Well hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto, savage.com
and today I've got special guest Chris Mandarino on the line.
He is a formal NFL fullback who has since gone the route of a
business entrepreneur. He is the CEO and founder of
Life Fuel which is a plant based Whole Foods meal replacement
shake supplement company. I wanted to get him on the
podcast to pick his brain about his experience and past with
playing in the NFL, but then also how that led to him getting
into business, what he learned from a nutritional standpoint
and then just really kind of dive into the weeds of business.
So we talked a little bit about building a business,
bootstrapping a business, the supplement industry as a whole,
and just kind of dove a little deeper into that realm.
So I thoroughly enjoyed the conversation.
I've got no doubt that you will take something from it.
So without further ado, sit back, relax, enjoy the podcast
with Chris. We are live.
Chris, how are you brother? Doing well, Robert.
Thanks. How are you?
I'm good, man. I'm excited to be chatting with
you because we're going to dive into some nutrition and some
business, both topics of which I am very passionate.
So let's give the audience a little context here for for to
begin with, you are coming from a football background.
You were in the NFL, correct? That's correct.
Yep, I played. Quickly with the Cincinnati
Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs and how long were you doing that
for? I've seen the NFL for three
years and I played a year abroad in Italy after before
transitioning into the business world.
Everybody that's like a kid wants to to grow up and be a
football player with the NFL. Was it all that it was cracked
up to be the Did you enjoy that champion in your life?
Were you kind of excited to move past that now?
You know, a little of both. I mean is definitely a dream
accomplished and you know, surreal at certain times.
There's also a business side of things which you know, changed a
lot for me personally. You know, you're always kind of
playing for the love of the game and the element of of business
and politics, you know, makes it a little bit different.
But you know, just it's, you know, comes with the territory
at that level of any professional sport.
Did it start to feel kind of more like a job than a passion
at one point? Yeah, yeah, I think, you know,
kind of. There was definitely times where
I I kind of caught myself going through the motions, definitely
felt more of a job and very labour intensive and physical
job at that. So I guess that's some of the
things that I don't miss is it's really how my body felt, you
know, after practices and games, it's just like playing fullback.
You know, I I beefed up to 240 pounds.
That was still considered undersized for NFL standards and
so just took a lot of wear and tear on my body.
And yeah, definitely don't miss that side of things.
Any lingering injuries that you're sustaining now as a
result of that or pretty much fully recovered?
Yeah, there's certainly. Things that I'm constantly
challenged with that pop up. I mean, I had a shoulder surgery
way back in high school when I was 15 years old.
Subluxation, so that's definitely got some.
Range of motion mobility issues, most recent one that I've been
dealing with is like a a nagging hip issue and trying to work
through through that, but you know, still remain pretty active
and you know made daily movement and fitness a big part of my
routine and kept that up. So, you know, just kind of being
smart about recovery and giving the body a chance to, you know,
adapt and and and try to work through some of those.
Range of motion things and doing some extra PT and stuff to try
to, you know, fix some of that damage that I did while while I
was playing at that professional level with the NFL.
Is there much discussion from the coaches and administrators
and, you know, professionals that are brought on to help
about nutrition or is that kind of like an afterthought?
You know, I'm I'm sure it's changed.
Somewhat today I don't know how much but when I was playing it
was certainly an afterthought. I think there was usually maybe
a dietician or something that was contracted out and you know
accessible but not necessarily you know mandatory part of you
know optimizing for performance recovery and and taking a deeper
dive into the individual athletes diet and kind of how to
utilize that to your. Your advantage, certainly the
guys that, or at least a lot of the guys that I played with that
had really good longevity, really tended to take that more
seriously than than others. So, but I think it was, you
know, something you really had to seek out individually unless
you know you were I guess on the opposite end, struggling with
weight and how to cut weight to to be able to, you know, be
cleared. To get on the field, which was a
lot of guys. But yeah, it's I'd be curious to
see, you know, how integrated it is today versus when I was
playing. It's unfortunate, man.
I would hope that like at an elite level of anything, whether
it's sports or like the military, they'd be more of a
proactive approach to nutrition because like if you get that
dialed in, everything else follows suit.
Yeah, you would think so, right. And it's it's.
It's crazy how it's still often gets overlooked or you know just
misinformation or wrong information and and and I think
that's the challenge right. You know, nutrition really does
need to be personalized to the individual, especially the
individual athlete to cater to their specific, you know, body
and and what they're trying to achieve physically and all those
types of things, so. You know you would think you
would have a a team of you know nutritionists and and just
people that could help athletes with that more effectively and
not have it just be reserved to the guys that are making multi
millions of dollars a year who can afford to pay for their own
private nutritionists and chef and and all that.
Yeah 100% ma'am. I definitely want to dive into
nutrition because that's now a major part of your business, but
this may be a a taboo subject. Not really sure but within the
NFL. And the reason I'm asking this
because of the podcast I recorded yesterday was all about
TRTHRT. Is there a pretty significant
prominence of, you know, performance enhancing drugs in
the NFL? Like is that tested for pretty
regularly? This is something that I'm
pretty ignorant on within that sport.
You know, it's tough to say. They definitely have.
You know testing that goes on throughout the year, both in
season and offseason, so you're taking a a pretty significant
risk if you know that's something that you know you you
choose to use. That said, I think it'd be naive
to say that it doesn't exist. There's certainly guys that that
have used it I I think sometimes.
It's a challenge with testing and kind of those performance
enhancing drugs or whatever kind of moving target, right.
As soon as one thing gets banned, it seems like the the
drugs often times have outpaced you know, what the testing can
detect. So, you know, it's tough to say.
I would say, you know, NFL. There's just some people that
are genetic freaks that, you know, they've been blessed by
God to just play the sport of professional football and
physically is like way more equipped than, you know, your
average person to be able to do that.
But I I wouldn't say it's prevalent, you know, you know?
Like what we saw was it like 90s or or 2000s like Major League
Baseball, Baseball. Definitely to not.
Not that extent. Just because you can get tested
at any time and and and realize and really be jeopardizing your
career and hurting your team if you're getting beamed for any
performance in anti drugs, Yeah, no that makes total sense.
It is kind of murky waters because they're always, you
know, like the banned substance list is ever evolving.
But like you look at some of these guys that are just
undergoing these massive, you know, bulking phases, cutting
phases, and they're trying to like hedge against injuries.
It's just it's crazy what they're subjecting the human
body to. So it makes sense that a lot of
them would reach out for exogenous substance to try and
mitigate the the length of downtime that there are injured
or if they're trying to optimize for a specific performance goal.
Yeah, yeah. And I think it's.
Actually, the other side of it too, which is probably more of a
problem than often gets spoken about, is you know, the the
drugs to deal with the pain. You know, I remember, you know,
Vicodin, painkillers, muscle relaxers, those types of things
were kind of handed out like candy after games.
And guys would just be often times addicted to those because
your body's just enduring so much pain all the time and
you're just trying to feel. Yeah, normal or whatever your
sense of normal is. So you can go and continue to
put your body through that rigor and and train and perform at a
high level. Yeah, totally, totally.
So after you retire from the NFL, you just rolled up your
sleeves and got into the one or four out of business or what did
that, What did that journey look like?
Now it was, it was a bit of a transition, so I think a lot of
guys. You you never fully prepared for
that transition. First off you know I I tried to
be, I knew there was a shelf life too kind of time in the
NFLI kind of went into it with a three or four year horizon to
you know making what I wanted to make being started being the guy
or otherwise moving on and putting my education views and
and kind of doing other things in the business world.
So you know when that day. Did come, you know, although I
had kind of tried to you know network and and have mentors
within the business world, you know, just that the reality of
that chapter coming to a close, you know, it's not so easy to
just say, OK, that's done. Now I'm moving on with the next
thing, right. There's so much identity wrapped
up in, you know. You as the athlete, you as the
football player that it takes time to to really work through
that and then try to redefine, you know, who you intend to be
in this next phase, the next chapter in life.
So I was actually a lot of it. What I had done outside of
football was more geared toward finance.
I was, you know, studying for my Series 7, but I'd go kind of the
wealth management or financial planning route, and that was the
end of 2008. And I got a call from a buddy
who's going over to play football in Italy and Remember
Me talking about that at some point in time during college.
And they were looking for a couple other guys and.
And so I said, yeah, screw this Series 7, I'm going to go, you
know, live in abroad in Italy. There's something I always
wanted to do and if I could use football to do it, why not?
And so for me. That helped to make the
transition a little bit easier psychologically.
It allowed me to play for the love of the game again and and
not for you know, football as as a business and so that I think.
Took some of the sting and kind of the bitterness that I had
when I ultimately got released by Kansas City and didn't get
back in and was able to kind of leave football on a more
positive note and then prepare. Or whatever is going to be next
and then start to formulate my plan around what that that
looked like. And it was still very uncertain
because coming back, you know I was kind of looking for a job in
the middle of the global financial crisis.
So you know financial job, real estate, anything that I thought
I'd end up doing. You know not the best time to to
try to get started in that world and think just I don't know if
his destiny or just kind of. Some lot kind of fell into the
business side of of nutrition through mutual Friend who had
followed my football career and just met him at a kids youth
football camp and their business was growing and had an interview
and next thing you know, I was, I was there getting my feet wet
in the world of nutrition. Love it, man.
You have a. Wife and kids.
Wife, yes. Working on starting a family
now. No kids yet.
What was her perception throughout all of this
transition? Was she just along for the ride,
or was she kind of, you know, unnerved by it all?
I mean, what was what was it like going from NFL to business
for her? Well, fortunately probably for
hers actually we ended up meeting after that was all said
and done. So we, you know we had both kind
of pursued our individual endeavors and then.
Met later in life. She had moved actually from
Brazil and immigrated to the US and we met in in Southern
California. And still like that.
The football side was never something that she had seen.
She only kind of got glimpses of it.
Through, you know, just reuniting with friends at games
and stuff like that. So yeah, fortunately she didn't
have to go through a lot of those emotional ups and downs on
the football side. Now she just gets to endure them
on the entrepreneurship side. There's certainly lots of ups
and downs with the entrepreneurial side, so she's
getting a pretty good taste of it there for sure.
Absolutely. Well, tell me about life fuel
man. Like what was the the motivation
behind that company? Specifically, what's the origin
story? Yes, I think it really came
about as a combination between that personal experience,
having, you know, such a strong invested interest in, you know,
optimizing human performance as an athlete and really looking
at, you know, ways to gain that competitive edge and seeing that
nutrition was often ignored by by so many, you know, athletes,
you know, as a real opportunity to kind of lean into that.
But also as I kind of started to gain experience in the business
world of nutrition, especially kind of more on the functional
medicine side and and really you know these concepts around
metabolic health and you know why we largely suffer and help
as a population due to chronic and preventable disease.
And it led me to take a deeper look at that and you know start
to understand how much our food system has changed and and why,
you know, our health is suffering as a result.
And so life fuel was really born out of that key problem that the
nutrition has been largely stripped from you know, food or
what we think of food today and the need to.
Find convenient sources to to replenish those essential
nutrients and doing that in a more comprehensive way, keeping
the the real food synergy intact, not having to you know
take 1520 different supplements a day just to meet those those
baseline needs. And that's something when I was
working, you know that first that first business was
actually. Kind of on the opposite spectrum
of health, you know, I was always kind of very proactive
about it and you know, high performance athlete and that
company was created to address the specific nutritional needs
of the bariatric surgery population.
So people were struggling with morbid obesity and and trying to
reverse, you know, a lot of the comorbidities and challenges
with that and one of the the things that kept coming up is.
You know the real challenge around, you know the the
supplement routine and how many different things patients would
have to take and when to remember which which pill to
take and and juggling medications and all that stuff
on top of it. And you know, hearing those
stories, we felt you know, there really needed to be an easier
solution. Management was kind of resistant
to doing that because we kind of cannibalize, you know, a big
portion of the product line. And so eventually got tired of
hearing them being no to a very obvious demand in the market and
decided to just go out and do it my own.
I love it man. I think the the real food
synergy is key and I think you know whenever there's a hole in
the market and you feel like you can just tackle it head on and
find a solution to that problem and like that, that's what gets
me excited. That's why I love business so
much. So as far as Life Fuel is
concerned, it's predominantly like a plant based like Shake, I
mean what what was the first product skew?
Yeah. So our first product was our
essentials nutrition shake. And so with that we still, we
really looked at you know that problem I alluded to.
So, you know, if you look at general population, we're pretty
much overfed, undernourished from, you know, modern diet,
we're getting plenty of calories, but that.
Food that we're eating and sustenance is not providing with
those fundamental nutrients we we really do need.
And that's why you're seeing sixty 7090% of the population
insufficient or deficient in one or more D vitamins and minerals.
And these are all fundamental to, you know, the many different
processes in the body that they keep us healthy for longer, long
period of time, right, and really increase health span.
So how can we, you know, age better, longer.
It really starts, you know with with getting what we what's
missing from food back into the diet.
And so we looked at what those foundational needs are looked at
doctor brain doctor Bruce Ames, triage theory at aging which
basically supports that. It says you know when you don't
provide your body with a basic. Building blocks essential
nutrients. It flips a switch from long term
health to short term revivable When you don't get enough D3.
Magnesium, iodines, lenium, all these, you know, trace vitamins
and minerals. You just open up Pandora's box
for chronic disease essentially. And it's a deleterious effect
over time, right? It's not something that you.
Wake up and you feel hungover because you didn't get enough
vitamin D You know, the day before.
It's just, you know, it's that slow, gradual decline over time.
And so the essential shake was really created to make that lot
easier, to give people the Peace of Mind that, hey, at least you
know, my baseline needs are met and that I could be more
strategic about. You know, if there's other
things that I'm trying to optimize for or very specific,
you know, deficiencies or insufficiency that I have, I can
layer and stack on top of that to, you know, kind of
personalize my diet, my supplement routine around the
goals and and challenges that I have individually.
Yeah, I definitely agree with you in that most of the
population is overfed and undernourished, so anything that
kind of. Shorten the gap there and
improve that stepping stone to make things more sustainable,
more realistic. There's not really any shortcuts
or hacks per SE, but anything that you can do to just lessen
the the obstacles that people are more prone to.
Reaching for a healthier option I think is key.
When did you all launch Marched Some Brand back in late 2015?
Late 2015 so I've. I'm I'm definitely in the
ketospace keto carnivore space. Most of my nutrition is coming
from animal based sources. What made you go the direction
of the plant based shake? Great question.
So, so for me there's a few things.
And I guess on the on the topic of Keto, when I was working at
that bariatric nutrition company, we actually had one of
the first ketogenic programs on the market.
It was only being used kind of in the medical space before it
really took off and gained steam you know in the general consumer
space. And you know it was really to
being used to as a medical supervised program to try to
lose body fat either prior to the surgery or in replaces the
surgery. So you know there's some really
profound you know benefits to that program.
I think you know, largely being able to control blood glucose
levels and just kick start fat loss for many people.
And so that's something that I was definitely Privy to actually
when I was living in Italy the second time and also coaching
CrossFit. It's something that I kind of
put the Italians through and we monitored the blood heat comb
levels and all that stuff. But the reason why you know we
ended up going the plant based route is when I started to dig
into you know the ingredients that were you know commonly used
to formulate specific products that really you look at the whey
protein space predominantly ultra process can be pro
inflammatory, really, really, really challenging to get a high
quality of source of whey protein.
Additionally, personally, I noticed a lot of gut distress,
other issues that came as a direct result of you know, a lot
of the the heavyweight protein supplementation that I had done
as an athlete, intolerance to certain types of dairy.
And when I removed that I felt a lot better.
I thought a lot of that inflammation start to fade away
and ultimately disappear in the body and was really in leaning
into kind of these plant based sources as the primary
nutritional source. Now that said, it wasn't
necessarily about going vegan or you know any specific dietary
agenda. It was simply, you know to get
these essential nutrients and also get all these other
phytonutrients and the therapeutic benefits of that, we
needed to use plant based sources, the cleanest option
available. And the animal based sources
don't have all those vitamin, mineral cofactors essentially
that you would need to get that full spectrum of nutrition.
Plus, you know, if you look at most diets, we're getting plenty
of animal protein as it is. Often times we don't get enough
plants in that entire rainbow. So simply replacing, you know,
standard American breakfast or one, you know, animal based meal
with something like light fuel, you know, helps to kind of
balance that ratio a little bit more and ensures again you're
getting a nutrient dense meal essentially with that full
spectrum of of health benefits. So you're personally eating, you
know, meat based products as well.
You just went this route from a supplemental standpoint because
the quality of the supplements you can source for this product.
We're better catered towards the plant based, absolutely.
And it's the same kind of approach taken with with food
too. It's not just, you know, I'm,
I'm fine eating any type of meat, right?
I'm willing to spend a premium to get only meat that complies
with our level of quality standards, right?
So I need, I need to know and trust the source.
I need to know that it's, you know, 100% grass fed grass
finished, No soy, no corn. I feed you know ethically
slaughtered all those things matter to me and trying to get
that locally right produce same thing.
You know I'm not buying conventional produce.
We're going we're getting going to the farmers market as often
as possible or getting a local organic box of produce delivered
to us. And so that's really the level
of detail and effort that we go to, to source really nutrient
dense food because it's I think that's the problem that we're
trying to solve is maximizing nutrient density doesn't matter
if it's plant or animal, I'll you know nutrient dense can that
meal be and how you know can you provide your your body with
those essential building blocks from food to look, feel and
perform your best. Yeah, I totally agree.
I think nutrient density should be paramount and from like a
bioavailability standpoint there's certainly a lot pointing
direction of animal based foods. But I don't feel like like I
don't feel like the the vegan route necessarily is.
Going to be the healthiest option for the vast majority of
people, and I don't think from an ethical standpoint, going
vegan makes a lot of sense. But if you're going to have a
mixed diet and you're sourcing both your meat and your produce
from quality, you know, quality sources, quality ranchers,
quality farmers like that, that should be the motivation of all.
Absolutely, yeah. It's just getting back to those
core principles and really, you know, consuming mindfully and
understanding to help impact, right.
If you do go on vegan, you have to understand that there's some
trade-offs that are being made from a health standpoint.
You know, there's definitely some nutrient gaps that you need
to be aware of to do that effectively or not, you know
have your health suffer as a result.
So certainly easier if you're eating, you know omnibore diet,
both plants and animals to to get all that the nutrients you
need. But again it comes down to bio
individuality and personal beliefs in certain things as
well. So, but saying one is right or
wrong, I think that's really what we need to get away from in
America is like these just like senseless diet wars,
essentially. Because you know it's
nonsensical, right? I can't sit here and say without
knowing you know what your your goals are, your genetic makeup.
Your taste preferences, what's going on in your microbiome to
say that you know my program is going to you know, 100% work for
you, right? So really need to understand
this idea of bio individuality, that what works for one person
can be entirely different from what works for another.
However, you cannot ignore these core tendencies.
Core principles of how to identify what a you know a real
food is or you know a nutrient dense food is.
And so when you focus on that, those core principles instead of
is it vegan or is it keto, I think you're going to be able to
achieve a ton of success and anybody's going to respond to
that no matter what that ratio of plant personal ultimately is.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think the the dogmatic, siloed
thinking that has gone on with the nutritional War space is.
The single biggest set back to many making any progress within
the realm of nutrition for sure. When it comes to plants as a
nutrient there's been like this massive popularity growth in
carnivore obviously you know as a subset of keto and with that
there's been a lot of talk about the phytochemicals and you know
anti nutrients so to speak in these plant based sources.
Have you gotten much pushback from that demographic?
It's an interesting subject for sure.
I think that all comes down to preparation and processing.
I think, you know, depending on what you were doing before and
what you're doing after, you know, if you're if you're doing
a Standard American diet and you go carnivore your Standard
American diet, you go vegan, you know, whatever it might be,
you're probably going to feel better.
You're probably going to see some results, especially if
you're cutting out the ultra processed food.
A lot of the, you know, highly processed, you know, seed oils,
and you know pretty much all that junk that the body
physiologically does not respond well to.
So yes, is it? Is it potentially problematic?
It can be if those things are not prepared or processed.
However, the simple art of you know, fermentation or soaking
your beans before cooking them and all these different you
know, preparation methods that you know many cultures around
the world have used since the dawn of time really eliminate a
lot of those concerning anti nutrients.
But if you're out there eating, you know, raw kale salads, you
know, every day, it's probably some, some reason for concern.
And so you know what we do at Life Fuel, we're very aware of
that. We're constantly looking for
ways to kind of reduce those while optimizing, you know, all
those amazing phytonutrients and other health benefits.
And our position is really that the net impact, the benefit that
you're going to gain from these protective antioxidants,
phytonutrients are going to outweigh any trace amount of
potential anti nutrients that you may see in in small doses.
But yeah, I think it's it's certainly complex and there's
you know the whole category of lectins and other things.
But again, we're leaning more into some of these processes
around fermentation and sprouting and and some of those
things to unlock the full nutritional value while
diminishing or removing entirely.
You know any concerns around anti nutrients I.
Love it? Yeah.
I think there's certainly a lot of nuance and context around
that conversation, because. You know, something consumed in
the raw state that can't be broken down or absorbed by the
body is certainly going to have a different effect than
something that is fermented properly or soaked properly or
just processed properly, all while avoiding all the ultra
processing that is going to strip it of its nutrients.
So there's just so much context. And I'm, I'm not a hardcore
proclaimed carnivore. I mean, that's definitely kind
of the vast majority of what I consume and a lot of that.
You know, dialogue makes a ton of sense to me, and I tend to
lean that way. But I don't ever want to become
dogmatic in that thinking to the point where I view all plants
and anything green as being, you know, the Antichrist.
Because there's certainly some people that have gone that
direction and some people are incredibly sensitive to some of
those foods, in which case that may make a lot more sense for
them. But yeah, it kind of goes back
to what you were saying earlier about the individuality
component and just figuring out what makes the most sense for
the individual, what their digestive system.
Is able to handle what benefits they're noticing.
So, yeah, I'm on the same page with you there, for sure.
Yeah, absolutely. And ultimately, too, I think you
can't. I mean, we can get in this kind
of vacuum of what is optimal from a health standpoint.
But at the end of the day, if you're mental health and
suffering because you're so restrictive around what you can
and can't eat, I think that becomes challenging too.
Or if you don't like certain things or you're sick and tired
of eating meat all day, which you may or may not be, you know,
sometimes some of those plant sources can can add a lot of
variety and a lot of, you know, flavor and different things to
food. So again, it it all comes down
to the individual you know and what works for one person you
know. You can't just make the
assumption that it's going to work for for everyone.
Yeah, totally. The timing of this podcast is
interesting, man, because I am. I'm in a competition prep right
now, so I'm tracking everything. I'm.
I'm not really introducing any new supplements, but.
I am a huge fan of listening to certain podcasts, of which I've
been listening to a lot of Huberman Lab, Tim Ferriss, and
Joe Rogan, all three of which are massive proponents to AG1.
Like you can't listen to a single one of their podcasts
without them promoting AG One. And truth be told, I I got some
of that. I don't know man.
Probably a couple years ago now and I was not consistent with
taking in. The only thing I noticed at the
moment was just an increase in my toilet paper bill, so I don't
really know, but I don't feel like I gave it an honest try, so
I ordered some more prior to even knowing about this podcast
with you and I. Maybe I I took the wrong step
there, but I ordered some more and I'm going to try to
consistently consume it for at least a month, maybe more, to
see if I can have any measurable, tangible change
whatsoever. Because I'm tracking everything,
I'd be able to, really. Fine tune that and know with a
pretty high degree of certainty if there is any measurable
changes. But on that note, you know
they've done a a stellar job at their affiliate outreach
program, whatever, because all these podcasters are promoting
their stuff. But as I dove deeper into what
their formulation was, what they included, there's several
companies that are making a greens blend of some form or
fashion. So what?
What is different with life? What?
What sets you all apart? How are you all doing things
differently? I know there's like A blog
article page on your site that kind of compares and contrasts
you to other, you know, plant based, comprehensive
supplements. So.
So what direction did you all take that's different than the
others there? Yeah, it's great question.
I can dig into this further because I've spent a lot of time
kind of reverse engineering their process.
And you know I've got an entire Excel model that I've used to
build out our formulations and I've got pretty much every one
of our closest competitors that you know is relatively in, in
the same space. And so you know we we are the
most complete solution to daily nutrition.
And I can say that because when you think about it, you know
like fuel is something essentially you could live on
because it does provide all your protein nutrients that the body
needs. Something like AD one does a
great job of making a multi vitamin more appealing I guess,
right? So you're getting a pretty
decent spectrum of vitamins and minerals, a lot of which you're
probably already getting enough of through the diet.
So it's high in like vitamin C and some of the B vitamins and
it's missing some of the core tenets of you know what you
would actually need. So D3K2, you have to take that
as a separate product, right? It's a liquid deal that they
give to you when you buy their $150.00 Greens powder, right.
So there's now two products that you have to take separately that
you're getting in life, fuel plus, you know, I think protein,
right. Anybody who understands anything
about metabolic health knows that the best way to start your
day is with a protein rich meal. So if all you're having is a
green shake, OK, that's fine. If you're trying to do, I guess
saying a fasting mimicking state or something and it's been that
fast longer or something, but you know, not great if you need
that, you're breaking your fast and you know, providing yourself
with that first meal of the day. So from a had nutritional
standpoint, life is like people are essential.
Shake is the most nutrient dense option and most complete option
out there. I always say I do find it
fascinating. They've done a great job and I
think you know part of that I think the founder of ethnic
Koreans had a a good friendship with Tim Ferriss early days and
that kind of allowed them to to get on a lot of those podcasts.
And I think they continue to lean into it and and build their
brand in that direction which kudos to them because it it
really hit a home run in terms of success with that and it's
just a single product. So yeah, I'm always curious to
you, you mentioned like is it doing something for me.
I'm curious to understand like the consumer psychology and what
the perceived benefit is of like the greens, you know category
beyond like a glorified multi vitamin.
Because often times they are missing some of these additional
the essential nutrients that we're packing into life fuel
that most will have either ignored the science on or or
just care not to to do it in a single product.
Yeah, it seems like they've kind of gone there at just more of
the the multi vitamin approach, whereas yours is more like the
actual meal replacement with protein, which which makes total
sense especially if you're trying to target the demographic
that is going to be. You know, like they're
struggling with their weight. They're just trying to replace
one food for another. Like they're going to have a
better option grabbing yours than a, you know, make make
muffin drive through or something like that.
Yeah, absolutely. So but like on the, if you dig
in the micronutrients, you'll see that basically our product
has AG One in it plus, plus, yeah, plus protein plus some
other things that you're not going to get through AG one.
And they've actually been, I've spent the past three years now
working on an updated formulation that just surpasses
anything in the marketplace. And and that's really where
we're leaning into this concept of real food nutrition.
And so we've we've been able to do this on our essentials bars
and we'll be doing this in our essential shakes.
So pretty much 99% of the supplement industry relies on
synthetic vitamin and mineral inputs to kind of create those
fancy labels that make it seem like you're giving getting a ton
of nutrients right. AG one is you know one of the
biggest brands that that does that.
The challenge with that is most sympathetic based vitamin and
minerals start with they're synthetically created and
allowed to mimic what happens in nature and a lot of them are
petroleum derived or petroleum based.
So you know that said obviously not the most natural and
certainly not the most bioavailable, but bioavailable
for the human body. And so that's where we really
intend to be a leader in in the space is around this idea and
this concept of real food nutrition.
And if you look at kind of our, our bars now that mix of really
nutrient density comes from stuff that you can pronounce and
recognize and even grow in your own backyard is coming from
mushrooms and cranberry and sweet potato, which I think is
amazing. And I think connects this
conversation back to what we were discussing earlier is like
sourcing matters, quality matters and knowing where your
food ingredients and nutrients come from really does matter.
And the closer we can reconnect to nature, the better off we're
going to be as a result. And so yeah, that's exciting.
I mean we're we're pretty close to getting that launched.
Hopefully Q1Q2 next year we'll finally have the market and
really leaning into some of these other things to further
unlock the bioavailability because it's not, you know, on
paper doesn't matter if you're getting you know 1000% of some
nutrient, if your body is not actually absorbing and utilizing
that nutrient like you said, you've got really expensive
toilet paper or or urine at the end of the day doesn't matter,
right. So that's where our focus lies
really around the uptake of those vitamins and minerals at
the cellular level and also really conscious and aware of
how we can kind of lean into this larger problem of metabolic
health and you know giving people the right tools from a
nutritional standpoint to to help course correct that that
challenge that a lot of people are faced with.
What do y'all do to test the absorption of the the
supplements that are in the bars in the shakes?
Like is there a good quality standard for companies to be
able to test how much of their products is truly getting
absorbed by the in consumer that is consuming it to see what is
actually being used versus just passing through.
You know, a lot of that unfortunately is, you know, it's
kind of marketing or leaning on the research of the individual
nutrient companies because trying to do that tested thing
given like a controlled clinical trial, there's just like too
many different variables right to to try to control for
demonstrate hey this is more effective.
But there's there's some interesting research papers that
I've read. And again, I think even just
going back to a more intuitive kind of process of, you know,
what is going to be more recognizable by the human body
in better received. Is it something that is
completely and truly natural is a bad word but it is you know
natural or from nature or something that's been chemically
created in a lab to mimic nature.
And I think the easiest you know, conclusion we can, we can
you know use around that is just look at any pharmaceutical drug,
right. You know you take a drug to you
know try to fix one thing, you've got 15 different
potential symptoms that that pop up or ultra processed food
that's you know laden with chemicals and all the challenges
along that side. So it's it's challenging to do.
I think it goes back to individuality though, right?
So your experiment with AG1, what is the control?
What is the baseline? Is there something that you're
trying to fix? Are your vitamin D levels low?
Is your magnesium low? Like what is what is that
problem that you're trying to solve by introducing that
product? Make sure you start with the
baseline, so go get, go get your individual blood work done and
then run that control over the next 30 days, 60 days and being
religious about taking that product every single day.
And did those biomarkers improve for you?
If they did, that's awesome. The product is working as it
should. Your body's, you know, receiving
it, absorbing it, utilizing it, that's great and should continue
doing that. If not, something's not working
right. So is it the supplement, is it
something lifestyle, diet related?
Is there some sort of resistance at the cellular level that's not
intaking those? That's where things get a lot
more complex. But that's how I would
personally think about it, right?
I got all my blood work done recently.
I take my essential shake every day.
Everything looks good. I'm just going to keep doing
what I'm doing right? So that's how I approach it.
Yeah, I think that's key, man. So many people, they look at
supplements as this, you know, quick fix thing and then they
change so many things so frequently that there's no
control, there's no baseline. And they don't really know
what's working and what's not working.
So people just need to, you know, stay steady for a length
of time so they can truly get those markers and be objective
to what their body feedback is. And that that holds true with
any change, whether it's training, nutrition,
supplementation. I wish more people would be, you
know, you got to treat yourself as a scientific experiment.
What can be measured can be managed.
But if you're changing too many variables at once, there's an
impossibility to honing in on what the change is actually
being reflected. Absolutely.
And I'm so super skeptical about any supplement because I've seen
the industry. I see kind of what goes on
beyond the curtain and I understand how to identify and
look out for quality parameters and all these things, right?
And I think that's probably the more unique part about what
we're doing at Life Fuel is yes, we've got our, our line of
products which are, you know, tools at the end of the day to
to help people kind of fill these nutritional gaps.
But I've always said that we're a transformation company first.
You know, that's why my, my wife's a certified holistic
health coach, a culinary nutritionist.
We've really leaned into that expertise and my expertise as a
former athlete to you know, provide the coaching, the
leadership and you know the accountability that oftentimes
people need. Like if you're if you're not
sleeping well, if you're not moving your body, you know no
supplement, no diet is going to out hack.
You know those core principles, those core things that we all
need to be doing to maintain health, right?
Because if you're not sleeping properly, hormones are going to
be a mess. You're going to be more
triggered to seek out, you know, junk food and all those
different things, right? Unless you're just not going to
be very fun to be around. You know, if you're not moving
your body right, you probably, you know, have some other things
going on, maybe on the path to insulin resistance, some sort
of, you know, metabolic disreference.
There's just key principles that we need to get back to
integrating that. A lot of people would probably,
you know, have profound results from just these these basic
things before trying to, you know, add a ton of different
supplements to their daily routine to to just, you know,
out hack. That's all.
The things that are are simple, but they're not doing.
Yeah, I'm in complete alignment with me, with you there for sure
from a business standpoint, I come with a dive into that.
So you launched in 2015. What have been some like the
major pitfalls and just some of the major wins that Y'all have
experienced as a company, like what what are Y'all doing that's
really working well from like a marketing standpoint for
instance? Gee, it's been a roller coaster
for sure. I mean you know, this has really
been my first venture, you know as a founder and product formula
and all the wearing all the different hats that you
ultimately have to run is wear as a a founder.
And so there were certainly challenges you know
bootstrapping the business maybe being a a big capital
constrained from the start. We were kind of on this, you
know I call it credit card roulette, right.
You're trying to wait till the last opportune moment and and
trying to forecast you know inventory and stuff because you
don't want to run it out of product.
But also you don't have like great cash flow you know early
days. So that certainly was
challenging and and probably it was a bit of a an Achilles hill
on on growth out of the start out of the gate.
But the industry also looked very different than it does
today. There was you know a lot fewer
manufacturers that were willing to take on smaller minimum order
quantities and and give us a chance like I I would door knock
because I probably talked to 20 different manufacturers.
I would go to supply side West and natural products Expo just
trying to get somebody to give give us a shot at the beginning
of the day. But you know most people wanted
you know these crazy high minimum order quantities and it
was just really challenging to get that process started.
I think it's probably almost a year and a half, two years of
just working through that process and finally getting a
manufacturer to that we could then run with.
And you know those early days like I created the the landing
page by myself is like a blast on Facebook, the friends and
family just basically any context that I had trying to get
on you know aware that hey I just launched this, this brand
and and things have certainly changed dramatically in terms of
how we market and and kind of you know just easy access to to
all this today. So those are probably the newer
challenges. You know we've been able to work
through a lot of those supply chain challenges.
I mean, there's always stuff that that pops up COVID and all
the constraints that came around that certainly wasn't easy.
But you know, we we survived and now it's really how do we get,
you know, this messaging in front of the right audience?
How do we cut through the noise of, you know, when you're.
Yes, yeah, one of your closest competitors is in AG One or
Kachava that's raised hundreds of millions of dollars and they
can afford to pay Huberman 50 grand to be on his show.
We can't do that. So we got to get a little bit
more creative in terms of you know our margin strategies and
and we're still you know focused on bottom line profitability and
so we're fine you know growing slowly, growing organically and
and making sure you know we have a sustainable business at all
scale. And I think that's really just
you know my comfort level and then you know what I guess our
team is comfortable, comfortable with and continue to grow that
and getting out of the business what we put into into it.
But it's challenging. It's an extremely competitive
space. But I think that's where we have
to kind of lean back on these core principles, really continue
to refine and define these core value props that set us apart
from other people in this space, other supplements and and what
we're doing now is we're pushing more into this concept of
transformation, really building that platform to empower people
to take back control of their health and and give them the
tools, resources, coaching, accountability that they need to
to do that. And I think that's really
profound and a lot more impactful than just you know,
selling widgets online. It's it's really, you know, you
know, makes a meaningful difference in in people's lives
and the more of that we can do then I think will be rewarded as
as a business for doing things the right way.
Yeah, I totally agree man. I think growing slowly, but
bootstrapping it and being more organic and just consumer
direct, consumer focused, so that you're actually focused on
relationships as opposed to just numbers is always the way to go.
And you know if you're growing organically, but it's slower,
but it's more natural like that you just have a much better
pulse on the company, so. I think that just builds for a
more resilient, robust company. Foundationally speaking anyways,
absolutely. And I think the challenge too is
if you do it quickly and we're in a good growth cycle now it's
you know, just trying to make sense often times of the data
and trust in the data. I think that's one of the
biggest things that we're wrestling with is how much do we
trust, you know, what's Google, Google's reporting or what
matters reporting in terms of you know, return on ad spend.
And we've even leaned into kind of a lot of these third party
attribution channels who have raised you know 10s of 1,000,000
if not hundreds of millions of dollars to figure this out and
still imperfect data. So you know what's the level of
confidence you're kind of putting into the assumptions
that you're you're drawing from the analysis on the business
that really kind of gears that overall marketing and growth
strategy. So, yeah, it's not an easy thing
to do and you want to have a pretty high level of confidence.
You know as you're increasing you know the size of those,
those bets or investment dollars to make sure you know that's
that's showing up in the, in the results of the business at the
end of the day. And you're, you know, achieving
growth was still, you know, a healthy level or a colorable
level of profitability at the end of the day, a. 100%, Have
you all done much for like getting into stores and doing
like wholesale? You're just mostly focused on
direct to consumer. We've largely focused on direct
consumer. We've got fare up on, on
Shopify. So people that have gyms or you
know natural organic, you know retailers and stuff, that's a
channel that we can easily serve.
We were in air 1 market early days and that required a ton of
physical time and and you know capital resources because we're
kind of required to do demos like on a weekly basis.
And so there's like a whole street team that we had to start
to build out. And you know when we did the
evaluation on that, you know it's probably early for us and
to try to be chasing that as a channel, the same amount of
resources from monetary standpoint and time standpoint
deployed into like a digital marketing campaign, the ROI was
so much greater. So you know I think those
opportunities will come in terms of like bigger box retail over
time. I think a lot of it comes by way
of just like growing that brand recognition.
And I think that makes it a little bit easier to to fly off
shelves versus, you know, just being in Whole Foods and nobody,
you know, actively seeking out. You know, I think a lot of
people can make that mistake and then you only get one chance,
right? Like you don't sell through and
you're off shelf and then then what?
Right. You're back in the same place
trying to figure out your digital marketing strategy.
So yeah, it's definitely in line with I think I think the
approach that we've taken to overall business grow slowly,
test the waters, certainly entertain you know those
opportunities as they surface. But be selective about it and
ensure that we've got the the proper resources to deploy so
that you know as we need to scale and can scale it, you know
it doesn't create overall chaos or disruption to other parts of
the business that are are doing well, right.
So like if we all of a sudden got a great retail channel going
and they need like 10X or 5X you know what we're currently
producing that that throws some bottlenecks in our supply chain.
We've got to figure that out, plan for that and you know just
make some adjustments to the business to to properly prepare
and you know I think we're we're on that path, but it's not
something that we're like spending a ton of time, it's
more kind of inbound as opposed to an aggressive outbound sale.
Strategy. Gotcha.
Have you had much luck with the
fair outlet within Shopify? I've seen that advertised a few
times. It looks intriguing, but I've
not used it myself. That's good.
You know, I think like with anything, you know, you kind of
need somebody to proactively manage it.
We've gotten some just random organic business from it just
simply by being on the platform. But I think having somebody kind
of lean into that with a more focused approach and and maybe
using it to try to activate retailers or you know having
some sort of marketing communication strategy around,
you know trying to grow that as a channel would probably make it
a larger part of the business. And I think just from a
simplicity standpoint to layer on wholesale to the business, I
think it's great. Anybody that's on the Shopify
ecosystem, it just makes it super simple to kind of pass
those orders through to Shopify, syncs with the inventory and
yeah, just really has changed things in terms of like the way
you can manage and wholesale as a business.
And I recently they just I think increased their partnership, you
know, so exciting to see what that looks like over time if
there's additional opportunities that will continue to surface
from it. Very cool, very cool.
Well, what are you excited about man, as far as like the business
goes, far as the nutritional research goes, like what's got
you, what's got you waking up excited to start the day.
Yeah, so lots, there's always something which is great.
But I think finally getting closer to some of these projects
that I've been working on for for really quite some time now.
I mean these you know multi year projects, one I alluded to is a
reformulation of our Essentials nutrition shake and you know
what that's going to be is I think really cool and and being
able to lean into some of this new technology around that real
food narrative and the fermentation and just being the
the market leader in nutrient density.
And I think that's something I'm really proud about and excited
to to launch. The transparency of those
ingredients too and the lengths at which we've gone to to source
them I think is also really special and we want to you know
make that more visible on our our website and our
communication strategy. It's some of these, some of
these growers and and people that I've gone to over the past
several years traveling the world and getting my hands dirty
in terms of going to cacao plantations or in Bali and in
different places. So that you know making that
part of the brand come to life is, is exciting and part of that
is a completely rehaul of our existing website that really you
know makes it more dynamic, solves some of the you know,
latency and slow speed that we've been dealing with on the
legacy site that we've had. And and just kind of working
through some of those challenges and bringing, you know, I've
always said my vision fully to life like had I had the
resources or had we gone out and raised money, you know, from the
start? I'm probably, I would have
launched like your what it's about to look like back then and
it's taken us eight years to get to this point.
So it's been a a heck of a journey.
I've learned a time And so I'm just really excited to finally
kind of put forward what we've really envisioned the brand to
be in and share that with the world.
No, I love it, man. I mean progress over perfection
around like with business. Absolutely.
The founder and the CEO, like you've got all these grand ideas
and you can see where you want to take things.
But like the day-to-day grind may not, you know, manifest
itself as quickly as you'd hoped.
But as long as you're making that progress, that's the main
thing man. And sounds like you certainly
are. Yeah, exactly.
And I think it's just you know patience in that process and you
know the we've been fortunate to be able to grow a nice business
and and you know we've got to be happy about that and not just
just chase growth at all costs, but do it in the right way.
And yeah, just continue to enjoy it.
You know we didn't, we didn't create the brand with the quick
exit in mind. You know, it's really been a
blessing for myself and my family and you know everybody
involved in it to to see it grow and blossom over time.
And you know we pretty confident that we're just scratching the
surface of what's possible with it.
And so to be able to you know use this platform to give other
people opportunities and and allow them to kind of chase
their dreams and goals both within the business and and
externally, our customer base has been really cool to see that
coming alive. Yeah, Yeah.
Now the vehicle, like the business business is a great
vehicle for creating opportunities amongst your
employee base, your families. I mean like like business done
right and done ethically while maintaining your integrity.
Is just like a a testament to what you can use to find true
fulfilment in life. Like there's so many
opportunities it creates. I I love it, man.
Like I can sit here and talk business with you all day long.
So this this is fun? Oh, absolutely.
I think it brings up a great it's that that pursuit and that
outlet for creative creativity. I think, you know, that's
something that's innately human and we're all kind of looking
for a way to express that. For me, business brings so many
different things together that you know little talent, skill
sets that I've either maybe had as a child or developed over
time and interest. And so that's that combination
and culmination of all those different things that I'm able
to use and apply through this platform, this vehicle and
that's my my canvas. So it's it's been awesome and
being able to share that with others, it's even more inspired
and powerful. Yeah, no, 100%, man.
I love it. I love it.
Well, I'm definitely going to have to give the the life fuel a
test after I. I'll do like a legitimate
comparison test between that and AG one as I'm testing all these
markers and we'll we'll see which one works better but so
are you gonna be are you gonna be taking the separate was it
the serum did you get that in addition to your green shake or
you just doing the the green spotter?
They're they're D3 serum D3K2. Yeah 'cause you're gonna take it
separately, 'cause it's not in the.
The shake, Yeah, yeah. I haven't even opened the box
yet. I won't do this until after my
prep's over. But they sent me the box and I
think it's got that K2D3 formulation in there.
So yeah, I'll. I don't know.
I might be better off just testing the powder itself in
isolation as they have it, and then your powder in isolation as
you have it. Probably, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's the fairest apple to apple comparison.
But we've already got the D3K too, so it just simplifies it
too. Yeah, well, I'm all for simple,
man. That's the way to go exactly.
Very cool Chris. Well, I have certainly enjoyed
the conversation man. Where can people go to find out
more about you, try out life you, and just dive deeper?
Yeah, so directly at our website itslifefuel.com and it's life at
the YLYFEFU el.com. It's really the best place for
somebody to start their journey with us.
Awesome, man. Well, I will link that to that
and make it easy for people to find you.
And let's definitely keep in touch, man.
Like I said, I can talk business all day long.
So we'll just keep the conversation going.
Yes, it's been great. I can go on for hours.
So we won't right now. But yeah, thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity. It was great to to be on the
show and to hope your audience will get some value out of this.
Pleasure's all mine, Chris. You take good.
Take care, man. Have a good one.
Thanks. He's well.
Appreciate it, Robert.