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How Neuro Gum Grew to $7M/Month...
0 Playsin 12 hours
If you’re into nootropics, you know Neuro Gum.
I sat down with my good friend Kent Yoshimura, co-founder of the brand that’s absolutely taking over the cognitive enhancement space. In this interview, Kent shares his story, challenges, and breakthroughs that led to the success of his brand. From a dorm room experiment to a multimillion-dollar business featured on Shark Tank and Joe Rogan—this is how Neuro Gum is dominating. Now they are doing millions on Amazon, and I had the pleasure of helping them in the beginning, and they're still clients of mine. Kent's story is incredibly inspiring, hope you enjoy it!
Check out Neuro Gum on Amazon: https://a.co/d/47ysZ6u
Need help scaling your brand on Amazon? Get a FREE account audit to see how we can help: https://hubs.la/Q034d-L-0
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Transcript
The Journey of Neural: From Amazon to Innovation
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Amazon blueprint podcast.
00:00:05
Speaker
du so we're going to talk about neural because it's a fucking crazy story you guys are doing like some crazy like ever since like we stopp seeing your amazon it just went like I mean, you guys laid the groundwork for all that though. And then we were just like, I think we need to internalize it like completely. It was like rocket fuel, bro. yeah I still remember like you and Ryan, we took the call, I was in Hawaii, and it was a connection from Nick and Fernando. And dude, i mean he was it was like, we're on Joe Rogan, we're on Shark Tank, I'm like... I knew like you guys are going to do amazing. It was like a matter of time. Yeah. It was just a matter of
College Days and the Path to Martial Arts
00:00:42
Speaker
time. Oh man. I mean, I think we could grow way, way more than even where we are now. Like, you know, when you start getting step changes, you're like, okay, I know when the next step changes. I know when the next step change can be. Yeah. And like that's entrepreneurship. There's no end. Yeah. You just keep growing. Just keep pushing the pace. It's amazing. You guys have like a pretty cool business. So, but let's start bro from the beginning. You went to college USD. UC San Diego. UC San Diego. That's a more nerdy one. Cool. So when you were in college, like, did you want to be an entrepreneur? In college, I wanted to be a professional fighter. So I was fighting in Thailand. I was training out of Sityotong in Pattaya, and I was training for the Olympics in Judo. So I was going to Japan every summer. I would stay like in the dorm rooms of the kyoshikan and train out of there. It was crazy.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, and then go to the Kodocon and train out of there too. Dude, that's amazing. when i heard like When I heard you were a fighter, but then also you do like some crazy ultramarathon running type shit. Yeah, I ran an ultra two months ago. yeah Yeah, how was that? Oh, it was amazing. A hundred miles? or No, no, no, no. It was a 50k, so whatever that is in fifty
Running as Meditation and Balance
00:01:45
Speaker
klo American. it's like there is still It's like a marathon and a half. Yeah, i see I see your numbers because you post them on Instagram and you're like, oh, I just did a run and it's like, What, 20 miles? I'm like, what the hell? It's active meditation. yeah you know and I'm in front of my computer. You probably know this. We're both in front of our computers all day. You're messaging people. like It's constant notifications. When I run, I can just be by myself. I don't really have music on. And I consolidate all those thoughts and all the actions that I need to do.
00:02:15
Speaker
Do you run with music? No. No music. You just raw dog. Raw dog runs, dude. That's crazy, man. And then I'm back. I'm back in the office and I'm way more product productive than I am. Because you just had time to like think about everything. Oh yeah, yeah absolutely. yeah Dude, I feel like that because... I'm like nonstop distracted with notifications, like 24-7. And I also feel like sometimes I will notice that as I'm doing hard work, I will then just like be like, let me take a 10 second break and look at Instagram because it's created that pathway of like, oh, something is hard. Like take a little bit of a break. But that's a dopamine,
The Meditative Power of Martial Arts
00:02:49
Speaker
a dopamine. Yeah. You know, when you're running, Ken Rideout, I think said this, but running is the opposite of drugs. Yeah. Cause when you're doing it, you hate it.
00:02:56
Speaker
but you love it afterwards. When you do drugs, you love it while you're doing it and you hate it afterwards, but you know? And like, I actually think that's similar to work when you kind of get addicted to the work and dopamine cycle of notifications and always being on. Taking that like two, three, four hour break to go run and get into something really, really hard balances you out. Yeah. yeah That's why I love jujitsu because yeah like you There's nothing. The only dopamine is is when you choke someone out. It's the only only way. So you're kind of incentivized to work harder, but it is like grueling. It's hard. No distractions. There's nothing you can do. You can't really... You know you can't just have to be focused. You have to be present. You know what I mean? And I think that's a big part of like also why I can like put all of like the troubles and everything away. Because it's like when you're there, you're calm under pressure and you're in like danger. Yeah. So you just kind of fully focus and then when you get back to life, you're like, you know what? Like everything's fine. Like it's no it's not as bad. Isn't it crazy also like that ah impulse to look at your phone disappears you after jujitsu or after running or after like intense exercise? Yeah. Like it just goes away. Yeah. Cause I think it's a muscle. Like it's a muscle that you build where like if you do something hard for longer periods of time, you're strengthening that like resistance to I need instant
Brain Safety and the Quest for Protective Supplements
00:04:14
Speaker
dopamine. Yes. Yeah.
00:04:15
Speaker
Cool, bro. So you're going to be a fighter. That obviously didn't pan out. but So what did you study? Neuroscience. Okay. Neuroscience. So you were you going to go in that field or not? Yeah. So neuroscience is super fascinating to me because I was training and I was always afraid of brain damage, obviously, like which fighters and sports athletes typically tend to be afraid of. But I started mixing supplements in my own room to try to counteract Some of the damage that was happening on my body and the mental side from everything I learned in neuroscience well also try to balance out my school life and Like quote-unquote work life right trying to but traveling and fighting all the time. Yeah, you were just mixing stuff Like do you remember what you were mixing? Yeah, like nootropics were really big during that time and nootropics are even bigger now. But this is like 15 years ago, you know, like no one's talking about nootropics. But I was on the forums, I was looking at like different ah compounds that I could get and the racetam family. So anaracetam, oxaracetam, paracetam were big things that I was getting into modafinil, which is really popular now. Like I was doing modafinil like sophomore year of college. Dude, I never really needed nootropics. I was always looking for stimulants, like Hooperzine A and stuff like that. yeah I was mixing three workouts in my dorm room, but not nootropics. Or you launched a company. like yeah That was like the basis in any ways, right? Like MMA nutrition. like
00:05:35
Speaker
Same thing. Same thing. It was like, how do I, and also different like supplements during that time, supplements were not regulated at all. So I didn't trust what I was putting into my body if I bought it from the store. So I wanted to do it on my own with things I knew that I could do the research behind. I could get the COAs behind and like feel like I could trust. Yeah. It gets so deep when you start understanding the standards.
00:05:59
Speaker
and like what's what's actually good, what's not good, what COA could be fake versus like... Oh my god, there's so much faking of COAs out there. yeah Yeah, Amazon's been cracking down. I'm sure you've done it with Eurofins, NSF certification. The COAs now need to come from a lab and they call the lab to confirm that the you know you actually...
Entrepreneurial Beginnings and Diverse Ventures
00:06:17
Speaker
I think it's great. Yeah, it's helping us all. but So you were mixing stuff and then did that did you have a full-time job where you... Fighting took a big chunk of my life. Neuroscience, I did clinical studies. So like I was in the lab all the time. But that was just your degree. You don't get paid for it. So I was just there fighting. like No full-time job. yeah Cool. And then when did entrepreneurship come about? It's funny because we always laugh that I've never had a W-2 until Nero, and I've just always been jumping around trying to figure my thing out. So after college, I wanted to go into film and art, because that was a big part of my life as well. I started filming documentaries, and I started filming a documentary about my friend Najeeb Sabour, who was the youngest kid. At 13, his father got killed by another 13-year-old, and that 13-year-old that killed his father is the youngest kid to go to a federal prison for the rest of his life, under the government of George Bush.
00:07:07
Speaker
I fell on the sheet because now he's like a world-class cello player playing for the Texas Philharmonic. And where this divergent path could become a convergent path. Amy Winehouse was super interested in becoming an executive producer for that film. So we were building sizzlers and everything and when she passed away, which was that year, she overdosed and passed away. I was like, what am I gonna do with my film career? Like I dropped everything to like shoot this documentary and try to make my life.
00:07:31
Speaker
within like film. But without this funding, I was a little lost. And I didn't know how to navigate it, right? Like I was too young. So I went back to my roots of illustration and art and everything and fell into doing children's branding for the coffee bean and tea leaf. Wow. As a contractor, built their children's blind, did the branding for it, and then became good friends with the CEO in the process and then joined him at a music studio that Sony contracted. So I was making music for film and television for like, maybe two years.
Finding Your True Calling: From Corporate to Passion
00:08:01
Speaker
Okay, cool, dude, very random, very random, but all, like, there's like a feeling. Yeah, all connected, but very, like, it wasn't like neuroscience, you get a, you know, a job, 9 to 5, you know, it was very like... I was like, figure my shit out. Yeah, and I think, I feel like all of us do it in different ways, like, for me, I got my bachelor's, got corporate 9 to 5,
00:08:20
Speaker
and then jumped, job, job, job, same shit, right? And I was like, this is not for me, this is not for me, this is not for me. And you kind of did the same thing, you just did it in a different direction. It was more like, let me try this, let me try that. And I think all of these things, they ultimately, I feel like you have to inevitably find out what you don't want to do yes to eventually figure out what you do want to do.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think I mean even with the corporate job thing, right? Like the fact that you went through that grind, but you had to know how to be like, I don't want to do this. So I want to try something else. Even if it's another corporate job, like I want to do something else. Dude, people get stuck in a job they hate. Like that's 99% of people. They get stuck in a job they hate for the rest of their life. It's crazy.
00:08:59
Speaker
That sucks. I couldn't imagine that, dude. I couldn't imagine that. It's crazy. But I honestly thought that was how my life was going to be. It is so real because like I didn't know anything about entrepreneurship and everyone around me was nine to five. Everyone around me was just like, yeah, this is it. When my boss told me, she's like, do you want to take over my position in the next 10 years?
00:09:16
Speaker
and like run the company and I'm like, this is gonna be my life for 10 years, bro? It's like, I don't look up to you. it's It's like, this is terrible. It's gonna be like, you're basically, you feel like, shit, you're in prison, you know? So crazy. But people can't, like, that's all they see,
The Birth of NeroGum: Innovation in Supplements
00:09:31
Speaker
right? It's like, Plato's cave, that's all they see and they can't see outside the cave. Yeah. Yeah. crazy So let's talk about neuro. How did that lead into neuro gum? How did you meet Ryan, your, your partner? So I was always mixing supplements and then Ryan and I met in college, we became best friends like immediately. Cause he was also an athlete. He was captain of this cross country and track team in high school and went to nationals, like incredible, incredible runner. And then in college, he.
00:09:55
Speaker
went snowboarding his sophomore year and got in a really bad snowboarding accident that that left him paralyzed from the waist down so he's still paraplegic and during that time as he was going in and out of hospitals I was giving him these supplements funny enough that I was mixing yeah and it really helped him you know it helped him get back to school finish up. And then after college, he was trying to get back into like living life to the fullest. Right. And scuba diving was one of those things where even if you are disabled, it's accessible to you. Yeah. And when we went on this Patty scuba diving trip, we had these pills in our pocket and was like, this is a really bad luck. Is there a way that we can make this way more accessible and
00:10:36
Speaker
Create something that we could share with people without feeling ashamed of like giving people pills and the immediate idea was government That was like a decade ago. Yeah, and you guys were like, okay no tropics, but in a more like socially acceptable manner, right? Yeah. At that time. And then now as we started building the business, it was like, what about anything healthy, right? Like we'll stay focused. But like if we're taking like supplements in gummy form and pill form that like gummies that have sugar in it, like, you know, it gets stuck in your teeth, pill or pills where you have to swallow it. Like why shouldn't it just be a part of your life? You could carry a pack of gum around, get your energy, go about your day. Yeah, I love it. I love that you have like the line because I'm like cool You know, I want I want like some like sleep stuff with melatonin Papa mint, you know Oh, like, you know, i'm I'm craving something during the middle of the day a gun with like extra benefits, right? And like it help you with focus stuff like that So it's like I mean, it's honestly it's a simple idea, but it's it makes so much. Yes Why would anyone chew regular gum?
00:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, why would would you regular got that literally does nothing for you as if like hurt your teeth and give you cavities Yeah, when you can have a like supercharged gum where you get that supercharged gum and it's only like a few cents more Yeah, you know, and that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to just take over the gum industry now. Well, I guess that's it I think you should because I think you're right. Like if you're buying gum, it should at least do something on top of oh yeah the chewing and tasting. We have a caffeine free one now that we came out with that uses like ah a, a Sarabooz Panax Ginseng that has like so many clinical studies behind it. It's good for your gut health and it helps with working memory. Like you could chew that all day, you know, like we're trying to create more and more accessible products to people.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah. When you guys, you thought of the idea, what were the steps after that? It was like, okay, do we contact people and see how we can make shit into gun form? Yeah. I mean, what's really crazy is like, if you're starting out a new business, you know about MOQ. Yeah. Hitting MOQ is incredibly hard a lot of the time, you know, especially now.
00:12:33
Speaker
and especially supplements is hard gum bro i can't even imagine ah yeah there's only like three gum manufacturers in like the entire world yeah they're like nah we're we're not too busy dude come back later like literally we reached out to like all the gum manufacturers in the united states and they were all just like two What? do You guys want like $20,000 worth of gum? yeah like We're not going to do that. And $30,000 is a lot of money. It's a lot. It's like people who are like, ah you're not in business yet. It's like we're working with Wrigley, you know? It's like we do millions, like get out of here. And we found out that Mars Wrigley owns like almost every single gum manufacturer already. They have a monopoly. So thankfully, through the process of Googling and using ThomasNet and
00:13:11
Speaker
a lot of these manufacturer websites. It's like a yellow book for manufacturers. We were able to find a really small mom and pop shop. literally They had like maybe five clients in Canada and now they still manufacture. I mean, they almost like exclusively manufacture us now because of our size, but it was just like the serendipitous moment where we found someone that was willing to take us on.
Launching NeroGum: From IndieGoGo to Retail
00:13:33
Speaker
and And what was the MOQ? They were cool with like... Yeah, they were cool with it. They were like, oh yeah, they were sending us R&D samples for free, like, wow just because they were a mom and pop shop. They just wanted business. Yeah. I think when you're small, you are still in touch with like people who are starting out and you're like, oh, I remember when when we first started out and, you know, oh yeah I'm sure like that really helped. It was amazing. Like so personal and all that gum.
00:13:56
Speaker
when we ordered it got delivered to my apartment and literally I remember that the FedEx driver being has a pallet jack you know he's bringing these pallets in he's just like where's the loading dock and i'm like bro it's my apartment like here coming through my door he just put it in my kitchen that's crazy man okay cool so did you go from like first batch did you go right onto amazon were you giving out samples to friends influencers how did you get the initial traction Yeah, so we were on IndieGoGo because that was like, it was a it's a platform, right? And and and i a lot of people are like, should we do crowdfunding? Should we do this? It's like during that time, there were a lot of eyeballs on that platform. So if you're able to boost yourself up on that, it's similar to TikTok now, if you're able to boost yourself up on that platform, you're going to get those eyeballs. yeah Versus if you have a D2C website, no one's visiting that if they don't know who you are. yeah you know So we wanted to piggyback off IndieGoGo's success.
00:14:49
Speaker
Why would anyone not do Indiegogo? It makes so much sense because you can legitimately build a presale. Like you said, if you do D2C and you try to do a presale, it sounds too shady. It's too much work to bring people to your site. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Versus Indiegogo, even if you're just doing like 100, 200, 500 people of friends and family,
00:15:09
Speaker
they're going pre-purchasing the product, then you have the money, you can put it into production, send it, you've already made at least like three times your money back because of your cost of goods plus profit, and now you know you you're at least a little bit more business. And you still have to like pump traffic into it, but for now, I would say a place like TikTok or even a place like Amazon, where it's already a platform that exists and people are able to find your product with just a little bit of marketing, is the place where you want to be. yeah Like how do you fit yourself into a place where awareness already exists? And I would say like Indiegogo and Kickstarter is probably past their crime. They're probably getting less traffic than they used to before, but there's other platforms where you could reduce that friction of awareness, which is usually the hardest thing to do when you're starting a company. yeah So like find that place where there's that awareness and tap into it. Okay, perfect. And so post Indiegogo, what happened? Did you guys get on Amazon?
00:16:02
Speaker
Yeah. So post-indiegogo, we sold like, we restarted. This is like 2015. Wow. 2015. Way back in the day. Yeah. Way back in the day now. yeah ah Every overnight success is 10 years, you know, 2015 October. So almost exactly nine years ago.
00:16:20
Speaker
We reached our goal, we used to double our goal in actually three days. It was crazy. like And then we were on the homepage of Indiegogo and we took off. And then Dr. Oz and his production team actually reached out to us. So we went on Dr. Oz like a month later and like we just ran out of room door. It's like we just sold out and we're like,
00:16:39
Speaker
On your website? everyone okay Everywhere. On our website on indiegogo everywhere. like It was just gone. So, we were slow to Amazon because we had to like we were like, how are we going to get this money to buy another batch? you know like And my cell phone number at the time was the customer service number. So people were calling me about like where their orders were and everything at whole hours of the day. I went crazy. That's crazy.
00:17:02
Speaker
Picked up, assured them all. First person I hired was our CS person from the Philippines, like, immediately to be able to handle it. They're like, please, yeah like I gotta to go yeah yeah let call you, not me. It was crazy. And then um slowly started building a team from there. But it was maybe like six months later when we got our feet underneath us that is like, all right.
00:17:24
Speaker
Now let's go and test on Amazon. Now let's go and build up D2C and test meta ads. Now let's start like doing things. and Yes, there was this pop like at the very beginning, but when we really started to buckle down and build a business, it was maybe six months afterwards.
00:17:40
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. Initially you kind of really are just stumbling, right andp right? Yeah. You don't know what's going on. You don't know what's working. You don't really have like kind of an idea and you need a little bit of like a signal to say like, Oh, like this is what we should be doing. yeah And then eventually you're like, okay, cool. Like this is what we're going to put our head down and build. And so,
00:17:58
Speaker
So six months later, you start building the business. The initial plan was originally to be D2C or what? Originally D2C, but I think with everyone that starts an actual consumer goods product, they're like retails. The goal, yeah. The goal, like, oh my God, I'm in Target. Oh my God, I'm in Whole Foods. you know like And so we had our eye on the prize of retail for a long time.
00:18:20
Speaker
But I'm so glad that we didn't go into retail for like six years yeah because retail can kill, like it can make or break you. Yeah. Like literally. It's also not that good. If you ask me, I think Amazon is is definitely better. D2C is definitely better because Amazon, I mean, they're just pumping traffic and and conversion rates are super high.
00:18:40
Speaker
D2c you control your customer. You can get very data yeah And then like retail they just they basically fuck you all day cake We need freefills we need this we need that we're gonna pull you out if you don't do this in like they can't keep Constantly for everything you want to do Yeah, but one thing I will say is once you reach a certain size of company, like I mean, we're in whole situation wide, they come to you everything like and actually actually like Whole Foods makes up a majority of our retail revenue, like we sell over 100 units per week at like the downtown LA store, for example, but even then like our products like
00:19:14
Speaker
4 bucks, you know?
Adapting to COVID: Challenges and Opportunities
00:19:15
Speaker
And we made what? 450 bucks that week? I'm selling 100 units. Like, we do that in like 10 seconds to get on Amazon. Like, and it's so crazy to like even think about that process. To be like, wow, retail is for us is a credibility play. And to tell people like, hey, you can find us in retail, we're a real product. But our money maker is Amazon, D2C, those are the places that we continue to invest money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what happened during COVID? Like by then, I mean, it must've been like four, four years of at least like good building of the business. How were you guys doing back then? Were you doing, I think like you were doing a million, two million. I think so. Shark Tank. We went on right before. Tell me about Shark Tank.
00:19:58
Speaker
Yeah, so Sharptank reached out to us and they were like, we want you to do it. They reached out to you. Yeah. So we did a casting call and then like when we showed up, we like pitched our product and then they said, thank you. And we're like, okay, did that go well? We had no idea. Three months later, the acting director calls us again and on the phone, they're telling us, get ready in three months because we're filming. We're like,
00:20:21
Speaker
like, you know, we start preparing everything. And at that time, I think 2019, we closed the year out at about three and a half million dollars in revenue. So we went on Shark Tank, we pitched the product, we got two offers, turned them both down because so di aggressive valuations, insanely aggressive valuations from their end, but still kept in touch with the Sharks, especially Daniel Lubetsky of Kind Bar, who's become really an advisor for us.
00:20:45
Speaker
covid hits maybe four months later so shark tank aired during covid when everyone was at home so the amount of national attention that we got was probably way higher than if it wasn't covid time yeah so it was in some i mean covid was a terrible time for all of us but Marketing and impressions wise, marketing impressions, CAC wise, it was a perfect storm of because we were digital forward, everything just worked out for us when Shark Tank hit. And that was really the start of things starting to build. And how was the manufacturer? Did they get impacted? So thankfully, we built up inventory because we thought we were going to sell way more on Shark Tank than we that we actually did. But it
00:21:28
Speaker
manufacturer did get impacted but only for about a month or two because remember things are like, go yeah, in in two, three months, everything was everything was back up and running. So we like the cadence of how inventory started coming in was almost
Building and Sustaining Growth Through Branding
00:21:40
Speaker
perfect. And we have we always keep neuro gum in the studio neuro gum really works. Oh, yeah, 100%. Oh, wow. Just randomly. i just randomly and It became building and I think Like 2021 or 2022 is when we were working together. Yeah. We started I think 2020, maybe 2022 I think. Like mid-2022 and then I think we worked with each other for like two years or something. Like a year and a half or something. You were kind of established on Amazon. I think while you guys were doing like 100k and then it really grew. I mean every year you guys were doubling. It would like 100k, 400k. I think maybe like end of 2023 you were doing something like
00:22:18
Speaker
4-500k. Yeah. so yeah yeah for my um I think on Amazon we were doing 4-500k. Like we're at almost 100k today. In one day. In one day. Like we did 150k yesterday. yeah so That's crazy bro. That's crazy to think about you know. Like with every week um we're out of stock on on a lot of products right now. yeah When we're in full stock I think it just all that top of funnel awareness started building on top of each other. And it's been incredible. Yeah. Yeah. And so now we're here, right? Like looking back, like what are the things that worked out? Like if we take out the anomalies, right? Shark Tank, Joe Rogan, what worked well for you? Like if if you, if you're advising me, I'm like, Hey, yeah Ken,
00:22:57
Speaker
I sold my agency. I'm starting a brand. I don't know that much. Like what what would you have advise me to do? I think the most important thing is to build credibility on any new product. Like for us as a consumable product, no one's going to put random things in their mouth. Like that's just human nature. No one's going to put random things that we see on the internet in their mouth. But the first week we got our product and maybe like a month before we launched,
00:23:18
Speaker
Tyler, our COO, and I, we were reaching out to literally every single reporter that talked anything about nootropics or supplements. And very fortunately, like two days before we launched, Time magazine wrote a massive article on us. wow And we wrote that wave of Time magazine to build the credibility to be like, hey guys, look, we're a real product with real ingredients.
00:23:40
Speaker
We're on time. Yeah. Yeah. We're on time. Like it reduced that friction enough with the consumer to be like, okay, fine. I'll try it. Cause the price points, right? All these other things, like, you know, you can micro test and stuff, but like everything else was frictionless enough where that credibility. That's really good advice. I always tell people, if you have ever been mentioned in like, Forbes, GQ, Men's Health, Time Magazine, anything like that. Just having that in your listing images on Amazon, I'm sure it reduces it because you're like, they must be really big. Even though you just launched, they're like, oh, they must be really big. And the crazy thing is you can pay like $1,000, $2,000 max in that future. Now you can. It's crazy. For us, we were grassroots rooting it, but now you really can just get
00:24:26
Speaker
PR, like very easily. So is sure if I were to growth hack or this thing, you know, get that PR initially, get great list like make yourself look as professional as possible. like brand As good as the big people. As good as the big people. And branding is like, make yourself seem bigger than you actually are. And branding is really important for that. And I think a lot of people dismiss branding because it's so expensive and like, it might feel superficial, but people buy it superficially. You know, they look at your product and buy it. I agree, bro. I buy just by the looks. And like sometimes i'll I'll look at, I mean, we were just talking about this before we started. It's like some brands look like, whoa. And then you realize the real numbers and you're like, really? Yeah. like yeah But but that's that's good. That's what you need. You're like, it's not one of those fake it till you make it. And then like, you know, no, it's like you should like you're building your branding now.
00:25:14
Speaker
you should pretend that you are that big 100 billion to a million dollar brand because like that's how people are going to start perceiving you and that's how you get there. You'll never get there when you start with shitty branding like of course continuous improvement but yeah. One thing I will say is so these brands where were like wow they look so nice but they're like doing yeah small numbers. For us We were very product first also, you know, like all the R&D's since college. Literally, I was like fine tuning this product to flavor everything like constantly. You could have the sexiest looking brand of all time. But and that's the hook. If your product can't stand up to that though. Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker
then like, of course you're going to be small. yeah know And I think for us, we were very fortunate that we have a product that's amazing, that we put so much money into to like make the product itself great. And then we have a brand that's great, and those things work together. And then step by step by step, it started building on top of each other to where we are now.
00:26:08
Speaker
Yeah, great product, great branding, and then you slowly kept adding marketing and you just work. Because it converted, the marketing converted. When you send traffic, people are like, it is a good product, it's better than anything that we're seeing on the market, and it looks really, really good. Oh yeah, yeah for sure. And im mean like one of the things that you guys did for us is,
00:26:27
Speaker
Oh, the A-plus content. Oh my god, the A-plus content and the listing and how everything was split up. And remember that nightmare? Yeah, I remember that, dude. that was that was ah That was a mission. Oh my gosh. But when that all consolidated, we looked, put together and professional, the images looked nice and the listing looked nice. That's when it started changing. i Dude, that's, I still, every day I got get on a call, I'm like, okay, you need to fix your images. Let me show you a good example. And I pull up new right now. It's always like, cause I know cause I like yeah you weren't there you it was like, simple, easy, concise. It looks beautiful. You understand very quickly that yeah what the product does and the comparison with coffee and all that kind of stuff. It's like, it makes sense. And, and I think that's one of the biggest things people also miss is like, they either focus on how beautiful the product is, but it's like, dude, tell the story like the story very quickly. yeah Tell the story and what does it do? Yeah.
00:27:16
Speaker
Like, ah why is it better? Like, that's it. That's it, dude. Okay, what's next? What's next? I mean, I hinted at it earlier, but take over the gum and mint space, you know? Yeah. I don't think it's out of our reach. No one's innovated on gum and mints, and we have this moat because, like, everyone can come out with an energy drink because there's all these manufacturers, but to create a really good gum that's cold compressed so the ingredients don't break down, only we can do that.
00:27:42
Speaker
We built this mode around us of this really special product that we have, and if we could start tapping into... We already out-sulfied our energy on Amazon, which is crazy, you know? Like, what if we could take over gum next? Not just the energy category, but gum next, and then mints next, and then confectioners just in general? Like, that's when we would become a household name. That would be incredible. I mean, there's really nothing stopping you, I think, for taking over gum because You're right. Like gum is worthless. ah Fucking give it some value. and And if you can figure out how to give it value, like, I'm sure that the biggest thing is going to be like, okay, how much this is this sell for? like If you buy it on Amazon in bulk, it's as cheap as like $349 per pack.
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So how do you get this individually in gas stations at $3? And we're actually trading like a yeah packed four C store. That's going to be within that $2.99 to $3.49 range. yeah So we're competing with every single energy drink out there already. yeah You got nine pieces. Yeah. And you compete, you compete with the gum. You're like, okay, would you get a regular gum that doesn't do shit or for the exact same price you get one that has yeah either helps you have energy helps to sleep, gives you vitamins,
00:28:52
Speaker
help Helps your gut helps your mind like just all these. Oh, yeah, and it's actually crazy like people still take caffeine pills Same amount of money for caffeine pills. Yeah, like why I remember I always had caffeine pills in my car because if I were ever doing a late-night drive I'm like, I'm not risking I've once like dozed off and then woken up on my whole scary So I'm like this is never happening again. So every drive is like I'm popping caffeine. Oh, yeah If if it's like a like a one to a.m. Imagine just yeah, this is way better switch He's the easiest switch of all time. Dude, I love it. I love it, man. Awesome, dude. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, man. Thank you. And I'm really excited to see what NeuroGum does next, man. I think you guys are going to blow up. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. Even more.