'I'm obsessed with building companies': Why Uri Minkoff is focused on growing a brand he and his father launched in the '90s

0:03Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Modern Retail Podcast.

0:30to talk about all of that, the journey, what the plan is with body health, and everything in between. But Yuri, how are you doing? Great. Thank you so much for having me, Kale. I'm a big fan of the podcast, and it's so exciting to be here. Ah, I appreciate having a listener on here. Thanks so much. I'm glad it's not just me listening to myself. First, let's start with who you are. Some of our listeners probably know who you are because you've been behind some companies we've covered. But for those that don't, just give us the long and the short of it. It's the long and the short of it is I'm I'm obsessed with building companies.

1:03I'm obsessed with creating products that are for end consumers. And I've kind of been that way my whole life. I love to think about what makes people tick, what makes people buy things, what makes people want things, what can help people. and how do you take that journey with people from awareness through to becoming an engaged customer and kind of all the way through. And that's kind of just been my obsession for, I don't know, the last 20 years. Wow. So let's give, can you give a truncated list of some of the brands you've been behind? Yeah, I mean, it's actually very interesting because it's kind of come a little bit full circle for me in that, you know, when I was at a very young age, my father told me that I was an entrepreneur.

1:54He was like, you're an entrepreneur, go start a company. That was kind of my marching orders, right? Every, you know, maybe kids get different marching orders, but that was kind of, those are kind of my marching orders. And so - What was your dad doing at the time? Was he also an entrepreneur? No, he was a physician. Really? So he didn't want a fellow, he didn't want a son, he was a physician. He wanted a businessman's son. I came out and he was like, you're an entrepreneur. Go start a company. And that was kind of like, what do I do with this communication? And so I thought about it for a little bit.

2:30And I said, well, we should go into business. And so we actually started a clinic because he did not have one of his own at the time. And so I said, we should start a clinic. And he said, well, you don't know anything about this. You don't know what you're doing. And I said, but you told me I'm an entrepreneur. So I get to go figure it out now with you. uh and so i will talk about that but uh um yeah we built it's called lifeworks uh and we built what has now become the largest or second largest integrated medical clinic in the country um and then out of that we'll talk about it a little bit more uh created body health so this actually started in the late 90s um and created a very successful uh clinic uh very successful you know kind of body health and then my sister came along rebecca um and she asked my dad for advice.

3:14He said, don't ask me, go ask your brother. Um, and so from 2005 to I'd say 2000 and, uh, early 2022, um, you know, we built the Rebecca Minkoff fashion brand, uh, into kind of, you know, a globally renowned brand. Um, uh, and when we, in early, uh, 2022, you know, we sold majority control of that brand. So there's a lot of great and fun things that we did with that brand, especially during the rise of influencers, social media, retail store of the future, you know, all sorts of things from a tech perspective. Because I also had a tech company in there from 2001 to 2011 as well. Body health has been around since the late 90s is what you're saying?

3:58Yeah, it's been around since probably 1999. Like we started the clinic in 1997. So it's been around since 1999. And so basically the genesis of it is that we had this clinic and the clinic had kind of two different types of patients. We had patients that were extremely ill, you know, extremely ill, kind of facing the end of their lives on the one hand. On the other hand, we had patients that were Olympic athletes, Olympic athletes or Olympic caliber athletes. And so along with that, we started noting, OK, where were where were where were there gaps in the marketplace in treatment programs amongst these amongst these different sets of patients?

4:50And we had access to every known nutraceutical supplement medication that was out there. right? And we're buying from a supplement perspective, well over 100 different brands. But occasionally, we would just find gaps. And so we would work with chemists to solve those gaps. And so that's why Body Health was created was to solve some gaps that we in working with chemists that we just couldn't see that was there from the marketplace. So it became distributed over the last 20 years in about 2000 different physician offices. So it's really medical grade, battle-tested nutritionals, if you will. And we're just starting to tell the story now.

5:30Wow. I did not realize it had such a long and storied history. So when did you start considering to make this a consumer play as opposed to a physician-to-physician play? Exactly. So obviously with Rebecca Minkoff, we had created a notable and quite a great consumer play. And so, um, you know, I figured out what was, what was that playbook, uh, in terms of doing that. Um, and so it was, it was kind of during the pandemic, but as we were going kind of, uh, uh, kind of ending the sale process, um, and I, I, cause I've always been a board member and advising and so forth, but it was really at the end of the sale process.

6:09And it was, what am I going to do with my life now? And it was like, well, I have this company that I'm, you know, that I don't have half of, I may as well jump back into this. And I think it was, you know, hey, there's some such great attributes here, right? It's, it's been, these products have been around for a long time. They've been in use in 2000 clinician offices. There's no reason that we, we shouldn't tell the story and expand this. And so, you know, let's, let's do repackaging that's appropriate for consumers. That's not just going to be on physician shelves, you know, let's kind of evolve this story and make it appropriate for, so it was, you know, I guess early 2022 is when we really started to rebranding, repackaging new website, you know, all the best software tools, you know, working with, you know, the various companies to say, look, we have a unique story here.

7:05It's not just, you know, an MBA that had a good idea for supplement. This is, these are things that are used, you know, we have a board of advisors that's eight physicians deep that see the best of the best. We work with the best chemists. It's been this way for over 20 years. It's in over 2 ,000 doctor's offices. Let's actually go tell this story because it's very unique. Can you give a little bit of more color to how you go about evolving that messaging? Because saying what a supplement is to a doctor is very different than saying what a supplement is to an end consumer. And also, it's very different the retail environment.

7:40So if I'm getting, you know, a sports massage, for example, and a doctor says you should buy this, I'll say, of course, I should buy this. You're my doctor. I agree with that. But if, you know, I'm either doing searching online, how much did you keep with the original body health messaging and branding? And how much did you have to change and tweak and make into something that was more, I guess, consumable? Oh, I mean, the website, the branding, the packaging is all new. Um, you know, I think, you know, then we went through, you know, before with, with physicians, it's more of an educational play, right?

8:14They're, they're speaking at conferences, you're educating the physician, they're educating their, their patient. Um, you know, we, one of the things we noted, I noted early on is we have some very unique products and our consumers love them. And the, the, the engagement is really high. So we built a group on Facebook, funny enough, which has almost 30 ,000 members. And these people are actively engaged. You know, we built it up over the last several years. They're actively engaged discussing how they use it. What are the benefits, et cetera. You know, our email list is growing wildly because of the content that we put out there.

8:57Right. So we go through different programs at the beginning of the year. There's a, you know, a lean bulking program that made into a stress reduction and a sleep program. You know, we had an extreme athlete series. We're about to go into a gut health program and then a detox program. So, you know, we have great physician led content. You know, I remember, you know, looking at, you know, what percentage of emails get open on a fashion perspective and talking to other fashion CEOs. And now I look at it and go over a period of a month, 60 or 70 percent of my people on my email list are opening and reading my emails.

9:33Like the numbers are so engaged because we're giving people such relevant and salient content every day that the refer a friend, the share with a friend, the Facebook group, because we're we're creating so much relevant content for people on a daily basis that it's just been it's been growing like wildfire. And let's just back up a bit. What's your product line? Like how many different SKUs do you have? What are the areas that you focus on? Yeah. So there's probably 20, 20 different SKUs. Um, but there is, there is one, there is one main, uh, one that is of itself and is also an ingredient in others that, that makes us very unique.

10:13Um, and, and so that's kind of been leading the charge of you. If you look at the 80, 20 rule, right. You know, that's that, that ingredient of itself or that ingredient, uh, in other, in other products, you know, that it touches is, is probably, you know, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60. 70 % of what we do. And so I can go to that now or later. Yeah, go, go into it. So one of the things that we found early on, as I said, clinically, the doctors found was that protein was a big issue and particularly protein digestibility, absorbability, usability, right? And that every protein that we consume in nature actually has a different digestibility, absorbability and usability.

10:59And, and so in faced with these very sick patients that were having a problem processing protein, and then you have Olympic athletes that are destroying their bodies, right? They're, they're, they're destroying the protein of their bodies because our bodies are essentially made of protein, right? Our muscles, our eyes, our tendons, our vessels, these are, these are all, uh, they're made up of amino acids, which are the building blocks of protein. So we're basically walking amino acids, if you will. It's the makeup of our body. And so when you consume protein, it's then broken down into the amino acids and it's then used to build.

11:34And so with these patients on both sets, the extreme athletes and the ones that were very sick, it became a problem in terms of how they could keep their structure going, how they could build the muscle and recover from intense workouts, or how could they just keep their structure going while they're very sick. Um, and so we started working with some chemists and, and discovered that the highest food in nature that you can consume is an egg from a, from a protein usability perspective. And it's about half meats are in the 36, 37 % and you get into like whey powders. It's like 18%. So what you're getting is you're getting a lot of calories, but you're not getting the actual purpose of the building blocks to go to build.

12:17So we worked with a chemist and put together what is the right formula for the human body? What's the right combination of the essential amino acids that give a 99 % utilization with almost no caloric impact? And so that became that formula. So the product is called Perfect Amino. And it has a vast array of benefits. People are recovering, working out, strength, as well as just getting the ability to have a stronger body itself. So lean muscle, recovery, boosting performance. And then we also put this ingredient into a greens product, our greens vegetable product, into our sleep product, into our enzymes product, because we find that it creates faster assimilation.

13:03So it's really that perfect amino product is the hero. So pretty much you're saying that the stronghold that whey protein has on the fitness industry is BS and it doesn't work? I'm going to say that, you know, you take a scoop of that and you think you're getting 30 or 60 grams, which will come with several hundred calories often, right? Because there's usually fillers and binders and other things in there. And when you think you're getting those 30 grams, just take 20 % of that, right? So call it six grams. What your body's actually utilizing to build structure is about six grams. The rest of it will be used for, because the body can't, the body can store sugars.

13:48The body can store fats. The body cannot store amino acids for more than a few hours. It'll get converted to sugars or fats. So with whey, the body cannot recognize all the relationship of the amino acids for building. It can only recognize about 20 % of them, right? So if you're building a car and you've got two steering wheels, seven tires, two chassis, you can still only build one car because you're missing that last wheel. So when the body recognizes what it needs to recognize in terms of the relationship with the amino acids, it can build. The rest of it, it can't combine to create that building block.

14:29So that gets converted to sugar or fat. So back to the point, six grams of that 30 grams would be used for building. The other bit will then be converted to sugar or fat. And then you have to decide if you want those whey calories to become your sugar or fat calories. And so our take here is let's give you the most efficient building blocks without caloric impact as possible. Got it. Got it. I've learned a lot. And I guess I'll have to rethink the whey protein I have in my kitchen right now. And some people have digestive issues, right? And ours are all pre-digested. So that's cool is they're in the bloodstream in 23 minutes.

15:06So we're not, we're almost bypassing the intestines, right? Because that was one of the other metrics here was you have really sick people and their intestines are not in good shape. How do you actually give free form essential amino acids that are pre-combined so that all they have to do is just become straight absorbed without the body having to work to take them apart and put them back together again in the natural form that it wants them. Can you talk about the evolution of the Facebook group? Because that's something that I think every brand kind of wants, maybe not in the form of a Facebook group, but they want a community where everyone's organically sharing and hyping a product.

15:42So was that something that you started? Did it start itself? How has that gone over the last few years? Yeah, so it had started, I mean, the team had started it kind of internally. It was the kind of, I think we call it the perfect amino VIP group. And it was really a place because we had, you know, consumers that were reaching out. And it was a place for them to kind of congregate, talk about their use cases. and it was a place for us to really, it started off as a customer service vehicle for us to answer questions, to put out content. And all of a sudden, the more content we put out, these people started sharing photos of themselves with each other.

16:29They started giving their own tips. They started giving their own recipes. So a little bit of it is us saying, hey, here's a recipe we put together that we really like, or here's some new content on how to use this if you're an extreme athlete or if you're a bodybuilder or if you are concerned with calories and so forth. And so we put content there. And then, you know, you know, this group, which I said is just under 30 ,000 strong. It has probably doubled in the past, you know, 12 months. They're engaging with each other all day. I have a handful of people that we work with internally on a team that are there to monitor and answer questions and so forth.

17:17But what we found is, you know, we put content, they put content, they post photos of themselves. And it's almost like this cheering squad of these consumers. And I think we get about, of those almost 30 ,000, we get about 10 ,000 to 12 ,000 every week that are engaged. So it's a highly, it's not like we have 30 ,000 and 1 ,000 are checking it. It's close to a third, if not more, are actively checking, posting, commenting, watching, engaging in some way. Because what's interesting is, is perfect amino has not just become a product, it's almost become a lifestyle. So when you think about it, you know, we're almost introducing, we call it the true science of protein, but we're almost introducing, it's almost, the way I liken it is, it's funny, we had this conversation earlier, are you a Windows person or a Mac person, right?

18:11Your journey for buying, are you an Apple or Samsung, right? Are you an EV person, a hybrid or gas or diesel, right? It's almost like the form factor of what you're going to use is your first step of your journey of discovery. And so, as you said, when you're in this space, people kind of almost self-select, Am I a plant protein person? Am I a whey person? Am I an egg person? Am I a soy person? So we're almost introducing a new concept. That's kind of, that's what I've told my team. We're introducing a new concept into the protein space. And we believe we've got the true science of protein. So because it's such a unique concept, it's almost like the fifth member of the squad that we're introducing.

18:55And because protein is such an important part of our diet, people kind of go through their day as they're counting their macros and as they're going through things, their journey of what they're eating and consuming, it becomes a very important topic. Got it, got it. Makes sense. Would you say like the community, is it mostly athletes? How would you describe the demographic of those 30 ,000? I mean, look, that group is on Facebook, right? So it's not a TikTok community. It's not an Instagram community. It's a Facebook community. So I think you and I both understand the Facebook demographic, right?

19:32And people that are going to spend time there. So, you know, it's, it's, it's people, it's, it's, it's our subset of, of, of customers that are Facebook engaged. Now we get people obviously that aren't there because they, they read that, oh, there's a group here. Let me, let me go join it. And they're not the normal Facebook audience. But I think we see people that are, that, that you, that you'd see on that, on that channel. And their, you know, again, workout tips, diet, um, how often they take it, um, their fasting protocols, you know, are they following a carnivore diet? Are they following a plant-based diet?

20:08How does our product, how do our products fit in? Um, how many should they take pre-workout, post-workout? Um, uh, if they want to skip the chicken or the steak, what are they eating with it? If they don't want to go calorie crazy on a vegetarian diet? You know, are they, are they, are they vegan keto, which is probably the hardest diet one could do? You know, and, and, and, and so people have questions and they have tips, you know, before a gym session, what should they do? And then a lot of them, you know, they're, they're then sharing pictures and getting, you know, camaraderie and so forth.

20:42So it's, it's a very active, engaged group. I'm sorry I keep harping on this, but I I find these types of communities really fascinating just from a marketing standpoint. But do you think, is there a profound, I guess I'd say halo effect from these groups, such as are you able to track the fact that they are so engaged in Facebook and that leads to something else outside of the Facebook group? Or is it just sort of you're happy that you have these 30 ,000 people who are brand evangelists and help you talk about products, learn how people are using them, and then maybe they're something that you might use outward, but they're not necessarily connected?

21:22Well, I think when we look at a couple things, when I'm looking at new customer acquisition, what's the top channel? My top channel is referred by a friend. right so so obviously you're tracking google you're talking the meta platforms you're tracking tiktok right but like refer a friend is my number is is my number one um and then we we look at um so that that's where that that group becomes important right that group becomes important because they're referring their friends i can see the growth of that group another thing which has blown me away is the number of people on subscription. Subscription has really grown significantly for us over the last year.

22:13I'd say it's two and a half times, right, our subscription members. And so, you know, when you're on subscription, you're receiving product every month, two months, three months, right? And so, you know, a place to go get data and how you use it and so forth. So that group becomes a very important place to support those that are on subscription, questions they may have and so forth. And the other one is loyalty. We have a loyalty program and obviously in loyalty, you're trying to encourage certain behavior, engagement with the brand. Of course, there's purchases, but there's also social engagement and mentions and follows and so forth.

23:00So when we can triangulate that pattern between, you know, a Facebook group member, a person on subscription and a personal loyalty program, right? That then yields into a customer with a high lifetime value. And it yields to a customer that's going to be more likely to refer a friend because they're so engaged. Got it. Got it. Makes sense. The other thing we do also in the group is sometimes we we'll launch challenges as well. So it could be an anti-stress challenge where we're trying to get someone to lower their resting heart rate or improve their heart rate variability through different actions.

23:37It could be a lean bulk challenge and people take before and after pictures, right? Because you hear about people bulking and cutting and sometimes people, the cutting doesn't always work and they just got big, right? And they're like, wait, I didn't mean to look like this, right? So we call it a lean bulk. So we utilize the group as well to launch launch challenges, and then people love to engage with how they're doing in these 30-day challenges. How would you describe, like, what was the grand plan in terms of growth and channels with this shift towards selling directly to consumers? Was it that you wanted to be predominantly D2C?

24:10I'm pretty sure you guys have a few, have some retail announcements coming up soon, if I'm not mistaken. But like, what did two years ago when you were like, we're going to we're going to do a rebrand, we're going to do all this. What, what did you see as the end goal being? I mean, the end, the end goal was, was look, as, as I look at it and obviously through the fashion journey, you start, you know, learning, um, you know, what's the different value of different channels and different customers and so forth. And so to me, um, right, you're, you know, there, there's a great value in, in an engaged e-com customer.

24:45Um, you know, You have the identity, you have the name, you're able to create this direct engagement. And so it's really about broadening that universe in a significant way. The other thing we noted was that there were a lot of people on Amazon that were buying our products. And then we also found that there were a bunch of counterfeiters as well or knockoff brands. So that was another thing was, let's build our Amazon store. Let's own it. Let's knock as much as we can the rogue sellers off. Right. And so that's been a huge channel as well. Let's put our marketing, our branding, our videos, our assets there.

25:24Let's really focus on that because there are those people that just want that. They want to go to the app. They want to click it. They want to get it next day. And that's their that's their ease of use. So that's especially with with with nutritionals. Right. That's just it's that ease. Right. Factor. But part of a huge thing for me was what are the best natural health food grocers in the country? We have a premium product. It's medical grade. It's coming out of physician offices. And so where are the top places? And to me, that's important because that creates for those consumers that haven't seen in the physician office, that haven't seen the site, the fact that those grocer buyers or those supplement buyers in those grocer settings that have access to thousands of brands have pre-selected certain ones based on their attributes.

26:27And so, you know, part of it is, is, is being there and having those retail people that work in retail there, being able to explain our product, people seeing our product as they're passing through. And so it wasn't, it's not an all play be everywhere all the time. it became, it's a premium product. We've, it's, it's, you know, as I said, physician medical grade, let's choose the best ones. And so it's kind of what we've, we've done. So we've gone from zero to, I think now we're in 500 to 750, probably close to a thousand stores by the end of the year is, is kind of what that, that, that grosser footprint would look like.

27:13But, But I gave a person on my team day one, actually on the interview with him, I said, there's one store I want to be in. Above all, above anyone else. I bet I can guess what it is. Yes, you can. And so I said, this is just the best fit for us. And I said, look, I'd love to be in Erewhon. And so I'm just so happy that we're rolling out this month into Erewhon, into all their stores. with a number of SKUs. And we're just super excited about it. And so it's obviously they stand on a, in my view, above anyone else. But there are also those that are the era ones of their areas, right? Obviously, it's a nine, tend to be 10 store chain in the Los Angeles area.