Jeff Byers on Scaling Momentous: 1,000% Growth, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Cutting a $500K Product

You just fight every day you have breath in your lungs to survive. There was a lot of times when I did not think we would survive. I always knew I would survive, but we were on the brink, right? I kind of call it like as a small business, like you're just walking through the valley of death. You got like snakes and poisonous plants and jaguars and no water, like no food. You just have to survive, right? And ultimately, you start climbing out of the valley of death. And then you're like looking down and you're like, man, I survived that. But you just have to make the right decisions to not, right? Get killed externally. And then, like, in the situation I feel like Momentous has got to now, right? How you die once you get above the valley of death is you doing stupid shit.

All right. Here we go. Jeff Byers, welcome back. It's been uh it's been a minute, man.

Yeah, excited to be on, back on.

Yeah. Well, there's a lot going on. I mean, uh, so you know, we'll just dive right into it. You know, it's it's your third time on the show. So we had you on in 2021, you were AMP human, right? Then in 2023, uh Momentusa kind of just established itself. There was the merger was complete, you took over as CEO. Since that point, over the last three years, you've had over 1,000% revenue growth in three years. So that's pretty cool. I mean, you've had your third consecutive Inc. 5000 appearance. Uh, you work with all 32 NFL teams, 10 plus DOD contracts. Uh, you're growing, dude. You're still growing. This thing is is is is big. So maybe let's start with this, Jeff. Like the last three years, two and a half years, whatever it's been since you've been on this podcast, uh, there's some notable things that we're gonna talk about, right? I'm really keen on how why you guys decide to cut a half a million dollar revenue stream based on brand integrity and scientific integrity and we decision behind that. Uh, we're gonna talk about uh the partnership with the vitamin shop. So you guys went retail for the first time, I believe. Big move earlier this year. You guys have uh you've committed half a million dollars to women's health research and collaboration with Dr. Stacey Sims and a couple products you guys have. So there's a lot going on. So over the last two and a half, three years, what's it like been what's it been like for Jeff Byers as this thing continues to to rocket ship growth?

Yeah, I mean, thank you. And hearing some of those numbers, it's I feel very lucky and humbled, but it's also like we have an awesome team as a whole. And I, you know, every day that goes on, I feel like I become less and less important and my team becomes more and more important as a whole. And I think what like overall, like over the last couple of years, why? Like we've hired really well and we've stayed very true to our core ethos, right? Be a leader in high performance, right? And surround ourselves with the best people, right? Like there are non-negotiables in our business, and that's around what we call the momentous standard and doing it the right way. And the right way is the hard way, and it's the long way, typically. Um, and we've had a lot of hard challenges, ups and downs since we first met. Like, man, you know, we are still amp human. That's who pays everybody. Um, from back to the first paycheck, and things have changed drastically. But the roots that we talked about in elite performance and being right, like this challenger are is core to the DNA of who we are. And we aren't trying to be like every other supplement company and follow those playbooks. Like we believe we can do it better than it's ever been done before and leap from the front. And so the big change is like we have a really, really deep team, I would say as a whole. We've continued to build trust in a space that has very little trust. And uh, this flywheel of being at the forefront of high performance continues to spin really special partnerships off that just can like are humbling every time I even think about them. Like, why am I in a room with this person? How did we get here? Which is pretty special.

Aaron Powell Who are, I mean, maybe give us some background for people who aren't familiar. I mean, you guys obviously I mentioned Dr. Stacey Sims, you got Huberman, right, is a big proponent. What are what are some of the other major like um, you know, I guess partnerships with the whatever you call this category, like scientific influencers?

Yeah, I would say like partnerships, authoritative figures. There's a guy named Arnold Schwarzenegger, he's a pretty big deal. That's right. Yeah, yeah. That was another point I want to talk about. Yeah, there's that. Arnold has been awesome. You got Stacy, you got Rich Roll, Tim Ferris, and then we just, I mean, we have all these other, you know, Dr. Darchan Shaw, like like it's like this really unique combination of like what I'll call experts and then key opinion leaders, where it's like Tim Ferris is not an expert, but he is setting the trends, not not trends, he's setting the stage of what health and wellness, and he's an authoritative figure in the category because he lives this and people look up to him. Same with Arnold. Like Arnold's not an expert in the category, but he's been around and he's an authority. He's transcended right everything that he's done. And when Arnold puts his name behind something, it it is a true sign that that's very a very different thing because he can't he doesn't have to put his name behind things on that. So I these people have been really powerful to us because they've helped us cut through the noise and tell the story that we're different, right? Like, you know this. Like we my vision was not to be a supplement company. Like I never that was not on my bingo card when we started the underlying entity in 2018. Like I actually said no for a long time to our board. We were funded by the Department of Defense. We were doing like consumer biotech work in like elite high performance niche world, right? And it was like we're gonna be the next great high performance company. And like, I don't know, I still don't know quite what that means, but it sounded cool at the time. But we were working in these elite spaces and like time goes on, and you know, 2020 COVID hits, we have a really niche product, right? Everything's a little different. It's like we need to find a place to actually build a business, and it's not in this elite niche product that we had originally that was a part of amp human. And, you know, we thought about nutrition and supplements, and it was a no, I can't, I don't want to do like when you're funded by the Department of Defense to do work in high performance, like making a protein powder seems super lame. And uh but it also seems really it was it felt very unauthentic to who we were, right? And that's just because the barriers to entry are so low in the category, and there's just like just noise everywhere. And coming from like, I'm a massive consumer of the category, right? As a whole, I've been my whole life as a ex pro athlete and all of that, like, but it's just like you can go in to a grocery store and there's 50 brands in our category in one grocery store selling all the similar things. So, like, I guess from my perspective, it's like it's not defensible. There's not a ton of barriers to entry, and like it's just me too. And uh that just didn't feel right. Progress a little bit further, COVID continues to rip, right? And it became clear it's like this is a category we have the right to play in. And there's a huge opportunity to do it differently and take kind of this different approach, this different DNA as a whole. And that's when we acquired the momentous brand that was just like built like on quality, on efficacy, on sourcing, and was built in the top places in the world. They just uh they like us hadn't really tapped the consumer market. And we believed we could take the two together and really create something different. And that was a massive unlock. And what we did was we we jumped outside of performance for sport and jumped into performance for life, right? And we started talking to consumers differently, not as athletes, but as humans of like how do we help you live longer and optimize whatever it is you're doing? And that transformed our business pretty quick, but we kept this core DNA that is quality, sourcing, science, right, and expertise. We still sell to every NFL team. Like everybody's like, oh man, that business must be so good. We sold the 32 NFL teams not like years ago. That business is flat, like just candidly. Like they aren't adding new NFL teams, and NFL teams aren't adding new players. It's just like saturated. Yeah, it's and but that's amazing for us, right? Like, it is who makes us special, right? Those are the people when we launch, we you mentioned it, a Fedoja. Guess who was like, this doesn't feel right anymore, Jeff, in your portfolio. Those people are the ones that like, I'm getting text messages and they're like, hey, this is a goose in a portfolio of ducks, right? And you're like, like, let's take a deep dive and really think about why we have this in the portfolio. Like, they're they're the ones who keep like they're that this crazy rudder that just keeps us going straight, is that that elite space because they don't mess around on the fringes. They say, this works and everything else is noise. Yeah.

Well, let's dive into that. I want to get back to the Arnold thing as well at some point during this conversation. But uh, that's just awesome. Yeah, so I follow Fedosia. I mean, for people who don't know, it's it's a testosterone support supplement. And at my age, I was like, I was taking it, Huberman was recommending it. Although Huberman was kind of questionable, he's like, ah, we're not still not sure about the toxicity of this supplement. And, you know, he had some concerns about it. I know it was effective, like at least with the combination and what was it, Tonka Dolly and Fedocia together. Yeah, it was it was a good one. I mean, I test myself, you know, periodically and I felt like it was it was making a small incremental improvement, especially for how little of investment it really is, right? And then I was really surprised when it was just gone one day. And then I saw the announcements. And I'm curious, you know, when you have a half a million dollar revenue stream, which ain't nothing, right? And you decide, well, we cut it, like walk me through like the board decision. Like, what was the backroom decision making on that to to do something like that?

It was a half million dollar profit product. Okay. Not a half million dollar revenue product. There you go. Which puts it in a little more context, too. That is like this decision was actually like in 2023 when we pulled it. Or no, 2024, sorry, when we pulled it, it actually shifted our entire year from being right profitable to non-profitable as a whole. Right. It had like it carried that much weight from a profit perspective. And it was like, you know, it wasn't like we shifted revenue into something else. It just went from big big to zero. And I guess I guess if we go back to why did we bring it on market, right? It was a product that we built with Andrew Huberman. It was one of the ones that hit on was on his list of like, here's what it is. And the early data is really is still really compelling. It's like, oh, but it wasn't that strong. It's compelling. And basically we put in the portfolio saying, hey, we believe data is going to continue to progress, right? And continue to show the that this has a positive implication in hormone health in men. That did not attack, that did not continue to progress. And we basically, right, you know, we have this incredible board of advisors and we go through the portfolio with it. It's like, what's working, what's not, like, but number one pillar for us is science, right? And we always knew that science was early, and we are always fine taking an early stance on something, right? And we had support from many people that, hey, this is early, and if it continues to progress, this is great. They the qu the answer is it did not progress. And it became this goose in a portfolio of ducks. And basically, as we started, right, really unwinding it, it was like, well, probably Tongat's driving almost all of this in this Tongat Fadoja stack, right? And Tonga has really pretty good data on it. Like they it does have good data on it. Like it the implications are positive and all of that. And Fedoja just was like sitting here on the fringes and it was like, we are a brand of trust and quality. If we no longer believe this fits in our portfolio, why do we keep it? Right. There's no like, like, I would say like revenue-wise, consumer-wise, like that's the difference in our categories. Like most brands would say, why would we ever cut a half a million dollar profit skew? It doesn't matter, right? Like, because the the risks in our business are zero. But for us, and kind of this approach that we've taken is what is gonna build our brand? Momentous, what I wear on my hat and my shirt, is more important than any individual product, any sum of product, because the brand and what we stand for will outlive any month, any quarter, any annual number that we hit or don't hit. And the brand is ultimately what drives value long term in a business. Consumers, they buy brand, they buy and transact on product, but they stick with brands.

Especially on supplements, I think.

Especially, right? And I I just I like then that wasn't like the category didn't play doesn't play a role in this, but it's like when you think about what consumers do and how they operate, it's very, very hard. You can't buy trust, right? Trust takes time and it's earned and it can be lost in a second, right? And you have to do the continuously do the right things over and over to continue to earn it. And trust is earned every day and can be lost every day, right? And I think that's like this big thing of like in 20 years, does this decision, does this product help us or hurt us be better? Right? Like to be a leading brand in 20 years, yes or no? Right? If the answer is yes, awesome. No, then we need to have a conversation. And if it doesn't like if it's irrelevant, then it doesn't matter. But what kept happening is Fedoja doesn't elevate our brand. It doesn't help us stay the brand of trust. It doesn't align with our pillar of uh science. And we curate our portfolio. We have chosen not to have 300 SKUs. We could have 17 different vitamin D products on market. Some companies do. That's not who we are, right? We curate a portfolio because we believe 20% of what you do and 20% of the products in our category drive almost all the value, like the 80-20 rule. Like, and so we have to be we have to cut things if they don't meet our standards. And that was the decision on on Fodoja. How it goes, right? Essentially, we we started to investigate and we started polling our board. So like early January, we did like we do like a huge product portfolio review, and it was like, hey, this is a this is a goose, we think, right? And then we go through and we start doing clinical valuations, right? What's it gonna take to get it there? How long will it take to progress this clinical validation? And then number two is what is everybody in our ecosystem saying? Like, let's collect all the data, right? Ultimately, what we came to is like, this doesn't fit in our portfolio, right? It doesn't have a place. We went to a the board of directors as soon as we had that answer and said, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna pull the product, right, within a week of this meeting. And this is the cost revenue-wise, this is the cost profit-wise, and this is what we have to write off from an inventory perspective. Here's the caveat on all this. We also had $400,000 in product that we just put in a trash can. But that's the right but but again, it's the right thing to do. Short-term decision making-term decision making is ultimately, right? To me, no moment in time is gonna define us. It's all these moments in time. And our board, thank God, we have had an awesome board that believed that the momentous is more important than any product. And having a profitable year or month or whatever that may be, that making the right decisions ultimately drives loyalty and customers and build brand value, right? And that was the decision that we made. And we were also lucky that we were in a really good financial position that we could weather that storm. But we just, and they said, This is why we bet on you, Jeff. This is why we bet on your team, and let's go. Right. Like there wasn't even it wasn't a a question with them. And I'm like, holy shit, I have the right partners. Right. It was like the first time I really knew. And they just came on six months before we made this decision, essentially. And it was like, we I you always think you pick a good financial partner. You don't know until something happens like this. And we vetted them really hard. They're operators, that's who they were. And we made the call, and they were like, you guys know what's right. And brand is what creates value, but also brand is actually what is the moat in our category. It's brand. And we built a brand based upon trust and quality. And that's like, that's you have to defend it with your life. So, anyways, Fedoja was a looking back, it's like super easy, like irrelevant in our growth story. At the time, oh my gosh, like there was a lot of stress, right? There was stress from my finance team, there was like stress from ops, right? Who's like, we're writing off how much in inventory we we literally just did a production run and you're just we're discontinuing the product. And because then there was a like like, well, let's just sell through inventory, right? And it's like, that's not who we are. Like if we made a decision, like our truck customer trusts us, right? Uh to do that. And guess what? I guarantee you over half of the people that was buying our for those are just buying it from some. I bet. I mean, I don't I don't give it a lot of people. For sure.

People just change. Yeah, it's it's really easy to find on immobility. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's it's really critical. I mean, from you know, what I take away from that too is like you're you can't mention a 20-year vision. And so many different um leaders or business owners are so uh narrowly focused and for a good reason. Like, okay, you gotta make it to the end of the year, right? You gotta make it to year five. I mean, we know the success, especially of small businesses, and um, you guys are are uh definitively not a small business, but you look at like most people are looking like, okay, we're gonna build to sell in five years. We're gonna, you know, exit in 10. But 20 is a very different mindset over overall, right? It it just is. And you know, I think whenever like uh I'll play around with little games of myself, like, okay, if I make this decision in 10 years, will I regret not having tried it? You know, things like that. And when you put yourself in this forward mindset where you like, okay, is this long-term healthy for anything? I think it's a really simple but critical exercise that leaders within any layer of business need to need to incorporate into their thought.

I th I think what I think what has changed, and I don't like I think we had a period of time as like business, businesses and such that, especially in consumer package goods and all of this space, where it was just how do you make money as fast as possible. And that drove that drove terminal value. But that like that was not always the case. Like all the iconic brands in the world were built doing it the right way, which is the hard way, right? And it's like this like full funnel marketing approach, right? Talking about top of funnel, brand awareness, right, validation. And then you work down the funnel as a whole and being omnichannel. Like very few like companies aren't trading that are right flash in the pan businesses anymore, right? Like our categories had like VMS, Active Nutrition has had almost no real good transactions in the last three or four years, right? And it's because this big shift to like, you know, I believe Unilever, Nestle, these brands, these companies have to believe brands are going to be around in 20 years. And if you make decisions to make short-term profit or be TikTok, uh just like an only TikTok brand or an only Instagram brand, like that's not defensible. Like that's just a way to create a really sexy PL, which is awesome, which is really, really good. But ultimately, like these businesses now are going backwards and doing the doing the math of like, I have to buy a business that's going to be valuable in 20 years for us. And if it's not, then I lose my job, right? As head of MA or whatever. These are like like, and I think private equity looks at the same way is like having a good PL is a requirement, but it's not the only thing that matters as a whole. And just because you're a $100 million business and profitable doesn't also mean that you're transactionable anymore. Because we see it all the time. Uh I mean we've seen it all the time now is like very few businesses are going. It's like, how do you build defensible motes? Right. And brand is the most powerful moat that you can build because it withstands everything else, right? It withstands ups and downs in the markets and right. It just it'll and it allows you to play in so many different areas or so many different ways or different channels, as an example. Like brand allows us to launch retail, win at Amazon, right? The new platform that pops up, whatever it may be, plays in golf or like because brand allows that, right? If all you're do good at is performance marketing, then that's all you do, right? And it's hard to how do we then win at retail, or how do we win in a strategic channel when we built a business on TikTok shop or whatever, whatever it may be.

So it's it's so like and I I think about this often when you guys started in over conversations over the years, too, Jeff. It's like, how do you build a moat in this area? And I think something that I'm sure uh, you know, when when I talk to people who know their shit or people who have done a you know a little bit of research on supplementation, they take one of two. They take Momentus or they take Thorn. That seems to be the ones why, because they just trust it. Like I know with those two brands personally, like if I'm gonna buy something from them, like I can feel good about it, right? I don't have to take a deep dive on whatever, right? I can I can just trust it, purchase, carry on with my day. And that is like that's a really interesting point in an industry in supplementation where it's just there's so many fly by night brands, there's so many people in for a quick dollar. You know, I've joked you know those times, I'm like, I should have just started a supplementation brand, right? And made some made money instead of doing it, whatever the hell I do for a living. But like, you know, that that's true. Like you guys have done a great job. Those are the two, and I'm sure, you know, with a brand like Thorne that's been around for a very long time, you guys would probably be very happy to be in that conversation, right? Because they're scientifically, yeah. Yeah.

Well, and they built like again, but they like Thorne, they've been around since 1984, right? Like they built trust by doing the right thing, being in the right channels, time and time and time and time again, right? And that is what right like, and you go back and you just look at other great brands, right, that are up and coming, like it's making the right decisions in the right channels, being present, doing it right over and over and over again that matters, right? As a whole. I feel like feel very lucky that we get to be in those conversations. But I go back, it's like because we made we we we have similar roots in elite spaces that drive trust, that that don't, right? The practitioner channel doesn't take BS in it, right? Where Thorne is born, right? sports and college sports, those dietitians, they don't, they they just don't have the patience or the bandwidth to try something that potentially could be low quality or not efficacious. They just don't. That's not who they that's like that's why they're the best at what they do. So yeah, anyways, it's like it like it's really it's never been easier to build, you know, a $50, $100 million business. And that is amazing. Right. Like, but you just have to know what you're trying to build and what is the outcome as a whole. But like, you know, if you're a small and like you're a small business and you don't want to sell it, like it might be hard this year to make a decision. But like ultimately, you know, if you're a an entrepreneur, small business owner for life, like that decision you make today may or may not dictate if you're here in five years or seven years or 10 years. Right. And those decisions are incredibly hard. But like as an entrepreneur, as a as a founder, like you just fight every day you have breath in your lungs to survive. And like there was a lot of times when I did not think we were we would survive as a whole. Not I always knew I would survive, but we were on the brink, right? I kind of I kind of call it like as a small business like you're just walking through the valley of death. Right. And it's like you got like snakes and poisonous plants and jaguars and no water like and no food. And it's like you just have to survive right and ultimately you start climbing out of the valley of death. Right. And it's like, you know, and then you're like looking down and you're like man I survived that. But you just have to make the right decisions to not right get killed externally. And then like in the situation I'm in, I I feel like Momentus has got to now, right? How you die once you get above the valley of death is you're you doing stupid shit. Right. Like that's all we kill ourselves now like externally like it's because we made a really bad choice, right? It's like, oh let's go do something stupid. And that's that's where we are. But I think like this you just got to fight and claw when you're in this you know stage and like sometimes you got to go cross an another valley of death but like I I don't know like that's the best way I describe it. It's like when you're young and early like everything's trying to kill you. You just have to like navigate it and stay true to who you are and survive long enough to get out of it. Right. And you might have to get back in it someday. But the decisions you make ultimately come compound. And it's just like but the biggest thing is like you have to know who you are when you go into the Valley of death because then it helps you give you purpose on why you keep fighting. And like why do we create this business?

Yeah. I'm sure we just talked a lot of people out of entrepreneurship and that's okay too. Walk me through the vitamin shop. So you guys are going retail now. Big, big, big move. Walk me through that decision with that.

Retail's an interesting one, but like it's still you know Amazon for the first time just crossed retail in the US as the biggest channel for for our category. But it was retail was always on our roadmap. It was just a matter of when. And then it became a matter of where when we decided it's time. But if I take a step back like there's lots like you can be a retail first brand you cannot like you can go D to C and all that. And kind of for us is like we were really fortunate that our D2C business continued to ramp and grow and grow. And throwing retail in too early can throw off a lot of what what uh what is special about D2C, but also it can distract you, right? Retail is a distraction if you're not properly resourcing the bandwidth for it. And so we've just said let's say no, we want to get above $100 million before we go to retail. Just like it gives us the ability to properly resource but also our belief of like enough brand Halo that you can go in and work at retail. And so what does that mean as a whole? Like I believe you can win at retail a couple different ways. You can launch into retail and you can win on price like consumers shop on price and you can win on price at retail. That's a race to the bottom and very very hard for high quality premium brand us. Like we're not going to ever win on price in retail. Number two, you can really spend a ton of money to drive awareness at retail but retail is binary. It either works or doesn't work.

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The European market has spoken now it's America's turn check it out at us.perfectgim.com as a whole and that spending that money right when you're not that big of a business can be the kiss of death as a whole and also retail is binary meaning if it doesn't work they just make you take your product back or they sell at a discount and everything goes you know bad real bad fast. And so it's like we need to be big enough where when we launch retail we can s invest to like drive to channel because I don't want to win on price I want to and I don't and I want to have enough brand awareness that we've already built that's like our D to C channel is leaky because we have such high awareness that people aren't where they shop to buy their supplements or their nutrition, we don't exist, which is great. And we can dedicate money from D to C into retail, right? We can use a really big channel and offset it right with this growing channel. And then I think like just third like omnichannel businesses win, right? You weather lots of storms, right? Multi-channel means you're not at the whim of anything I think in the world of AI, this is just my crazy prediction AI is going to create more like in like if you are an experience or a pro like an actual physical product, you have you have to show up in real life right and I think consumers, we're gonna leverage AI really powerfully to to help us have more experiences in life. But we're also going to I think trust less digitally right and especially from like right because like there's so much fake shit out there, right? It's pretty bad AI allows it's bad. Right. And I think consumers are like where do I what do I trust? Who do I trust? And right experiences and touch and feel product like consumers seeing a momentous product on shelf is like, oh this is a real company if Target or Vitamin shop or Walmart has done its diligence and in it is on its shelf, it's actually a real company right it's not like one dude sitting in his underwear at his mom's house like just like an AI wizard that's figured out how to hack this shit. I mean like Kenley like I like and and I think consumers actually want to see that. Right. And I think I do believe that retail will be a discerning factor because there's no way Target is working with a person that has, you know, a staff of one, three people to get on there or vitamin shop. That's just not how this works. Right like retail you actually have to be a real business and showing up in real life I think consumers are going to find more and more value at and we're going to go back to that right because AI is going to buy us so much time and energy as a whole that you're going to want to experience things in real life. So I just think omnichannel and I think there's like this incredible opportunity as a brand to how do you show up in real life a bit differently, but I think consumers care deeply about that right as a whole. And maybe they they discover a brand in retail and then they go to Amazon or they go to our dot com. Don't really care. Right. And we've built our business that right economics we've built the business economically I don't care if it comes from retail. I don't care if it comes from dot com I don't care if it comes from Amazon right one team one dream. What we want to do is service the customer with where they're at and we've built the business so that we can economically make it work regardless. Right. And I think that's really really important. And that's partially because of our size and scale like we don't have to give up the house to go into into retail, into, into a vitamin shop. Why? Because we're big enough and they they want us so it's not like they aren't taking a chance on Momentus, right? They're like, duh Momentus make sense and so we're getting treated like a real brand not like this growth startup brand where it's like man it's a it's a sure as a zinger we're going to take higher margin off of them and then economically it didn't it would be harder for us. Anyways, why vitamin shop? Really good question. So we decided hey once we cross 100 we're going in right why we believe all this then we can you know we can be successful. And then it came down to who ultimately and we kind of said our philosophy you know is velocity over doors and what does that mean is like there's lots of brands that say doors, which means how many retail locations are you in like individual stores is the the ultimate important thing. For us, you lose control with doors and you can't point your marketing engine really wide it's like you need to point it towards a singular retailer. And then it's like where do we have unfair advantage to win and then where can we learn? Right? Like that was kind of like the criteria. And it's like okay uh velocity over doors, where do we believe we can go in and and really drive impact right all right there's a couple places where we we truly fit that fit our brand right and that you know it's not 7,000 doors today and we don't want to go into more than one. It's like okay one perfect where do we have an unfair advantage to right? It's like okay where could where where where will we be valued the most? Where do we think a customer will resonate also as a brand that's not like you know we haven't designed our packaging for retail and like we're a little longer story. We're like we need a store associate that actually has input to the consumer right it's like where do we go? Right? Like we like if you're just if we're just a bottle on the shelf, then it's all it's all external marketing that has to work. And so it's like we believe that at Vitamin Shop, their health enthusiasts which is who work at the store right will be a core component of our success. And we can influence them by educating them on why Momentus is different as a whole. And so it's like we have a point of influence there and an unfair advantage. We also just right we knew some people in the leadership team and that allows us to right when things go south or whatever, you can do it. And then vitamin shop for us it was a learning opportunity it's like what SKUs work how like how do consumers resonate because vitamin shop is not a massive like they're big but they're not a they're not a Walmart target Costco where you can't test shit. And it's like you get one chance to do it right. And vitamin shop it's like you know like we can go drive down the hill here in Utah to the vitamin shop and try some stuff right and we can ask like hey can we do this? How about that? And the the cost is low and the risk is low on there. And so we've been able to learn a ton and like what products what products do work what products don't work right uh pricing also like what resonates with the store associated. So that's that's kind of the gist of why vitamin shop and one of the things that was so important was we did not want to be an active nutrition brand. So like protein, creatine collagen, right, think of powders or a VMS brand think of pills, right? What has made us super special digitally is this ability to be both, right? Because consumers now, unlike recent unlike you know five years ago, people aren't buying active nutrition and VMS separately, right? They're buying right, the same person who's buying protein powder is buying omegas and the same person who's buying creatine is buying vitamin D. And they're buying them not for sport performance. They're buying them for healthy aging and longevity and performance for life. Right? Yes they are athletes but you know five years ago creatine was not in that mix nor was protein realistically nor was collagen right like and so it's like this morphing of an industry two categories. I mean even at retail they're not bought by the same person any right now but the consumer shops them together which is very very unique. Right? It'd be like having a different buyer for granola and cereal like it's like it's the same shit. It's the same consumer. I don't know. Right. So that was a big thing and Vitamin shop allowed us to prove that and test that because they carry a wide enough array. So that was so that's why we went vitamin shop first. And then it's like can we aim our how do we aim our marketing gun at Vitamin Shop? How do we leverage Arnold Schwarzenegger? How do we leverage our experts right to drive newness to store because ultimately right I I believe that retail is like this self-fulfilling prophecy like if you do good, they give you more and if they give you more you're going to do better. And if you do better they're gonna give you more it's like this thing it's like how do we start that flywheel and for us it's we the number one thing for retail is they need to A, they need to drive new to store customers or new to category customers, right? Like Target wants to drive people who've never shopped our category to our category, right? Vitamin shop needs to drive more people in the door and we can do that right because we are pretty good at this big top of funnel brand awareness. And when you have really big voices, they drive they they can actually move the needle. And so it's like we're gonna drive new customers which means they're gonna be excited and they're gonna give us more by giving us more we do better. By doing better they're gonna give us more right and it's like we just need to start at that flywheel because if you just go in and be like hey we're on shelf we made it great you're gonna be average and nothing that we do at Momentous, right? We want to do it better than it's ever been done before. And that means we need to be above average velocity and that is not just we made it on shelf we're great. Like we've kind of said like getting on shelf is like three percent of the battle right it is how do you expand, maximize, right? Because ultimately when we look down the list, we want half of our products to be leading in the category that they're in, right? And that's hard. That just doesn't happen overnight.

So it's uh there's a lot of things I want to pull on there. And number one is like I remember one of the things that was so distinctive to me for you guys is like you get these expert protocols, right? And this goes to like the powder and the pill combination. It's like people don't necessarily want a product they want the outcome and they want it personalized. Right. And that's a big thing for what you guys have done so well is you know you'll have stacks right on your website. You'll have uh you know Huberman testosterone support protocol or whatever it may be expert, you know, the the women's health women's three with Dr. Stacey Sims like all these are are very particular and people feel like it's personalized. And to the point of AI, I'm just so curious like how do you guys stay on top of this? Because the consumer behavior has changed so much. Like I'll go in now and I know I'm not alone like I'll put in my blood work I'll put in a couple other things okay what's my supplementation stack that I should be taking and spits out pretty good ones and you know have I done like I'll ask for citations or look for some research and but I don't always have time to go through it. So I just kind of trust it. Right. And that's like the new norm. I think people are just doing that. So it's hyper personalized. So like and I know AEO and all that stuff and this is probably more of a marketing conversation but you know how mine how much time and resources are you pouring into staying on top of this this AEO and LLM behavior change of consumers and you know maybe give some insights that that other executives can use to you know have the thought process of of keeping this front of mind.

Yeah you kind of got two things in there. One is around stacks and what's super interesting from the last time we talked is the market shifted actually pretty heavily away from stacks. Right. Okay. Stacks used to be a huge driver in our business and now it's almost like people are building their own stack. Yes. Right? On here. And it's like because one size fits all doesn't work. What you see is the common thread of product across a lot of things. Right. But some people are like they're mixing and matching because to your point there's more information and you're able to put your blood work in and what are your goals and it spits out right not just the you know expert protocol or you know the a female stack. What those do is actually inspire people and they ultimately end up like taking two or three of the four or five things out of it and say, these are the most important to me. Let me like let me take these out and then I'm gonna add two other things. Right. And so they're almost building in those custom stacks. And then and then so that's really the this this bundling these stacks there are they're really good and consumers use them but they don't buy them like they used to it's not like hey jump on a landing page this is the Tim Ferris stack I buy the Tim Ferris stack. Like that doesn't happen. Right. But it's it's a really interesting this is what Tim Ferris uses. And then they're gonna build their own stack based upon what that and I think some consumers you know are coming in like like you and other consumers like I just want the cleanest creatine and they find momentous is creatine right and that because they already know they have it or or they want it on there. So and then this next thing is how do we think about AI and right AI optimization right this GEO and all of this. We think about it a lot as a whole because it's the future right as a whole. And there's this, you know, there's like well we need to have our you know LL LLM on momentous and then we need to recommend protocols and all this shit. And we early on just been like that is not who we are like consumers don't come to us to do that. Right. We are not going to be chat perplexity right uh Claude any of those and we shouldn't like we shouldn't what we are really good at is making the highest quality science backed curated portfolio of supplements and nutrition products period. And we need to serve the customers and help educate them right with where they're at and understand why Momentous is a brand not a product as a whole. And so how do we show up and rank is a really important thing in those things because it's still learning on how it's pulling and what what it's pulling from and when we want it to be when people are searching hey who who are the quality supplement brands we want it to be Thorn, Momentous, whatever it may be we like we need to make sure we show up there authentically right and that is this ever-changing world and AI, what they're pulling from it used to be like pulling from Amazon reviews and reviews and it's like well if you've been around for 40 years, I mean you have like if you were around in 2015 on Amazon, you have 10,000 plus reviews on products right that doesn't make you good but it used to like AI still weights that right it's underweight like right Reddit be like yeah and so it's like where are things where do things matter in AI world right and how do you show up as not a AI hack or a sponsor but like genuinely and authentically show up. And I think there's this thing of like you need to rank on AI just like you need to rank on Google or Amazon search, right? You have to but then when a customer goes and clicks it has to actually be what they're expecting right it can't be like right it can't be like this random brand like if you if it comes and says hey we're a premium high quality brand you have to land on a website it'd be a pre-mike and you have to have the here's the things that you do that are important. And then when they get the product and all the follow up you have to deliver on that promise. And I think what we've done at Momento is we're still learning like everybody like this whole this this whole optimization in our category right and how do we do that? Like we didn't start in the last two years so we weren't built around it right like some brands like they crush but they were built they were built on this right they were like we're back on yeah they were built on a the AI landscape. Like we built this business before AI existed. And so we're trying to figure it out as we go. And so we're not like leading the pack in AI optimization, but we're definitely not at the back and we want to make sure we do that. But ultimately I believe AI is a great acquisition tool you have to retain those customers and the value of Momentus is delivering on the product promise and the brand promise right ultimately is what creates a sticky customer. And if somebody discovers Momentus via Claude when they're searching for like here's my blood work, what stack should I take or what products would I recommend? And they land at Momentous and they buy Momentus creatine omegas, we have to deliver on the product promise, right, first for them to even engage with us again. And then we have to deliver on the brand promise, which is why are we special? Why are we different? Why sh why why do we continue to earn your trust? And that that whole bottom funnel I think is what is so important that a lot of people are forgetting about AI and Search was like AI and search is is just like TikTok or Instagram. It is a or Google search. It is a discovery point of the brand and an acquisition vehicle. Acquisition is 5% of what your business is. Everything else is like brand building, retention. This is all like you actually got to deliver on the product promise that AI sold, right? Well, you got to deliver on the experience on your website that AI sold. Then you got to deliver on the product promise. Then you got to build the brand, and that creates retention. Retention is what creates value. And so we have to figure out AI and we have to optimize for it. I don't want to install AI on our website to recommend protocols because ultimately, are we going to recommend other brands? No. Right. And therefore, that's not truly authentic. And like consumers don't want to come to Momentus. What should I take? And it's like they're going to go to Claude, and Cloud's going to give them a recommendation to three or four brands, and it's going to be great. And we just have to figure out how do we show up in those three to four brands? Because I will bet on us winning this bottom half always, because that's what our commitment is.

Well, and that's my thing. Like I see a lot of companies investing a lot of time in kind of their custom LLMs. And I'm like, well, now you just put yourself in direct competition with ChatGPT, Claude, Croc, whatever you want to do. And I'm like, the consumer's already paying for it. Are they going to pay for five of these, one specialty? Now, if it's something internal, like if you need something for your team internally where you need to build a database of information that they can access and it's private and it's gated, makes total sense. Right. But if you're going to do consumer one, I'm like different. It's a good even AI personal training, which you know I'm I've been very back and forth on. It's like, why would someone, the normal consumer, go spend another $40 a month when they already have ChatGPT at $25 a month or $30 a month, right? They're just gonna, that's what they know. They built out their own profile. They've invested time and energy and money into it. Um, and that's probably what it's gonna be. So I think it's a very smart move. Like, yeah, and and I wouldn't, honestly, dude, Jeff, if I was a consumer, I went to your website, I wouldn't use your LL. I'd be like, nah, it's biased, right? It's biased. Like, I want to go to my own one that I feel like I can trust and go from there. So yeah, it's it's a really interesting point. And listen, man, I I know we only got you for a couple more minutes. So I want to ask the question I ask everybody. You know, what do you need right now? Like, what's important to you if if you know you're talking to other industry leaders and investors and practitioners and uh yeah, you you you know the audience here. What do you need help with and how would you like people to get in touch with you?

Yeah, I mean, that's a that's a really, really good question. I think for me, you know, we're going from like 80 people to 100 people. And it's how do you how do you still show up as a leader and culturally to your team when you don't really know everybody like you used to, right? It's like part of what makes, you know, these early stage companies really incredible is like this interconnectivity of people, right? And we are in the phase where where we're expanding beyond the capabilities of that as a business. And so it's like, how do how do I as a leader continue to show up for my team, right, where they need to be inspired and equipped, right? So we don't lose the special sauce, but also knowing I can't do it how I did it before, which is like, you know, when you're 20 people, it's really easy to take somebody to coffee every, every day or week and like know them and understand who they are. And now I'm like, do they have kids? What's their husband's name? I'm like, gosh, I can't I can't build a personal connection, and therefore how can I ask them to work harder than they've ever worked at any other job? Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's the biggest transition as a leader that I that I'm really I'm spending cycles on my own mind of like how do I how do I need to show up in this next phase to continue to culturally drive impact in the business, but I know I can't show up like I like I have because the numbers don't work. You just candidly they can't. So yeah.

Well, there's Dunbar's number, right? They say you can only have 150 close relationships, something like that. I think even that's that's a pretty bold number. Jeff, where would you like people to go? Uh I mean, I think you're on LinkedIn, you're pretty active, website, where else?

Yeah, LinkedIn, website are great. Also, like go to Vitamin Shop, buy Momentous, right? Or go in there and ask them what they say, right? I I like I'm always super curious of like, you know, write me a write me a message and be like, hey, I went into this vitamin shop. They had no idea who you were, you know, like who the brand was. They just like, oh, this is a new brand we have. I don't know anything about it. Like that, because I'm looking for how do we get better in those places because vitamin shop is super important to us.

Right on. A little bit of secret shopping for you. That'll be fun. Uh, right on. Well, Jeff, it's always a pleasure. Obviously, third time. I'm excited for our fourth time. Um, you know, we'll we'll get that scheduled in about a year and catch up with you. So I'll let you keep on CEO and but ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jeff Byers. Thanks.