In short
The Startup CPG Podcast: Episode #224 - The Rise of Neuro Gum with Kent Yoshimura
Episode Overview In this episode, host Daniel Scharff interviews Kent Yoshimura, co-founder and CEO of Neuro Gum, an innovative brand in the chewable energy category. The discussion covers the journey of Neuro from a *Shark Tank* rejection to a thriving business with over $100 million in revenue, competing against major players like Mars Wrigley.
Key Highlights
Neuro's Origin and Growth
- Startup Journey: Neuro was founded out of a desire to make supplements more accessible and enjoyable.
- Shark Tank Experience: In 2020, Kent and co-founder Ryan pitched Neuro on *Shark Tank* but faced rejection due to valuation concerns. The business was generating $3 million in revenue at that time.
- Revenue Milestone: Since then, Neuro has scaled to over $100 million in revenue, showcasing rapid growth and resilience.
Marketing Strategies
- DTC Dominance: Neuro built a strong direct-to-consumer presence primarily leveraging organic influencer marketing, notably through Joe Rogan's endorsements and viral TikTok content.
- Partnerships: Collaborations with athletes and creators have played a crucial role in establishing brand credibility and reaching new audiences.
- E-commerce Fundamentals: Kent discusses the importance of optimizing LTV (Customer Lifetime Value) to CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) ratios for sustainable growth.
Product Innovation
- Chewable Energy: Neuro's gum provides an alternative to traditional energy products, focusing on microdosing caffeine and the science behind cold-compression technology in gum production.
- Consumer Demographics: Surprisingly, older consumers (55+) have shown high conversion rates for Neuro products, seeking cognitive health benefits without the stigma of traditional energy drinks.
Retail Challenges
- Navigating Checkout Space: Kent shares insights into the competitive nature of retail, particularly the challenges of securing shelf space in high-traffic checkout lanes, often dominated by legacy brands.
- Slotting Fees: Neuro attempts to negotiate slotting fees into marketing costs to maintain presence in stores despite aggressive competition.
Lessons Learned
- Staying Humble: Kent emphasizes the importance of humility in leadership and the value of hiring experienced operators.
- Breaking Into Retail: Key takeaways for brands looking to enter retail include understanding market dynamics and consumer behavior in-store.
Actionable Insights
- Focus on building organic brand equity through partnerships and community engagement rather than relying solely on paid advertising.
- Utilize social media platforms creatively (like TikTok) to tap into new demographics and create virality around products.
- Maintain a clear understanding of your product's value proposition and how it meets consumer needs, particularly in contrast to established competitors.
Episode Links
- Website: [Neuro Gum](https://neurogum.com/)
- Kent Yoshimura on Instagram: [@kentaro](https://www.instagram.com/kentaro/)
- Kent on LinkedIn: [Kent Yoshimura](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentyoshimura/)
Conclusion The discussion encapsulates the dynamic journey of Neuro Gum, highlighting essential strategies and lessons learned in the CPG landscape. Kent’s authentic approach to entrepreneurship emphasizes the significance of resilience, innovation, and community in achieving business success.
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Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:02A few years back when I ran a beverage company we had to launch using those plastic sleeves to put our designs on the cans. but they looked bad. The sleeves get stretched out. They don't cover the full can and overall, they just look and feel low quality. Lucky for you, digital can printing technology has come so far over the last few years that now you can launch your beverage brand or new SKUs with a fully printed look and it's at similar pricing to those plastic sleeves. Our friends at CanWorks, which is the largest US-based digital can printer, are happy to work with our community at very low minimums, even one pallet.
0:32They've got locations in the East Coast, the West Coast, Texas. Get in touch with them through our contact form. It's at canworksprinting.com slash startupcpg.
0:59I visit our farms up in Washington for the mint yield every single year. And we see what the best yield is, we see what the best flavor is, and it's not consistent year to year, which becomes one of the hardest things to get flavor right when it's not artificial. But I know for a fact that it's like, all right, this is the best yield of mints from this year. Let's use this flavor and see how it fits into our pieces. Welcome to the Startup CPG podcast. Today, we have a very special guest. It's Kent Yoshimura. He is the co-founder of Neuro, which is the brand that brings energy and functional ingredients to gum and mints.
1:34Yep, that's right, chewable energy. So Nuro went from just an idea to a viral sensation. They were on Shark Tank. They built a huge direct-to-consumer presence and Amazon following. They're now scaling in retail in one of the most competitive categories out there, check lane, gum, mints, all of that stuff. And they're also competing with the energy category. They're doing it with science, loyal super fans, and some huge cultural moments along the way that you're going to hear about. So today on the podcast, we dig into their early traction, the science and consumer psychology that makes people choose their energy, how they've built partnerships with athletes and major creators, and Kent's learnings along the way.
2:11You are going to love this episode. All right, here we go. Let's get into it.
2:19All right, Kent, welcome to the show. So to kick things off, could you just give us a quick intro of yourself and Neuro? Yeah, I'm Kent Yoshimura, the co-founder and CEO of NeuroGum and Mints. We launched about 10 years ago because we wanted to see how we can make supplements more accessible and approachable. All right. And tell me about the rest of your team. So, I mean, our team is growing pretty rapidly. I guess we're about like 70 something people now. But, you know, we have a killer chief commercial officer that used to work at HUE, Conagra before that. Megan, who is our integrated brain manager, worked at Claire's, was a VP there.
2:54and then my co-founder Ryan, you know who I've been on this very long journey with, who leads partnerships now. And I don't know if you see on Instagram and LinkedIn, but we have some pretty cool partners. We just announced Andrew Schultz today, actually, as part of our professional athlete roster. So that's my latest partner. Cool. All right. Okay, and Ryan, I saw on the Shark Tank episode with you. That's right. Yes, you guys did such a good job. Honestly, when I watched that, But I think the thing that I like the best about it is your guys' friendship. Even at the end, you know, you guys like gave each other a hug and you're like, I love you, man.
3:30Oh, you don't. It's like a very like pervasive thing across the entire business where we have our principles and everything too, like every other company. But at the end of the day, someone said this best where it's like our authenticity and how genuine we are through the brand comes from that core. Where Ryan and I started this because we were friends. I was sleeping on his couch and we had this idea. And it's like, how do we keep developing that into something more? And now we're this real business, you know? Well, it's really beautiful. And it just seems like you guys really support each other very nicely.
4:02And that is an incredible thing to have in this rough CPG road. So getting back to Shark Tank, in 2020, you went on Shark Tank. The Sharks passed on the opportunity. Robert said, like, he thought the valuation was too high. He actually gave you an offer at like a$7 million valuation. But he was like,$2 million. I just can't get there. It's too rich. But your numbers were awesome. You were at$3 million in revenue. You had doubled versus the year prior. I don't know your exact margins, but in my head, it sort of sounded like you were at 60 % margins or something awesome. And then you were asking for$750K because you were going to grow into retail and had a bunch of marketing things that you wanted to do.
4:42So they passed. Catch us up. What happened from then to now? Did the sharks make a mistake? Where's the business today? Oh, man, it's so crazy. I mean, the whole Kevin leery stinky poo poo thing went like viral which is hilarious but yeah i think we're doing around 3.5 that year and just continue to more or less you know double or double plus like since then and the business continues to grow e-commerce is our strong suit but retail has always been the next frontier how do we activate it properly how do we get an understanding where our consumers shop and enter into the right markets. You know, it's crazy because we now have one of the sharks as our advisor.
5:24And there's going to be a big announcement like whenever that is going to show up online. It's a cool little redemption arc for doors are never closed until you actually close them. And our team's grown. We moved our entire business over to Vegas after things shut down during COVID in California. And we continue to make strides across the online space as well as the physical retail space. And where are you guys at on revenue now? We are approaching, I guess, it's nine figures. Yeah. Nine figures. Okay. So Robert, Mr. Wonderful, didn't like that valuation. Business was at$10 million with$3 million in sales.
6:05Now you're over$100 million in sales. And now one of them decided to come back and be an advisor. excited to hear who it is and then later when we do the next round of this podcast you can tell me what all those discussions were like and if they like the taste of the crow that they were eating afterwards that's right i'm not sure if information is embargoed on that front yet because there's all these contracts and things flying in place um i love it but i mean as somebody who roots for brands what better outcome or story is there than somebody who went on there and i mean i'm sure you got a lot out of the appearance.
6:41You guys represented yourselves incredibly well and the product and you know, didn't get a deal, but looked amazing doing it. And I'm sure everybody supported you and your sales probably went crazy from that. But what better outcome than like, aha, look, you were wrong. Look how well they're doing. So I love that. I'm really excited for you. And just congrats to you guys for everything that you have achieved. Now, can we just dive into the product as well? So you guys sent me an incredible sample pack here. So I've got all of the neuro gum flavors. I've got all of the mint flavors. I was chewing on some of this, man, I had a long day today.
7:16I was recording a webinar and an interview. And so I was just crunching on this gum, which is tasty and fun. And you're like aware when you're chewing it, like, oh, this is helping me be very alert. So really cool stuff. But can you just take me back to like, how did you get the idea for energy gum and mints and everything? How did that all come to life. Yeah, you know, I mean, energy gum existed before in the form of things like military energy gum or jolt, like way back in the day where they try to take this energy drink model and place it into a confectionery format. And when I was training, I used to be more or less a professional athlete.
7:48I was fighting in Thailand since I was like 15. Like martial arts has been a big part of my life. I was training with the Judo Olympic team. So I was traveling out to Japan, staying in the dorms on like the top colleges out there training like all summer. And when you're training at that level, one, you get tested, but two, you don't want to be taking energy drinks or all these substances that people were taking, like the gym rats were taking about 15 years ago, 15 plus years ago. And I got into the world of nootropics because like everyone else during that time, I was reading Tim Ferriss books.
8:20And this was the thing that was helping him for becoming a serial entrepreneur. So in my dorm room, I started buying supplements on my own, mixing them, seeing how they do with my body while I was performing at my highest level and realized that there's this combination that's pretty straightforward, but natural caffeine and aldeanine, which you find in green tea, but amplified a little bit, has a very positive effect on cognitive performance. So when Ryan got in his snowboarding injury, he used to be captain of his cross-country and track team, one of the fastest kids in California, but he got injured in a snowboarding accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down.
8:56I provided him with these supplements and it worked amazingly for him to get back into school, get going on what he wanted to do. And after college, he wanted to go get scuba certified because that was the one thing that, you know, would allow him to be active despite his injury. And these pills were great on our trip, but we realized that it could be more shareable, portable and look a little bit better and less stigmatized. if we're not carrying a bag of pills around in public. So we set out on this journey, launched our product, beat our goal in three days on Indiegogo for our initial funding.
9:34I was packing everything out of my apartment with our now CEO, Tyler, and really the rest is history. And our mantra really now is how do we continue to make supplements more approachable, accessible, a part of your lifestyle more so than something that sits in your medicine cabinet that is collecting dust or you typically tend to forget about? that's amazing thank you for sharing that and it just was reminding me about no-dos if you ever had that like you know that was a thing that we knew about that in high school they were just basically caffeine pills caffeine pills it's like 200 million guys of caffeine yeah yeah i guess that was a lot i remember like taking that to stay up and study but i probably didn't study i was not a good student i probably just took it and then played video games but i mean it's yeah i wouldn't call that the most accessible format because it does yeah it feels like you're straight up taking a drug.
10:20And like, it's just kind of like a weird, like, oh, I'm gonna take these like pills. I don't know. But oh, like gum. Okay. Yeah, that's much more accessible. That's something I'm much more used to doing recreationally. And let me ask you something else, which is interesting to me, because, okay, take something like Celsius, right, which obviously just has brought so many people into the energy drink category. Like I was living in LA at the time and just seeing like, how many 20 to 30 year old females were walking around the equinox with a celsius can like as if it was an accessory i'm like well this is pretty interesting and these are not people who would say even that they're like energy drink drinkers they're just like no but i drink the celsius that's like a different thing but part of it i think celsius is just so like flavor forward it's a very strong fruity flavor i feel like there is something about flavor that gives people energy not just like straight up the caffeine that is in it and all that stuff but there's just something about flavor that gives people energy you know and so obviously with the gum as opposed to something like pills like you get the functionality you get caffeine but there's also flavor that's coming in do you feel like that is true like there's just something about flavor and like a flavorful experience that can energize people oh definitely like even if you think about like vix uh like the nasal whatever things that just blast you with the menthol.
11:40I mean, there is something to be said about sensory experiences and how they transform how you view the world within that moment, you know. So when you're chewing gum, when you're activating your brain just from the act of chewing, but being able to have that like minty freshness. It's funny because we talk about the five gums or all these other Wrigley products from back in the day, and they lean so much on what that experiential moment with flavor was to try to prove out all these extra benefits that gum would have for you. And now we're actually just doing it with the ingredients inside our products.
12:14It's so interesting. And your flavor holds also. That's like the least cool thing about a gum is if you have a gum and maybe it's like old or whatever, and then you put it in and it's flavorful. And then a minute later, you're like, oh, the flavor went away and I'm just chewing literal gum. This kind of sucks. So yeah, the flavor part of it is just so important. Yeah, so interesting to think about. Hey, can you tell me how gum is made? Yeah, so there's different types of gum bases that you could get. A lot of gum bases that are used contain things like BHT, which is very bad for you, and microplastics.
12:47So we try to move away from that and we have a proprietary way we develop our gum base. but most people use heat extraction or heat extrusion to basically heat up the gum put in all the ingredients like the flavors and whatever you have and then it cools down and that's why you get your stick of gum that lasts for well like 30 seconds and then it gets super hard because it's just it's going through this chemical process for us we're slamming everything in with pressure using a process called cold compression that's why you get like the longevity of the flavor the longevity of the gum chew and the texture.
13:21And even with the mintiness, like I visit our farms up in Washington for the mint yield every single year. And we see what the best yield is. We see what the best flavor is. And it's not consistent year to year, which becomes one of the hardest things to get flavor right when it's not artificial. But I know for a fact that it's like, all right, this is the best yield of mints from this year. Let's use this flavor and see how it fits into our pieces. And it can be very different. Different kind of mints can add such a different, it's crazy yeah there's so many different kinds of mint it's like a sommelier level like when you go up there and they know for minutes it's like wow yeah ones that like open up your palate more ones that kind of are like more of like a spearmint yes that's really interesting like top of man's and all the stuff too it's like the dirt i don't know it's all science like food science that i don't really understand i trust them all right let me ask you a childish question which is if you had to pick a gum that you love other than yours that was around in your childhood to just gorge on irrespective of any health impacts or you know quality things which would it be because i remember so many of them fondly from my youth like juicy fruit big league chew i could never get into big red i don't know it's too spicy yeah i'm a big red guy but you know i have this like really fond memory of going to toys r us rest in peace getting the zebra gum Do you remember that?
14:44Oh, it was layered. Or was it just a stick that was striped? It was like a stick pack, but it was like it had like a zebra on it. I don't even know what it's called, but it was like the zebra gum. It tasted kind of like juicy fruit. And it was so good. And I just remembered having like really fond 25 cent gum pack memories of that gum. And I don't find it anywhere anymore. But I would say it's like a core memory of mine. Okay, some service provider out there who really wants Kent's business, go find that on eBay and send it to him and he will give you a meeting for sure. I just also remember buying those like 20 packs, you know, like the double mint or whatever, like the really tall one, just single stack, like 20.
15:25You walk around with one of those, you're the most popular person at the party, you know, just handing out sticks like that left and right. I hate gum. It's just such a fun and social thing, too, because, you know, unlike a lot of snacks or foods, it's just so shareable with people. And it's to like sit on your desk or in your car cup holder kind of product that's just like out there and really just part of our social structure to like that's something that you share with people. And if you have it like some people carry mints and just love offering people mints, you know, I mean, you're talking about high school.
15:56It's like transactional in high school. It's like a form of currency. see yeah i guess it is in prison also isn't it yeah like like cigarettes and gum like you can trade that for just about anything all right i don't know from personal experience but i've seen the movies okay so coming back to you and your product you know the reason for the podcast one question that i have for you is like who is the core consumer like who have you found is the most open to chewing their energy so it's really interesting because there's like this 24 to 35 year old demographic, which is, I guess, my demographic that definitely not on the 24 side, but, you know, on the older side of that spectrum that has been so health conscious, but looking for new innovative ways to get functional food.
16:38And I think, you know, you and I within the CPG world has been through kind of that renaissance of what we saw where it's like, how do we put function into existing formats? So we've been able to tap into that market. Obviously, with TikTok, we got a younger demographic. But funny enough, with TikTok, although there's a Gen Z audience that's there, we get this older demographic of 55 and over that is more attracted to our product and converts better on that platform. So our hypothesis is that when people see a Red Bull or a monster or even Celsius for like 240 milligrams plus of caffeine, there's like, if I'm like 60 years old, I'm just assuming but it's like, if I'm 60 years old, I don't need to be a monster or a rock star.
17:22You know, I don't need to have like the Red Bull running through me. But something as like balanced as a neuro gum for them to be able to get through their day makes a lot more sense. And I think the communication, the messaging, the positioning that we do to that audience, and I guess entire audience space just resonates a lot better. So let me ask you this, though. But my guess would be that they chew your gum for a different reason than the younger people. The younger people may be more for the energy aspect and the older people, maybe they're really focused on cognitive health for the long run.
17:51Like they want to stay sharp. Is that possible? A hundred percent. And it's funny because like, you know, in CVS to, I guess, shout some retail numbers out the first half this year, we don't have data for second half this year yet, but first half this year, we outsold five hour energy and Alani new combined in unit sales and revenue sales. So it says a lot about like the audience that goes when we're in the pharmacy section, especially the audience that goes to a CVS is looking for something like a Prevagen, but then finds a product like ours, realizes the price point is so much more accessible to them while also getting them cognitive benefits.
18:26And then they end up buying that versus say like the energy drink departments and going necessarily to those options. So interesting to me. And I mean, to be at the scale that you're at with such a heavy direct to consumer presence, I'm sure you just know this inside and out and specifically which messaging works on which kind of people. Do you know about how people use your product? Like when are they chewing it? Like, do they have rituals around that? Or is it like sporadic and impulse or, you know, how often all that kind of stuff? Yeah. I mean, our power users are chewing this like five plus times a day, which is pretty crazy.
19:05It's like consistent work thing for them, almost in the same way that they would use, I would assume like a Zen, you know, where it's like, a habit that they've developed throughout the day when they need to just microdose on energy. Funny enough, we try to do the messaging of like replace your morning coffee, but breaking habits down like that as a product like ours is not necessarily the most effective, which is interesting. So it's not necessarily replacing energy. It's incrementally adding an energy option to their day that doesn't blast them through the roof. and I feel like that's been the case with most successful energy brands coming out the last few years I don't know how many of them are just stealing share from something else that was out there versus bringing a lot of new habits and new people like we were talking about celsius I really feel like so many of those people are new to the energy category they were not like ripping monsters before they started drinking celsius they were like you know just part of this like hustle culture and, you know, working hard and talk about this a lot, but like, cause I mean, I worked in energy for a long time.
20:10Like it just seemed really like, especially, okay, there's hustle culture and yeah, really things like Shark Tank and all of the success of startups that like everyone kind of has something going. They're trying to work harder, do cool stuff. Pandemic hits, everybody's at home all of a sudden. And now they have to still work hard and maybe even harder than before because they are not commuting. They just kind of start working earlier, but also take care of their kids and make lunch at home and do all this other stuff. But still also hustle. and now they're not as healthy and they need to work out more and they overall maybe just need more energy.
20:38But I think overall you would just see people's caffeine intake. And I don't know the numbers on this having gone up drastically over the last few years, like still doing that morning coffee again, there's pretty much nothing in the world that could get me to break my morning coffee, but I am open to other stuff later in the day. And now I've added in some supplements that sometimes have energy to try to, you know, get the most of my workout. And I pay attention to what some of the experts say about it, kind of permissible levels of things. But also the like, from what I read, I'm not a doctor or an expert.
21:07But it seemed like overall, some people recommend like up to 400 milligrams per day of caffeine. Some people say you can go kind of higher than that. Probably it's more of a like feeling thing. I don't know. Yeah, I wouldn't go more than 400. And what's crazy is like, I say the saying to it all the time. But if you get a venti Starbucks, which is the largest there might be a larger size now but the large size starbucks coffee is 400 milligrams of caffeine and it's like if you're starting your day off with that of course you're like burning out your denising lands you know you're burning out all those things that are supposed to give you natural energy and you have to keep it going you know we're not advocates for that obviously and we always use the term microdosing energy inside our company but it's like how can we find a balanced approach when you're constantly getting your attention span distracted like taken in different directions and providing us better focus so one stick of your gum has 40 milligrams of natural caffeine that comes from green coffee bean extract so like a normal like an eight ounce coffee might have like 80 milligrams yeah 80 so it's like half of a kind of not venti cup of coffee but half of a i think they call that it's like an espresso Yeah.
22:17Okay. And so you could chew on that. Five a day would be up at 200, which is kind of half that max level that we talk about. Although people have different tolerances, of course, but that's an interesting number to think about. It's funny. I just remember when I was in one of my first jobs, I had a friend who said his dad, who's like an epic lawyer, had almost no vices. He didn't drink. He didn't smoke. He didn't do any drugs, but he just drank the hell out of coffee. and he would just drink like just be chugging ventis like all day and so he ended up in the hospital for some problem i think i don't know if it was like a stroke or any i don't know but when he woke up he was like going into convulsions because of caffeine withdrawal because he was so high on caffeine that they had to go and get him coffee to like normalize him so anyways i always just remember that but the way that caffeine works you will know better than me i was just always really bad at you know biology and stuff like that but my general understanding is that like caffeine what it does is it basically interrupts the re-uptake of energy stuff like in your brain the way that works so like it's really like changing something systemically it's just probably like delaying reuptake which maybe means you're gonna get tired like later but it can like give you that energy so you don't have that reuptake now so it'll sustain you for longer but But like, I don't know, maybe there's some impact later in the day, like when it's time to be tired, you might get more tired, something like that.
23:44Is that right? Is that way off? Yeah, I mean, there's an often an equal reaction to anything you do, you know, in your body. And there's different ways of doing it. So you could obviously take less amounts at specific moments during the day. So there's obviously our wake and sleep cycle throughout the day. And as you're waking up, the worst thing that you could do first thing in the morning is chug a cup of coffee because your body's naturally trying to get out of its sleep cycle and going into its awake cycle. So a lot of people from the very beginning of the day are adding immense amounts of stress to their body by like forcing it to wake up when the body's natural process is to ease its way in.
24:20And then you can maybe take your caffeine to prolong the effects of wakefulness. Well, this like kind of uncomfortable look I'm giving you is because that's what I do. I wake up. That's how I get myself out of bed. I'm like, oh, I'm going to go get Starbucks and have breakfast sandwich and the coffee. and also it like really keeps you regular, if you know what I mean, like coffee. It does, it does. And it becomes routine, it becomes habit. I think that's why like, you know, to the earlier point, it's hard to break people's rituals away from them, but there are better methods around how you could dose caffeine, how effective as like a performance enhancer for you so that you don't get tired, you know, at like 3 p.m.
24:57or get that afternoon slump. Yeah, it's definitely part of my ritual. I actually like so much so that I made a health change at the beginning of this year because I was in like horrible shape before. I was like, all right, New Year resolution. I'm only drinking coffee black because I was going to Starbucks like twice a day and getting this like oat milk thing that had like some sugar in it too. And probably just doing that. Like if you drink two of those a day, I mean, they do have, they really add up. So probably that was like 400 calories a day I took out of my diet just by switching to black.
25:24But I do love the taste of black coffee. I'm so like, and all the money you save too. It's like Starbucks is pretty expensive. I went like last month and it was like$7 for one of those. Yeah, I was just in Vegas for Supply Side, and I think it was like$9 for our Grande Cold Brew. All right, guys. Congratulations. They've got that new CEO. I think he's doing well. Okay, so speaking of Supply Side, pretty interesting to be there. You know, Supply Side, which is really heavily focused on supplements in general, and you see a lot of the trends that are happening there. And like, yeah, Neuro is making supplements in a more accessible, approachable format.
26:00at. What do you see going on overall in that supplements and functional department? Any predictions on where things are headed? Yeah, I mean, I just wrote an article on this, funny enough, as like a guest writer for a magazine, but I don't think novel ingredients are going to be as popular running into the future. Like people have an understanding of like what works for them and where it fits into their day versus looking for the new miracle pill, like outside of GLP ones, obviously, like the new miracle pill that's going to promise them to relieve stress or give them energy or whatever it happens to be.
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26:35And when you look at like, there's protein in everything now. I think that's like, it's almost like a meme at this point. But there are things in creatine as well, which has been around for like 20 plus years. It's like, what are these things that have been effective, but we haven't found the full potential of them yet, including caffeine and L-T-E-N as a combination which we use? And how do we apply that into different moments in our day versus the new miracle supplement that they're going to spend all this money on to force it into your day? You know, I go to supplies. I was only there for like maybe an hour, this most recent one, but it seems like the entire industry is moving towards that as well.
27:12Like you got the ashwagandha and KSM is doing their like new shalajit or whatever. They're trying to push some new thing. But outside of that, like everyone I saw was still existing ingredients that you know are healthy for you, but how are you reformatting it in a way that applies to your consumer? Like magnesium lotion for kids. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or fish oil, but from kelp, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, that's pretty interesting to think about. Because I mean, yeah, I definitely feel like just new, okay, creatine, yeah, which has been around forever. And it was that kind of stuff that was, yeah, like only the gym bros used it when we were in high school, and we were all kind of afraid of it.
27:49And I remember that South Park episode where Cartman just starts taking a bunch of it, but I don't think he's working out. And he just keeps going, beefcake! It's a great episode. And like, what is it? But like this year, I also started taking creatine. And just, I don't know, honestly, I'm not that good at science, but for me, it feels like it's actually pretty effective. Like I've gotten a lot stronger because of it. I don't think I could feel cognitive effects of it, which I know are like people are talking about more now. Yeah, but you had to take like 20, 25 grams of it, which is an insane amount.
28:20Yeah, I don't know about that stuff. But yeah, I mean, I see like just people talking about that stuff in new ways. Yeah, pretty interesting to see how it'll all make its way into, you know, food and beverage versus how much kind of like... You see all the creatine drinks that supply Side West this year? I feel like they're everywhere. Yeah, which is, that stuff is pretty interesting to me too because creatine, like you can look at these charts about ingredients in their four-year CAGR that are included in, you know, food and beverage kind of stuff and like the penetration of it in different categories.
28:47creatine is very under penetrated compared to other ingredients that I hear about at that level. Like the stuff that it's in is not that like list creatine's ingredients has not yet grown like crazy. It's not in so much stuff, but it is talked about a lot by influencers that, you know, like a lot of TikTok hashtags on it. And a lot of people that I know are taking it, but they're taking it in supplement form. They're not necessarily like, I know it's coming in cereals and all this other stuff, but also there's kind of this like low limit for your daily recommended amount of it if we're not, unless we're talking about that like cognitive side where it's like, yeah, you can just have this in a clear tasteless form in the morning and just put it in whatever.
29:25Yeah. You don't need to go buy like a Gatorade with creatine in it or whatever. Because from what I understand, it's not helpful to have like more and more creatine every day. You just like hit that low amount and that's what you're good. Unlike protein where everyone's like, I just need more. I need it in everything. I need it in the air that I breathe now. Like I need to have as much protein as possible. We'll be right back. are you going to crush it on amazon this year it's such an important channel but it's so hard to do alone and most agencies are a total ripoff we can't afford five thousand dollars a month and a commission on our sales they just don't get it that's why i love our partners at daybreak they are full service meaning they do the creative work the listings the logistics and of course all the ads all with the most reasonable retainer out there i work with them personally i'm so grateful we have such a good partner to recommend out to you our community they do evaluate your product first to see if it might be a fit.
30:15So if you want them to have a look, email them startupcpg at daybreak.agency and they'll do a free audit for you. Good luck, everyone.
30:26I wonder if like companies are realizing outside of the creatine gummies where you have to take like an insane amount of them because the load size that the limiting factor on gummies, it's like how much incremental revenue can you really make by adding creatine to your product? And is it worth switching people over to that like the cereal i saw on like i forgot where it was it was like cpg wire or something but it's like 20 dollars a box it's so expensive for what it is and it's like i don't know if i'm gonna spend 10 20 dollars a box if like one scoop of creatine for me is like six cents you know for my daily intake yeah i don't know but i really am not an expert on this stuff but it is interesting and i will look forward to your upcoming creatine gum launch okay very interesting anyways obviously that's all just kind of broader supplement stuff but i mean just for me in general i see such heat coming in overall supplements i just feel like there's so much more awareness so much more interest from people in adding things into their routine which to me does feel like incremental but i guess we'll see where all of that stuff lands going forward so ken one thing i wanted to ask you because i know very little about e-commerce, honestly.
31:37In that Shark Tank pitch from 2020, you were talking about 20 to 30 % repeat rates on Amazon and your website, like people coming back to purchase, which I think is actually very good. Although it sounds like you're like, wait, what about the other people? Almost like in baseball, if you hit like 20, 30 % of the time, that's really good. Can you just explain for maybe other people who are at my low level of knowledge about this, what does that really mean? What is a good benchmark for something like that? Yeah, you know, I think it's like while the 20-30 % repeat customer rate is good, the way we look at it is how are we building a brand advocacy as a whole?
32:10And how are people who take our product, like how can we calculate back into them from an LTV to CAC ratio model as we continue to scale the business? So this is something that every econ company says, but there's different calculations for it. What is the payback period on the amount you're spending and how much are you willing to invest to make sure that customer, until that customer pays themselves back on that initial acquisition? Okay. So just to baseline that for everyone, like LTV, lifetime value of a customer, CAC, which is your customer acquisition cost. Basically, like you want LTV to be as high as possible, which means that when you get a consumer, they are coming back and purchasing you a bunch of times.
32:49And it also has to do with how much they actually buy. And then the customer acquisition cost is the cost of your marketing to actually get them to come and make a purchase. So basically, like the math has to work out whatever it is, whatever your repeat rate is, whatever your average order value is, and people coming back and how much they buy and how often they buy and everything. It just has to make sense for you overall as a kind of growth model. Yeah. But with that being said, you know, like, as the company's matured over the last five years, a lot of our focus has gone into new customer acquisition as a whole, beyond just LTV.
33:18So while the repeat customer rate is a good metric to go by, when it's too high, we know there's something wrong because it means we're not getting enough new customers. And the majority of our revenue is being built by just retargeting and retention. I'm sure you've read like how brands grow, but the biggest thing that they talk about on the majority of big brands being able to grow is incrementally building new customer acquisition through different channels by creating availability and creating level of positioning that allows them to go to where your product is available. So for us, TikTok was one of those, PR was always one of those media appearances.
33:57We still do obviously a lot of Facebook ads and things like that, but these last few years have been focused on how do we maximize availability for consumers that we're targeting so that we could get them at least once and then continue to grow our business that way. And then we could always retarget them as long as our brand equity continues to grow. You know, speaking of getting your product to be more available, I want to ask you about retail in a second. But just because at the level that you're at, you are one of the D2C Amazon kings that, you know, certainly of people that we've had on this podcast achieving the most success in that.
34:29Do you have any tips for early stage brands that are hoping to get on that same journey as Neuro, like really cool tactical stuff or strategy that you think might be interesting for brands to know about? Yeah. So a lot of people fall into the trap of giving all their money away to Facebook, Meta, Amazon. I think there's some crazy stat. 80 % of money being raised by VCs just end up back in those three companies. And for us, there's always like, how do you have more novel ways of making sure your brand equity stands out wherever you are? So that could be as simple as getting PR out into the world and educating consumers in like specific niche demographics that a product like yours exists.
35:13All the way to, I guess, pushing for Shark Tank, getting partners that are aligned with your vision so you can get that initial pop. And from there, how do you leverage that brand equity you built through someone that already has equity or a credibility source that has equity to continue amplifying your brand? And I don't know if that's like a direct answer on a tactical perspective, but it's something we've been able to leverage well to say hey neuro as this new product that requires education in a new format is taking over an already existing category of goods that have a similar effect but doing it in a better way and now you know i'm gonna keep quoting books but in crossing the chasm right like that's how you start crossing the chasm for a lot of these people getting them away from different resources getting them away from different categories and associating them more so with your brand itself.
36:08Yeah, I like that advice. I do wonder if everybody would have as much success with it because it seems like that definitely was the right strategy for you and you hit some things that probably drove tons of awareness with new segments of consumers that wouldn't have found out about you through other mediums. But I think the brand that you've built and the use cases you're talking about are very interesting to people. So that kind of PR stuff I feel like would be especially helpful. But there also are probably plenty of brands where like you're not going to get PR hits. What you're doing is not so novel and interesting.
36:41And you might just waste all the money on PR that you could have used just to acquire customers. I know. I totally agree. I think PR could go many different directions. We've experienced that before because there's no like attributable revenue directly to a PR hit. Right. But at the end of the day, it's like it goes so many different ways because I've also spoken on another podcast about is the main goal at the very beginning, getting exposure as much as possible. And then you focus on bottom of funnel stuff later, which is marketing one-on-one, I know. But it's like, if you could be top of mind for the majority of customers in whatever way it is, by for us, it was like redominated on TikTok.
37:20And that was our big top of funnel push over these last few years. Prior to that, it was media and the PR stuff we were just talking about. How are you then breaking down all the attributes of your product and positioning and the messaging and retargeting them in the right way so that you at least hit them on what they want when they want it? And that takes somewhat of a science. And for Facebook and a lot of these platforms, it's all algorithmically done for you. But there are ways to be able to target people at very specific moments as long as your positioning is on target, is hitting them at that exact moment.
37:56But yeah, it's always a bit of a dilemma. I think the thing that I hate seeing is like, I feel like for new founders, you've come up with this product and you're like, I need to get PR because everyone in the world, of course, is going to want to write about this. And when they do, everyone's going to want to buy it because this idea is so incredible. And I mean, honestly, most of the time, I'm like, all right, calm down. Like this, you're number like 38 on the list of 50 on BuzzFeed, yeah. Yeah. And like, even if that happens, I feel like your product is well-suited to that. People are going to find it intriguing and then they're probably going to want to try it.
38:27I don't think that's true about every product. I hope that people are honest with themselves or can try to be, because the PR person, like maybe they will be, but maybe they're just like, okay, great, pay my retainer. I'll get some hits. And like, they don't really know if it's going to sell through or what the impact is going to be for the business. And then, you know, you can also get plenty of awareness, but if it doesn't lead to sales, you may have a tough time raising money when you run out of that. Those funds. So anyways, good for everyone to keep that stuff in mind, but obviously it worked extremely well for you guys.
38:57You know, on a more boring front, like the way we operate our business from just an annual operating plan like system is what are the tempo moments that we could hit on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis, which like if you're an Amazon business, Prime Day is a pretty big day for you. So what are the plans that you're doing to activate around very specific moments throughout the year where you know you're going to get amplified exposure and spend and people are in that shopping moment that you're really tapping into that mindset. So I do think just like a pure business perspective, it's like, how are you planning against big activations throughout the year and really building your firepower for those times versus what I see a lot of like, and I did this myself, you know, everything feels important at the very beginning.
39:42And you feel like you need to do everything to get the exposure, to get all these audiences. But there are moments when people will buy And that is your opportunity to really start building at least one cohort that could expand into so much more, whatever activations that you do. I mean, you guys are getting to be a big brand. So it makes sense that you're thinking about it that way. I feel like that is how the pros do it. Like I worked at Mars Chocolate, had M &Ms, and they would have, you know, you'd have your kind of yearly calendar left to right. And then the big occasions like back to school, like Halloween, all that stuff.
40:15and then the big campaigns that were going to hit around them that needed to be reflected in everything that you're doing. You need to have the big commercial going on TV. You need to have your promotions lined up. You need to have your in-store displays that are going to hit around that time. But really like specific campaigns, I feel like you see the really sophisticated marketers do it that way. Obviously hard to do that as a small brand where you're just really even trying to like get a promotion to actually happen and be planned. But you're like the only person doing it. That's very good that you guys are thinking about it that way.
40:45That sounds really smart to build up those moments for you. So now I know like still you guys, just so much of your revenue and growth comes from online and TikTok and all that stuff. But I know you're also making big strides in retail. What has that been like for you? What are the learnings for you on that end? What are your goals? How do you think about it? Man, like, so you probably see with our packaging, I'm going to criticize ourself right now, but we're going through like a big branding exercise that is launching pretty soon. but our colors on our box are associated with our flavor so this you can imagine the scalability of that once you start expanding into more and more functions becomes impossible like it's going to get so convoluted so something you don't have to necessarily worry about when you have like an entire educational funnel and a flow on d2c but when you're going into retail the consumer needs to understand exactly what they're getting the second they see your product on the shelf and And having to re-approach the way we're activating on shelf, especially when we're not a household name yet, although we're getting there, is a pretty critical piece of how we had to rethink everything from a marketing perspective, a brand perspective, messaging perspective.
41:58That is interesting. You know, people who know a lot more about marketing than I do, which is most people, I'm not a big marketing expert, said to me at times like, yeah, it's hard for you to own a lot of colors as a brand. That can be really difficult. to even own more than like three colors for people to associate all those with your brand. But then you also see now some brands doing that, though. If you look at Poppy, for example, that really has a lot more colors, and that is kind of what defines them. And I mean, I agree with you about the colors and matching and stuff. And I mean, even like Orbit gum, right?
42:29You have the like pink one, you know, kind of more like bubble gum-ish flavor. And then like the green one, the mint. But I can see what you're talking about because you guys do have multiple product lines. You have the gum, the mint, and you have different package sizes and formats, and you have the pouch, and you have the stick packs. Like, I think with Poppy, it's a little bit easier because they could lean on their brand marks a little bit, and they have such strong brand blocks that they could own, even with all those colors, that you know that it's flavor-oriented. Because it's not like one drink is for energy and focus, and one drink is for probiotics or whatever it happens to be.
43:07I mean, they do like Poppy. I know Chris Hall and Stephen Ellsworth super well, but they're like a master class. And how do we own that shelf by dominating with the loudest colors possible versus someone like us would be how do we get our neuro blue as a brand block to stand out all together and like a school of fish mentality way? Yeah, again, it's not like they don't have different things that they have to communicate aside from the flavor. And you do because you've got your calm and clarity neuro mints, you've got your sleep and recharge mints, and then you have energy and focus mints. So it's not just about the flavor, it's also about the functionality that's different.
43:47And you really have to like kind of read the label to understand all those. So I know that that is a challenge and also can be like when you're demoing product and you're trying to hit people with the like two second line about what it is. Like you're like, no, no, I need like a second to explain all these different things to you. So I know how that goes. OK, so speaking of that retail, because, yeah, I worked at Mars and, you know, Mars Wrigley. They have all the gum space also. But like checkout, I was always really interested in just how competitive and expensive checkout is. this is something that probably is not so familiar for brands that aren't in checkout, but like that in checkout, when you negotiate your annual plan with a retailer, there might be a percentage of spend that you just have to give them for checkout space.
44:30Cause you know, they know they can sell that to a lot of people who are very interested in the high turns you can get from that part of the store. So what's it been like going and negotiating for that space? And also So the big boys, the big CPG legacy companies don't love people coming on their turf and taking share away. You know, a lot of like very aggressive salespeople trying to hold on to their bonuses there. What's that whole thing been like trying to get that space been really competitive? How people reacted? Yeah, I mean, we try to negotiate slotting fees into like ad fees. So being able to like, hey, we'll spend this much instead of like the slotting fees to make sure we retain our space.
45:07But I'm trying to remember what the retailer was. But we got cash lane there and we're doing 11 units per week per store, which is pretty freaking healthy, even at checkout. And we still got kicked out after three months. Somebody paid them a lot of money for that space. Might have been a corporate initiative. They might have even had like a bonus on kicking you out, like whoever that sales rep was that managed to buy that space off you. Isn't that crazy? There's definitely some mafia undertones in the checkout space. But, you know, thankfully with a lot of other partners that we have, like the convenience stores and things like that, I feel like it's less aggressive because the cash register checkout lane is a lot wider, a lot bigger.
45:51But once you get into grocery, I feel like it's just like a vicious, vicious space, which is funny because like that's not even where people really shop for gum, like in general. Oh, interesting that you say that. Those are like my memories of buying gum are always being like with my parents, at least as a kid, because a lot of I mean, maybe neuro gum isn't obviously as much of a kid product. But at least when I was buying like, yeah, go with my babysitter or my mom or something at the grocery store and like, oh, can I have some gum? You know, it is terrific impulse section. I mean, do you know Julia Adams?
46:20Which she does work at Mars Wrigley also. I don't know. I'm not sure, but they do have like 70 ,000 employees. Yeah, fair. She is on the marketing side, but, you know, she's an advisor of ours. And one of the things that she was talking about is like the biggest change that Mars Wrigley did that increased their revenues was just making their gun pack bigger. So instead of like a five pack, they made like a 24 pack. And so it's all about like how much space can you really start taking up in that impulse set and then pushing other people out to minimize their presence as much as possible. Yeah, that's what they say.
46:51If you can't beat them, buy their space, kick them out. Right. But you guys have a lot going in your favor. I also I remember seeing a clip of Joe Rogan talking about NeuroGum, right? Like this must have been an ad that got served up to me. But it was like him sitting with NeuroGum on his table during a podcast and talking about it. He's like, I don't know. I just have this and it gives me much more like energy or clarity or something. And I can do my job better. I can do better on my podcast and stuff. That must have been a huge moment for you guys. Yeah, I mean, funny enough. So Shark Tank happened.
47:25And then a few weeks later, Joe Rogan happened. So we were just seeding a bunch of people product. And, you know, I think we seeded Joe Rogan around like 2018 or something. We had no idea he was taking the product. And then out of nowhere, he started talking about it. And since that moment, he's probably mentioned us like 40 something times, just naturally, organically. And that's probably one of the most impactful things that's obviously ever happened to our business. That's amazing. Although it kind of makes me wonder how I can chew gum and podcast at the same time. because I feel like that would ever, I don't think anyone wants to hear me smacking around gum while I'm doing the audio here.
48:01My microphone, I think is too good, but he obviously is quite a big audience. So I guess he knows how to make that work. Yeah, it's funny though, because everything reaches a saturation point. And even with like the Joe, I think he mentioned this last weekend, you know, and we didn't see it, like a pop or anything. Okay. Well, what about like, I know you work with a lot of other people out there in that community and athletes and DJs, creators, all that. What's your strategy around all that? Yeah. So we have our brain pillars and how do any of these people overlap with our brain pillars while also building an incremental audience against that?
48:32So similar to what I was saying earlier, how do you get that core audience and then be able to cross the cabin just a little bit for certain parts of that cohort to that maybe taking other energy products and guiding them into your funnel? So with Steve Aoki, for example, we know the nightlife scene, the DJ scene is a bunch of people that, you know, want to stay up all night. So how do we position ourselves with him on a performance basis, but as people start taking it, they transfer it into their lifestyle habits. With Yuki Tsunoda, from a credibility standpoint, there's only 20 F1 drivers in the world.
49:06And that's like one of the most intensive sports for focus. So how do we gather that audience, apply really that positioning that he has to over and then, you know, drive incremental revenue growth it's funny because at at supply side i was visiting a booth of another company that does cognitive claims on stuff and they had an f1 simulator and like a data point like based off f1 drivers their performance per lap increased by 0.3 seconds or something which i mean would be substantial actually if you're a driver like you take any clicks of a second yeah but i guess yeah people do associate that with just like the highest levels of concentration and mental acuity exactly and like everything is just credibility game and how do you leverage that credibility game into whoever you're messaging to like we don't expect them to be f1 drivers you know or we're not expecting to target drivers necessarily but how do you back things into uh your brand messaging that you want to promote you know it's a funny thing like i've thought about caffeine especially and like why people take it and what is the thing that they're like hoping to feel more from and even i used to ask people who are drinking a Red Bull, like, hey, why do you drink that?
50:16And they're like, you know, for like energy. And then I would ask them like, OK, what in there do you think gives you the energy? And actually, a lot of them didn't even really know it had caffeine in it. They're just like, I don't know, like sugar. But yeah, the reason why people take that is pretty interesting. And then also like, how do you really verbalize the thing that they're trying to get to? And I feel like it's just this like mental clarity. Like they want to be more like themselves and less groggy and just more capable of like how they usually are, you know, and just not feel bad at all.
50:49What do you think? So what's funny is like we used to put 40 milligrams of caffeine more forward on our packaging, especially like if you go to like a Casey's, we're like people are definitely going to be more conscious about the caffeine amount that's in our products. And it was just a hypothesis that we want to test. We realized that no one knows exactly how much caffeine that they're taking across any of the products they take, but they know exactly how it makes them feel. So exactly to your point, it's like, as long as we can be energy and focus forward, and we have everything else backing that, like whether it's like the media activation, similar to what Red Bull does, or the claims that we have from like the scientific studies, that usually pushes 80 % of people towards trying our product more so than, hey, this is a, you know, it's a better deal than taking jet alert or no-dos.
51:38It's so interesting. And by the way, there are some products out there that have a lot of caffeine in them that you really don't know about. Like, you know, those buy the AI infused drinks or whatever. Okay. So nobody sued me for this. I don't think on the front it says anything. I don't believe it says on the front anything about caffeine. It just says like super antioxidant infusion or something like that. Guess how much caffeine is in one of those bottles? That has caffeine. Just guess. Like 120 milligrams? Okay. It's 80. Which that's a full cup of coffee, but like my sister would buy her kit.
52:12I was like, what? Did you look at the back of that? Well, do you remember the whole like a Panera Bread lemonade scandal? Like that was crazy. It's wild. It's a wild world out there. And it's like, oh, I feel like really good from this. this infusion. Like there's, yeah, that's caffeine. There's a lot. Yeah, it's caffeine. It's a cup of coffee. Yeah. Remember like Exeteran. You know, Exeteran has like 20 milligrams of caffeine per pill. Like that's what's helping your migraine go away most of the time. Even just knowing that makes me feel like it'll work better. All right. Yes. Let's get some of that.
52:42Let's do it. Get this headache gone. Okay. So just as we're wrapping up here, Kent, I'm very excited for you in this journey. I think just because like you guys just seem like such good guys. Everyone go watch the Shark Tank and just see like how lovely Kent and Ryan are as people like you just seem like some of the nicest people, honestly, in this industry, which, you know, so I don't know if you'll I feel like you're going to answer this question. Well, just really humbly, but I just want to know, what does it feel like when you were that person pitching on Shark Tank or even just in the early days before it was going that well to now at the point where you're running a hundred million dollar brand?
53:20What does that really feel like when you stop and think about it? I mean, the hardest part is to stop and think about it. Like, because it's funny because a lot of the conversations I have with early team members are always around. It's like the culture has remained, but everyone feels like we've gotten like more professional now. Like that's the word. They're like, wow, we're so professional now with everything that we do. And as I look back on Ryan and I's journey through all this, having an understanding for us that we don't know everything. as startup founders. And there's people that are way more experienced than us.
53:57And kind of honest about that, I think has helped us more than anything. And not really taking that fake until you make a route that a lot of people tell you to do. So I don't know, there's still so many things I don't know. And I lean on so many of my teammates that have way more experience than me. And awesome to not only like feel myself and the team leveling up, but really seeing, I guess the company as a whole, like adjusting to each other and leveling up in different ways. It's surreal. A lot of luck, obviously, as well. I like that answer a lot. It's a beautiful answer. And it wouldn't be the same for everybody.
54:32I think there are some people who should fake it till they make it like that might work for them. I feel like that very open, thoughtful, honest model works because that's who you are. And that like works really well for you. I just think it also ties back into this, like, really understand yourself and your strengths and how you like can leverage those. And that may be I don't know, I'm like a big energy, positive, hype kind of guy. And that's a thing that I really try to lean into and I feel like has really helped me to grow the things that I've been trying to grow. Everyone has their style and their strategy.
55:04And I feel like a lot of life is learning how to really lean into that and use it in a really authentic way. All right. I'm going to close us out here, Kent. But I really want to thank you for coming on the podcast. I have really enjoyed this discussion and learned a lot. And do you mind just as we close out here, what's a great way for everybody to support Neuro and follow along with you guys in your journey? Yeah, find us on Instagram and TikTok at NeuroGum, N-E-U-R-O-G-U-M. And you see us in stores, make sure you buy us so we can get our velocities up. That's right. All right. Get them, find them in that checkout space.
55:41It cost them some money. So make sure, get in there. All right, cool. Thank you so much, Kent. I look forward to having you back in the future and we can hear more about this retail journey that you guys are now on as well. All right. Thanks a lot. Hope everyone enjoyed. Bye, everyone. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to our podcast. If you loved it, I would so appreciate it if you could leave us a review. You could do it right now. If you're an Apple podcast, you can scroll to the bottom of our Startup CPG podcast page and click on write a review. Leave your company name in there.
56:13I will try to read it out. If you're in Spotify, you can click on about and then the star rating icon. If you are a service provider that would like to appear on the Startup CPG podcast, you can email us at partnerships at startupcpg.com. Lastly, if you found yourself grooving along to the music, it is my band. You can visit our website and listen to more. It is superfantastics.com. Thank you, everybody. See you next time.
From the publisher
In this episode of the Startup CPG Podcast, host Daniel Scharff sits down with Kent Yoshimura, co-founder and CEO of Neuro Gum, to explore how a rejected Shark Tank pitch turned into a nine-figure functional supplement brand pioneering the chewable energy category. Kent shares the journey of scaling Neuro from $3 million to over $100 million in revenue while competing against legacy giants like Mars Wrigley in one of CPG's most competitive spaces: the checkout lane.
The conversation reveals how Neuro built direct-to-consumer dominance through TikTok virality, organic influencer partnerships (including Joe Rogan's 40+ mentions), and strategic collaborations with F1 drivers, DJs, and professional athletes. Kent explains the science behind cold-compressed gum, why microdosing caffeine works better than traditional energy products, and how thoughtful brand building and operational excellence drove exponential growth.
Throughout the episode, listeners gain actionable insights on e-commerce fundamentals, new customer acquisition strategies, and how to build brand equity beyond paid advertising. Kent shares candid lessons on breaking into retail, navigating checkout space negotiations, and why staying humble while hiring experienced operators accelerates sustainable growth.
Listen in as they discuss:
- How Neuro Gum scaled from $3M to 9 figures after Shark Tank rejection
- The science of chewable energy and why format innovation matters
- Neuro's surprising consumer demographics and why older buyers convert
- E-commerce fundamentals: LTV/CAC optimization and customer acquisition strategy
- Building brand equity through organic partnerships over paid ads
- Joe Rogan's repeated endorsements and the power of strategic product seeding
- Partnership strategy: leveraging athletes and creators for credibility
- Breaking into retail: competing for checkout space against Mars Wrigley
- Supplement trends: established ingredients over novel compounds
- Scaling to $100M: staying humble and hiring people smarter than yourself
Episode Links
Website: https://neurogum.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kentaro/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kentyoshimura/
Don't forget to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify if you enjoyed this episode. For potential sponsorship opportunities or to join the Startup CPG community, visit http://www.startupcpg.com.
Show Links:
- Transcripts of each episode are available on the Transistor platform that hosts our podcast here (click on the episode and toggle to “Transcript” at the top)
- Join the Startup CPG Slack community (30K+ members and growing!)
- Follow @startupcpg
- Visit host Daniel's Linkedin
- Questions or comments about the episode? Email Daniel at podcast@startupcpg.com
- Episode music by Super Fantastics
