Unlocking Peak Human Performance: How Vedant Pradeep Is Revolutionizing Alcohol Habits and Elevating Sobriety with Liquid Luck | Ep. 190

0:05Hey everyone, welcome back to Founder Story. Today we have Vidant Pradeep and Vidant, you are the CEO and co-founder of the Reframe app. And Reframe app is doing something really revolutionary. And I know you've had incredible success. You have some amazing launches coming up today, matter of fact, which is very exciting that you're here to talk about it. But you're doing something that I think is so revolutionary right now. And I know a lot of people in their 20s and below who are really all about lessening or drinking no alcohol. So let's dive into first, what was the spark that made you say, this is the company I need to start and I need it to do right now?

0:51So what's interesting is when I was starting out, I mean, I've always been fascinated by this idea of peak human condition. That is like, you know, the best question of oneself physically, mentally, emotionally. And that's what we wanted to do. Like we wanted to help people achieve what we call peak human condition. And but we realized early on that, you know, kind of diving into that is probably not the best way to get started. We need to start with like a real problem. And I personally suffer from OCD. So we were like, let's help people with OCD. And once we started talking to a lot of people with OCD, what we realized was, you know, a lot of people were using alcohol as a means to, you know, to kind of help themselves with their, with some of the issues that they were going with.

1:38So they were kind of using alcohol as a coping strategy. And then they were counting on it quite a bit. It was getting unhealthy. And if you're somebody that's drinking too much, there was not really a good way to get help because there were these recovery centers that are freaking expensive, very stigmatic. Then there's Alcoholics Anonymous and 12-step programs. Once again, very stigmatic, nothing really in the middle. And that's where Refrain came to fit in. And, well, another insight that we had was, I mean, it isn't enough to just tell people, hey, like, stop drinking. That doesn't help because drinking is a coping strategy.

2:15I mean, it might be a bad one, but it is one. So you have to replace that with something else that's healthier. And you need to change the way that people think about drinking. And that's where, like, you know, that's why Refrain became like a neuroscience-based platform to help people change the way they think about drinking. and we do it using 10-minute daily lessons and exercises. And so far, I mean, this is still a pretty niche space, but we've become the leading player in this space by quite a bit. We've helped over 3 million people now successfully got back on drinking alcohol. Wow, I have to say, I'd never ever talk about this, but when I was a teenager, I was diagnosed with OCD.

2:58And I think I've told it to two people, three people maybe in my life I've never publicly said it but um but I can really appreciate what you're doing and I have gone through coping mechanisms of alcohol when I was younger as well uh so I am very excited about what you're doing and a lot of people really need this because it can be a big struggle so you've helped over three million people that's insane that's amazing um what have people told you about and what's the feedback that you've been getting from people uh so i mean we've heard a lot of things from people i think like uh primarily it says i mean there have been uh there have been you know people from all sides right like i mean people who have who drink like seven drinks a week and want to cut back to one and they've succeeded and we've also had people on the other side of the spectrum they've you know they've been to recovery centers they've been to all these other places and they were like reframe is a godsend i mean only when I found Reframe, was I actually able to cut back?

4:01And the reason is we don't actually engage in judgment. We don't believe in just setting restrictions. If I tell you, hey, just drink one drink, you might not succeed. I don't know. But I know this, it's not sustainable because we're not solving the core issue. And Reframe focuses really hard on solving the core issue. And one thing that I didn't appreciate as well, as much early on, because I kind of thought of this as like a single player mode and it wasn't, was a power of the community. And we built a community within the frame. It was supposed to be like kind of in it early on to be candid.

4:36It was more like, okay, it was a checkbox. It was a nice idea. I didn't really think much of it. Turns out community became the most powerful thing. Like we now have the world's largest community of people that are trying to cut back. And it is amazing, right? People support one another and it's it's really powerful when you see someone else who's going through the same journey as you like seeing their wins seeing their struggles uh and having them support and cheer you on it is something else uh what we realize is there are like hundreds of in-person meetings around the world every single week uh through refrain that i that i did not expect and i think uh yeah and and i guess like the one there's whenever somebody asks me ask me about this there's always this one experience that I go back to because that was like, I don't know, it was life changing for me, I think.

5:28So I was doing this event here in Atlanta. So I rarely do these kinds of in-person events. And after this event, there was this young man that, you know, that she sat on the first row. He was like listening all throughout. After I was done, he's like, hey, can I have a selfie? And I'm like, I don't know. I'm not like a celeb or anything. He's like, no, but I drove four and a half hours to come see you. And I'm like, but why? And he's like, because you saved my brother's life. He was like in a downward spiral. And then after reframing, he's like something completely different. And that was like, you know, we worked so hard.

6:08And that's the kind of thing that really keeps us going. And we are just fortunate that we've been able to do that with millions of people. Yeah, I think you start a company hoping it's going to be one thing, thinking your customers will be A, and then you realize that your customers are actually DEF or they benefit way more than the A customer or whoever you thought it was going to be. And I can imagine there's nothing more gratifying than somebody coming to you saying that whatever your product or service is helped save a family member's life. That is incredible. So how has that journey been going along knowing that your original person of who you were thinking about is now changing?

6:53And on top of that, this whole movement of dry January or whatever it is, there's this big movement of going more alcohol free. No, absolutely. I mean, I think what is interesting is, I mean, when we took the initial pivot, we didn't quite expect it to turn out the way that it did. But it actually kind of came to the exact perfect audience that we were looking for, too. because what ended up happening was more than 90 % of people on Reframe are trying to cut back because they want to get healthier. They're not necessarily physically addicted to alcohol. They just want to lead a healthier life.

7:36And what is interesting is, I mean, that's exactly the same goal. I mean, we want to help people break bad habits. We want to help people build great habits. We want to help people manage their emotions. That is how you sustainably cut back on alcohol. and if you stretch that all the way to the right, that's also how you get peak human condition. So you work on your nutrition, you work on your fitness, you manage your emotions. That's the pathway to peak human condition. And so interestingly, we kind of somehow found our way back to the original path. I can't tell you that it's by design because it was not entirely by design.

8:11It was like we had this initial idea in mind that we were really excited about. Then we kind of bent into a space that we thought there was a real problem. that needed solving. And it kind of came back in a way that we didn't quite anticipate. And we've been very fortunate. I really liked the community piece where you didn't know that the organic community, that a community was going to form from your service without you even pushing it to happen. And it became a major part of it. I think a lot of founders, no matter what service or product that they have, this could be something major. Can you dive into what is this neuroscience-backed alcohol reduction program?

8:54You mentioned a little bit in the beginning. Can you tell me more about what that is? Of course. And I just want to touch on the community piece, which is really interesting. So the only thing is, I mean, you have to be open to feedback and the way that when people give you, you have to take it. And we did that. But I would say like it kind of thrived in spite of us early on versus because of us, because we didn't actually like invest as much in it. And then we kind of heard it. We saw what was going on and then we went all in. And that really helped. But yeah, now coming back to the neuroscience-based program.

9:31So the reality is, I mean, it's so there are these negative thinking patterns and like, you know, associations that you have with alcohol that needs to be broken, right? Like you need to be able to sustainably cut back. You need to just change the way that you think about alcohol in the first place. But you also have to identify, like, what are your triggers? Why are you drinking in the first place? What is it that you're trying to mask? And once we figure that out, we need to come up with strategies and not just like just throwing strategies and then like, hey, here's like 20 different strategies.

10:05Just pick one. That doesn't happen because people don't work that way. We need to figure out what actually works for you and help you bring that into your life and then teach you all these different techniques. I mean, like, you know, I mentioned triggers. I mean, what is your primary trigger? How do you deal with that trigger when the craving arises? How do you deal with cravings? So our program kind of dives into all these different things. Initially, it was a 160-day program to help you get back on alcohol. Now we've got 1 ,270 or so days worth of programming because we realize that people don't just want to get back.

10:43They want to, like, build healthier habits. They want to, like, improve their emotions. But one thing, something else that we realized was, you know, you can't just dump everything on somebody. Like, you know, one of the reasons that people don't actually complete books is that it's a lot. Like, you have to, like, base yourself. You have to do all that. And that's a real problem. But with Reframe, what we've seen is, and we've gotten a lot better over time because we've had data from millions of people that went through the program. So we've been, we are able to predict what kind of issues that you will run into and then give you the exact content that you need to like solve those issues a good percentage of the time.

11:21And that makes it like, you know, feel a little prophetic. You're like, oh, on day 13, I'm going to eat sugar cravings. So we give you content to help you with your sugar cravings. So we are very like, we try to like create programs based on the problems that we anticipate you're going to face. when you're going to face them. And that bit is important because we could give you a technique and it might be completely useless for now. And you might be like, what is this? It doesn't apply to me. So it's super important that hits the right person at the right time. And that's another bit about the Refrain program that makes it really powerful.

11:55And it's only like 10 minutes a day. We don't want to overload you with stuff because that doesn't help. I like 10 minutes a day. I don't even read books because I know it's going to take me hours and I'll never finish it. I'm going to be frustrated. But if I can do 10 minutes a day, I can do that. And it makes sense where this sort of the reframe or reframing your mind or your thoughts can be used for not just alcohol consumption. But you were talking about many sugar cravings or other things you could potentially be. or it sounds like helping people for the rest of their life by leveraging and using this muscle that they're building by by doing this every day.

12:41I know you have something that just launched today. It's called Liquid Luck. Can you tell me how this is a differentiator among other zero alcohol drinks? So what we wanted Liquid Luck to be is a functional beverage. So what we realized, I mean, is that people struggle with cravings. is this like you could, I mean, you really tap into willpower quite a lot to like, you know, to not give into the cravings. So we were like, we wanted to, one of our core missions early on, I mean, we want to build an end-to-end lifestyle management system. And we don't want to just tell people what to do. We want to make it so easy for people to do that it becomes a no brainer.

13:22And when we kind of think along those lines, I mean, if you've got cravings, we need to give people something to like combat cravings more effectively and that's where the idea of liquid luck really originated from like how can we like dampen someone's cravings i mean can we take away the thirst um so we added l-glutamine in that has been shown in some studies to like to dampen alcohol cravings among other things uh and so we formulated in such a way that it tastes great because it shouldn't taste like medicine or whatever right right so it needs to taste good So it tastes good. It functionally helps you like avoid and prevent cravings when you do have them.

14:03And and it's also generally good for you. You know, what are all the needs that alcohol serves? I mean, that's where we like started our whiteboarding session, essentially. Like, OK, it people use it to de-stress. People use it to fall asleep. People use it to like, you know, to like dampen anxiety a little bit. And so we wanted to have some of those same effects through a drink that is actually healthy for you and not like, you know, through something that actually harms you in the long run. And that's what liquid luck is formulated to be. We call it liquid luck. And it's kind of like, you know, the little portion from Harry Potter where you're like, you take it and you just feel good.

14:42You feel lucky. And that's kind of how we wanted this to feel. And it took almost an entire year of formulation. like an entire year of iteration we were like really hard on this product we were like we don't want to launch this if this isn't great uh so and and that kind of breaks all the rules that you kind of hear off in a startup where you kind of just put something out there we were like we already did that we're really good at that but um but with liquid lock we really want it to be effective we want it to taste great and we're not going to make any compromises this was something that we decided and uh every other week we had like products delivered to our door like let's drink it like i mean is this this is good yes no then does this actually work um and we've used it on ourselves we've tried it ourselves several uh oh so many different so many rounds and and now i think it's in a great place um the calm skew for instance it does make you feel incredibly calm uh and and and you there are so many products that taste good that work as a placebo this isn't one of them that i i it makes total sense that uh you have your core company which is you know the app and then when you want to bring in ancillary uh products or services on top of that that is where you can take the time to ensure almost i'm using the word perfection but at least you know as perfect as you could possibly get it without rushing because you already had your core.

16:08I do know a lot of companies that rush everything. And I think over time, you know, you only get one shot. When you realize you need to hire, it's usually already too late. I've been there wasting weeks waiting for decent candidates. If I had used Indeed, I could have hired way faster. So when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites. Indeed, sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast. With sponsored jobs, your post jumps to the top of the page for your relevant candidates so you can reach the people you want faster. And it makes a huge difference.

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17:20Just go to Indeed.com slash Founders Story right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash Founders Story. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring indeed is all you need. If you launch something and you rushed it and it's not good, customers are unhappy and they talk, it could totally have a long-term negative effect on the company. So this is really, really great advice for other people. At the same time, it sounds like an amazing product. I want to try it because I don't really drink much, but I really would like to drink zero alcohol products. and I have seen many of them don't taste great.

18:02So I'm excited that it launches today, which is amazing. So people want to get in touch with you. They want to try the product and they want to find out about the launch that happens today, which is thank you for doing it. We've never done a launch same day, by the way. So this is a first, but how can people buy it and get in touch with you? So yeah, they can go to joinreframeapp.com and they'll find Liquid Luck there or download the Reframe app. I mean, you get special discounts on Liquid Lock amongst a whole bunch of other things that we have in the app. And also, like I always say, you're one shake away.

18:40Like in Reframe, we have this thing, like we need to be as close to the customer as you possibly can. And one of the features we have on the app is you literally like take your phone, you shake it with the app on and you have like this pop-up, like you can reach out to customer service and it's a good chance that I'm going to be seeing it Because I'm in the customer service channels all the time. So yeah, I mean, we are literally one shake away. One shake away. You're super involved. I can tell you're very passionate. This is a business that is really impacting, already impacted 3 million people directly.

19:16I'm sure it's millions more when you count their family members and their friends and other people that they also interact with. So I can't wait. You got to come back in a month, few months. Tell us how the launch goes. This sounds super exciting. I can't wait to try everything myself. But thank you so much for what you do. Again, I have personal experiences with this. So I am very appreciative and I understand how difficult it can be. And thank you so much for joining us today on Founder's Story. No, thank you so much for having me.