589 : The Mad Scientist Behind One of America’s Fastest Growing Supplement Brands | Brian Littlefield (Best of Foundr)

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0:39Just head to omnisend.com forward slash founder without the E to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Hey guys, welcome to the Founder Podcast. Today's guest is Brian Littlefield, co-founder of Jocko Fuel, one of the fastest growing supplement brands in America. Starting from a small supplement store, Brian built Jocko Fuel into a powerhouse brand alongside Navy SEAL legend Jocko Willink, with a product line trusted by athletes, military operators, and everyday high performers. And in this episode, Brian shares the raw story behind Jocko Fuel's explosive growth, how they built one of the most loyal customer bases in the supplement world, and why tying their brand to Jocko's reputation of trust was their biggest advantage.

1:27You'll also hear Brian's mindset tactics, lessons on scaling, product development insights, and how to turn adversity into opportunity. So if you want a blueprint on how to build a supplement brand with trust, community, and a world-class product quality, this is a must listen. Hear the stories, learn the proven methods, and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the Founder Podcast with Nathan Chan.

1:58Well, really excited to speak with you today, Brian. The first question that I ask everyone that comes on is, how did you get your job, aka how did you find yourself doing the work you're doing today? Yeah, that's a great question.

2:13So it goes back quite a ways and I've kind of, what's funny is I've told this story a few times. And each time I kind of remember that it's like a lot of people go back to like some sort of inflection point that they've kind of had in life that kind of put them on the path they're on. And mine, like I'll go back and I'll find one, I'll retrace it and then I'll go back even further. And it's kind of funny to see. And I kind of look at it like a tree. So if like, if, if you're, if your life starts and you're like, you know, you're, you're on a straight path, you're eventually going to branch off somewhere, but then there's hundreds or thousands of different ways that you can go in your life, you know, like, and let's say in, in this respect to your career, like all these different paths you can go down.

3:05So I've traced it back a lot of different ways, but where I'm at today really happened from a point in my life where I was like, I was really, really obese. I was really overweight and I was, uh, I came from an athletic family. I wasn't genetically gifted like they were. And, you know, I always struggled to like, you know, what I would say, stay on the path and stay healthy and look healthy. Um, I ended up going off to college and ended up gaining a bunch of weight and kind of like, it's kind of funny. It's like that classic story where like literally one day I was just like, I need to make a change.

3:47You know, I had like talk to a doctor and he's like, yeah, you're like pre hypertensive. I'm in my twenties, you know, early twenties. And then he's like, you have, you know, borderline high blood pressure. Your blood sugar isn't good. Um, your lipid panel isn't good. Like you're not healthy, dude. Like you need to do something. So, um, right around that same time, I met a guy who, who kind of like was like, Hey man, like, let's, you know, I can like, You should get to, you should come with me to the gym. I'm like, okay, cool. So I'm in school for automotive high performance technology. I went to school.

4:21I did that thing that they say, like, um, at least in my generation, it was constantly, you know, do what you love and you'll never work a day of your life. And, uh, I think that's bullshit. I think you should do what you're good at actually. And then don't turn the thing that you love into your job because you might end up hating it. And so for a very long time, after I had graduated and I went into motorsports, like I didn't enjoy it anymore. I quickly realized like, Hey, I turned my hobby into a job and I didn't really like the job. So I had that attachment to it. So I went back to school for business.

5:00And during that transitional period where I went back to school, um, I had gotten what we call on the path. Like I started like dieting, I started exercising, working out and doing everything I needed to do. That pivotal moment is what sent me on the path that I'm on today. And that's really where like my story begins. So having said that, I, I'm like, I've always been good in, I always like excelled in the sciences. Like I was always good at, you know, AP and biology and things. So when I was like font finding my nutrition and health path, I was like a nerd. So I would like get done all my coursework for school.

5:45And then I would come home and like be up all night reading clinical literature on like different adaptogens and like different, like all kinds of different stuff, just wormholes of stuff and just like building this database. and I graduated from business school having no intent to use it for anything and I had a job lined up in a financial company it was like an accelerated program and I got the rug pull like last minute so I was one of the first in my class to get a job lined up and then literally a couple days after graduation I got I got the call that I wasn't starting that week so I was like oh wonderful um so I felt back on some odd jobs and stuff what I knew I needed to find my way and that's when I just jumped in and um my former business partner at the time we opened up a supplement store I was like man if there's something I know through this path that I've been on where at that time I was like you know I had gone into jiu-jitsu I was doing fitness I was teaching classes I was doing all this stuff I was like like I can sell supplements like everybody comes to me I ended up being that guy where like everybody comes to you for like diet, health, and wellness, you know, everybody's got an issue or something they're trying to solve.

6:57And you end up being that person. I was like, well, why not turn this into a business? So I created a, uh, independent supplement store. It was successful. I ran that for a few years. And then I ended up partnering with Pete Roberts, uh, the founder of origin. and I moved back to the state of Maine and we founded what is now Jocko Fuel. It was a different company, but it's a year later, it turned into Jocko Fuel. So long story short, yeah, that's, that's kind of how I ended up in this position. And what fascinates you about the science of health? Like you said that, you know, you just come back after, yeah, late nine, just read all these studies.

7:38Like, what is it about that? I think it's about leverage. I have always been drawn to things with like leverage. Uh, also you can think of it as like a force multiplier. So I was drawn to motorsports, um, the high performance side of things. So I was really drawn to like the idea that you can use technology to like, let's say create horsepower or faster car. I got into jujitsu because I realized like you could be, you didn't have to be a big individual or a fast individual or a gifted individual. Like it was all about technique and using literal leverage. And that's the same thing with health and wellness and nutrition.

8:18Like you can be on the, like what we call the path. Like you can, you can be eating healthy and you can be going to the gym. And those are the foundations. Like if you want to be healthy and you want to get fit and you want to like feel good, that's what you should do. Like you should get sleep. You should go to the gym. You should get some sort of physical activity in and you should eat right. but there's a force multiplier and that is where I fell in love with it and fell in love with the science of being able to apply it which is nutraceuticals everything from ergogenic compounds like they can help with athletic performance to nootropic compounds that can help with cognitive performance so I just fell in love with the idea that you can leverage these tools to have a better or more robust outcome.

9:05And what motivated you to kind of work with Pete from origin and move back to Maine? Like how, how did, how exactly did that come about? Yeah. It's, you know, it's, it's, um, I think like a lot of entrepreneurs, like I am in that same category where if I get hyper-focused in something, like I'm like, it's like, uh, all in just an all in mindset. and at the time I was all in on on jiu-jitsu like I was like the idea of Brazilian jiu-jitsu and like everything to do with it so I was actually living in Ohio where I had my store and I went back to Maine to visit family and I was like I need to find a place to train and so I found this place to go and I walk in and there's looms, uh, actually one loom and a couple of sewing machines.

10:02And I'm like, this, this is like a micro factory in the middle of the woods in Maine in a town of like 700 people. You know, it's, it was pretty, it was pretty wild. And if you've never seen a loom before, there are like 4 ,000 individual pieces moving up and down in synchrony. It just doesn't make sense. So I was pretty blown away at that idea that this guy was resurrecting manufacturing here in the United States for, for Brazilian jujitsu. So, um, I was passionate about both things. I'm a Patriot. I love, I love, uh, I love America and I love the idea of bringing jobs back to America. And like those two things together, I was like, man, this is, this is win-win.

10:42I want to help this dude out. So, um, that's what I decided to do. And then how did your first collaboration with Jocko come about? Like, how'd you, how'd you, yeah how'd you guys bring that to life and what was your first impression of him too it's kind of funny it's a funny story um uh a lovely woman by the name of sarah armstrong reached out to us and she was like trying to get a hold of us and when she got a hold of um pete actually she's like hey dude like this guy jocko willing he's trying to get a hold of you and you should answer because it's a big deal and and we're just like these dudes in the main woods trying to resurrect manufacturing and you know head down like not thinking any of anything we didn't have a customer service department at the time you know like there was literally seven of us you know total so it was um very very early stage and i remember pete responds to them and they jump on like a four hour mic mic we this the micro factory in the woods of maine was so small that we had to move pete and i's office to the downtown like five minutes away because we needed more manufacturing space in this little building like we literally had grown out of it so we got like kicked out and we're downtown farmington maine and we're like renting this space out and i just remember Pete gets on this zoom call with Jocko and it's like ends up going like four hours long.

12:18And it was like the most hilarious thing to listen to because they're totally opposite people, like totally opposite people, but they're a lot alike because when you come up through like jujitsu and you get to like the, I don't know how to explain it. Like there's a, there's a weird unity i guess you could say of like this energy that was there and you know kind of we all had it and um when it just when it hit it hit it just like it hit and they uh it was like you know like they say a match made in heaven and then when jocko came on he originally came on to be part of origin and he didn't know that pete and i were doing this thing on the side uh we had we had started a supplement side of the business called origin labs at the time and it was small and we were just grinding and he was like i i didn't know you guys were doing supplements i wanted i actually would like to do them but i didn't he's like i because jock was taking like everything.

13:33Like back in the day when, you know, he was in the SEAL teams, like those guys would do everything they can. Again, I go back to that leverage, you know, the force multiplier, like what can they do? They're already at the highest level, the highest, like what can they do to get that extra edge? And, you know, so he was taking, you know, different supplements, he was trying different things. And, um, when that consumer report came out that showed muscle milk had a bunch of heavy metals in it he had the stuff all through his house like he he like everybody in his family were consuming it and so you know his kids are consuming the stuff as heavy metals in it so he's like he's really burned by it you know and rightfully so so he had that you know stuck with him and when we sat down he's like can this be done he's like i want to do supplements he's like but i want to do them i want to do them right i was like as long as we're able to put the people before profits that's it like it'll still be profitable it'll still be a successful business but we err on the side of people always and we never compromise and as long as you're good with that which obviously we all are Pete, Jocko and I um it was just such alignment that we were like cool let's go and that's how it started and you talk about uh this energy across the three of you yourself jocko pete i'd love to explore that a little more because a lot of people get into business partnerships and they never work right and there's a multitude of reasons why but there has to be this blind faith and trust and yeah i'm curious like can we explore that energy piece a bit more on that that kind of how you guys just knew there was the alignment in values so there's like this alignment and like we both we all believe and at the time it was like all encompassing because you gotta remember it was so small like origin and and the idea of jocko fuel which was origin labs was was all one so it was like you know zero compromise all american made you know health and wellness being better living better every day doing it through jujitsu and combat sports.

15:48Um, we're all black belts now. Like we, which you come up through jujitsu, you kind of like, it's part of a culture. There's like this, this trust thing. And you, you, it's a, it's a bit of a brotherhood really is what is what it is. And there's something to be said about that. And Pete's made the joke. He's, he's said it before. And, um, we have other partners, respect he's made the joke i only uh i only do business with black belts and there's a reason for that there's a you get to a point where when you go through the filter we call it the filter in jiu-jitsu um where it's removed all ego like you you it doesn't matter how big or strong you are how like if you can do you know iron mans and things like that like all that goes out the door You could be a D1 wrestler.

16:43It doesn't matter. It goes out the door. The moment that you put the gi on, you tie that belt and you get on the mats with people that have been training. It could be a 16-year-old kid that's been training since he was like eight. He's going to get around your back and he's going to choke you the hell out. And when that happens, because it's real grappling, when he does that, you either have a decision to make. You're either like, okay, I'm cool with this. This is the best thing ever. I thought I was tough. I had no idea. Or you're like, my ego can't handle this you leave and never come back and that's the filter and when you get through that filter where you go from being absolutely terrible at this thing like most things that we have to learn in life or things that we want to master you're gonna suck at when you start so as you come through it it really defines you as a person and I think that was a major major part of it.

17:36There was the fact that, you know, Jocko is obviously what I consider is like an American war hero. Like we're trying to do what we can on the civilian front to bring jobs back to America with zero compromise. There's just like this energy and alignment there. So we were all aligned in like values. We were aligned in like the mission. We all had the ability to like check our egos when needed. And that was super important. So that's, that's what I could say about it. And there was also on the Jocko Fuel side of things, after the companies started going in their own direction, we had like three roles.

18:19Like Jocko was the face, he was the megaphone, he was the vision of it. Pete was able to craft this, the beautiful artwork, run the media, do the things that needed to be done and then i built the products created the products talked about the products and and and landed on the science side of things so um it was like a trifecta and uh you guys have gone through incredible growth uh in that time period um i want to talk about that growth because uh a lot of people would want to understand how to how to rapidly grow and scale supplements business it's a very very competitive market um but first of all i'm keen to understand why you guys made the call to tie it in with jocko's personal brand and and how do you lead a business that's tied to his personal brand or a personal brand so we actually it was kind of it was interesting we had a decision to make and i remember the the conversation pretty vividly where we we either stayed origin branded origin labs at the time or we pivot to to jaco fuel jaco brandon and you know i had a bunch of mentors and you know and and um you know a lot of the same of of pete's at the time because we were very aligned like i said we're in this little small community and we were talking to people and we just had to like i had to kind of see it to believe it and and understand why we would want to do that and we we discussed it and we're we're because you know you had people in one corner saying like hey you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket don't don't name the brand after the person like what if what if what if there were so many people saying what if right what if this happens what if that happens and um Um, you know, and, and there's pressure for me on my side of things being like in charge of all at the time I was in charge of all operations.

20:24So like it was, it wasn't just like the company needs to perform. I'm also developing the product, handling all the quality, handling the compliance. So I have this legend who is highly respected in America and around the world for that matter. and like I have like all it takes is like one bad batch of product going out and like basically tarnishing his name so extra pressure right there is is you know it mounts so there's a lot of things to factor in when we made that decision we ultimately moved forward with it because we realized that the best way to the best way to grow or build in my opinion a consumer brand with something that someone's especially something that someone's going to ingest and consume you have to have trust like you have to have trust and like people might trust your brand but if they already trust a person then you're already ahead of the game like you're you're already ahead and Jocko's entire career was built on trust.

21:34He built the trust of his, his, his teammates, and then everybody that he led as a commander. And then, you know, being a, um, uh, leading the West coast seal team training operations, and then coming out and becoming a fortune 500 company leadership trainer, like people trusted what he was doing and saying and how he was going to take care of people. And so we knew that that was ultra powerful. And that's one of the big reasons why we moved forward with that. But you could have just made him the ambassador and the face of the business and still keep, yeah, name, origin. We could have. And a lot of people would have said that that would have been the safer thing to do.

22:24it would be to say okay just keep it origin but make him the face make him the face and but there's so many like we don't like to call jocko like an influencer because he's he's like he moves the needle differently and and i can give you some early some of the early days data points that we use to make this decision and one of them is like for instance like we're surrounded with you know i wait we have some people in our network you know five million five million followers 10 million followers they'll make a post you know maybe you'll see a little bump you know what i mean and sometimes you get a micro influencer who has like you know a devote following and 50 000 followers and you get a you know they'll make a post especially in the early days they make a post you're like wow that actually that actually did something, you know, follower count like has, has nothing to do with it.

23:22It's about what people are driven to do. Like who, what is actually going to make them move and be motivated? And it was back in the, around the time where we were making this decision, Jocko was up in Maine visiting. This is one particular story. He's up in Maine visiting and it's like the late afternoon. and he's like, I'm going to put a, like, we had time to kill, like something happened or whatever. We're, we're all sitting around in the office and we had a bunch of extra, uh, of his extra books that he had shipped up. Uh, I believe it was only the, I think it was like just the extreme ownership book.

24:00We had a bunch of books there and he's like, I'm just going to put it, put something out on Twitter. He's like, I'm going to put out a tweet, like, Hey, I'm going to do a book signing until nine o 'clock here in Farmington and see if there's any locals that want to come by. And I'm thinking to myself, like, dude, we're in the middle of the main, like there's like, we're in a town of like a couple thousand people. I don't know how many people know who you are that also happen to be checking Twitter that also have, you know what I mean? I'm like, maybe we'll get some, you know, enthusiasts that are going to like come from like Portland, Maine or something and they'll try and make it here.

24:32And he puts it out and like 20 minutes later, there's a line out the door. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, where are these people coming from? Like, this doesn't, okay. This is back in 2017 where, you know, Now, his social equity has probably quadrupled since then. So a couple hours later, we have people just coming into the offices. And then the phones start ringing. We start answering it. And there's people from, like, eastern Pennsylvania, upstate New York, New Jersey. They're like, I'm only, like, six hours away. Do you think he'll still be there at, like, midnight? will he still be signing books they're driving they're on the way like driving six hours so they get a chance to meet him and get their book signed i'm like this is crazy like this this that's not that's not normal influencership that's not normal like um i'm from the bachelor you know and I'm going to like do a signing and you know what I mean?

25:41Like, it's just, sorry if someone's been on the bachelor, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but there's a different level. And what I go back to is like, it's because he's not a comedian. He's not a, he's not a goofy dude. You know what I mean? He's, he's, he's a serious dude with a serious reputation and serious career built on trust and respect and just hard work and people just love the shit out of that and they they want to be a part of it and that was one of the early things where we we got a lot of comfort in like you know what i think it might make sense to make this dude not just the face of the brand but this is his brand and and we're just we're just a part of it you said there was a couple of signals What was the other one?

26:31Because this is gold. This is really interesting. Okay. I was in Long Island with Pete and Jocko invited us over to, oh boy, what were we doing? We were, okay, I remember. So we were down there and we actually were originally in Manhattan. We had shipped a bunch of his books down there. He had a new book coming out. We shipped a bunch of books there and we were going to go meet him at the hotel and he was going to sign them. and we were going to take them with us because we were running a promo. We were actually going to like, I think we were running a sale on something. Everybody was going to get a free book, something like that.

27:09He also had an event going on where he was doing a book signing and then he was going to be addressing an auditorium. So he goes from, I get to see him go from a book signing where people are just emphatical and he engages and talks to and shows like, Like, I mean, he's truly engaging as a human with every single one of these individuals. It's not just like this passive, like, hey, thanks. You know, like he's truly like he gives a shit and he's like remembering people. I'm like, OK, like. This is one of my first interactions with him. And and I'm like, all right, so. I'm just kind of soaking it all up and P and I are like, we're just standing off to the side.

27:56Just watching it. then he goes he does this like all night long then he goes and he he has an event at this auditorium where he's gonna address an auditorium full of kids because you know like jaco doesn't do it all he has a a a successful number of children's books about growing up with self-respect and and and embracing hard work and, and everything called warrior kid. So the head of the school district had asked him to come in because he was going to be in the area and address the kids and they have a crowd of kids. And he goes through the door and I'm telling you, it was like a switch. And he goes from like being the Navy seal, like leadership coach for fortune 500 companies to I'm going to captivate and make a group of a couple hundred school kids laugh their asses off for an hour long in an instant.

28:59And I was like, yeah, I'm sold. This guy has talents like it's incredible. And the way he can captivate people, it doesn't matter if they're 8 or 80. the way he can captivate them, connect with them authentically. That's the other thing. It's like a hundred percent authentic. He loved engaging with every single one of those kids that I was like, this is it. It doesn't make any sense to do anything else. Like this, it's, it's his brand. This is him. Um, yeah. So that was one of the other instances for me, at least where I was like, okay, I'm all in. Like this makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, I get it.

29:45Thank you for sharing. So love to talk about the growth, rapid growth. Obviously a big part of, you know, of that has been the strategy behind personal brand piece, branding it around Jocko, incredible product. But talk us through like how have you kind of set up the business as well for rapid growth and how you've kind of fueled that as well. I mean, in the early days, we didn't even realize how rapid the growth was going to be, to be honest. You know, like I said, it was it was all one thing. So it grew. You know, Pete and I for a year ran this little, you know, version of the company as Origin Labs.

30:30And we were running it out of an office suite in downtown and like taking, you know, like the day's orders and we'd take turns packing boxes and take them, taking them to the office. you know what I mean it was it was cute it was really what it was you know like we were grinding it was it was hard work but it was cute in comparison and we it was part of the story it was part of you know our history but when we launched with one product with Jocko because that's what he wanted he didn't he didn't want to do a line of products he's like I want to launch the products that I want to take like and we're going to do it one at a time to start and this is how it's going to be we were like cool like let's let's do it we're into it and when we launched it was just like it went richter and like we were just like selling out and selling out and selling out and you know just shipping like crazy and trying to keep up next thing you know i remember the one of the craziest parts in the beginning was when we we started off with small products we started off with krill oil so you could fit a lot of units of krill oil on a pallet okay you can fit i think it's like 5 000 units of krill oil on a pallet on a pretty small pallet too not like a monstrosity but you can only fit a couple hundred units of protein on a pallet so we're all in one factory in downtown farmington so we had sewing machine like on the origins front we had sewing machine cell so it'd be like sewing machine sewing machine like these little cells pallets of protein sewing machines pallets of protein we just had them stuffed everywhere because we didn't have anywhere to put the product.

32:07We had nowhere. And we were just like trying to get it off the floor. The stitchers were like, you got to get this shit out of here. Like I'm trying to make stuff. It was pretty crazy. And we were just like, just doing anything we could, putting stuff everywhere we could just to try and keep up. And, you know, and that's when we bought our first facility and we moved out of that one. We bought Jocko Fuel, its own facility, which was about 20 ,000 square feet, had a couple thousand square feet of office space and, you know, in a warehouse. And then boom, that started. That's when the companies really started to separate.

32:44I went full time on the Jocko Fuel side of things. I went over there in an office. I'm the only one. So we have a warehouse now. I'm the only one in this office, the only one at the time. And then it was just one by one, boom, adding people, adding people, adding people and filling them in as we as we grew yeah talk to me about um marketing health supplements because that can be tricky uh you know effectively advertising without getting penalized what are some of the things that you guys have done there to be able to overcome that or make it work from from an efficacy side of things like i know what you can and can't say for the most part now you you have to like you certainly have to wordsmith some of the claims and some of those things sometimes, especially here in the United States, because it's not regulated at the same level as the FDA.

33:35It is still regulated by the FDA. A lot of people don't think that, but it is not regulated, obviously, like a pharmaceutical drug where it has to go through multiple stages of clinical trials on the finished product. But it's a weird balancing act you have to play. And so in the early days, you know, we, I would say, didn't like, we didn't, thankfully, we didn't like make any huge mistakes on the claims side of things. We really played it safe. Didn't like claim that this was, this and this was going to cure cancer or diabetes or anything like that. Like that's, you know, like so many companies get in trouble because they take, you know, one particular ingredient in the product and they say, oh, well, there's a clinical study that shows that this, you know, helps with blood sugar.

34:27So I'm going to tell people it cures diabetes. I'm like, yeah, that's that's not going to end well for you. That's that's not going to be good. So we just kind of, you know, played it safe. And then we got to a point where we're big enough where we brought in one of the top, you know, FDA counseling legal firms. And now we have them vet every single one of our packages before it goes to market. And they call you the mad scientist of Jocko Fuel. How'd you get that title? I take the science and obviously I don't have a classic like science degree. I don't have a classic, you know, bio or chem degree.

35:08Like I just don't. And I think some somewhat that's helped me. I'm like a good conduit between, you know, the general consumer and, you know, someone who's a doctor or, you know, someone who's in on the ingredient science side of things like a chemist. So I take an approach of using only ingredients that actually have clinical literature to support their use for that particular need state and then find ways that they can leverage each other to accomplish a particular goal. And we were able to do that on a number of our products where people were like, wow, like these work better than the other ones in these categories.