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. 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.