How to Make Customers Instantly Trust You & Your Product - Jeff Byers

22:11Jeff Byers:That is not how you build a brand that is still leading in 20 years. And so the hardest thing that we do is that I think we do as a business is when we are making big decisions, what does this do for our business in 20 years? Is this help us or hurt us? Help us or hurt us. Right. And it's like product portfolio, product category, sourcing all of those things, because ultimately maybe it's a wash and then you don't make, then it doesn't matter to that decision. And then you make a decision based on economics or marketing or growth. But ultimately, when you make big decisions, you need to look forward on what it is.

22:47Jeff Byers:And that long-term thinking is sometimes at odds with short-term profitability. 100%. And that is hard. And most people in our industry aren't always looking. Some of the CEOs in our space, it's their seventh supplement company. They just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. because it's an easy place to make money. Now, like air quote, right? Like it's so big and there's, you can build a business that's seven people that can do$50 million in our category. But that brand is not here in 10, 15 years as leading. Like that's the difference. I believe what I want to build because I want to create change.

23:30Jeff Byers:What we talked about early on is like, the industry is massive and it's doing a huge disservice. I want to help change that trajectory. I want to be a positive part of the health and wellness and optimization of society. I just don't want to be a blip on the radar. So how do you deal with the contradicting science, right? So there's a lot of people out there that's like, oh, you need to be purely plant-based or you need this supplement or you need that supplement. And you're making these universal claims to different body types, different blood work, different environments. How do you handle that onslaught?

24:01Jeff Byers:I think that's why we don't work on places like TikTok or traditional meta-influencers. right because we won't say those things and ultimately we're all more alike than we are not as humans um but at the end of the day what we all have different goals different challenges and therefore what we need to supplement and how we do that matters right some people like oh i'm carnivore and it crushes for me great you found something that works oh i'm a vegan great i don't really care, right? What I care is that you have found things that are sustainable over long periods of time that drive optimal health.

24:43Jeff Byers:And the research is always, right, going to ebb and flow on there, right? Guess what? We know protein is important, right? Creatine has almost been irrefutable based upon the amount of research out there. Omega-3 fatty acids, right? Same. And it's like, focus on the foundational things. And that's like for us, like we don't have a, you know these crazy products that are out there that very few people have ever heard of or that are fixing it or proprietary blends because that shit doesn't matter right those are that's that can be noise unless you get blood work or you're trying to fix a specific problem within your your end of one human and so like plant-based all of this and people have strong opinions and for me I'm stoked.

25:28Jeff Byers:Opinions is what matters in the world. And like, but you got to realize that I'm different than you. Like I played, I was an offensive lineman playing the NFL. You might have a messed up shoulder. I got messed up back, hips, foot, right? All these things. Like we have different things that we do. Therefore we approach the gym differently. We approach the things like, why would we say, oh, once anyways, that's part of the challenge is the noise is so loud. So how do you, this is really important. How do you cut through that noise? Right. Because we do have different things. You, you spent your professional career in car accidents over and over and over, and then willingly getting back in to do it.

26:07You know, I've got a torn labrum in my left arm. So it changes how I work out and how I train. I didn't get into, you know, car accidents seven times a day during practice. Even when we come to business, you know, we, we approach things differently. I come from a tech background. I come from a systems and service provider background, so I can scale those in my sleep. That's easy for me. This is a product background. This is a different conversation. How do you approach these differently and plan to trade through?

26:33Jeff Byers:Yeah. Yeah. I think if we, we haven't done it great all the time, right? And we continue to get better. And I think, you know, like people used to ask me like, oh, what should I take? And I just told them what I took and I realized, oh, that's really wrong. That's not going to work. Right. And so what we did was we started asking the smartest people, the pro sports dietitians, the exercise physiologists, the researchers, hey, what are the core foundational items that matter? When we think about things that you can supplement. And that's, we built what we called Momentus 3. Protein, creatine, and omegas.

27:09Jeff Byers:It's like that is a foundation that you can build on. And if you do those things over long periods of time, they have immense amounts of clinical data and research. Then everything else is condition specific, right? And you can get protein from a lot of different sources. Awesome, right? Creatine, a little bit harder. But like creatine is relatively inexpensive for the highest quality stuff out there, right? And like it's really hard to get from your diet. And then omegas is the same way. But like invest in what matters and when you can add. And so for us, like we have a plant protein, we have a whey protein, we have unflavored, we have flavor.

27:45Jeff Byers:So like, how do we meet consumers with where they're at, right? Creatine, we have different form factors, right? Omegas, we have a vegan omega and we have a fish omega. And it's like, how do we meet the consumer where they're at? If we say these matter the most, hit that consumer, right? Say, let's build around so that we can solve 90 % of that. And then build the biggest buckets around them, the biggest conditions. It's like, Charles, you have an issue with sleep? Cool. Right? Have you tried these behavior things, et cetera? Boom. And so, but what we try to do is like, we don't try to go out there and be like, oh, sleep, everybody needs to take sleep because it does X, Y, and Z.

28:23Jeff Byers:It's like, I don't take sleep. Why? I sleep great. Right? I don't know why. I just do. I always have. Right? It's one of my gifts on there. Other people sleep like crap. Right? And that's just the nature of the game. Yeah. Yeah. And right. We, we give and take. And so it's like, how do you break it down? Simplicity. Right. And what we try to do from a marketing perspective is talk about the foundation. Right. And then we try to bring in behaviors, product guides, right. And, and create that education around why and how, and then leverage our partners. Cause I think the biggest thing for us is people are going to take what they think they want to take, not just when we say it.

29:07Jeff Byers:And so we want to be known as the high trust brand and low trust category. We have standards that are uncompromisable, right? And we're going to certify what is in the product is actually in the product every single time, because that's what we do. And so if you need vitamin D, Momentus is clearly the answer. If you need, right, if you need a sleep product, let's go to Momentus first. And that's our goal. And what we want our partners and our like large ecosystem of people to say, momentous is the standard right so and you're going through this as a as a business owner and as you're creating this because a lot of people are trying to bring product to market right they're like okay we've got we've got an acquisition but fulfillment on this is a challenge because you know we've got a very intense political environment right now that's about as about as intense as i'll talk about that but we've got an intense political environment we've got immense amount of things going on with tariffs.

30:03We've got countries that don't like interacting with us the way they used to. How do you go through? Because again, acquisition is acquisition. And again, and I'm skipping ahead and I'll get the audience caught up on this. When you're playing collegiate sports, when you're playing semi-professional or professional sports, you're not eating the same food as everyone else. You need to understand that's really important. You're not taking the supplements. You're not sleeping on the same beds. You're not using the same blue light glasses. you're not doing any of that. Everything is very much through a filter and using the best of the best stuff.

30:35So a lot of your brand and a lot of it is used in environments where performance matters because everyone looks at college football and like, oh, that's fine. It's just a game. No, it's a huge industry that makes an immense amount of money and they're very much putting things in in a specific way. So for everybody listening at home, yes, we're all cheating. We're all using supplements. We're using, I remember when I, you know, I played college ball, all of a sudden they looked at my cleats like you're not wearing that anymore i'm like why like well we molded your foot and this works better for your foot and this metal works better on the cleats i was like you're talking about the metal on the damn cleat what are you talking it's a pair of cleats what are you talking about so there is a competitive advantage that most people don't have and momentous has penetrated into that market now we're running into an environment of bringing them more to the public versus to that environment how do you handle fulfillment how do you make the relationships with vendors how do you find the manufacturers where yeah maybe they go out they do nice things to you because you were there on a Tuesday, but as soon as you leave Wednesday, they're going to put chalk and, you know, piss in there.

31:34How do you deal with the fulfillment and all of that? Yeah.

31:37Jeff Byers:I mean, I think it's all around like this last core pillar of the standard is trust, but verify everything that we do, right. Every finished product off the line in a jar like this, we test it, right. It is test every batch every single time, right. Because it's one thing for a wrong, like to go see a wrong ingredient supplier. And they say, Oh, this is how clean it is. This is how good it is. Look at our great test results. And everybody will show you great test results. The fact of the matter is what comes out on the other end often is very, very different and changes batch to batch. And so like for us, it's like you have wrong ingredients that come in.

32:15Jeff Byers:Then they hit a, then they get shipped sometimes across the world or across the country. And then they hit a manual, a co-man, right. That blends and packages. Lots of things happen in that warehouse, right? Lots of things happen on that blender. Lots of things go through those pipes. And then you have your container that you put it in. Lots of things happen in that manufacturing process too. And then you have your finished goods and you're like, well, there's a lot of steps. And so what we find in those step processes is cross-contamination. If machines aren't cleaned correctly, if it's stored next to something that it shouldn't be store next to you or if it's shipped in a container right all those things matter to us and that's why you always trust but verify at the end right it's like hey we believe we found the best manufacturing partners and the best sourcing put the money where the mouth and if it doesn't test a spec we reject right so how do you do in your industry when you're doing that and they're sending garbage and it happens to be a vendor that you've worked with for a long time you have a great relationship with them but they're screwing the pooch they're cutting corners they're doing that how do you address that?

33:20How do you, what is the step-by-step in that? Do you just bring a hammer or what do you do?

33:25Jeff Byers:They know we have zero tolerance. Okay. Right. And they, they, they, it's the same part of your culture with the three strikes. It's that same thing. It's like, listen, we're not here to be your friend. Yeah. But, but I like lots of art, my employees are our friends, but they know when it's a, when it's time to perform, it's time to perform. And if you don't perform, that's a different conversation than a friend conversation we go hang out, have dinner, go work out do all that you have to show up and perform for us and so everybody across the supply chain put in perspective in the last month we've rejected three full containers of a raw ingredient just sent it back because it didn't meet our spec and guess what our supplier was like yep, okay They're just going to sell it to somebody else at the end of the day.

34:18Or, I mean, but it doesn't meet our standards.

34:22Jeff Byers:And they know that if we've told them these are our standards, contractually, if it doesn't pass these tests, we do not accept this production run. But, like, from a business perspective, our multivitamin is one of the most comprehensive multis on the market. it. We, we were out of stock for three and a half months, almost of it because we failed three production runs in a row. Um, on it, right. Our co-man doesn't pay us for our lost sales, uh, on there, right. Like the people putting together the blend, right. We eat the lost sales and it was about$700 ,000 in Q1. Right. And that's, but that's, that's our standards and we're okay with that.

35:05Jeff Byers:Hey, we could have, we could have just said, ah, it's okay. Right. Like it was one ingredient that was a tiny ingredient that didn't meet our spec. Right. And it just is what it is. And we had to go find a new raw ingredient supplier, like for one of like 70 different ingredients in that product. Um, and that's just our, that's who we are. And our co-man understands it. They are like, yep, yep. This is momentous. They have other businesses that don't, hey, I'm sure we pay for it. I mean, I know we pay for it in our costs. But for me, yeah. So you've got this standard, both internally and externally with your suppliers and the people that are working with you on a day-to-day basis.

35:46How do you apply that level of standard to growth then? Because if you have this bar that everyone must meet and you're trying to connect with people and you're not advertising the way that normal people do in the rest of the world, which is just regrettably your industry is, and I say this with as nice as a way possible. I've, I've been around this industry for 34 years, 33 years, you know, cause I was, my, my dad was senior vice president of badly subtle fitness. He was senior vice president of GNC. And I knew the trash that was going in there. I mean, we would sit there and I'm like, don't eat that.

36:17He's like, what? He's like, don't like, I go to, I go visit him in at one of the stores. I'm like, I'm going to grab one of these bars. He's like, don't eat that. He's like, absolutely. He goes, don't put that in your mouth. So we knew back then, and it's only gotten better. how do you market how do you penetrate into a market and what's your branding cycle look like

36:33Jeff Byers:yeah i think because our roots i mean we didn't really talk about the roots of the business but the underlying business right we started with a 1.8 million dollar contract with the department defense and combined that with venture capital funds um and that was in 2018 and we were in the consumer biotech space um and we ultimately didn't get into the into right the supplement space until 2021. Um, and our roots are very, very different, right. As a whole. And so, right. We come from this background of clinical research of working with the best. Um, and we were in pro and college sports in that time.

37:12Jeff Byers:And like this really unique space. And when we went into supplements and all of that, it was like that, like that is our roots. We are born. We like people like, Oh, you're a DTC native business. I'm like, I'm a pro and college sports, U S military native business. Like we were wholesaling to those. Those were our customers. We built a little small DTC business on the back end. And then in 2022, we blew up in e-com land. And that was because what we did was we continued to serve the best people in the world and do it right over and over and over again. And so then when we got into this huge TAM, that is Sports Nutrition Supplements, and the Momentous brand was born in pro and college sports, it was really natural for us to start partnering with these big voices in health and wellness that are PhDs.

38:01Jeff Byers:And they're like, oh, my friends at so-and-so trust you. I trust you. And they know, as you know, man, it's hard to put my name behind something here. My brand is my name. and if I'm repping a BS brand, that's high risk. And so we became this high trust brand in a low trust category. Like challenge your mindset as you can see, but like really focus on the best. And we still sell to every NFL team. Every one of them is their customer. We sell to nearly every other professional and college sports team in this country. We have some really unique things with the Department of Defense. We've won nine contracts with them to date, right?

38:37Jeff Byers:Like those are our roots. Those are the people that give us this really deep keel, right? Like that keep us centered and grounded and make us do it better than it's ever been done before. And so that flywheel has spun off, right? Not low, low funnel, lower funnel marketing. It's spun off big top of funnel, middle funnel marketing. So we have big voices that are saying momentous is the best. And right. Whether that was Dr. Huberman or or Tim Ferriss, or a Rich Roller, or a Dr. Stacey Sims, these people who are helping set the culture. And now we have a guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger. But those things took three plus years, a lot of those relationships of showing them that we are different, showing them that we will make hard decisions to cut products, change products that are better for consumers for them.

39:29Jeff Byers:And so it's like this flywheel of what I say, being at the forefront of high performance, spun off all these big name people. And now all these influential people, like we want momentous, how do we work with momentous? And rather than saying like, Oh, we're going to go after, you know, the transactional tick tock or meta or whatever, we're going after people who are authoritative, right. That have transcended those types of things or who are key opinion leaders, right. Ultimately that drive that. And what that has allowed us to do is now work into these other spaces they're like well the people i trust trust momentous so that's why i rent yeah well very early on when when the podcast took off there was a specific brand i'm not going to mention the brand uh that wanted me to sell their stuff it's a i'll say it's a green brand let's always go with that it's got green it's got green covers and i immediately rejected it even though it was a huge deal because the product that's inside of there was absolute trash because i I asked them, I said, give me, show me the science.

40:29They're like, what? I'm like, show me the science. Show me someone that you've worked with where you saw their blood work before. And we started blood work after show me walls of studies with that. They're like, well, we can't, but we'll pay lots of money. I'm like, no, that that's not proven to me. That's a different conversation. So when you're going in that, I'm curious when you're working with contracts, like the DOD, when you're working with contracts of professional sports, what are the things that their, their litmus tests that they're asking you, because there are other business owners that we work with that are going to ask like, Hey, I want to penetrate a market like that.

40:59I want to fill the top of my funnel with that. What are the things that you've done in order to do that? It's a purely relationship base or is it just because you're a good guy or how do you do that?

41:08Jeff Byers:It, it, uh, I think it starts with doing the right thing over and over again. Like for, for me, like I had a really clear litmus test of like, it has to be like the, the people who nobody knows that are the leaders had to be able to be behind it. And so it's like doing that right thing. Right. And being very core, like there was a lot of people that were like, oh, you should like, you should source your whey protein different. It's way cheaper, way more accessible. And it's like, nope. I've just fundamentally, like it was a no. Right. And it's like, oh, you should do this or you should go here.

41:43Jeff Byers:And it's like, no, no, no. Why? Because like, I always had that long-term picture of like, we're trying to do it different, not like everybody else. And so when you really want to be a challenger, the second you start accepting what everybody else is doing, right? And you're just on your way to that. And that's not, if you want to be a challenger brand and you want to do it better than it's ever been done before, you got to make those decisions. And then it has to do with like showing up continuously the same way, right? And for me, the investment in the relationship is an investment in saying, this is what we do differently.

42:17Jeff Byers:And yes, if you ask for X, I'm going to do X, right? Or I'm going to say, Hey, X doesn't make sense. What about Y? And there have been countless steps along the process where somebody is like, you won't do that. You won't get that certification. I was like, why not? Right. And he's like, Oh, it costs too much money. It's like, boom, got it. Right. Oh, you won't, you won't do that clinical research. You won't show up to this thing. I was like, yeah, we will. Like, why wouldn't we? But the problem is most people don't think about those things. They're like, how do I get a deal done? How do I get a deal done?

42:45Jeff Byers:How do I get a deal done? Right. Arnold's a great example. Like it took almost three full years to get a deal done with Arnold Schwarzenegger. And it was just this constant showing them we're doing it better and different. It wasn't a day one, let's do a deal. It was like, oh man, it'd be cool to partner together. And what you learn while you get to know those people is what matters to them. And when you build these big, rich, deep partnerships, right? It is not just a transaction. It's about how do you build something that's meaningful to them, right? And meaningful to you. And so it's like, but that takes time and effort to do that.

43:22But again, it takes doing it

43:24Jeff Byers:over and over and over and over again. Right. And it was, there were years that were real hard at momentous. Like we pulled the product off the market, uh, in 2023 that just single-handedly, that was a 20, what year are we in? 24, 25. And, uh, in 2024, that, that made us unprofitable the whole year. We pulled one product in Q2 and it took all of the EBITDA out of our business. That was a, and we knew that when we did that, it was going to do that, but it did not in our portfolio. It was duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, goose. Right. And it was like, get the goose out. Right. And we got the goose out and ultimately, right.

44:06Jeff Byers:Maybe we'd be way more profitable than we are today. But in that short term, it was really hard. I have investors, I have a board, right and we had to say hey we're gonna lose four million dollars in profit by one product that we're choosing to not do anymore and here's why because it doesn't fit our brand creation and it's a goose in a portfolio of ducks and we believe that long term it will set us up better doing those things partners like oh that's interesting they're not just money first oh that's interesting they actually care about their standards oh that's interesting and whatever those standards are Whatever your vision is for that business, when you start making decisions away from that as a founder, as a CEO, then this does not become authentic.

44:51Jeff Byers:This becomes transactional. And transactional relationships, they work, but they don't work long term. And I've found that the transactional relationships always end the worst. I think you're talking about this as a relationship. Yeah, sure you've got Arnold, but I guarantee you that in three months, if you don't keep that standard that he agreed to or solved for the last three years, he's gone. absolutely disappear so when you're a disruptor in the forest when you're you're being signal versus noise when you are that lighthouse amongst the fog you're going to get people get pissed off at you there's just no way around you're going to get people to get grumpy and they're gonna hunt you and regrettably if if for those of you who are listening who haven't broken certain figures yet um just understand when you do when you break certain figures they're going to come at you it is what it is and it's expected it just it is what it is it's to put it in a sports thing a sports analogy you're fine until you catch the ball the minute you catch the ball everybody wants to kill you so you've caught in a lot of these industries you've caught in that ball you you are the tallest blade of grass and it's got to try and get cut can you can you share some of the examples of that and the ways that you've survived that hit yeah i think number one is always hitting it head on, right?

46:05Jeff Byers:Like there, uh, there was a consumer reports report that came out and it was like, like a complete hit piece on a lot of, on a lot of people. It was like, here's a reality. Yes. Right. We've always like, you can see these test results on our, on our website, right? It was about plant protein and like spoiler alert, plant proteins have a little more heavy metals than whey protein. Why? Because it comes from the ground and that's what happens. but it was like you will die if you eat plant protein i was like this is like this is just noise noise noise noise it's like here's our perspective like here's what we believe we've always shared these results with you never tried to hide them and this is the actual reality of what we're talking about and just always being genuine and not being like they're idiots they don't know what they're talking about it's like hey context is key in everything and when you take things out of, out of context, it hurts.

47:02Jeff Byers:And guess what? People are going to knock us. They always will. And you also just have to have a thick skin sometimes. And it's like, Hey, you know, be unkillable here and being unkillable is sometimes taking the higher road. Sometimes knowing not what to engage sometimes just being genuine and being like, Hey, we effed up. And like, it is what it is. And sometimes, you know, being, being really, really, really transparent and like, here's why we made a decision. Here's what, why it matters, um, as a whole. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but what, what, what we care about is building a brand that consumers resonate with over long periods of time.

47:41Jeff Byers:Right. And yeah, there's always going to be attackers that will be to the end, end of time. And it's an honor to be attacked, to be quite. Yeah, it really is. And I also think understanding that not every customer is your customer. Not every person is your person. I think it's a really important thing because you know, when this comes out or when my book came out, when all this other stuff came out, I'm going to get attacked by my call. You're not my people. And that's okay. I was on stage this weekend with a group of people and some of them, we did a seven figure and they loved it. We did seven figures right from the, they loved it.

48:16It was this thing. Awesome. And there's other people in the group that are like, oh, these guys are SOBs, which we guarantee, we're like, here, here's your money back how can i say we don't care not everybody you want to work with is your is going to do it just like not every supplement that you're going to take needs to be at this level there are some supplements out there that you could if it's for you you could take a different path but when you hold that standard it seems like one of the reasons you guys are so successful and are are doing this is if you've held a standard not only for your products and your supplements but also for your people and you're going to get resistance in there as well so what happens when you have an employee and how do you deal with an employee that bucks that system who you've trusted and then that trust is violated just like a vendor's trust is violated how do you you dealt with those people are as you know charles people are the hardest

49:05Jeff Byers:right because at the end of the day they are humans and there's more than just a job typically as at play uh and we had a mentor i don't know how long like two or three years ago and he was like you just got to do it out of love right and remember that they are human and sometimes you don't say everything you want to say um and as as the founder leader you sometimes just to get to eat it and you know like we we moved on from somebody and i just gotta shut up and just take it right because we're already moving on it doesn't do me any good right and on there and it was really hard to just like bite my tongue get lashed for all the things that i did wrong right and some of them have truths to them but some of them are context and you walk away from that and it's like always take the high road when you're getting when you're moving away from people always because the right one of the greatest things we've had is we've had two people that we that left this business that ultimately have come back to this business they've taken like two and a half two years off and right i one of them i i would have sworn to god they would have never come by a friend right friend of the family like got close with my wife, right?

50:37Jeff Byers:All of these things. And it was like, oh, I, we, we napalmed the shit out of that one. Um, and I handled it terrible and right. Some water went under the bridge, some more water. Right. And we just, and, and what it turned out is we both needed to grow. And now she's like our chief marketing officer and she's a baller. Right. And, but it was one of those things when, you know, when we were looking for a new leader in marketing, I called her and I was like, Hey, do you have anybody in your network? And she's like, what about me? I was like, you want to come back? Right. You know, it was like, but that's try to take the high road.

51:13Jeff Byers:Right. And it's hard, but you have to have those conversations. And what I've always, the regret that I always have is when you know, you know, and make that decision. Then I always am like, damn, I wish I would have done this three weeks earlier. Right. I wish it would have like, right. Because you just don't, that doesn't change once once you've made the decision it's done and there's no better time because then it's all like they then you then people start like oh man three weeks ago it was kind of awkward was did they know and they not tell me um and so it's hard it's hard and in a young growing business everybody matters but guess what you figure it out right if that means i got to work a little harder the next three months before we backfill great but also what that means maybe you prioritize your shit a little better um anyway i i just people are really hard and like approach every hard people conversation out of love remember right they are the ones that are suffering like as much like the deserts decisions been made have it just be done and and like you're also going to just very few uh some people are very gracious a lot of people right in the heat to battle say a lot of bad things and mean things and they might try to come after you and you just always take the hot road always take the hot road try to take the hot road like do right because at the end of the day the world's fucking small and yeah it's it's the idea that the longer you take to make a decision the more it's going to cost you it's it's just that simple it's it's like being on a train heading in the wrong direction get off as soon as you can because it's less way to head the other way back.

52:57And then we talk about, you know, getting mentors and getting in that situation. One of my mentors taught me, you know, cause I was having a moment, one of the first people I ever had a fire. I was like, you know, this person's got a family person's got kids. How am I going to do this? And he sat down and he goes, look at this. You've got this one person and yes, it's going to be devastating to their family, but you have 40 other families that you need to protect. So you have to make that decision and they're never easy and it's never fun. But again, being that outlier and keeping that level of net standard has been really challenging.

53:26What is one thing in your industry that the other supplements do? And I'm not naming other companies, but you're like this one supplement for the love of God, if you never buy it from anyone else, please don't buy this trash. This is the one you can't mess around with. Don't put blah, blah, blah on your system unless you know where it comes from, because it's just, we've seen the research because you're, you're, you know, you're the tip of the spear when it come to this? What is one that you're like, good God, don't put that in your system?

53:53Jeff Byers:Oh God. This is a dangerous question. Uh, I'll, I'll go, I'll kind of go, uh, two different directions here. I'll give you two different answers. Like, um, I think the peptide world is really dangerous right now, right? It's everything is research grade, which means there is nothing about it and we don't know we really really don't know and uh like i i would say we are we are years if not more away from understanding the true implications of what some of these research peptides can or cannot do or have problems well so yeah the long-term effects of as well, because I just don't think injecting Windex into your butthole is probably a good idea.

54:43You might want to have some other stuff on that.

54:45Jeff Byers:So, so I'll say like, I'm just like a complete, people ask me all the time, like, Oh, peptides. I'm like, why? No. Like there are so many other things right now that can solve it. Right? Like if you have a crazy cancer and there's a peptide that can help potentially help, you don't like, yes. But if you're trying to optimize and live healthier and longer? Like no research, nothing. And then I would say on the supplement side, the one that I think has the, it's like as deep as the Grand Canyon, as wide as the Grand Canyon from like a quality efficacy perspective is an omega-3, right? And when you think about that as like the efficacious dose of omega-3 fatty acids is about 1.5 grams or more per day.

55:28Jeff Byers:And that's DHA and EPA, right? Combined, we do a one-to-one ratio, which we believe is the best ratio because it's the lowest taxing on your body and has the best benefits. But overall, most omega-3s or most fish oils are just fish oil, right? And not heavy in the omega-3s. And fish also have a lot of heavy metals in them, right? And the processing, the temperatures, how it's stored, the capsules, all that really, really matters, right? In there. And so you truly get what you pay for in an omega-3 supplement, A, from a dosage perspective, but B, from a quality heavy metals, toxins perspective as well.

56:09Jeff Byers:And, you know, like my dad was like, is my greatest example of this. And he's like, oh, I've been buying this. I've been buying 180 servings from the big box store, you know, for the last 20 years. And it's awesome. And I was like, pull it out, take a picture of it, and let's compare labels. And he was like, well, it has the same amount of fish oil in it, but it has one-tenth of the amount of omega-3s. And I was like, so you have to take 10 of these serpents to match one of ours. And I was like, what fish is it coming from? Where is the fish oil? The krill, what is it? Yeah. Yeah, right? Like you want small fish, right?

56:54Jeff Byers:Sardines, anchovies, mackerels, because they're small in the food chain. They have less mercury, less heavy metals, right? right like you don't want it to go bigger up and like some fish some fish oil you can buy off the shelf you have no idea what fish they come from or how they're distilled or they cold process oh anyways so fish oil is the one that i think is the gap is wide and there's some great companies out there we are really proud of our our omega-3 like really really proud and we have like the most potent uh vegan omega-3 on the market too but like that is one that i find is just like as deep and as wide as the grand canyon in terms of differences and there's some people on one side and there's a lot of people on another and the bottom is ripe with craziness so gross all right so i'm going to selfishly ask for sleep because i've all my listeners are entrepreneurs we're all founders we're all small business owners uh we run an environment where we just don't sleep well it is probably the biggest thing that we run into in our this specific niche when we go in when i talk to angel investors, we're going to talk to VCs when we all get around like, Hey, when was the last time you slept?

57:57You're like, what's sleep? I don't, I don't speak Sanskrit. I don't know what that word is. What are you talking about? Is there a magic thing? Is there something, because Mr. I sleep really well over there, you bastard. For the rest of us who don't sleep well, what are the things that you would look at for sleep?

58:12Jeff Byers:I thought, well, I think I sleep really well because I get really, I burn really, really hot. Right. And like, I just like, go, go, go. and like i just shut down like i can't like i literally i literally can't and that's part of like my training routine like i'm a really high energy person um overall and like i also have really good um hygiene when it comes to right when i train when i work out how i do those things that right what you find is the hygiene throughout the day actually really matters um as a whole and uh right for me how do i protect my time and my day and all of that like my sleep hygiene is is good but like i would say my my my circadian rhythm is what's good um across that and like how do you optimize that it's like when you eat how you eat caffeine all of those things and it just like i've naturally done that but honestly like charles like back when i played in the nfl before sleep was a fucking thing i was like tracking sleep right i'm like did i sleep good did i not sleep because it's so like i just realized it was so correlated to everything as a whole so when i think about sleep i think uh the number one thing is sleep hygiene before bed right and i know like the nights i don't sleep well it's because i'm staring at my computer till 11 or 12 o 'clock at night.

59:38Jeff Byers:Like I'm up ripping and my brain's going, right? It's really, really hard. When you're going, you're going, right? And for me, it's like, how do I create habits that change that is super important. And a lot of times that's not realistic. I choose to work early. Like I always rather wake up and work than stay up, right? Like I try to go to bed and if I need to wake up at four to get stuff done, I wake up at four, right? That's just my MO on it. I would rather not. Um, so I keep my bedtime consistent. There are things that help you downregulate, right? Uh, as a whole, like apigenin, L-theanine can really help you downregulate at night, right?

1:00:18Jeff Byers:That I think is really important to some people who burn really hot or have a hard time doing that, uh, uh, as a whole. So that downregulation is super important. Um, as a whole, I, uh, uh, I, I, anyways, I think that's, that's, that's important. So when we're going through and people want to track this down, because obviously you come from, you come into this industry with a very different perspective, not only is professional sports, but also your previous, you know, clients are DOD. They are professional sports or there are people who it matters because, you know, you go to a, a big box store, they don't really care if you're performing on that high level.

1:00:54When you're talking about the clients that you've grown with, if they don't perform well, some of them don't come home. So performance matters in that environment. If someone's tracking it down, they're like, man, Jeff, I want to know more. I want to get access to how do people track you down? What's your personal home number? What's your personal, I'm kidding. You know, what do we do? How do we, how do we connect? How do people find you? What's the best way to go forward?

1:01:13Jeff Byers:Yeah. Uh, for me, I'm like pretty off of social media as just an FYI, just something I've chosen not to do with my life. Um, and, uh, but I'm on LinkedIn. It's kind of a dumpster fire for me as a whole, just to be completely transparent. But I'd also say like a lot of me comes out in our brand, right? And our team does a wonderful job of really breaking things down. Like find me on LinkedIn. I'm, you know, like it's easy to find me on LinkedIn on there. And that would be the best way to do that. But also like customer service gets a lot of questions that are directed towards me that I actually answer.

1:01:54Jeff Byers:um, on there being like, Hey, you know, I, you know, saw Jeff in the airport or I met Jeff here, or I listened to the podcast here. Like, can you ask him this? And it's like, yeah, why not? Like easy, um, as a whole. So I would say that's super important, um, as ways like just navigate through it. Like I've tried to not be on social media because I find that when I am on social media, I go down black holes. So yes, yes. I, I, I have found that as well. And I work very hard on getting off social media. I'm the opposite than you are. When people reach out directly to me, you're going to run into a bunch of gatekeepers that I put there on purpose.

1:02:29People are like, oh, I didn't know I was on LinkedIn for over a decade until I, they're like, hey, you know, you've been on LinkedIn for a decade? I'm like, I haven't logged in since, you know, it's been a while. So working on that. But, and if, and if someone wants access to your brand or, you know, where do they go, what's the best website to take a look at it?

1:02:45Jeff Byers:Yeah. Livemomentous.com is, is the brand uh we're on amazon we're sold in vitamin shop now as well which has been a big coup for us because we've become like this high quality brand in there and done really well uh but yeah live momentous.com is the best place to find us amazon super easy our whole product portfolio is there you can get it most places by this afternoon perfect i appreciate you coming on jeff and sharing some of the wisdom on how you you know kind of disrupt the 200 billion dollar our industry. Awesome. Thanks, Charles. Jeff plays the long game. He treats time like an opponent, engineers operating systems where most people slap on marketing and refuses to let his label cash checks his ingredients can't honor.

1:03:29A four-year NFL lineman who never planned on running a supplement company, now ships to the military and stocks vitamin shop shelves. And the takeaway is this one. The ball always gets snapped whether you're ready or not. Leaders who waver lose the locker room and a real brand gets made in person at the factory with the partner in the room. We'll catch you on the next episode.