Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Giorgos Tsetis - Nutrafol Founder | From Personal Crisis to $3.5 Billion Exit

Transcript

Giorgos Tsetis - Nutrafol Founder | From Personal Crisis to $3.5 Billion Exit · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  You said, business can be sacred. What do you mean by that?
• 0:03
  Business can be such a powerful force for goodness and greatness.
• 0:09
  Business is ultimately a community that is pursuing a great mission.
• 0:13
  Some people see problems, others, engineer solutions.
• 0:16
  Georgo Sadis is the Greek-born entrepreneur who did both.
• 0:19
  Once an engineer and fashion model, he faced a personal battle with hair thinning.
• 0:23
  And rather than accept the status quo, he built a better way that mission became
• 0:28
  When I started to get very concerned about my hair loss, it was in my early 20s.
• 0:32
  That was a quite devastating period in my life.
• 0:35
  I was just so incredibly motivated and driven to figure out what was going on with my cell.
• 0:40
  We basically became research bodies, shoulder to shoulder.
• 0:43
  Every night, we're just going through scientific white papers, trying to connect dots,
• 0:48
  and sometimes it's just one person that you need.
• 0:50
  One person who believes in you, I'm blocking out all the noise,
• 0:54
  and all the people that are just way too negative.
• 0:56
  Because that's a very negative influence that needs to be caught up.
• 0:59
  He didn't just disrupt an industry.
• 1:01
  He gave millions confidence and a real solution grounded in clinical evidence.
• 1:05
  When you're dealing with people's health, there's nothing more important than that.
• 1:09
  If you add value to people's lives, no matter how you do that,
• 1:13
  it's like then creating a great business around that is just a side benefit.
• 1:17
  Helping people at scale leads to so much fulfillment and meaning and purpose in the world.
• 1:24
  So, George, you said business can be sacred.
• 1:35
  What do you mean by that?
• 1:36
  Business can be such a powerful force for goodness and greatness.
• 1:46
  And I think as leaders, we have to take that very seriously, right?
• 1:51
  So, a business is ultimately a community that is pursuing a great mission.
• 2:00
  If that mission is sharp and it's exciting and it's inspiring,
• 2:09
  you can do something really, really great.
• 2:11
  So, and I think that comes with responsibility.
• 2:14
  On top of that, you know, when you lead a community of people that pursuing something,
• 2:23
  it's like that also comes with further responsibility because you're responsible for those people as well.
• 2:29
  So, how do you make sure that everyone feels really good about themselves,
• 2:35
  about what they do on a daily basis, right?
• 2:37
  Time is precious. So, how do we make sure that we protect what we have and stay really focused on
• 2:50
  what we're trying to do, which ultimately, and that's the hope, right, that every business is
• 2:55
  trying to add value to people's lives. And that's always what we stood for, right?
• 3:02
  In our case, it was hair health, but it wasn't just about hair.
• 3:05
  It was about how people would feel about themselves, right?
• 3:08
  And if we were even able to help people a little bit, even if it's a little bit less stress about
• 3:15
  their potential hair thinning or hair loss, right? A little bit of less weight on a daily basis.
• 3:23
  You know, that alone can really elevate someone, right?
• 3:26
  So, it was always about the ripple effect and the impact that we can make collectively,
• 3:31
  and how that then impacts individuals at scale.
• 3:35
  I'm sure you work with a lot of entrepreneurs at this stage in your career and a lot of people
• 3:40
  reach out to you for advice. And the way that you look at business, sort of like as giving value first,
• 3:47
  like just giving an immense amount of value first, even before we press record, you're like,
• 3:52
  Scott, with what you're doing with the podcast, you're trying to give as much value as possible.
• 3:57
  I appreciate that because I definitely am. But do you feel like that's how most entrepreneurs
• 4:03
  first think about business when they when they first get started is that I feel that's the way
• 4:07
  they should think. But what's the way that most entrepreneurs start? Do they think about problem-solving,
• 4:13
  value, giving value back to society is the average entrepreneur a little bit more,
• 4:18
  maybe scarcity mindset. I'm just trying to find a way to make a little bit of money to survive.
• 4:22
  Like, what do you see when somebody's just starting out?
• 4:27
  I see everything. What I'm typically looking for are people who are very clear on their mission
• 4:33
  and their why. And obviously, we all want to elevate ourselves from a from a financial perspective.
• 4:39
  We all want to solve, I guess, problems, right? Something and pursue something that we super passionate
• 4:45
  about it ultimately love. I typically just resonate a lot with people who are just deeply,
• 4:52
  deeply passionate about something that they're pursuing and ideally truly love. It's almost
• 5:00
  like there's this sense of obsession and I love it too. I just got goosebumps, right? It's like
• 5:08
  that's how passionate I am about just just a world and life and and and and adding value as much
• 5:17
  as as much as we can. Because that all, the more obsessed, the more you truly love something,
• 5:25
  the less likely it is that you're going to give up and as you know, extremely well yourself,
• 5:30
  it's like you need that level of determination every day because it's not easy. If it was easy,
• 5:37
  everyone would do it. So what is that drive? And I think if that drive is just simply finances,
• 5:45
  at some point, you're going to give up, right? So I'm always trying to find
• 5:51
  yeah, the passion and the obsession and and the why behind
• 5:56
  what people are doing and why they truly pursuing what they do. So
• 6:01
  and I've seen tremendous amount of success, right? You don't necessarily, even when you look at me,
• 6:06
  it's like I didn't have a typical a typical background to start. I'm not a scientist,
• 6:12
  right? I'm not a doctor. I'm of an engineering background. I love to problem solve,
• 6:16
  but it's like, you know, even even now asking these early investors, sometimes I'll just go back
• 6:23
  to them and say, what made you so passionate? Why did you write that early check? And sort of like,
• 6:28
  I could just we could just feel the level of determination, how extremely motivated you were to
• 6:34
  to solve this problem for yourself, but then also hopefully for others. And that's what made
• 6:39
  us believe in you, right? So I'm trying to take all these learnings every single time I meet with
• 6:45
  other people because together again, we can create such a beautiful ripple effect as long as we care
• 6:52
  for the people that we serve, right? Which typically in a business, those are your customers,
• 6:57
  but I also think that you're going to forget about your people, right? Often often we say it's like,
• 7:03
  let's, you know, the customer's king or or customers before everything. I even think that
• 7:11
  it's about how do you make sure that you build an amazing culture and the people that are working
• 7:18
  with you and for you on a daily basis just feel great, right? Great about what they do and if you
• 7:24
  treat it greatly. So they can drive that impact, right? How can you expect from a community of people,
• 7:31
  a company to be kind and to add value to other people's lives if they don't feel good about
• 7:37
  themselves, right? So that was always something I wanted to stay extremely focused on.
• 7:43
  This is such a beautiful way to look at business, like not only give a ton of value to the world,
• 7:49
  but give a ton of value and respect to the people that work with you, which your team, your peers,
• 7:55
  your employees, because that has like a trickle down effect. When you do give tons of value and when
• 8:01
  you do focus on putting them first, that's how you create a business that succeeds. I think,
• 8:07
  I think that that's where the focus has to be internal first. And then if you focus internal first,
• 8:15
  then the trickle down will be your customers will also be served incredibly well. I know a little
• 8:20
  bit about your story. So you started a finasteride at 22, which is for people who don't know,
• 8:26
  that's a drug. And I think that's a very old school drug that helps with hair loss.
• 8:32
  It helps, I think stop hair loss or probably helps with hair growth. And at this point at 22 years old,
• 8:40
  and correct me if any of these facts are wrong, but this is when you suffer sexual dysfunction
• 8:46
  because of the drug. But if you stop the drug that meant hair loss was accelerated. So you were
• 8:52
  trapped in this horrible, I don't know, this circle of yeah, downward spiral of I get to choose
• 8:59
  hair or sex, but I can't have both. And that doesn't sound like a great place to be. But you did
• 9:06
  this for almost nine years. You were trying to figure this out for nine years just with traditional
• 9:12
  drugs, correct? Yes, exactly because when I when I started to get very concerned about my hair loss,
• 9:21
  this was, yes, it was in my early 20s. And my father started to lose his hair. Actually,
• 9:27
  it was completely bold by the age of 25. I just did, I was just very concerned because at the time,
• 9:34
  I was studying engineering and it's even during my studying, it was just raining here and it was
• 9:39
  just so much evidence that at some point, lose it. And that was confirmed by dermatologist. And
• 9:46
  the side effects were downplayed. This was back in Holland. The side effects were downplayed. And
• 9:50
  unfortunately, I, yeah, I was, I experienced this side effects quite severely.
• 9:57
  Problem was, as you said, at the moment, I stopped using finustrate, my hair started to fall out.
• 10:03
  So that was, that was a quite devastating period in my life because I just didn't know what to do.
• 10:09
  And the doctors that I was going to just didn't have any answers, right? It was just like, well,
• 10:15
  certainly some more percentage. Just keep taking it. They didn't give me any alternatives.
• 10:21
  So I was just so incredibly motivated and driven to figure out what was going on with myself.
• 10:28
  Right? First of all, why am I losing my hair? I'm young. I didn't want to lose my hair at the time.
• 10:33
  Also, I was fortunate enough to earn my money through fashion modeling. So it's like, my hair was my
• 10:40
  income. So I basically, I used, I used the fashion modeling to finance my engineering studies, right?
• 10:48
  So it was important. It was important. Am I obsessed with hair? Not necessarily, but it is a part
• 10:54
  of your identity. And it's never fun to lose it, right? It's because it's not necessarily the
• 11:01
  last of your hair. It's more of a, and this is what I figured out later, especially when we
• 11:06
  deal with so many customers at scale is that lack of that loss of control that is triggering
• 11:13
  something in people that is just not pleasant, right? And some people can of course deal with it
• 11:21
  quite nicely or take control, right? And they just shave their hair off, which is, which is
• 11:25
  perfectly fine. And we men can deal with it. But you know, for women, it's a whole different
• 11:32
  ballgame. And this is something that I never understood. But because we paid attention and we
• 11:38
  listened to our customers and we saw the demand, it's like, wow, it's like, this, this issue is as
• 11:44
  large for women than it is for men, potentially larger. Because men can take
• 11:48
  phenosterite or didosterite. Women don't have a lot of great alternative solutions. So,
• 11:56
  and a lot of the basic vitamins and minerals are just simply not working good enough, right? They're
• 12:01
  not powerful enough to make a difference, especially if it's hormonal or stress related or
• 12:06
  there's inflammation involved. So, yeah, that was for us how and why we started. It was like, man,
• 12:13
  we need something that's effective and safe. This is what we need. It's like everything that was safe,
• 12:19
  right, was not working. And everything that was somehow effective as phenosterite, it's just
• 12:27
  just a terrible side effects. And when I hit the panic button was when there was a study that came
• 12:32
  out, I think it was a University of Michigan where it could potentially can cause permanent
• 12:39
  sexual dysfunction post-discontinuation of the drug. So, that's where it was like, okay, you know,
• 12:43
  this is I'm severely jeopardizing my health here. I'm worried. And that's where I opened up to my
• 12:49
  business partner who was a this crazy and beautiful science biohacker that approached health
• 12:56
  in a very different way. This is about 10 years ago. And I was just very inspired on how he
• 13:01
  reversed the engineers room author arthritis at the time. So, and that's really what sparked
• 13:06
  this whole conversation about, okay, well, there's more at play than DNA, right? Why are we not
• 13:12
  why we're not addressing stress with powerful formulations? Why the why we're not addressing
• 13:18
  inflammation, right? Because my business model was was targeting inflammation, CRP with a very
• 13:23
  potent botanical ingredient. And he did that very successfully, but as a side benefit, his hair
• 13:29
  started to grow back. So, it was like, so I went back to my doctor. It's like, how does inflammation
• 13:34
  play a role with health with the destruction of the agro cycle? And I don't have no answers, right?
• 13:40
  So I would I was I was wondering if they would tell you anything useful. Yeah, exactly. So,
• 13:45
  so I was so incredibly surprised, you know, that that the hair experts didn't have a lot of
• 13:51
  explanation around just just hair biology and hair is incredibly complex, your hair follicles
• 13:57
  are mean organs. So, anyway, we got we we basically became research body shoulder to shoulder
• 14:03
  for every every night. We're just going through scientific white papers trying to connect dots
• 14:09
  and to try to find a way to approach it healthier and more effectively. And that's really what led
• 14:16
  to a birth of mutual. I think that the the saddest part about
• 14:23
  health concerns like hair loss or there's a variety about even sexual dysfunction. I was just
• 14:28
  listening to some of your your past podcast and just one of the quotes that you said it wasn't a
• 14:33
  long quote, but it just sort of summed up what a lot of people feel. You said like this led to
• 14:38
  sleepless nights, anxiety, loss of confidence, all of it. And it's sad that I think a lot of people
• 14:44
  with these with these medical issues, I feel like they just kind of suffer alone. And they don't know
• 14:51
  who to talk to about this because traditional science kind of just medicates them with really
• 14:57
  harsh drugs, whether or not it's sexual dysfunction, whether or not it's hair loss, whether or not
• 15:01
  a million other different things that they're suffering from. And I am not by any means a scientist
• 15:09
  or a doctor, but I feel like there's so many there's so many opportunities for less harsh
• 15:17
  somewhat natural remedies for people where taking a taking a fix to solve one thing in their life
• 15:26
  doesn't lead to all these other complications and problems. But like you mentioned, the issue
• 15:31
  is that a lot of GPs and doctors and family doctors or even sometimes specialists, they don't have,
• 15:37
  they don't have answers. So you just kind of like suffer in silence. You kind of like suffer like
• 15:42
  you did for nine years, basically trying to figure out what the hell to do. And even with finasteride,
• 15:49
  I'm sure there's some people where it worked perfect, but I'm sure there's like you mentioned a
• 15:54
  large portion of the population, men and especially women who don't have the opportunity to probably
• 15:58
  take some of these harsh or drugs where just for years, like parts of their life, they just had
• 16:03
  no option at all. So it's sad that traditional, you know, the people we rely on with our health and
• 16:16
  wellness don't think outside the box, but that's why it's so important for entrepreneurs to come
• 16:22
  up with these innovative solutions. And that's I think that's exactly what you did, obviously,
• 16:27
  and it worked quite well. But when you think about doing something that's never really been done before
• 16:32
  or doing something without a science background and building a company around something that
• 16:38
  you know needs to be fixed, but you don't know exactly how to do it.
• 16:44
  Say what you were going to say, but then I was also curious about how do you get the courage to
• 16:49
  approach that problem because that's a that's a huge daunting problem. And I think that
• 16:54
  that would overwhelm a lot of entrepreneurs because where do you even start?
• 16:59
  Yeah, and everything you just said really resonates. It's it's trying to just let's focus on
• 17:06
  trying to address the underlying issues, right? Why people are suffering of a condition. And
• 17:13
  that I think is is it's such an important mindset. And we're seeing that
• 17:21
  I think we're moving in the right direction, right? A functional medicine is growing at a
• 17:26
  rapid pace, right? The information that's available to patients, to consumers is is overwhelming,
• 17:33
  right? That's I think could be a bad thing, but it's also in many cases it's it's a great thing,
• 17:38
  right? So your ability to ask the right questions and to understand truly what you're going through
• 17:45
  before to your point you start to medicate is incredibly incredibly important. If you can do
• 17:51
  yourself trying to find a doctor who at least is willing to do a deep dive, right? And is is
• 17:57
  willing to understand it and not just by default, just prescribe a medicine. I'm extremely worried
• 18:05
  especially a lot of those online pharmacy companies who are just prescribing those drugs to young
• 18:12
  men and women and marketing those drugs like it's candy, right? And it's I think that's deeply
• 18:19
  concerning especially when you touch more serious issues like mental health, right? And and others.
• 18:27
  But you know, there's there's hope because you know trying to this is this is 10 years ago,
• 18:33
  our our first tech line was like, you know, targeting the roots, right? Targeting
• 18:37
  let's try to understand the underlying causes and it's a multitude of underlying causes.
• 18:42
  Don't just block the testosterone within your body to keep your hair, right? There's stress,
• 18:47
  there's inflammation, there's dietary deficiencies like it's a multifactorial problem and if you
• 18:53
  if you approach that effectively with the hope of course it's with very effective botanical
• 18:58
  ingredients, nutraceuticals that have clinical evidence, perhaps you can make a difference,
• 19:02
  right? So that was the hypothesis that was that was incredibly important. To to your other question
• 19:09
  as far as yeah, trying to come up with a drive, you know, I used to have this quote up in my office.
• 19:19
  I believe it was from Richard Branson. It was if people aren't calling you crazy, you're not
• 19:23
  thinking big enough and that was such a I put that up one night and you know, I needed that.
• 19:29
  I truly needed that because I had a lot of people around me that were naysayous. I had a lot of
• 19:34
  people around me who said, look, you're crazy, you know, who do you think you are? So you don't have
• 19:39
  the background, right? Or even when we launched the company it's like, you're margining so like
• 19:44
  not industry standard. It's like, and I was like, well, these ingredients are or high quality.
• 19:50
  I'm happy to pay premium for ingredient because I know this proof. I know that the bio-actives
• 19:55
  within that singular ingredient are going to be able to make a difference, right? We're talking about
• 20:00
  I can give you a specific example. We use the curcumin and we still use the curcumin
• 20:04
  points, right, who are able to lower CRP inflammation in the body very effectively. We used to pay
• 20:12
  $500 a kilo and you can get the same curcumin for like $10 a kilo, right? So we paid a premium,
• 20:21
  a massive premium because we there was clinical evidence that the actives were still available,
• 20:28
  were still potent, that the actual ingredients itself was bio-available and actually gets absorbed
• 20:32
  in the body. And of course there was clinical trials attached to those ingredients, right? So
• 20:38
  and on the other hand, I would have investors and as we tried to pitch in the early days, they
• 20:42
  look, you know, your product is never going to make it because your margins are not healthy enough,
• 20:47
  right? So I had to just block out all that noise and that's been really the greatest blessing.
• 20:54
  On top of that, I'm also incredibly fortunate that at least I had some people and including my
• 21:02
  mom and dad who at least didn't question me. They just said, you know what? We believe in you,
• 21:08
  right? And for them to say that meant a lot, right? Because I followed a very traditional engineering
• 21:18
  career. I did start my own company because I love to not work for anyone else, but that was going
• 21:25
  really well. But then to completely pivot and pursue hair health and to then at least to have
• 21:32
  some people at least around you say, you know what? We believe in you, pursue it. Let's go.
• 21:38
  It's a real blessing. And sometimes it's just one person that you need, right? It's very hard to
• 21:43
  do things by yourself. One person who believes in you may one thought partner and then let's go,
• 21:49
  right? Let's try to make a difference. And I'm blocking out all the noise and all the people that
• 21:54
  are just way too negative. Because that's a very negative influence that needs to be caught up.
• 22:00
  When you were first starting neutral, you had investors. They said that clinical trials weren't
• 22:06
  necessary for supplements, but you spent over a million dollars of your life savings on pharmaceutical
• 22:12
  great trials. Anyways, because you wanted to know what worked. I love that you took that approach,
• 22:20
  walked me through what you were thinking when you were getting pressure just to launch when you
• 22:26
  took people's money. And they were telling you to do it in a quicker, cheaper way. And you still
• 22:31
  pushed back and you said, no, we've got to do this the right way because I would like to think
• 22:37
  that all people would make that decision. But I'm pretty sure that not everybody would.
• 22:41
  Yeah, at the time, we just didn't want to build another marketing company, right? And this goes
• 22:48
  back to the mission, which was we wanted to figure this out for ourselves. And we wanted to help a
• 22:55
  lot of people along the way, right? So how do you build something that ultimately becomes really
• 23:02
  impactful and creates this ripple effect? And it wasn't just about selling product. I wasn't
• 23:08
  interested in selling product. I was way more interested in changing the conversation, right?
• 23:14
  Then the question becomes, okay, well, how do you change the conversation around hair
• 23:17
  health for men and for women, right? How do you break down certain taboos? How do we make this
• 23:22
  a bit more discussible? How do you make sure to your point? People do not suffer in silence,
• 23:27
  right? Because that's terrifying. How do you, how do you truly contribute there? And the only
• 23:35
  way to do that, in my opinion, was by pursuing thought leadership, right, pursuing and educating
• 23:46
  physicians, right, who have been trained, who have the credibility and advising the world on how
• 23:53
  to approach this. So it became our mission to partner up with them and to convince them we
• 23:59
  spent endless hours and years, frankly, with physicians trying to educate them and to present
• 24:09
  them with this 100-page white paper that we had. We're so proud of it. And people, people,
• 24:16
  we would present it all the time, but not everyone would pay attention, but at least we had
• 24:21
  to figure it out. It basically rewrote hair biology. It was our Bible, right? And we used that as
• 24:29
  a guideline. This is even pre-clinical trials. But in order for us to take it to a whole new level,
• 24:35
  we had to make those investments. And frankly, I personally, this goes back to my own personal values,
• 24:40
  I would never feel comfortable promoting a product if it was just relying on ingredient claims,
• 24:48
  right? Because that's how the industry works. You can technically rely on ingredient claims now,
• 24:54
  but just by using common sentence, like, what happens when you put all those ingredients together,
• 24:59
  right? Is there synergy or are the potential side effects? These botanicals incredibly powerful.
• 25:05
  These are not just herbals, right? These are pharmaceutical great
• 25:10
  nitraceuticals who are incredibly potent. What happens in the human body when you take this
• 25:16
  for a long period amount of time? So just from an ethical standpoint and from a moral standpoint,
• 25:22
  I just felt obligated to myself and to everyone around me to double down on this. And yes,
• 25:28
  it was a massive risk because those clinical trials for hair, incredibly complex. Imagine,
• 25:34
  right? It's like, these are these are six to 12 months clinical trials. Now you have placebo
• 25:39
  controls, double blinded, right? Especially for women, they're already going through such an
• 25:44
  emotional journey losing the hair, even knowing that they're in placebo, right? The dropout rates
• 25:51
  are huge. So these are very complex clinical trials, multi-site studies, and they're also
• 25:59
  therefore very risky. What happens, right? The investors ask the right question, like, what happens
• 26:04
  if those clinical trials come back with not the ideal results, right? And I was like, you know what?
• 26:11
  We have to do this. We can't even question. We just have to believe that what we have formulated
• 26:17
  and what we've put on paper is going to work. And that turned out to be to be true. We launched
• 26:24
  the first clinical study for women going through hair loss during menopause, pre and perimenopause.
• 26:32
  And can you imagine nobody's ever done a study like that, right? And at the time, we already had a
• 26:39
  very strong, we already string strong clinical evidence around the women's products. And we're
• 26:46
  challenged there as well, right? You're launching another product for women. What if those
• 26:50
  results are not ideal? How's it going to jeopardize what you'll currently already have in place,
• 26:55
  where do you would have hundreds of thousands of subscribers on these products? And again,
• 27:00
  similar mindset there, like, let's, what would we do? How do we want those people to be treated,
• 27:06
  right? We want those products to be tested. So we're going to have to do what's right. We have to
• 27:11
  double down. And if for whatever reason, it doesn't turn out the way we want it to be, then we do
• 27:15
  with it, right? We deal with it. And we move on from there. But it was always that problem-solving
• 27:22
  mentality as an entrepreneur that really helped me throughout because you can question yourself
• 27:28
  too much. You know, I apply 70% rule to that. It's like, you can be too certain. You just have
• 27:34
  to be certain enough, right, to make an important decision because if you're certain enough, it's
• 27:40
  often too late, right? If it's below 50%, you know, your chances, you know, the odds are not on
• 27:46
  your side. So it's like 70% rule for me was was enough to make those decisions as fearlessly as
• 27:53
  possible. It's so interesting. So you have to, you have to make that decision, but then you have
• 27:58
  to verify and test. So you have to, you have to, like, you have to have a thesis, but then
• 28:03
  still what you did is you didn't just have the thesis. You spent the money and the time and the
• 28:08
  effort making sure that the thesis was true, which I think is, again, in the, like, listen, there's
• 28:14
  a lot of issues that I have with the supplement industry. There's a lot of issues that I have.
• 28:20
  For the right reasons. For the right reasons. Yeah. I mean, if we look at, we alluded to these before,
• 28:26
  but just briefly, like, I mean, I used to play a lot of hockey. I played a lot of sports, and I got
• 28:33
  into, you know, bodybuilding, working out, and there's all these stories about supplements being
• 28:38
  mislabeled, and, you know, the wrong ingredients are just not even listing some of the ingredients,
• 28:43
  and I'm sure it's in a lot of different nutraceutical companies where people try and get around
• 28:47
  regulation. And then on the drug side, it's not much better. Well, I guess it's regulated by the FDA,
• 28:54
  but like you mentioned before, I just experienced this as well. I didn't realize that
• 29:00
  on Canadian move down to the US a couple of years ago now, but I just realized that this whole
• 29:06
  telemedicine phenomenon where you can claim to have a medical problem and a doctor who's never
• 29:14
  even seen you can prescribe a drug and it ships to your door. So it seems like whether or not it's
• 29:23
  drugs or supplements or nutraceuticals, like the industry on average does not pay enough attention
• 29:34
  to the end user. It's all driven by profit. It always, and it's how the world functions, and I
• 29:42
  get it, right? But when you're dealing with people's health, like there's nothing more important
• 29:50
  than that, right? We're talking about mental health there, we're talking about physical health,
• 29:54
  we're talking about prevention of diseases, right? It's companies need to have a very high degree
• 30:04
  of standards, right? Because the potential consequences are two devastating, right? So
• 30:13
  I'm happy you're recognizing that, and the industry is doing better in many ways, right? But I think
• 30:22
  it continues to be very important that the right leaders are being put in place in those companies,
• 30:29
  so they can make those right ethical decisions when not with things are going great. It's always
• 30:34
  easy to make good decisions with things are going great. It's like what kind of a decision are you
• 30:39
  going to make when it gets hard, right? That's that's always what I'm interested in and say with
• 30:44
  investors, right? Who is going to stick by you when things are not going so great? You know, those are
• 30:51
  the people that you want to be surrounded by. Quick question. What's your go-to when you got 10
• 30:56
  minutes before a meeting or a workout? For me, it just used to be whatever I could grab, which
• 31:00
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• 31:05
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• 33:37
  You built the product for men, which is you built the for yourself. But then you realize that it
• 33:42
  could also be used for women. And I think that if I look at the numbers that you've mentioned before,
• 33:48
  when you pivot it, not pivot it, when you add it on a solution for women, there's only,
• 33:52
  there was over 50 million women that experienced hair loss, but there wasn't a real solution for them.
• 33:58
  So you found this market that largely stayed invisible to most drug manufacturers,
• 34:05
  supplement companies, nutraceutical companies. And you could have just relabeled the men's product
• 34:10
  because I think that the men's product actually was effective for women, but you reformulated,
• 34:16
  you did new trials. You just basically went through the whole thing that you did when you first
• 34:21
  launched again, just for women. So first of all, how does the market like that stay so invisible?
• 34:28
  But also, I mean, I understand now knowing who you are and like how you your value system,
• 34:33
  why you did all those tests. But was there any and reformulation, but was there any
• 34:40
  doubt, anxiety, stress from from yourself, from your investors, when you not only reformulated
• 34:46
  and retested, but went after a market that was basically not served at all yet?
• 34:50
  There was a ton of anxiety, frankly, they didn't, not everyone, some did, but not everyone believed
• 34:55
  in it. It's like, this is a men's issue, right? We've been told for decades, right, that this
• 35:02
  is a men's issue, right? Look at these legacy old-school brands, it was always those men's issues.
• 35:08
  So it's like, I will never forget, Scott, when I launched, I wanted to raise awareness around
• 35:14
  hair loss for women, and I wanted to, we bought, or in the early days, like a page in a popular
• 35:22
  magazine, and the headline was something as simple as take control of hair loss, and it was a women's
• 35:31
  aunt, and it was completely rejected. It wasn't suitable for their audience, and it's like,
• 35:38
  and for me, that was such an eye-opening moment. It's like, there's so many women who are suffering
• 35:44
  in silence, and we cannot even talk about this, forget about a solution, right? We cannot even
• 35:51
  talk about this, and that to me was an additional drive, right, to prove also a lot of those
• 36:04
  people wrong, right, and to raise awareness around this issue, because every single time we're
• 36:11
  walking to a hair salon without products, I wanted to give it out to men, and then all the women
• 36:16
  would come to us and say, you know, I need this, right? So it's, it goes back to just really,
• 36:26
  not trying to pursue, you know, where the money necessarily is, right, or where people are telling
• 36:31
  it to do, but remaining open and listening to the people who you're serving, right? And that's why
• 36:37
  we decided to further optimize that women's formulation for women who are going through menopause,
• 36:44
  because physicians would give the men's formulation to women who are going through menopause, right?
• 36:51
  And it's like, well, that's a little confusing, right? Maybe we can do better, right? And it's
• 36:56
  incredibly rewarding, right? And the reason why I'm sharing this is because I think this can give
• 37:04
  a lot of people hope, right? It's pursuing what you believe is right, right? Forget about the
• 37:11
  money for a second, right? If you add value to people's lives on a daily basis, no matter how you do
• 37:18
  that, it's like then creating a great business around that is just a side benefit, right? That's why
• 37:26
  I continue to go back even with my team, just from a culture perspective, we would ask that question
• 37:32
  to ourselves all the time. It's like, are we still adding the right value? And people will get
• 37:36
  tired of this question, right? But it's like, yeah, we continue, because it also evolves, right?
• 37:40
  Science evolves, the company evolves, we became much larger, right? The industry changed,
• 37:45
  more competition. It's like, are we still doing the best we can? And if the answer to that is,
• 37:51
  yes, okay, great. But let's continue to just compete with ourselves all the time to make sure
• 37:56
  that we serve our customers the best way possible, right? And every single decision was made through
• 38:02
  that. Like at some point, we had core formulations plus these personalized boosters that would serve
• 38:10
  through hair testing. Lifetime value for those products was astronomical. Investors looked at this
• 38:16
  and said, this is this is something we've never seen before. And I was like, well, but the retention
• 38:21
  is not great. People, people are not, you know, they have to take way too many pills. They have to
• 38:28
  adapt this. This habit formation that needs to take place here and they're dropping out. They
• 38:32
  may not see the results that they would like to see. We may make more money as a company highly
• 38:37
  profitable, but we're not serving our people better. Let's actually skip this entire program. And
• 38:42
  we reduce the amount of boosters that we recommended through our algorithmic engine to to customers
• 38:49
  at scale, right? So that's another example where we had to choose, right? The customer over
• 38:58
  just simply profit. You achieve all the regular business metrics and milestones by adding a ton
• 39:04
  of value. Also, what I've noticed is, and I'm curious about your opinion on this, you have always
• 39:12
  found, you have always found a way to alleviate somebody's suffering, like somebody's suffering
• 39:21
  from some sort of ailment or somebody's suffering from some sort of physical condition. And that's
• 39:25
  what you lean into, right? You also, I know, I think you're on the board of X Prize and you see a lot
• 39:34
  of entrepreneurs that are very innovative and they're trying to create new things that have never
• 39:38
  been created before. Have you ever thought of the opportunities for entrepreneurs just in
• 39:48
  finding this suffering that's kind of been normalized and trying to fix that as opposed to
• 39:55
  creating something new? Like, I feel like more people just look at what are people dealing with
• 40:01
  in a day to day? That's a good place for an entrepreneur to start ideating on what to create or what
• 40:07
  to solve. It's like, what suffering has been normalized and how do we destigmatize it and help
• 40:13
  somebody through it and create that market? I think that's a great starting point for entrepreneurs,
• 40:19
  right? But ideally, it's personal, especially if it's your first entrepreneur journey. I see a lot of
• 40:26
  entrepreneurs trying to solve issues, right? But then it's not that personal, right? And then
• 40:31
  I go back to what's your level of determination if it gets harder along the journey.
• 40:38
  But I do think, like, the world doesn't need more products, right? The world doesn't need more
• 40:43
  marketing, necessarily. It's like, we're trying to compete for people's time, people's attention,
• 40:52
  right? And I used to say this to the marketing team all the time. It's like, this level of marketing
• 40:57
  at scale, we would spend like 40, 50 million dollars a month on marketing, right? It's like,
• 41:02
  that comes with responsibility. It's like, we better say something that's of value to people.
• 41:07
  Let's not just try to just sell product. It's like, even if you forget about people buying the
• 41:12
  product, it's like, maybe, maybe believe them with a thought that's inspiring or some education
• 41:19
  around hair that they maybe can take into consideration when they move, when they make their
• 41:25
  decision, right? So marketing comes with responsibility. We are fighting for people's attention,
• 41:34
  right? So, and I truly believe that we need to do everything in our power to
• 41:44
  continue to add value as much as possible. The, as far as the suffering concern, what I'm
• 41:52
  trying to focus on a lot is, okay, what are we experiencing as a society, right? And one of the
• 42:00
  things that constantly comes up is like, you know, from a mental health perspective, it's like,
• 42:06
  we're not necessarily moving in their right direction. The constant extraction, you know,
• 42:10
  your data is basically being extracted from you, right? We have become the product. And it's so
• 42:16
  incredibly hard, at least when I speak for myself, right? It's hard to feel very, very good
• 42:22
  continuously, right? And we, and I'm worried about our children, right? I'm worried about our
• 42:28
  children and how they're going to grow up and the forces that they're going to have to deal with.
• 42:33
  So, what can we do as entrepreneurs, right, to focus on issues that can systemically change
• 42:43
  things around to make sure that the world is moving in their right direction, right? And yeah,
• 42:50
  of course, if you connect with brilliant minds, I always say there's nothing better in life than
• 42:55
  just do great things with great people. So, you find great people that care about a problem enough.
• 43:01
  If you can then find your focus and then pursue that and not give up, you can make a difference.
• 43:06
  So, you actually see that with X-Price in a beautiful way, right? We define a problem,
• 43:12
  and then on a global level, you've got all those teams that are passionate about that issue,
• 43:17
  compete for that price and solve that problem together. And we're seeing tremendous,
• 43:22
  tremendous success there. And I think there's an opportunity to do this on a global level. I think
• 43:28
  we're more united than we think we are. And that's the optimist in me. And once you identify an
• 43:39
  issue, and we've proven that in history as well, once we identify an issue, and we can all rally
• 43:43
  behind that and truly care, we can make a massive, massive difference. So, I'm always trying to
• 43:48
  look for opportunities to solve underlying issues to elevate human well-being, really, because
• 43:56
  especially with everything that's happening on the AI side, it's like we need to protect us,
• 44:01
  right? We need to protect us. And therefore, we need people and leaders who care about the world,
• 44:07
  care about humans, and have a sense of empathy. So, fast forward to today, after a neutral
• 44:14
  was sold to Unilever, this is sort of your, this is sort of what you live for now. And one idea
• 44:22
  that I've heard you speak about, which is really what you're just describing is human flourishing.
• 44:28
  So, describe and explain maybe what human flourishing means. Because I think that it's this,
• 44:36
  the way that I interpret it is like it's a blanket idea, because I feel like people do struggle
• 44:41
  with physical health, physical suffering, mental health, mental suffering. And then if we layer on
• 44:48
  all the tools and technologies that are sort of advancing human civilization, obviously a lot of
• 44:55
  people, there's a lot of benefit to that. But I also think it's stressing a lot of people out and
• 45:00
  probably adding more stress and more anxiety and more physical and mental suffering to the
• 45:05
  average person who's worried about their job or being replaced by AI or robotics. So, I think for
• 45:10
  some people, life is very difficult. And there's a lot of anxiety right now. And the average person
• 45:17
  is to what life's going to look like in the next five or 10 years for a variety of reasons.
• 45:21
  So, what does human flourishing actually mean? Like how do you look at human flourishing? How do you
• 45:28
  balance not just the physical and the mental well-being of somebody, but how do we pair that with
• 45:34
  technology in AI so it can be used to actually progress humans and make the average individual's
• 45:40
  life better, not put them out of work, and then have them all stressed out, which is going to
• 45:46
  lead to a whole bunch of other physical and mental problems.
• 45:50
  Yeah, the whole human flourishing, human thriving idea and thinking came actually from
• 45:57
  neutrophil, right, because we saw the effects of if people feel a little bit less stressed about
• 46:04
  themselves, right, or a little less stressed in general. On the daily basis, what that actually
• 46:10
  can do to someone, right? And not just to themselves, but the people around them and showing up as a
• 46:15
  better parent, as a better spouse, as a better partner, as a better employee, etc. So the ripple
• 46:21
  effect there really, really inspired me, right? So I think we all have a responsibility to work on
• 46:28
  ourselves, right, and figure out what we're about who we are, right? Who am I? It's like a fundamental
• 46:36
  question, right, that I constantly trying to answer, right? And trying to figure out who you are
• 46:45
  and what you stand for and what the values that you want to provide in this world is, is I think
• 46:54
  important, right? But you're right, there's all these forces that are coming at us and I think
• 47:00
  we need to stick together and trying to solve those problems collectively, right? I've got a ton
• 47:08
  of those examples. I'm focusing a lot now on nonprofits as well, because a lot of the nonprofits
• 47:14
  are suffering. They're typically not good business models, but they're great initiatives, right,
• 47:20
  from building free boxing gyms for underserved youth in the Bronx here in New York City to
• 47:27
  helping HIV positive mothers in Africa deliver HIV negative babies, right? It's like we all have a
• 47:36
  responsibility, I think, to help each other. We interconnect it as a world, as humans. So
• 47:45
  if you can feel better about yourself and you can thrive and you can feel mentally clear and
• 47:51
  you know where you're going and you feel physically strong and at least you feel not physically
• 47:58
  unable to do something or a little bit in pain and it doesn't hold you back. The moment you're in
• 48:03
  that state and you entering that phase of thriving and feeling great on a daily basis, that's where
• 48:10
  you can make the impact, right? That's how you can start to help others around you. So I still believe
• 48:16
  that you need to start with yourself. I'm incredibly interested in what's happening in the digital
• 48:22
  world, right, with AI and just the data as we have become the product ourselves. It's like we don't
• 48:30
  own any of that data, so it's being used against us. It's like the fact that CHEDGPT knows you
• 48:36
  better than yourself is concerning, right? So how do you change that around and how do you create a
• 48:43
  sovereign infrastructure for individuals is something that's incredibly inspiring to me
• 48:49
  because that could be fundamental, right? It could be fundamental to
• 48:55
  to to understand yourself and to provide value to others. And yeah, as far as mental health
• 49:03
  concerned, it's something that is deeply concerning because it's not moving in the right direction and
• 49:09
  I don't have an answer, I don't have an answer to all those issues, but just know, but I think
• 49:14
  that you touched on something really powerful actually. I think that I think that post COVID,
• 49:20
  we felt more isolated than ever before. I mean, kind of just felt like we're
• 49:24
  figuring out life on our own, right? We kind of feel like a little bit more isolated and
• 49:29
  and I think that it's hard to it's maybe this is just me, but when I'm not feeling good,
• 49:39
  if I'm sick, if I'm foggy, if I feel at a shape, if I feel like garbage,
• 49:47
  it's very hard for me to show up for someone else. Like it's basically impossible for me to give
• 49:53
  my time and energy and attention effectively to someone else when like I feel like shit. I know
• 49:58
  I'm just like making it very simple, but I think if more people understood the power of fixing
• 50:05
  their health, mental and physical, that could be a mixture of like things that can help them
• 50:14
  not stress about how they look, but also how they feel going to the gym, fixing up their diet,
• 50:20
  taking supplements that actually benefit them, not just supplements that lie, but what's in the actual
• 50:27
  the the the label lies about what's actually in the product. Like if they optimize their health
• 50:32
  and well-being so that they're running at 100%, I think that's when they can contribute more
• 50:37
  themselves to helping their friend that's stressed about this that or the other thing in their life,
• 50:40
  but you can't do that if you're always if you're always feeling like shit, if you're stressed
• 50:46
  about your own life, if you're stressed about like your own well-being. Like you just it's very hard.
• 50:51
  So I think you have to like you said before, you put your own mask on first, but you have to give
• 50:55
  somebody the tools to do that and after somebody feels good, that's when they can be the best version
• 51:00
  of themselves and then they can help people in their community at their job, whatever. That's
• 51:06
  that's how I feel. I genuinely feel that is very true, at least for me it is because the second I'm
• 51:11
  like 100% and I'm healthy, then I can spend time mentoring somebody, I can jump on a call and help
• 51:16
  somebody that has a problem, I can sit down for coffee with somebody and give them good advice because
• 51:19
  I'm clear in my mind. I like this. It's like this holistic way to just be a better society without
• 51:28
  sounding too. Exactly. And the less and the more stressed people are, the less the less
• 51:35
  sense of empathy they can show to others as well, right? That's deeply concerning, right?
• 51:40
  Imagine a world where we're more stressed than ever before, right? Everything comes at us. We
• 51:46
  don't have the ability to process everything fast enough, right? Stress goes through the roof,
• 51:52
  we're chronically stressed, we don't even realize it, right? And now our sense of empathy
• 51:57
  significantly decreases, right? That's not necessarily a good place to be as a society,
• 52:03
  because we are interconnected and we want people to care, right? But it's hard to ask someone to
• 52:09
  care about the environment if they struggle on a daily basis themselves, right? To feel good about
• 52:15
  themselves. So it's like, I think there's such a great opportunity to solve those issues together.
• 52:21
  And again, I think we're more aligned than we think we are, and it's all about creating an
• 52:27
  ecosystem around that, to identify those issues and to pursue it all together, because together,
• 52:34
  we can incredibly strong, right? It just needs to be a focus and a not giving up mentality.
• 52:41
  When you look at sort of the current health space or even like health tech space,
• 52:48
  where are those opportunities? Like if we look at all the things that are plaguing society,
• 52:53
  so we have people that are stressed about their jobs, stressed about technology,
• 53:00
  stressed about their, again, physical mental health. Where do you see the biggest gaps that we
• 53:06
  could, you know, with a little bit of innovation and a little bit of thought? We could really make
• 53:11
  the biggest moves and help the most amount of people. Like I'm sure there's some examples from
• 53:17
  like some of the companies that are part of X Prize, and I think that for people don't understand
• 53:22
  what X Prize is. Basically, these are these incredible companies that are, they're basically trying
• 53:28
  to build these moonshot type products. These products that have never really been done before,
• 53:34
  products that could really change the world. It's a really cool organization. But are there
• 53:41
  examples of companies that are currently being built in? I also think it's tied to singularity
• 53:50
  university and Peter Diamandis, and I think that whole ecosystem is all about innovation and
• 53:57
  solving big human problems. But anyways, are there some examples that you can think of?
• 54:02
  Like the biggest opportunities within singularity, within X Prize are just things that you've seen
• 54:08
  that can really, really improve the quality of life for the average person.
• 54:13
  The X Prize is an amazing organization, and they're making a lot of progress.
• 54:18
  What I'm personally very excited about is just to focus on prevention. You know, the moment's
• 54:23
  just disease prevention, and there's so much technology now out there where you can early
• 54:28
  detect disease, right? If you can make that available to the masses, right, and get everyone
• 54:36
  into a specific mindset, right, to test early enough, to understand and to know what's going on
• 54:45
  within your body. So it's not too late. Like that's a massive outlook because the technology's
• 54:51
  there. It's all about changing the mindset and making it available to the masses in a much
• 54:57
  more affordable way. So anything related to early detection and the prevention of disease is,
• 55:06
  I think, key, because the moment your diagnosis got a bit with something, right, that's where
• 55:12
  everything gets harder, right? We just talked about your ability to give back or your ability to
• 55:17
  upgrade the world, right, is significantly reduced. And we see that even within mutual
• 55:24
  right, because we're dealing unfortunately a lot with women who are losing the hair because of
• 55:30
  cancer treatments, right? So, and we see how devastating those experiences are.
• 55:39
  But if you can early detect, right, that's where you can make the greatest difference. And you don't
• 55:45
  necessarily have to pursue those very invasive center of character treatments that are just very
• 55:52
  toxic for the body, right? So early detection, this preventative mindset, and then approaching it
• 56:02
  in the most natural way to solve those issues early enough, I think, is the way to go. But
• 56:10
  there's still a lot of progress to being made there. I was going to say, I think that,
• 56:14
  unfortunately, a lot of our healthcare system is very, is very reactive.
• 56:19
  I wonder, because you're sort of your frontline in this health and wellness fight,
• 56:28
  do you think we're getting better at being preventative, at detecting earlier,
• 56:34
  actually adopting more natural remedies? Do you see us moving significantly in the right
• 56:39
  direction towards these things and sort of pushing back against traditional health and wellness?
• 56:45
  Yeah, I think there's hope, there's certainly hope, because you're seeing a lot of
• 56:51
  consumers and patients, now it's also a lot about, it's not just about even early detection,
• 56:56
  it's like, let's start to gather the information. All right, let's actually start testing more
• 57:00
  often. And then, of course, with the use of AI, the insights that you can gain are mind-blowing,
• 57:06
  right? So, I absolutely believe that there's such a massive opportunity for AI to disrupt
• 57:13
  healthcare in general, and to make a real difference there for patients and consumers. And
• 57:18
  you see that, a lot of those health tech companies are doing extremely well, or most of them.
• 57:25
  And even within Neutrophil, we've seen a massive difference, because in the beginning,
• 57:31
  we, to convince someone to buy a product on a preventative basis, right? It's way harder,
• 57:39
  it's way easier when someone is suffering from an issue, to be convinced. But, you know,
• 57:46
  our entire business became so large, you know, we've got about over two million subscribers,
• 57:52
  you know, and the reason for that is because we started to focus a lot on people who are concerned,
• 58:02
  but don't necessarily experience the issue yet, right? And once they're in that mindset,
• 58:08
  their likelihood also to remain on the product is also way greater. And also, the product is set
• 58:15
  up for greater success as well, because it doesn't have to work as hard. Prevention is typically
• 58:20
  easier than, especially in hair, right? Then trying to regrow hair back. So, being early enough
• 58:29
  is absolutely key here. What is the biggest stress in your life? Like, we went into some very
• 58:34
  heavy, deep topics we spoke about, like, the world being stressed out, and the world feeling
• 58:39
  isolated, and all these new technologies that are a benefit, but are also stressing people out,
• 58:44
  and like, what's the big thing that keeps you up and sort of pushes you to keep? Because,
• 58:50
  you know, even though you're technically, you could be retired, I know for a fact you're not.
• 58:55
  So, you're still sort of, you're still trying to figure out a few things. What's that thing that
• 59:00
  keeps you up at night? Yeah, I'm certainly not retired. It's such a blessing to
• 59:07
  exit a company, right? But it's also bittersweet. It was a monumental exit. It was the largest
• 59:16
  exit in the space. It was 3.5 billion. And yes, in the tech space, those numbers are now more
• 59:24
  common, but in the consumer space, in the health space, these numbers aren't. And the reason
• 59:30
  why I'm sharing that is because there's so much opportunity, and I want to give entrepreneurs
• 59:36
  a sense of hope, right? The moment they're focused, and you can solve a problem for yourself,
• 59:42
  and for many others, you can build an amazing business around that. So, I think that's important
• 59:47
  context. You know, what keeps me, what keeps me office is frankly, are we going to,
• 59:53
  are we going to leave this world in a better place, right, for our children?
• 59:59
  In an ID world, right? You know, we're moving in our direction. And I think in many ways we are,
• 1:00:04
  but there's also a lot of concerning pieces that we just talked about. And that includes
• 1:00:10
  our health, mental and physical, but we're able to make a difference there. I'm sure we with
• 1:00:18
  the technologies that we're going to be able to move the needle there. But you know, the other
• 1:00:25
  issue that I think is major is the wealth concentration, right, with everything that's currently
• 1:00:33
  happening. And so there must be a way to redistribute wealth better, right? Because it's the gap
• 1:00:40
  between a rich and poor isn't necessarily just widening, right? It's also moving in very different
• 1:00:46
  directions, and especially now with, you know, AI and tech, it's like, that's where all the money is
• 1:00:53
  made, but it's going to keep increasing. Exactly. Yeah. The gap is increasing, it's moving,
• 1:01:01
  it's moving in all directions. And I think that's concerning, right? Because I think,
• 1:01:07
  you know, I think, I think capitalism is great, right? But is there an opportunity to rewire that,
• 1:01:14
  right? And to make sure that we also at the same time focus on human suffering, right?
• 1:01:20
  Can we make a difference there? Because if we're not, it's going to become an issue. And on one
• 1:01:30
  hand, everyone is making so much more money. All these tech companies, treating other companies,
• 1:01:35
  right? Investors make a ton. The finance world, you know, stocks are through the roof.
• 1:01:40
  Everything is going great there, but then on the other hand, there's so much here that needs
• 1:01:45
  to be improved. And I'm trying to think about models where we can change the mindset there as well
• 1:01:53
  to see if some of this here could be properly utilized, right? To help people in need, right?
• 1:02:00
  People, help people with just healthcare, right? Elevate some of the suffering there. Help
• 1:02:05
  our children and make sure that we give back wherever possible to make sure that, yeah, we
• 1:02:12
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• 1:05:41
  But I think that's my biggest concern about new technology because new technology mainly like
• 1:05:47
  AI robotics are like the sort of like the hot things right now. This new technology can create
• 1:05:54
  a massive amount of wealth like I see the opportunity. So now you can create a million dollar
• 1:06:02
  company with you can probably create a 10 million dollar company with just yourself and AI.
• 1:06:09
  If you know a little bit about what you're between vibe coding and
• 1:06:12
  copywriting and graphic design and and strategizing with you know chat GPT,
• 1:06:18
  cloud, perplexity, whatever other generative tool you want to use. So this can be a huge wealth
• 1:06:26
  building opportunity. But if people don't learn it and if people don't understand how to use it,
• 1:06:33
  then not only will they not be able to take advantage of the wealth building opportunity that
• 1:06:38
  all these new technologies afford us and allow us to participate in. But it'll also make it so that
• 1:06:46
  they're not competitive in the existing job market. They're not competitive at all. So now these
• 1:06:53
  people are going to be not able to build a company with with the new tech unless they learn it,
• 1:06:59
  which obviously they should, but if they don't, then they're missing out that on that opportunity
• 1:07:03
  and they'll also be replaced by people who do learn the tech. Maybe they're not entrepreneurial,
• 1:07:08
  but they do learn the tech. They'll be replaced by those people in their jobs. And then you're
• 1:07:11
  going to have this increasing wealth gap and you're going to have more and more people out of work.
• 1:07:15
  And if they don't upskill themselves, I don't know what it's going to look like in the next
• 1:07:22
  five years, but it's not going to be pretty for a lot of people. I mean, we're already seeing massive
• 1:07:27
  layoffs with factory workers and assembly line workers with all the robotics that are coming out.
• 1:07:36
  And we saw layoffs with with people that were being replaced by AI as well. So
• 1:07:42
  the people that aren't as technically savvy that are feeling like they're being replaced by AI
• 1:07:51
  and they're stressed about their jobs and they're stressed about money, there is a responsibility
• 1:07:56
  on the people that understand it and use it daily to spend energy teaching it to people. Like,
• 1:08:04
  listen, I'm a big fan of people taking their own life into their own hands and being accountable
• 1:08:10
  for their own success. But at the same time, like, if you understand something kind of like what I'm
• 1:08:15
  doing with this podcast in a very basic way, like, and if you have a way to teach somebody something,
• 1:08:21
  I think you have a little bit of a responsibility to do that. So when I have conversations about
• 1:08:27
  business or artificial intelligence or like, I have a platform, a lot of other people have a
• 1:08:32
  platform, I think that you have a responsibility to help people that don't quite understand what's
• 1:08:37
  going on, help them understand it so they can use these tools as well. And hopefully, hopefully,
• 1:08:44
  that means that there's not as many people that are left behind. It's beautifully set. And I love
• 1:08:50
  that you stand for that. And you're absolutely making an impact by sharing great information
• 1:08:57
  and empowering people to do something with their lives in a beautiful way. I think it's hard,
• 1:09:05
  it's going to be incredibly hard for everyone to keep up. And that's just, and it's just not for
• 1:09:09
  individuals, it's also from a country perspective, right? It's like there's certain countries that
• 1:09:14
  are not going to keep up. So how do we make sure that we continue to reinforce some message that
• 1:09:21
  we are interconnected, right? That if if we continue to do extremely well and others don't,
• 1:09:27
  right, that's going to become an issue for everyone, right? So, you know, promoting this togetherness
• 1:09:33
  concept and to solve those problems together, I think it's going to be extremely, extremely key.
• 1:09:40
  I don't know what the answer to that is, whether it's a universal basic, basic income or
• 1:09:47
  or health care. I'm not an expert there, but somehow we need to find a solution to those issues
• 1:09:56
  because it's going to be a much bigger issue very, very soon. I do think that listen, there's
• 1:10:01
  going to be a lot of things that have to work out to bring society closer together because the way
• 1:10:11
  society is structured right now, whether or not it's within a country or a community or globally,
• 1:10:18
  it is we're kind of set up to to be split apart and to like with like social media and
• 1:10:27
  news cycles and fear mongering and politics like the world is currently working against cohesiveness.
• 1:10:34
  It's working to sort of silo different groups with different belief systems, which ultimately
• 1:10:39
  just hurt everyone. So I think that there's a lot of different things that you just mentioned,
• 1:10:44
  which I'm not an expert in either. There's a lot of different technologies and companies that
• 1:10:49
  organizations like X Prize and Singularity are looking to build and can solve a piece of this puzzle.
• 1:10:55
  There's other components like again, getting people physically and mentally well so that they can
• 1:11:02
  operate and sort of like have like they can perform at their peak, but it's all of it.
• 1:11:10
  Like it's and I think that the last sort of the last piece of this puzzle is reminding people
• 1:11:18
  that we are more alike than different and to honestly stay off social media as much as possible
• 1:11:25
  because that is probably the worst tool that separates and divides us and companies make trillions
• 1:11:31
  of dollars creating animosity and division between you and your neighbor, whether or not they're
• 1:11:38
  next door in another country. And I think that all of these ideas combined are how we kind of move
• 1:11:43
  in the right direction, but everybody just has to, you know, do their best and play their part
• 1:11:49
  and hopefully will end up in a better spot than we are today. That's all you can hope for.
• 1:11:56
  It's not a happy ass idea though. Amen to that. I remain extremely positive that this is
• 1:12:05
  possible. I think people are searching for meaning, for purpose, right? We're more aligned than we
• 1:12:13
  think we are because we are being divided at all levels, right? But that's exactly during so much
• 1:12:20
  disruption. There's opportunity and I'm just incredibly excited to work on those issues,
• 1:12:27
  right, with people who care and people who have the capacity to do something about it.
• 1:12:32
  So I do want to touch on a few last things that I think are a little bit more tied into your
• 1:12:38
  leadership philosophy and we'll talk about sort of how neutral ended and we'll talk about that exit.
• 1:12:45
  But one thing that I love that at least you're very focused on as a leader and as an entrepreneur
• 1:12:53
  is kindness and kindness as a strategy. So you refused to be called boss, like you didn't like
• 1:13:03
  to hold on to any kind of leadership title. Is that correct? Was there a reason for that?
• 1:13:08
  Was that just something that you pushed back against? Because I think that if I look at
• 1:13:14
  sort of your value system, how you serve your customers, how you serve your team,
• 1:13:18
  you've always been like a kind leader. But what are the things specifically that you did that
• 1:13:29
  you feel were slightly different than the average entrepreneur? I always tried to treat people.
• 1:13:35
  I want to be treated, right? So yeah, the whole boss idea, I just never felt better than anyone
• 1:13:43
  else, right? I always felt so privileged that people are actually coming to work for me and with us,
• 1:13:52
  right? So and I try to always respect that because these are major life decisions that people
• 1:13:58
  are making. Let's not underestimate that. People move to a company and they're relying on that
• 1:14:04
  company to support themselves and their families. That's a big deal, right? So I always tried to
• 1:14:10
  keep that in mind. The reason, and these are small little things, but I think the nuances matter,
• 1:14:17
  just an open door policy all the time, right? I didn't even have my private office because I
• 1:14:25
  didn't want to be that guy who's just in that office that everyone looks up to, right? I wanted to
• 1:14:32
  be with the people. That's why I learned that's, you know, I wanted to build this relationship of
• 1:14:36
  trust, right? Because if there's trust, people open up, then you know, right? Then you can support,
• 1:14:41
  and you can know where the issues are. So having your finger on the paws as a leader is extremely
• 1:14:46
  important. And without trust and without psychological safety, I don't think you can properly achieve that.
• 1:14:55
  So I tried to pay attention to those nuances, but those just came natural to me. I, you know,
• 1:15:01
  I like to, I like to be with the people, you know, I always said, now I'm working for you as much
• 1:15:07
  as you do for me, right? And together pursuing this mission and that I felt that was always deeply
• 1:15:14
  respected. And so I doubled down on that. And that turned out to be really great. The retention
• 1:15:23
  post acquisition was extremely low. It was, it was less than 1%. Right? Typically,
• 1:15:32
  typically the people that are leaving, right? Typically a lot of people leave post acquisitions
• 1:15:38
  because of cultural changes, etc. We build such an amazing culture around
• 1:15:44
  kindness and caring for one another. And when the company wins, then everyone should win,
• 1:15:49
  right? And including incentive structures that support that. So, and that is now beautifully
• 1:15:55
  maintained by the new CEO, my name is Cindy. And that's a real, real blessing, right? Because if
• 1:16:02
  if a company can live beyond you and do real success and continue to add value to people's lives,
• 1:16:08
  you know, that's, that's, I believe, the ultimate success. So yeah, whether it was an open-door
• 1:16:15
  policy, right? Which sounds basics, but, but it was meaningful to a lot of people to,
• 1:16:24
  yeah, making sure that I'm always asking how people actually feeling. Forget about work for seconds,
• 1:16:29
  like how are you doing, right? As an individual, like we're starting a meeting with a bunch of
• 1:16:33
  people who are ready to dive in, ready to solve the problems, ready to, to make a difference in
• 1:16:38
  other people's lives is like, let's start with ourselves, right? It's like, how do you feel? And
• 1:16:42
  is there anything, you know, we can support each other with? And again, that was a culture,
• 1:16:47
  that was a mindset that was just very rewarding to to be in, and which is what I currently miss the most,
• 1:16:56
  right? It's like about 500, 600 people at Neutropho, and they continue to thrive, and that's
• 1:17:03
  something that I'm very happy with. What's the, what's the relationship that you've found between
• 1:17:07
  kindness and performance? I don't think you can perform great under, under, under distress,
• 1:17:17
  right? And if people are not kind, there is distress, right? People who are rude or are only
• 1:17:27
  thinking about themselves, or they don't pay attention what you're saying, or are not making
• 1:17:35
  you feel valued, right? That can never be good, right? That's not sustainable. So I definitely
• 1:17:42
  think there's a relationship between kindness and progress and achievements, right? Psychological
• 1:17:50
  safety is a big deal. It's like, there's studies that are published around that. It's like, the
• 1:17:57
  moment people feel safe. And the question, of course, like, what is someone, when is someone
• 1:18:04
  feeling safe to voice themselves within organization, right? But that's just table stakes in my
• 1:18:08
  opinion. Like, people should feel free to voice themselves about anything, right? To propose to
• 1:18:16
  leadership or to other pieces in the organization to make to make a difference. So I think it's
• 1:18:22
  fundamental. And if that's not in place, I don't think great businesses can sustain. I think the
• 1:18:31
  future of leadership is actually kindness. We need more kindness. We need more empathy.
• 1:18:36
  Not in a weak sense, right? Because empathy can be used in, you can take advantage of people
• 1:18:45
  have a real sense of empathy. That's not what I mean by that. It's like, if people are kind,
• 1:18:50
  if you care for one another, and you pursue a mission together, it's like, that's how you can make
• 1:18:55
  the greatest impact. So you had a $3.5 billion exit to Unilever. So walk me through,
• 1:19:06
  walk me through the exit, even some of the emotion attached to the exit, because like you mentioned
• 1:19:11
  in the consumer goods space, that's an enormous exit. And this is something that you, at the time,
• 1:19:18
  you had been building for how long before the exit? 10 years. Yeah, almost 10 years.
• 1:19:25
  So tell me, tell me, I mean, you brought an investment. So at some point, there had to be some sort
• 1:19:32
  of return and some sort of exit, which you definitely delivered. But how did you know that this was
• 1:19:37
  the right time? How did you know that Unilever was the right strategic buyer? What were the events
• 1:19:44
  that led up to this? So the company started to grow quite well. We were always in hypergrowth
• 1:19:52
  mode, because we just wanted to impact as many as people as possible. And then the focus really
• 1:19:58
  became all about retention and lifetime value. So as a lot of DC companies really tried to pursue
• 1:20:06
  just client acquisition at the lowest cost. Yes, we did that to grow growth, but we really put a
• 1:20:15
  lot of emphasis on retention and setting people off of success. That became a massive initiative
• 1:20:23
  within the organization, to build an entire team around retention, reduction of churn. We
• 1:20:29
  increased our customer experience team significantly to really make sure that we support people who go
• 1:20:36
  through this emotional, hair loss experience. How do we set them off for success? And how do we do
• 1:20:42
  everything in our power to support them and help them? And that really turned the entire organization
• 1:20:48
  extremely profitable. So this goes back to what we just discussed. By caring for your people,
• 1:20:56
  you're able to make a real, real difference also from a financial standpoint.
• 1:21:03
  And that's the time when we decided to explore an acquisition because the company started to
• 1:21:10
  become rather large already. Yes, we had to create a liquidity event for our investors, etc.
• 1:21:20
  But we also recognized because it's all about timing, those type of situations. It's like
• 1:21:27
  the lock is also very important. I felt that we had to explore this because we were becoming
• 1:21:34
  already quite large. The company was already doing hundreds of millions of revenue. And as a result
• 1:21:40
  of that, the number of acquisition partners that are going to be able to move are being decreased.
• 1:21:49
  There's a little bit of a sweet spot in the consumer space that we were aware of.
• 1:21:54
  We also had great momentum. I always believed that we never built a company in order to sell it.
• 1:22:04
  That was rule number one. We needed to build a healthy company. That was the ultimate focus.
• 1:22:10
  But then we also recognized that in order to drive further impact on a global level,
• 1:22:18
  partnering up with the right partner was important. And then, of course, timing is essential there.
• 1:22:24
  So we started to explore the M&A process in 2021. And that was about a year's time.
• 1:22:34
  It took about a year. It included dating. It's a dating process because you want to find the
• 1:22:40
  right partners. And I didn't necessarily need to sell all my equity within the company. So I
• 1:22:46
  wanted to make sure that we attracted the right partners who really believed in the mission and
• 1:22:50
  were able to support us along the way. The conditions started to change during that process because
• 1:22:59
  geopolitically things altered with the war in Ukraine and Russia. So a lot of those
• 1:23:06
  large conglomerates, their appetites to buy significant company and take some risk around that
• 1:23:13
  that appetite was decreased. So our options were not that great at the end.
• 1:23:18
  But through tough negotiation and a lot of conversations we did find unity
• 1:23:27
  as the ultimate partner. And I'm very happy that we chose them because they were just,
• 1:23:33
  as we just talked a lot about, they were great people. They're people who cared and people that I
• 1:23:40
  could rely on. So that happened in 22 sort of company got acquired for way above a billion
• 1:23:50
  dollars, which was a great success, not just for ourselves, but really for the industry.
• 1:23:56
  But what was important for me is like, okay, how do we continue to grow the company and make sure
• 1:24:00
  that we also prove to the world that after such acquisition the company can sustain itself,
• 1:24:08
  right? A lot of those acquisitions typically because of disruption, because of cultural changes,
• 1:24:13
  because of leadership changes, they didn't continue to do what's right. And ultimately it becomes
• 1:24:19
  a race to the bottom. So how do we make sure that that doesn't happen in this case?
• 1:24:23
  So we doubled down on culture, a great incentive structure for our people. And we're
• 1:24:32
  very happy and grateful that we're able together again to create a company of almost three times
• 1:24:39
  post acquisition. And that's what led to the 3.5 billion dollar value exit, which happened
• 1:24:45
  the beginning of this year. And again, that's the reason for that I still believe even reflecting,
• 1:24:54
  right? It's that ultimate focus on adding value to customers and optimizing the experience,
• 1:25:02
  not necessarily spreading yourself to thin, because it's very easy to get distracted with
• 1:25:06
  distribution and more products and more categories. How do we really stay very focused?
• 1:25:12
  It can be known for everything, right? You want to build a brand around the technology or around
• 1:25:18
  a solution that isn't back full and focus is absolutely necessary for that approach. And that's
• 1:25:27
  what we did. No, it's an incredible story. And I've actually had a conversation with I know that
• 1:25:36
  now you're involved in X Prize. But the reason why I know about Singularity University is because I've
• 1:25:41
  interviewed Selim Ismail, who I think either writes or he's part of the board. He's part of the
• 1:25:50
  board. And the whole conversation that we had was about how Singularity U and some of his work
• 1:25:56
  is focused on helping companies do proper acquisitions and making sure that the company that acquires
• 1:26:04
  the smaller startup or whatever. You weren't really a small startup at the time, but still I guess
• 1:26:08
  compared to Unilever, you were small. But to make sure that the acquiring company doesn't treat
• 1:26:14
  the acquiring as like this disease and there's like this and they have to find a way so that once
• 1:26:22
  you acquire the smaller startup, the parent company doesn't have this autoimmune reaction to it.
• 1:26:28
  This cultural autoimmune reaction and destroy it basically, which happens in a lot of cases.
• 1:26:34
  And he mentioned a few companies that have sort of perfected the art of acquisition, which you
• 1:26:40
  named like Google and Apple. Obviously, these are the and they and they do a very good job. I guess
• 1:26:46
  Unilever has a great way of doing it as well, but also it's a testament to how strong you made the
• 1:26:51
  company culture that didn't just get absorbed and cannibalized and parceled off within Unilever.
• 1:26:59
  It was so successful post acquisition that it had a 3.5 billion after just a few short years.
• 1:27:06
  And I just want to highlight, I'm just telling that story because I don't think people understand
• 1:27:12
  how rare it is for a company to thrive after an acquisition. I think it's actually, I don't have
• 1:27:19
  any data to support this, but I'm sure that if you maybe you have an idea, but I actually think
• 1:27:24
  it's the opposite. I think it's less likely for a company to thrive after acquisition than to
• 1:27:29
  then for it to do what what neutralfolded it. Yeah, it was a massive concern. Thank you. It was
• 1:27:36
  a massive concern to me. It's like, what's going to happen? Not just for the products that we're
• 1:27:42
  served to our people and the skill that we have achieved, but again, the people who have manifested
• 1:27:49
  all of this and the people that are working on this on a daily basis, like we need to do everything
• 1:27:53
  in our power to protect them and elevate them. And when the company continues to succeed,
• 1:27:59
  everyone has to be elevated, right? It's collective that ultimate leads to success. It's not just
• 1:28:04
  one individual or group of individuals, it's everyone, right? So how do we set that up? And yeah,
• 1:28:10
  we put in an interesting incentive structure in place to facilitate that and that's something that we
• 1:28:16
  are quite, quite proud of. But yeah, it happens all the time, right? It's like, they're just adding
• 1:28:21
  another company to their P&L. And they don't care about the nuances,
• 1:28:28
  cultures are degraded, right? And yeah, it's how ultimately companies
• 1:28:36
  become less relevant, right? And the hope is for those great companies that care is to exist
• 1:28:42
  for decades to come. So now, I mean, you're not retired, you're still working. Are you content?
• 1:28:48
  Are you happy? Are you still... What is your main goal right now? Are you happy with what you've
• 1:28:58
  accomplished? Are you still thinking that there's a lot that's unaccomplished that you want to take on?
• 1:29:03
  Like when you wake up in the morning, what drives you? What excites you after a $3.5 billion exit?
• 1:29:12
  Yes, I am very happy and I'm very grateful. And that comes with responsibility, right? And I focus
• 1:29:21
  a lot on my health because that's fundamental and I also focus a lot on my family because that's also
• 1:29:27
  absolutely key. You're meeting a lot of people who have great companies or have achieved an
• 1:29:33
  enormous amount of wealth, but then when you look at their family dynamics, right? They're often
• 1:29:41
  not ultimate, right? So I really want to make sure I'm paying enough attention there because
• 1:29:47
  how do you expect to continue to add value to the world if you don't have your own docks and
• 1:29:53
  right? In your own small beautiful community, right? Family household.
• 1:30:00
  So that's really my focus at the moment. So once and as that's being further optimized,
• 1:30:09
  I can really focus on impact and we talked a little bit about those areas of focus, but
• 1:30:17
  you know, it's it's mental health, it's physical health, it's human thriving, how do we
• 1:30:21
  how do we make sure that we continue to be in a good place? How do we focus on disease prevention,
• 1:30:28
  early detection, right? And how do we how do we ensure that with all this evolving technology
• 1:30:36
  and the pace that all of this is being introduced and the wealth that's only created in one area
• 1:30:43
  and not another is like how do we make sure that all of that stays as much as possible in balance?
• 1:30:49
  So I'm trying to join exciting boards of organizations who do great things. I'm also supporting
• 1:30:59
  a lot of nonprofits that are really trying to make a difference. One of them which which is
• 1:31:08
  quite exciting, but it's it's called MAMA, it's it's it's mothers against media addiction.
• 1:31:14
  Oh, very good. For their children and the based in New York and the very much involved in policy
• 1:31:20
  making and it's those grassroots organizations right that can move the needle, right? And these
• 1:31:27
  changes can I think make a massive difference and they already have been responsible for
• 1:31:34
  some some some great success. So ranging from that to very exciting projects in the Bronx for
• 1:31:42
  underserved youth focusing on yeah great community for children to come together because a lot of
• 1:31:49
  those neighborhoods some of them aren't not doing great to say the least. So what do you introduce
• 1:31:58
  for those children to actually come together and and and give them a sense of hope for for the future?
• 1:32:05
  You know that's something I'm extremely excited about because that's taking off
• 1:32:10
  and then other larger larger issues right such as this is the immune system not to get too
• 1:32:16
  too scientific but it's like it just amazes me that we don't understand too much about our
• 1:32:21
  immune system just immunity in general and how fundamental that is to to our existence and
• 1:32:27
  disease prevention. So and that's an amazing organization called HAPE the human immune project
• 1:32:34
  it's big thinking and it's like the genome project and I think decoding the immune system
• 1:32:39
  can get us really really far. So being involved in those non-profit are great and then
• 1:32:45
  I'm using a lot of the investments and the returns that are making in for-profit companies
• 1:32:52
  such as some of the larger AI companies, attack companies that are next gen how do you how do
• 1:33:00
  you redistribute those profits to fuel a non-profit. That's a model that I'm actively thinking about
• 1:33:07
  because if you're able to do that in a sustainable way you can really make massive improvements
• 1:33:12
  at scale. So overall very grateful and I want to make sure that I continue to to focus on
• 1:33:21
  what feels right for the world. You work on a lot of very interesting stuff. Is there a place
• 1:33:30
  where you speak about, I mean like drop your preferred socials or where people can go to
• 1:33:37
  sort of connect with you but do you speak about some of the projects that you work on and people
• 1:33:42
  can follow along because like if somebody is listening to this they would probably want to learn
• 1:33:48
  a little bit more about some of these companies that you work with just because I think that a lot
• 1:33:53
  of people can get behind again your value system and the way you want to help the world and the
• 1:33:58
  companies and technology and the entrepreneurs that are doing it and I don't know if there's a spot
• 1:34:03
  where you talk about the stuff regularly but if there is or if there's even a spot where you
• 1:34:08
  talk about it infrequently I'm sure people would want to pay attention and follow along.
• 1:34:12
  Yeah certainly you know we can't do this alone so we need a lot of help.
• 1:34:17
  Yeah people can find me on georgio's g-i-o-r-g-o-s.io that's that's the website where I'm
• 1:34:24
  listening on the great things the fund is called the great things. It's basically an ecosystem
• 1:34:30
  you know where a lot of my investments are there but also nonprofits that I'm supporting
• 1:34:35
  people can connect with me there and if they have any interest we can hopefully collaborate
• 1:34:41
  that's one and then of course just just a typical social media handles in georgio's
• 1:34:48
  settings but yeah I'm excited to collaborate with people who want to make a difference and I
• 1:34:56
  remain extremely optimistic I know we talked about some deep topics but I think the future is
• 1:35:02
  extremely bright we just have to come together and align and focus on what's right so super excited
• 1:35:09
  and thank you for the difference that you're making. Thank you well you're contributing to it
• 1:35:13
  this podcast wouldn't be much without the people that are actually changing the world sharing
• 1:35:19
  their stories on it so thank you. Last question I always like to ask you've given over a lot of
• 1:35:24
  different ideas and advice and wisdom but just to close it out say you could only have one piece
• 1:35:32
  of advice that there's two frames you can pick the frame it can either be advice that you'd want
• 1:35:37
  to pass on to your children or advice that you'd want to pass on or advice that you'd tell your
• 1:35:42
  you know 20-year-old self but ultimately the most important sort of words of wisdom what would
• 1:35:47
  that be and why. Yeah what I would love to pass down to my kids is the importance of self
• 1:35:53
  discovery really and understanding who you are and and and making sure that once
• 1:36:04
  once you figure that out somehow you focus on helping others helping people I think helping people
• 1:36:13
  at scale leads to so much fulfillment and meaning and purpose in the world and even if I would
• 1:36:21
  advise my younger self I would say exactly that like to focus on what I'm truly passionate about
• 1:36:28
  and to make sure that I do everything in my power not to just help myself but to people around me
• 1:36:35
  and that doesn't have to be at a massive scale by the way it's like I admire people who are just
• 1:36:41
  helping a few people around them right or even someone who's just kind to a stranger it's like
• 1:36:47
  there's massive impact there that is hard to measure but ultimately helping other people
• 1:36:56
  while feeling good about what you do is I think what my life is about and I try to inspire others
• 1:37:07
  you know to think in a similar way because that's that's how you upgrade the world.