In short
The Absorption Company’s mission to fix supplement ineffectiveness by engineering for bioavailability/absorption, and how celebrity co-founders Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed are used as amplifiers without turning the brand into a celebrity brand.
Guest backgrounds
Sieg Bronfman is co-founder of The Absorption Company; he previously co-founded a “better for you” zero-sugar, all-natural canned cocktail brand with Nate, scaled it, and sold it in 2022.
Key claims
Traditional supplements lose nutrients due to gut degradation, small-intestine particle-size limits, and first-pass liver metabolism; he cites “85–90%” peed out and “<10%” absorption for their “worst offender” targets. They claim pharmaceutical-derived delivery tech (e.g., liposomes) and clinical-study-backed improvements (e.g., berberine 6.3x, magnesium 8x, CoQ10 10x).
Notable examples
Calm (non-drowsy) and foundational capsules (berberine, CoQ10, curcumin, vitamin D, magnesium); D2C/subscription focus; partnerships/retail mentions include Erewhon, Happier Grocery, Remedy Place, Sun Life Organics.
Guests
Sieg Bronfman; Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed are co-founders discussed (not interviewed).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOBackground of The Absorption Company
0:45 to 3:19
Sieg Bronfman shares his journey and experiences leading to the creation of the company.
“co-founders while letting the product and brand speak for itself, why Sieg focuses on D2C over retail, and what is next for the company as its skills.”
The Problem with Traditional Supplements
3:19 to 5:46
Discussion on why many supplements are ineffective and the importance of bioavailability.
“And I think that's definitely the right positioning.”
Innovative Solutions for Nutrient Absorption
5:46 to 7:46
Insight into how The Absorption Company improves nutrient absorption through advanced technology.
“And what is the specific reason that they only get absorbed for like 16%, these traditional supplements?”
Intellectual Property and Brand Positioning
7:46 to 9:35
Exploration of the unique IP and brand strategy of The Absorption Company.
“Because like I read some statistics on your website and you talk about traditional supplements only get absorbed for like 16 % and your supplements are actually eight times more efficient.”
The Partnership with Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed
9:35 to 12:20
Sieg shares the organic partnership story with celebrity co-founders and their shared vision.
“So how did that partnership all came about?”
Leveraging Celebrity Influence without Dependency
12:20 to 14:01
Discussion on how celebrity co-founders are used to enhance brand trust and awareness.
“Ian and Nikki are amazing amplifiers of that message.”
Leveraging Celebrity Partnerships
14:01 to 15:00
Learn how Ian Somerhalder and Nikki Reed enhance brand visibility and partnerships.
“that build credibility, build trust, doctors, dieticians, nutritionists.”
The Hidden Superpowers of Celebrity Co-Founders
15:01 to 16:14
Discover the unique advantages celebrities bring beyond mere visibility.
“And so there are a lot of ways we leverage them.”
Celebrities as Entrepreneurs
16:15 to 18:11
Explore the entrepreneurial aspects of Ian and Nikki's involvement in the business.
“Do you think it also helps that they are entrepreneurs themselves?”
The Absorption Company's Product Lineup
18:12 to 22:07
Get insights into the core supplements offered by The Absorption Company.
“That's why a lot of celebrities are drawn to beverage alcohol.”
Show all 16 chapters
Future Plans and Innovations
22:08 to 24:10
Learn about upcoming products and the company's vision for the future.
“Long term, we believe that you should be able to replace every supplement in your stack with a form that absorbs really well from the absorption company.”
Direct-to-Consumer Strategy
24:11 to 25:39
Understand the rationale behind focusing on a D2C model over retail.
“many celebrity founder brands already on day one, they are getting like this nationwide retail placement in retailers like a Walmart or Target or whatsoever.”
Common Mistakes of Celebrity Brands
25:40 to 28:02
Identify pitfalls that celebrity-founded brands often encounter.
“And this is nothing what the current product look like.”
The Role of Celebrity in Brand Growth
28:02 to 28:56
Explore how celebrity endorsements can amplify brand growth while maintaining independence.
“link, you're not going to drive more than if you drive even 10$20 ,000 of sales, like that's a really, really good influencer post.”
Investors' Evolving Perception of Celebrity Brands
28:57 to 30:25
Learn about the changing mindset of investors regarding celebrity-backed businesses.
“exciting also about your own social community that you guys have built.”
Innovations and Future Plans for The Absorption Company
30:26 to 31:26
Discover the upcoming products and innovations aimed at addressing supplement absorption.
“Last question from my end, what is next for the absorption company?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Zeke Bronfman:The absorption company is not a celebrity brand. And I think that is really, really important. That is something all four of us are very aligned on and that the only celebrity at the absorption company is bioavailability and absorption. That is our core message. That is what we want to hammer home again and again and again. And that's the first thing we want the consumers to think about when they think about the absorption company.
0:17Nikki Reed:Ian and Nikki are amazing amplifiers of that message and they're co-founders of the business and partners, not because they're celebrities, but because they have a shared mission and a shared goal to go and build the most bioavailable and most absorbable supplements on the planet.
0:28Ian Somerhalder:Welcome to the Hot Start VC podcast, the show where we break down how celebrities and creators build billion-dollar brands. Today, I'm joined by Sieg Bronfman, the co-founder of The Absorption Company, a supplement brand he co-founded alongside actors Nikki Reed and Ian Somerhalder. We dive into the science behind The Absorption Company, the strategy of working with celebrity co-founders while letting the product and brand speak for itself, why Sieg focuses on D2C over retail, and what is next for the company as its skills. So without further ado, let's get into the conversation. Seek, thank you so much for being here.
1:01Zeke Bronfman:Thank you so much for having me. Excited to be on the show.
1:03Ian Somerhalder:Perfect. Well, before we talk about the absorption company, I actually want to talk about your background and career leading up to this. Can you elaborate on that?
1:10Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, absolutely. So my co-founder, Nate and I, it's actually the second business that we created together. We met when we were 19 years old, a freshman in college, and we built what at the time was the first Better For You canned cocktail brand together. My co-founder, Nate, is a type one diabetic. And so everything he's always done in his life has been very focused
1:27Nikki Reed:on health and wellness. And he could never have the high sugar, high calorie, high carb cocktails that everyone else seemed to be having when we were in college.
1:34Zeke Bronfman:And at the time, there were no alternatives with zero sugar, all natural ingredients. So we just started mixing delicious, better for you options for the two of us. And before we knew it, we were making this for 50, 60 friends each weekend realized we might be onto something there and ultimately launched what at the time was really that first pre-White Claw zero sugar, all natural ingredient canned cocktail alternative. Scaled that over several years and then sold that in 2022 to a larger beverage alcohol company. And that was really the foundation for our experience within the CPG industry. And after selling that, Nate and I were really thinking about what we wanted to do next.
2:06Zeke Bronfman:Taking sugar out of alcohol is great, but we both knew that we ultimately wanted to be more in the health and wellness world. And so that led us ultimately to where we are today, building the absorption company. And I can go into a little bit more of the backstory there and how we came to it. But that's our background and sort of how we got to where we are today.
2:23Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, perfect. And before we do that, I'm actually curious with that cocktail company, Did you already also work with like celebrity or creators and was even onboarding like a celebrity or creator co-founder? Any thought that you guys had for that company?
2:35Zeke Bronfman:No, it wasn't. And honestly, I'll tell you the story in a minute on the absorption company as well, but it wasn't a thought for this one either. As we got partially maybe a year and a half, two years into building our previous business, there were moments where we thought about entertaining the conversation and we spoke to a couple of different potential partners. We just didn't feel anyone was really the right fit in that journey. and as we were thinking about building the absorption company, it never crossed our mind to build a celebrity brand. And I would say that as of today, we definitely do not consider ourselves a celebrity brand either.
3:04Zeke Bronfman:And Ian and Nick, you'd be the first ones to say that. Our celebrity is absorption and bioavailability. And Ian and Nick are amazing amplifiers of that message. But more than that, there are partners and co-founders who just happen to be famous rather than being famous people who are partners and co-founders because of their celebrity.
3:21Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, I love that. And I think that's definitely the right positioning. And I think we're going to see that a lot more in the future. But before we talk about those strategies, the celebrity strategy, and maybe tap into what is the absorption company and what is also the founding story behind it?
3:35Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, absolutely. So as I said, Nate and I met when we were in college and we built a Better For You beverage brand, sold that in 2022. And after selling that business, Nate and I were thinking about what we want to do next. Nate's a type one diabetic. He's been taking 15, 20 supplements a day as long as I've known him. He got me on four or five of the ones he recommended the most. I definitely was not taking the full regimen, but I was doing my best. And after several months, both Nate and I were feeling incredibly frustrated that we were taking all these pills every day. We were spending all this money every month on all these supplements, but we weren't noticing any benefits and we really weren't feeling any different at all.
4:09Zeke Bronfman:And we couldn't understand why. And so we started asking all these different doctors, we started doing all this research. And very quickly, what we learned was that the reason
4:16Nikki Reed:we weren't feeling any benefits from these supplements we were taking was actually because the supplements themselves weren't bioavailable enough for the nutrients to actually be absorbed by our bodies. And so we were quite literally peeing out 85, 90 plus percent of the nutrients that we were putting into our body.
4:31Zeke Bronfman:And no wonder we weren't feeling any better. And so we started to do some more research and we learned that this wasn't just a problem that was affecting the two of us. In fact, 77 % of Americans take supplements every single day,
4:42Nikki Reed:but over 98 % of us are still deficient in at least one key nutrient. And when you step back and ask how that is even possible, how is it possible that virtually all Americans take supplements and virtually every single one of us is still nutrient deficient? And the only reason that's possible is because the supplements we are all taking every day don't absorb well enough to actually do what they're supposed to do.
5:04Zeke Bronfman:We built the absorption company to singularly focus on solving that problem, to be the platform that owns bioavailability and absorption. And we believe that absorption is really the one thing that affects all others. You know, no matter how impactful magnesium could be, no matter how impactful vitamin D or vitamin C could be, it only works if it absorbs.
5:23Nikki Reed:And so we are building the leading platform in supplement bioavailability and absorption. And our goal is not just to build the leading platform and brand, but also to change the entire industry so that every brand in the future has to have bioavailability studies done, has to communicate about their absorption to the consumer as a baseline within the supplement industry. Just as we've seen third-party testing and ingredient transparency become a baseline over the last 10, 15 years, thanks to brands like Thorne and Ritual, who really helped set a new standard in the industry. Yeah.
5:51Ian Somerhalder:And what is the specific reason that they only get absorbed for like 16%, these traditional supplements?
5:56Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, it's a really good question. Most supplements have three real problems with absorption. The first problem is that after you take the supplement, your gut is a really harsh environment that degrades a huge portion of that active nutrient.
6:08Nikki Reed:Whatever survives that portion then goes into the small intestine for absorption, where problem number two comes up. Problem number two is that the particle size is often too large for very much of it to be absorbed. If you think about your small intestine, basically like a sieve, it only absorbs the smallest particles. And so very little of the nutrient actually gets absorbed into the small intestine. And then the third step is what's called first-pass metabolism. Essentially, your liver filters out most of that remaining nutrient. And after these three different interventions, very, very little of the nutrient actually ends up getting absorbed into your bloodstream to be used.
6:41Nikki Reed:And so how do we solve that problem at the absorption company?
6:43Zeke Bronfman:We look at each nutrient, we try to understand where is there a absorption problem? Is it in step one? Is it in step two? Is it in step three?
6:52Nikki Reed:Is it all three of those steps? And then we work with the best ingredient suppliers and technology partners around the world in order to find the best bioavailability solutions to those problems. And the vast majority of our solutions, the vast majority of the technologies we use in our products are directly taken from pharmaceutical applications and brought into the supplement industry. And if you look at liposomes as an example, liposomes were a technology that were invented in the 1960s and 70s for pharmaceutical drug delivery. It wasn't until the 2010s that they became commonplace within the supplement industry in the BMS space.
7:23Nikki Reed:Our goal as the absorption company is to make that time lapse between pharmaceutical drug delivery invention and use in the supplement industry much, much, much faster than it has been in the past. And so every one of the delivery systems that we use in our products to make them more absorbable and more bioavailable comes from a pharmaceutical application and is often the basis for how we were able to improve bioavailability and absorption.
7:47Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, it's so interesting, right? Because like I read some statistics on your website and you talk about traditional supplements only get absorbed for like 16 % and your supplements are actually eight times more efficient. So it's like so interesting that no one actually thought about these problems before. Do you also have any IP around like the formulations or technology?
8:07Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, so as we said, we work with dozens of different suppliers across the world. And with various different ones of our suppliers,
8:12Nikki Reed:we do have exclusivities over the ingredients that we're using. I think that our IP lies there, but also in two other places. So number one is the name, the absorption company, which we have a trademark on. I think a huge part of building IP within the consumer landscape is brand IP and building a brand mode. And so for us being the leaders, the category leaders in absorption and bioavailability is really the IP that we are trying to build. And I think Thorne is a comp that we use a lot because we really look up to what they built within the third-party testing and ingredient transparency landscape.
8:42Nikki Reed:And there's no IP around the third-party testing labs they use, right? Like every other brand uses the same third-party testing labs. Their IP lies in the fact that they are the category leader in third-party testing ingredient transparency. And every consumer knows that they trust Thorne for that. And so our mission is to have that same level of trust, that same level of consumer awareness within that bioavailability and absorption space and to be the category defining brand in that space. Having the additional IP and exclusivity that we have, that's awesome. That helps us when we ultimately, you know, are talking to investors and stuff.
9:14Nikki Reed:But that's not what the consumer cares about. The consumer cares about, is this a brand I can trust to do what it says? And that's our mission is to be the trusted brand in absorption and bioavailability.
9:22Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, super interesting. And yeah, you already talked a little bit about it, but you co-founded the company alongside actors, Nicky Reed and Ian Somerhalder, known for their roles in hit series like Twilight Saga or even Vampire Diaries. So how did that partnership all came about?
9:39Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, so it's a really, really great story. It's a very organic partnership. Nate and I, when we were thinking about building this brand, never imagined that we would bring on a celebrity co-founder. We didn't go to WME or CAA and say, hey, like, who can we attach to this? And vice versa. I don't think when Ian and Nicky were envisioning this brand they ever thought of you know co-founding it with two cpg uh previously exited founders like us and we were introduced through a mutual friend um early in the the days of us uh kind of building this product and ian and nikki had been working on their own supplement business at the time and they have an incredibly interesting backstory in the supplement space where ian has been kind of biohacking before biohacking was cool to stay in optimal shape as
10:20Nikki Reed:He's worked like 18 hour days on set and traveled around the world. And Nikki has been incredibly passionate about health and wellness for her whole life. And so both of them were taking tons of supplements. And when they went to their first kid, they got a bunch of blood work done. And the blood work showed that not only were the supplements often not effective, they were actually causing a huge amount of harm. And they had lead and cadmium and other toxins built up in their systems. And that was partially because they were unable to absorb many of these supplements.
10:45Zeke Bronfman:And as a result, it really had adverse effects from them. And so they stopped taking all those supplements and set out on a mission to build their own supplement brand. And it was somewhere along this journey where we were introduced to them. We separately had become obsessed with this idea of improving absorption bioavailability.
11:00Nikki Reed:We sort of all got on a call casually thinking we would just chat and exchange some advice and kind of leave it at that. What was meant to be a 30-minute call turned into a three-hour call. And we all realized that we had the same vision and we should just go and build this together.
11:12Zeke Bronfman:And so we've been working as four co-founders, Ian, Nikki, Nate, and myself, since pre-product, pre-launch. and it's a really really exciting group and dynamic group that all bring different things to the table and we're super lucky to have them yeah did you have any idea who they were before you actually jumped on that call honestly no i had no idea but i was told that they were massive and people were obsessed with them and to say that that is true is the understatement of the century i often use a comp that you know if you walked into a restaurant with matt damon i think everyone there would probably recognize him but no one would get up and say hi or really like note it that much or care that much.
11:49Zeke Bronfman:If you walk into a restaurant with Ian, maybe only half the people there instead of 100 % are going to know who he is, but those half are going to be obsessed with him and they will all want to go up to him. They'll all do whatever he says. And so that's a really, really powerful thing. As I said earlier, though, the absorption company is not a celebrity brand. And I think that is really, really important. That is something all four of us are very aligned on and that the only celebrity at the absorption company is bioavailability and absorption. That is our core message. That is what we want to hammer home again and again and again.
12:16Zeke Bronfman:And that's the first thing we want the consumers to think about when they think about the absorption company. Ian and Nikki are amazing amplifiers of that message.
Read the full transcript
12:22Nikki Reed:And they're co-founders of the business and partners, not because they're celebrities, but because they have a shared mission and a shared goal to go and build the most bioavailable and most absorbable supplements on the planet.
12:32Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, no, I love that. And I definitely resonate with that because, and I think it's actually a good thing that you had no idea who they were because you weren't a fan of Vampire Diaries or whatsoever. And you see oftentimes that people treat celebrities differently if they are fans of the show whatsoever. I think that's also why I have been somewhat successful in the space is because I'm Dutch and I haven't been growing up with a lot of these celebrities. So sometimes I jump on calls with people and they have more followers than the Netherlands actually have citizens, but I still have no idea who they are, you know?
13:01Ian Somerhalder:So you treat them as normal people instead of having this weird celebrity obsession or whatsoever. Yeah, you already talked about the positioning of the brand where you didn't want to position that as a celebrity brand. And I really like that because I always say that the best celebrity brands are always supported by a celebrity, but never depended on. And it has to do with that the celebrity might help sell the first product, but the quality of the product is going to determine if people are going to buy a second, third, or fourth time. And that's actually where you're real business on that repeat purchase rate.
13:30Ian Somerhalder:So if they're not like front and center on the marketing, so that's actually something that I also really like is like they're not on your website, they're not on your branding or your packaging. How are you still leveraging their personas and platforms to scale the company?
13:44Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, it's a great question. And I'll add that supplements are different than selling alcohol.
13:49Nikki Reed:They're different than selling candy, right? Like the consumer has to trust the products that they're putting into their body. And there's a very high bar for that.
13:56Zeke Bronfman:And so the people that we do want to be front and center, the face of the brand are people that build credibility, build trust, doctors, dieticians, nutritionists. And so the way that we leverage Ian and Nikki is different than we probably would if we were selling a candy or if we were selling a alcohol brand or something like that.
14:14Nikki Reed:And the ways that we've seen them be incredibly impactful is, number one, their ad content performed incredibly well. It has much lower tax and is able to scale much better within Meta than a lot of our other ads. And so really consistently our top performing ad units are featuring Ian and Nikki. Number two is podcasts. and Ian and Nikki are able to go on some of the top podcasts in the world that often charge other brands tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars for appearances on. Nikki has been on, you know, and Ian have been on the Skinny Confidential, the Dr. Will Cole show, the Dr. Mark Hyman show, tons and tons of other amazing podcasts and continue to go on those, which really help drive awareness and visibility for us as well.
14:51Nikki Reed:And then number three is they open up the doors to a lot of strategic retail partners for us and help us do a lot of cool partnerships and activations that again, other brands would have to spend a huge amount of money for. And so the The reason why we have such great activations and partnerships with Erewhon and Happier Grocery and Remedy Place and Sun Life Organics is in part because Ian and Nikki bring a lot of brand power that makes our various different partners more excited to work with us at a
15:14Zeke Bronfman:reduced fee because we're able to bring a lot of value to them as well. And so there are a lot of ways we leverage them. One of the things we try not to do is have them, as you said, be the front-on packaging
15:24Nikki Reed:or on the website in a way where somebody who maybe has never heard of them now comes to the site and that's the first thing they see. And so we try to really balance that where just like I
15:35Zeke Bronfman:am not front and center on the website because I'm not a credibility builder. We don't necessarily
15:40Nikki Reed:need our founders to be front and center on the website, but we are all four co-founders because we have the same exact passion, the same exact mission to build the most bioavailable supplements on the planet.
15:50Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, no, I really like that because so many people, they only think that these celebrity co-founders, they can help with distribution, basically putting free eyeballs on their companies, which is something that traditional companies have to pay millions of dollars for. But I always talk about these hidden superpowers. So talking about opening doors to retailers, talking about PR, whether that's traditional or these podcasts, talking about helping with fundraising and that type of stuff. So I love that you actually emphasize on that. Do you think it also helps that they are entrepreneurs themselves?
16:20Ian Somerhalder:So this is not their first rodeo. I think Nikki Reed has their own jewelry line. Ian obviously has his own whiskey brand that we were just discussing. Brothers Bond, which is actually performing quite well. So do you think that it's also helpful that they are actually entrepreneurs in addition to having a massive platform only?
16:37Zeke Bronfman:Absolutely. Ian and Nikki are unlike any other, I think, celebrity partners that you probably have come across. Again, that's because we don't see them as celebrity co-founders. They're just our co-founders. And so they are very actively involved in the business. There's no
16:50Nikki Reed:like number of posts that they're contracted to post every month. They're just doing whatever they can possibly do to help drive the business forward. And they understand what it takes to drive the business forward.
17:00Zeke Bronfman:And so they're amazing partners to have. And it's very different than if we had, you know, contracted a celebrity through WME to do a certain number of posts every single month. It's a very different relationship.
17:11Nikki Reed:And we're very lucky for that.
17:12Ian Somerhalder:And the absorption company is obviously not the first supplement company that has celebrity co-founders in recent years, we have seen many celebrities launching brands in the space. Think of like Courtney Kardashian with Lemme or think of like David Beckham with IM8. Why do you think celebrities in particular are drawn to the space?
17:29Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, I think a few reasons. One, I think celebrities are always generally drawn to things that they consume themselves. And so a lot of celebrities take supplements. And so it's a very attractive category that people want to go towards. I think the other reason just fundamentally, it's a very good business to be in for these celebrities because they can leverage their platforms to sell these products direct to consumer to their audiences. And so that's a lot easier for a lot of celebrities than it is to get a lot of people across the country to go into Walmart and buy their products. And so clicking on a link is a much easier thing for them to get their audience to do that their audience is much more used to doing.
18:03Zeke Bronfman:And so a lot of supplement brands are built in a direct to consumer way in that sense. And I think those are sort of some of the reasons why celebrities are drawn to it. But I think the biggest one is that what you see across the board is celebrities are really attracted to the categories that they themselves are consumers of. That's why a lot of celebrities are drawn to beverage alcohol. It's why a lot of celebrities are drawn to supplements. And then I think once you have one or two winners, you see everyone else sort of getting in on that space, too. So you had obviously like the George Clooney and the aviation gin on the alcohol side.
18:31Nikki Reed:And then you have every celebrity going to their manager and asking to get into the beverage alcohol space. Similarly, you've had brands like Lummi. You've had our absorption company, Success. You've had a couple of other really, really impactful celebrity supplement brands. And I think a lot of celebrities have now gone to their teams and said, let's get in on that space. So I think it goes both ways.
18:48Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. The FOMO effect is real. I always love the stat of the liquor space where in 2018, there were like 40 celebrity liquor brands. And then in 2024, there were over 700, all based on the successes of obviously the Aviation Gins and the Casamigos or whatsoever. And yeah, you definitely see that in other categories as well. And always my biggest frustration was that they're just taking a superior products and then overselling it, overpricing it, slapping their name on it and trying to sell it for three times the price instead of actually coming up with real innovation and having a certain edge around product, IP, science, or even technology.
19:22Ian Somerhalder:So that's why I'm always excited about companies like the absorption company instead of just like another white labeled product or whatsoever.
19:28Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, 100%. And I think Ian and Nikki would never launch something that was sort of just white labeled, but more the point. This wasn't a celebrity brand that we created a product for.
19:39Nikki Reed:This was a problem we wanted to go solve in the world and four people coming together to go solve that problem. And that problem is that the supplements we are all taking, again, America spends$65 billion a year on supplements. And the supplements we're all taking don't work. And they don't work because they don't absorb well enough. And that's actually a solvable problem. And so we built the absorption company to singularly focus on delivering nutrients that actually do absorb to our consumers so that we can unlock the benefits that actually exist in the nutrients we're already taking, but are prevented from getting into our bloodstream by poor absorption.
20:10Nikki Reed:And so that is really what we're focused on. And that's our mission every single day when we wake up.
20:15Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. Could you maybe walk us through the current lineup and what you would consider your hero SKUs?
20:19Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, absolutely. So we started with four SKUs.
20:21Nikki Reed:We started with energy, sleep, calm, and restore. Calm is non-drowsy. You can take it any time of the day. I take that sometimes before work. I take it every time I go to the airport, and it helps me get through the flight in much better spirits. And then in January, we launched our line of foundational supplements in capsule form. So we launched a berberine, CoQ10, curcumin, vitamin D, and a magnesium. What's really interesting about these is because they're single ingredients, we're able to make direct absorption claims. We have clinical studies on each one. Our berberine, for example, absorbs 6.3 times better than other berberines.
20:54Nikki Reed:Our magnesium absorbs eight times better than other magnesiums. Our CoQ10 absorbs 10 times better than other CoQ10s, all proven in clinical studies. And the reason we launched these five, magnesium, berberine, CoQ10, curcumin, and vitamin D, is because they're what we call the worst offenders. They're the most commonly taken that also have the lowest absorption rates. Each one of those supplements absorbs at less than 10%. And so we re-engineered them to maximize bioavailability and absorption and actually deliver the benefits. Berberine has incredible metabolism support, blood sugar support, weight management support benefits.
21:28Nikki Reed:Magnesium supports over 300 bodily functions. And I take it every night before bed. Helps me get the best night's sleep ever. Wake up refreshed. Support muscle recovery. And CoQ10 supports brain health, heart health, fertility. It's really one of the most impactful supplements to take, especially at critical junctures in your life when you're deciding to have a kid or as you're getting older. Curcumin supports with inflammation, with joint support, with cartilage health. And even with skin and then vitamin D is one of the most common nutrient deficiencies. 98 % of Americans are deficient in vitamin D.
21:59Nikki Reed:Supports with mood, with metabolism, with tons of other functions in your body. And so those are why we started with those five really essential nutrients.
22:07Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. And like into the future, can you maybe elaborate a little bit more on like what could we expect on the roadmap?
22:13Zeke Bronfman:Yeah. Long term, we believe that you should be able to replace every supplement in your stack with a form that absorbs really well from the absorption company. Now, there are a few supplements that already have really high bioavailability and absorption that we have no interest in competing with because we have no point of difference.
22:29Nikki Reed:We want to go after the supplements that absorb the forest. And we are developing both more foundational supplements. So basically capsules that are single nutrient, similar to our magnesium or berberine. And then we're also developing more solutions. So more targeted supplements focused on specific need states for our consumers. And over the next year, we're going to be launching several new products. Our newest product innovation is coming out in April, which we're really excited about. I think it's going to be our biggest skew very, very quickly. And then we have a lot more innovation coming later this year that follows in that sort of momentum building space that we're really excited.
23:01Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. And you talked about the bigger goal and the mission of the company basically wanting to change the industry that everyone needs to actually showcase their bioavailability and how much the percentage of absorption is. If other companies ever going to approach you to see if they can white label or license your technology, is that something that you guys would ever consider?
23:20Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, not today. Ultimately, I think there's definitely a path for that. But ultimately,
23:25Nikki Reed:I think the other side to that is that there are a bunch of different people approaching the bioavailability absorption problem from different angles, especially if we think this space gets, sorry, especially if this space gets as big as we think it's going to get, and this becomes the next multi-billion dollar category in health and wellness. There are going to be tons of people out there trying to approach this absorption problem. We welcome that. A rising tide lifts all boats. We're very happy to be the category leading brand in that space. We believe that that's a benefit for the whole category.
23:52Nikki Reed:If everyone is out there trying to solve this problem, we don't necessarily think we have to be the ones to solve it for everybody else. But we do think we have to be the ones to set that standard and make everybody go out and do the work to make sure that their products are as bioavailable and absorbable as possible. And so that the consumer can actually trust and know what they're actually getting from their supplements.
24:10Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. And like you already talked a little bit about retail, many celebrity founder brands already on day one, they are getting like this nationwide retail placement in retailers like a Walmart or Target or whatsoever. You guys have chosen to focus on D2C, even though you also had major retail interest. So can you elaborate on why?
24:28Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, absolutely. It's a really good question. And our focus right now is to build a really,
24:33Nikki Reed:really strong subscription DDC business and continue to double down on that channel. Ultimately, we want to be an omni-channel brand that wins both at retail as well as direct-to-consumer. We believe that in the supplement category, you can really win as a subscription DDC business and build a very profitable, very scaled business before you have to take the risk of going to retail. The margins are higher. Our consumers are much more used to buying supplements online than they are at retail. And the retail landscape for supplements just isn't as attractive as it is for many other categories. And so for us, we really want to make sure we get everything really dialed on subscription DDC.
25:10Nikki Reed:and then when we launch at retail, we want to make sure that we win. And that means having the right price-packed architecture. That means having the right packaging. It means having the right SKUs to go and win at retail. And so we're working really closely with some of the biggest retail partners here in the US to make sure that we understand what's the right timeline and what's the right way to go in and go to retail in the right way and win rather than going too early to retail and blowing your one chance.
25:32Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. Like this is what the problem that I see with so many of these celebrity brands, like even a Feastables, you see here, some of the first products of feastables from Mr. Beast. And this is nothing what the current product look like. They were pivoting, like they've already pivoted three times, but only like someone like Mr. Beast can actually overcome that. So many brands actually can't overcome that if they have to pivot and have a completely different messaging, different packaging, different pricing or whatever. So I think that makes a lot of sense. I know that you are not positioning the absorption company as a celebrity founder brand, but are there still like celebrity founder brands that you guys take inspiration from based on the positioning on how or how they are leveraging those celebrity co-founders?
26:12Nikki Reed:Yeah, I think there's a couple. I think I made actually does an amazing job of leveraging David Beckham and Arena Sablenka. I think the real drivers that they have unlocked is that they are massive, massive performance creative unlocks. Their performance creative dominates all of the ads that I made puts out there. And there's a reason for that's because they're the top performers. And so I think that's really what we're seeing in this modern world is the brands that are winning direct to consumer with celebrities are not winning because the celebrities are posting a ton on their organic socials.
26:41Nikki Reed:That's nice. It's a benefit. But they're winning because the celebrities understand how to create ad content and are able to pump it out at volume and at scale. And that is what is winning time and time again right now in the direct to consumer space. It is a different ballgame when you think about going to retail. And there are different tactics that win at retail. But for direct to consumer, it is really the performance creative that is the unlock to scaling efficiently. And the real unlock that celebrities bring to a early stage DDC business is that they allow you to get winning creative at a much higher rate than without them.
27:11Nikki Reed:And that is a massive unlock.
27:13Ian Somerhalder:Yeah. If you look at the broader landscape of like celebrity founder brands, what do you think like are some common mistakes that these celebrity entrepreneurs make?
27:21Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, I think the real problem is that people think that the celebrity will drive
27:25Nikki Reed:more than the celebrity will drive. And the celebrity can be incredibly impactful if leveraged the right way. But that doesn't just mean having the celebrity post on their Instagram a lot and have really like cool pictures go up on their Instagram story. Maybe their people, their fans, their most diehard fans will buy once if they do that. But to your point, they're not coming back a second or third time, they're not subscribing. And they're certainly not buying the second or third or fourth time they see that post, they're buying that one time. And so how do you actually convert the celebrity into a real constant demand driver?
27:55Nikki Reed:And the best way to do that is to be able to get ad content that can really scale. And the way we put this into context, like best case scenario, if you like the biggest celebrity out there, post something for you and have an affiliate link, you're not going to drive more than if you drive even 10$20 ,000 of sales, like that's a really, really good influencer post. If you compare that to the amount of spend you could put behind one good video, I mean, some brands could drive hundreds of 1000s, if not millions of dollars in revenue from one good ad. And so that's sort of the scale at which if you can get good creative from celebrities, you can really, really scale your business.
28:29Nikki Reed:Brands who just focus on the organic side, I think are missing the way to actually go and grow. And then beyond that, I think brands that just rely too much on the celebrity and don't try to build a brand on its own, build a brand ecosystem that stands for itself, that has marketing independent from the celebrity. I think that's where brands strip up. Unless you are literally Kim Kardashian, you aren't big enough to sustain an entire brand and an entire brand ecosystem. There needs to be a brand that stands on its own in addition to the celebrity amplifying.
28:56Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, I think that's so exciting also about your own social community that you guys have built. It's like you have 450 ,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok and all the other channels that you guys have built organically and you own that audience. That's your audience. So yeah, I fully agree with that. You obviously have raised capital for this company as well. What was your experience like raising for a company that had a celebrity co-founder? Like what was the type of questions that you got from investors?
29:22Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, it's a really good question. I think that the landscape for celebrity brands
29:26Nikki Reed:has really shifted over the last two, three years. And when we first raised for this business, I would think it was a big driver. People loved it. People thought that that was a huge unlock. And a lot of the questions were around
29:35Zeke Bronfman:the celebrity's audience and their commitment and their involvement. And them getting on a call to kind of talk through how committed they were was a huge, huge win. As the landscape has shifted, it's interesting. Investors are now wary of celebrity businesses. And so I think what we hear now is what's the risk? What's the, you know, can the brand stand on its own? And that's sort of more of the questions than at the beginning. I think it was more trying to, you know, understand the limits of what we could get out of the celebrity. And so I think that it's an interesting shift in how investors sees it.
30:03Nikki Reed:I think for us, we've been consistent from the very beginning. We are not a celebrity brand. We are a brand that is for co-founders. Two of those co-founders happen to be celebrities. That is a driver for us in some specific ways, but it should never overshadow bioavailability and absorption being the core message. And so that's really our consistent point of view from pre-launch two years ago, all the way through today. And while we have held that consistent position, it's been interesting to see the investor mindset towards celebrity brands has definitely shifted throughout that last two years.
30:32Ian Somerhalder:Yeah, no, I love that. I think that's great insight. Last question from my end, what is next for the absorption company? And what is also something that you're most excited about?
30:40Zeke Bronfman:Yeah, I'm most excited about our innovation. My co-founder, Nate, has developed some really cool products, one of which is launching first week of April, which we're really excited about. And then we have a couple more great products coming out later this year. So it's going to be a huge year for us. New products come into the world and continuing to really scale the business, grow our team and just put one foot in front of the other every day. We're super excited about everything that is really starting to happen right now because we start to feel a bit of a tipping point where the consumer is aware of absorption being a big issue in the supplement space.
31:08Zeke Bronfman:And it's really the message is starting to connect.
31:11Nikki Reed:And so we really do believe that over the next few years, we're going to continue to build this category defining brand absorption bioavailability is going to continue to become more and more of an important thing within the supplement space and really ultimately be a
31:22Zeke Bronfman:number one or number two purchase consideration for our consumers as they're thinking about what supplement to buy.
31:27Ian Somerhalder:Thank you so much for coming on the show.
31:29Zeke Bronfman:Awesome. Thanks for having me, Scott.
31:30Ian Somerhalder:Thank you for listening to the Hot Start VC podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe and leave a rating or review. It really helps us grow. You can also subscribe to our newsletter at hotstart.vc for more breakdowns on how celebrities and creators Build Billion Dollar Brands. Thanks again for tuning in and we will see you in the next episode.
From the publisher
Zeke Bronfman co-founded The Absorption Company alongside Twilight and Vampire Diaries actors Nikki Reed and Ian Somerhalder, and deliberately kept them off the packaging and website.
Because this isn't a celebrity brand. The only celebrity here is bioavailability.
This is a masterclass in using celebrity founders the right way: as a distribution lever, not a brand identity.
After selling their zero-sugar canned cocktail company in 2022, Zeke and co-founder Nate discovered they were peeing out up to 85% of the supplements they'd been spending thousands on every month. The culprit? Traditional supplements absorb at just 10-16%, meaning 84% never reaches your cells. That frustration became The Absorption Company: a science-first supplement brand using pharmaceutical-grade Capsoil technology to deliver nutrients up to 8x more effectively, backed by published clinical studies.
Zeke breaks down how the partnership with Ian and Nikki came together (he had no idea who Ian was before their first call), why keeping celebrities off the bottle actually builds more trust with doctors and consumers, and how he strategically deploys their platforms for performance marketing, retail doors, and fundraising without letting the brand become dependent on fame.
He explains:
Why 77% of Americans take supplements daily yet 90% are still deficient in key nutrients
The 3-step absorption failure killing every supplement you've ever bought
How Capsoil technology makes their berberine absorb 6x better and CoQ10 10x better
Why they're building D2C first, even with major retailers already knocking
The one thing every celebrity brand gets wrong (and how to avoid it)
Chapters:
Chapters
00:00:00 Introduction: Building The Absorption Company with Celebrity Co-Founders
00:01:04 Zeke's Background: From Better-For-You Cocktails to Supplements
00:03:37 The Founding Story: Discovering the Supplement Absorption Crisis
00:04:35 What is The Absorption Company: Solving the Bioavailability Problem
00:05:54 The Science Behind Absorption: Three Critical Problems
00:08:08 Building IP and Brand Moat: The Thorne Comparison
00:09:39 The Partnership Origin: How Four Co-Founders Came Together
00:12:00 Celebrity Strategy: Amplifiers Not Figureheads
00:13:43 Leveraging Celebrity Co-Founders: Ads, Podcasts, and Retail Doors
00:17:27 Why Celebrities Launch Supplement Brands
00:20:16 Product Lineup: From Solutions to Foundational Supplements
00:24:27 The D2C-First Strategy: Why They're Not Rushing to Retail
00:26:10 Learning from Celebrity Brands: The IM8 Performance Creative Model
00:27:17 Common Mistakes in Celebrity Brands
00:29:18 Fundraising as a Celebrity Brand: How Investor Sentiment Has Shifted
00:30:39 What's Next: New Product Launches and Category Leadership
HotStart VC
Subscribe to the HotStart VC newsletter: https://hotstart.beehiiv.com/
Become a HotStart Angel and co-invest with us in celebrity- and creator-founded brands starting from $5,000: https://www.hotstart.vc/angels/
Check out our fund: https://www.hotstart.vc/
Scott van den Berg
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-van-den-berg-22b534150/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottvandenberg_/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@scottvandenberg_
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@scottvandenbergvc
Zeke Bronfman
The Absorption Company: https://www.absorbmore.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezekiel-bronfman-66b613175/
HotStart VC is a fund that exclusively invests in brands founded by celebrities and creators. We're the go-to platform for celebrities and creators launching brands, providing capital, strategic support, and the infrastructure to scale.