Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Kyle Landry - President at Delavie Sciences | Revolutionary Skin Science from Nature

Transcript

Kyle Landry - President at Delavie Sciences | Revolutionary Skin Science from Nature · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  I was doing my masters. It took me a year and a half before I got any positive data. That was very
• 0:05
  disappointing. Dr. Kyle Landry is a scientist turned entrepreneur redefining innovation. From earning
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  his PhD in food science at UMass Amherst to founding Delaby Sciences, he's applied cutting-edge
• 0:15
  research to create revolutionary products like Aeonia, an age-defying skincare breakthrough. Besides
• 0:20
  running the company, my main thing is driving the R&D in a meaningful way. I'm the only one
• 0:26
  there for us for food science. When I graduated, it was only me and one of the kids graduating.
• 0:30
  Food science, in my opinion, is one of the most applied sciences you can go for because your goal
• 0:36
  is to make something that everyone will eat or touch. It's one of the most underappreciated jobs
• 0:41
  with one of the highest job placement rates. Name to the 40 under 40 list and honored as an
• 0:46
  outstanding young alumnus, all driven by his passion for merging science and business. This episode
• 0:51
  is about transforming knowledge into impact and building brands that challenge the status quo.
• 0:55
  Science is the same thing. All the techniques that I you learned in use can be applied to all
• 1:00
  other science. On the International Space Station, the water systems are filled with bacteria
• 1:05
  biofilm. If you have a good product coming out, there's always time to reinvent it and tweak it
• 1:09
  if it's successful in it goes. Family first. Having a good relationship with your family gives you
• 1:15
  a good foundation to take risks. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Cleary. The
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  How would you describe what you do for a living?
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  Okay, that is a very interesting question. So right now I mean consumer product goods and
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  cosmetics. But what I do I would say is try to innovate and fill gray spaces in areas and
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  cosmetics is an interesting one because there is innovation but the actual innovation there is
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  very thin in terms of you know real depth and science behind it. So because of my background,
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  I'm able to really dive deep into the science and do it. So I guess my besides running the company,
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  my main thing is driving the R&D in a meaningful way to actually make creative, creative,
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  but functional ingredients to really help people. But cosmetics is just one thing I also teach
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  at Boston University. You know I have a few other side businesses and you know I have my general
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  life that I have an idea with. Family kids, family kids, hobbies, lack of sleep,
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  so all those things but you know it's all over the map. Yeah I mean your background is interesting.
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  We'll talk about it but even right now forget your background even what you do right now is
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  interesting. I don't know you juggle a lot of stuff. You juggle a lot. Your entrepreneur,
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  your scientist, your you know husband, father, but take us back to I want to talk about even some
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  points in your life where you could choose different paths. I think that's fun. I just learned
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  about I learned about the history about where you could have gone into TV and film but even before
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  that growing up what was your household like? Was there science? Was there entrepreneurship?
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  What was it? My dad was a cop. My mom was a nurse so none of it. Nope and rest of my family was
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  basically blue-cold workers construction workers, electricians, pipe fitters, bank tellers,
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  manufacturing people and machine shops. Not really much going on in the science world.
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  And then even in high school and I was going to graduate high school I didn't even want to go to
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  college. I actually was going to enlist in the Navy and my father goes just apply to one school.
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  Just please do it. I was like ah fine so I applied to one small school and I didn't know what I
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  wanted to do but there was this major called food science and I'm like I like food. I like science.
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  I'm just going to go with it and that kind of started but yeah my family one thing my father and
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  mother did they love collecting things and that kind of segues into stuff I talked about early
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  which we'll cover later on but they love collecting things very hands on always building things around
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  the house doing a lot of construction yard work hands on stuff of cars and motorcycles so I really
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  had the hands on aspect which is why I think I fell in love with science and specifically what I
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  did in school because it was all hands on I'm working with my hands I'm purifying things creating
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  things and that's what I still do now. You chose the degree the undergrad that basically shaped
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  your entire life like people choose a liberal arts degree. Better believe it so. So what happened?
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  So I was like I'm going to go for this degree my dad Googles it and he's like you're going to be
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  making twinkies like what the hell are you doing food science? What is food science? So I go to an
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  open house and there's a professor there and he's like I'm the only one there for us for food science
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  the school I went to when I graduated it was only me and one of the kids graduating so it's a very
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  very small degree at this university and he's like oh I got to run to a class but I want to show
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  you something so he holds up these test tubes he's like do you see what this is I'm like I don't know
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  my parents are behind me like this guy's blacked and he's like look at this and he puts it
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  under UV light in one fluorescence blue one fluorescence green and one fluorescence red
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  and he's like these are all the toxins and peanut butter and milk that come from just you know
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  fungi growing on the crops I'm teaching about toxicology and I turned my dad's like I like this
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  this is fun exciting so that's literally how I picked it yeah and I actually didn't do well
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  in college but you graduated so my first year I almost failed out my GP I was like a 1.3 something
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  like that was it because was it because high school was easy and then when you get into college
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  you realize that you can't just drift through and now that I think about it so in high school
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  yeah it was I kind of I didn't really have to try I kind of would just do it my father would
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  always be like I don't understand the only high school kid would know homework and I'm
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  looking up and I did the homework but I you know whatever um so I I do bad the first year but then
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  I get my act together because my dad's like you better do better you get kicked out listen then
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  the school's like you're gonna get kicked out um so then I was on Dean's lesson presence list
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  every year after that I only graduate with a three point something after all that time and effort
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  but I still graduated and went on to grad school after that but that was also just a a whim decision
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  grad school yeah um the other journey that you could have taken in life you're very entrepreneurial
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  I think that that I mean that the things that you did growing up you still see that you still apply
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  the same I don't know entrepreneurship uh you know through it to build things like that has always
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  been a through line so I know that when you first uh we're going to school there was an opportunity
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  for you to go on to TV and you know you talk about your brother and how you both like collecting
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  things and from a young age you're very entrepreneurial you're well with arbitraging um collecting
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  what buying collections and then reselling them either at auction or online yeah so uh I want to
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  understand you know what the opportunity was before you chose to do your postdoc because it took
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  correct me from wrong I haven't done that much school so it's undergrad which is what I did that
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  I did my MBA which is like grad and then after that is PhD then postdoc yeah so I did my
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  bachelor's then I did my master's then I did my PhD and then I went on after as a visiting
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  research scholar okay so after you did your PhD uh what was your other life you could have
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  pursued before you chose the postdoc so my brother and I had the opportunity to uh create a reality
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  TV show called Kings of Pop and was produced by um members of the A&E team um and it was all about
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  collecting collectibles reality TV and because at the time uh my brother was you know he
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  he was on travel channels toy hunter again ready for antiques road show um and it was all about
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  collecting so we went to the director of the Blair Witch Project at Water Sanchez house talk
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  looked at a star was collection filmed a few episodes and that was in 2015 and that was right when
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  I was graduating my PhD so at the end we did the pilot it was screened we were like okay am I
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  gonna go into reality TV or have this opportunity that came up at Harvard Medical School like what do
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  I pick and I already did what uh 10 plus years of college and I was like uh do I want to risk it
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  all to go film for six months and have the show flop and lose this opportunity or kind of go with
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  what I know so I ended up going to you know the medical hover map and at this at this point
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  what what is your you have a very interesting life I'm just gonna say that because we're gonna go
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  through it and your life is actually very interesting all the different things that you've done but
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  at this point um what is your what is your what is your uh passion what kind of science do you care
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  about after four year undergrad in food science you do your masters in food science so now you
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  love PhD in food science so it makes a lot of sense that you're probably gonna figure out how to
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  have a career in food science um when you go through everything you have your PhD and then you're
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  going to your postdoc and also food science I know longevity longevity farm to genetics what does
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  that mean like what kind of job is food science what are you what are you solving for humanity with
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  food science so every single thing people drink from that winter water or any food they touch
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  a food scientist has worked on it and food science in my opinion is one of the most applied
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  sciences you can go for because your your goal is to make something that everyone will eat or touch
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  so you could be in food micro food safety product design so developing you know cookies or chips
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  or the next snack bar or healthy foods or you can be food engineering so actually working on the
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  machines that make the food processing in the food processing plants it's phenomenal um I think
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  you know based on my experience what I know being on the board of a department a few other things
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  it's one of the most underappreciated jobs with one of the highest job placement rates
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  in general because everyone needs to eat we have finite land the population keeps growing so
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  somehow we have to provide food for all the people while we're losing resources and food
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  science is an interesting thing so originally I was going to be a professor so I started teaching
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  at Boston University when I was 23 that's young no yeah it's pretty young so I was teaching classes
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  in the graduate undergraduate for in the department of health sciences at Boston University my goal
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  after a graduate my PhD go there full-time and teach there but the opportunity to Harvard came up
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  and what made you switch from food sciences to longevity that was an opportunity so I was doing
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  my PhD and I remember I got a phone call Boston area coach I thought it was BU pick it up and
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  this is guy Davidson Claire from Harvard Medical School he's a big deal I had no idea who he was
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  and he's like hey Kyle I read some of your papers you're the only person in the world doing this
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  type of work how about you come to my lab and work on this when you don't your PhD and
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  what he was asking me to do was in the wheelhouse of what I did so like let me step back like
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  you know how math is like a universal language science is the same thing like even though I'm in
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  food science all the techniques that I learned and used can be applied to all other sciences whether
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  running protein gels or sequencing or doing enzyme assays yeah I applied it for like in my case
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  beans sprouts but all those techniques I could use in your genetics and longevity so even though
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  it seems like a big stretch scientifically my the toolbox I had fit like a glove so I decided
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  to go there was there ever a point in your career when you went back and used some of the food science
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  all the time all the time so believe it or not cosmetics are very similar to food a lot of the
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  ingredients in cosmetics of food ingredients so you making emulsions or delivery systems or
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  stability even the cadence of creating things and the business sense for margins and production
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  scale timelines kind of mirror that of the food industry so I use it all the time believe you're
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  what we're spending so much time studying food and food science what are some I would say
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  scary unnerving things about the food that we eat that people don't quite know there's a few things
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  I'm in the mindset of moderation is key so yeah there's some negative attributes to foods maybe
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  some of the preservatives are the colorants but everything in moderation you know should balance
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  out fine it's even like if you McDonald's like fast food like eating it now and then isn't going
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  to destroy you but having a moderation mindset is is good my biggest thing pet peeve is like kind
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  of the marketing side where people market things as like the cure for something or help alleviate
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  something and the science is there but it's not science that's actually been proven out as
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  rigorously as some people think well I see so where I'm going with this is people speak a lot
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  about seed oils oh yeah that's people speak a lot about why they feel every time they go to Europe
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  they lose weight and they feel healthier versus when they're in the US obviously pesticides and
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  plus like every second fitness guru on Instagram has their own view about food and what you
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  should eat in this diet and that diet but not many people are scientific and I'm curious what
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  actually holds weight or what actually is true outside of just some you know Instagram influencer
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  spouting off the latest trend so like seed oils and other things that a pro inflammatory things
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  that drive inflammation you know inflammation is bad information causes a lot of problems but
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  there are a lot of other things that are inflammatory as well like my favorite is like you know I don't
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  want to eat you know seed oil or something but I'll go drink alcohol every night and you know what
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  I mean it's like you have to in the it has to be a whole lifestyle change right and even some
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  diets like paleo diets or or some of these other things they're not necessarily sustainable for
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  a long period of time they're good to cut weight or they're good to like you know get you feel good
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  for a little bit but you can't live on those your whole life it's difficult so like I always say
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  like moderation and try to stick within the 2000 calorie 2500 cow because that alone that would
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  sleep in good hydration will make you feel amazing because a lot of people don't realize how many
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  calories are actually taking in and if you try to stick with the 2000 calorie 2500 calorie whatever
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  you want to do you'd be like wow I actually like can't eat the snacks or the chip so the things
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  I go to all the time but there is one you know things to say to whole whole foods or minimally
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  processed foods we get a lot of fiber a lot of nutrients right nothing will replace those
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  it's just our biology and how fast things absorb how you feel after glycemic index things
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  like that that impacted feelings is part of the work that food scientists do and I guess this
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  I it's not like a conspiracy but it sounds like something that is a little bit nefarious like
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  including ingredients and foods that make them addictive is that so I guess I'm going to say no
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  like it's not intentional but food is designed for what to sell yeah right like if you're a food
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  company and your goal is to sell you want to make foods that people want and people want certain
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  foods because we're biologically designed to want high calorie foods because back when we were
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  in the caves we didn't know when we would eat so we we have that craving for high calorie foods
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  like high fats stuff like that because we want to pack on as much as we can but now with our
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  sedentary lifestyle you know all these different things is kind of counteracting are still craving
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  the same foods but we don't move in everything's accessible right I can go down to the store and buy
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  a bag of chips for 99 cents that's amazing that's great you know so it's a different you have to
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  look at all facets you were working with bean sprouts yeah yeah so bean sprouts I think they've
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  sort of carried through all of your work because what I'm looking at here they impacted your work
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  with David St. Clair they also impact some of the things that you did in space with NASA
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  a whole bunch of so talk to me about bean sprouts and this is work that you were doing when you were
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  still in school yeah so my PhD was all about beans sprouts of all things but beans sprouts are
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  incredibly dirty and I say dirty as they have a lot of bacteria a lot of bacteria on bean sprouts
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  in their minimally processed which means you know if you have some foodborne pathogens on there
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  and you eat them raw you get sick so one of the things around bean sprouts is bacterial biofilms
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  and these are basically structures that bacteria builds like on your teeth you know like you don't
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  brush your teeth and you scrape it like the stuff come that's a bacterial biofilm it's the same
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  thing happens on produce on bean sprouts same thing happens on the international space station
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  the water systems same thing happens with some of the stuff we're working with David with
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  and I was trying to figure out how to stop them and so I developed a novel disinfectant it's
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  this is patented where I would make spontaneous nanomulsions of carvercrawl oil it's a
• 22:16
  essential oil and we're basically disinfect beans sprouts and seeds and make them safer we actually
• 22:21
  went and pitched this to commercialize it but the manufacturing process in your overall like a cost
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  per unit was just a little too high for farmers to really adopt because the margins on bean sprouts
• 22:36
  are like razor thin like you're not making a lot so adding you know an extra 10 cents per
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  it kills it kills it so but the technology was sounding great it just was an example of something
• 22:47
  that wasn't commercially viable because the economics didn't plan out so how do you take that
• 22:52
  into longevity research so one of the so there's another technology I was working on with a bunch
• 22:57
  of these enzymes and these enzymes break broke down components of bacterial biofilms and there's
• 23:04
  one specific part that broke down DNA and believe it or not bacterial biofilms are held together by
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  extraneous DNA so DNA that bacteria release and it acts like a glue so longevity wise
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  the organisms that this came from are called extremophiles so these are organisms that live in
• 23:25
  extreme environments and this one organism was able to grow at 55 degrees centigrade that's like
• 23:32
  135 hundred thirty seven degrees Fahrenheit and why David was interested was how can this organism
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  survive for a long time without taking on a bunch of mutations and mutating and dying right so
• 23:48
  we're looking at like DNA repair mechanisms and the enzymes associated with it because with
• 23:53
  longevity damaged your DNA accelerates the aging process and this is some called epigenetic drift
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  where over time all the environmental stuff we get exposed to whether it's food,
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  pollution, sunlight makes these damages over time where eventually we we're not what we used to
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  be in this series of cancer so we were trying to figure out how we can hijack these extremophiles
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  and use them to protect ourselves and understand aging and that led to another patent that ended up
• 24:24
  bringing us into the bio defense space which is a whole other thing. Was there was there anything
• 24:31
  that you discovered that is currently used commercially? Yeah yeah so the enzymes are used in some
• 24:40
  of our commercial products like face cleansers toner stuff like that now the commercial okay okay
• 24:45
  and then the stuff from space is used in sunscreen stuff like that but the delivery system
• 24:52
  that hasn't been licensed or incorporated but the technology the fundamentals around the
• 24:57
  technology are being incorporated in other areas. Well I meant like in terms of DNA protection.
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  Yeah so not commercially used but in a lot of research for whether it's astronauts' health
• 25:10
  on the way to Mars. Not how that gets one of the things. Okay one of the things yeah so I wouldn't
• 25:17
  say it's not on the market but it's the foundation for a lot of research now that's moving forward
• 25:22
  in the space. When you when you when you patent these like very novel technologies or is that the
• 25:30
  right word technology? Technologies. What's the path from when you start working on it until somebody
• 25:38
  can go buy it and then use it for themselves for whatever longevity practice. So it depends on
• 25:44
  the type of product right so for example with the space ingredient which we'll cover we proved it
• 25:51
  in lab we did all the clinical testing we submitted it for patent but then we have to go from a test
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  tube to scale right like doing something the lab is great but if you can't scale it to the
• 26:02
  masses it's useless so then you have to scale that and then once that scale then you got to put
• 26:07
  it in products and then you got to scale the products you got to test the thing goes to market
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  so for like the ingredients for a lot of the products we have maybe three, four years
• 26:19
  may five years depending on how complex it is the the space ingredient that was when you say
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  space ingredient just to clarify that solves the DNA protecting ingredient that one that's
• 26:32
  sun protection and sun protection and DNA protection DNA activation that's one of them yeah
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  six, five years give or take. When these products actually roll out and somebody can buy them
• 26:47
  based on your work with Davis and Claire and a lot of the other longevity items that you worked on
• 26:51
  what is that actually in your opinion mean for the human lifespan, health, wellness, disease,
• 26:58
  mitigation. It's actually a big deal. I have no doubt it sounds like a very big deal. So it's
• 27:03
  exciting and I'm still blown away every time I see products that feature our ingredients in them.
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  I'm like wow I can't believe like it's real like you know I'm just like blown away nothing's
• 27:13
  cool. You're on bleeding edge. Nothing's cooler than you know seeing something you develop you
• 27:18
  worked on for years and years and years now be accepted and adopted by the industry. It's phenomenal
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  but like for one of the ingredients helps protect from sun damage and sun damage is a huge thing
• 27:31
  and it actually is added to sunscreens and helps increase the sun protection factor. You know
• 27:36
  skin cancer is a big deal. People are craving for innovation brands and companies are craving for
• 27:41
  innovation because there's almost no innovation in sunscreen protection at all in the US and it's
• 27:47
  just great to see something that we worked on that start I was a novel research project ended up
• 27:54
  changing an industry. No, I know I have no doubt I mean it's phenomenal. Well I mean even looking
• 27:59
  at just so from what it sounds like when you when you do this research you target you will target
• 28:06
  sun damage is one of the most practical applications for this but there's a whole bunch of other
• 28:10
  applications that can eventually be applied but you're probably focusing on the most commercially
• 28:14
  viable application or the most whatever the most useful application of this technology.
• 28:20
  Yeah you have to like juggle it because time to market is a big factor and then obviously you
• 28:27
  know you got your tam and and where it can go especially when you're in regulated spaces you
• 28:32
  got to figure out okay if this is regulated by like a drug agency is it worth the 10 plus years
• 28:38
  and X millions of dollars are you going to recoup that when you when you finally launch in our case
• 28:44
  the answer was no so we went another way and went into SPF boosting where it's not the main
• 28:50
  protection that's in a sunscreen but it boosts the current protection and makes it more effective.
• 28:55
  That was a faster timeline to market a shorter cost of entry and production was a lot cheaper
• 29:03
  than making a drug so we decided to make that decision to go to market faster so we can actually
• 29:08
  start generating revenue to fuel some of the other R&D projects we have on bill. How many how many
• 29:17
  longevity products life saving product disease prevention products never see the light of day
• 29:25
  because of the economics not working out well just look at drugs right so people will put in decades
• 29:31
  and decades of work on a drug they'll put millions and millions of dollars then all of a sudden it
• 29:36
  fails safety or you know you'll go through phase one you'll go through phase two but then when it
• 29:41
  goes to phase three trials which you know takes you years 10 plus years to get there it fails right
• 29:47
  so they're more often than not products fail whether it's in the drug space or in the commercial
• 29:56
  space in the commercial space is interesting because you could still go to market with something
• 30:00
  with some scientific claims but it may not actually work per se like some of the supplement
• 30:06
  industry stuff like that but in regulated spaces where like a sunscreen for example where there
• 30:13
  has to be efficacy you know that's you have to make stuff work there um was there anything that
• 30:20
  you were working on that would could that could significantly impact some how long somebody can
• 30:26
  can live yeah there was and is this like a telomeres thing is this like anything to do not that's
• 30:31
  the job there no um I always hear that word associated with the length of telomeres that's questionable
• 30:38
  in my opinion honest opinion but you know we have a sister company a drug company and they're in
• 30:48
  five phase two trials working on various indications linked to agent with all novel compounds so
• 30:53
  that's like the exact opposite so I'm in the consumer product space you know get to market to help
• 31:00
  the masses the other arm of the business which I'm part of I'm not involved with them day to day but
• 31:07
  we're in the same groups uh is going to drug route where they're targeting very specific indications
• 31:13
  linked to aging uh with a bunch of novel compounds and uh so those are going to be monumental because
• 31:20
  they target some of them are vast vast uh indices like diabetes or acute kidney disease and also
• 31:27
  some very small ones as well niche markets um that will be game changes too so that's that's a big deal
• 31:35
  that's the drug side drug so I mean um when I think about some of the work that you've done I want to
• 31:41
  talk about before we go into into delivery and what and what you do now um I think that it's
• 31:46
  interesting to just talk about how at certain points in your career to find these extreme
• 31:51
  of files you were going 5,000 feet underground and to abandon minds like talk to me about the day
• 31:57
  in the life of somebody like a scientist like what are you what are you doing to find
• 32:03
  novel technologies and novel what's an extreme of file what is it an organism?
• 32:09
  yeah an organism that lives in extreme environments yeah where are you finding these organisms that
• 32:14
  impact a consumer good uh somebody on the space station like so how do you even for a second
• 32:22
  think if I go 5,000 feet underground this is what I'm going to discover there's going to have so
• 32:26
  many other applications it's all in the mindset so I started out with extreme of files
• 32:32
  2009 and what I did was I put in insemination glove on like for cows it goes all over my shoulder
• 32:39
  and I shoved my arm into pile of dead animals and feces and I pulled out samples and from that
• 32:48
  I isolated maybe 20 new species of extreme files so I've been working with extreme files
• 32:54
  since 2009 these have a million different applications millions and millions of different applications
• 32:59
  now um I've even worked so I'll give another story so during the BP oil spill this was 2010 I think
• 33:07
  or something like that um my lab was contracted I was contracted by an environmental group
• 33:13
  to try to find like a bacterial remediation for the oil spill so I went to a pine forest
• 33:20
  and I isolated samples from pine tree roots and you make it why the hell would you go to pine tree
• 33:26
  well pine trees secrete pine oil and I know it's not the same type of hydrocarbon structures oil
• 33:32
  but pine oil if enzymes can hydroize that and bacteria can use that for food there's a good chance
• 33:37
  they can hydroize petroleum based products so we actually found three organisms that could break down
• 33:44
  oil and was so crazy I remember getting buckets and buckets of oil like oil tarballs all this stuff
• 33:51
  from the beaches of Alabama and working on it day and night trying to figure this out we actually
• 33:57
  found three organisms that could do it um and a way to remove the oil from the sand and we sent
• 34:02
  that over to the environmental group in BP and they used it for some time uh to to break down
• 34:08
  the oil so that was 2010 so it's thinking what can you use like the mine for example yeah
• 34:17
  uh in the mine it was full of pro-oxidants things that drive oxidation or promote inflammation
• 34:24
  so if these organisms could survive in an environment that would normally oxidize or break down
• 34:30
  or destroy DNA they're they must be doing something to survive so I go down there I find them
• 34:37
  do some stuff in the lab and then I find out what they're producing or what compounds they make
• 34:41
  that protect themselves and then see how it impacts your skin so it seems like a lot of a lot of
• 34:48
  the work that that you've done is you you find organisms in one environment and you figure out
• 34:53
  how they can impact everything else yeah and that's the easy part the hard part is bringing it
• 34:58
  to market like commercial life figuring out how to produce it it's okay you have to prove out
• 35:03
  it's a variety of tests and long process so it's safe yeah figure out how to manufacture it and all
• 35:08
  that stuff yeah it's very interesting so talk to me about how bean sprouts then went into extremophiles
• 35:17
  and then eventually ended up on the space station and working with NASA and I have a word here
• 35:22
  and I'm gonna I'm gonna say it but I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right uh basilis lysate
• 35:27
  that's right it is okay right so here's the story uh so the extremophiles that I was isolating
• 35:33
  produced enzymes that could break down bacterial biofilms on the international space station
• 35:40
  the water systems are filled with bacterial biofilms and there's no way to clean and why is that
• 35:45
  it's just been up there for decades and bacteria oh it's not like a space thing it's like a
• 35:49
  it's just well remember we go up to the space station we shed bacteria all over the place
• 35:56
  it colonizes it's not like they're up there with bleach like bleaching things because they'll
• 36:00
  oxidize all their computers all their components all their delicate equipment and these bacteria
• 36:06
  grow and some of them even short circuit the computers like bacteria will grow on the circuits
• 36:11
  and blow out like cause electrical issues it's crazy so we're working with um JPL we did some
• 36:21
  subcontracts and did some research on removing bacteria biofilms uh that linked to space station
• 36:28
  and then we started looking at dead bug bodies on like uh the Mars rover and uh so perseverance and
• 36:35
  insight two things that went to Mars and we figured out how to remove those and trying to figure
• 36:40
  out you know what what's going on there so while we're working with them they go hey we did this
• 36:45
  experiment you know 10 years ago or something and we have this organism that survived outside of
• 36:50
  the space station for a year and a half and when we brought it back down it survived UVC radiation
• 36:57
  maybe you can use it for something maybe it'll just give this to you and it'd be like figure it out
• 37:03
  well we're like hmm all right maybe it's for a sunscreen and they patented it they had they had a
• 37:08
  JPL had a patent on it for some applications like UV protection stuff like that so we took it in
• 37:14
  the lab now UVC is not it's relevant to us but our ozone layer blocks it we came out for about
• 37:21
  UVB UVA so after about a year and a half two years of work we were able to extend its protection
• 37:28
  into the UVB and UVA range and when we started putting it in sunscreens it significantly improve
• 37:35
  the sunscreen factors some protect your fact so we said hey we have something and then we looked at
• 37:41
  the market and we're like wow there's not a lot of innovation here going on in the sunscreen space
• 37:47
  everything's like zinc or titanium or you know avabend zone or almost list later also sounds not
• 37:53
  so healthy well yeah there's a lot of issues with some of those things which is why a lot of people
• 37:57
  are getting rid of them or some of them are banned now they're phasing them out so there's need for
• 38:02
  innovation and then we said okay how do we make this a product and then the journey started
• 38:08
  but working with NASA and JPL a lot of those pride I mean going to JPL campus going to the simulated
• 38:14
  sunroom seeing mission control playing and messing around with the Mars rover it was it was awesome
• 38:20
  yeah the one thing that I thought about when you said it survived outside the space station is
• 38:24
  if it's surviving outside the space station it's definitely not dying once it's inside my well
• 38:28
  there's no real bacteria in it right we extract we extract the compounds that it makes to block
• 38:34
  the radiation so you're not actually getting back to this extra living thing no it's not like a
• 38:40
  probiotic where you eat the live bacteria the bacteria is grown and then we extract and pull out
• 38:46
  the act of components so this is how an organism's ability to survive radiation in space that
• 38:52
  translates into human skin benefits is the skin benefits exactly yeah um I have a note here
• 38:59
  that clinical trials show a 48% reduction in melanin yeah yeah so explain to me how because
• 39:06
  melanin is found in your skin already so does this work twofold it blocks it blocks the sun
• 39:13
  but then it also impacts like age spots you know dark spots yeah exactly so the ingredient is
• 39:19
  really cool this is where the longevity factor comes yeah so when we did the UV testing we're like
• 39:24
  this is great but we're like this has to also do something else because blocking UV is one thing
• 39:31
  but there has to be something like mechanically going on to kind of protect it so we start
• 39:36
  to look at various things the first thing we looked at were sertuins and sertuins are these
• 39:42
  ancient enzymes are like DNA repair they're linked to longevity you know activating them has been
• 39:48
  shown to extend lifespan and yeast and and worms a whole bunch of other things and that's one of the
• 39:54
  key you know pathways linked to you know epigenetics repairing your DNA damage stuff like that
• 40:01
  so we found that this turns on sertuins and we're like wow that's a big deal the second thing it did
• 40:08
  was outside of you know helping with UV it absorbed and blocked radicals or things that promote
• 40:15
  oxidation from sun exposure that lead to accelerating skin aging so not only does sun you know come in
• 40:23
  and potentially damage your DNA but it can also start cross-linking things in your skin like collagen
• 40:28
  elastin all the proteins and this blocks that and then we found out that our products
• 40:37
  impact male overexpressing melanin cells which are linked to age spots and in dark spots
• 40:45
  and we this we didn't even know so we did the clinical trial and all the people came back
• 40:50
  you know like hey can I talk to you about something we're like yeah what is it we thought it was
• 40:53
  hard you know like like my age spots are going away and that wasn't like something that we were
• 41:00
  told to look for now so what now like yeah like all of our age spots the little things they're
• 41:07
  they're gone like I started putting on other parts of my body to get rid of them so we look
• 41:11
  oh we got to go back to lab so we went back to lab we figured out the pathways it inhibited what
• 41:16
  it blocked and we're able to reproduce it with enzyme assays and also tissue culture assays
• 41:22
  that land up with the clinical data we did on humans so this isn't just now at this point you
• 41:26
  discover it's not just impacting like melanin and it's not just protecting from the sun but then
• 41:30
  it's actually addressing like other visible signs of aging so what's actually happening with the
• 41:36
  other parts of the the age spots that are disappearing yeah so what it's doing is it's sequestering
• 41:42
  so with the DNA repair which are two ends and then the up regulation of hyoronic acid in
• 41:49
  your cells the protection from the strong antioxidant protection from radicals all that stuff
• 41:57
  you we say it's bio optimizing this it decels it's it's getting the cells back to the best possible
• 42:05
  function they can be at that time it's getting like the nutrients for it and it's impacting all
• 42:11
  these key pathways like tyrosinase which is an enzyme that leads to hyperpigmentation it's
• 42:16
  slowing that pathway down it's helping these other DNA repair pathways kick up and it you
• 42:23
  blew us away like we weren't expecting that and that's what we're like you know what we really
• 42:27
  have to like come out and really make something with it outside of good diet sleep take care of
• 42:36
  yourself are there any other ideas that maybe the Instagram health and wellness longevity
• 42:43
  influencers put out that are actually helpful so like things like coal plunges hyperburet chambers
• 42:52
  saw ir saw saw and as things like that like fasting stuff like that there's so calorie restriction
• 43:01
  is so far one of the only proven ways to extend longevity and that's intermittent fasting type
• 43:07
  of things right the other things yeah they're scientific evidence behind it but doing the
• 43:14
  fundamentals of sleep exercise and hydration and diet so those four things will outweigh any of
• 43:22
  the benefits you get from a coal plunge you know like those things are are small like if if you
• 43:29
  do those things but you have a horrible diet a horrible lifestyle you're going to counteract any
• 43:33
  benefit that's there so you want to do the most impactful things first then if you get to a point
• 43:38
  we're okay I'm running a lot I need to you know I want to increase my bio to math I want to start
• 43:43
  you'll fine tuning your body that's when you can go to those other things and really see if you
• 43:49
  can bio hack yourself but if you go in a coal plunge and then go sit on the beach get sun burnt go
• 43:57
  have a drink all day drink all day go eat taco bell three in the morning you know
• 44:02
  this is yes I feel like people use some of these like these health and wellness hacks as an excuse
• 44:09
  for a bad lifestyle and they're just like they make it they make them it makes you feel good about
• 44:13
  yourself if you coal plunge after you drink all night I just think that I mean if you're gonna do
• 44:20
  it if you're gonna do it like do the basics first and then and then all the other stuff is
• 44:24
  icing on the cake yeah yeah exactly your point if you're drinking if you're eating like shit if
• 44:28
  you're not sleeping like why why why why yeah why are you doing that you know what you you have a
• 44:33
  very specific approach to clinical testing that differs from the industry standard why is that
• 44:39
  important it's very important because I come from a drug development heavy science background
• 44:46
  so I want to know the products actually work more than just doing the subjective questionnaire a
• 44:52
  lot of cosmetic products or consumer care products well just do subjective questionnaires where
• 44:56
  they ask 20 30 people does your skin feel smoother than it did before the product yes or no
• 45:03
  like that's literally the answer and that's why you'll see things like 98% of people think their
• 45:08
  skin looked better after using it for a day right so we do a very intentional study where we do
• 45:18
  uh scientific proof for us so we look at tissue cultures uh enzyme assays x vivo data so a lot
• 45:25
  of in lab data then we go to the clinical testing we do clinical testing we do instrumental
• 45:31
  measurements so we use instruments to measure things we do expert grading so we have experts
• 45:35
  in the industry actually grade they look for wrinkles they look for smoothness then we do before
• 45:40
  and after and we actually computer analyzed before and after just to get solid data then we do
• 45:45
  subjective questionnaires and the icing on the cake is when every single one of those things line up
• 45:52
  and that's what happens with our products and that's why we release all the data on our website
• 45:57
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  scott clary I think that first I didn't realize how low the bar was for for taking a product to
• 48:43
  market I know listen I come from a sports background to a degree and I know how how interesting
• 48:50
  the supplement industry is yeah I don't know much about the cosmetic industry but I guess it's
• 48:55
  very similar very same and it's it always blows my mind at how lenient the got how lenient the
• 49:02
  rules are about what you can say a product does and I mean if we go back there's been products
• 49:07
  that not only are you know they're very lenient about their claims they actually have like
• 49:12
  band substances in them and what's interesting is you can go to market not do any testing
• 49:20
  based your claims on the ingredients you have in the product but you don't even know if the
• 49:24
  ingredients are active in your formulation so you can put something in there and be like oh this
• 49:29
  ingredient has been shown to do this yeah but you don't know what percentage it's in there you
• 49:33
  don't know if it does anything because you don't have to test it what percentage of the cosmetic
• 49:38
  or supplement industry is most most almost uh big chunk yeah big chunk so for the person
• 49:44
  listening who actually wants to buy products and do what they say they do I mean it's a
• 49:51
  mind field it's if you go into any outlet any store you read the packaging and you look at the
• 49:58
  claims and you see the little asterisk and you see it's made with 10 people yeah it's like 90 90
• 50:04
  percent of subjects said they love the product out of 10 people and you they don't really show it
• 50:10
  someone will show before and after photos but they don't highlight like they're so small and
• 50:15
  grain you can't see what they're showing yeah you know you go in the store you what does the FDA
• 50:20
  allow this because it's not regulated by the FDA it's not what was it regulated by nothing the FDA
• 50:26
  now has some called mocha modernization a cosmetic act uh which they're trying to regulate it but
• 50:32
  that's more for safety and accountability like if there is an issue if a bunch of people have a
• 50:37
  reaction or get burned or something they can trace it back but claims are just unless someone
• 50:44
  files something with the trade and you know the trade but why does the FDA care about a bag of
• 50:48
  Doritos and not like a pre workout because one's a supplement and one's food that's such as that's
• 50:56
  such a such a horrible answer though that's what it is though why was I mean do you know the history
• 51:03
  I don't know the history like was there one point when someone said hey you're putting this
• 51:07
  this supplement into your body let's not classify it under the FDA it's it's a whole it's like
• 51:13
  it's such an obvious it's yeah it's an obvious thing and it's basically on the company to do its
• 51:19
  due diligence to make it safe and uh if that's why there's so many issues with a lot of flash
• 51:25
  tiktok products yeah the celebrity gets on it promotes it then you never see the brand again
• 51:32
  because it was just a money grab out of all the different it's horrible it's it's scary it's
• 51:38
  hell it's super scary I shouldn't be laughing but yeah you know it's it's very I remember like
• 51:44
  there was a pre workout that used to exist called like Jack Jack 3d yeah and it had one three dimethyl
• 51:51
  yeah which stuff works I know it works because I know it's a band substance but it works
• 51:58
  what is what is that it was like a party drug or something I remember it was a stimulant that was
• 52:05
  in yeah I remember so back in the day when I could workout before kids and everything I would take
• 52:11
  out my body and I'd like see spots yeah I know and there's been there's been there's been
• 52:18
  there's been guys that have gone to jail because they put like steroids in their in their supplements
• 52:23
  it's a wild world man it's a wild world all the like I mean all people want to do is go into a
• 52:29
  GNC and not get shit that's going to kill them that's all that's all they want but you know
• 52:34
  what was in your research career and I knew you're doing R&D now too but what was your most
• 52:39
  significant scientific disappointment all right that's a good one so first um when I was doing
• 52:46
  my masters it took me a year and a half before I got any positive data that was very disappointing
• 52:52
  you know I was like I'm a bad scientist don't but and then the second thing was when I started my
• 52:57
  phg I started on a project um working on like an antibiotic uh something from an organism and I lost
• 53:05
  the strain so this was a cool bacteria that produced something that could kill E. coli for
• 53:10
  foodborne illness and then I was sloppy in the lab and I lost it awesome this is technical
• 53:17
  ran away like what do you know this is technical but the the genes are put on a plasmid and a
• 53:23
  plasmid's like a piece of DNA that's outside of the chromosome and I didn't maintain it properly from
• 53:30
  the temperature temperature growth conditions keeping it under certain pressures and it lost
• 53:36
  the plasmid so then it lost its ability to kill E. coli 0 and 5787 but that happened my
• 53:44
  advise was very upset but then I switched to a new project and I got five papers in a patent
• 53:50
  and then did a bunch of other stuff so it was kind of a blessing in disguise you can you can't
• 53:54
  recreate that though why not no because it was a specific and I didn't sequence it at the time
• 54:00
  so I didn't know what it was I was still doing like the rough stuff so once it's lost it's lost
• 54:06
  it's sad that's incredible when you think about like a take-to-market strategy for
• 54:11
  innovation and new technology and organism how did you think through that you didn't want to
• 54:16
  just keep it for yourself or so it was kind of already built in it was too late so when we started
• 54:22
  we discovered the SPF aspect before the longevity aspects and we were thinking more of an
• 54:28
  ingredient play so we were going to be an ingredient supplier for sunscreens but then after messing
• 54:34
  around the longevity aspect in our you know backgrounds and history in it in our connections in
• 54:39
  the industry in academia we thought let's make a longevity product the skincare product
• 54:48
  outside of the sunscreen and it was already too late we had other companies who were working with
• 54:52
  it for a year and a half already putting in sunscreens so we couldn't be like oh guess what you
• 54:56
  you can't do that anymore that is because it was licensed licensed out it wasn't really licensed
• 55:03
  but you know it was already kind of built into their supply they've already did the regulatory
• 55:08
  stuff to get it to market they already invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on their end to
• 55:12
  make a product so it would have just been you know bad bad business to say hey guess what you
• 55:18
  could have patented it yeah you could have you could have blocked them from using it in theory in
• 55:23
  theory we could have but originally we were going ingredients and then we decided to try skincare
• 55:29
  on a whim so we weren't planning on making serums or anything but the chairman was like hey Kyle
• 55:36
  just trying to make a serum see how it does only make like a hundred bottles see if it's
• 55:40
  unlikely we can make a hundred bottles you have to make a few thousand and we launched October
• 55:45
  2022 and by the end of the year we almost did half a million dollars in like two months with
• 55:50
  almost no advertising so what what was the what was the thing that was made the product so attractive
• 55:54
  people just loved it it worked they would say they noticed something in like a week or a few days
• 56:00
  and it was all word of mouth that spread the product so we were like wow we actually have a good
• 56:06
  serum here if we did a cold start yeah minimal advertising if any I did like an Instagram
• 56:11
  live I think you can't have a lot of and I know I don't have any and this is before I had
• 56:17
  social media so I was invited on an Instagram live with Davidson clearance to ruin a prune they have
• 56:23
  a lot of followers and that jump started and then I finally got on the social media van wagon
• 56:29
  last year late last year I think I'm like 300 dollars whatever but I'm trying not trying to go
• 56:35
  grow this will hopefully send a few more your way I want to talk a little bit about so the first
• 56:41
  product the delivery launch was obviously sun protection yeah the ingredient the ingredient but
• 56:48
  when you obviously are a scientist so when you think through what you're going to launch there's
• 56:51
  more than just that one particular piece of it so what other sort of novel skin care ingredients
• 56:57
  that you include yeah so when we launched the serum it was very intentional so we knew a
• 57:02
  bacillus lysate worked on what it did so we view like bacillus lysate as the engine but it needs gas
• 57:09
  to go right so the other ingredients we added were like the fuel to help drive the pathways
• 57:15
  that the bacillus lysate activates and that's from decades of not just my experience I don't have
• 57:22
  decades in it but you know David Sinclair and Harvard Medical's longevity type of understanding
• 57:27
  of the pathways we we fine tuned it to really work on those things okay that makes sense I
• 57:33
  know I want to I want to talk about skincare and skincare myths like what's useful and what's not
• 57:40
  but with your products what would be sort of like the theme around all the products that you
• 57:45
  actually launch so our products we don't have a lot of skews a lot of skincare companies will come
• 57:50
  up with 30 skews and you confuse as a consumer which one to use you have five different
• 57:55
  serums 10 different moisturizers right so we formulate it with intentionality so we will like
• 58:00
  okay let's make a serum let's make an eye cream which is very niche because eye skin is different
• 58:07
  let's make a general moisturizer and then we're coming out the sunscreen this year that's it
• 58:14
  for the aionia line which has a space ingredient our new line that's coming out uses
• 58:22
  novel enzymes from an extremophile to cleanse exfoliate and unplug your pores so this is what
• 58:28
  you use first to get your face ready for aionia with all the beneficial ingredients so we're very
• 58:35
  intentional again maybe we're gonna have three skews in there face wash toner and a mask that's
• 58:40
  that because we design things that work we show things that work clinically and we're not out
• 58:46
  to sell 50 different things you know there's a lot of noise there's a lot of yeah I want to be
• 58:52
  efficient as possible so I would just want I mean it's bad business I guess I should be making
• 58:57
  8000 I don't think so but I mean I don't function you can build businesses different ways yeah I
• 59:03
  don't think it's bad business I think it's I think it's when you have confidence in your product
• 59:09
  you aren't trying to cross sell into things that people don't need because it compromises the
• 59:12
  integrity of the company now if you don't have a science-based understanding of your product then you
• 59:19
  just have this this little survey you send out and you can send it a lot of surveys about a lot
• 59:25
  of different products and well you know I can cross sell and upsell and increase the LTV of the
• 59:29
  customer because all of our stuff works to some degree but it's not science-based but it seems
• 59:34
  like the market receives it well I don't know I like the way you build businesses better
• 59:41
  what are some of the biggest misconceptions because obviously most people have some sort of skin
• 59:46
  care routine I need I need I need a better one than just moisturizer I like in my mind I just
• 59:51
  want like a moisturizer that has everything in it because I just don't want to put on like five
• 59:55
  different things because I'm because I'm the guy I don't know but one of the biggest misconceptions
• 59:59
  about the average person's skin care stack that they have right now what do they need what do they
• 1:00:05
  not need yeah you basically need a good face wash yeah a good moisturizer and a good sunscreen
• 1:00:11
  not it doesn't different brown out it does a different product because what ends up happening with
• 1:00:15
  you have a dozen different products they can start causing negative reactions between one another
• 1:00:19
  that's why sometimes you'll add one thing and all of a sudden you have breakouts right and then
• 1:00:23
  you change something you'll have breakouts just like what I was saying with longevity like diet
• 1:00:28
  exercise hydration sleep basics for skin care find a good face wash that works find a good moisturizer
• 1:00:36
  and a serum you know for extra active as you if you want those and a sunscreen for protection
• 1:00:42
  see how that works because I've talked to a lot of people and they're like oh I got 15 things it
• 1:00:46
  takes me 45 minutes and like do you need all that they said well I'm afraid to not use it
• 1:00:52
  I see someone's a marketing reason why don't you just try doing the basic essentials for like
• 1:00:58
  two weeks because you can always go back to using what you used before it's not like you're
• 1:01:02
  gonna age exponentially in two weeks right so just see what you can cut back and if you notice
• 1:01:09
  anything and then you'll feel like liberated and self empowered and that's like one of the things
• 1:01:15
  like I like to talk about my aionian daily being what we go for it's like we want to give you
• 1:01:21
  things that work so that you feel like self empowered you're not like bogged down with 20 different
• 1:01:27
  things and you have to do this routine it's like just use these things and go with it and you know
• 1:01:32
  free up a lot of time is this where is this where the sort of the joke that guys don't put anything
• 1:01:39
  on their face and they always look good and then like women put on everything and they always
• 1:01:43
  have like skin condition I mean there's hormones and stuff too built in there but I mean unless
• 1:01:48
  you're using like junky soap and stuff like that but if you use a basic moisturizer and a good
• 1:01:53
  face wash like you're not you're not stressing your skin remember the more products I mean 12
• 1:01:59
  products yeah that's stressing the skin so you're wondering why you're always trying to like you
• 1:02:04
  know you're suffering from some kind of skin condition and now there's a big push and understanding
• 1:02:09
  in the skin microbiome which wasn't here 10 plus years ago now we are starting to understand
• 1:02:14
  what these products do to your microbiome on your skin which can lead to acne, boil, scarring
• 1:02:20
  right and again we were I don't want to say head of the curve but we were very intentional we made
• 1:02:25
  our products we made sure they were healthy and beneficial for your skin microbiome they're actually
• 1:02:30
  certified beneficial for your skin microbiome which again there's something that we're trying to
• 1:02:35
  show how our products are intentionally designed what does it mean when somebody says scientifically
• 1:02:43
  proven versus clinically tested yeah so scientifically proven and clinically tested or clinically
• 1:02:48
  proven at two different things scientifically proven is done in a lab test to tissue culture not
• 1:02:54
  done on humans clinically tested is done in a clinical setting on humans with subjective end
• 1:02:59
  points and time points so a lot of consumers don't realize that they think well if it's scientifically
• 1:03:04
  proven it must have been tested on people that's not true they could have just done an enzyme ass
• 1:03:09
  or did something in a tissue culture plate showed that it worked but there's no guarantee that it
• 1:03:15
  translates over into actually working on the body if you think about all the other skincare trends
• 1:03:22
  like micro needling chemical exfoliation what's useful what's not like exfoliation why the
• 1:03:32
  because there's some good stuff there but there's also a lot of like hype and marketing pull
• 1:03:40
  in there you know a good exfoliation cleansing unplugging your pores removing the dead cells
• 1:03:47
  that is necessary micro needling is good to help get things deep into the skin
• 1:03:52
  um but again too much is a bad thing I mean you can go and if you have so much damage
• 1:03:56
  occurring to your skin over and over again it's not going to you know be able to rebound
• 1:04:02
  as if you do it in smaller increments same thing with lasers right like people will go get lasers
• 1:04:08
  and then their face will be all inflamed and then they'll get hyperpigmentation because they
• 1:04:13
  damage their face and it's like how do you prevent that well now you got to use something else
• 1:04:18
  well maybe you shouldn't have done you know 10 laser treatments you know it's it's a balance you
• 1:04:23
  know it's a balance what what claims or ingredient what ingredients do you think make claims
• 1:04:30
  that are just super hyperbolic super exaggerating or and or are just downright false and dangerous
• 1:04:39
  so it depends um if you look at the products if they test on the products the claims are around
• 1:04:46
  the product it's of it's hard to pinpoint individual ingredient so they just bulk
• 1:04:51
  because they bulk it all together um if they do an individual ingredient you have to question
• 1:04:58
  was this ingredient tested by itself or was this ingredient or endpoint tested with the final product
• 1:05:05
  it's hard to say if it's dangerous or not because they're all they all have to be safety tested
• 1:05:10
  right there ought to be stuff in there it's just is the dose that's in there actually causing
• 1:05:17
  the outcome that they're claiming in the final product and that's where having where you do
• 1:05:23
  the scientific testing the clinical testing and then testing the ingredient by itself is needed to
• 1:05:28
  support about very few companies actually go out and do that because a lot of them just buy
• 1:05:32
  ingredients from ingredient suppliers like they don't create their own ingredients they buy them
• 1:05:37
  put them together and it's the same ingredient you'll get in one brand as it is in another it's
• 1:05:42
  just a different product and a different celebrity on it but without naming brands are there
• 1:05:47
  anything is there anything that's actually dangerous if people should stop using
• 1:05:53
  things with a lot of acid very low pH a lot of the chemical peels things like that
• 1:05:59
  can cause some damage things that react in the sun like a lot of products that have high
• 1:06:05
  retinal stuff like that that actually reacts in the sunlight and can cause damage to the skin
• 1:06:10
  so you gotta be very careful with what you use when you use it and how you read the use case
• 1:06:15
  in instructions some people don't read instructions they just put it on whenever they feel like
• 1:06:20
  and then they'll have like user error user error but they you know like they'll go on the sun if
• 1:06:24
  they put on like retinal cream stuff like that and then cause get burns and stuff you do have to
• 1:06:29
  have a podcast I think you do have to have a podcast because you see people spending outside of
• 1:06:34
  the fact that you have a company that has good products that are science based and science back
• 1:06:39
  the research has actually been put into it the education around how to use it and also just the
• 1:06:45
  exceptional amount of money that's wasted on products is not good it's it like I don't know
• 1:06:52
  I always when there's products it impact your health obviously every company needs good marketing
• 1:06:59
  but sometimes when you have great marketing and a product that hurts you know hurts your health
• 1:07:04
  and well being I'm not really a big fan of that yeah there was a woman on the plane when I
• 1:07:08
  so you should at my point is yeah you should have a podcast so you can educate so I can educate
• 1:07:13
  people on food and cut all space art whatever you we haven't even spoken about art yeah it's a whole
• 1:07:20
  other it's a whole other side it's a funny funny thing though there's a woman on the plane
• 1:07:24
  when I was flying down we were talking and she heard herself running she's springed a ankle and
• 1:07:28
  something with a tendon and she bought these peptide pills for $80 she's like do you know what
• 1:07:33
  this peptide is I was like no that's like a trademark like random peptide and she said that
• 1:07:39
  the advertisements were saying they would help improve muscle growth and and damaged ligaments and
• 1:07:44
  stuff because it improves collagen and I was like I don't know if that's good and she's like well
• 1:07:51
  you know I spent $80 I took it for two months and I didn't notice anything I'm like yeah that's
• 1:07:56
  usually what happens with those sounds like the the upscale version of the gas station of
• 1:08:05
  Viagra that's the bee pill yeah yeah yeah when you go weed I think yeah exactly that's exactly
• 1:08:12
  what it sounds like because I mean I know a little bit about peptides I've had some people speak
• 1:08:16
  about them but most of them are not a lot of them you take through a pill format usually injection
• 1:08:23
  yeah because you get denature in your stomach or the bacteria break them down and it's people I
• 1:08:28
  mean this is my again outside of just like health and wellness influencers a lot of companies take
• 1:08:34
  advantage of someone stress out about about how they look how they feel and hey for 20 bucks yeah
• 1:08:44
  which is like maybe a few days worth of coffee you might as well try to see if it works and you
• 1:08:48
  multiply it by 100 million people but then forget the fact that somebody spent 20 or 80 bucks
• 1:08:55
  like if it isn't effective then what's in it what's what's in the filler in the pill or what's
• 1:09:01
  in any of it that you're putting into you methyl cellulose which is just nothing rice flour
• 1:09:07
  that's the best case scenario yeah that's the best case yeah the best case is it doesn't
• 1:09:13
  that has like a neutral impact yeah what when you think about you know moving from
• 1:09:19
  scientists to entrepreneur and you'll always be a scientist but now you're you're building an
• 1:09:23
  actual business what would be your biggest challenge in taking like cutting edge research science
• 1:09:29
  backed products and then bringing it to the market yeah this is a big one because scientists and
• 1:09:34
  academics want to drill down and get every answer and be perfectionist and that's not what's
• 1:09:39
  needed you have to get it to a point where it's acceptable and it's functional and I'll make an
• 1:09:43
  impact in the market launch with that and then make innovations and improve it as you go because
• 1:09:50
  you will be killed by trying to make something as perfect as possible and as someone who is in the
• 1:09:56
  space I will always see imperfections it's like if you build something right it may look amazing but
• 1:10:01
  you know we're all the imperfection and you try to go and fix it it's the same thing with products
• 1:10:05
  and then you'll end up in a downward spiral where it's like oh I got to wait to fix that
• 1:10:09
  go to wait to fix that wait to fix that and then you never go to market it's it's death by analysis
• 1:10:15
  or over overthinking if you can get a good product consumers like it's going to be impactful you
• 1:10:21
  launch with it and then you take that feedback and you make the appropriate changes because what
• 1:10:26
  you think is important may not be what is important for the market or for consumers right like we're
• 1:10:32
  going through this now like I love the bottle I love the dropper but consumers find it confusing
• 1:10:37
  and I would have never known that unless I launched it right and now we're trying to change it we're
• 1:10:42
  moving you know we're adapting as it goes but I've known a lot of people and we have a great idea
• 1:10:49
  but they say it's not ready it's not ready it's not ready and then someone else comes out with it
• 1:10:53
  and they get scooped and then there's nothing right and that's uh so you have to know when
• 1:10:59
  to call it you have to know when to call it you have to know how to take a complex product
• 1:11:06
  and find a way to tie it into existing user behavior as well to your point about the dropper
• 1:11:11
  there was a point where I tried to launch a a Trans-Dermal Vitamin patch company and
• 1:11:18
  telling somebody that instead of drinking a coffee in the morning versus putting on a patch with
• 1:11:22
  caffeine it's a hard user behavior to crack right like they're not they don't want to put on a
• 1:11:27
  passive natural no they have to have this whole experience of drinking a coffee and to build a
• 1:11:32
  business I would say that trying to modify human behavior is one of the the highest friction points
• 1:11:38
  you can overcome so if you don't have to don't do it find a way if possible to take what they're
• 1:11:43
  already used to and then just layer on a better product that's even a slightly better product
• 1:11:48
  i mean in your case it's a significantly better product but even a slightly better product
• 1:11:52
  tied into existing user behavior is going to be probably the easiest way to take some of the
• 1:11:56
  easiest in the consumers will think it's amazing because it's better than what they have
• 1:11:59
  yes and what they know and even though you know there's more you know you have it is room for
• 1:12:04
  other improvement but it's for any business you gotta think like that i'm curious if like the
• 1:12:10
  scientific messaging helps or hurts your marketing yeah it's that's a big problem so
• 1:12:17
  when we launch we're very very science heavy and it almost scares some people i just think so
• 1:12:23
  now we're we're we're dialing it back we're going i don't want to say rebrand but we're
• 1:12:28
  dialing back on more of the crazy innovation and more of things that support why the innovation
• 1:12:33
  is good so testimonies reviews before things that are digestible it's very hard to digest
• 1:12:41
  all the crazy stuff that goes into it because people just want to use it and see if it works they
• 1:12:45
  don't care about the science and it was good to cut through the noise but now as we're maturing
• 1:12:50
  we're understanding okay we have to dial it back and instead of being science forward and then
• 1:12:57
  everything will be like oh here's why it's great here's what people are seeing here's the benefits
• 1:13:02
  and guess what you can trust it because it's backed by all these things it's backed by oh here's
• 1:13:07
  all the credibility if you want to look into it yeah i would so change i was one because you have to
• 1:13:12
  you know you you as an entrepreneur you have such a heavy science background but you have to
• 1:13:18
  think like a marketer now exactly yeah watered down the things that drive like click like even we
• 1:13:24
  found like we can get people to our site and when you look at the flow maps it's like they get
• 1:13:30
  i want to say they get lost in it but we're redefining the flow maps it's a lot of stuff that
• 1:13:35
  goes into like you said human nature what you expect i have no doubt um when you think about the R&D
• 1:13:42
  that you're doing right now and the potential for new products normally when like i'll speak to
• 1:13:47
  an entrepreneur it's pretty easy to figure out the the the tam the total address will mark
• 1:13:52
  an opportunity because i don't usually recommend people do red ocean products uh i have blue
• 1:13:58
  oceans you but i recommend they don't do blue ocean just find an existing market and then sell
• 1:14:02
  into that was a slightly better version of what already is there but when you think about like all
• 1:14:07
  the different opportunities as a as an entrepreneur that can literally invent something new that's never
• 1:14:12
  been done before how do you sort of weigh out the possibility where you want to spend your time and
• 1:14:17
  energy and resources the shiny object is very hard to come out no doubt the good idea theory should
• 1:14:24
  be shot out of the sky right and this was something we started out with in the beginning because we
• 1:14:29
  had you know where daily we spun out of we were a very unique company where we were developing
• 1:14:35
  products to solve and address some really serious problems everything from new gels new polymers
• 1:14:43
  even working on submarines type of stuff and to go into skin care it's like you have all that
• 1:14:48
  stuff in your back pocket but you need to focus and be good at one thing and make and become known
• 1:14:55
  for that so we focus exclusively on ingredients and skin care for that and we are slowly building out
• 1:15:01
  but that doesn't mean other companies or groups who want to partner with us will come in and be like
• 1:15:07
  hey you know i see that being used for this and i'll be like okay let's do an agreement or
• 1:15:13
  partnership to go after that i'm going to stay focused on what we're doing but we can work
• 1:15:18
  with you to go into this new market and return for royalty with certain sunset stuff like that
• 1:15:25
  so it's diversifying without being too distracted and that is another thing that
• 1:15:31
  because everyone will give you good ideas like wow i want to do that i want to do that but then
• 1:15:35
  you pivot so much you end up in the same spot you just go around a circle over and over and over again
• 1:15:40
  so you got to be very disciplined on what you do and if opportunities come
• 1:15:44
  that are outside of your focus but you think they're a good idea maybe you can leverage a group or
• 1:15:48
  partner or something else to co-develop something into an area that you don't see yourself going
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  when you when you started the elevator and you sort of took it to market you're a scientist first
• 1:18:11
  and I guess an entrepreneur second but you always had like a little bit of entrepreneur and you
• 1:18:14
  even from you know we're talking about what you're doing as a kid and so you I think you came a
• 1:18:21
  little bit more naturally to you than most other like incredibly brilliant science or
• 1:18:28
  non-business people that are sort of product first people I think like a PhD or a CTO engineer
• 1:18:36
  developer like somebody who is so obsessed with the product can build a great product but has
• 1:18:41
  never built a business around that product so for that kind of founder what is your advice to them
• 1:18:47
  yeah that's a hard one it's letting go I would say because you can be so involved
• 1:18:54
  with around the technology you want to make it the best you can but you have to listen to what
• 1:19:00
  the business people if you're strong but good people are saying and be like okay I'm going to
• 1:19:05
  weigh what they're doing I don't agree with them exactly on the tech development or where we
• 1:19:09
  should launch what we should do but they have a better understanding of the marketplace than that
• 1:19:15
  like I said knowing when to launch or knowing when to put your flag in the ground to go to market
• 1:19:19
  is a big one and understand that there's always time if you have a good product coming out there's
• 1:19:27
  always time to reinvent it and tweak it if it's successful and it goes and you know the market will
• 1:19:32
  tell you yes or no if your idea was good right away right you'll know and then you be like that's
• 1:19:37
  great I want to build upon that it's you know I'm not a business person I have like some business
• 1:19:43
  strand of a certificate business you're figuring it out you figuring it out I know a lot of people
• 1:19:49
  that like you figured I would say you have figured it out successfully I know the I know the
• 1:19:54
  business is like still work in progress it always will be but I'm talking about the incredibly
• 1:20:01
  brilliant person who is just paralyzed with fear because they have no idea how to do just just
• 1:20:06
  try it just go out there there's a lot of tools surround yourself with good people like find people
• 1:20:14
  who will work with you who share your vision who understand the technology leverage your network
• 1:20:20
  that's another thing you'd be surprised at the people you know who know someone else and
• 1:20:25
  and you can work with that I never valued networking I'll tell you when I was in graduate school
• 1:20:30
  I was like conferences networking why do I need that now all I do is network and it's amazing
• 1:20:35
  because I'll be in a bind and I'll call something like oh yeah I know something does this and
• 1:20:39
  you know they give you a warm introduction and you can go from there and allows you to grow so
• 1:20:44
  really understanding your network's worth is very very important you probably have more than most I
• 1:20:52
  always laugh when people are so concerned about their IP when their IP is insignificant it's nothing
• 1:20:57
  but you actually have IP that is significant you have you have intellectual property that that no
• 1:21:04
  one else very few people else on his earth that can understand our access to right so if you
• 1:21:09
  think about that from a commercial or a business lens how do you decide when to patent something
• 1:21:15
  versus when to keep it a trade secret or how do you protect your IP when IP is actually
• 1:21:21
  integral to your business a lot of founders they're worried about their you know their
• 1:21:25
  secret sauce getting out when there's really nothing under the hood but you actually
• 1:21:29
  yeah exactly we have a great legal team and we always go for composition of matter right which is
• 1:21:36
  like everything that is could possibly come out of something and then we like in our patents
• 1:21:44
  we'll disclose what it uses what it can be used for its efficacy but for example we keep a lot
• 1:21:49
  of trade secrets so like the way the organisms grown how it's maintained all that's trade secret
• 1:21:54
  that's not you know available so somebody gets your product they can't reverse engineer it
• 1:21:59
  yeah they can't because it's not alive it's not living you know it's an extract from the
• 1:22:03
  organism we have complete control the organism you know it has to be grown maintained a certain way
• 1:22:10
  and even though we have manufacturers that produce it at mass of scale we just hand them something
• 1:22:16
  and they just do something they don't actually know the secret sauce or the stuff that goes into it
• 1:22:21
  right so it's like being intentional on because patents are published right yeah I know that's
• 1:22:26
  what I mean so when you publish it yeah you'll see you have to be very intentional and understand
• 1:22:31
  that's where good IP lawyers was luckily we have really really comes into play where you can
• 1:22:38
  publish your novel and you know innovate a thing but not completely give it away and then
• 1:22:43
  some things are pure trade secret we have some pure trade secret things you know patents are
• 1:22:49
  not always the best strategy but it's always good to have an opinion or something look at it
• 1:22:55
  what would be the most important I want to just unpack some some like entrepreneur lessons that
• 1:23:01
  you've learned throughout your life and your career and your journey but building a science-based
• 1:23:07
  business in particular what would be a very important lesson that you've learned it takes a lot
• 1:23:12
  longer than you think it takes a lot longer I mean coming in not being in this space I mean I
• 1:23:19
  basically went into the business where right out of like graduate school after my stuff right so I
• 1:23:24
  wasn't really exposed and something that I thought would take you know three months took like eight
• 1:23:30
  months listen that so you have to be patient right and you have to understand that there's a lot of
• 1:23:35
  ups and downs nothing is as easy as you think it is one other big thing is we did a lot of work
• 1:23:42
  in the lab but we didn't realize that some of it wasn't transferable to scale up technology so
• 1:23:48
  like the methodologies we're using the R&D lab we're incompatible we're bringing it to markets we
• 1:23:53
  have to tweak it so you know in hindsight if I would leverage time manufacturing consultants more
• 1:24:00
  and then like hey we're trying to make this at scale here's what we're doing is this compatible
• 1:24:06
  they would have probably said no and then we could tweak it and save things a lot of time
• 1:24:11
  money is always an issue right you know whether you survive by grants or you go and get VC money
• 1:24:18
  or private money learning to pitch is something that is very very important and one thing I learned
• 1:24:25
  to science is great in a pitch but too many plots and graphs and too much science is this news
• 1:24:31
  fast you know you have to again understand that everyone is as excited about the science as you are
• 1:24:38
  yeah you'd be great to do it but they care more about like ROI like how fast to go there what
• 1:24:43
  milestones what they could do for it and really understanding that and leading with that and
• 1:24:49
  then coming with the science instead of being science I mean I've seen a lot of scientists present
• 1:24:53
  in pitch at events and everything is graphs and data and this and that then they have one slide
• 1:24:59
  on like products and impact on market maybe two slides that's what people care about when they're
• 1:25:04
  putting in the bankers and they care about that and they only need like two slides of science to
• 1:25:09
  show that it works right and that's it type of thing so that's another thing yeah if you think
• 1:25:15
  about just personally building this business what has it changed in you as an entrepreneur even
• 1:25:22
  as just as a person like but coming from a science background into building a business being an
• 1:25:27
  entrepreneur what have you had to adjust yeah so I don't want to say I've been like a risk taker
• 1:25:36
  but I don't mind taking risks like I have started and created a handful of companies some of them
• 1:25:40
  failed I had a baby clothing company that failed an AI company that we had to close down after
• 1:25:46
  a handful of years but understanding like what I can handle in terms of workload what my limitations
• 1:25:56
  are went to ask for help what to go for you know a lot of people as a founder think they have to know
• 1:26:01
  everything they don't want to show weakness right but you know you're as only as good as you're
• 1:26:06
  as strong as your weakest link and if you're the only link and you can't do everything so you know
• 1:26:11
  I had to start being like okay let me pull in other people to do that from that it's uh but it
• 1:26:18
  is doable like you can learn a lot of things if you put the time and effort in and really listen
• 1:26:25
  and be open-minded to people and that let's you know just take input from all different angles
• 1:26:31
  you can build a pretty good roadmap on how to move forward um I think that I think that understanding
• 1:26:39
  your own like weaknesses I think that's the key being the cell the massive amount of self-awareness
• 1:26:44
  I mean for me I always have to understand my own shortcomings it's successful and I think that when
• 1:26:50
  the sooner you can get rid of the ego it's probably big thing that's when you find yourself being
• 1:26:54
  successful because the ego is going to it's going to block you from making good hiring decisions
• 1:26:58
  from delegating from asking for help all all these cliches but they're so so so necessary
• 1:27:05
  um if you think about sort of a personal truth you've had to accept about yourself as an entrepreneur
• 1:27:12
  or as a leader what was that truth of that that one thing that you are not good at that you need
• 1:27:19
  someone else to help out with obvious one is marketing is I'll say that straight away marketing um
• 1:27:27
  um but the first thing was um like I understood the business I understand the model I didn't
• 1:27:35
  understand all the pieces that were necessarily there and in the beginning I think I oversimplified
• 1:27:41
  it I was like oh just this and this and this um and unfortunately I only learned about the hiccups
• 1:27:47
  when I hit the hiccup and I was like oh man I have to do that so I think you know fully understanding
• 1:27:54
  everything the best you can no matter what business it is to to the best of your ability not
• 1:27:59
  just jumping into something blind and saying you'll figure it out on the fly but being like okay
• 1:28:03
  this is my roadmap this is what I want to do here are some of the hurdles and it may seem common
• 1:28:08
  sense and obvious but now our entrepreneur start if you're doing a thousand things right and you're
• 1:28:13
  trying to to build everything and yeah I have a team we have a big lab you know we we move forward
• 1:28:19
  but it's still not like a 200 person enterprise right it's still a startup and you know we're in
• 1:28:25
  the millions for what we do for products and stuff like that um but we're still building it and
• 1:28:31
  and understanding that's very very important one thing that I think um you've done exception
• 1:28:37
  well and people don't know that you actually do other things outside outside of being a scientist
• 1:28:43
  and teaching and running an incredible skincare company um you also have other you know
• 1:28:51
  businesses uh passions whatever um but everything you jump into you seem to do it with so much
• 1:28:59
  confidence have you never had imposter syndrome and anything that you do uh a lot of people suffer
• 1:29:04
  from that yeah so imposter syndrome is something interesting um I'm just thinking about
• 1:29:09
  different all of your worlds are people who don't know like he also has an art business he also has
• 1:29:13
  a real estate business outside of this so and then I've done other business that have failed the AI
• 1:29:17
  business yeah yeah clothing company and uh I was actually going to create a non-profit for
• 1:29:23
  something but I decided to wait because I got too much going on but I witnessed something so instead
• 1:29:28
  of creating what I just do it out of my own uh goodwill without any you know stuff but
• 1:29:35
  imposter syndrome I think because I'm passionate about it and I invest to understand it
• 1:29:42
  I'm I'm not like oh my god I don't I don't belong here like what art like I love art I've been around
• 1:29:48
  art and collectibles for a long time and I just feel comfortable with it yeah I don't know all
• 1:29:54
  the small nuances that go with it but because I'm invested in it I'm willing to learn and do it
• 1:30:01
  and that's like oh my god I don't know how to do that I'm afraid to do I'll be like you know what
• 1:30:04
  I'm gonna do it I'm just gonna go and do it and that's that's one thing I can say is that you know
• 1:30:12
  I'm not afraid to you know some people like oh I don't know how to create an LLC I don't know
• 1:30:16
  how to do this and then they get afraid I'm just like let me what are the steps oh these are the
• 1:30:20
  steps let me do it let me do the next thing how do we do this what's the next thing and it's just
• 1:30:24
  taking the first step and I always say something um you know inch by inch life's a
• 1:30:31
  cinch yard by yard life is hot and that's what I like I go with like if you take things in
• 1:30:36
  incremental steps it's easy to get somewhere but if you want to create a company and you want to
• 1:30:41
  make it like a million dollar company the next day that's impossible it'll be overwhelmed over
• 1:30:46
  one of the fact that it's impossible to do but if you take it small pieces at a time you build
• 1:30:51
  confidence like wow I did that while I did that while I did that while I closed my first deal while
• 1:30:57
  I got into my first store even though it's small you did it and then you just build on that and that
• 1:31:02
  gives you the confidence to go you do so much um and you also have a family and that's that's the
• 1:31:09
  only reason why you haven't started a podcast yet is because you have kids like a three kids
• 1:31:13
  certainly you can't return them so I can't I can't return the kids so I'm stuck with the three
• 1:31:17
  daughters that's fine that's that's fine um but if you think about balance I think that that's
• 1:31:22
  something that a lot of entrepreneurs have an issue with and I'm curious if you have advice and
• 1:31:27
  if if you haven't done it perfectly that's also a good lesson but do you have advice on how to
• 1:31:33
  balance family and other relationships outside of work yeah so uh when I first started before
• 1:31:39
  had kids there's work work work all the time I think work I have no doubt go home work all this
• 1:31:43
  sounds like it's well do that um but what I learned is things can wait emails can wait
• 1:31:49
  text can wait you know I work in a lot of different time zones and that's another problem I mean
• 1:31:55
  there were times what I'd be taking calls from Australia three o'clock in the morning in a closet
• 1:32:00
  so I wouldn't wake anyone up and the guy I remember I'm the guy's like what's around your head
• 1:32:06
  I'm like oh I'm gonna close it he's like why the hell you want to close it because I don't want to
• 1:32:10
  wake anyone up and and this um but yeah so now it's like okay I do all my work
• 1:32:18
  and then when I get home I understand the emails can wait but that's very hard to do your
• 1:32:22
  phones ding all the time emails ding all time you're like oh my god if I don't answer this
• 1:32:26
  calls god never call me back just remember everyone else has lives too it seems people seem to forget
• 1:32:32
  that the bank you're doing business with probably has a family or probably wants to go on vacation
• 1:32:38
  so even if you respond right away they may not respond right away and I think once you understand
• 1:32:44
  that and you're like okay I'm here do your life balance you work out you know you're
• 1:32:51
  with your family and you try to work out for yourself whether it's exercise or doing hobbies
• 1:32:56
  to help recharge you you'll actually perform better at your work right instead of being drained
• 1:33:02
  and tied oh my god I gotta do this oh my god you do this and you get worn out and you don't know
• 1:33:06
  what to do uh make time for yourself I know it's so fun I still suffer from it now I'll be like
• 1:33:13
  at the dinner table and like um I'm like oh I gotta take this email to send that and like no
• 1:33:19
  and guess what I don't I wait two hours when the kids are in bed everything's done and then I'll
• 1:33:24
  just do it and the same thing happened as before it's it's funny because I think that you made a
• 1:33:32
  really good point that it's really hard for like an ambitious high-performing person to to
• 1:33:36
  understand this but when you do have those hobbies or you create space for that leisure activity or
• 1:33:43
  movement or gym or family I do believe that it makes all my work more focused because now I know
• 1:33:50
  what what is it um it's not uh it's not Pareto's principal it's 80-20 what's the other one
• 1:33:56
  that the work expands to the time that you give it I'm blanking on the actual term more but
• 1:34:00
  that's the that's the theory the work you put so much effort in because you know it's your time
• 1:34:04
  to do it's so efficient you have to be efficient and you have to you have to shut off distractions
• 1:34:10
  and you have to work on urgent important and and a lot of us work on things that are they make us
• 1:34:16
  feel good because we're doing stuff because they're easy to do but it's not really required and I
• 1:34:22
  even when I mean when when Jean is at a town and I don't have anything else to do at the end of
• 1:34:27
  the night I'll find myself posting like three more posts on Instagram because I'm like well what
• 1:34:32
  else am I gonna do like it's really not gonna make that big of a difference in the grand scheme
• 1:34:37
  of things like it's really or even worse I'll start thinking about other things I can start
• 1:34:42
  like complete other businesses and I'll start going you know and and coding up a website in my
• 1:34:47
  spare time because like because I just but really is that gonna make a difference in your life
• 1:34:53
  most more often most often it's not but I think that even some of the other businesses that you
• 1:35:00
  have I actually think and I'm curious if they act as hobbies for you to a degree yeah everything
• 1:35:06
  is a hobby like yeah I see that now and that's why you know when you first told me about the art
• 1:35:11
  business I'm like that seems like such a disparate idea and business like why are you art over here
• 1:35:18
  and then your science and skincare over here but I think art is a creative outlet to a degree so
• 1:35:24
  yeah makes money good your hobbies can make money but it it balances yeah there's a lot of
• 1:35:30
  hobby that drive my wife nuts yeah I got some Lego sets like a pinball machines I fix I used to
• 1:35:37
  work on cars and motorcycles I got all the things to keep my hands dirty because like I say when
• 1:35:43
  I was younger I did a lot of stuff in my hands and yeah I can do stuff in my hands now but it's
• 1:35:48
  not the same thing right like the stuff I work on it takes years to see it come to reality we're like
• 1:35:55
  like last summer I built a 750 square foot deck of my house just well my wife said let's do a
• 1:36:02
  little deck I'm like let's make it bigger and then she wanted even bigger and that's like I don't
• 1:36:06
  know and it caused an argument but anyway built the deck I did it all myself my dad came and help
• 1:36:11
  you know dig some holes pour some concrete piles but then I did the frame everything else myself
• 1:36:15
  did everything and people like why do you do that that's so stressful I said no it's like
• 1:36:21
  relaxing I don't have to think I it's a different type of outlet where I see what I'm building
• 1:36:27
  instead of working with microscopic things I can't see you know it's in same with all the other
• 1:36:32
  hobbies yeah yeah the businesses I think it's important I think it's important sometimes to like
• 1:36:38
  focus is good but also taking space to be creative to think about something differently I've
• 1:36:44
  always found that helps me solve problems in the main thing I always find out what would be
• 1:36:50
  the most difficult or or darkest moment that you've experienced as either a scientist or an entrepreneur
• 1:36:57
  something that hasn't gone the way that it's supposed to go really but it was a lesson that you learned
• 1:37:02
  but you wouldn't wish that lesson on anyone else yeah um I don't want to say like false
• 1:37:09
  profits but there's when you're beginning you're starting out and you're trying to find people to
• 1:37:14
  help help you mentors mentors or people that actually help with the business you want to make sure
• 1:37:22
  they'll actually help you and do things not just give you like support or ideas like you need
• 1:37:29
  people to actually help you to do the grunt work to get stuff going not just people like pontificating
• 1:37:34
  pontific oh be great to do this all you should do that and I've known a lot of friends who've had
• 1:37:39
  startup companies and stuff and they get these really cool people to help but they actually don't
• 1:37:45
  help they they want to latch on exactly and noticing that um right away
• 1:37:53
  um as an issue now I haven't experienced that myself but I've seen people do that
• 1:37:58
  I've been very lucky where the ecosystem of people that I've been around with are very like
• 1:38:03
  minded they want to get into trenches they want to see it go I mean my mentor had I think 27
• 1:38:09
  companies at one time spin out small different things he's been in the arena it's been in the arena
• 1:38:15
  and that's like prices information but I've seen other people you know they're very desperate they
• 1:38:20
  grab onto anyone to help and it's almost like uh it kind of drags you down because you think
• 1:38:25
  you're gonna get actual help interaction but it actually just piles more things on you and then
• 1:38:30
  you get more nervous because you don't know it and then you find out that person actually doesn't
• 1:38:34
  know they never did it they just were in a meeting where someone said the same thing I think that
• 1:38:41
  I don't know I I've had to develop a pretty good like BS meter for people um it's tough though
• 1:38:48
  it's very tough people are very compelling go very compelling I mean I don't know what advice
• 1:38:54
  that I would give outside of if you have the luxury of it see how people work for an extended
• 1:39:00
  period of time before choosing to take their advice yeah yeah exactly I mean some of the people
• 1:39:04
  that take advice from I've known them for years and I've you know been to their wedding or I've
• 1:39:09
  seen you know their kids grow up and at this point I've seen how they navigate work and business
• 1:39:14
  and entrepreneurs spend their own lives and then I can sort of trust their their advice but when
• 1:39:18
  you're first starting out you latch on to anyone and anything that seems like they're gonna guide
• 1:39:25
  you towards what you want to accomplish but a lot of people just want to latch on take a little bit
• 1:39:31
  of equity that's yeah and they don't do much so you you can also protect yourself like I mean it's
• 1:39:36
  important to understand like investing schedules and and setting up contracts it specifically outline
• 1:39:41
  what they're gonna contribute and KPI whatever you want to do but I mean first time entrepreneurs
• 1:39:46
  definitely they're not thinking about don't think about all this just thinking and same goes for
• 1:39:50
  raising money too like raising money is also not the best thing to do raising money from the wrong
• 1:39:54
  people it's gonna put more stress on human pressure and I think that just taking a step and understanding
• 1:40:00
  that taking like a step back and understanding okay what do I really want to build how faster I
• 1:40:04
  want to build it why am I doing this who do I want to line myself with what evidence that I have
• 1:40:10
  that they're actually gonna help me versus hurt me whether or not it's money or just mentorship
• 1:40:15
  advisory I think these are all just pause for a second before you jump into anything legally
• 1:40:22
  definitely yeah money is the big one because everyone needs money right but you have to understand
• 1:40:26
  some people who come and will money have a certain milestone or you need to exit in five years or
• 1:40:31
  exit three so you want to make sure you want people who will walk a who have the same mindset and
• 1:40:36
  will walk with you to get to your goal but I can understand also as an entrepreneur you're trying
• 1:40:42
  to raise some money you know any money you eventually see is better than no money because no
• 1:40:46
  money you're out of business so try to do the best you can't define someone or have terms in
• 1:40:52
  their contracts that allow you to you know still grow without having to be forced into something
• 1:40:59
  I think it's I think it's so smart and that's why I hope that when people listen to this they can
• 1:41:03
  understand that like you don't have to speed run entrepreneurship you don't have to rush it you only
• 1:41:08
  have to be successful once in your life that's that's really it and that's that's that's you'll
• 1:41:13
  make more more money than you ever thought possible I mean you've been building day levy like
• 1:41:19
  how many years if no but I mean considering that first bean sprout yeah so that is what led
• 1:41:26
  to this company yeah first bean sprout in the actually the Dan animal pile led to it too so a
• 1:41:32
  long time I've been working indirectly with this since 2009 2010 and I had no idea I was going
• 1:41:39
  to end up here it's amazing you know pathway but just goes to show to keep doors open don't assume
• 1:41:47
  that you have to say in a rigid pathway that's it that's another big lesson is like be open
• 1:41:53
  to any opportunities that come around I know a lot of people even scientists they're very stuck
• 1:41:58
  in their ways it has to be this way I want this to be like this I want my product or this
• 1:42:03
  invention to be just like this when in fact if you just pivot it a little bit yeah it was outside
• 1:42:08
  of your comfort zone a little bit but that would have had more of an impact it opened up more of a
• 1:42:12
  market than you know being stuck in your ways and that's another big thing out of all the things
• 1:42:20
  that you've learned what was one thing you had to unlearn to get to where you're at today
• 1:42:24
  it's a very good question I had to unlearn
• 1:42:33
  believing everyone has good intentions I think is a big thing you have to assume everyone has
• 1:42:40
  good intentions but at the same time you have to assume that they're not going to be as invested
• 1:42:45
  as you are in your idea your thought process when you hire people you know way as an entrepreneur
• 1:42:53
  and you create a company you create something you love it so much but the person you hire is
• 1:42:58
  not going to love it as much as you and you have to understand that like that's what I'm saying
• 1:43:05
  finding people who work with you believe what you're doing want to put in that grant work to do it
• 1:43:09
  because some people will just say oh it's a nine to five job whatever I'm just I'm just in for
• 1:43:14
  for whatever I'm doing the two-year thing and going to a new place luckily I've had a lot of
• 1:43:20
  employees they've stayed four five six seven years eight years because they love the product
• 1:43:26
  they love what we're doing yeah some leave for personal reasons stuff like that but none of them are
• 1:43:31
  like I'm only here as a step because it's very driving and powering thing but that is a privileged
• 1:43:39
  tab is not normal and I know a lot of people too of like oh I got this great tech company I love
• 1:43:44
  it I love it but my engineers leave like every six months because they use it just and you have to
• 1:43:50
  understand that it's kind of you know part of it it's it's tough it's really hard to find good
• 1:43:55
  people it's hard to find people that are aligned with with the mission that you have do you have any
• 1:44:00
  advice on how to on how to find those people I mean that's that's tough it's very tough and I
• 1:44:05
  think it's gotten more tough in 2025 when people can work from home with any company in the world
• 1:44:13
  so the incentive to stay is diminished it's not because they live within a 20 to 30 minute commute
• 1:44:21
  and that's the incentive and you're the only company that they want to work at within their
• 1:44:25
  you know local area so it's you have to first of all you have to be a good person and a good
• 1:44:34
  entrepreneur and that's like the that's like the bare minimum at this point like if you're an
• 1:44:39
  asshole people are gone but outside of that one idea that I've always had and maybe you have some
• 1:44:45
  ideas as well but one idea is that you make a contract with the person forget the employment
• 1:44:52
  contract but a contract with the person that so that while they're contributing part of their
• 1:44:57
  life to building your company you're also seeing where they want to go and you're helping them get
• 1:45:01
  there but being not not just giving it like lip service but being purposeful about okay so if you
• 1:45:08
  want to make X amount of dollars or have this title or do this kind of work let's figure out a path
• 1:45:13
  to get there and I don't know if the people in your I don't have a big team like I used to so I
• 1:45:18
  haven't tested this theory in 2025 I used to work very very well pre-COVID people weren't as transient
• 1:45:24
  in their jobs pre-COVID as I think they are now so the people that are four or five years in
• 1:45:29
  that are still working with you do you see like a thing that you give them that makes someone
• 1:45:34
  to stay there yeah so the biggest the hardest thing with a startup or anything is that there's
• 1:45:38
  not a lot of growth right there's not a big ladder so it's like you have a team 10 15 12 people
• 1:45:46
  but you're not going to have 12 vice presidents of course yeah you know what I mean so you won't be
• 1:45:51
  around for a long time right so you know it's been a challenge but we offer a great work environment
• 1:46:00
  you know competitive benefits and salary in my I don't like to micromanage sometimes I do micromanage
• 1:46:06
  depending on how urgent the stuff has to be like if this but normally I give the employees like
• 1:46:12
  freedom to be creative as long as they hit the milestones and deadlines for certain projects that
• 1:46:18
  are required you know they can do other research look for new things it's it's a work environment
• 1:46:26
  that is more free and forgiving for you know it's not just you doing this every day not
• 1:46:32
  blah blah blah type of thing because it's it's very hard to do that and when I hire people I look
• 1:46:39
  yeah you get the resume you get the credentials but I look for like grit it's hard to explain but
• 1:46:46
  it's like people who've like done a lot of different jobs not not like every year but like
• 1:46:53
  okay maybe they did landscaping or then they did something else or when you interview them you
• 1:46:58
  ask them and they they're not just like oh I did this I did this and that's it they stayed in one
• 1:47:03
  lane someone who's kind of had they've had to learn an upscale repeatedly success exactly where
• 1:47:09
  they have to like overcome things and they they've worked with different types of people different
• 1:47:16
  you know work ethic stuff like that because in a startup you have to wear tons of hats and if
• 1:47:21
  you come in and hire someone who's only known you know pure industry nine to five they do one
• 1:47:26
  thing they may not like having to do marketing one day and armed the another and help with this
• 1:47:32
  and then they're like well I just want to come in and do my task and leave so I always look for
• 1:47:39
  that type of it's a hard person to find but when you can't find them is there a way that you found
• 1:47:46
  works to hold on to those kinds of people like like are they people that are passionate about skincare
• 1:47:52
  I don't know is that like an x factor is it just they like working with you like I'm trying to figure out
• 1:47:57
  what keeps somebody around I think it you have to have an interesting job there's a lot of stuff
• 1:48:03
  going on keeps their interests you have to have a work environment that supports them whether it's
• 1:48:09
  financially or or conditions in the work environment and you have to have like an obvious goal
• 1:48:16
  direction that is an improvement right like if you're just making the same widget there's no like
• 1:48:22
  stimulus in like be like wow I get creative freedom I get to actually build something oh you're
• 1:48:27
  going to feel like you're dying every single day a little bit more yeah yeah totally agree and
• 1:48:32
  because we're ingredients and skincare and innovation there's a lot of freedom creative like
• 1:48:38
  creative freedom it's like okay like what's it indication want to go after what's missing let's work
• 1:48:43
  on that together and then they get so excited about like oh I want to work with packaging oh I want
• 1:48:48
  to work with regulatory or I want to help do the clinical studies so you build this ecosystem of the
• 1:48:53
  team and yeah our team is separated we have some people who just do R&D in the lab some people
• 1:48:59
  just do like ingredient manufacturing some of that just does like logistics manufacturing
• 1:49:04
  of packaging stuff marketing but they're all working together as a goal because they all know how
• 1:49:10
  one person influences the other so they all kind of come together and help so it's an interesting
• 1:49:16
  interesting place no I mean you built a you built an amazing company you built a company the
• 1:49:21
  people stick around and want to and want to help build with you and it's just from all of my
• 1:49:26
  friends that are currently building it's not easy to find great people that are on for the long
• 1:49:31
  for the ride um what are we not going to we went through a lot a lot of this art uh we didn't talk
• 1:49:40
  about art yet hobbies whatever whatever you think is interesting doesn't that um I think I think
• 1:49:45
  our it's a little bit interesting uh because I I mean it's it's totally a 180 from what you
• 1:49:50
  from what you've you know spoke about so far but I think the level of detail that you understand
• 1:49:54
  the different hobbies that you take on is it's I don't know there's something to be said for just
• 1:50:00
  how you think through a problem maybe I don't think at all maybe that's the answer maybe that's
• 1:50:07
  no I do I do think but how does how does art how does art um it help you with the rest of your work
• 1:50:16
  do you find that it gives you creativity I like the idea of art um both the creative side but also
• 1:50:24
  the market side um so like speculation whether it's art watches cars um now that tangibles becoming
• 1:50:35
  a massive commodity in almost investment grade type material um just seeing that with what I
• 1:50:41
  love like when I was a kid and even when I was working my brother like I appreciate it but I never
• 1:50:47
  thought like the magnitude of the scale of the just like anything right like coffee for example
• 1:50:52
  you can love a Starbucks coffee but when you start digging into coffee you look at the espresso
• 1:50:57
  machines at your house and all the fine beans you can get it's like an infinite wormhole and then
• 1:51:02
  you feel like wow there's a lot more to coffee than just the dollar net worth seven dollars now
• 1:51:08
  coffee I get right and it's like the same thing with art like wow I like it's interesting wow
• 1:51:13
  I like all the stuff and then you start going down and you're like wow there's a whole industry around
• 1:51:16
  and there's a sub industry and then there's the industries that influence that industry and that's
• 1:51:20
  tied to the markets and markets are tied to capital and capital rate and it just fascinates me
• 1:51:27
  this is gonna be stupid but when I was younger I always love to play like city games like sim city
• 1:51:34
  where you manage you know you try to manage eight thousand things like I get the roads
• 1:51:39
  the traffic the water the taxes yeah the farm plots the commercial the police and you're like wow
• 1:51:47
  I have to plug all these things to make it work in unison to to make a successful thing and I love
• 1:51:54
  that challenge like I I love it I'm like wow this does this does that this is that this is the map
• 1:52:01
  to get it how can I tweak it I tweak one thing it changes and I guess that's what excites me
• 1:52:05
  what business is an entrepreneur because like each business is similar but they're all different
• 1:52:10
  but you see you like you like building an ecosystem that leads to an outcome exactly I love the idea
• 1:52:16
  of working on something that ties into so many different things that all leads to something
• 1:52:23
  successful how did you get involved in art so from my brother actually so my brother
• 1:52:28
  um he's on antichrome show he has a big art gallery an art auction house um and he introduced me
• 1:52:36
  to the world of contemporary art and I've always liked art but I never really appreciate you
• 1:52:41
  collected everything else as a kid I mean I collect I have I collected cereal boxes so I have like
• 1:52:48
  this is gonna I feel like I'm so bad for your wife people are gonna judge me now but like I have
• 1:52:53
  like unopened cereal boxes from the eighties that are graded graded silly potty I used to have
• 1:52:59
  like a collection of orchestra whistles I have pinball machines um yeah it's embarrassing but yeah
• 1:53:07
  anyway um so I liked collecting like interesting things not just like oh this because everyone
• 1:53:13
  collects it it's like well I like this because of all the detail like pinball machines for example
• 1:53:19
  if you open up a pinball machine it's a mass network of wires yet each of them impact something
• 1:53:26
  else and if one of them is off everything feels just like building cities you apply science to
• 1:53:31
  everything and just like the science part of your brain I see you apply it to literally everything
• 1:53:36
  yeah I yeah I just I'm like wow there's so many different things so many factors and I'm
• 1:53:40
  getting excited because I'm like yeah this is so cool like this little thing impacts this
• 1:53:45
  you ever like take apart computers and stuff I build I build computers all the time cars cars
• 1:53:51
  I've rebuilt so I have a 1969 AMC AMX I rebuilt that with my father in 2005 we rebuilt a 1966
• 1:54:02
  Pontiac GTO I rebuilt two motorcycles I build house I do construction decks plumbing electrical
• 1:54:10
  um heating system like all that stuff and uh because they're all connected and I like
• 1:54:16
  you know I apply that to science I try to connect all the dots okay so anyways your brother
• 1:54:22
  got you into art he got me into you you know more about art than like we were talking before
• 1:54:26
  Christopher you know more about art then maybe the art market but I learned it all for my brother
• 1:54:31
  I'm not taking credit my brother knows a lot and he taught me a lot and I have a lot of mentors
• 1:54:35
  and stuff in the art space art series art collectors so you started in our business yes we started
• 1:54:40
  in our business and uh it was fun I mean we it's called variable additions we're kind of
• 1:54:48
  hiatus now waiting for the market to come back but we know you can't you can't you can't just
• 1:54:52
  overview we just did a hard 80 into art you gotta go to the weeds uh no it's very interesting so talk
• 1:54:58
  about please like educate I've never had anybody on this show who has ever spoken about art yeah
• 1:55:04
  really never a lot of entrepreneurs never never really a science or skincare either you you
• 1:55:08
  actually have a lot of different things to offer that I've never been able to bring on before so I
• 1:55:12
  appreciate you um so you got into art uh taught you you were telling me before that we are in like an art
• 1:55:19
  recession for yeah for certain types of art like a lot of art prices are down yeah there's some
• 1:55:25
  that are doing really well but usually uh when the markets are not performing well tangible assets
• 1:55:33
  especially art is some of the first to be hit because people want to be more conservative and
• 1:55:38
  hold on to their funds um then I don't want to say risk it but then put it into things that aren't
• 1:55:44
  uh guaranteed nothing's guaranteed but you know it's a little less risky little less risky and
• 1:55:50
  this is this is so the question I had just to tea that's people understand the context so um
• 1:55:57
  the art like the war halls or the Picasso's that are bought by billionaire those will always have
• 1:56:02
  a set value those but kind of the emerging artists the ones that are on their way to be blue chip
• 1:56:10
  or on the way to be institutional artists those are very susceptible along with just the budding
• 1:56:17
  artist right because um so we made a company where um it's called variable additions and we would
• 1:56:24
  have an artist make a line drawing and then on top of that they would do an original piece of artwork
• 1:56:29
  because what happens when nobody knows it so like artists when they go to galleries there's like
• 1:56:38
  usually a stipulation where gallery has is can only sell the original works of art but artists can
• 1:56:43
  make prints and reproductions of things so because we had them make a print of a line drawing and then
• 1:56:49
  they embellished it or made an original on top of it it was kind of outside of that legal agreement
• 1:56:56
  with the galleries yeah for the galleries um and it allowed us to bring unique pieces of artwork
• 1:57:03
  to people who couldn't necessarily pay a hundred thousand dollars or fifty thousand dollars
• 1:57:09
  for an original piece of art um and it was it was great it was fun the artists loved it we were
• 1:57:15
  very good to the artists compared to some of their other deals and the customers loved it because
• 1:57:20
  we gave them access to high quality art from artists that they could only dream or hope to have
• 1:57:27
  access to um and this led to a lot of connections and introductions to people in the art space um
• 1:57:35
  you know and my my brother being an antiques roadshow is a big deal he does pop culture on their
• 1:57:41
  comic books trading cards stuff like that but that still is a big big deal um and that's why we did
• 1:57:47
  a tv show or tried to do a tv show before i split and yeah that was that was that was the decision
• 1:57:53
  tv show or postdoc and now yeah so now i can but i can still do tv if i wanted i guess i think
• 1:57:59
  i think i start with a podcast that's for and i didn't even realize this and people are going to be
• 1:58:03
  probably surprised i mean it just goes to show you how you should support you should support the
• 1:58:08
  smaller guys if you can but um if an artist is not selling or if an artist loses relevance for a
• 1:58:15
  period of time yeah they could be gone forever it's i have learned that it's almost like their careers
• 1:58:19
  over in some cases forever so if you are not trending on social media and say you're you're not selling
• 1:58:26
  you know you're not selling blue chip art but you're selling 50 thousand a hundred thousand dollar
• 1:58:30
  piece which seems like a lot of money for but if you're not trending then someone else will replace
• 1:58:36
  you and then it's very hard to get that traction back so it's not like it's not i don't know how art
• 1:58:41
  markets work now i do a little bit but it's not like a stock market where yeah okay if some some
• 1:58:47
  stock tanks well the company's still operating you know you'll come six months or whatever it's
• 1:58:53
  going to come back that's not the case for some artists that's not the case they'll become irrelevant
• 1:58:57
  and then they end up just being a bargain piece because it's because that's right so all their
• 1:59:03
  pieces get dumped on the market and just tanks their value as an artist yeah that that's like a big
• 1:59:08
  a big problem like secondary markets impact artist value all the time so if you're in a recession
• 1:59:15
  people are exiting this problems with the art and then the artist can have to do a complete change
• 1:59:22
  of careers and it's unfortunate because a lot of artists are very talented and stuff like that but
• 1:59:27
  they just seem also talented that's what i don't understand whenever i see a piece of art and
• 1:59:31
  or right here yeah i know you walk around you see art everywhere art basil yeah i know some of
• 1:59:37
  these people are not making a lot of money but i see their works and i and i follow some of
• 1:59:41
  them on instagram and in some of them record how long it takes and the energy required to put these
• 1:59:45
  pieces together and i'm like man like you're spending like weeks of your life putting something
• 1:59:51
  together that doesn't make you any money at all it's a tough business it's a very very tough
• 1:59:55
  business very tough business yes so it's how do you break out do you know any opinion on how you
• 2:00:01
  break out as an artist i wonder for example when there's so many i mean i don't know any artist i
• 2:00:06
  mean i see alec monopoly everywhere because we're in Miami but first of all i have no idea how he
• 2:00:12
  sells this shit for so much money but i also see a ton of talented artists that i feel are not
• 2:00:17
  making much money at all and i i can't figure out like why that piece is worth you know half a million
• 2:00:26
  dollars versus the other one is the art game it's it's who's collecting it who's promoting it what
• 2:00:33
  gallery are in what feature you're in that drives the hype for the limited piece that there's only one
• 2:00:39
  out so it's you see socials like the biggest that's like hype hype beast type art and stuff like
• 2:00:48
  that is kind of you know that took a huge hit because that was based on just social media
• 2:00:55
  excitement not necessarily lineage of artwork lineage means time the artist has been how long
• 2:01:01
  been around what museums you're in what art shows you've been in where your piece is located all
• 2:01:08
  that stuff impacts the overall i don't want to say trajectory but the overall holding of the art
• 2:01:16
  and it's fascinating i mean even comic books are fascinating how there's some that a millions of
• 2:01:23
  dollars and there's some that aren't and it's all graded so there's a certain grade it drives value
• 2:01:29
  you know it's just and there's people leveraging that now with all these limited editions right the
• 2:01:34
  only problem now is people are actively saving and collecting them where the original spider man's
• 2:01:41
  the original comic books people never thought they'd be worth anything so they threw them out which is
• 2:01:45
  why there's a demand where there's no supply but now everyone's saving everything that's a limited
• 2:01:50
  edition so in 20 years there'll be a million of them so there's no there's no value where the high-end
• 2:01:56
  comics kids ripped them they threw them out they wrote on that that's what created the value
• 2:02:01
  and that value because people like wow i want to relive that but there's not any left or not a lot
• 2:02:06
  left that are actually in good condition so now you're fighting for it where now a kid will buy
• 2:02:11
  a comic book and i even read it put it in a drawer thing you'll be worth money but a million other
• 2:02:16
  kids are doing that so now you have a whole other market pushing limited editions based on what
• 2:02:24
  the they see from the price value of comics or other collectibles that there were never limited
• 2:02:30
  editions up are there any are what what in your mind this is not investment advice but what in your
• 2:02:36
  mind is a place that you could put your money that's not in stocks i mean people talk about
• 2:02:42
  you just know collectibles i don't know what you know i mean people talk about shennels or
• 2:02:46
  burkins or Rolexes or but outside of that i don't know anything about comic books or cards or
• 2:02:54
  is there anything that you i mean your brother deals with all the time brother deals with all time i
• 2:02:58
  got to have him on talk about all that i'll tell you there's actually funds that invest in comic
• 2:03:04
  books they will there's funds that buy comic books hold them and liquidate for returns i mean you
• 2:03:10
  have whole companies like masterworks is a great example is an investment thing where you buy a
• 2:03:17
  piece of a of a piece of artwork with the idea you'll sell it in a few years to make money
• 2:03:25
  art art people know are there are there some categories that people don't know that you think
• 2:03:30
  people should put money into at least look at i mean everything's a gamble right and
• 2:03:37
  there are some things like name brand things like Rolex watches stuff like that they'll always be
• 2:03:42
  you know they'll always have a floor you don't really know what the ceiling is because it's based on
• 2:03:47
  demand but you know you there'll always be a good chance that you'll do that high end comic books
• 2:03:55
  are becoming more in that category people laugh at them but comic books sell for millions of dollars
• 2:04:01
  cards cards to Pokemon cards magic to gather in card my brother didn't appraise on antiques roacher
• 2:04:07
  where woman brought a box of magic cards and it was appraise of $250,000 and like she was
• 2:04:13
  i got to go get money say i got to go get stuff right you know um yeah it there's a lot of things
• 2:04:19
  out there you just have to be smart and do your research right there's a lot of people trying to
• 2:04:23
  pull fast ones especially things that aren't regulated if you don't know what to look for you know
• 2:04:29
  you can easily think wow this comic that has this is worth this but it's not right so you
• 2:04:35
  just like any investment you want to be educated on it do your diligence figure it out and don't
• 2:04:42
  look at this as like your main main way of making income be it like it's fun like oh i like this
• 2:04:47
  comic book i like this video game i like this when i was a kid i want to put it on my shelf and look
• 2:04:54
  and if it's worth something in the future if people actually end up do if people do want to put
• 2:05:00
  money into it i know that um uh one of the the paul brothers bought like a fake
• 2:05:06
  charizard for some ridiculous amount of money in the hundreds of thousands i think it was some
• 2:05:12
  something stupid but is there like a body that gives you the okay yeah this grading there's grading
• 2:05:20
  companies um that will grade the card basically the quality of it the authenticity of it all that
• 2:05:28
  stuff in it it it basically gives it a set value right so like if i had an open card or an open
• 2:05:34
  comic book there's no real way to say oh this is worth a thousand versus five thousand but when
• 2:05:39
  you have something grading or authenticated you know it gives you a certain number out of ten
• 2:05:44
  like five out of ten or eight out of ten and then you'd be like okay this is this this this is this
• 2:05:49
  quality so therefore it correlates to this value which is why graded cards comic books graded
• 2:05:54
  baseball cards graded coins you said you have graded cereal boxes yeah i have graded cereal boxes
• 2:06:00
  and i actually have graded silly putty from the 1960s unopened it uh yeah it's you see how much
• 2:06:07
  it's worth cereal cereal boxes some of them a few hundred five hundred dollars for some cereal boxes
• 2:06:13
  unopened summary yeah some a few hundred dollars yeah so if you're gonna put money to any of this
• 2:06:18
  stuff not cereal boxes yeah but i did it because uh i collect a lot of ghost buster things so i
• 2:06:24
  collected some ghost buster cereal box but anyway that's god bless your wafer putting that with
• 2:06:29
  that's why she wants me to start purging with the three kids and all their stuff now it's like okay
• 2:06:34
  so now i'm just trying to get rid of stuff to make up space dude you never know maybe maybe
• 2:06:40
  you sell something and you make more money than you make with your company who knows who knows
• 2:06:45
  i know what i have and i don't have anything there yet i i i i would know right away because i
• 2:06:50
  would already be gone a college would be paid for for the girls right away if i had something like
• 2:06:57
  that i love it dude um okay where where should people connect with you if they want to find out
• 2:07:03
  about what you're working on yeah so i'm on instagram at chialandry phd i'm on linked in if anyone
• 2:07:09
  wants to go to the business route um but besides that you go to dailyvsciences.com and you can reach out
• 2:07:16
  to us we can talk to you about stuff but otherwise just instagram and linked it i'm always open to
• 2:07:21
  talking to people i've helped uh mentor a lot of students a lot of students come up with new
• 2:07:26
  companies so i help them create new companies uh work with them to you know help them
• 2:07:33
  not fall into the road pit set the things that i did over the time but you know you have such a
• 2:07:39
  diverse set of hobbies and passion and this is just a tip for you what else do you do there's a lot
• 2:07:46
  uh you got to come back right yeah i'll have to come back there's a lot of interesting things
• 2:07:50
  outside of that um that i that i've done the fun raising and community work and stuff like that
• 2:07:57
  that's all very important you have you should you should put up a website at some point
• 2:08:02
  get this yeah that in a podcast and if you if you put me on the on a zoom with your marketing team
• 2:08:08
  you're gonna have a whole personal brand built out oh my god selling t-shirts
• 2:08:15
  um at the bare minimum all I want is a podcast that are you because you have a lot of wisdom so
• 2:08:20
  please start please start maybe next time by the next time you come on yeah yeah we'll have to
• 2:08:25
  we'll have a podcast to push people to um last question i like to ask out of all the different
• 2:08:31
  things you've learned in your life um say you have to pick one that you want to pass on to your kids
• 2:08:38
  what is that less than and why family first and why that's important is um having a good
• 2:08:48
  relationship with your family gives you a good foundation to take risks a lot of people and i'm
• 2:08:54
  not saying of the perfect relationship with my family my wife wherever there's always ups and
• 2:08:58
  downs but knowing that i have a solid foundation there someone i can go to whether it's my father
• 2:09:05
  my aunt whatever to to talk things out allows me to take risks out worrying nothing's worse than
• 2:09:13
  being successful in business and then having a family issue and then that will impact your bit
• 2:09:20
  you know like uh understanding priorities so like the kids the wife and like i said not
• 2:09:26
  them everything perfect like i'm still working on a lot of things uh but understanding that you
• 2:09:33
  like i said like work like balance like that is very important because you know businesses can come
• 2:09:39
  and go but your family is there and you want them to be there to help you support you understand and
• 2:09:45
  eventually work with you is the ultimate goal um and that's easy to lose sight of right i mean it's
• 2:09:53
  very easy like i said before kids um it just be working with my wife same things she's very high
• 2:09:58
  performing as well she's very uh top rigorous job excellent what she does we just work work work work
• 2:10:05
  work and it was fine single right and then when the first kid came along okay we could still balance
• 2:10:11
  it now i have three right a six-year-old a two-year-old that's going to be three in April and
• 2:10:15
  eight-month-old and um that's not doable now something someone always is losing uh so having that
• 2:10:23
  balance to make sure everything is solid there so then when i go to work i can focus on work i can
• 2:10:29
  focus on growing expanding and not worrying about the other things and that's so easy to lose sight of
• 2:10:35
  um i think that's one of the most important ideas i appreciate you sharing that i speak a lot about
• 2:10:40
  how the person that you pick like your spouse is one of the most important business decisions
• 2:10:45
  that you're ever going to make because if your house is chaos and it it bleeds into your business
• 2:10:50
  it bleeds into everything but i can only imagine the spouse for sure but if you don't have a
• 2:10:57
  a healthy like safe household with the kids as well everything else in your life you won't be
• 2:11:03
  able to commit a hundred percent of yourself to it yeah it's uh and i will tell you like you don't
• 2:11:08
  realize it because you'd be like wow i'm doing this business i'm working hard to raise money for them
• 2:11:13
  but they don't care about that they want you as a person to be there to engage with them to listen
• 2:11:19
  that is worth more money than any money you can save for them to go to college because
• 2:11:25
  you need to build a relationship with them so that they want to be around you when you're older
• 2:11:31
  like honestly like i want to hang out with my kids and my family and stuff i don't want them to be like
• 2:11:38
  peace out then i'm never you know i'll talk to you once a month type of thing and people lose sight of
• 2:11:42
  that yeah they lose sight of them then they on the other side of the exit then they're trying to
• 2:11:47
  repair they're trying to repair and it's not the same because the damage is already there and like i
• 2:11:52
  said i still struggle with that now i tried the best i can but i can't say everything's been
• 2:11:58
  rosy there's been really good times really bad times and now i'm just you know trying to work
• 2:12:03
  work it out so everything is okay