What's up DTC pod today we're joined by Jeff Byers, who is the CEO at momentous. So, Jeff, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your personal background, and then what momentous is all about.
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Jeff Byers, Momenetus - How This Performance Supplement Brand Scaled from $2M to $36M in 18 Months
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Jeff Byers, Momenetus - How This Performance Supplement Brand Scaled from $2M to $36M in 18 Months
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Blaine Bolus
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Ramon Berrios
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Jeff Byers
00:00 Transition from biotech to entrepreneurship, sports involvement. 09:42 Strong product with impressive clinical trial results.
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“What's up DTC pod today we're joined by Jeff Byers, who is the CEO at momentous. So, Jeff, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, your personal background, and then what momentous is all about.”
“I was definitely the least smartest human being on that team and least accomplished from a business perspective. But what I brought, and they were really intrigued by, they had this idea to use the technology outside of medicine and use it in performance sport, and given my background as a pro athlete, and then they also wanted to raise some capital. And obviously being in finance and the relationships, connections I had, I was able to help sit alongside the founder and help them raise some capital as well, which was a ton of fun.”
“I was employee five, and I really learned about physiology, science, clinical research, kind of by fire hose. I was definitely the least smartest human being on that team and least accomplished from a business perspective. But what I brought, and they were really intrigued by, they had this idea to use the technology outside of medicine and use it in performance sport, and given my background as a pro athlete, and then they also wanted to raise some capital.”
“What was the biggest challenges in commercializing this? Because looking back, when you tell the story, looking back, it's like, oh, yeah, it's obvious. Like, grab a product that has rights to it and then just make it DTC friendly and have that as a competitive advantage. I'm sure there were a bunch of challenges really hard.”
“What was the biggest challenges in commercializing this? Because looking back, when you tell the story, looking back, it's like, oh, yeah, it's obvious. Like, grab a product that has rights to it and then just make it DTC friendly and have that as a competitive advantage. I'm sure there were a bunch of challenges really hard.”
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Full transcript
Yeah, with finance, there's not as much creativity going on as you would think. You moved into biohacking finance, right.
I was at a biotech company, like a pharmaceutical company essentially, after, it was really early stage. So after finance, I joined this biotech, and they had this technology that was delivering substances through the skin. And by substances, I mean drugs. And it had really cool early data. This is my non science background. It was way earlier than I ever bond because I just didn't understand that category. Like biotech and pharma, like early stage pharma is very unique, and the life cycles take forever. I mean, they're still ripping at it and they're like ten years in now, and it could big investor, it could be billions and it could be a zero.
And it's very binary in that, whereas I don't think many other businesses are as binary as biotech and the pharmaceutical business. Anyways, super fascinating. I was employee five, and I really learned about physiology, science, clinical research, kind of by fire hose. I was definitely the least smartest human being on that team and least accomplished from a business perspective. But what I brought, and they were really intrigued by, they had this idea to use the technology outside of medicine and use it in performance sport, and given my background as a pro athlete, and then they also wanted to raise some capital. And obviously being in finance and the relationships, connections I had, I was able to help sit alongside the founder and help them raise some capital as well, which was a ton of fun. And so I kind of came in to lead consumer products like this idea of consumer products and help raise some money on the leadership team, which was super. It was super fun and a crazy, unique journey, and it was my first taste into truly entrepreneurship.
And that, and ultimately that technology that they developed became part of the first product that momentous is now is. So my co founder and I, in 2018, acquired the rights to a technology that helps deliver it. And this product called PR lotion. And PR lotion became a baby or an idea within the biotech of what if we could deliver sodium bicarbonate? And most people have, like, what is sodium bicarbonate? It's baking soda through the skin. But five decades worth of research say that sodium bicarbonate, bicarbonate specifically helps reduce acidity in your body. And so when you're training really hard or really long. You produce what is commonly referred to as lactic acid, and that is a limiting factor in your ability to go harder or longer. And so if we were able to deliver this substance to the skin, you could really make a pretty big impact when you think about performance in sport.
And that was this hypothesis. We got really early data at the biotech around it, and enough so that us special forces started using it to a France winner, Super bowl winning teams. And we got in after you appeared. No, before at the biotech. Right. We got this really crazy early traction, and some of it was like my network, but we had enough data, and we were really true to who we were, but that gave us the, oh, man, this has legs that we could do something super cool with it, but it also gave us the. At the biotech was like, nobody. The biotech was commercial minded.
It's like an oxymoron. We're talking about, like, phase two FDA clinical trials, right? And I'm like, hey, we buy some inventory. And that use of capital was not aligned. And so we, as a leadership team, kind of sat down and said, what are we going to do with this crazy idea product? We got, like, Navy SeALs using it, and Super bowl championed teams like our first big customer. We threw up this stupid shopify site. I know nothing about e commerce or knew nothing at the time, and nobody else really did either. We threw up the shopify site, and next thing you know, we have a $2,000 order, right? That comes in. I'm like, oh, where is this order? And it's like, can't, won't tell you the name of the team, but it was like the stadium.
And I was like, should probably call this guy, right? It was like, totally random. He's like, oh, my friend. He's the head dietitian for this Tour de France team. And he told me about it, and he's like, we bought, like, a little bit. Guys loved it. I kept him like, holy cow. Anyways, so this was all the biotech, and we're just like, what would we do with this product? And we're like, well, we can kill it, right? And just like, it's sunk, cost, whatever. No big deal.
And we're like, well, we could sell it. And it's like, we don't have enough traction to buy. Like, there's no real value, and then you lose control and all this. Or we can spin it out and create a new co. And so my co founder, Erica, who's the president of the company and really runs the day to day. Incredible background as well. McKinsey and company, incredibly process oriented, strategic as hell. We basically both were like, this biotech shit's for the birds.
It's different kind of building than what we were really passionate about. And so we spun that technology out, raised money to start what is now called momentous. But our original company was called AMp HP. And we did this on this vision of, we can build the next generation high performance company. We have unprecedented access via this product that nobody else really had. And it was never to build a d to c business. It was never to build what is morphed into now one of the leading sports nutrition dietary supplements company in the space. It was, let's do it very differently.
We believe that human performance and optimization is in its infancy. But what was happening at really elite levels and the new technologies and the practitioners wasn't coming down to the consumer. So we saw this huge opportunity. Like most entrepreneurs were like, oh, pr lotion. It's going to be 100 million dollar business product itself. Turns out it's super niche. It's a cool product, like, fascinating, and still gets what I will call the really elite performance thinkers in the world. And scientists incredibly excited because we continue to have published research come out on.
It's strong. I mean, we don't have ten years of research yet, but we have, I think, eleven or twelve clinical trials. A handful of them have been published in really good journals. But it's this crazy journey. So, long story short, we had this crazy product doing crazy things. We had a little d to c business going and it just like, man, this is not enough, right? But this product was a sprint board and it put us in rooms that are very hard to get into, whether it be locker rooms or military rooms or research labs. And we also got kind of these tastemakers that were like, this is cool. It's not big enough or it's too niche for me to get behind.
But they were all kind of.
What kind of results were people seeing that got them so excited?
Yeah, I mean, basically it's all about how do you trying to think of a more layman's term. Basically it allows you to push harder. So if you're a crossfit athlete, push more watts on an assault bike over a short period of time. Or if you're like a crazy endurance, endurance athlete, just bump up just a little bit. And so you can go a little bit harder for a little bit longer. And so what you see is some performance gains that are really nice. In short, term in shorter efforts on there. So we've seen like 20% bumps in max effort intervals, which is great.
Percent.
Wow, 20. But then you also see this big recovery piece where it's like, when you make your muscle more basic, your muscle is more efficient. And when your muscle is more efficient, you don't have to tear it down, break it down as much as. So there's some recovery aspect of it as well.
What were the alternatives and what was.
The form factor as well? You said it was like a lotion.
Nasty, and it still is nasty. And part of the thing is, like, we haven't figured. I don't think we're ever going to figure it out. Right. Because part of the technology is really viscous. It's kind of fatty, and it separates a bit. And early days kind of look like honey mustard. People called it honey mustard.
But anyway, so it's a lotion. You put it on your major muscle group, you're going for a really hard run or something. Your lower body. This product is still in a portfolio. It still serves a purpose right now. But the alternative was drinking sodium bicarbonate, baking soda. And when you drink bicarb, your stomach is full of acid. Bicarb is a buffer, which means it reacts.
And when it reacts, think about what we all did in elementary school. We made those paper machete volcanoes. Yeah, right. Vinegar, stomach acid, baking soda, sodium bicarbonate mixed together makes a volcano. That's what happens in your gut. And so it typically has bad outcomes, but they've been using it in a really elite level sports rowing track for 50 years, essentially. And they have really great benefits with it. But the problem is, if you get the timing right, you crap your pants.
Right. And crapping your pants is never advantageous to performance and really not advantageous for a consumer. Right? Like, no consumer is going to be like, let's drink some baking soda so I can ride my bike faster today on this group bike ride. No, you're like, I don't want to crack my pants. That's not mine. So it really created that space, which is fascinating.
What was the biggest challenges in commercializing this? Because looking back, when you tell the story, looking back, it's like, oh, yeah, it's obvious. Like, grab a product that has rights to it and then just make it DTC friendly and have that as a competitive advantage. I'm sure there were a bunch of challenges really hard.
It's actually now that once we acquired the momentous brand, it just makes it seem so easy with known products. In a more known category. We were creating a category and a market, and we had so many things to overcome, and it was like a single product. So we had low aov, low ltv, because it turns out, outside of elite athletes, people don't push themselves to barfing five times a week, right? And you really don't need pr lotion unless you're going really hard. And so what we found is people love the product, but they use it. Use one unit a year or two units a year, and that's like, cool, $35, $65. You're like, that is not a sustainable business model on there. And so with a one product company, what's super interesting is you get all that mind share.
I'm a consumer, so every email is about it, everything on there. But I think the biggest thing for us, and what I believe has made us really successful, is we stuck very true to our mission and vision. And it was to be at the forefront of high performance. It wasn't to create a d to C brand. And again, that's not my background. And if I maybe had DDC background or a product background even, it would have been very different. But for me, the ecosystem in high performance and human optimization and wellness and being in that was all that mattered to me. I really believed we could make a pretty big difference, because what I saw as a pro athlete when I retired and my goals shifted, I didn't know what to do or where to go.
And to me, that just meant there was this huge gap. And it's our mission that we call democratizing high performance, taking how the best operate, that have really unlimited resources, and bringing it to bear to the consumer. Because as a consumer, when I retired, I was like, man, I care about brain health. I care about longevity in my body, right? I care about my sleep. I don't know where to go, who to trust, why to trust them, what's right for me. And there was just like this huge gap. What are the cutting edge technologies or what's new? Because when you're an elite athlete, you have a practitioner that gives you what you need to be great, right? You have access to the best products in the world. They aren't giving you a crappy supplement.
You don't have crappy weights, right? Everything is best in class. And then you have access to this cutting edge knowledge, right? Which is you're also like, okay, let's try this, let's do that. New things that maybe aren't fully proven or that aren't right for everybody, but that are right for you, based upon your situation. So I just saw this huge gap. There was just this huge gap, but we stayed very core to this mission. And it's been hard because we're not a traditional d to C brand because we invest in clinical research, we invest in advocacy work still. And that's a really unique thing for a d to C brand. Like last year we spent, or this year, I guess we spent 5% of total revenue on what I will call expanding access and expanding knowledge.
All things that don't directly drive revenue. That clinical research. Yeah, ultimately is a huge differentiator. And we do a bunch of advocacy work on Capitol Hill around expanding access in our category and knowledge that doesn't drive. Maybe in a couple of years it will, but we believe we need to democratize high performance and do that through knowledge and power. And that's a really big thing for a company our size and very differentiated in d to C. Like when you're like, oh, let's just go launch another supplement company, you're pumping money all into brand and product and not really mission vision and not always there's a lot.
Because when you start at DTC brands, there's really two ways of doing it. Which is one is like you either join a growing sector with sort of the tailwinds or you have to create the category. And if you're going to create the category, a heavy investment is like the education piece, especially for this type of product, which is for elite athletes. But then how do you transfer that into the people who might not necessarily be elite athletes, but they are top shape and they are trying to aspire to be at that level. Did that change the way you build the product? Because elite athletes, they all sort of have same body type, et cetera, in.
A very similar mindset. I think if we go a bit into the story. So in early 21, we basically realized, hey, we need to expand before 2021. But we made a conscious, we have to expand our product portfolio and technology base and we looked at a bunch of different companies to buy, acquire, merge, et cetera with. And then we just like, let's launch our own dietary supplements, nutritional supplements. And it was something somebody wanted us to do in 2019 and 2020. And I have this. It's still weird for me to say that I am a CEO and co founder of now a dietary supplement, nutritional supplement company, because it's just the industry category.
Doesn't make me feel good, right? Because there's so much distrust and lack of transparency and bad actors and no barriers to entry.
But somebody's got to fix.
Somebody's got to fix it. And that was what we kept hearing was like, well, you guys are working with the Department of Defense. You have contracts, innovation contracts, doing research with us, special forces. Like, you're working with all these pro and college teams. This is a very parallel category to what you're in. And anyways, so we said, okay, we're going to launch some products in this category. We started building it and we actually end up building a handful of products. And what we found was to really build a meaningful portfolio was going to take a lot of time, and b, to really make the highest quality products in the space was really freaking hard.
Right? You can go get a protein powder. We could go start a protein powdered company tomorrow, right. And have a product ready to ship in three weeks. That's easy, right. To make truly a best in class product that our consumers at the highest level wanted was very hard. And so what we ended up doing, and I also had this epiphany late winter in 21, was like, what makes us special is we're at the forefront of hyperforce. We're working with the best people in the world. And if we just launch a bunch of me two products that's not core you're trying to do.
That just is why I dislike this category so much.
And then they're so going back and.
They'Re damaged the brand and what we had was this incredible reputation in pro and college boards. And what we didn't want to do is do it anyway. So we kept running across this brand, momentous, and I got to know one of their board members, and they were really looking for a shift. They had a very similar ethos to us. They were built in pro and college sports. Almost over 50% of their business was in pro and college sports. They were selling into like 100 plus pro and college sports teams with basically just like a protein portfolio. They had a couple of fringe products, but was a fascinating, fascinating business, and they just didn't have enough umph in it.
They were way more of a product company and they didn't have this global mission, vision, incredible brand that they'd built, incredible reputation that they had built, but they just needed a bit of a change. We ended up acquiring them and merging the two business together. So the company I founded is Amp HP. That's the underlying entity behind momentous. And we do business obviously as momentous, and it's been incredible. So when we bought momentous, how long were we both sorry we did that transaction? We basically closed July 1 of 21. So we're in almost, which is crazy also to think about. And it was honestly the hardest thing I've ever done.
And at the scale we were at together, both brands were about $5 million comic. And at the scale we were at, it was very hard, right? A culturally incredibly hard. Two very small teams, very different ethos, very different founders. Like, I am a very different founder than who started the original momentous brand and just leadership styles, philosophies, et cetera. And where she's the two business together was really hard. But part of the theory behind bringing the two business together was a dietary supplement, nutrition brand, right? And they were in these great places, but nobody was like, I'm going to go attach my wagon to them. And what we had at AmPHP was we had all these diehard, really big names. I got to know Andrew Hooperman before this merger, right? And because we were both like, andrew's really passionate about working with special forces and we were doing work with special forces and we had like this very similar ecosystem.
And what I saw was we could actually activate this ecosystem in a super unique way if we had enough products and we had a portfolio. Our challenge was we had a super niche product. What if we could access, like leverage us as being at the forefront of high performance and get the really special people excited, but leverage a huge market, addressable market. That was fundamentally broken, in my opinion. And that's what we did, right, with the merger. It took a really long time. It took us like a year to get our shit together. We did not.
We ended up raising money just pretty recently to effectively made the acquisition a cash acquisition because we just bought out that side of the company. We did an equity deal and it was right for both businesses at the time, but it was very hard, right, because at the end of the day, there's not a winner. Now you're both kind of competing. It's like, well, this is how we used to do it here. And what we ended up having was we had kind of a split cap table and one was a very kind of consumer biotech cap table and the other was a very traditional sports nutrition cap table. And we're like, well, we're blending the two together and both sides of that cap table. Like, well, I invested in this or I invested in that, and it created a lot of noise and lack of clarity and alignment.
And that can kill a company if not navigate it properly.
And so how we navigated it was we found somebody who was super aligned with our vision and said, hey, let's create an event for all these people they'd been in, some of them had been in for five, six years. And we transacted out the people that were interested or were in align with the mission. And it was a tremendous outcome for company and people and new investor. We're so excited for what that brings, but anyways, and so it took us about a year to put the two companies together. And then we launched Huberman realistically in June, July of 2022. And Andrew and I worked out together right after the merger, and we basically was like, hey, let's think about doing something together. We have this portfolio, we have this reputation we can stand on. We're trusted in pro sports like anybody else, but we're still really young and nimble, and we want to create this standard of excellence that nobody else has.
And we fill the gap that Andrew had, which was, I want a really high quality company that's nimble, that can innovate product and launch new things that hasn't been doing it the same way for 40 years and really trusted. And for us, we wanted a catalyst. And this was like five months into Andrew's podcast, he was rising. But even at that time, he's in the stratosphere, right, with like Joe Rogan and nobody else, right? And I don't think anybody would have guessed that. And he's been a huge catalyst for us. But what I'll say is the catalyst behind Huberman is this relentless pursuit of being at the forefront of high performance.
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And which is important because I think for people that might have seen momentous with Huberman, this isn't a sponsorship deal, clearly, from what you're saying. It's about a passion of actually having the chance to bring this into reality, of this vision of having the most high performance product and him having a chance to be a small part of it, not like an influencer. Sponsorship deal.
100%. We sell to 200 pro and college sports teams. We literally make a custom product for one of the top teams in the NFL. The momentous is on staff as a person at one of the top NHL teams, like, we're one of their advisors, they called us to help build protocols and things like that. And then we've won ten contracts with the department of Defense for innovation and research in our category. That aligns with Andrew's mission. Right. And that's what's so important about the partnership and the other partnerships we have in that ecosystem is we're not just hawking product.
I fundamentally believe this category is broken. And also I fundamentally believe that this category is actually really critical to longevity and wellness. Right. And when I say our goal is to democratize high performance, performance doesn't mean running, jumping, lifting weights. Performance is how you wake up every day and you perform. Right? Whether you're in business, whether you're a mom, dad, grandma, are you trying to maximize your life and performance? Is longevity your potential? That's exactly it. And you asked this question about athletes, and we made a shift when we decided to align into the Huberman lab. And all of that was we had to make a conscious shift away from the athlete mindset, right? And we were born in athletes, and both early companies were very, very athletic focused.
And what we wanted to become was we wanted to become a life optimizer company. And so what we did was we took the mindset that makes an athlete great or makes an athlete an athlete is this continuous pursuit of fraction or of progress. And what we said was, humans have that. There's a huge chunk of humanity that have that. Turns out Huberman's audience is like that. People like Tim Ferriss's audiences are like. Like, there's a lot of people that are thinking about what decisions do I make on a daily basis? And they care about quality, they care about science, they care about why they're doing what they're doing. They're not just aimlessly walking off a cliff like some do.
And so we really expanded. I call it we leveled up from the athlete. If we say our customer, we named them the life optimizer. And for short, they're Sam. So when I talk about Sam a lot, but Sam, athletes are a subset of Sam, of our core customer, because it has Sam is our customer.
Like ICP, we have Gino or something. I can't remember.
Yeah, it's had many names over the years. It is now. Sam and Santa seem to have stuck the company, which is great. But then when I started talking about Sam, people like, who the hell Sam? I was like, it's a customer. The. Anyways, it was a super interesting journey, and I will say the other thing that we did. And if listeners have been following us for multiple years, we've been a shit show as a d to c brand. Right up until like six months ago, we were garbage.
Our website was garbage, right? Like, hard to transact, really buggy, all that. And it all kind of comes down to my zone of genius is not d to c merchandising, d to c, any of that. I know a lot about it, but I'm not an expert at it. And where we put a lot of our resources was what I call doing the really hard stuff, like winning government innovation, contracts, product development, relationships, ecosystems, clinical research, right. And making sure we had the best damn products on the market. And essentially what we did was we did that and we got all these tastemakers super stoked on it. And those tastemakers ultimately drove and created the fuel for us to enable, to invest in the brand. And part of the thing that's mean, like when Huberman made the bet to go with us, the website was so mean and it's gotten so much better and we're going to make it so much better.
But still, up until seven months ago, our marketing team was like, four people, right? And people are like, oh, what are your retention flows like? And I was like, we got like three emails. We weren't even doing the basics, which is sad. And looking back on it, whatever's next after momentous, if there is a next, I will build differently and invest differently. But to me, and what my core competency and what I truly, truly care about is we can change the trajectory of health in this country, in this world, I think. And I think we can inspire and equip people to be better. And I think we can do that by fixing a really broken category, right? And it's not broken by the fact that it doesn't work. It's broken because consumers don't trust it and consumers don't understand, and there's so much noise in it, and there's no trust, no transparency, no true standard. And so we have that opportunity.
So the vision is not to create amazing d to C brand. We've become that and almost tripped over ourselves to do it, which I consider very lucky.
And if you can't prove that you can fix that, it doesn't matter how good your conversion rates are, it's not going to work. Right.
Well, you can build tons of people, build amazing CPG D to C brands, right? Tons. And that's okay. Not everybody has the same mission vision, the same purpose of why they're doing it. And some people just like, hey, I want to build this, right? Spin it, sell it, right? Cash flow, whatever. Yeah, make some and that's totally fine. That might be what's next for me. I have no idea. Right.
And then I have a long time left with momentous and I'm really passionate about it. But I think for me there was always a level up and therefore had I believed if you want to build something that truly has massive enterprise value and can make pretty meaningful change in the world, you can't build a D to C brand. You can't say, I'm just building a DC brand. Correct. You have to go build a brand at a company. Right. And you got to do really hard things. And some people do the D to C brand stuff first.
And this is my skill set. I'm an incredibly relationship driven, curious human and just have this great network and passion for product. We went the other way. We said, let's build this network and this ecosystem and do things that nobody else are doing. We'll build the brand. We'll build pretty packaging and a website and conversion and all this stuff, other stuff as we go. And that's very dangerous too, because that's how you run out of money. Where do you end to raise a lot of money? And we raised too much money in my opinion.
Like looking back on it, one of my strength is I can raise money because I'm a galvanizer. I'm like, this is great. And we were doing really crazy things. But also that means we didn't have to focus on some of the fundamental business things we have over the last 1216 months. We have an awesome business and the team has excelled. And our people around us. Yeah, it's been a breezy journey.
What is revenue?
Yeah, we will do about 40 this year.
What about even before Huberman joined and when the opposition threw it up.
Yeah. So basically 5 million. Yeah. Went from like 540. And when you. And realistically our run rate up until a year post merger, so like 17 months ago was about $5 million.
And does that include the government? What does it mean when you get a government contract? What do you mean by that? Because can't they just go on the website and buy the products?
Yeah, I interrupt my head. No, you're super good. So the government does purchase products and that's not what I talk about, government contracts. So we've won innovation and research contracts. It does account to revenue. And early on it was a big percentage of revenue. So our first big contract was worth $1.5 million and it's revenue. But think of it as almost like nondilutive financing from that sense.
And so they fund clinical research and they fund product development and help fund some of the team.
They outsource it to you essentially.
Yeah, essentially. So we go and they say, so our first thing was on PR lotion and it was sponsored by special forces unit within the air force. And there's this practice within the air force that's called tactical dehydration and that means pilot and air crew purposely dehydrate themselves before they fly so they don't have to pee when they fly. Because the options most of the time in most airframes to pee is in a piddle pack. Right. So you pee in a bag or like it's a terrible, terrible thing or you wear a diaper and it's like no grown ass man or woman is stoked. They wanted her. So it was like, well, pr lotion has some qualities that could help retain water so minimize the need to urinate in that.
So they came to us and said, hey, let's do some clinical research. We did clinical research at University of Yukon around this showed some really good data. So these contracts are innovation research contracts. They do count as revenue and they've actually been big essentially over the last four years about a million dollars a year in revenue has come from innovation contracts. Like revenue, like nondilutive funding. It hits as revenue in the business, which is super interesting. Obviously that amount per revenue is shrunk every year because our other revenue is growing. But really even early on that 5 million.
So if you say a million was the government and then of the rest of the four it's like 50% was pro and college sports teams. And so we were a really small DS business and our pro and college sports teams business and government hasn't grown. And people are like, why? It's like they're making more pro and college sports teams. Right. It's grown nicely but it's like d to C went from realistically 1718 months ago $2 million to close to 36.
What broke at that process or what came the closest to breaking?
We broke people. We did. And it's like one of my regrets on it. But we also grew. And one of the things as a founder I've realized is like you need different people at different times and people that have different willingness to do things. We rocketed through this valley of death where most companies die in this ten to $20 million a year run rate. And we got passed in like a month. Right.
And we turned on profit quick and all that. Anyway, so what broke? Being in the ecosystem, I fundamentally and kind of my personality type, I could see where this was going and it was like building. I could see what Huberman was going to do and had enough inside baseball, and I could see with some of these other partners and what we were on the cusp of. And we went big on inventory, and there were a lot of people not happy with me. Right. Again, like Pos, like purchase orders. Yeah. And we're like, it's going to get big.
And one of the few people, we really only have two people other than my co founder and I that have been with either company since the start. So our senior director of science, he would call it senior director of human performance is Patrick Dixon. He leads all the government pro and college sports, things like fascinating background. And then our VP of product, Matt Chorney, have both been. Matt Cheney came from the momenta side. Patrick came from the amp human side. Those are only two left other than myself and my co founder. So of the two businesses pre merger, there's only four people.
Like, we also all grew people in the culture and all that. But Matt Chorney specifically, right. What he did from, like, he was running ops at that time, what he did to keep the train on the tracks, is nothing short of a miracle. And if he had any traditional ops training, there is no effing way. And we just went big and fast and hard, and we cut timelines that didn't work. And we leveraged, and we're like, oh, our manufacturer, Linda Huberman's, like, well, we're going to lose Huberman, if you notice. And they're like, you're helping this happen. And so we pulled every little string.
And our only ops goal over that growth period that we were in was keep us in stock. Nothing else. Do nothing else. Right. Fulfillment, don't care. We've optimized that since. But it was like the worst thing we can do is not be in stock. And so our supply chain we went through for a products company, a really crazy spike and a time when we had no working capital, too, or we had some working capital, but not an incredibly supportive investor base because we were fragmented.
It was really challenging.
Yes. How'd you do it? Right, like, going from two to 38 in a matter of 18 months and.
Just like, you're 36.
Two to 36, but making sure that you have the inventory to keep up, and you're obviously going to be selling out because you're not stocking $20 million worth of products. So in real time, what was it sort of looking like? What was the turnaround on the different parts of your supply chain? Were you working with one supplier there? Multiple. How did it all come together to not go out?
Zero foot cost. Right? And we are now seeing huge cost efficiencies now that we've slowed down and can do bigger pos. But we were just like, for some products, it was like, we just put pos in every week, right? And it's like, that's not sustainable. Or we're like, oh, we're going to air freight this ingredient. They're like, well, that's going to double the cost. And you're like, whatever, who cares, right?
Be in stock. Rule number one. Rule number two, yeah.
And we kept quality very high, which was great. And then we really leaned heavily on partners to jump people in line and pay jump in line fees and do all these things. Because for me, the last 12, 18, 24 months is not about margin. Right? And it's important to run a real business and a sustainable business. And I think all founders can, like, you get over your skis, you get screwed. But you have to understand, there's a time to grow the pie, and there's a time to cut the pie, right? And ultimately, when it's time to cut that pie, it better be a big fucking pie, because, I mean, it doesn't have to be. It's true. And what you don't want to do is grow the pie irrationally.
But when the pie is growing, take it, right? And it's just like, grow it. And don't grow it irresponsibly. Don't take more risks than you need to, and don't break the bank. But that was kind of the thing of like, if we have this opportunity to grow the pie, let's grow the pie. And we were out of stock for a couple of seconds here and a couple of seconds there, and it was like, how do we get the truck to the film center faster? It's like, we were so close. And part of what made it the hardest is we certify our whole production line by two certification companies, and you can't speed it up. We're like, can you go faster? Like, nope. And they don't even care, right? So there are two certification companies in the world that pro and college sports use.
If your product is not either NSF certified for sport or informed sport informed choice, they will not touch your product, because every other third party certification, in their mind, is garbage. Doesn't mean anything. They won't give to their players because they don't want their players to test positive. And our category has no regulation. And so that actually became the biggest bottleneck in everything that we had.
And what does the certification mean? Is it like a one time thing.
When formulating a product, or is it every stupid crotch? It's really important. And I think that's where if you really want to build a crazy brand and be incredibly impactful, is it's all about quality, and you can't budge on that. And we're building what we call the momentous standard. And we've always kind of had this. We've never displayed it externally, but you can never jeopardize that. And so for us, it was like, we're going to third party certify and not use what consumers think of third party certified. We're going to do the only two that matter. And so what does that mean for us? That means every batch is certified, and that means both pre and post and post.
It's testing for label claim accuracy. So, basically, if you say you have 20 grams of protein, 5 grams of carbs, whatever it is, you have to be within, like 10% variation, right. Or if it's like 800 milligrams of sodium, you better have it, right. And if you're out, you have to redo your label, or you have to make a label, and it can't contain things that aren't on the label. Right. And so, literally, what's on the label is in the package, which there are every week it seems like a new paper comes out that, like 60%, 80%, 10%, 15% of supplements that they test or dietary nutrition don't actually contain what they say they do or contain other things that aren't supposed to be it. And then the second step, which I think is really important, I don't know if consumers actually care. I think they do.
My hypothesis is that it is free of banned substances. And what you find in our categories, there's a lot of bad ingredients and bad things that are used, and not by that many players. But what happens is cross contamination is huge in our thing, in our category. Basically, like, it shipped on the same truck or in the same rail car, or it was made in the same facility as a substance that is banned in pro sports or college sports. And me, as a consumer, anyways, the only way we can work with the people we work with is to do these certifications. And I also believe, fundamentally, consumers might not know they care, but they should care. And it's on us to explain why it's so dangerous. Like, we had a vitamin D production run, and it's literally vitamin D right, in capsules.
Nobody would think about it. We failed a banned substance test with it. Meaning? Meaning when we go in to get certified, before we can release it, it gets these certifications, and it failed. And it failed because it was somehow in the chain of command, chain of control. It was contaminated or next to something that was banned. Right. And we've. With our standards and with our certifications, that production run goes into a dumpster.
Right. But the challenge is we weren't the only one that had. Right. That vitamin D was probably used in 20 other people's products. Right. And if you don't certify it. But is it going to kill a human? No. Is it good for a human? Probably not, but it's not the best of the.
And it's not what we as consumers should expect. You don't buy a beyond meat burger and, like, oh, it has trace amounts of bacon in, like, people would lose their minds. And that's where I think we have this opportunity. What makes me so passionate is we can change that because we have people like Dr. Hubertman and Dr. Galpin and Dr. Stacey Sims, like, these thought leaders. We can change the perspective, and we can change how people think and educate them, and we can create a standard that's above everybody else, but we can create a standard that raises everybody else.
Right. My biggest goal is, like, what if we just get everybody, like, this industry to self police and raise itself?
I want to touch on that. So you had Huberman, right? Huberman is, like, top 1% of everything else, but you decided to keep going and add more experts in the field. What drove that? You could have just stayed with Huberman. What made you, and how did you think of, like, here's how I envision this whole thing with all these people working together to grow this.
So what I would classify like a true expert. We had all those people before he brewed.
Okay.
Right. It just wasn't like the portfolio wasn't deep enough. But that's what made us special, and that's what gave me great confidence to do the acquisition of momentous is we had these people, and we were accessing these people on there. And so this list of experts, what I will say we didn't have were these. We, like, we're on Tim Ferriss's podcast and Andy Schultz's podcast as, like, sponsors, but they're very picky on who they work with and what. And Huberman has done to Huberman has created this unlock because he's de risked this category, right? Because he saw inside the sausage making of us. He saw all the experts we were working with, the dod, et cetera, and he actually understood what was making us special. And he's basically like, he is the tastemaker in our category.
He's the tastemaker for tastemakers, and that's what he's done. And so it wasn't on, like, how do we get a Galpin or a sims? Like, Stacey is, like, the leading female performance optimization human in the world. And Andy Galpin did some stuff with Huberman and has some more big things. But he's probably the smartest exercise physiologist in the world, or most popular, most easily digestible maybe is a better word. And those people are awesome. But what really, for us, our goal is, if you are a Sam, back to our, if you're a life optimizer and you're in comedy or you're a talk show host or you're an athlete or you're a business person, we want to work with you, right? And it's more so of now we're venturing into this space of let's go find the pockets of people who life optimizers that can tell our story in a really unique, genuine. Because, like, when Andy Schultz talks about us, it's cool, right? Because he puts his spin on seen, and he's now seen inside the sausage making of what makes us special. We work with the best people.
And he's like, why wouldn't you buy from the company that literally the billion dollar industries buy from? And it's really powerful on that. But this ecosystem is what I've always believed in, and it truly is a flywheel. You build it, and then now the ecosystem spins and spins and spins. It's happening with our work in the government, our advocacy work. This year, we briefed Congress twice on high performance wellness initiatives and supplementation, which is fascinating. I got to stand up in front of congressional members and talk to them. I'm kind of a knuckle dragger. I'm not the smartest person in the room, but I know a lot.
I'm super passionate. And we got to talk to him about traumatic brain injury and supplements. And we brought in a ton of our experts from pro and college sports to go brief Congress. And then we did the same thing on female high performance and the gaps in female performance and what we see in college and pro athletics and the equality gaps. It's just, like, fascinating and to me, what's so rewarding is what momentous has given us is it's given us a platform to probably affect change. And being able to be in DC and hopefully change policy to expand access is incredible, right. And not to help momentous directly to unlock this category and spread knowledge and change policy and change the way people think about this space is really important because I do fundamentally believe that our category, our industry, and it has been, is a cornerstone to health, wellness and longevity. But until we can break down some of the nastiness that comes with it, it's always going to be a hurdle.
I talk to customers and people, not even customers.
You responded to me when I needed help with because I don't understand a lot of these and I'm trying to get well.
But there are so many people like you, right, that are smart, intelligent, and it's like, there's so much noise and no, let it start, where to go. And then you're like, effort, I'm not doing anything right. And that is a disservice. And that's what the goal is, right, is the goal is to make people like you. And part of the challenge is like, how do we make the website come like that? I think that's our big unlock as a brand. We are building incredible trust. But then we have to go and figure out how, on a website, do we have a, or maybe even thought on a website, I don't know how to use AI. Right, what you guys are working.
How do you use something to create and tailor a bit more like, all right, this is not just a marketing brand. This is truly the best in class. Here's why I should care about what I put in my body. And then it's like, no, here's a curated approach for you. That's important for you. That's what's super duper important, in my opinion.
I think one of the biggest takeaways of this conversation, too, is going back to that, yeah, you can start a DTC brand to flip it, make some cash, et cetera. But you're obsessed with the mission. And that's the reason why the product has reached the heights it has. And if you're not this obsessed, it's going to be really hard to build a business that is as meaningful. One thing I wanted to touch on is you mentioned about the margins. And so from the outside in, some people say, have said momentous is one of the premium priced products in the vertical. But that's why, right, it's not purely for margins, it's because it's what it has to be to make this thing work.
Yeah. And the hope is, right, as we continue to scale and gain efficiencies, we gain margins and we can pass it on. Because the number one complaint we get is we're too damn expensive. And it's like, that's true, but we also, as a brand, have to communicate why. Right? Like the people like, well, I can go buy omegas from Costco and GNC, whatever, and they're a third of the price. And you're like, well, they probably have heavy metals in them, or the dosing is not correct. Like efficacious dosing and sourcing. It costs money.
And certifications. It's just like, hey, if you want to go buy a hamburger from McDonald's, it's so cheap and it does the job ish, right? But if you want to buy something that's really good, high quality, it's not going to cost buck 99, right? But we have to tell the consumer that. And we need to educate the consumer. But that also means we're not for everybody. And I have this fundamental belief our job as a business is not to create more life optimizers. Our job is to serve the life optimizers. People like Dr. Huberman and Tim Ferriss are creating more life optimizers.
And I believe life optimizers, our customers, can create more life optimizers. They can be the inspiration. Our job is not to convince them and create them convince them that they should be doing it. Our job is to help facilitate and I hope to someday give our customers the knowledge and power to help grow write this category. But if we want to democratize high performance, we have to do that with the people who are willing to listen and learn and lead them to the water, not go find some other animals and lead them to water. That's their job. Once we figure it out.
Yeah, Ramon, the other thing that I was going to say that was so interesting about the conversation is just like how you guys place a priority rather than going after something that's fully commoditized and spinning up a brand and like, okay, great, we've got a great DTC operation. You're doing the hard stuff first, right. In trust. Right. And trust wins out in a commoditized world because that's where the consumers are going to go. It's like, where do we find the trust? And the other thing is, sometimes all paths to business aren't linear, right? Like you were saying, when you're building that flywheel, you have to start with one thing, and that one thing leads to another thing, which leads to another thing that you may not see when you're just starting out. But in your guys'case, like you were saying in the beginning, you guys were selling almost like, as an enterprise, sort of almost an enterprise, pharmaceutical business, selling to defense contractors and to sports teams. And now, all of a sudden, once you're able to unlock that trust and unlock that flywheel, then your business was able to do something, like you said, go from two to 36 in, like, 18 months.
That's not something that any d to c business just does because they have a sick website. You know what I mean?
100%. Right. You got to be truly differentiated. Again, we have this differentiated, and then we found an opportunity to play in a really big TAm nutrition supplements. TAm is billions and billions, and it's fundamentally broken in my mind. But you can't. We could have just built another sick, fruity, pebbles flavored protein, right? And those companies are. They make good money, right? And they're out there and not knocking them at all.
We just took a different approach. We play in the protein space. We just said, we're going to build Ferrari fuel. We're not going to build pinto fuel, right. We're going to be really diligent in why we build it and how we build it. And I believe it becomes very hard to leave momentous when you can add true value and differentiation. The goal is have a consumer be like, why would I use anything else? Right? Yeah.
That's how I buy momentous. I honestly just buy. What is it called? The brain supplement?
Brain drive.
Brain drive. And I just buy it. I don't question it because I know I found my solution, and I'm just not going to waste any more time doing the research because I know this is probably the best product for people who are listening, and they're like, yeah, but, Jeff, I don't have a product that's patented or anything like that. What are some of the ways that people could differentiate? And what questions should they be asking to see how they can differentiate their business from everything else in their industry?
Yeah, I think to find truly patented products is incredibly unique. Right. And what I hope you heard in the story was like, we have a patented product, and it was the springboard. It's not what drives us revenue anymore. Right. We used it to get into the space that we're in, and we used it to interweave high performance and mission vision into the rest of the brand. And so I think there's so many different ways to differentiate. You can differentiate on service, you can differentiate on quality, you can differentiate on just overall experience that the customer gets or the positioning within the market.
Like even just like the gap, the use cases on that and all of those things. But it takes a while and it takes a long time to figure out product market fit.
The positioning is something alone that can tedx your tam. Like, if you do it right, positioning is probably one of the best investments of time. As a strategic operator of like, where can I create a category here? And sure there's going to be the cost of education, but what you unlock on the other side, it makes the investment very worth it. So as we get towards the end here, I know you guys have raised some money. What are the plans? What's coming up next for offering?
Yeah, never raise money again. Number one plan. I think really what gets me most excited is we now have the ability to really build team in a meaningful way. I think we're at this unique stage that to go from 40 to 200 million in revenue sometime in the coming years, right. That's built on team, that's not built on an entrepreneur's back, right. And there's this big transition that myself and my co founder have to make as leaders in the business. And no longer do we get to make every decision and do everything. We have to build a really team and we have to inspire and equip those people while still living the mission and vision on there.
But I really believe it's all about in service of the customer. If we can continue to find better ways to serve the customer and serve their needs and give them real value, it's going to be really incredible. So continue to innovate in product, continue to live this mission and vision to democratize high performance. We're doing some incredible things with the House and Senate of the US Congress to really change some of that. At some of the work I'm most proud of, I think product, we've got some cool stuff on the product side coming out. Like we're going to continue to get better and just really the customer experience, how do you enrich it? How do you get pike? We got to get people into the right products at the right time and we got to educate why. And I think knowledge is power. And I think especially for our customer, for that, I think it's also just like we've had way more waves.
Like if we go to a surfing analogy, we've been in this crazy set of waves and we haven't been able to ride that many waves. Because we haven't had the right team, the right bandwidth. We haven't had capital, whatever it may be, or inventory or supply chain, and now it's not. Huberman and a guy like Rogan are like unicorns. There's like one of, well, what I.
Was going to say is the good part about that, though, is that you have to develop the skill of being very selective about which wave you're going to take. And so that takes knowing which wave is a good wave. And now that you will have the positioning and the readiness to catch those waves, you did develop that skill of knowing what is a good way.
Well, not just that. I think the other thing you said, jeff, that I think is so important applies to any business, is like you were saying, when the pie is growing, grow it as big as you can, right? When the opportunity is there, clearly the market conditions. I know we were talking about Huberman, but I think what a lot of listeners may not even understand is, like, Huberman, just like maybe two and a half years ago, he published, like, episode one or something of his podcast. I remember listening to, literally his first episode, he had, like, less than 100,000 followers on Instagram. And it was just some like. And I listened with a friend. We're like, driving on a road trip to Vegas, and my friend's like, why the hell are you listening to this guy? And now he's massive, right? But in the same way, when the pie is growing, when things are growing, you have to capture that market.
But I think what you have to realize is you still fundamentally have to have a good business underneath it, right? Which means you have to have clear line of sight into margins. You have to understand where you get efficiencies from. Because if you build a giant pie and it's not sustainable, right, it's just an empty pie, just a crust. But I really believe we knew when we chose to not optimize for margin or profit, that there is a day we can. And scale helps get you that for sure. But also, when you go, you go.
You knew what you had, too, right?
And we know, like, oh, expediting production runs and doing all this.
Did you ever have a thought of, like, am I crazy here? Am I a little under.
A lot of people? Like, how much do you want to order? Are you sure? Do you really think so? Our budget for this year, our forecast was our base case model, I think was 23 million, right? And we'll do 40. And I remember presenting 23 million, and they're like, you're out of your mind. I was like, oh, we're going to smash this. And they're like, you were out of your mind. And January 1 was like, cool run rates above our base case. Yeah, right. But that was part of it. And I think as being an operator, you get lucky sometimes.
And we got the right wave at the right time. And I'm like, but to get in that position was really hard. We paddled our ass off and we had to survive for a long time. When we merged the two companies together, we were both relatively flat businesses and we were flat for a whole year post merger. Right. Because it took so long.
Wow.
Well, and it just goes to show also, you're telling us that seven months ago, you're like, what? Even was my website seven months ago? But this is years and years into the journey of your company. This isn't like an overnight thing. And even what you're telling me is the momentous that we see today. Doing 40 million a year is not even what you have in plan as you continue to scale this 100%.
Yeah, the space is huge and the playbook that everybody's following has been done and done and done again. And it's like, that is not the right playbook for. And I'm not talking about, I think brands like Element and AG have done an incredible job. I don't consider they're kind of in our category. They got singular products, very different, but dietary supplement as a whole, omegas, creatine, proteins, et cetera, it's just like the same playbook. Everybody's running the same playbook, right?
When people wake up to this, they're not going to want to go back when everyone realizes it.
But the other thing is, I fundamentally don't believe people need to take five products. You might graduate into that, but most people just get them into one or two skus, maybe three that are impactful for them, and they do it consistently, they're going to have massive benefits. The problem with our category is the real problem with our category, and what you see is like, LTV is super low stickiness. There's no loyalty. People just bounce on in and out because retention is because nobody knows why they're taking, or they're like, oh, why am I taking this? My budy told me to take it. I don't remember what it does. And guess what? When you don't remember what it does or why you should take it, you just stop taking it and therefore it has no impact.
And there's a ton of ingredients and then you've got supplements that are bundled and supplements that are like individuals and then retailers too. They might just go the long tail and be like, I'm going to create a skew for every ingredient and it's.
Just going to be that, yeah, it's a complicated space and like most things, it's like 80 for 20 rule. The fact of the matter is there is a handful of products that actually can drive meaningful impact. Everything else around you near.
I spoke with one of my good friends. He's like the biggest health freak of my health freaks of my circle of friends. And I asked him about, for example, ag. He's like, do your body can't process like 100 something sort of ingredients at once?
Do you agree with that?
How many readings on average, do your products have?
For example, we have a lot of seaweed, but there are some that have 610 different ingredients. I just fundamentally don't believe in proprietary blends. I think it's deceiving. I think it's part of what's wrong with our market. I really respect ag and really respect what they've done. I don't know if ag today, if they were a star with 75 ingredients, that that would fly. I do think what they've done is create an immense amount of awareness around health and wellness and their product does do some good, right? I mean, it clearly does. It has great people behind it.
Now, does everything in that product work or is it efficacious doses? Probably not, but I think that is in a lot of cases. And I think what they've done is very good for society. I really do. And they are a massive, massive brand and I'm proud to kind of be in their ecosystem on that. So aag, love them to death. But I think, you know, go back to proprietary blends. It's just know, don't look behind the curtain. And it's like, that's not like, why do you need a proprietary energy blend, right? This shouldn't be secret.
And in my opinion, we as an industry use those things to hide it. And so it's like, it's okay to have blends of product. I'm not the biggest fan of blends because it's really hard to get the most efficacious dose or what the clinically backed dose is in blends. But it's okay to have a blend like a multi ingredient formulation. Totally okay. But especially when you're thinking about true dietary supplements, you want to have single ingredients so you can dose up and dose down, right? Because that's super important to be able to be an n of one. By that, I mean we're all unique and different, and our bodies do different things. And so when you have a blend, you don't know what's best for you, you don't know what's optimal.
And I think it's really cool when you can be like, oh, let me take out this, see what happens. Let me take out that and see what happens. Or let me add a little bit more example for me. My biggest thing is brain health. As a pro football player, I hit my head. I did six years at SC. I did four years in NFL. I was an offensive lineman.
I am scared to death about long term brain health. It is my biggest fear that I have that when I'm 70, I start losing it. I don't want to end up being like Joe Biden. I want to live as long as Joe Biden. What can I do? Omega are a great example. Omegas have a ton of clinical research behind brain health. Really high doses of omegas. And ours is a two surfing size, just pure, right? Tha EPA omegas, 800 milligrams of each.
I take four. I double dose because I know the implications of it. I'm also 240, right? Like, I'm a big man still and I have a big frame and I need different doses. Sometimes you don't want big doses of some things, and other times you do, right? Like, some things can be toxic in high doses or not as good for you or habit forming. Other things can't. Like Omega three s in higher doses. And it's going to hurt me.
Brain drive is. So I tried a few brain enhancement products, and braindrive for me was the one that just didn't give me any headaches. I was trying some that I was getting a raging headache and it had too much caffeine or something. And I drink cold brew already.
Yeah.
So I can modify these ingredients. And so what was the idea behind Braindrive?
Yeah, Braindrive was actually a product that was involved in the acquisition. So it was a pre putting the two companies together. It's a very well designed nootropic, super clean, and ingredients in the right ratios that I think are really impactful. The nootropic space is really noisy and loud, obviously. And I just think there's so much misinformation in there. And at the end of the day, the thing that works the most, like the best thing ever for cognition is caffeine. Caffeine freaking works. It's a drug, right? Like, stop.
And we don't obviously put caffeine in there. We do a true nootropic blend and it's been very good for us. Yeah. So, like, brain drive is something I use very rarely, but I use it for very specific reasons. Right. And it's like when I want to focus, have some clarity, do the benefits of it. It's really for me, but it was designed with some of the best minds in the space. And what's crazy is we sell a ton of it into pro and college sports and we don't sell it to the athlete.
The athletes aren't the ones using. It's all the coaching stuff. It's crazy. It's like one of those things like the coaches need more brain dry and then you're like, did you destroy?
Yeah. Well, jeff, this was awesome. Thank you. Thank you for sharing with the audience the story behind momentous, everything about the product. It's motivating to see how obsessed you are with the mission and get to meet someone who's those products I consume. So we're excited to follow along the journey and see you guys hit that past that nine figure and continue seeing momentous growth.
Yeah. Thanks, guys.
Thanks, Jeff.
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1️⃣ One Sentence Summary
Jeff Byers discusses Momentous growth, branding, and high-performance product mission.
💬 Keywords
Ramon Berrios, 2. brain enhancement products, 3. Braindrive, 4. nootropic blend, 5. caffeine and cognition, 6. pro and college sports, 7. direct-to-consumer brand, 8. marketing strategies, 9. government innovation contracts, 10. product development, 11. clinical research, 12. health industry transparency, 13. revenue projections, 14. sports performance, 15. PR lotion, 16. human performance optimization, 17. trust and commoditization, 18. dietary supplements, 19. Momentous acquisition, 20. leadership and culture, 21. Huberman partnership, 22. wellness and longevity, 23. life optimizer, 24. vitamin D standards, 25. industry certification, 26. consumer education, 27. performance wellness advocacy, 28. inventory management, 29. third-party certifications, 30. banned substances.
🔑 7 Key Themes
Nootropic efficacy and clean ingredients
Brand evolution and DTC challenges
Revenue growth through innovation contracts
Momentous acquisition and product diversification
High performance democratization and optimization
Advocacy and industry standards in supplements
Inventory management and rapid product expansion
📚 Timestamped overview
00:00 Experienced biotech employee transitions to entrepreneurship through sports technology.
09:42 Product has potential with clinical trials, allowing access to various markets.
13:42 Acquired brand made selling difficult. Low usage impacted revenue.
22:22 Merging two small brands was difficult but had potential.
25:04 Merged companies launched Huberman in 2022 with a vision for excellence.
32:07 Marketing team lacked basics, wants to change health industry's trajectory.
36:52 PR lotion sponsored by air force to minimize need to urinate during missions.
44:23 Emphasize responsible growth and challenges in certification for sports production.
46:18 Products must meet label accuracy, with testing showing discrepancies. Consumers may not be aware or concerned.
51:11 Promoting experts in various fields for collaboration and optimization.
57:59 Emphasizes prioritizing trust and non-linear business paths, leading to rapid growth.
01:02:59 Focus on serving customer needs, innovate products, democratize high performance, collaborate with Congress to make changes, and enhance customer experience.
01:08:33 Focus on fewer, impactful products for consistent benefits and customer loyalty, as opposed to a large number of products with low stickiness and retention.
01:15:03 Caffeine-free nootropic blend for focus and clarity popular in sports.
📚 Timestamped overview
00:00 Transition from biotech to entrepreneurship, sports involvement.
09:42 Strong product with impressive clinical trial results.
13:42 Acquired brand, challenges, niche market, sustainable model.
22:22 Merger of two different nutrition brands challenging.
25:04 Aligned vision led to merger, new company.
32:07 Marketing team transformed, aiming to change health.
36:52 PR lotion minimizes need to urinate in air force.
44:23 Grow the pie responsibly, despite challenges.
46:18 Testing label accuracy for nutritional supplements matters.
51:11 He's a tastemaker, optimizing performance for all.
57:59 Prioritizing trust over commoditization leads to success.
01:02:59 Innovate to serve the customer, democratize high performance.
01:08:33 Simplify product usage for better impact and retention.
01:15:03 Nootropic blend designed for focus and clarity.
❇️ Key topics and bullets
Podcast Episode Outline: Jeff Byers - Momentous
Introduction to Braindrive and its Cognitive Benefits
Host Ramon Berrios's personal experience with Braindrive
Jeff Byers describes the acquisition of Braindrive and its design process
Braindrive's popularity among pro and college sports staff
Misinformation in the nootropic space and how Braindrive differs
Momentous Company Evolution
Jeff Byers details the history of the company's branding and marketing
The transition and difficulties encountered in establishing a direct-to-consumer brand
Emphasis on government contracts and industry relationships
Momentous's approach to changing health industry standards
Financial Milestones and Revenue Streams
Revenue growth and projections for Momentous
Importance of government contracts and sports teams to the business model
The corporation's strategy to increase revenue and expand its team
PR Lotion Development
Background in finance and biotech leading to PR lotion inception
Technological innovation in delivering sodium bicarbonate transdermally
Positive results and interest from elite clientele, including special forces and pro athletes
Product Strategy and Trust Building
The unique selling proposition of Momentous with patented technologies
Building customer trust over commoditization
Continuous innovation in products and customer experience for growth
Company Goals and Market Positioning
Aim to scale revenue significantly by focusing on service and innovation
Working with the US Congress and upcoming product developments
Maintaining a selective approach amidst market growth opportunities
Product Effectiveness and Industry Standards
Challenges in merging two flat businesses
Advocacy for single ingredient supplements
Skepticism around multi-ingredient products and proprietary blends
Marketing and Sales Challenges
Commercialization difficulties of topical muscle recovery products
Ensuring that products meet high standards set by the brand
Strategic response to lack of trust and transparency in the supplement industry
Momentous Brand Direction and Acquisition
Acquisition process involving Momentous and the emergence of the Huberman brand
Financial restructuring and alignment of mission and vision
Embracing a shared vision for high-performance product delivery
Expanding Audience and Advocacy
Shift from athlete-centric to life optimizer focus
Importance of ingredient certification and industry standards
Briefing Congress on female performance in athletics and wellness initiatives
Commitment to Mission and Communication
Ensuring product quality while managing company growth
Reinforcing the message of premium pricing paralleled by superior product standards
Efforts to enhance consumer education on product value and pricing
Inventory Management Challenges
Company growth and inventory challenges in the early stages
Managing risks with rapid expansion from two to 36 products
Maintaining high product standards amid supply chain hurdles
Closing Remarks
Host's appreciation of Jeff Byers's insights
Anticipation about Momentous's future endeavors
🎬 Reel script
Welcome to DTC POD. This is your host, Ramon Berrios, with our special guest Jeff Byers. In today's intensity-packed episode, we peeled back the layers of Momentus's remarkable journey. Jeff Byers, a powerhouse merging biotech smarts with sports performance, revealed the brainpower behind their caffeine-free nootropic, Braindrive, a favorite among pro coaches for mental clarity and focus, without the headaches. We also uncovered the strategic pivot that steered Momentous from DTC struggles to a staggering $40 million in revenue. We heard firsthand the tough navigation through branding challenges and the thrust into government contracts that's setting new standards in health transparency. Jeff shared the thrill of scaling from finance to a cutting-edge lotion, PR Lotion, pushing athletic boundaries, and shifting to democratize high performance for all. Join us as we follow Momentus's ascent, building trust with service, quality, and a relentless pursuit of innovation. Stay tuned and keep optimizing with DTC POD.
✏️ Custom Newsletter
Subject: 🧠 Uncover the Truth Behind Nootropics & High-Performance with Jeff Byers on DTC POD 🚀
Hey there Mind Maximizers!
Get ready to fine-tune your brainpower and hone your performance savvy because the latest episode of DTC POD has dropped, and it’s a bona fide game-changer! Our very own Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios sat down with Jeff Byers, the mastermind behind Momentus, and the revelations were nothing short of fascinating.
🎧 Tune in as Jeff Byers takes us on a journey through the intricacies of the nootropic industry, the highs of sports performance technology, and the admirable mission of his company Momentus. Here's what you're in for:
🌟 5 Keys You Can’t Miss:
Inside Scoop: Ramon shares his personal experience with Braindrive and why it stands out in a crowd of brain enhancers.
A Peak Behind the Formula: Jeff Byers spills on how Momentus ensures the potency and purity of Braindrive, especially its no-caffeine stance!
The Marketing Maze: Learn how Momentus navigated from troubled waters to a revenue stream that's going from strong to stronger!
Government Grants and Gridirons: Yes, there’s a connection! Discover the surprising sources of revenue and support for Momentus.
The PR Lotion Phenomenon: Ever wondered what's in the secret sauce that helps athletes push beyond their boundaries? Jeff Byers gives you the lowdown.
🎈 Fun Fact:
Did you know the coaches, not the athletes, are the MVPs for Braindrive sales in pro and college sports circles? Talk about an unexpected twist!
👋 Outtro:
Massive thanks to Jeff Byers for sharing the compelling story of Momentous and getting us psyched to witness their onward surge. The DTC POD team is all cheers and we can’t wait to see where they zoom to next.
📣 Call to Action:
Ready to get your learn on? Click that play button, dive into the full episode, and join us in unraveling the puzzle that is peak mental and physical performance. Plus, don't forget to hit subscribe for your regular dose of industry insights and those aha-moments we all crave!
Until next time, stay curious, stay agile, and keep optimizing!
The DTC POD Crew
➡️ Listen now: [Insert Podcast Link Here]
P.S. Sharing is caring! If you’ve got a buddy who’s all about that optimized life, pass this email along. They’ll thank you later, and so will we! 🌟
Opt out of these mind-boosting updates anytime by clicking unsubscribe, though we'll miss you more than caffeine on a Monday morning! If you have questions or want to share feedback, just hit reply – we read every message!
🐦 Business Lesson Tweet Thread
1/ Jeff Byers of Momentous just laid out a master class on pivoting a DTC brand into a major player in the health & wellness space.
2/ Their initial struggle? A classic story. Small teams, weak marketing moves... until they hit their stride focusing not just on consumers, but on strategic relationships.
3/ Braindrive became their beacon. A nootropic crafted without caffeine buzz, earning nods in pro sports circles - coaches, not just the athletes. Precision over mass market.
4/ Revenue soared from 5 to 40 mil. How? Government contracts and laser-focused product development. Byers knows: Innovation-backed revenue is king.
5/ But growth isn’t without pain. "We broke people," Byers admits. Rapid scaling strains teams. The lesson? Prepare your crew for tough climbs.
6/ Merging with Momentus wasn't just a handshake. It was two different worlds fusing - a clash of cultures, objectives. Yet, they emerged stronger, more aligned. Resilience redefined.
7/ Their secret sauce? Trust over tactics. They wager on humanity's love for genuine connection. In a commoditized market, trust isn't just good - it's golden.
8/ Speaking of gold, Byers is a vanguard for change. Bucking the trend, he calls for clarity in an industry clouded by prop blends & hollow claims.
9/ Momentous is a tale of a brand that doesn't just sell - it serves a mission. Of health democratized, of lives not just lived, but optimized.
10/ Finally, Byers's playbook is clear: innovate, educate, serve. Build a story that rings true. That's how brands don't just grow - they thrive.
🎓 Lessons Learned
Brain Enhancement Insights
Host Ramon discovers Braindrive's unique, headache-free cognitive benefits with clean, expert-formulated ingredients.Nootropics Misinformation
Jeffrey Byers debunks nootropic myths, stressing caffeine's cognitive role and Braindrive's true nootropic blend efficacy.Direct-To-Consumer Struggles
Momentous faced early DTC challenges, overcoming website, marketing, and strategic issues to enhance brand and retention.Revenue Growth Tactics
Emphasizing product development and government contracts, Momentous increases revenue from $5 million to an impressive $40 million.Sports Performance Innovation
From finance and biotech to sports lotion, Jeff's PR lotion fuels athletes with endurance and improved recovery.Service-Based Differentiation
Momentous thrives by prioritizing customer experience, service quality, and continuous innovation in a commoditized supplement market.Scaling Sustainably
Momentous calculates risks and emphasizes foundational business practices to scale revenue in a fiercely competitive sector.Supplement Skepticism Response
Jeff advocates for transparent, single-ingredient supplements to build loyalty and ensure personalized, effective dosing for consumers.Branding and Acquisitions
After acquiring Momentous, Amp HP merges to create Huberman, rebranding with a unified focus on quality and science.Expanding Consumer Reach
Shifting from athlete-only focus, the company caters to "Sam," a representation of broader, life-optimizing consumers seeking quality supplements.
💎 Maxims
Absolutely, here are several maxims based on the concepts discussed in the episode with Jeff Byers on DTC POD:
Trust is the currency of effective branding—prioritize transparency and quality to build customer loyalty.
Uphold meticulous standards—always ensure the products you create or endorse are thoroughly researched and backed by science.
Embrace the power of focus—whether it's in business or personal health, specialized strategies are often more effective than a scattered approach.
Knowledge is paramount—educate yourself and your audience about your products and their benefits for informed decisions.
Innovation is key—seek out unique solutions and advances in technology to offer exclusive benefits to your customers.
Prioritize expertise—collaborate with specialists and thought leaders to enhance credibility and provide substantial value in your offerings.
Consistency brings results—apply a deliberate and consistent approach to both product use and business practices for optimal outcomes.
Adapt and prioritize—flexibility is essential in business, so be ready to shift focus and resources to where they have the most impact.
Growth must be sustainable—scale your endeavors responsibly to maintain quality and integrity in all aspects of the business.
Quality over quantity—resist the temptation to flood the market with products, and instead, focus on producing items that stand out for their excellence.
Never underestimate the basics—simple components, such as caffeine for cognition, can be incredibly effective without unnecessary complexity.
Personalized experiences trump universal solutions—recognize the uniqueness of individual needs and cater to them for greater satisfaction and efficacy.
Service over commoditization—offer exceptional customer service to differentiate your brand in a crowded marketplace.
Engagement over promotion—build a community of dedicated users who align with your vision and can authentically represent and promote your brand.
Take calculated risks—push your business forward by taking strategic chances, while being mindful of potential pitfalls.
Invest in the future—allocate resources to areas like research and advocacy to drive long-term change and success.
Be mission-driven—let a clear and compelling mission guide your choices and strategies for a business that makes a meaningful impact.
Achieve excellence through collaboration—work together with your team, aligning leadership styles and philosophies for unified progress.
Embrace the broader mission—extend your focus beyond a niche market to address wider needs and accessibilities.
Responsibility, above all—commit to honest communication about your products' quality and pricing, and ensure standards that benefit all stakeholders.
These maxims aim to capture the essence of the strategic and philosophical insights shared by Jeff Byers, reflecting his approach to business growth, product development, and the overarching goal of creating a trusted, high-quality brand within the nootropic and performance optimization space.
🌟 3 Fun Facts
Host Ramon Berrios reported that of all brain enhancement products he tried, Braindrive was the only one that did not cause him headaches.
Jeff Byers described how his background in finance and biotech contributed to developing PR lotion, which can enhance sports performance and recovery, with some athletes experiencing up to 20% improvements in max effort intervals.
Momentous, now part of Huberman after a merger, generates a significant portion of its revenue from government innovation and research contracts, which equals about $1 million per year, and has strong ties with pro and college sports teams.
📓 Blog Post
Title: Unveiling Clarity in the Nootropic Realm with Jeff Byers on DTC POD
Introduction: The Quest for Cognitive Enhancement
In the latest DTC POD episode, co-host Ramon Berrios sits down with guest Jeff Byers, a trailblazer in the health and biotech industry, to discuss the intricate world of nootropics and the journey of his company, Momentous. This conversation sheds light on the complexities of brain health, the challenges of branding in the direct-to-consumer space, and the significant strides Momentous is making to redefine the industry standards.
Unlocking the Brain's Potential
Subheader: Braindrive: A Headache-Free Nootropic
One of the focal points Byers touches upon is the unique formulation of Braindrive, a nootropic that stands out for its clean ingredient lineup and efficacy without the common side effect of headaches. Berrios, having personally navigated the minefield of cognitive boosters, attests to Braindrive's distinctiveness. Byers details the careful acquisition and expert-backed design process that aligns with Momentous's commitment to clarity and targeted cognitive improvement, appealing to high-demand sectors like coaching professionals in pro and college sports.
Brand Evolution and Market Survival
Subheader: Momentous: The Path Through Branding and Trust
The conversation pivots to the branding evolution of Momentous and the challenges it faced in the competitive DTC landscape. Jeff Byers candidly discusses the hurdles of refining their online presence, scaling a marketing team, and implementing core strategies such as customer retention flows. Byers firmly believes in reshaping the trajectory of health through trust, transparency, and high standards, and this belief has fueled a remarkable revenue growth for the company.
Pushing the Envelope in Product Development
Subheader: PR Lotion and the Pursuit of Optimal Performance
Delving into product innovation, Byers shares his backstory in finance and biotech that led to the development of PR Lotion. The innovative product meets a critical need for athletes by improving performance and recovery through skin absorption of vital nutrients. With strong early data backing and interest from elite sports teams and special forces, PR lotion has charted a new course in the realm of human performance optimization.
Growth Strategy and Challenges
Subheader: Scaling Success Amidst Rapid Growth
Byers articulates the company's strategy for the future, which includes a leap in revenue targets and an unwavering focus on customer experience and product innovation. He recalls the initial skepticism when aiming for $40 million in sales, a goal subsequently surpassed despite the slow progression and growing pains from business integration.
A New Gold Standard in Supplements
Subheader: Challenging Conventional Wisdom and Elevating Standards
Deeply invested in redefining the dietary supplement market, Byers calls for single ingredient solutions to allow for personalized dosing—reflecting his preference due to his own experiences stemming from a football career. He underscores the deficiencies he perceives in the supplement industry and Momentous’s resolve to produce high-quality, high-efficacy offerings.
Advocacy and Expanding Reach
Subheader: Beyond the Scope: Momentous's Advocacy and Influence
Momentous doesn't limit itself to consumer sales; it's deeply involved in advocacy at a governmental level and committed to expanding knowledge and access in the wellness space. By allocating a portion of their revenue to these endeavors, Byers showcases an uncommon dedication to driving industry-wide change and educating consumers on the reality of product quality and pricing.
Conclusion: Leading the Charge in High-Performance Wellness
Jeff Byers of Momentous exemplifies the kind of visionary leadership that is direct, transparent, and compellingly focused on truth-telling in an industry rife with misinformation. With the podcast episode drawing to a close, hosts Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios commend Byers for his insights and contributions, knowing that the Momentous journey is one to watch closely, with potential to radically shift the health and wellness industry. The episode not only brought to light the intricacies behind a burgeoning health company but also offered a glance at the innovation and dedication required to sculpt a path of integrity and success in the complex world of nootropics and performance optimization.
🎤 Voiceover Script
In this episode of DTC POD, we join Jeff Byers of Momentous as he shares groundbreaking insights into optimizing human performance. Dive into the story of Braindrive's clean nootropic blend and follow Momentous' journey—from reimagining their DTC approach to a staggering revenue projection of $40 million. Uncover the power of PR lotion in sports performance, and explore the pivotal role of trust and transparency in the supplement industry. Stay with us for a narrative that challenges conventional wisdom and paves the way to democratizing high performance for all. Join us on DTC POD, where innovation meets grit in the quest for peak wellness.
🔘 Best Practices Guide
DTC POD’s Best-Practices Guide
Prioritize ingredient transparency and quality ratios in product development, avoiding misinformation prevalent in the nootropic space.
Emphasize customer trust and education, focusing on the efficacy of ingredients and their benefits rather than resorting to a fully commoditized approach.
Address direct-to-consumer challenges by improving online presence, retention flows, and harnessing relationships for brand building and revenue generation.
Expand product development with a focus on science-backed solutions to meet market demands and maintain integrity in branding.
Invest in clinical research and government innovation contracts to solidify credibility and ensure a sustainable business model.
Cultivate a robust internal culture that aligns with company philosophy, ensuring team members share the vision for growth and innovation.
Manage rapid expansion by securing a solid business foundation with careful inventory management, maintaining quality despite scaling.
Utilize authentic storytelling and advocacy to connect with a broader audience and promote high-performance, quality products.
🎆 Social Carousel: Do's/Don'ts
Cover Slide:
"10 Key Insights for Every Retention Marketer"
Slide 1:
Title: "Ignore Feedback"
Text: Switch to actively seeking customer input to enhance trust and product relevance.
Slide 2:
Title: "Neglect Transparency"
Text: Foster transparency to build a loyal consumer base and stand out in the market.
Slide 3:
Title: "Sidestep Research"
Text: Invest in clinical research to solidify product efficacy and consumer confidence.
Slide 4:
Title: "Generic Branding"
Text: Create a unique brand story that resonates with your 'Sam' - the life optimizer.
Slide 5:
Title: "Undervalue Quality"
Text: Prioritize top quality to differentiate your products in a saturated supplement industry.
Slide 6:
Title: "Overlook Education"
Text: Educate consumers on product value, fostering appreciation for premium pricing.
Slide 7:
Title: "Avoid Advocacy"
Text: Engage in advocacy to influence policy and improve market standards and access.
Slide 8:
Title: "Limit Partnerships"
Text: Collaborate with experts to elevate your brand's credibility and product portfolio.
Slide 9:
Title: "Minimal Visioning"
Text: Craft a global vision to drive innovation and expand your company’s reach.
Slide 10:
Title: "Rush Growth"
Text: Pursue responsible growth with a focus on maintaining inventory quality and accuracy.
🎠 Social Carousel
Cover Slide
"10 Essential Insights for Entrepreneurs"
Slide 1:
"Clean Nootropics"
Select supplements with pure ingredients for cognitive clarity without headaches.
Slide 2:
"Branding Matters"
Evolve your company name with intention to resonate and endure in the market.
Slide 3:
"Customer Retention"
Implement basic strategies to keep your clients returning — it’s key for growth.
Slide 4:
"Revenue Growth"
Diversify income streams with product innovation and strategic partnerships.
Slide 5:
"Government Contracts"
Such agreements can provide a stable revenue source alongside direct sales.
Slide 6:
"Product Innovation"
Create unique offerings like PR lotion to stand out and elevate performance.
Slide 7:
"Trust Building"
In a commoditized market, trust and customer experience win over purely competitive pricing.
Slide 8:
"Clear Margins"
A solid business foundation with efficient margins is crucial for sustainable expansion.
Slide 9:
"Quality Standards"
Commit to the highest product quality; sidestep the common 'me too' approach in supplements.
Last Slide - CTA:
"Connect and Learn"
Follow DTC POD for more valuable insights that drive entrepreneurs towards success. #DTCPOD
Interview Breakdown
In today's episode, we dive into the brain-boosting world of nootropics with Jeff Byers, former athlete turned entrepreneur, who unpacks the journey of his product Braindrive and the explosive growth of his company Momentus. Get ready for an insightful discussion about the challenges and strategies of building a successful direct-to-consumer brand in the high-performance wellness industry.
Today, we'll cover:
The rigorous process behind the development of Braindrive and its position in the competitive nootropic market
The fundamental shifts in branding and marketing that propelled Momentus towards a $40 million revenue milestone
How government contracts and relationships in professional sports are shaping the company's revenue streams
The strategic decision-making and product innovation that guide Momentus to create a significant impact in the wellness space
Jeff Byer's personal and professional journey, from the world of finance and biotech to spearheading a mission-driven health optimization company
One Off Tweets
Tweet 1
In the murky world of nootropics, clarity is king. Braindrive reigns with clean ingredients, striking balance and precision over a caffeine rush.
Tweet 2
Overcoming skepticism is part of any founder’s journey. From $5 million to $40 million, proving doubters wrong is just another day at the office.
Tweet 3
Surviving and thriving in DTC isn't about luck; it's about relentless focus on retention and understanding the consumer's journey—in sports and life.
Tweet 4
Trust beats trends in wellness. At Momentous, it's not about flashy quick fixes, but about setting enduring standards in an industry plagued by doubt.
Tweet 5
Nothing fuels progress like purposeful partnerships. Forging the future of performance products means aligning with visionaries like Andrew Huberman.
Tweet 6
Expansion isn't just a business term; it's a mission to bridge elite athlete innovations with everyday champions, democratizing high performance.
Tweet 7
A company's true muscle isn't just its product but its resilience in supply chain and inventory gymnastics, all while keeping the product's integrity in check.
Tweet 8
Building a company is akin to nurturing a culture; navigate wisely as you merge visions, leadership styles, and set a unified course for growth.
Tweet 9
Athletes know the burn of pushing limits. PR lotion is that secret weapon that lets them go harder & recover faster—performance science in a bottle.
Tweet 10
Creating a product that changes the game means more than research and development; it's about advocacy, educating on quality, and shaping policy for better access.
💬 Keywords
Ramon Berrios, brain enhancement products, Braindrive, nootropic blend, caffeine and cognition, pro and college sports, direct-to-consumer brand, marketing strategies, government innovation contracts, product development, clinical research, health industry transparency, revenue projections, sports performance, PR lotion, human performance optimization, trust and commoditization, dietary supplements, Momentous acquisition, leadership and culture, Huberman partnership, wellness and longevity, life optimizer, vitamin D standards, industry certification, consumer education, performance wellness advocacy, inventory management, third-party certifications, banned substances.
Twitter Post 1
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Alt + Tab (Windows) or Command + Tab (Mac)
Switch between applications instantly without reaching for your mouse. It’s a game-changer for multitasking and staying in the flow.
Twitter Post 1
One simple habit from Jeff Byers could boost your brain health.
High-Dose Omega-3
Opting for single ingredient supplements like omega-3, which Jeff takes due to his football career, targets specific needs without the clutter of proprietary blends.
Mindsets
Gearing up to enhance your cognitive performance and overall health? Here are some pivotal mindset adjustments to consider during this transformative journey:
💭 Prioritize clarity over mere stimulation. It's not about the jolts of energy, but the sustained focus. Recognize the value in supplements like Braindrive that offer clean, well-measured ingredients for longer-lasting mental acuity, without the spikes and crashes associated with stimulants.
💭 Recognize the power of individualized health. Moving away from a one-size-fits-all mentality, understand that customizing your approach with single-ingredient supplements can lead to significant personal health gains. Tailoring your regimen may require more attention, but it opens the door to precision wellness.
💭 Reimagine your role in the health ecosystem. Instead of being a passive consumer, embrace the role of an active, informed decision-maker. Understanding the intricacies of products and their impact is not just self-empowering but also contributes to shaping a more transparent, trust-based health industry.
Ready to take these mindset adjustments to the next level and truly master the art of cognitive and health optimization?
Embark on a deeper dive into these principles with my new course, "Powerful Optimization: How to Harness Your Most Essential Skill," now available on Audible.
For more insights on optimizing your mental and physical health, and reshaping your approach to personal wellness, tune in. Discover comprehensive strategies and engaging discussions that go beyond the conventional – all at your fingertips.🎧
Listen today and join the movement towards a more potent, health-centric lifestyle! 🚀🌿
Tactics
Ready to level up your business acumen? Here are five savvy tactics and strategies extracted from our latest episode with Jeff Byers of Momenetus that you can apply to your own entrepreneurial journey:
🚀 Focus on creating a singular ingredient narrative. Instead of piling up numerous ingredients into a product, consider the power of simplicity. Byers’ preference for single ingredient supplements for personalized dosing reveals an untapped market opportunity. Streamlining your product could not only set you apart in a crowded market but also cater to a growing consumer base seeking tailored solutions.
🚀 Lean into scientific validation. Momentous didn’t just create supplements; they invested heavily in clinical research to back up their claims. Your business could benefit from leveraging data and research to establish credibility and consumer confidence. Consider partnering with research institutions or conducting your own studies to not only improve your product but also to build a strong, evidence-based brand narrative.
🚀 Elevate your customer service game. Momentous is scaling by prioritizing exceptional service and customer experience. Take a page out of their playbook by ensuring your customer service is not just a department but a central component of your entire operation. Offer service and support that makes every customer feel like a VIP, and you'll build loyalty that can withstand the pressures of a price-driven market.
🚀 Embrace strategic partnerships. Jeff Byers emphasized the importance of government and institutional contracts for revenue. Your business might not be in the supplement industry, but the approach still applies. Forge relationships with larger organizations, agencies, or influential figures that can lead to stable, recurring revenue and can also serve as powerful endorsements for your products or services.
🚀 Treat learning as a critical investment. For Byers, surrounding the company with top-tier experts was a game-changer. In your business, invest in learning and expertise – whether by hiring consultants, attending industry-leading conferences, or enrolling in advanced courses. Knowledge brings a strategic edge, helping to navigate growth, position products, and make informed decisions that drive success.
Integrating these insights into your strategy can offer a fresh perspective that might be the catalyst for your business to experience monumental growth. Just like Momenetus, your business has the potential to soar to new heights by making calculated, innovative moves.📈
In Depth Thread
Simplicity Wins: Scaling a Supplement Empire.
In a world crowded with over-complicated marketing plans, less is truly more.
When Momentous exploded their revenue from a modest $2M to an eye-popping $36M in just 18 months, here's the ultra-lean strategy they followed:
One-Page Wonder
Limit your pitch to a single page.
Success can be communicated concisely. When Momentous raised capital, they used a page with five bullet points outlining:
Product Innovation
Revenue Growth
Strategic Partnerships
Market Potential
Team Expertise
If the vision isn't crystal clear in a quick glance, back to the drawing board it goes.
Snapshot the Market
Don't get bogged down in the minutiae.
Distill the essence of your market trends into a handful of insights - no more than five points that paint the present and predict the future.
Power Statement
Brand identity in a nutshell.
Momentous: "Optimizing human performance with research-backed nutrition."
Own the Phrase
Momentous dominated the nootropic space, coining "Brain Optimization Through Science."
This isn't just a slogan, it's a shift in industry perspective they spearheaded.
Business Model Clarity
Money plus Momentous equals...?
Clearly define how investment turns into growth. Succinct. Direct. Actionable.
Terms upfront. No ambiguity.
Keep investment thresholds, time commitments, and charges in the limelight to attract the right investors.
Show, Don't Say
Graphs and charts illustrate growth and plans far better than text-heavy descriptions. Get visual, and let the success speak for itself.
Highlight the Heroes
A company soars on the strength of its people.
Momentous has aced this by showcasing their team's rich expertise in health, performance, and market acumen.
And in the absence of long-term historical data, they leaned into explicating the prowess and strategic vision of their collective talent.
Goldman’s Golden Rule: 3 Ps
The Momentous roadmap is built on three pillars:
• Product superiority
• Profitable scaling
• Proven team proficiency
Emphasize your strengths with clarity, brevity, and impact.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Reaching $36 million in revenue within 18 months is no small feat for any brand, let alone a performance supplement company. Here are the top 6 reasons how Momenetus, led by CEO Jeff Byers, achieved this remarkable growth and why these strategies can be a blueprint for businesses aiming to scale rapidly:
Strategic Partnerships Elevate Brand Potential
Jeff Byers understood the significance of leveraging strategic partnerships, such as securing innovation and research contracts with government bodies and high-profile sports teams. Aligning with entities that have vast resources and audiences provided a channel for growth, enhancing product credibility and widening market exposure.
Prioritizing Trust and Transparency Builds a Loyal Customer Base
By steering clear of the notorious misinformation within the nootropic space, Momenetus was able to foster a relationship built on trust with its consumers. Transparency in ingredient sourcing and clean product formulation contributes to repeat business, crucial for any DTC brand's success.
Innovative Product Development Keeps Consumers Engaged
The development of PR lotion is a perfect example of how innovation can captivate market interest. By addressing a unique need in sports performance with a novel product, Momenetus could tap into an unmet demand, securing a leadership stance within this niche category.
A Focus on Quality Distinguishes from Competitors
In an industry flooded with innumerable supplements, maintaining a relentless dedication to product quality set Momenetus apart. Such attention to detail and commitment to superior offerings ensured that their products stood out on the shelves and online platforms.
Embracing A Challenge-Driven Culture Catalyzes Sustainable Growth
Jeff’s approach to acknowledge and confront growth challenges head-on allowed the company to adapt and overcome logistical and financial hurdles. Rather than shying away from difficulties, Momenetus embraced these as opportunities for learning and pivoting when necessary.
Aligning with Core Values Guides Business Decisions
The merger with Momentous to form Huberman highlights the importance of aligning company culture and vision. By transacting out non-aligned individuals, Momenetus ensured that everyone was moving in lockstep towards a common goal, which is instrumental in streamlined decision-making and consistent messaging.
TAKEAWAY:
Momenetus’s journey from $2M to $36M in 18 months offers actionable insights for brands looking to scale effectively. Form strategic partnerships for growth leverage, build trust through transparency, prioritize product innovation and quality, nurture a culture ready for challenges, and stay true to your core values. Implementing these strategies can significantly amplify a company's trajectory, just as they did for Jeff Byers and his team.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Rapid growth can BREAK your business. Here are the top 6 reasons why exploding in size too quickly is a recipe for disaster (and why pacing yourself is key):
Supply chain snarls are inevitable.
When your company grows from 2 to 36 products in just 18 months like Jeff Byers' did, you're placing weekly purchase orders and gambling on inventory. This frenzied growth puts a strain on your supply chain, inviting mishaps. Steady, manageable increases in product offerings allow for proper planning and execution.
Cash flow catastrophes become commonplace.
As Byers mentioned, dealing with limited working capital and an unsupportive investor base presents significant challenges. When growth outpaces your financial runway, you risk burning through cash reserves before you can generate enough revenue to cover expenses.
Quality can quickly deteriorate.
Momentous prioritizes quality, navigating rigorous third-party certifications for each batch. But this quality control becomes harder to maintain when items multiply rapidly. Without uncompromising standards, product quality can slip, damaging your brand's reputation and customer trust.
Team culture could crumble.
Integrating two flat businesses involves aligning not just products and processes, but also people. Rapid scaling can create cultural rifts that hinder effective collaboration and cohesiveness within the team.
Customer experience may suffer.
By focusing on the customer experience and service quality, Jeff Byers' brand sets itself apart. However, an uncontrolled sprint in growth often leads to a neglected customer service, tarnishing your brand's image and affecting future sales.
The brand’s story can get lost in the noise.
Byers stresses the importance of authentically communicating the brand's story. As you rapidly scale, the core mission and values can become muddled or lost, leading to a disconnect with your customer base and potentially alienating your core audience.
TAKEAWAY:
Pace your company's growth to avoid supply and cash flow issues.
Maintain quality to guarantee customer satisfaction and repeat business.
Nurture your team's culture to ensure unity and productivity.
Focus on preserving an excellent customer experience no matter the size.
Remember to communicate your brand's story consistently as you grow.
But most importantly...
Remember that scaling at a breakneck pace can be more a danger than a triumph.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Quality Always Triumphs Quantity in the Supplement Industry. Here are the top 6 reasons why cerebral enhancers like Braindrive are on top of their game by prioritizing clean ingredients over the crowded market of quick fixes:
Purity Over Popularity
Many nootropics on the market favor a blend of numerous ingredients, but Jeff Byers has demonstrated with Braindrive that a clean and straightforward formula is key. The minimalist approach focusing on pure, effective ingredients resonates more with informed consumers who value quality over quantity.
The Power of Specialization
By concentrating on select cognitive benefits rather than a catch-all solution, Braindrive caters to a niche that appreciates specialization. Byers noted that elite professionals, including coaching staff in pro and college sports, recognize and value the targeted approach, which translates to trust and steady sales.
Education Beats Misinformation
The supplement market is inundated with dubious claims and misinformation. Byers and his team dedicate efforts to educate their consumers, ensuring their audience understands what they're ingesting and why it matters. An informed customer is a loyal customer.
Trust is the True Currency
Amid a sea of proprietary blends and questionable claims, Jeff Byers' emphasis on transparency and building trust stands out. Braindrive's commitment to quality and right ratios of ingredients has secured a confident customer base who prefer clarity over convoluted product labels.
Efficacy is Everything
Results bring repeat customers. Braindrive’s reliance on clinical research and expert input has assured its users of its efficacy without undue side effects, such as caffeine-related headaches. This efficacy has helped them scale their operations by keeping their customers coming back for more.
Athlete-Endorsed, Expert-Approved
The seal of approval from high-performing athletes and the backing of scientific experts give Braindrive and Jeff Byers' products significant credibility. This isn't just marketing—this is a testament to the product's ability to deliver on its promise, making it a leader in its category.
TAKEAWAY:
Choose purity over a blend of confusion.
Value specialization in your nootropic choices.
Educate yourself against the supplement market's noise.
Trust builds lasting customer relationships.
Results will always outweigh mere marketing.
Remember, the best endorsements come from those who perform at their peak.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
In the latest episode of DTC POD, we crack open the playbook on how a performance supplement brand skyrocketed from $2M to a staggering $36M in revenue in just 18 months, thanks to Jeff Byers and his company, Momenetus. Here are the insights and strategies straight from the episode with Byers:
Cut the Fluff in Supplements.
In an industry riddled with misinformation, Momenetus bet on quality. They ditched caffeine and focused on true nootropic blends, tailoring their products for mental clarity and cognitive benefits. Like signing an NDA over a simple idea, overstuffing a supplement with unnecessary ingredients just doesn’t make sense.
Build More Than a Brand; Build Trust.
Jeff Byers highlighted that the key to Momenetus' success wasn’t just direct-to-consumer tactics; it was their relentless pursuit of transparency and quality. Just as entrepreneurs require customer feedback, Momenetus scaled up by listening to their market and focusing on genuine needs, from product development to forging relationships in the ecosystem.
Diverse Revenue Streams Are Your Lifeline.
Just like you shouldn’t hedge all bets on a single product feature, Momenetus diversified their revenue. About $1 million rolling in from innovation contracts and a significant portion from pro and college sports teams fortified their stance in the market.
Innovation Over Blind Expansion.
When the company saw a potential in the sodium bicarbonate delivery technology for sports performance, they didn’t just leap in blindly. Jeff Byers, akin to a judicious founder, did his due diligence with a biotech company, ensuring PR lotion stood on solid ground before scaling efforts.
Service Over Sale Spells Longevity.
Momenetus isn’t just pushing products; they’re pushing the envelope in customer experience and service. Taking notes from Steve Blank's gospel, this is parallel to startups building customer bases prior to products. It's not just about the sale; it's about the ongoing relationship.
Patented Products and Precise Positioning.
They carved their niche with patented products, positioning themselves as leaders in the industry. It's reminiscent of solidifying a startup's unique value proposition rather than being another “me too” in the crowd.
TAKEAWAY:
Growth isn’t just a numbers game; it’s about deliberate, value-driven strategies. Momenetus' approach speaks volumes—be authentic in marketing, be diligent in research, and be unwavering in dedication to quality and service. And just as we won't sign your NDA, don't expect Momenetus to dilute their brand with questionable ingredients. Their ethos? If it’s not broken, don’t fix it; if it’s not quality, don’t make it.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Scaling a supplement brand to $36 million in 18 months isn't luck—it's strategy. Here are the top 6 reasons how Jeff Byers and his team at Momentous catapulted their performance supplement brand from $2M to $36M in record time:
Relentless Focus on Quality and Transparency.
Jeff knew the nootropic space was cluttered with misinformation. Momentous stood out by ensuring product quality and by using clean ingredients, earning customer trust.Strategic Brand Acquisitions.
Acquiring an already reputable brand like Braindrive helped Momentous to expand their product line and leverage existing market trust to scale rapidly.Government and Sports Team Partnerships.
By securing contracts and building relationships with government agencies and sports teams, Momentous created a steady revenue stream and boosted its credibility.Effective Positioning and Marketing.
The Momentous team overcame their DTC struggles by refining their online strategies, emphasizing storytelling, and enhancing customer retention—key moves that brought their brand into the spotlight.Innovation and Product Development.
By developing and patenting unique products like their PR lotion, Momentous offered something competitors didn’t, appealing to a niche but lucrative market of coaches and elite athletes.Data-driven Business Foundations.
Momentous grew sustainably by staying data-centric—evaluating metrics, ensuring clear margins, and embracing risk with inventory management to meet rapid growth demands.
TAKEAWAY:
Quality and transparency win customers.
Acquisitions can catapult growth.
Solid partnerships establish credibility.
Strategic online presence is pivotal.
Innovative products set you apart.
Data-driven decisions drive sustainable growth.
And Momentous? They've blended industry savvy with precise execution to revolutionize the performance supplement landscape.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Throwing money at influencer marketing is like trying to douse a fire with gasoline. Here are the top 6 reasons why pouring cash into influencers is the quickest way to burn through your startup's funds (and why I'd rather watch paint dry):
Followers don't equal buyers.
Just because someone has a zillion followers doesn't mean they're going to rush to buy your product. Most folks are just there for the free entertainment, not to open their wallets. Putting your budget here is like throwing a party that no one shows up to — not cool.
Authenticity? More like a rare unicorn.
Influencers peddling products can be as believable as a fish claiming it doesn’t need water. You see them one day hawking a face cream, the next day it's a blender. Do they truly love either? Who knows. What we do know is that the trust they have is thinner than toilet paper.
One hit wonder much?
So your chosen influencer did great and sales spiked! Yay! But wait, that's just one day. What about the rest of the year? Depending on one-off influencer shoutouts is like hoping that next lightning bolt will also kindly avoid you on a stormy hike. Not the best survival strategy.
The price tag is a horror story.
Some of these influencer fees are scarier than a midnight trip to the bathroom without lights. The return on investment is often as disappointing as finding out your Halloween candy is all raisins. If you like spending big bucks for small returns, then sure, go ahead!
Copycat effect is real.
Once one influencer starts chatting about your product, others jump on the bandwagon. Now your unique item is just another face in the overcrowded influencer product parade. It’s like being the 10th superhero at the party — we’ve seen it already, and the novelty has worn off.
Engagement rates? More like engage-LESS.
The hard truth is that the more followers an influencer has, the lower their engagement rates tend to be. Throwing money at them is like buying the world's largest billboard — in the desert. Sure, it's big, but if nobody's around to see it, does it even make an impact?
TAKEAWAY:
Throw the influencer playbook out the window.
Don’t mistake likes for sales.
Look for real trust, not paid parrots.
Invest in long-term growth, not just spikes.
Remember: hefty fees don’t guarantee hefty sales.
And lastly, engagement is king. Don’t settle for court jesters.
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Skimping on quality is a surefire way to tank your brand. Let's cut to the chase and serve up the top 6 reasons why cutting corners on product quality is the kiss of death for your business reputation (and why skimping isn't slick):
Customers aren't fools.
People can spot a cheap knockoff a mile away, and they're not about to trade their hard-earned cash for your flimsy goods. If your product feels like it's going to fall apart faster than a house of cards, consumers will drop you like a bad habit.
Bad news travels at warp speed.
In today's digital world, if you slip up and sell cruddy products, don't think you can sweep it under the rug. Customers will blast their complaints all over social media before you can say "refund," and once the internet turns on you, good luck turning that ship around.
Trust is tougher to build than a 1000-piece puzzle.
Think of building customer trust like stacking dominos; it takes ages to line them up just right, but one bad move and it all comes crashing down. When you skimp on quality, you're not just risking a product return; you're risking your entire brand's reputation.
Repeat business? Forget about it.
If your product quality is on par with a screen door on a submarine, don't expect those customers to come back for seconds. Loyalty isn't bought; it's earned through dependable and durable products that don't scream "I'm about to break!"
The competition is licking their chops.
While you're over there cutting corners, your rivals are doubling down on durability. In the battle for customers, quality is king. Skimp with caution because your competitors are just waiting to scoop up the customers you've disappointed.
Your bottom line will feel it, big time.
Sure, using cheaper materials might look good on this quarter's financial statement, but when returns, complaints, and lost customers start rolling in, you'll see red faster than a bull at a rodeo. Quality is an investment in your brand's future, not an area to cheap out on.
TAKEAWAY:
Invest in quality like it's going out of style.
Listen to your customers when they sound the alarm on subpar products.
Build trust with excellence, not excuses.
Earn customer loyalty with goods that last longer than leftovers.
Watch out for the competition snapping at your heels.
Keep your eye on the long-term prize, not just the quick buck.
And folks, please, I beg of you, don't tell me that your shoddy product is "part of the design".
💼 LinkedIN - 6 Reasons Post
Scaling a performance supplement brand from $2M to $36M is no minor feat. Here are the top 6 reasons why Momenetus’s approach was a resounding success:
Innovation Overlaps with Demand
Jeff Byers and Momenetus tapped into the nootropic market with Braindrive, understanding that users were seeking more than just caffeine-induced alertness. By focusing on clean ingredients and clinically-backed formulations, they positioned their product perfectly where consumer demand was headed.
Expanding Through Strategic Partnerships
Momenetus's decision to work closely with pro and college sports teams provided a credible and influential platform. This partnership with key stakeholders in sports amplified their market presence and played a pivotal role in scaling their business spectacularly.
Understanding the Marketplace
By closely looking at industry standards and consumer skepticism, Momenetus crafted products that stood out. Their commitment to transparency and trust-building shattered the common mistrust enveloping the supplement market, which positioned them as a reliable brand in a crowded space.
Navigating Growth Challenges
Although Momenetus faced considerable obstacles, including branding and marketing pitfalls as a DTC company, they managed to overcome these hurdles. Their persistent focus on product quality and customer experience laid a rock-solid foundation for unprecedented growth.
Serving the "Life Optimizer"
Identifying and catering to the "life optimizer," the core Momenetus customer, showed a sophisticated understanding of their target audience. Knowing precisely who they were serving allowed for a more targeted, effective approach in product development and marketing strategies.
Commitment to Research and Advocacy
Momenetus's investment in clinical research and government advocacy work, unique among DTC brands, gave them a cutting-edge advantage. Engaging with policymakers and academicians not only reinforced their standing as a science-driven brand but also expanded their reach well beyond typical consumer channels.
TAKEAWAY:
Innovation should meet market needs; partnerships amplify impact.
Understand your market to create standout products.
Face growth challenges head-on with a customer-centric approach.
Identify your core customer for targeted growth.
Invest in research and advocacy for long-term credibility.
Momenetus's growth from $2M to $36M is a masterclass in market-adapted innovation, strategic partnerships, consumer understanding, and a commitment to research-backed advocacy.
New Idea
Idea #1: The Importance of Clean Ingredients in Nootropics
One standout theme from the episode is the critical nature of using clean ingredients in brain enhancement supplements like Braindrive. Here’s how the conversation supported this idea:
Host’s Personal Testimony: Ramon Berrios provided a personal account of his experience with brain enhancement products, highlighting that Braindrive was the sole option that didn't result in headaches, pointing towards its clean and well-balanced formula.
Guest’s Expert Insight: Jeff Byers shared that Braindrive, which was part of a merger, is formulated with clean ingredients in appropriate ratios, emphasizing the attention to detail in product composition, unlike many products with misinformation in the nootropic space.
Targeted User Base: The product’s market success, particularly with coaching staff in professional and collegiate sports, suggests that individuals with a high degree of knowledge and experience in performance optimization value and trust the clean ingredient profile of Braindrive.
Tweet thread on learnings
Tweet 1:
A deep dive with Jeff Byers of Momenetus revealed mind-blowing growth: from $2M to $36M in just 18 months. 📈 But how did a performance supplement brand achieve such staggering success? Time to unpack the wisdom from this episode of #DTCPod. Thread👇
Tweet 2:
A Marriage of Science & Marketing 🧪💡
Byers shared that the acquisition of Braindrive was crucial. It wasn't just about selling a nootropic—it was the clean, effective formulation & the strategic branding that set them apart in an industry rife with misinformation.
Tweet 3:
The Critical Role of Government Contracts 🏛️💼
Approx. $1M/year in funding isn't trivial. For Momenetus, these contracts weren't just a revenue stream; they brought validation & credibility, propelling their business into the major leagues of the supplement world.
Tweet 4:
Importance of Building Trust 🤝
Trust wins in a commoditized world. Jeff Byers stressed that Momenetus's dedication to transparency, and quality isn't industry-standard. It creates loyal "life optimizers," customers who believe in the brand beyond just transactions.
Tweet 5:
Sustainable Growth via Innovation & Service 🚀🔧
Byers emphasized that their $40M milestone was about more than numbers; it was about a sustainable model. Investing in continuous innovation & unparalleled customer service are their non-negotiable pillars.
Tweet 6:
Overcoming Growth Pains 🤕📈
Scaling isn't smooth. Momenetus "broke people" in the process, Byers admitted candidly. Leadership and culture challenges are real, but aligning the team with the company's ambitious vision was vital for that explosive growth.
Tweet 7:
Niche Market Impact 🎯
Instead of casting a wide net, Momenetus narrowed their focus - from niche sports communities to government contracts, this targeted approach allowed them to deeply penetrate specific markets with high-quality, performance-boosting products.
Tweet 8:
Advocacy is as Important as Sales 🗣️♻️
Spending 5% of revenue on advocacy isn't common for a DTC brand. For Momenetus, championing high-performance wellness & scalability in Congress translates to industry longevity and consumer trust.
Tweet 9:
A Strong Foundation & The Big Picture 🏢🌐
You can't afford to overlook a company's fundamentals: finances, inventory, certifications. But also, vision - it was this balance of meticulous attention to detail & big-picture goals that catapulted Momenetus to its $36M triumph.
#PodcastInsights #BusinessGrowth
Future State, 6 reasons post
In just 18 months, Momentous has seen remarkable growth, scaling from $2 million to $36 million in revenue. Previously, the brand struggled with its direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategy due to a small marketing team, a lackluster website, and a lack of retention strategies. However, the tables have turned: the brand is now on a trajectory to redefine the health and wellness industry, aiming to cultivate trust, transparency, and exceed industry standards.
The future is even brighter. Momentous is not just focused on achieving success as a DTC brand; it aims to influence the larger landscape of health by evolving the standards of quality and efficacy within the supplement industry. Imagine a future state where:
Exceptional customer service is the norm, not the exception
Quality and science-backed products dominate the market
Trust between consumers and companies is rock-solid
Access to cutting-edge performance optimization is universally available
Industry-leading innovation continues to push the boundaries
Revenue projections soar from $40 million to $200 million
To arrive at this trailblazing future state, here are 6 strategic recommendations for Momentous:
Deepen Government and Sports Team Partnerships: Establish more innovation contracts and deepen relationships with pro and college teams for both financial stability and brand prestige.
Invest in Clinical Research: Allocate funds aggressively towards clinical research to substantiate product claims and differentiate from competitors.
Harness Expert Advice: Continue to incorporate insights from experts like Dr. Huberman and Dr. Galpin to enhance product development and market positioning.
Strengthen and Expand the Team: Build a robust team poised to support the growth from $40 million to $200 million, focusing on customer experience and service.
Emphasize Education and Advocacy: Engage in government advocacy and consumer education to bridge the gap in understanding around product quality and value.
Focus on Efficient Inventory Management: Take calculated risks with inventory and supply chain to ensure product quality and availability without overextending working capital.
With these strategies in place, Momentous is poised to disrupt the health and wellness industry further, creating a legacy of unmatched service and revolutionary products.
Now, over to our listeners: Which of these strategies resonates most with your vision of the future for health and performance brands? How do you see companies like Momentous shaping the trajectory of industry standards and consumer expectations? Share your thoughts and let's build this conversation.
About the Episode
In the latest episode of the DTC POD, Jeff Byers of Momenetus provided invaluable insights into how this vibrant performance supplement brand pivoted from its initial struggles to impressive growth in a mere 18 months. One of the key strategies Byers attributed to their success was a dedicated focus on areas like government innovation contracts, cementing relationships, fostering robust ecosystems, and rigorously pursuing clinical research. Recognizing the overarching industry challenges of trust, transparency, and standards, the company sought to not just to dominate as a DTC brand but to redefine the trajectory of health within the supplement space. Their commitment to this strategic pivot has recently projected them towards an ambitious $40 million revenue mark.
Another significant strategic driver for Momenetus’s rapid escalation in the market was their approach to product differentiation and customer service. Byers explained that in a market rife with customer skepticism towards multi-ingredient, unverified supplements, Momenetus concentrated on offering patented products with a steadfast commitment to service, quality, and customer experience. This approach has not only contributed to the establishment of a strong customer base but also sets the stage for expansive growth, with aims to quintuple revenue. Byers stressed the importance of building trust with consumers — a philosophy that underscores the company's every move and has proven crucial in the highly commoditized world of dietary supplements.
Delving into the operational intricacies, Jeff Byers highlighted the importance of efficiency and risk management in the context of rapid scaling. Momenetus, not shying away from growth risks, expanded its product range from two to 36 in an unprecedented timeline, significantly straining inventory management and working capital. To meet the high bar they set for quality, every batch underwent rigorous third-party certification to ensure label accuracy and the absence of banned substances, exemplifying their commitment to product integrity. Byers discussed how maintaining a balance between aggressive growth and the sustenance of high-quality standards was both challenging and pivotal to Momentus’s success story.
DTC Pod Linkedin
@Jeff Byers, CEO of @Momenetus, is our special guest on DTC POD this week. From a $2M to a whopping $36M in only 18 months, Jeff reveals how this performance supplement brand achieved such incredible growth.
Tune in as Jeff gives us a play-by-play on how they tackled branding hurdles, scaled their marketing toolkit, and forged key partnerships, all while maintaining a steadfast commitment to transparency and quality in the nootropic space.
Discover why their product, Braindrive, is making waves in pro and college sports circles and learn about their strategic moves, from government innovation contracts to clinical research.
Exciting, insightful, and candid – this episode is packed with valuable lessons on scaling a DTC brand. Don't miss it!
Full episode here: [Spotify Link]
#dtcpod #supplements #brandscaling #marketing #sportsnutrition #businessgrowth #directtoconsumer
🏆 5 Ways to Win
The latest episode of DTC POD dives deep into the world of performance supplements, revealing how exceptional brands distinguish themselves in a competitive market. Here's what sets the achievers apart:
✅ Focusing on quality and scientific backing in product development
✈️ Rapidly scaling while upholding transparency and trust
✅ Staying true to a mission that goes beyond just profits
🤝 Building strong relationships with experts and end-users
🔍 Emphasizing clear, clinical research and government partnerships
#PodcastInsights #PerformanceBrands #SupplementSuccess #DTCPOD
Weekly Newsletter
Subject: How Momentous Grew from $2M to $36M in 18 Months—with CEO Jeff Byers on DTC POD
Hey DTC POD Listeners,
We’re excited to bring you one of our most inspiring conversations yet. In our latest episode, Blaine and Ramon sit down with Jeff Byers, the CEO and co-founder of Momentous, a high-performance supplement brand that has gone from $2M to $36M in just 18 months. This is a masterclass in scaling, staying true to your mission, and what it takes to build a world-class product—and brand—in a crowded and often misunderstood category.
Whether you’re a founder, marketer, or just someone who’s curious about the intersection of sports, wellness, and business, there is something for you in this discussion. Below, we’re sharing some key reasons not to miss this episode, one of our favorite anecdotes, and a quick way to tune in.
What’s Inside: 5 Big Takeaways from Jeff Byers and the Momentous Story
1. How Nontraditional Beginnings Lead to Category-Defining Products
Jeff’s journey is anything but linear. His transition from finance, to biotech, to sports supplements, was shaped by curiosity and an unwillingness to settle for the status quo. By leveraging his time at a pharmaceutical startup and drawing on his experience as a pro athlete, Jeff saw possibilities that others overlooked—turning what seemed like a quirky side project into a product used by NFL teams, Navy SEALs, and Tour de France winners before Momentous was even officially a brand.
2. Innovation Comes from Solving ‘Unsexy’ Problems
Momentous didn’t start by chasing the most obvious market. Instead, the earliest Momentous offering—PR Lotion—was a targeted, almost “unmarketable” product that solved a very specific need: allowing athletes to push harder and recover faster using transdermal sodium bicarbonate. The practical challenges (think “it looked like honey mustard” and no one wanted to drink baking soda for performance because of the… explosive side effects) became a springboard for trust among elite users, and eventually, a much broader customer base.
3. Building Trust BEFORE Building Brand
If there’s one crucial theme, it’s that trust can’t be faked. Jeff and his team invested deeply in research, clinical trials, transparency in sourcing, and relentless education. Instead of launching with Instagram-worthy branding and chasing DTC trends, Momentous proved itself in the most demanding environments—pro locker rooms, military contracts, massive scrutiny—and only then built its brand outwards. As Jeff put it, “Trust wins out in a commoditized world.”
4. Scaling During Chaos: Inventory, Team, and Growing the Pie
The 18-month sprint from $2M to $36M wasn’t a straight shot. Jeff candidly discusses the supply chain headaches, out-of-stock panic, and the culture shocks from merging two teams with different expertise and incentives. Growth forced Momentous to break, rebuild, and ultimately learn how to scale not just a product, but an entire organization—making the tough hires and process decisions necessary for the next phase.
5. Mission > Margin (But You Still Need Sustainable Economics)
Throughout, Momentous has focused on a big, sometimes elusive goal: democratizing high performance. They’ve made deliberate choices to invest in advocacy, research, and category education—sometimes at the expense of short-term margins—because Jeff is convinced that’s the only way to “fix a broken category.” Yet, as the business scaled, Momentous also had to ensure the economics worked, knowing that sustainable ambition needs real cash flow, smart inventory bets, and, yes, a bit of luck.
Fun Fact from the Episode
PR Lotion—the first breakthrough Momentous product—is still described by Jeff as “kind of nasty... looks like honey mustard,” and solving its delivery (especially compared to explosive baking soda) is one reason elite athletes started knocking on their digital doors. The product earned its stripes not through marketing but because it worked and made enough waves in the performance world to get orders from NFL stadiums sight unseen.
In Closing
If you’ve ever wondered why some supplement brands can win total trust from elite athletes, military professionals, and everyday optimizers—while others just chase the latest TikTok trend—this episode will reset your perspective on what’s possible when you actually put mission and quality first.
Jeff’s story is an unvarnished look at what it takes to build something meaningful, differentiated, and lasting in a marketplace that can feel overwhelmingly crowded and skeptical. For anyone navigating high-growth, high-stakes environments—this is essential listening.
Ready to Get Inspired?
Check out the full episode now to dive into this vivid, behind-the-scenes look at Momentous’ rocket ship ride. Hear exactly how Jeff navigated brutal pivots, made tough calls on scale vs. margin, and attracted secret weapon partners like Andrew Huberman through doing the hard things first.
Tune in on your favorite platform, and if you found value in this episode, don’t forget to hit subscribe and leave us a review.
Thanks for listening to DTC POD—where the best founders and operators pull back the curtain on real growth.
Until next time,
The DTC POD Team
P.S. If you have questions or thoughts about this episode, reply to this email. We love hearing from listeners who are building brands the right way.
LinkedIN - Start from Scratch
If I had to scale a performance supplement brand from $2M to $36M in 18 months, here's the playbook I'd use:
(This is exactly what Jeff Byers did at Momentous, as detailed on DTC POD)
To build a category-defining DTC company (that actually stands out in a saturated market), you need a strategy that:
• Establishes real trust in a broken category
• Leverages unique access and product differentiation
• Creates a mission-driven flywheel (instead of just pumping ad dollars)
So…
How do you grow insane revenue and build lasting brand equity in a crowded space?
You use the High Performance Trust Flywheel.
A high performance flywheel has 3 essential gears:
• Authentic product innovation (real R&D, real science… not “me too” SKUs)
• Thought leader advocacy (not just “influencers” — partner with tastemakers like Huberman, Galpin, and the DoD)
• Relentless focus on educating the right customer (“life optimizers” – not just pro athletes)
Here’s how the Momentous playbook works:
Product as Trojan Horse
Start with something legitimately novel. For Momentous, it was a patented performance lotion (PR Lotion) with actual clinical backing — not just a standard supplement.
That got Momentous in the locker rooms and military circles no other DTC brand could reach.Leverage Elite Networks
Nurture connections with the real taste-makers — think Department of Defense, pro sports dietitians, world-class researchers.
These relationships build trust faster than any Facebook ad or influencer whitelisting.Expand Portfolio—But Refuse to Compromise
Launch new products only when they’re truly best in class (designed for the highest standards in pro/college sports and the military).
If it’s not Ferrari-grade, don’t make it. Don’t play the volume game.Prioritize Mission Over Margin
Obsess over “democratizing high performance.” Invest in clinical research, advocacy, education — even if it means slower margin ramp and spending 5%+ of revenue on non-revenue activity.
This is the fuel that unlocks customer trust and ultra-high LTV.
Most DTC operators get trapped in the commodity hamster wheel:
They launch me-too products > pump up sales with performance marketing > never actually solve consumer distrust > hit TAM ceiling.
The solution?
Be radically mission-driven, invest in ecosystem flywheels, and let industry-leading trust compound.
So how do you implement this playbook in practice?
Step 1: Nail your “why”
Don’t just build a DTC business. Build with a mission that’s bigger than margin.
For Momentous: “Democratize high performance” and fix the supplement industry’s trust problem.
Step 2: Build the right ecosystem
Identify the “life optimizer” as your core customer, not just an athlete.
Surround yourself with legitimate experts (practitioners, scientists, pro teams) — not just brand ambassadors.
Step 3: Ruthlessly prioritize quality
Every product must pass the toughest certifications (NSF, Informed Sport). Cut zero corners.
Educate your customer on why your standards matter.
Step 4: Invest in trust, then scale
Pour early resources into advocacy, clinical trials, and educational content.
Only turn on the growth engine when the trust flywheel is spinning — that’s when DTC scales from $2M to $36M.
Biggest takeaway?
Mission compounds. Trust compounds. And if you get both right, distribution and revenue follow.
Just start playing the long game.
Would you do anything differently with your DTC brand?
Drop your thoughts below.
--
Check out the full conversation with Jeff Byers here:
https://www.dtcpod.com/episode/jeff-byers-momenetus
And follow @DTC POD for more playbooks from founders building breakout consumer brands.
Episode Summary
Jeff Byers is the CEO and co-founder of Momentous, a high-performance supplement brand that originated from innovative biotech research. Drawing from his experience as a former pro athlete and early-stage finance and biotech roles, Jeff built Momentous on the foundation of patented delivery technology and a mission to democratize elite-level performance and wellness for everyday consumers.
In this episode of DTC Pod, Jeff explains how Momentous scaled from $2M to $36M in just 18 months by prioritizing science-backed product development, clinical research, and deep partnerships with elite sports teams and thought leaders like Andrew Huberman. He breaks down the challenges of creating a new product category, the importance of transparency and quality in the supplement industry, and the operational hurdles the brand faced during rapid growth. Jeff also shares insights on building long-term trust, leveraging a passionate mission, and expanding Momentous’ reach from professional athletes to “life optimizers” everywhere.
Success Strategies
Build trust as your ultimate differentiator
Instead of chasing quick wins through flashy branding or trend-driven products, invest heavily in trust—especially in industries where skepticism is high. Jeff Byers attributes Momentous’s growth to an unwavering focus on transparency, science-backed products, and third-party certifications. This meant choosing to have every single batch tested to the highest sports industry standards, even at the expense of speed or margin. By doing the hard work to earn trust with elite practitioners first, then with well-informed consumers, you create a moat that pure marketing alone can't replicate. When trust is your foundation, it unlocks access to tastemakers and opens doors others can’t.
Leverage unique expertise and networks to unlock doors
Don’t try to outspend or out-flavor the competition—find your unfair advantage. For Momentous, this meant leveraging Jeff’s background as a pro athlete, a finance professional, and his access to exclusive ecosystems like the military, special forces, and pro sports teams. By focusing on building products that met the needs of top-tier users (and actively seeking expert and practitioner buy-in), Momentous accessed credibility and word-of-mouth that simply can’t be bought with ads. The lesson: use what makes your journey distinct—whether it’s relationships, niche know-how, or access—to generate flywheel momentum that bigger but less connected brands can’t match.
Let customer mission—not channel—shape your expansion
It’s tempting for DTC brands to obsess over scaling ad spend or optimizing for lower funnel metrics. Momentous refused to be pigeonholed as “just a DTC brand” and instead let their deeper mission—democratizing high performance—guide growth into new product categories and partnerships. This included investing in clinical research, government innovation contracts, and thought-leadership, not just acquisition and retention flows. By keeping the focus on genuinely serving customers’ needs (like brain health, sleep, and recovery for life-optimizers, not just athletes), they built something that could grow far beyond a single product or channel. The real takeaway? Don’t confine your company to a channel or tactic; let your core mission drive how you scale and where you invest.
Success Strategies v2
Win with Relentless Product Integrity (Even If It Hurts Your Margins)
Ready to stand out in a crowded DTC market? Follow Jeff Byers’ lead and double down on quality—no matter the cost.
Momentous didn’t grow from $2M to $36M by rolling out generic white-labeled supplements. They obsessively invested in clinical research, third-party certifications, and advocacy even when it ate into short-term profits. For Jeff, building trust was non-negotiable—he’d rather throw out an entire batch than compromise on quality or transparency.
Here’s what this can look like:
Certify every single batch with top-tier third-party organizations (not just the bare minimum)
Partner with real experts and researchers rather than just hiring influencers
Be radically transparent about your sourcing, labeling, and product formulas
Yes, this approach can push your prices higher and margins lower—at least at first. But when customers know you’re the gold standard, they become loyal for life. As Jeff put it, “Why would I use anything else?”
To get started, audit your own quality standards. Are you setting the bar high enough? Where can you build more trust—even if it’s the harder or more expensive route? Double down on that, and let your reputation work for you.
Use Your Flagship Advantage as a Springboard—Not a Crutch
Launching with one great, differentiated product? Awesome—but don’t get tunnel vision. Jeff learned that Momentous’s breakthrough PR Lotion could unlock doors into elite sports and military circles, but the business wouldn’t scale without portfolio expansion.
Here’s how Jeff approached it:
Leverage your hero SKU to get into hard-to-reach markets and top tastemakers
Build authentic relationships—pro teams, government contracts, early adopters—by solving real problems for them
Once you’ve built credibility, rapidly expand your product menu to serve a wider market and increase lifetime value
Take a page from Momentous: don’t hang your company’s future on one niche product, no matter how special. Use it to gain access, trust, and proof points—then unlock volume and scale with a full portfolio. That’s how you go from niche to mainstream and grow revenue exponentially.
Prioritize Mission and Community, Not Just DTC Playbooks
Scrolling LinkedIn, it’s easy to think DTC is all about tactics: conversions, CLTVs, the perfect email flow. But Jeff’s biggest unlock? Building around a core mission: democratize high performance.
Momentous thrived when it stopped chasing “DTC brand” status and focused on serving “life optimizers”—anyone passionate about pushing their potential, not just elite athletes. They created a magnet for experts (like Dr. Andrew Huberman), practitioners, and communities who actually cared.
Here’s how to put that into practice:
Define your customer and mission so clearly that every product, partnership, and campaign points toward it
Invest in education, advocacy, and community, even if it’s hard to measure direct ROI
Let your vision dictate your growth path—not the other way around
You’ll still need great DTC fundamentals. But if your brand is wrapped around a real purpose, you’ll build lasting loyalty and unlock the kind of word-of-mouth that money can’t buy. Mission, not margin, is what builds legends.
Castmagic LinkedIn Post
Scaling from $2M to $36M in just 18 months might sound impossible—but it’s exactly what this week’s guest did with a performance supplement brand.
Jeff Byers, CEO of Momentous (serving 200+ pro and college teams, and collaborating with experts like Dr. Andrew Huberman), joins Blaine Bolus and Ramon Berrios on DTC POD.
In this episode, you’ll learn how Momentous navigated a dramatic scale-up, built trust in a crowded category, merged expertise and product, and won innovation contracts with the Department of Defense. We dig into creating category-defining products, overcoming DTC challenges, building an advocacy flywheel, and what it takes to earn loyalty with high standards.
Listen to the full episode here: [link]
#shopify #dtc #ecommerce
IG Reel Vids
Jeff Byers, former NFL player, turned a patented performance lotion into a startup called Amp Human. At the same time, Matt Wan and Rob Dyrdek were building Momentous, a supplements brand trusted by top pro and college teams. Both companies struggled to become profitable, so in 2021, they joined forces—merging their technologies and networks. But here’s where the rocket fuel kicked in: they teamed up with Dr. Andrew Huberman as an advisor and partner. Leveraging his rapid rise and credibility through the Huberman Lab podcast, Momentous exploded—from $2 million to $36 million in just 18 months. Their laser focus on research, quality, and building genuine trust turned Momentous into a leader in the high-performance supplement space.
IG Video
This supplement brand scaled from $2 million to $36 million in just 18 months — and you’ve probably never heard of it. The company is Momentous, and it was started by former NFL player Jeff Byers. After learning about a biotech cream that let elite athletes push harder and recover faster, Jeff saw a bigger opportunity: to make high-performance nutrition accessible to everyone, not just pros. The catch? Their first product was so niche, the average person barely needed it. But Jeff didn’t give up. He built a reputation with pro teams and military contracts, focusing on trust and science-backed supplements. Then, a game-changing partnership with top experts (including Dr. Andrew Huberman) unlocked explosive growth, making Momentous a top name in performance supplements. The lesson? Obsessing over quality and purpose can set you apart—even in a saturated market.
📢 Short VO
One of the most overlooked growth levers in CPG is actually building real trust before you scale your brand. We just had Jeff Byers on the podcast—he’s the CEO of Momentous, the sports performance supplement company that went from $2 million to $36 million in just 18 months. In this episode, Jeff breaks down how Momentous spun out of biotech with a super-niche product developed for elite athletes, then strategically scaled by focusing on scientific legitimacy, government contracts, pro sports relationships, and partnering with some of the most influential people in health like Dr. Andrew Huberman. We talked about why the supplement category is broken, the realities of manufacturing and supply chain at hyperscale, and why brand trust (not just marketing) is a true moat in DTC. If you care about building something meaningful in wellness or CPG, this one’s a must-listen. Let me know what you think.
Hormozi Prompt
At the beginning, we had one product.
We didn’t have fancy website flows.
We didn’t have a big team.
We didn’t have a marketing playbook.
We didn’t have a massive DTC operation.
We didn’t have slick packaging or world-class merchandising.
What we did have:
We had a patented technology.
We had a vision for high performance and trust.
We had raw, early traction from elite athletes and military teams.
We had a $2,000 order come in through a basic Shopify site.
We had no experience, but we had curiosity and willingness to learn.
What this allowed us to do was get in rooms that are usually impossible to access—pro locker rooms, research labs, Special Forces meetings. We weren’t on a mission to create the “next DTC brand”, we were on a mission to democratize high performance and bring the standards of elite sport to everyday people.
We weren’t optimizing margins.
We weren’t trying to run perfect conversion flows.
We weren’t spending all our money on ads.
We were focused on keeping products in stock, on building trust, and on clinical research.
We bet big—on inventory, on real science, on the hunch we could hit something huge (and the risk that came with it).
People will say: “Just turn on ads. Scale DTC. Tell your story.” But none of it would have mattered if we hadn’t built real trust and deep relationships behind the scenes first.
Being strategic and patient is not a setback. It’s what gave us the platform to suddenly explode from $2M to $36M in 18 months. The website could be buggy, the margins could be slim, but if you’re pursuing something you actually believe in and are willing to skip the playbook, you can still win.
Just find your edge. Stick to your mission. Obsess over doing the hard things that others skip. This worked for us. Ignore the hype—do what works for you. Build trust first, and let the rest catch up.
Timestamps Trial
00:00 Introducing Jeff Byers and Momentous
02:23 Jeff’s background: from finance to biotech to entrepreneurship
04:56 Early stage biotech, learning about clinical research
06:02 Birth of PR Lotion: a unique performance product
07:27 Initial traction: military, pro sports, and DTC beginnings
09:08 Spinning out of biotech and forming Momentous
11:22 What PR Lotion does and the results athletes saw
12:04 Product form factor, challenges, and comparison to alternatives
13:24 Commercialization hurdles and early category creation
15:26 Staying true to the mission: democratizing high performance
17:40 Building trust, funding research, and differentiating in DTC
18:23 Expanding the product line beyond elite athletes
19:13 Entering the supplement space: focus on quality and reputation
21:38 Discovering and acquiring the Momentous brand
22:22 The challenges and culture of merging two companies
23:33 Building an ecosystem and leveraging reputation for growth
26:04 The Huberman Lab partnership and mission alignment
27:24 Clarifying the depth of partnerships and expert collaboration
28:31 Expanding audience: from athletic focus to “life optimizer”
30:05 Momentous’ evolving ICP (“Sam” the life optimizer)
31:07 DTC operations: growing pains and prioritizing hard stuff
33:28 Why just building a DTC brand wasn’t the end goal
35:36 Fundraising, growth, and learning from the startup journey
35:44 Revenue milestones: from $5M to $40M
36:20 Government contracts: innovation and research as revenue streams
39:02 Hypergrowth challenges: breaking and rebuilding the team
43:00 Inventory, supply chain, and scaling operationally
45:07 Third-party certification: quality standards and supply chain bottlenecks
48:38 Raising industry standards and long-term vision
50:06 Bringing on more experts and the role of tastemakers
53:12 Policy advocacy: briefing Congress and influencing change
55:06 Product pricing and the value of quality and education
57:59 Focusing on serving, not creating, the life optimizer customer
59:02 Trust and differentiation: beyond commoditized DTC
01:00:43 Differentiation in product and business strategy
01:02:07 Future plans: scaling, team-building, and customer experience
01:04:23 Learning to choose the right “wave” as the company grows
01:05:25 Balancing growth with sound business fundamentals
01:07:06 Riding the right wave: luck vs. preparation
01:07:48 Momentous today vs. vision for the future
01:08:27 Rethinking the supplement playbook
01:10:08 Product philosophy: blends, transparency, and dosing
01:12:49 Jeff’s personal brain health routine and mindset
01:15:03 Brain Drive: product origin and unique use cases
01:15:59 Closing thoughts and appreciation
Custom LinkedIN Post Format
If I had to scale a performance supplement brand from $2M to $36M in 18 months, here’s the playbook I’d follow:
(This is exactly how Jeff Byers—ex-pro athlete turned CEO—scaled Momentous, earning major trust with pro sports teams, elite performance experts and everyday life optimizers.)
To break out in a crowded space, you need to obsess over these 3 things:
• Build trust first, sell second
• Go all-in on quality (not just marketing)
• Serve a defined, passionate customer (not “everyone”)
Here's how we’d do it…
Win trust where it counts most.
Jeff started by putting PR Lotion—Momentous’s first patented product—in the hands of Navy SEALs, Tour de France teams, Super Bowl winners, and military special forces.
Not because it was “influencer marketing,” but because pro teams and practitioners demanded data, top-tier quality, and proof.
Don’t cut corners for speed.
Certify every product batch to standards that matter (like NSF for Sport, not just basic “third party” badges).
Invest in clinical research—even if it doesn’t immediately drive revenue.
Solve for actual performance, not just trends.
Momentous never built for DTC hype—they solved real pain points for performance.
How?
They delivered on what other products couldn’t (like sodium bicarbonate through the skin, so athletes perform longer…without “crapping your pants”—real talk from Jeff).
When it was time to expand, they only launched supplements that were best-in-class, clinically backed, and demanded by world-class users.
If you’re not making something you’d hand to Olympic athletes or military pros, don’t put it on your store.
Build for “life optimizers,” not just athletes.
Momentous’s big leap?
They shifted from serving just pros, to anyone serious about optimizing everyday health and performance—CEOs, creators, high performers, and parents.
They call this customer “Sam”—the life optimizer.
Athletes are just one type of Sam.
Make your product, brand, and content serve the most passionate 5%, and let word-of-mouth drive the rest.
A few more lessons that helped them scale...
• Obsess over staying in stock—short margins are worth it if you can keep growing the pie (optimize later)
• Win trust with “taste-makers”—the experts the rest of the market listens to
• Invest heavily in education and category adoption—it’s a flywheel
• Price to match your quality (don’t race to the bottom with Walmart SKUs)
Don’t start by chasing quick DTC wins.
Start by building trust, relationships, and real customer outcomes.
It’s how you go from niche product to THE gold standard in your category—no matter how crowded it is.
--
Want the full story on how Momentous scaled $2M to $36M in 18 months, got certified for pro sports, and partnered with Dr. Andrew Huberman?
Check out my conversation with CEO Jeff Byers on DTC POD.
#dtc #supplements #brandbuilding #podcast #ecommerce #performance
Listen here: [insert podcast link]
WEEKLY LINKEDIN SAMPLE POST
If I had to scale a performance supplement brand from $2M to $36M in 18 months, here’s the exact framework I’d use:
(This is the real-world strategy Jeff Byers shared on DTC POD after taking Momentous from niche product to industry leader trusted by top athletes, military, and life optimizers—reaching $40M revenue in the process.)
To go from small startup to hypergrowth, you need to focus on three game-changing pillars:
• Build trust fiercely
• Innovate with actual science
• Obsess over your core community
Here’s the playbook…
Build UNBREAKABLE product trust.
Don’t just claim it—prove it.
Every batch of product should be tested by the only two certification bodies pro/college sports trust. (If it’s not NSF Certified for Sport or Informed Sport/Informed Choice, top teams won’t even touch it.)
Invest in quality control and transparency, even if you have to toss an entire production run.
Own the standard—be the brand that others look up to.
Use innovation as a wedge.
Start with a product only you can offer (for Momentous, it was patented PR Lotion: baking soda for performance, delivered through the skin without side effects).
Leverage clinical research. Run trials. Take the hard, long road and back every claim with data. If you’re choosing between margin and being in stock, choose trust and customer experience every time—margin can come later.
Bonus: If you can win government innovation contracts (Momentous did $1M+/year this way), that’s non-dilutive funding + credibility.
Let your ecosystem drive the flywheel.
Obsess over your early adopters (elite athletes, teams, military). Let them shape your reputation. Get buy-in from credible experts and practitioners who genuinely care. Build a network of advocates and “tastemakers”—think Dr. Andrew Huberman, pro teams, Olympic winners.
Focus on education. Democratize performance by translating what works at the elite level for everyone—your core mission isn’t DTC, it’s empowering “life optimizers” with knowledge and the best possible product.
A few more lessons from Jeff:
• Scaling is about the right team: Add operators and builders as you grow. You can’t power through hypergrowth alone.
• Don’t optimize for margin in a breakout phase. Growth = winning the market. Don’t lose the wave.
• Stand for something bigger—if you can become the trusted brand in a crowded category, you’re irreplaceable.
• Keep evolving. After the niche wedge wins, expand the product line only if you can make the best-in-class version. Don’t just copy competitors.
Quick takeaways to remember:
Your moat is trust and quality, not fancy branding.
Certifications and third-party testing are a must, not a nice-to-have.
Getting true experts as partners (not influencers) is a force multiplier.
Invest in mission and R&D—education is your differentiator.
Brand > DTC. Build a business people can’t imagine leaving.
You can see the full DTC POD interview for Jeff’s wild growth stories and the inside look at how Momentous built a category-defining company:
[Link to Episode]
#dtc #ecommerce #supplements #brandbuilding #trust #growth #startups
(Based entirely on Jeff Byers’ roadmap from the DTC POD conversation—living proof this framework works for performance brands ready for breakout scale.)
dtcpod newsletter NEW (test)
Jeff Byers is the CEO and co-founder of Momentous, a performance supplement and sports nutrition brand that scaled from $2M to $36M+ in just 18 months. Jeff’s background is rooted in professional athletics—he played in the NFL before moving into finance and then biotech, where he got his first taste of entrepreneurship. At a biotech company, Jeff worked on technology for delivering substances through the skin, which ultimately became PR Lotion, the springboard for Momentous.
What you’ll learn:
How PR Lotion, originally niche and backed by science, unlocked high-trust partnerships with Special Forces and pro sports teams, setting the stage for Momentous.
The real reason Byers and his team acquired Momentous, merging its credibility in pro sports with their own mission-focused business, and why post-merger integration was so challenging.
Why Momentous ignored the “launch a DTC brand” playbook in favor of relentless product quality, clinical research, and advocacy for industry standards—spending up to 5% of revenue on research and education.
The outsized role expert partnerships (Andrew Huberman, Andy Galpin, Dr. Stacey Sims, and more) played—not as influencer deals but as mission-driven collaborations to set a new standard for supplements.
How betting big on inventory, handling supply chain chaos, and prioritizing "never run out of stock" allowed the brand to ride viral growth waves, despite huge stress on team and resources.
Why Momentous redefined their target customer from “elite athlete” to “life optimizer”—expanding their TAM with a position that values continuous improvement, science, and transparency.
How product quality and safety (NSF/informed sport certifications) became Momentous’ non-negotiable differentiation in a commoditized, distrustful category.
Lessons learned: Why investing heavily in the “hard stuff” (research, ops, product, government contracts) actually fueled exponential growth, even with a buggy website and basic marketing.
Some takeaways:
PR Lotion’s unique delivery technology (topical sodium bicarbonate) gave Momentous access to elite performance circles traditionally closed to typical supplement brands, but its narrow TAM meant they had to broaden the portfolio to grow.
Commercializing a truly niche scientific product is tough: education is expensive, and the mainstream consumer doesn’t push themselves to the necessary extremes for daily use—making LTV and AOV a challenge at first.
Byers’ conviction: Real industry leadership comes from “democratizing high performance”—translating elite protocols and research into products and knowledge for everyday “life optimizers,” not just athletes.
The Momentous/Huberman partnership wasn’t a typical influencer deal; it was about trust, science, and building products up to standards even billion-dollar teams demand.
Growing from $2M to $36M in 18 months broke a lot of systems—and people. Byers admits much of his team had to be rebuilt to handle the speed and chaos, and ops was driven solely by one rule: “Don’t go out of stock.”
Certification matters: Every batch of Momentous products is NSF/Informed Sport certified, even when that means dumping whole runs due to cross-contamination—setting a higher bar for transparency and safety.
Momentous doesn’t aspire to be just a DTC brand: their playbook is ecosystem-driven, with government research, academic partnerships, pro sports, and a flywheel of expert advocates.
Positioning is everything: shifting focus from “athlete” to “life optimizer” (their customer persona “Sam”) unlocked a far larger audience motivated by self-betterment, healthspan, and trust.
Premium pricing reflects real costs—cutting corners on sourcing, dosing, testing, or certification is off the table if you want to be the supplement brand users trust without second-guessing.
The “hard stuff”—like clinical research, supporting advocacy on Capitol Hill, and building true partnerships—took priority over website optimization. In retrospect, Byers would rebalance, but insists it’s core to why Momentous stands out.
Where to find Jeff Byers and Momentous:
• LinkedIn (Jeff): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeff-byers-1214915/
• Momentous: https://www.livemomentous.com/
• Andrew Huberman: https://hubermanlab.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livemomentous/
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Introduction to Jeff Byers and Momentous
(02:23) From NFL and biotech to building a supplement R&D startup
(06:02) PR Lotion: science, military use, and first DTC wins
(13:24) The hard reality of commercializing “new to market” supplements
(18:23) Pivoting from pure elite athlete focus to broader life optimizer market
(21:38) Shaping a company through acquisition, culture clashes, and rebuilding
(26:00) The Huberman partnership: why it’s not an “influencer” play
(29:25) Serving the “life optimizer” and shifting brand positioning
(36:00) How Momentous scaled: big bets on inventory, ops pain, and growth
(45:29) Non-negotiable quality: third-party certification and trust
(53:12) Advocacy, research, and changing policy in nutrition and performance
(56:09) Premium pricing, customer experience, and finding product-market fit
(62:07) Building team for scale—and what comes next for Momentous
(74:00) Industry playbooks vs. momentous’ mission-driven path
(80:00) Proprietary blends, transparency, and user-tailored dosing
(85:00) Final lessons, founder mindset, and what life optimization really means
Referenced:
• Dr. Andrew Huberman: https://hubermanlab.com/
• Stacy Sims, PhD: https://www.drstacysims.com/
• Andy Galpin, PhD: https://www.andygalpin.com/
• NSF Certified for Sport: https://www.nsfsport.com/
• Informed Sport: https://sport.wetestyoutrust.com/
Key insights:
Growth flywheels are built at the intersection of credibility, science, and mission—not just marketing spend.
The supplement market is massive and broken—but trust, safety, and education are the real moats.
“Democratizing performance” is about making the habits of the world’s best accessible and understandable—not just selling products.
Founders who obsess over mission and relationships often outlast those chasing short-term DTC optimization.
This episode is a must-listen for operators, brand builders, or anyone fascinated by how trust and scientific rigor can disrupt even the most commoditized categories.
[New] Show Notes
Episode Summary
Jeff Byers, CEO and co-founder of Momentous, shares how he and his team scaled the performance supplement brand from $2M to $36M in just 18 months. Jeff walks us through the unique origin story—spinning out patented biotech from the pharmaceutical world—and covers their relentless mission to democratize high-performance health, their DTC evolution, and the keys to building true trust in a commodity-heavy supplement landscape. From working with Special Forces and pro sports teams to strategic partnerships like Andrew Huberman, Jeff explains the hard decisions, the power of expertise, and why authentic quality—not just strong marketing—drove their rocketship growth.
Episode Notes
Jeff Byers is the CEO and co-founder of Momentous, a performance supplement company born from patented biotech innovation and a mission to bring elite performance solutions to everyday consumers. After starting with a niche product used by Special Forces and pro sports teams, Jeff and his team tackled the enormous challenge of scaling into a broader market, acquiring the Momentous brand, building trust through rigorous scientific research and third-party certifications, and eventually partnering with top thinkers like Dr. Andrew Huberman to update the brand’s vision. In this episode of DTC POD, Jeff discusses why DTC is only part of the vision, how transparency and quality are non-negotiable, and what it really takes to scale in a crowded market. He opens up about culture clashes during mergers, supply chain challenges, leveraging government contracts, the importance of scientific advocacy, and why obsession with the mission is the only way to build a meaningful supplement business.
On this episode of DTC POD, we cover:
From biotech to consumer: Momentous’s origin story
Launching with patented PR Lotion and tackling niche DTC
Building trust through scientific research and certifications
How elite customer access opened new doors
Merging brands & managing team culture in a fast-growth environment
Navigating supply chain and inventory during hypergrowth
Strategic partnership with Andrew Huberman & other thought leaders
The importance of education in category creation
Why “democratizing high performance” defines the mission
Product differentiation: science, quality, and transparency
Learning from DTC mistakes and prioritizing what actually moves the needle
Operating with purpose: government contracts and advocacy
How to scale from $2M to $36M—and what broke along the way
Pricing, margins, and the challenge of premium positioning
Advice for founders building differentiated brands
Timestamps
00:02:23 Jeff Byers shares his background & the biotech origin of Momentous
00:04:56 Spinning out PR Lotion—bringing elite sports science to consumers
00:07:27 Early traction: from Special Forces to $2,000 Shopify orders
00:09:42 Product results: performance gains, recovery—and why form factor matters
00:13:42 The challenges of commercializing a new supplement and creating a category
00:18:23 Pivoting from a single product: expanding Momentous’s portfolio
00:22:22 Merging with Momentous: culture, team, and cap table challenges
00:26:04 Partnering with Andrew Huberman and rethinking the “athlete” customer
00:30:05 From pro athletes to “life optimizers”: expanding the customer base
00:32:07 How Momentous prioritized clinical research over DTC basics
00:35:36 Funding, team evolution, and scaling pains through hypergrowth
00:38:26 Leveraging government innovation and research contracts
00:39:42 The human cost—what broke during 18 months of rapid growth
00:44:23 Balancing inventory, quality, and margin during scale
00:45:29 Why third-party certification is critical (and how it impacts operations)
00:50:06 Building a flywheel of experts, advocates, and policy impact
00:56:09 Premium pricing: communicating value and targeting the right customer
01:02:07 What’s next: team building, product innovation, and DTC experience
01:07:27 Lessons learned and why trust—and mission—drive lasting growth
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