people down there. That's so wild. Yeah, because he went down there and worked down there for a while, but we were all in the company. I was the longest at 10 years. So I was 10 years there. So yeah, so most of it. We all manage gyms and fitness departments. So I can thank you for probably the onboarding I had. Yeah. The really good experience. No, can I... Really? Okay, good. Yeah, no for real. It started getting bad there after a little while, but when we were, I was there late 90s and then early 2000s. This was like the heyday of like 24 fitness. And I was there from all the way 01 all the way to 2010. So I was on my way out when you were there. It was still a great time when I worked there.  And just like really great introduction. I had gotten to personal training in that space from actually, I studied animal science and I studied pre-vet. And so I went into the big ag industry actually on a college. I was doing R and D and basically like temperature monitoring in cows. I was doing early detection of illness to prevent overuse of antibiotics. Anyways, how this comes back is... That's a big thermometer. Actually, it was a reticulum bolus. Yeah, I know.   And it actually gives an RFID read when they go by a panel and basically pings their internal temperature. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, super brilliant. It was a technology company I worked for, loved it, like super nerdy into it. What... And again, it was very passionate animal health. And in that kind of being at farm level and witnessing just the overuse of antibiotics and the just unfortunate like animal health situation, it was all instigated and really perpetuated by humans, right? So our kind of demand for food and our food system was dysfunctional. And so rather than continue to focus in that spot, I wanted to shift my attention and energy into where the root causes and really it's basically human nutrition. So we were the ones designing some of those systems and imagining that if we can produce more food in a short amount of time, it's better, but it's not. And so I really got to witness when animals were eating the wrong food for their bodies, they got really sick and it was so obvious. And so with humans as well, it was the same principle. And it was just, I guess, nice to learn that way. But I shifted to human nutrition, got certified and became a personal trainer from there. And again, that was that origin story where I met Drew and started working with him now 11 years ago. You'd really appreciate them. I was a bovine mammary extraction technician. No, you were not. Yes, I was. Get out of here. As a teenager. That's what I did through high school and junior college. You were petite. Wow. Right. And that's exactly what I told all the girls because it sounded way more technical than what it really was. Like, wow, you must be really smart. I milk cows before school starts. That was so great. Yeah, I was actually, I worked on one of the only five organic dairies back then. It was a big deal. Yeah, yeah. So when we, when I was doing it, it was, I didn't even know what organic anything was at that time. And we were the one of the first five organic dairies that had the organic milk and then we had organic almonds and nobody was really doing it back then. Head of your time. That's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, funny because when I was going through it as a teenage boy, I didn't really think much of it. It was just a means to an end for me. Job. Yeah, but the fact that it's come full circle in my life and now that's a big part of my life, right? So I think it's really interesting. And the proximity to food, like, you know, as modern day, like we just don't have that opportunity. I think most people, and so it's actually really unique and special to have that connection where you're like, oh yeah, I was literally milking cows, but like when you drink milk, you know where it came from. What's up everybody? Here's today's giveaway. Maps Aesthetic. This is a bodybuilding style maps workout program. You can win it, but you got to do this. Leave a comment below this video in the first 24 hours that we drop this episode. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If we declare the winner, we'll let you know in the comments section and then you'll get free access to Maps Aesthetic. Also got a sale going on this month. It's the at home holiday bundle, which includes all of these incredible programs. Normally would retail you for $330, but right now it's only $99.99. If you're interested, you want to learn more, or you just want to sign up, click on the link at the top of the description below to do that. All right, here comes the show. This is such a different background though than to running a company. I mean, so how does that progression? And did you, when you guys first link up and start doing business together, did you say one day I want to run this thing? I mean. Oh no, no. I would say very unconventionally arrived in the CEO seat as I have today. And I think part of what makes sense is exactly that journey. We set out and I was like passionate about figuring out how to connect with more people as they wanted to change their lives and become healthier. As a personal trainer, you work one-on-one. I looked at like group fitness and I was like, not my jam. You know, we're worried about form too much, worried about people hurting themselves too much and just like kind of a painful experience to be like, go get it masses. So I really wanted to get into more of the coaching and more of the small group, like one-on-one discussions. And really FitLife, the early company before Organifi that Drew was building, made that possible. We built a huge community. Basically we had 30,000 Facebook. It was back when, again, you couldn't buy Facebook fans. So this is like I think an important caveat to call out. You actually had to like grow with interest group of people on Facebook. So we had a Facebook group all around an interest. It was juicing at the time. And we had 30,000 to begin with and built that to 2 million. So just like the organic growth that that took and it was all content, it was all education. So it was just really fun to get to basically address a larger community and support that. We had a membership like early days and so like to answer your question, we did not imagine that Organifi would come from this or and I didn't have these like huge aspirations to be in the seat for sure. I was just really passionate about what we were doing and how we were kind of growing that community and serving that community. So it's been in a way to use the word organic. It's been really organic growth and even how we made Organifi the company was super, was super organic in that we were just addressing that large community's need. We were teaching something and we found a much easier solution to getting healthy with plants and adaptogens. And we were solving the obstacles to being healthy really early and that's what built the business, the start of Organifi. Now back in FitLife TV days, were you actually managing revenues and stuff too? Like when you tell me all those numbers, you got two million members. How profitable is the company at that time? How much money is the company making? Well, it's a digital product company so it's very profitable. Yeah, the margins of that, I still think about it and man, I miss it. I really miss it.  Some of them are the opposite of the spectrum. So tell me about a little bit about that. So I mean, when you were there, where was it at revenue-wise? What did you guys scale up to before you transitioned to FitLife over to Organifi? Yeah, and really, and I'll give you some context too, FitLife TV was, and a lot of my focus was on content, coaching, and community. But being employee number one, like I was close to everything. So it wasn't even about managing revenue then and even the way that the business grew was so not focused on like, I don't even remember talking about profit margin until we had Organifi, like the next business. Oh, interesting. There just wasn't that discussion. And I remember when we were making like $1,500 a week in digital product sales and it was a big deal. And then it was like $1,500 a day. And then it was like $30,000 a day. So it was a really, really big shift that happened really quickly. And a lot of that was membership, digital product scale. And so when we talked about the kind of, if we were like, looked back at those two business models, what we were so benefited by was blending the two. So when we basically launched Organifi, we were essentially adding a supplement to a digital marketing company. So it was a really nice pair. And in so many ways, it was the easy solution to what we were basically coaching people to do. Do you think that without, because what I'm hearing is that you probably had this incredible residual income coming in from the digital products, which now allows you to go out and figure things out in the supplement space. Do you think that the supplement company grows, the Organifi grows to what it is today? Had you not had that base to support that through that process? So even more clearly, it was actually the number of customers that we had. So more than, and like we had a membership and some consistent, of course, digital product sales, but the membership was really the foundation of the business that gave it the stability to look at doing something else in addition to. And really building that community of a customer base essentially that we could then monetize or give a new product or offering to, create more value for specifically, was the thing that catapulted, absolutely catapulted Organifi's launch. So had we not had that first, I mean, we definitely wouldn't be here. It's funny because everybody says that now, build your community first, then have your product. This is like the perfect example of it. Yeah, exactly. You guys, now did you have to eventually dissolve that group and then focus fully on it? And I'll say like we didn't have to, we did. And then hindsight, I wish that we had kept standing that business up as just content and just like we had a really strong creative engine and the supplement business was really fast to grow, incredibly scalable, really strong subscription business that we built it on. And so it was really easy to just pull resources to the new business. And instead of continuing to maintain the content engine and kind of the more like blogs and video assets that were just FitLife TV. Now, how long did it take for you guys to go through the sourcing process of finding the right types of companies to work with and like who's putting out the best, you know, types of products that you guys could then put into formulations and creating products for Organifi? So our co-founder Jamal Badahar happened to have experience in formulations and just like actually manufacturing. So for Drew and I, it was totally new. We were all digital. I was really familiar with like online coaching and, you know, membership management, community management, but nothing in physical products. That was like a whole new world for us. So when Jamal came in, this was something that he could actually just be really familiar with. He had done a couple other, like maybe I think it was like a Sandals brand or something that he had launched on his own, very entrepreneurial engineering mindset, like super operationally mindset, operationally minded, which was actually a really great pair for Drew and I, since we were like all like big ideas and like tons of action without like the foundation. We definitely wouldn't be here with Aunt Jamal. And so when he came in, he was really familiar with that process of sourcing basically like whatever we were going to make. And so we basically partnered locally in San Diego with a formulator and worked and maybe took us, and it's tough to remember it specifically, but it was months and months of formulation for getting the kind of recipe right for our first product. And that was the green juice we launched with. And still like it's our massive hero product. It's, it's something that, you know, has high affinity. It's obviously very different industry today than it was 10 years ago when we launched, but it probably took us, I don't know, maybe three months to pull that recipe together. And then to actually produce, we pre-launched and that was something that at the time was ended up being strategic, but you know, we had amazing terms with our local manufacturer and formulator and pre-launched and sold out multiple times, literally before like we could even begin to ship some of this. So it's just incredible to see that. And again, it was the community that was, this was a perfect solution for that community. And we had already been training them for four, four and a half years to do the work. And now we just said, now you can buy it and it's done for you. I was just gonna say, so the demand was, because you guys had this group, you guys had this huge group and it was like, you're talking about how to juice the right, you know, plants and how to make your own, you know, compounds, sourcing things, finding things, put it together, it's a lot of work. So the demand was, can we have something that's like easy? Yeah, can we do it for you? I mean, when you think about it, it's almost the exact same business model that we built. Yeah, it's very similar. We, the only difference is that we provided it through a podcast. We're teaching people how to program, how to exercise, how to do all those things. We did that for over a year of free content, built a large audience, and we already had a product ready to go.  And then we rolled that out. Yeah, so I really think that we're very similar in that way. Now, that obviously played a massive role in the success of a, because some of the companies, I think a lot of people don't realize how hard they are. I think you assume like, oh, everybody takes them and they have to keep buying them every single month, but the mark, it's unbelievably competitive. Unbelievable. And the margins are not very good at all. So even with all the support of the audience that you guys already had, what have been some of the biggest challenges of scaling it from the beginning that you've had to overcome? Yeah, well, timing-wise, we were early enough in the space that there wasn't competition and nothing like there is today. So I think our challenges have come more recently than launch. So what worked, and I'll kind of talk about what the scenario that worked so well for us and how there's still parts of that that serve the business, but I think more recently and over kind of more of like the last four years, we've hit more of the challenge of competition, of sourcing ingredients, supply chain, all those things. So like that, those are real, but with the launch, I feel like we hit timing really well. We were serving our audience basically a easy solution really well. And so there wasn't as many obstacles definitely in those early days. And I mean, if anything, it was just capital. So it was like, it was some, like being able to grow effectively and cash flow the business would be the constraints. And again, that was something that in the early days was probably one of the sole challenges. So what point did you, so one of the things that I've always been so impressed by your guys' business, and I use you as an example when I have to negotiate contracts with other companies. Good, I like that. Yeah, I do. And I actually get really frustrated with other people. Because not everybody has a well-oiled machine like you guys do. And I explained to them that, listen, we have a massive audience and we are really good at introducing people to your business. If you do a terrible job on the back end of communicating, following up, servicing, ship all those things, then we're only so good.  It's really frustrating for my part. You guys have built this incredible team that is supporting your guys' customers. When did that get built? And was that like day one vision? That's not a typical thing that supplements come up. Where you can call and people walk you through and talk about your goals. And I was like, you guys do that. And where did that come from? It's very unusual. That's true. And thank you for calling that out. And you remind me of a lot of obstacles we actually hit along the way when you just said those things. So I can speak to Ashley a lot. I had a feeling because I'm like, I know that it was a different day one. Oh no, it was very easy, you guys. It was definitely not easy. And yeah, I appreciate just the call out of us running a tight ship. It's, I mean, it never feels that way inside.  And we're always trying to figure stuff out. So one, it was very abnormal for us to build essentially a call center. So our CS, our customer service team is like the heart, the heartbeat of our company because it's the connection point that people can call in to your point style. They can call into our company and that's literally our San Diego based team. It's everyone that we trained internally. We were probably one of the sole supplement companies in San Diego and anywhere on the West Coast that would actually have a in-house call center team. It's just, it's not a smart business idea, you could say. But what we did and how we made it work and kind of why we did this was this vision of having coaches. So we wanted a team that any customer could call into and they were trained up on the product. They weren't some random person that was just looking at the account to get information. We wanted them to actually help customers get results. You know, Drew and I came from the space of literally coaching our customers on live calls and answering all the Facebook comments and answering the emails ourselves. So, and maybe, you know, you can imagine it was just a vision but there's probably some like naiveness to that that we thought, hey, we really want to scale that as we grow the business. And so, you know, kind of against probably better judgment we built a call center in San Diego and how it functioned as a hybrid team made it work meaning they did sales and service. And so the magic of that was, you know, they definitely helped customers buy more and, you know, buy larger bundles and kits but it was based on their goals and the conversation. So they weren't inherently a sales call center. We definitely didn't want to do that. They were a service and sales center for a reason and really like that was built from the coaching sales process that I used to run which was like, hey, we'd get on the phone with our members, we'd upsell them into group coaching and then private one-on-one coaching and it was all in the pursuit of their goals versus just trying to sell them a bunch of stuff. Right, right. It's high service and supplement companies don't do that. So you can't call and be like, hey, here's my goals. You know, here's some challenges I have. Is this product right for me? And they're gonna be like, yeah, take this. No one's really coaching them or helping them through. You guys do that. That was what we, because when we came to visit you guys, how long ago was it, four years? The first time? Yeah. At least that, if not more. In that small office? Yeah, but we were just impressed. There were people answering phones and answering questions and we were kind of listening in while we're talking to Drew. And I was like, oh, they're doing it totally different. Like this is why they have so much success with their customers. Would you say that's the biggest key to your success? It's definitely an important one, yes. I think the mentality of like, again, coaching came from FitLife TV and building kind of a coaching community and knowing that customers really believe in the education that, again, just like you guys that you've built up so much that attracted them originally. So it's like the extension of that original, maybe now, maybe it's a sales letter that they watch on Facebook or something, right? Or an ad, but we need to have the extension of that to actually help them get the results that they've been in some ways promised. And I think it's that connect that really brings the integrity into the brand and what we're here to do. And I always feel like we're just starting. I'm like, oh man, we're just getting started at this. Like we're just scratching the surface of what I see possible because my background's in coaching. You know what's possible. Yeah, and even at FitLife, we had built like a certification program for people going through the coaching that then wanted to coach themselves. You know, they wanted to actually do the coaching for other people. And so it's such a cool process to get a witness transformation in people. And it can start with ideally something as simple as your daily routine, you know. Talk to me a lot about the different revenue streams that you guys have. Like right now, I mean, everything from Facebook ads to Google ads, to the call centers, to like retargeting. Where does the bulk of the revenue come from? Where are the most profitable for you podcasting? What's the most challenging? Tell me about those. Yeah, so our two strongest channels right now are partnerships, which includes you guys and the sponsored podcasts we have. Additionally, it would be like influence and what we call our collective program, which is more like social sponsorship. It's a really profitable channel. It's a really strong and important channel. It's just slow to scale and hard to scale. So it's all relationship based. And we don't, you know, our approach to that, and I'll kind of talk about it again, like in order of kind of power in the channels. It's a really important channel to us. Its origins are actually in the very beginning in the launch of the Organifi brand itself. So when we launched, we launched on ClickBank, which was our affiliate channel at that time. And we've always worked with partners. Like partners have been a huge voice for us. And because we found education about the product as the key to making it work, like the key to even translating the message for, you know, the benefits of this product, how it's used, integrating it into your lifestyle. So they've always been really key. What we know though is we're not here to just say, hey, you want to work with anybody? So we really take care and time to partner with the right folks, like you guys, again, being a great example. And obviously our legacy together also much time, 10 years, right? 11 years together is proof of that. And so we're really importantly picky. We know we have a, we don't have a huge team. And so the time and attention each relationship matters. And we don't just want to say, let's get as many partners as possible. We've, we've tried small versions of that and it never works, you know, going through agency or whatever, we do it ourselves. And so- So you guys still manage it. I know you do that with us. I didn't know if you still do that. So no outside partner with a, you know, that's, you know, that's something that we don't do either, right? So I will not mess with a- A lot of mutual respect for that. Yeah, I just, I mean, I think we value relationship the same way. I think that's the reason why we've had such a successful business relationship. Now, I believe you guys used to do a lot more podcast but have really narrowed it down. Is that true? Like what's the, what's the peak you had and then what have you narrowed down to, you know? I mean, in count, no. But we, we went through that phase of, and again, that was probably one of the times you were trying, Hey, let's do a little bit higher scale and see what happens. We might have been leveraging like trying on an agency, but we just saw that erode. So we've always been again, really relationship driven click bank, like a version of that. And our affiliate platform was, you know, maybe 30% of the business when we launched in the first couple of years, like a huge part of the business engine. And it's much less now. And so our, our channel portfolio, you could say, is much more balanced. And so I'll talk about the others as well. And so partnerships again, huge, strong profit contribution, huge, just channel in the business and important, not going to scale overnight. And we know that. So there's limitations to it. And by design, you want to in some ways keep, keep growing it the way that we are. Amazon remains like a really strong channel for us as well. And it, it represents around 20 to 30% of the business. Oh, wow. And we keep it that way by design as well. And it's a profitable channel. We've made it really efficient over the years. We work with a really strong partner there. And over the years, I've considered bringing it internal. And, you know, again, they always, whenever we kind of audit it, they're doing a way better job than we would. And so we keep it that way. What exactly do they do for you? Are they the ones who, so you basically outsource them and they're helping you with the rankings and all of it? Yeah, they manage our basically Organifi account on there. And, and it's also, it, it does require some redundant kind of fulfillment. So we do fulfill through Amazon, which is great, but it does have us whole redundant inventory. So there's some inventory constraints when you do it this way, but it's been really, really supportive for us. How much does that cut into profits? Because I imagine Amazon, does it, does it cut into that because they're taking a percentage? Oh yeah. I mean, and that's part of like the channel P&L is designed that way. So it's still a profitable channel for us. Okay. But both the agency fees, so since we work with a third party there, and then, and then of course Amazon itself. So yeah, I mean, we just maintain it in profitability. And it's been one that we couldn't, we didn't know that we could find much more efficiency through the last year and a half, which we have. So it's been great. Like just, just recognizing that it's, it's something to be balanced with the rest of the company. Yeah. But again, another strong channel. And then right now the kind of the, we have our phones, which is still our call center you can call in and talk to a coach, get guidance for the products you're currently taking or recommendations for ones you should. That is a profit center for us. And it's an important piece of just again, keeping that kind of heartbeat for the company in our mission. But also it does drive revenue. And then our, we have a small retail team. So that team is mainly focused on chiropractors, gyms, it's really, really account management focused rather than growth for right now. And you're really the last year just refocused on e-commerce. And so our core business is driven through Shopify, you know, Organifi.com. You're going to find all the products there. Are you guys any big retailers? No. And we're just looking at re-engaging with vitamin shop. But just this last year, we just did a, like a big channel overhaul. And we were in like sprouts. We were in gosh, lazy acres and like talking to Wegmans and all kinds of big retail and just pulled back with just wine to manage pricing and just economies of scale. Is there any surprising markets you guys have found yourself in in terms of like a demographic you wouldn't have really anticipated? You know, I think where we find some of the most kind of interesting and fun spots is through our podcast partnerships. And so the audiences that they speak to, for instance, like Hal Elarad talking about Miracle Morning and like just living your best life. My favorite spot is talking about like life optimization. So kind of adaptive wellness and living your best life because there's this, you know, there's the direct avenue. A lot of our customers come in. They want to lose weight. They want to feel energy. They want to sleep better. So very like fundamentally important aspects of health and like pillars of health, better digestion, you name it, right? Like we're here to help you. But then there's the part where like, what if you have, you know, great understanding of your general wellness and you actually want to look at how good you could feel. And it's more like life optimizing. And those are like some of the most fun. I think there's also like the kind of quality, I would say quality concern, quality aware, educated athletes that is really interesting. And that's just a space that I'm very interested in as well and enjoy. So those are good. I was wondering if performance or like, you know, in terms of like maybe even more higher on the bodybuilding and like kind of the gym bros sector, if like they've even got any interest more into like higher quality, like organic.  We're making an impact because that's my question. About 45% of our audience our customer base guys. We got work to do. You want to know what's funny mate along those lines. When we first met to the very first time, we all sat down in the same room before mine, this is when mine pump became a concept. One of the, we talked for four hours and there were a lot of topics that came up and it was like the synergy was there. One of the main topics was the supplement space. And we had all talked about, and this was something we had all thought about independently. So it was great to all meet and talk about this. At the time, if you, the supplement space was like hardcore. Divided. Yeah.  Everything looks like a chemical. In fact, we want our bottles to look like labs. Explosive. Yeah. And we'll have pictures of beakers and stuff on it. And then there was like this hippy, crunchy wellness. Like it's got to look like, you know. Smells bad, smells bad, smells bad.  There's so much crossover. Because these people definitely can benefit from the values that these people are bringing in vice versa. And we talked about that and we said, you know, we don't, you know, and when we started, we're like, we're not going to worry about sponsors. And this was early days. But like if we ever did, it would be, we'd want a company that would really focus on both. And then you guys came and it was like, oh, this is perfect. Here's the bridge. We're here for you guys. Yeah. Let's go. So do you recall, okay, do you remember since you go so far back with us? Do you recall at what point you guys realized, oh, these three dummies talking on a podcast are going to be really good for us? Do you remember? So it was last week. Like how that came about? Yeah, were you a part of that? Yeah, I mean, the partnerships were always a really big deal. And for me in particular, because I was basically a community manager, program manager. Well, again, we're all the hats originally. But a lot of our original customers became ambassadors. And so they wanted to promote the brand when we launched Organifi. Because they were avid fans, like all about it. They felt like they were launching a product because they had been part of our community for four years, right? It's like, imagine me this moment for peak power, right? Like huge deal. And so they were wanting to be ambassadors and promoters. So our early day like influence and partnership program was also made of our customers. And so I was heavily involved in that, helping them kind of get equipped with either like coupon codes or like whatever way to help promote our Organifi brand when it was launched. And as we started bringing on real partners and folks like you guys, which had way more influence and ability to kind of spread this message and alignment, it was a big part of the conversation for sure. And some of that was important to me. And what I knew is so much of the conversation originally and the mission that Drew and I were talking about had to do with the combination of eating amazing food and taking care of your body and movement and workouts and nutrition. And like, so those things really combined well. And without the two, you miss half of it. Yeah. Because you guys started working with us when we were way less refined. I mean, that was when Mike, that was the beginning beginning. Well, can we just say like, well, we ever refined? Like I feel like there's some contrast trying to be given, but I don't see it. I mean, we were, we had no idea what we were doing. You might have felt that way, but I remember coming into your guys' place the first time and I thought you guys were already running a well oiled machine. But I think- That makes me feel so good. Yeah, it should. It should, right? I mean, we walked, I think we walked in there and we were all inspired like as far as, you know, tightening up what we were doing. Because I think that there's a lot of, I mean, still this day, I would love to have someone of a call center. I'm scared to death of trying to build that. It just seems so challenging to me to try and do. And risky, right? So the thing that we think about is like, okay, we already are generating all these leads and people that are converting into customers already. If I pay for five or six people to get on a phone, like how much more revenue are they going to drive? Are they going to drive enough revenue to support their pay and potentially scale? And then how good are they going to be at that? And then the training process, to me, that seems like such a monster. Yeah. It definitely was a whole department. So from the very beginning, it was a customer service department that did sales and had basically, definitely goals and, and I mean, I would say like model it out, right? So what does it have to be? And then that's the call center goal to make sense.  And I think we were, again, like young enough, green enough to not originally do that and just make it work. So now if I look back, I'd be like, oh, let's just model it out. And that's the role KPIs and the, you know, okay, I'm the department and like, let's get into the operations of it. Sounds cool. But back then I was like, is there a book on this? You know, and we just, we got great advice. Like early days, we got, you know, good direction that we happen to action. And I think again, I definitely can't credit anyone in particular on our team, like Drew Orai or any, any one of the small group was, we were like getting things going for the call center idea. So I'm sure someone gave it to us and saying, hey, you guys should do this. And we're like, yeah, cool. Sounds good. Let's do it. And so we did. And it was like first hire, second hire, third hire is working. And it was just like, oh, it's generating revenue. And so definitely if you guys are considering it, one, like happy to walk through how we did it. Yeah, no, I would love to pick your brain a little bit on that. I mean, it already makes me feel good about hearing how you kind of started because we're kind of transitioning that way right now. Sal is training the customer service team to be better sales oriented right now. So they were for so long customer service, customer service, that's like you guys, that's what all we wanted. Now it's like, okay, you guys, there's people that are like literally asking buying questions and we're not recommending them. Well, I mean, really, it could be a little bit better. And really what it boils down to is we have we have so much free content that we've created thousands of episodes and YouTube videos and clips and blogs and white paper clips. And then we have products that we literally created to make it easy for our listeners to, okay, I want to follow one of your workouts. I know I've listened to the episodes. I don't want to put it together myself. Do you have something? And so it's like, we have all this stuff and it could be something you buy or it could be something that we have for free. But we want a team that could be like, oh, you have questions. We have some answers. Here's how we can help them out. And by the way, if you want to follow something that's all laid out for you, we have this as well. Because otherwise we're not really helping as many people as we possibly can. So that and that's where the sales come from. And I think it's all the same thing. So I think it's really easy to also hopefully see the connection between sales and service and know that as you are supporting your customer base, there's inherently going to be sales. And so we just made it always hybrid and didn't say they were different. Meaning as you're guiding someone through your conversation and while we definitely tracked for performance for the reps, they were always coaches.  And they're ordering the right things which is typically more than one product. So that's how you can add in. I'm so glad you said that because something we value in our business a lot is our customers, when someone becomes a customer, so they're usually a listener first and they become a customer, they come back and get, they get one program, they come back and get two, three, four, five programs. And that tells me we're doing a good job. Because what I don't want to do is sell you something once and they disappear. From a business standpoint, that's hard. You're gonna constantly be searching for people.  In other words, people come back and get more and more, right? This is like a big deal. Yeah, repurchase rate is huge. It's something that we manage by for sure and stay focused on. We were just at an offsite Monday and Tuesday and we were talking about our just repurchase rate as a sign of basically our customer health. Are they enrolled in what they originally were enrolled in? Is it 60-day repurchase rate, 90-day, 180-day? Of course, that backs into LTV, but all that should be indicative of customers still believing in your products, doing them the good that you originally educated them that it would. And again, that call center can be the thing that, again, there's a whole call center pitch, by the way. You can sign up over here. Call center went 100. So they really do help bridge that gap. And even being able to get on the phone and talk about, hey, even like you said, our best customers do X, Y, and Z. In the initial conversation from purchase one, if a customer calls in, they could actually hear about that. Hey, in a month or two, you're likely going to want to do X, Y, and Z. Our most successful community members do this. And you can do it now or call back in whenever you're ready. So just helping them be on that, it's kind of like from the business perspective, it's an ideal customer journey. But literally, from the customer's perspective, it's the path to best results. Now, you guys are obviously, this isn't the health and wellness space, but we could also say sports performance, fitness, all that stuff. How do you pick who you guys want to work with in terms of influencers or podcasts or people in social media? Because there's a bit of a variety of people that you work with. Some of them don't look like us at all or sound like us at all, for example. Like, what is your criteria of who you work with? Yeah, it's twofold and pretty deep in both those layers. But high level, it's basically brand fit. So do they believe in what we believe in first and foremost? So is there alignment? If I were to jump on their podcast, which I often am on, would we have a great conversation or would it be weird? This is going to be a good combo because we generally believe in the same things and we're after the same goal. We want to go after the same thing. So brand alignment, mission alignment, do they love the product? So those are just really key fundamentals to any relationship we're in, any partnership. And then after that, and very intentionally after that, do they have an audience and are they speaking to a group of people that we really believe we have something for? And in most cases, that's an easy yes, but to what affinity and to what degree? And are we already addressing that audience somewhere else? Well, and if not, very interesting. And if not, we really want to see if we can partner with this person and help even shape and translate the message that we have. Currently, you guys are... We're not speaking about exercise optimization or performance the way that you guys are.  If we partner with someone who's into MMA or specifically an expert in a whole different avenue, that's the benefit. And so that part too gets really fun and exciting just to see where this message can translate. But it always stems from part one of that filter. Now in hindsight, have some spaces been better for you than others? Like, do you guys tend to do better in the wellness space or the performance space? Or is it now starting to kind of grow in all of them? Yeah, originally, I think we saw a lot in the entrepreneurial space, mainly because our message was very much from Drew, who was like, hey, I want to be someone who can bring my mission, my purpose to life, and I'm going to live my best life in doing that. I'm going to optimize my health doing that. So I think we've seen a lot of transition in the core audience that we had great affinity for. Our customer base though was 50 to 70 year old women who really aspired to learn how to treat their bodies right and be healthy like Drew was demonstrating. So we had this really interesting blend of customer base that's like maybe moms and folks that aren't necessarily making their own businesses, but then where Drew would do talks and share his product was a lot of entrepreneurs and life optimizers. Kind of early day biohackers and stuff. Before that even existed or what? Yeah, before that even existed exactly. So really early days, and we've always been pretty diversified. Our core brand like messaging, I think my only concern is that it's like right now to vanilla and that we used to be way more like edgy and articulated. And so we're getting back to those roots and importantly seeing the kind of diverse fit across the partners. So I wouldn't say that it's like a huge standouts. I think in general because of our more like, like general messaging, our wellness message fits great with like people that overall want to have holistic wellness right now and holistic health. And they're looking at more like general health for sure. But I'm excited to see where it goes from there. I think there's so many really exciting avenues that are much more specific. How's the supplement space evolving? Because it's changes all the time. I've been following it since I was a kid and it just continues to morph and grow and change. How is it different now than it was before? And do you see any like any changes on the horizon? Yeah, much more regulated. It will continue to be. So when we first started 10 years ago, it's nothing like it is today. And I'm also fascinated by it. I think there's so much exciting change to have happen. But most kind of, I think prominently, higher regulation, regulatory bodies coming in and lots more claims and just things being controlled. And I think there's a huge positive to that. One, it shakes out the riffraff. It shakes out a lot of the trash that's in the marketplace right now and helps consumers make better choices for sure. And it also helps raise quality standards across the board. So there's a lot of benefit. And I think in the future, I'd love to be more involved in this space just to have ideally some influence and to support basically like quality standards cascading all the way to the farms and all the way through the process of building a formulation and bringing it to market and to really help consumers. I think right now there's so much media, I would say, around quality standards without truly helping people make sense of it. An example of that would be CNAs, right? Certificates of Analysis being like a big craze that people are saying, hey, you should go look at these quality standards of the brands that you use. I love that. But very, very few people are helping individuals actually interpret the CNAs. Nobody knows. Obviously we know, but like no customers know. And the challenge is, I think it's information without guidance. It kind of reminds me of when you go get lab work done and you have to jump on the phone with your doctor to talk through it. Like no one's jumping on the phone with their supplement person and being like, hey, can we talk through this CNA that you just sent me? Because I don't know what I'm looking at. And so sort of excited about what I see coming is outside of just now awareness, like lots of over information and awareness, I'm excited about individuals becoming more empowered and equipped with basically the ability to disseminate that information, individualize their needs and wants, and not just be overwhelmed by the influx of opportunities to buy trash. Yeah, this is so fascinating to me because they've been trying to make, because you said regulated, okay? Regulated oftentimes people think means a government body regulating an entire space, right? So, and this is a conversation I've had many, many times with people in our space where you got, we don't want supplements to be regulated that way because then you're not gonna be able to have like almost any products. They're gonna be super expensive. Plus we know the regulatory bodies, somewhat corrupt, and the pharma people move over to the FDA and vice versa. Not our favorite folks. Yeah, not really cool, right? So this is all kind of like market-based regulation. These are third-party companies and they're seeing market demand for better quality. So this is all consumer-driven. In other words, you want a product and you're like, you know, I would like to know if this has glyphosate residues or if it's organic or if this is fair trade or whatever, right? These are companies that exist that that's their job and if they do a bad job, which is different than a government agency, a government agency does a bad job, they get more money the following year. If these agencies do a bad job, they're gone and another third party will have to come in and do a better job. So when you're talking about that's getting more regulated, there's more of these third-party certifications and regulatory bodies that are entering the market because consumers are more educated. Yeah, and that is actually a great differentiation. The consumer regulatory kind of supported is great and that's like what we want to see more of and it helps differentiate the brands amongst each other. Like what's so core and important to organify is that this basically third-party certification, something that I think is still helpful to talk about, to have consumers understand what to look for on labels and just like breaking down labels for people is beneficial. On the other side and like the FDA and like all the other regulatory, we definitely have to deal with a lot and be sensitive to. And I think it's really, and I'll keep kind of staying on the positive side, it's really helped us also then continue to bring products to market that have clinically-backed ingredients so that we can speak of the benefits like we do and in a compliant realm. So it still helps actually keep a lot of the uncertified, unsubstantiated products out of the marketplace if there's one good thing that the large... Well, Mae, there's two routes that you could, I guess the supplement company could go with this, which is meet the minimum requirements for certificates or regulatory bodies. Like let's do the minimum, put our product out. You guys always want to go above. Like this is a big deal. Like you guys are always like, okay, here's what people are doing. We're going to go above and beyond and also do this testing. We're going to go above and beyond and do this, which means you have to educate your consumers because otherwise all they're doing is looking at your product and another similar product and it's just price. It's no longer like, well, what's the difference? So is this a tough decision for you guys or you guys are like, no, we don't care. We want to do it this way? Our quality standards have been really as they have been kind of first and foremost since the very beginning. So it's never been an issue. Shania, my head of product would probably laugh a little bit at the kind of constraints and positive constraints we use to make products, basically hitting our quality standards or we don't make it. And so it hasn't necessarily been something that we've questioned. No, I mean, it makes it what it is. It makes it aligned with the purpose and it came from, and I'll kind of give the origin story of this, it came from when we were making juice recipes. We always said like it was back when organic wasn't a big deal. Like we were talking about earlier, it wasn't a big thing like it is now. And we always said, hey, buy organic vegetables because you're going to be juicing and consuming it in concentration. So like just have good quality whenever you can, try to prioritize organic. And so when we made our first product at Organifi, we said, hey, we're definitely certifying everything as organic because you've been talking about that for four years. And from there, we've just added on certifications that help us know that as we take the products every day too, like I, my parents take it, my family takes it, that I can feel good about consuming this daily. Like if anything, we're the lab rats of Organifi because we've been taking it for seven years and continued to. So as we now can make new products, we just maintain the quality standards of kind of our best possible. Shoring up any concern we would have, their third party testing helps us verify that we continue to get highly sourced, you know, great quality raw materials and ingredients and that we don't have the same questions that our consumers have. I think the point you're making, Sal, is in regards to like the margins, which I'm curious, May, what would you say is bad margins, good margins, excellent margins in the supplement space? Yeah, so 80% or above are excellent, 50% and below are bad and that's like in a product itself. And so we aim for like a really strict margin constraint that helps us make great products that, you know, fit our quality standards and that's why it takes us a long time. We're not pumping out a new product every month because we take a long time to find the right ingredients at the price point that we can at the quality standards that we need. And I mean, the big thing about Organifi is it tastes amazing. So we take a long time to articulate the taste that we want because our whole belief is like, it's got to taste great. It has to actually give you the benefit that we say it does. You have to have felt effects from it, you know, and you're going to enjoy taking it every day and that's pretty unique in our space, in the powdered wellness space. It's very unique. I think that was the secret sauce. I think that all of us were attracted to it was like, was the quality of it and the fact that it didn't taste like dog shit because prior to that, anything that had that high quality, you just chalked it up as like, yeah, this thing can be very healthy. Yeah, this tastes healthy. Yeah, we were really clear. It was going to solve three problems, be highly convenient. So it would solve the problem of like, actually bringing those raw materials together and like trying to juice this stuff that we put in the, it would be easier than that for sure. It was going to be delicious, right? So something that we wanted to use. Yeah, you want to use. And we made a ton of bad juice recipes. So we knew a thing or two about like messing up a recipe and then telling someone to juice fast with that for three days, like no way. Like they're going to hate being healthy for sure and quit right after that. So we knew it had to taste great and be craveable. Like literally, we just didn't believe that healthy had to be gross and then really effective. So when we were doing that, we also expected the results. Again, we came from juice fasting where people were losing like five pounds in a week or three days or whatever, right? So it was very results driven too. So with each product we made, whether it was for energy, for sleep, there's always a clinically proven ingredient in there to get the benefit that we're talking about. And it's research backed substantiation behind it on purpose and differentiated across the industry. Yeah, I'm happy when I look at the evolution of the supplement space. And I wasn't always happy because for a second there, it looked like who can make the cheapest product. Race to the bottom. Yeah, like the race to the bottom.  Quality is gonna be really important. This is concentrated.  I think it's important. And then you'd see the reports come out where they go and test now 10 different products and nine of them didn't have what they said or they had weird stuff in them. And I would shake my head and be like, man, I hope the market, and I believe in markets and I believe in consumers, like I hope this starts to change. And it is, it seems like the consumer now is more educated and wants better quality and is also considering other things like, is this packaging better for the environment? Are the employees being taken care of? Like I wanna know the founder and if they're good people. Like nobody cared about this stuff 10 years ago. So am I hitting the nail on the head? Is it moving in that direction? Yeah, and thankfully too, I appreciate this, that kind of positive look at the industry and we gotta see kind of organic get into Costco. You know, organic become this like, and also get into by like having a whole department of Costco become organic focused and what it is today, it's like massive, right? And even see organic beef be less expensive than traditional beef and sprouts. Like that's wild to me, right? That shows consumers power, which I'm so grateful for. And again, being at farm level, like I know it takes that, right? So this is kind of in some ways, like everything I've hoped for. Everything I've hoped for. And I know the capacity that we have to make change in this way. So with a supplement industry equal to your sentiment, like I'm glad. And I think there's a lot more to be done. And again, like more than just shaping demand for higher quality supplements was the start. Then it's actually ideally also perceiving what's making impact in our body. So being educated. And I always like kind of pose the question of like, if you're taking the supplement daily, right? Is it working for you, right? Is it making the change that you want? And shockingly, most people, even my family members, they're like, hey, what do you think of the supplement? I'm like, well, what are you taking it for?  So one, like being aware of what we're putting in our body for what purpose. So some education is required there. Or remembering why we're taking supplements is actually like surprisingly hard for people. Myself included sometimes I'll recognize I'm just taking a lot of stuff and being like, hey, what am I taking in for what purpose? And then asking, am I getting the result that I'm expecting from this product? And like, please stop taking it if you're not. Like, I mean, for goodness sakes, right? Yeah, so are you, when you guys decided to say, hey, we're going to come up with a product and we'll have you guys have some influence on it. When I sent over the first idea where you're like, yeah, that's great. Or could I send anything? And you guys would be like, tell Sal, this is trash. No, I mean, the beauty of like the partnership and the collaboration, even the opportunity to collaborate with you guys is we knew what at least you guys saw needed in the industry was going to be from your perfect perspective. So I think your original concept was on the right path and exactly kind of the direction we probably assumed you were going to go, which is exciting. And then to be able to collaborate and say, hey, how do we make it even better? You know, partner up with Shania, our head of product and really figure out like with that intention of how you want people to feel when they take this product and the benefit you want from it. How do we make it happen? Right? And what's the best blend? Exactly, because I was in a position where I'd have to like make my own. These guys know I'd get my own stuff and make my own disgusting tasting, whatever, because I couldn't really find something that, you know, that I would take that would give me energy and pep and, you know, vitality, make me feel like I could take it before a podcast, before a workout that wasn't also like, because a lot of them out there is like super stemmed out or they just don't meet those organic, you know, glyphosate residue free type of standards. So I'm like, oh, why isn't anything like that exist? So I'm just so glad that you guys let him do it.  We actually did it for these two, not you. He's been bugging us for a while. Yeah, he's been bugging us. Thank God OrganiFi is going to let you make your product. It was actually the phone call from Adam that convinced us. Please, please, let this guy make it. I don't want to hire anybody else. Yeah, I think it's a really cool opportunity and something like that's where our, and like again, testament to the alignment here with our companies and our brands is that's how we made the formulations too.  And when we were, you know, just, you know, speaking about juice fasting and whatever, 10 years ago, I was combining Burberry and I was combining turmeric. I was combining, I think it was like a some, gosh, what was the, I'd like three or four other parts to this stack that I would take for like cognition and brain health and all this stuff. And I mean, those were early days where we were just trying to make it work outside of actually having our own. So in some ways OrganiFi is like that for us all the time, which is like, oh, we have this idea, we see this opportunity. This is something I'm doing in like a really crappy, homemade way. Like what if we made it great? What if we actually solved kind of this need out there for other people and you had this like fun opportunity to connect with a huge audience, this is what you're finding. I'm going to put it in the future. You're going to find that as you launch this product, you have so much connection with your audience that you, you know, obviously you talk about a lot, but you get to find that you solved other people's problems that you also had. Yeah. Which is such a fun opportunity. It's connection ultimately, right? It's saying, ooh, I agree. I wanted something right here and here it is. Totally, love it. Yeah, well, this has been great. Fantastic. Yeah, we appreciate you guys. Thank you so much. This is again, total treat to get to be in person with you guys and just to say thank you and congrats on the launch. Always good seeing you. And talking to you. It's obvious why you guys do so well. So, yeah. That's very kind. Thank you. Thanks, ma'am. Today we're going to teach you everything you need to know to build a strong, well-developed chest. When I think of weak points and areas that I struggled with developing for a really long time, chest was up there with the work part. Yeah, it was for me. It was for me for sure. I got more caught up in the weight I could lift versus how I was developing my body. I think it's one of the most challenging muscles to develop for most people because the form and technique.