Clinical Testing as Marketing: 11 Doctors vs Ingredient Trends

0:00We're building the leading doctor-recommended, clinically-backed brand that supports the root cause metabolic health function. Part of the beauty of what we do is we bring the power of natural plant-based ingredients, but with the rigor of Western science. Do you happen to feel that you have competition in the holistic medicine area? Like, are there other companies trying to also do what you guys are? Yes, it is a highly competitive market. Where we stand and where we're putting our money where our mouth is, is like we know that our political testing is much more rigorous and convincing than others, and quite frankly, is offering the best claims in this space.

0:37You know, it's interesting because when we launched this product, we were really the only ones doing innovation in this space. And now since GLP-1s have become so huge, there's been a ton of entrance into the space.

0:55Hey, everybody. Thank you for listening. My name is Andres Figueira, and I'm going to be your host for the day. This show is brought to you by the Global Talent Company, a company that's connecting top remote professionals from Argentina, South Africa, and anywhere really, with leading tech companies worldwide. So if your team is looking to hire world-class talent, be it from South America, be it from South Africa or anywhere, just head on over to theglobaltalent.co and see how we can help. And with me here today, I have Ali Egan, the founder and CEO at Veracity, a company that optimizes energy and weight health through the power of metabolism.

1:32So, Ali, it's a pleasure to have you here. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for having me, Andreas. No problem at all. We're very excited to have you come on the show. And since this is something more about you and your company, would you be able, Ali, to give us a bit more context on to what your background is and how Veracity came to be? Even what you guys mean by the power of metabolism? What is all that? Sure. So I guess it all started with me learning about my own metabolism and metabolic health the hard way, which, you know, how do we learn our best lessons? Sometimes the hard way, I guess.

2:08but I you know was a very healthy individual I was running marathons you know eating eating healthy etc and I you know went out to try to start my family and get pregnant wasn't successful started going through infertility okay and through that infertility process I was sent for some sort of standard testing and through that testing was diagnosed with a metabolic disease called Hashimoto's. It's an autoimmune thyroid disease. And it was my first experience seeing sort of the real downsides of the medical system that exists particularly in America or the Western world today, which is overly treating symptoms and overly relying on prescription medications.

3:02um so i was given this diagnosis i was told near to nothing about the disease i was just told you take this now for the rest of your life and if we need to increase the dosage we will but otherwise you'll be fine looking back on that now it's wild because you know i was like 30 years old or just over 30 years old and here i was told like one of the major your major metabolic health gland wasn't functioning properly. And the solution is not to try to fix it. It's just to supplement it with additional hormone. But I didn't question it because why would I? I trusted my doctors. And then I went down this path of infertility treatments via IVF.

3:45And three years later, I was still not pregnant and sort of my body, mind, soul, or in disarray. and you know i really just had to take my health into my own hands i started uh seeing a functional medicine center start researching all my own labs really understanding what this disease was all about and through working on actually understanding what the root cause of my disease was and treating that versus just you know sort of covering it up and treating the symptoms okay i was able to successfully get pregnant have my two children and actually completely reverse my disease. So I no longer take medication.

4:24And that's something they really don't even tell you is possible. You know, so I was so transformed through that experience. I actually became a certified health coach, started, you know, just really understanding my body in a different way, even though I was quote unquote healthy before. And I just saw an opportunity. Like I went through so much heartbreak to get there. And I knew that my story was not unique. And so I thought, wow, this, you know, more of functional root cause medicine is so clear to me. However, for me and for so many others, it's only, they're only finding it after pain and suffering.

5:01So is there a way to actually bring this to people earlier on in their journey as they're looking to just solve the problems of how they look and feel every day? And so that's kind of what I wanted to do with Veracity. And really what we are, we are building the leading doctor recommended clinically backed brand that supports the root cause metabolic health function and what are the some of the benefits of that is healthy weight management energy or really so much more because your metabolism is really the key to to longevity and disease control um because it is think about your metabolism not just as burning calories but as how your body creates energy and energy is necessary to do all the things that we want our body to do, whether it's run marathons, have babies, fight diseases, you know, foster a healthy gut microbiome, etc.

5:54And so really by fixing your metabolism, and for me, you know, I've changed everything. You really can just unlock so many short term and long term benefits. Wow, that is such a beautiful story, Ali, because from where it came, all the heartbreak that you suffered, and I imagine it must be disheartening, like trying to have kids and getting pregnant for so long and not seeing results, it really must affect like your whole psychological state, your emotions, and then being able to find the root cause to all that is beautiful, and even getting better and reversing the condition, like wow. And one question now, is veracity mainly to treat and help people with the same a like disease that you had or is it much more general in the way that it's much broader than that i would say a fair amount look thyroid issues affect about half of all women so by nature a lot of our clients have experienced some type of thyroid disease or dysfunction we really are so much more comprehensive than just that but we have really approached everything so i founded the company with a team of physicians.

7:11We have 11 doctors, um, both from Eastern sort of, uh, medicine as well as Western. And I think part of the beauty of what we do is we bring natural, like the power of natural plant-based ingredients, but with the rigor of Western science. So we don't want to just be this like homeopathic, like, you know, you're sick. So drink like hot tea and honey, like, uh, and I'm not saying that's not helpful, but you know, you're kind of like, okay, well, it's not really like solving my, you know, fixing my cold or what have you. Like we want to bring real, like almost drug alternative solutions, but that are natural, safe and actually treating the root cause.

7:51Because the crazy thing I've learned through this whole journey is that, you know, a lot, most of the drugs or prescriptions that were given are, again, not treating root cause mechanisms, which is why when you're using them, they stop working. but even a lot of natural products are like that too you know they're really just targeting that last mechanism in the body but because it's hard to figure out bodies like these are a complex network of different systems that do not work independently they're codependent and so we've worked really deeply with our doctors and we have a chief science officer who has a phd in cellular biology to understand these logical pathways and then design products that are dropping them more holistically okay i understand now and that's so cool that you were able to like dive deep into learning yourself what it is that you needed and how to get better but now you've been able to surround yourself with a mix of different professionals that also elevate you and the company to make it even more trustworthy um in my opinion but um ali and from the founding of veracity to the moment when you had your first paying customer how long was that um how how could you tell us a little bit about that part of the story you know i so i had this experience and i started i made the decision to start the company sort of ranking for the pandemic hit in 2019 i was the ceo of a women's fashion brand here in new york so i i my dream job on paper but i was just really felt called to do this and so i you know sort of said i've never done something like this before and i've always you know thought i've been entrepreneurial but like now i have both a passion and a real business reason for being and if i'm ever going to do it this is going to be the time to do it um i decided made the decision in december 2019 sort of gave my notice uh in january 2020 found out at the same time I was pregnant with my son.

9:56Wow. But so I would say officially, like I'd been kind of working on it as an idea, you know, sort of in the background. But really, you know, when I quit my job fully in March 2020 is when I started working on, you know, first building our physician team and advisory. And then we went through a big sort of R &D pilot phase throughout 2020. and most of 2021 and launched our first product to market in, I think, until 2021. Okay, wow. So it was a bit of time, a bit more than a year, spending in learning how to properly and researching how to create the products you guys were selling. And when you finally had everything ready, Ali, in 2021, how was your go-to-market motion?

10:47What was the steps you used for that? We actually started out as a broader just root cause health company. So the first major product we developed, which we still offer today is actually a service. It's an at home holistic hormone test, which helps uncover your some key records, which help identify sort of major root cause mechanisms and drivers. And that's because of where I came from with my whole experience. And I wanted to make it easy for people to get that overview into what's actually happening in their body. Because so much of what happens in health and wellness is so generalized and absolute.

11:32And health is personal. And two people can have acne and they can be for totally different reasons. right two people can have weight management issues and they can also be for different reasons and so that that's how we first launched the company and that was the first product that was sort of our hero product and how we came to focusing on metabolic health we were always kind of addressing you know these uh levels of of just my look and feel every day um but we had tested you know tens of thousands of uh people's hormones we have this plethora of um as well as the sort of um you know symptoms that people were experiencing and we're able to like understand these linkages in a very different way and so we with our physician team said well a lot of the issues here are metabolically driven um and we're really offering something specifically for that.

12:38So we spent about a year, you know, developing and figuring out what is now our hero product, Metabolism Ignite, which is a all natural plant-based addresses a key metabolic enzyme, activates a key metabolic enzyme that sort of has a chain of beautiful facts that I can go into. But we, you know, saw the need for it from this hormone test launched that in about two years ago, so 2023. And really, it just, the project was like crazy. And we just said, this is really what we should focus on instead of trying to be everything to everybody and address every, you know, sort of holistic health issue under the sun.

13:29We said, let's just focus on this metabolic piece because this is such a big problem. this really you know clearly hitting and a clear need with our target consumer target client audience okay so it was through the hormone like quiz test that you gave your customers that you were able to pinpoint the common denominator of the different results you got which was metabolism oh my goodness like that's a great research path and and a way to get to like the key item that you guys want to want to be all about and once you determine that that metabolism was what you wanted to do with veracity that it was like the best um per se problem to address um how would you describe that your marketing philosophy was regarding that did you encounter yourself in a position that you needed to educate the consumers a bit more so that they knew what they needed or was it something that as you mentioned just like flew off and everybody wanted it because they already understood the product um if you could give us a bit more insight there would be amazing when we think about like how do you in this space how do you educate well you really have to set people first with what they know and the problems that they're looking to solve and and so you know when i say metabolic health that could be you know some people could be scratching their head and be like what does that mean so we don't necessarily like lead with like oh we're selling metabolic health we lead with the benefits that you get from, you know, from that.

14:55And that is, uh, uh, and that is obviously weight can be healthy weight management, um, can be energy, uh, can be improved immunity, um, et cetera. And so we really lead with the benefit first focus. But the other thing that we have definitely benefited from is, you know, as I'm sure you are aware, there's been such a, rise in prescription medications for weight loss and weight management, aka GLP-1s, OZNBG, WGOV, etc. And I think they've actually helped to do a lot in the market education for them. And the good thing for us is we don't compete with them. We are actually kind of the complete alternative to that.

15:38Like where they have to educate people that weight management and And medical health is not just willpower. Like there are biological things in our body that are hard to correct in our modern lives that inhibit our bodies from working properly. And a lot of times we do need help. Where I think people find value and veracity is like, we don't want to go with this option that like, yes, it can be effective, but it makes me feel like shit. I have tons of side effects or it's super expensive. or, you know, it hasn't really been used for that long. And do I really want to be like the guinea pig in this situation?

16:20Right. Or just like, you know, there's more and more people that I like to say are deprescribing, like they just don't want to be reliant on prescription drugs their whole life. And that is what, you know, GLP ones kind of do. Yeah. Yeah. They work, but they only work while you're on them. So if you want to maintain weight loss, 90 plus percent of people do not maintain that without being on it. So I think they are helping educate that like, hey, you know, we have a problem that we need to solve. People are looking to us of like, I don't want to solve that through prescription medicine. I get that.

16:55And I even empathize with that feeling because even when I get sick, if it were a cold, when the doctor prescribes medicine to me, I'm a bit against the fact that I don't want to take something prescribed. I would rather just take a herbal tea with ginger and honey and all these other natural ingredients that I more work. Yeah. You're like, well, how much like is it really helping me get your healthy, you know, young man? It's not like, oh, what? Maybe you'll get better one day faster, but oh, let's see what's going to happen to your gut microbiome after taking this medicine, right? Like, is it really worth the trade off?

17:28I think is what a lot more people are starting to realize for themselves and not just like, not just going to the doctor, doing whatever they say and being, you know, being an active participant or like what I the phrase I love to use as the CEO of their own health and being able to make those decisions. But it is super true because the fact is that I know doctors have studied. I know they have this whole bunch of medical background behind them that they went to college for and everything. But when I'm just blindly told what to do without a proper explanation, it causes distrust in me as the patient.

18:00So I do prefer to go for more natural alternatives or more holistic health things that I could find because I do feel that they address a bigger picture than the one that the doctor specifically is recommending for me. So I think that's beautiful. And Ali, in terms of, okay, I know that you're not battling against these other medical companies that could have, for example, I believe you mentioned Ozempic and these other medicines that can help with weight loss and stuff. But do you happen to feel that you have competition in the holistic medicine area? Like, are there other companies trying to also do what you guys are?

18:34Or do you believe you find like a very niche spot in the industry that you're not that competitive, that you don't have that much competition? You know, it's interesting because when we launched this product, we were really the only ones doing innovation in this space. And now since GLP-1s have become so huge, there's been a ton of entrance into the space. I would say a lot of people are taking existing products that they're just sort of now marketing as that ability or they're taking existing sort of basic ingredients that have no real proven efficacy. And then, again, trying to put these new claims behind it.

19:16So, yes, it is a highly competitive market. But honestly, as an entrepreneur, I think I should welcome competition because that means it's a good business. Like, you know, people are, it's a big need that needs to be filled. And like where we stand and where we're putting our money where our mouth is, is like we know that our political testing is much more rigorous and convincing than others. And quite frankly, is offering the best claims in the space. So we're making the bet that, yeah, as much competition as there is, like people need this help ongoing and they're only going to use stuff that works.

19:52And so, you know, hopefully if they, you know, what I would hope is that some of these, some of our competition that's not as scientifically valid doesn't scare people away from the natural products category as a solution. But otherwise, I think it's a good place to be in. And I also agree that the fact that there's more competition now, I feel that from about it was a little bit after the pandemic, I believe that I started to feel a big surge in like the fitness area and the fitness lifestyle within people and then better eating and not so much fast food and everything you guys do as well. I believe it also matches with that because people want a healthier lifestyle and just being on meds that are prescribed is not going to lead to that healthier lifestyle that you want for longevity.

20:40and everything that I believe veracity helps with. But I totally get how there could be more competition now than before since it's something that is just like it's incrementing every day with people wanting to be what to call fitter. They want to do new sports, want to be stronger, faster. So it's crazy. It's crazy. I just want to feel good. I think so many of us like we feel like we're doing the right things, but then it's still not like clicking, right? Like you're like, oh, I think I'm eating healthy. I think I'm, you know, taking some supplements and you're like, but I just don't feel like my best or I don't feel like I look my best.

21:16I'm not confident, etc. There definitely is a missing piece for a lot of people, you know, and it makes sense in our modern environment. Like what the, you know, we touched on this earlier, but one of the key things is like our bodies are legitimately different than they were for our parents or above. And that's because of our environmental toxins. it's because of the endocrine disruptors that we're exposed to these are the plastics and chemicals in our you know sort of daily household uh personal care products and because of the food that we eat is ultra processed literally retraining the the hormonal signals in our body to the negative and then you know obviously the lives we live right like people have more stress um like you know literally markers of stress with constant engagement uh you know lack of sleep etc and so these are creating sort of um you know almost generational wide imbalances that need to be addressed oh my goodness like i feel you see it so clearly ali because you're describing this to me and it resonates with me because i know it's true but i just hadn't seen it that way before and It's just crazy.

22:34And in terms of your team in Veracity, Ali, like nowadays, how big is the company? Like how many people do you have hired for Veracity? Yeah, we have a small but mighty team. So we're based in New York. We have seven employees that work out of our main office every day. Well, eight, I guess, actually. And we have, you know, a couple remote employees. and yeah so it's it's small but and then our physician team which they don't they don't work and directly in our office a lot of them are also still practicing clinicians and in terms of where you guys cater like the market you guys cater to is it just the united states or are you or do you have plans to go global or try to sell the products you have in other countries today we're just in the united states but definitely i think this is a global problem and a global need and so i personally have global ambitions.

23:32We honestly can reach out to a lot. I get DMs on Instagram and other places of like, I'm in Canada. Can I buy this? I'm in Mexico. I'm in the UK. So we know that that opportunity is there. It's just, as a young business, I'm trying to be diligent about doing things in the right order and sort of biting off what we can chew. Yeah. And I imagine that also with the product that you guys have and being at health and medicine in a certain style, there must be different restrictions and regulations in different countries. Yeah, and we can figure it out, but we just need a resource against that and just making sure we do that at the right time.

24:07And okay, in terms of veracity right now, in what type of growth do you feel that the company is currently? Are you guys in hyper growth in terms of your sales and how many customers? We're super hyper growth. I mean, in the last two years, we've 40x the business. Oh my goodness. Yeah, this year again, we'll totally 4X our business. Like it's, yeah, it's been rapid, which has been exciting. And in terms of priorities, what do you believe are the three top priorities you have for the company this year? One is building the team. We brought on some key hires this year and really fantastic people that are both aligned with our mission, And, you know, good people to work with, but also really talented in their areas of expertise.

24:54And I think your team is everything. For us, you know, we have a big dedication to product and research. So, you know, we are the, I call it the fashionization. We're not a fashion brand that just sells supplements, which I think is a lot of what's out there in the wellness world. And they are launching products. it's a link of Vegas sort of like whatever's in vogue moment they just you know have a version of whether it's fiber creatine or blah blah blah and uh we've very much said no we we focus on like where we can really add value and improve root cause metabolic function but we've been focusing a lot on the r &d product side so i'm excited we'll have our next stage um product launch at the end of this year.

25:39So stay tuned for that. Yeah, that's the, you know, the other pieces, you know, we want to build a big sustainable business. So we're constantly looking how we can achieve profitability and, you know, maintain profitability while still delivering, you know, the best to our clients at what is a, you know, reasonable price. I do have a question I also want to ask, which it has to do with the team, but not that much. And it's regarding like the trending topic of the moment, which would be AI. How are you guys leveraging AI in the company? Because I feel everybody's using it to get rid of like or to help out with the most mundane tasks that could be addressed, which is back end analysis of metrics you got might have or something like that.

26:25But is there any new way that you feel AI is helping Veracity out and in terms of being more efficient and productive? Yeah, I mean, a lot of our business is like what I call content production, because, you know, for we're putting stuff out on social media, we're trying to educate people. But we've used it for, you know, helping with script writing, kind of editing, for doing different iterations of things. And I think there's way more ways to explore that. Like, you know, I do, you know, because of my certified health coach, like I do a lot of our content. And I think people appreciate that sort of learning.

27:02But, you know, we want to say something slightly different or add something to it instead of reshooting everything and like, you know, making sure the outfit is the same. We're trying to figure out how we can like add stuff in in the right way using AI. You know, I've actually benefited, you know, I'd say my team probably uses it more, but it has helped me in like doing little research projects to really understanding different. different uh wait you know obviously again i'm not i'm educated but i'm a physician but trying to understand layman's terms of some of the work our chief science officer does um but then from an e-commerce perspective i think there's a lot of tools some some winking than others but that we're testing out and you know i think for what we're learning is a lot of it is getting it to know you and your business and your needs and your objectives so So we're hopeful that these things that we're doing and trying now are just going to be that much better, you know, six months or a year from now.

28:00I noticed that we're almost at time now for the episode, but I have one more question, which is more tailored towards the audience. And it would be is if you were a person that is starting out in the holistic health market, just let's not say the health industry in general, but more holistically as you guys are. What would be some advice that you would have loved to know when you started out? Like if you could give yourself some advice at the beginning, what was what is something that you tell yourself? Like, hey, don't forget or just make sure to think like one thing with our brand is like this promise to metabolic health and then not adding anything that's going to counteract that.

28:36And I would say like even in the holistic natural products industry, you know, there's still been a lot of endocrine disruptors and like blood sugar, things that like negatively impact blood sugar and things like that. So I would say a learning for me is like when you're working and trying to produce a product, like being very upfront with what your brand guidelines and principles are and then holding through that in the process. Because the way things have been done historically is, you know, the way of, you know, manufacturers or other things will just kind of default to that. But you really have to push the envelope for yourself and for your partners.

29:18and that's been that's been part of the fun journey for me though is is challenging some of those partners perfect so it's just making sure that what you determine is the goal for your company not to do anything that counteracts that or that goes against it back to the liver on your brand promise ultimately and it's easy not to like cross the eye dot your eye even cross your teeth and sort of not look into all the details because obviously a lot of consumers wouldn't even notice but like eventually they might and there's there's more services in a cool way that are sort of trying to offer transparency into you know different consumer products companies and I welcome that because if you do your homework you know you can stand behind confidently like what you're what you're doing and what you're you know selling to folks.

30:04Folks you heard it here first and Ali as a final moment I would like to give you the space to also let anybody who's listening know how they can reach out to you guys, learn more about your products, even if they're in the States, buy something they might need, or if they feel they could be useful for them, how could they go on about doing that? Of course, our website is veracityselfcare.com. We're also on Amazon, TikTok, Instagram, at veracityselfcare. And, you know, or you can even just look me up or follow me on LinkedIn, Allie Egan. And, you know, I like to talk about stuff in the health and wellness space.

30:42So if you're also interested in that, follow me, shoot me a message and excited to build that community. Amazing. Thank you so much, Ali. And with your story and how much you've lived through it, I believe your insight is something invaluable. So if anybody wants to reach out to Ali via LinkedIn, please feel free to do so. If not, you know all the different channels. You can also look at Veracity. And without further ado, thank you so much, Ali, for coming on the show. Thank you, Andrea. It's great to meet you. Likewise, likewise. And for everybody who's listening, thanks for hopping on. We hope to see you the next time here as well so you can keep on learning from the different companies we bring on and the insight from all the personalities that we had as our guests.