← Founder's Story
Founder's Story
Stop Suffering in Silence, The Science of Lasting Longer and Better Sex | Ep 285 with Jeff Abraham Founder of Promescent
00:42:02
Jeff Abraham, CEO of Promescent, shares the origin story that began with his late friend and neighbor, urologist Dr Ronald Gilbert, who developed an over the counter treatment for PE. After Dr Gilbert was tragically murdered in a case of mistaken identity, Jeff took the company forward with a promise to honor his legacy and support his family. In this candid conversation we dive into the medical realities of PE, the myth making of porn, how clinical credibility beats ad spend, and the go to market decisions that took Promescent from one hero product to a full sexual wellness line on twenty thousand retail shelves.
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
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Jeff Abraham
What about toys?
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Jeff Abraham
Yep. Barbie, Tonys, and Lego.
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Capella University Announcer
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- [00:46]
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- [01:20]
Interviewer
So, Jeff, I listened to your story and I was, like, blown away by that, that this was even real. My whole, could this even be real? And I'm sure everyone always asks you about the story behind the brand for you because it's. It's really an incredibly sad story that I think now has turned into something very positive by what you've been able to. To. To create, or you'd be able to take it to where it is today. But the company was founded by a friend of yours who was murdered. Can you tell me about that?
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Jeff Abraham
Yeah, he was a neighbor of mine. He was a very good friend of mine. He was my doctor all rolled into one. Dr. Ronald Gilbert, Huntington Beach, California. And one day he asked me to, you know, for my advice. You know, I was actually in his office. I was there for my yearly PSA invisible. And he said, hey, I want your advice. You know, I developed this product and we're commercializing it. What do you think? And I go, what is it? He goes, I developed a treatment for PE and at the time, you know, I was 55. Now I'm 68. I was like, you developed a treatment for physical education? You know, just to me, growing up, PE was phys Ed. He goes, no, no, no, it's premature. So one thing led to another. I said, let me try the product. And you know, it's otc, it's not prescription. I tried it and I was like, oh my God, stuff's dynamic. I said, you're on the right path. Do you need investors? And turned out that he was looking. I think his whole spiel was to get me to invest and then help him out because I just retired. I sold my last business and retired at 53, prepared to sail off into the sunset and relax, not get involved and run a company again. But, you know, the plans sometimes don't go as mapped out. So I did, I became involved, was helping him out, things are going well, and right when the company really started to take off, he was murdered in a case of mistaken identity. There was some nut that had a prostate surgery 23 years before that, decided he was unhappy and he was going to kill the doctor, got the name wrong and murdered the wrong guy. And it was wrong. He was totally innocent. You know, I took over the company and decided that the only thing that I could do, I couldn't bring him back. I could not ring that bell. There was nothing I could do. But the only two things in my power to give him a legacy and honor him. That's why I mentioned his name by name, Dr. Ronald Gilbert, every interview, every podcast that I do and also provide for his family economically because they still own 20% of the company. So if this company was to indeed become successful, that would at least take the financial component off the table and give them, you know, you know, some comfort, you know, and not worry about bills. Because Ron was like me, was self made. He didn't come from a family of physicians and, you know, had a trust fund or whatever. He had student loans, worked his way through school, was just coming into that prime earning years when this tragedy happened. And I am very proud of the fact that we give his family very significant dividend checks four times a year now. And so it's been a tremendous source of pride. So I've given him a legacy because everyone hears about that. I'm providing for his family. So I'm really, really happy right now. So that's how that came to be.
- [04:35]
Interviewer
Well, I mean, talk about purpose and mission, right? Many times there's, you know, a single purpose or mission to a company. But for you, on top of that, you also had, you know, your personal purpose and mission here to help out. So you go into this company that you don't have no idea of the space. Like you said, PE was physical education. You tried the product, though, you obviously believed in it because you invested in it. But how, as a new business owner, having all the experience you had before, how did that play into this? Even though it's a totally different industry?
- [05:09]
Jeff Abraham
You know, I was asked that just recently, how did you make the switch? How did you go from the mindset of the CEO of a semiconductor engineering business to a CEO of a sexual wellness? There's nothing in common. And I tell people that there are a lot of common knowledge. No matter if you're a CEO now, if you're working in marketing, or if you're someone you know in the field treating people, it's a lot different. A good CEO has a couple traits that really transcend whatever business it is. Number one is passion. If you're not passionate about something, you'll never be good at it. And to be an effective CEO, you got to work 60 hours a week. Anyone who tells you any different is freaking lying to you, okay? It you, everything falls at your feet, okay? No matter who is doing it. If it fails as a responsibility, CEO, your responsibility, responsible for it. The passion is there, the work ethic has to be there. And this is probably the most important is don't have preconceived notions. Don't go, I'm the smartest guy in the room. I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to force this down customers throats. I know what's best for the customers. No, you don't. Listen to the customers. Take feedback. In the case of, of our product, Promescent in our first product was our hero product to this day, which was our delay product to allow men to last longer. I really got into the minutiae and started talking to physicians, started talking to therapists to treat this, started talking to people who suffered from it. And then it became very apparent to me that there's really two distinct markets. There are people that have clinical PE that it's, they can never have satisfactory sex. But there's a tremendous recreational component as well. There are people who have satisfactory sex but want to take it to the next level. And one of the things that I learned early on, and we were the first ones to mention it and really truly address it, there's something called the arousal gap, the orgasm gap. It's actually a medical term that people use because step out of PE into normal relations between men and women. The Average man lasts 5 minutes and 42 seconds of penetration and thrusting during intercourse. And the Average female takes 18 minutes to climax of penetration and thrusting. Therefore, it's the arousal gap, it's the orgasm gap. So even People that are not have PE that are normal situations sometimes. That's why people go, I'm the master of cunnilingus. I have 72,000, you know, vibrators, all these different things. That's exactly why it's all a coping mechanism to have better intimacy. So we had a dual tact. On one hand, our pharmaceutical reps ingratiated us and really and truly introduced us into the medical community. But then we had a whole separate program focused on people just wanting better intimacy. So we took those dual tracks. And I knew that the medical credibility would give us even more traction for recreational because, you know, traditionally people in our space, they would see a website and have a Getty stock photo of a guy in a lab coat. Doctors love this product. We took it to the next level. Dr. Mohit Kira, Baylor University. I recommend Promescent to my patients. Dr. Larry Lipschultz, Dr. Wayne Hellstrom. These are the leaders in sexual medicine. We reached out to them, we did clinical trials, spent a half a million dollars doing clinical trials, which was unheard of. We're the only product in the space with clinical trials. And because we believed in our product, we knew it would be statistically significant. We did an IRB certified trial. So we did all that. And then we very heavily sampled a lot of physicians because there was this feeling, oh, these things don't work. They numb up the man. They transfer to the partner. Whether you're a male or female partner, they numb them. And so we had to show them that we had a revolutionary product that gave you more control without that, you know, extreme numbing. And it also didn't transfer. So we embarked on this journey to make it a two pronged attack to both talk to people who wanted just better intimacy along with addressing medical pe.
- [09:26]
Interviewer
Wow. I mean, thank you for sharing me those facts. You just said. I, I didn't even know that, but I could see this gap. I mean, from like five minutes to 18 minutes. That's a long time. It's a long time. So was there something in this that you learned that you were like, wow, I, like, I never knew that. You know, this was like an eye opening moment for me in my life. Like this, this is like, wow, everyone needs to know this.
- [09:53]
Jeff Abraham
Yes, there was a couple eye opening moments. One of the biggest for me was you always hear comedians, you know, that making light of ED and pe, you know, and I don't know, I just, I had heard it so many times, joked about, and I didn't realize how serious it was. And then in Talking to people who suffer from clinical pe and you know, there was this old wives tale. If you pe, you don't just care enough about your partner, like I'm just going to get mine and move on, you know, that you were uncaring and unfeeling. And then in speaking with doctors and speaking with people who actually had the issue, it broke my heart. There was nothing further from the truth. They wanted nothing more than to please their partner. They were ashamed, embarrassed, you know what I mean? They were literally like traumatized to the point where we got emails and we got testimonials where people go, you changed my life. I was asexual. I literally go, I'm so tired of being disappointed and having these bad relations. I just went, I'm never going to be intimate again. And I disappointed, tried a few things. It just seemed like, you guys have medical credibility. I want to try your products and I tell people there's nothing more invigorating than when we get those testimonials where someone says, you saved my marriage, you changed my life, you gave me a higher quality of life, you know, those types of things. So I was totally unaware of that. And I always thought that again, because what you hear a lot is, it's mental. You don't have the mind control to keep yourself from ejaculating. You know, you're, you're just not, you know, focused on your partner. I didn't realize there are a lot of physical issues that cause PE. There's 20% of it might have a psychological component, but 80% of people suffer from PE have prostatitis, hypersensitivity, the penile nerves, low testosterone. And what I tell people is if you're a diabetic, no one would ever be ashamed of taking insulin. If you have cancer, no one ever be ashamed of taking insulin. So if you have a hypersensitivity of the penile gland and you use a product, why are people so ashamed? Why is there this stigma about everyone has to be the sexual monster and sexual being? If you have low testosterone, if you have prostatitis and it's causing you to trigger early and prematurely ejaculate, you're not alone. There's a lot of people who suffer from it. Don't be embarrassed, don't be ashamed, seek help, and don't suffer in silence. And so that's been part of our message. You're not alone, don't suffer. There are very viable treatments out there that can help elevate your sex life.
- [12:34]
Interviewer
Well, you bring up A great point is it's almost like people have attached how manly somebody is right to how well that they can perform. Which also creates, you know, an unrealistic expectations I think of most people and we don't realize like how damaging this can be. That's what I find interesting about different places. I was just in Europe and how in like say France how they view.
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Jeff Abraham
Sex and then in the U.S. unbelievably different.
- [13:05]
Interviewer
It is very interesting. And then the U.S. like you're saying it's, it's, it's fascinates me. But it also I, I wonder, you know, how, how damaging is this especially as like you know, when younger people become adults and then like you're saying all this stuff on social media and movies and tv, all these things that you're seeing that is totally unrealistic. How damaging.
- [13:31]
Commercial Narrator
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- [14:07]
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- [14:37]
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- [15:41]
Jeff Abraham
I have actually given a few talks and because of who I am and what I do for a living, somehow people turn me into the sex expert. You know, I mean, because I do this all day, every day and I tell people. I think one of the most destructive things for our young generation of people coming up to starting intimacy is porn and the access to the Internet. At the age of 12, 13, 14, the average teen now has watched porn before. They're actually intimate before because most kids have a cell phone to 10, 11, 12. Oh, so I can text you when I need picked up from school or soccer practice or whatever. Invariably, when it's in your hands, you're going to be curious. You're going to start to look at what's out on the web. And I laugh. You go to a porn site though only filter is click this if you're 18. So in other words, someone 13, you go, I guess I can't go there. I'm not going to click it. Of course they're going to click it. I tell people that my first sexual experience when I was 15 years old was with an older woman. I think I laughed at 28 seconds. I felt like I was the greatest lover in the history of the world. If I was in this day and age right now and I had been watching some of these porn movies and some of the stuff that's on there, I would have thought, oh my God, my penis is at nine and a half inches long. It's not the circumference of a beer. Can't. I can't last 45 minutes right before I ejaculate. I don't run across the room and shoot my partner right in the head, you know, dead eye from. I would have been a ball of anxiety. You know what I mean? I would rather have the naivety and the ignorance that I had thinking I was good at 15, which was, you know, 53 years ago, rather than have to live up to some absolutely insane expectations. If you're a woman, they think that the average normal orgasm is like Elizabeth Berkeley from Showgirls. I don't know if you ever saw that movie. Remember when she's with Kyle mc, She's flopping around like a fix. I mean, we are not allowing our young people to experience intimacy and pleasure without these insane expectations. And I think that's really damaging. And you know, we've had people that email us and you know, we have an interactive feature on our site, they'll call in and go, I'm only lasting 35 minutes. I want to last an hour and 20 minutes. And my advice is always the same. If you're lasting 35 minutes and there's an issue, work on your technique, okay? Because there's a difference between pain and pleasure, okay? If you really feel that you need to hamper your partner for two hours, it's not the duration of the intercourse, it's your technique or something is going drastically wrong. But it's because it's. Everyone's so hyper vigilant about watching who's the best at it. You know, it's funny because kids in, in middle school don't go, I want to do a reverse 3:60 windmill dunk when I'm playing basketball. They don't anticipate I want to hit a 500 yard home run, okay, or 500 foot home run. But everyone now in terms of sexual performance has these unrealistic expectations from watching porn. I realize if I watch porn, which I happen to, you know, occasionally, sometimes porn, occasionally, I realize those are not norm, those are not the standard, average, you know, website, you know, nuts or average performer. You know, there's a gal named Cindy, I forget her last name. She started a video site, Make Love Not Porn. It was normal people, you know, just regular people. And so we had a couple collaborations with her. And so she goes, here, I'll give you a pass. And you know, you can log on. And I watched a couple times ago. That's interesting. But to me at least I'm well formed enough to know I can watch porn and realize I'm not going to try to live up to that expectation, okay? But when I went to that site, like Make Love Not Porn, I was like, that's boring. It was just regular people. That's not why it's, you know, it's regular shit's not, it's not that impressive. You know what I mean? Like, I would rather see something, but at least make sure you understand that you don't raise your level of expectation to that.
- [19:47]
Interviewer
Yeah, I, I know that site. I know which one you're talking about. It would be funny. Like you're saying like honest porn. Like it's like this is how it really is. Like ego is five minutes and then she's upset because she wants 18. And it would set better expectations for people, right? It actually would be, you know what? You could do some skits. I think that there's some really funny marketing skits that you could make around like Honest set. Like, honest. Yeah, that would be. I think that would actually be pretty funny. You could make a whole comedy. I'm gonna send you some ideas because I, I'm an idea. Yeah, but the entertaining content.
- [20:30]
Jeff Abraham
Yeah, you watch that and they're normal people. The guy's not 6 foot 3, 218 pounds, 4% body fat and shredded. There's some dude with a hairy back, you know what I mean? And a mole on his head, you know what I mean? Like grinding on some woman that's got stretch marks and stuff. So I guess I learned I like my porn a little more of a fantasy rather than reality.
- [20:52]
Interviewer
Okay.
- [20:52]
Jeff Abraham
I can see reality in my own room. You know, I used to, when I was younger, I was a voyeur. I swear to God. I mean, when I say younger, up until five years ago, you know, I admittedly love the idea of, of just seeing people that I'm curious about naked. You know, I mean, that kind of stuff. And I, I, I'd always be the person turning the light on. They would be the person. No, no, no, I want the light off. You know, that kind of thing. As I've aged now and my partners are closer to my own age, I'm like, turn the freaking light off. You know what I mean?
- [21:21]
Interviewer
Like, you said this was going to be entertaining and you were not. I'm very entertained, by the way. And, and I think it's, I think it's good because, like, you're saying it could be a very serious topic where people could be, like, highly impacted to the point they don't even want to be in a relationship. But at the same time, I think you need to make light and have entertainment in order for people to pay attention because of how serious it could be. So when you look at the marketing, I'm curious on the marketing of the products that you have, just because I think there's a lot of, when you, when you dive into, you know, sexual products, there's a lot of restrictions around how the product can even be marketed or how it can be talked about. What did you find in terms of getting into this business when you had to look at, you know, what is even allowed when it comes to, you know, intimate or sex. Sexual products?
- [22:15]
Jeff Abraham
I'm glad you brought that up. It's insane. It's absolutely insane. Sometimes you have to use the word S E GG S segs rather than sexual. Because if there's, if there's the word sex in it, you're immediately banned. YouTube, Instagram, you know, I'm like, are we that puritanical in 2025 that you can't have a talk with a urologist? And you have to do that nonsense. But it's true, you do. So you have to use more innuendo than straight talk, you know, and you have to literally make sure that even if you're educating people that you can't use the word ejaculation. You can't. It's insane. It's so frustrating. You know, we have a medical advisory board. You know, we have clinical trials. We're an upfront, totally legitimate company. And we have our videos taken down and we have, you know, our post screened and you know, this isn't going to fly. Like, what, you use the word sex. I'm like, what? I'm like, oh my God. You use the word ejaculation. That's a bodily function, okay? There's nothing pure, there's nothing, you know, like obscene about the word ejaculation, you know, and so it's frustrating. It, it creates a whole different set of hurdles that you have to, you have to be so careful. You spend a lot of money creating a really good video, then you find out you have to strip it down and you take a lot of the meat out of the video because trying to get it approved so you can run ads and stuff. And we've done television commercials in the past and that's just insane. Oh, that can only run between midnight and 7am why? Because you're talking about intimacy. I go, it's a medical product. We have a urologist discussing this still. It's the same thing. You also find out that the playing field isn't level for everybody because I see Viagra, Salisa Beecher commercials because they're billion dollar companies. In fact, multi, multi billion dollar companies. The bigger your ad spend, the less restrictive your budget. They get away with things that no one else can get away with. And that's fundamentally unfair because that you start getting into the too big to fail situation where if you're that big and you get those advantages, how is any smaller company ever going to be able to really grow to be a bigger company if these shackles and hurdles are placed on them that the bigger guys don't have?
- [24:52]
Interviewer
So what I'm hearing is size does matter in ad spend.
- [24:56]
Jeff Abraham
Absolutely, without a doubt with it. Not only does it matter, it sometimes is the determining factor on exactly what you can or cannot put into a commercial or an app.
- [25:08]
Interviewer
Yeah, I, I know, I've been into these spaces. We used to sell a lot of skincare. And I remember the same thing. It was controlled by a couple giants who have all the power to do everything. So how did you find the. How did you get the ability to compete with them? Because I know you guys are doing well, but obviously you're not doing a billion dollars yet. And we could talk about that in a little bit. But how. How did you find the strength, like, what did you do to differentiate yourself or make yourself so unique that you could even compete with those companies?
- [25:43]
Jeff Abraham
And make no mistake about it, there's one thing, it was the medical credibility. It was getting into the medical community and having the doctors actually say, this is the best product, hands down. The president of the International Society of Sexual Medicine, Wayne Helster, was on our board. Dr. Mohit Kira, the president of Sexual Medicine Society of North America, is on our board. So we now have 2,400 urologists by name that if someone goes to see them and says, hey, I'd like to last longer, they recommend you to promesc by name. And if you go to our website, you'll see testimonials from them all over the place. And our competition has a Getty photo of a guy in a lab coat. Say, doctors love such and such. There's a big difference between a Getty stock photo of a guy going, doctors love this product, and someone hearing from Mohit Kira holding up a bottle of Promescent and saying, this is the best product in the space. You know, all these prominent physicians. So we literally grew in that arena in the medical area, which all the other urologists go, if that guy is on board with this, I guarantee you it's legit. So we developed this cult like following in the medical community and then we used that on our website. So most people coming on there go, oh my God, I looked up that guy. It's the president saying, this is the best product. So the thing that we differentiated us, believe it or not, is a small company. This is a big issue. Pe, you're going to be blown away by this. More people suffer from PE than ED. In fact, 10 to 15% of ED is misdiagnosed PE. Because if a guy has chronic PE, medical grade, chronic PE, long term, he will eventually not be able to get an erection because his body is programmed to ejaculate early. And then mentally, he starts realizing he's going to be disappointed. It's going to lead to an unsatisfactory conclusion. Call it stage fright, call it whatever you want, but you eventually your mind shuts your body down, so you can't get an erection even though you have erectile capabilities because you know it's going to lead to a disappointing conclusion. It was amazing to me because everyone knows how big the ED market is, but PE is a larger market than ed. That's how big it is.
- [28:07]
Interviewer
Wow. You know, I know I, I took away a lot of things there that I think can be applied to any business. And I think, you know, like you said, the credibility is getting in with the people that are the most credible. If they recommend your product. Could be any product, any. Not just focusing on the customer, obviously that's most important. But getting the people on board that the customer goes to see for the information could be, you know, make or break. It's like having, it's like having like affiliates or partnerships or collaborators. Like, yes, you can go in any industry and find these people and those people spending the time with them might be the make or break and the only way to compete with these giants. So talk about legacy here. So you may, you've helped build this successful company up. You've fulfilling your purpose and mission beyond just the company, but you know, with the family of your friend and the original founder. One day you're going to exit this company and then what happens to you? What, what do you look back and say throughout the process? And then what do, what are you going to do? Are you going to go to the island and have pina colada or are you gonna, are you gonna join another company?
- [29:21]
Jeff Abraham
I will never work again. From the day that we exit, we're in the process right now of seeking a strategic partner. And we're in talks with some very, very large like billion dollar companies that will partner with us and then eventually acquire us. That's the goal. Because to take this to the next level, to be $100 million company, we're going to need a billion dollar, your company to open up the avenues necessary to get there. But I will tell you this, and it's funny because I've been waiting for someone to ask me this question, like, okay, so what is it like for you once that happens and you're done? I will tell you that my first thing is I want to be as involved with my granddaughter as I possibly can. She's only eight months old. She's the apple of my eye. I adore her. I love my son, I love my daughter in law, but I adore my granddaughter. I just adore her. She's in Newport Beach. That's why I have my second home there, which will soon be my Primary home. I can tell you it's working that way already. But I will never, ever stop being an advocate for this company. I will never, ever stop promoting this company, prioritizing it. Going into Target, you know how proud I was the first time I went to Target? I saw us on the shelf there. Ron, my partner who was murdered, it was just coincidental. We went to lunch, and we were driving past a Target. It's just in Huntington beach on Brookhurst and Adams. And he just said he looked over. He goes, you think we'll ever be in Target? I go, I promise you, it will be in Target. He goes, really? And I go, yeah, I promise you. And then, unfortunately, a month later, he was murdered. And I said to myself, it's the last thing I do. I'm getting us into Target. And we got full distribution in target in 2016. I went into that store the next time I was in the area, and I saw it there, and I just looked at it, and I had this sense of pride, and out loud, don't ask me why, I said, I told you, I promised you I would get you in here. And I literally felt like someone went home that night and go, there was some crazy dude in the sexual wellness aisle talking to a box of Promescent. You know what I mean? And not realizing what it meant to me, you know what I mean? That this was the fulfillment of a promise I had made to a dear friend that I had said to him, I will get us in there. Now, we've since been in CVS and Walmart and Meijer and. And Wegmans and Heb. We're all over the place. And next year, we're launching in Walgreens. But that first one is always the hardest. You know what I mean? The first one. Someone's got to be the first one to take a chance. Go. I think this will work at retail. But the thing is, when people say to me, okay, what do you do? What's your next chapter? Number one, it's going to be to enjoy the remaining years of my life, okay? I've worked since I was 14. I grew up on the lower socioeconomic side, and I went to work at 14, worked after school, you know, worked 80 hours a week in the summer, every hour no one else wanted. And I went to work for a regular company after college. And then I've never taken more than a week in a row off ever, in my entire life. Okay? Then I left when I was 32 for my own company, was wildly successful with it, and then was Able to retire and then immediately went into this. It's. It's been nothing but boom, boom, boom, go, go, go, go, go. So the next phase of my life will be getting completely healthy, enjoying my life. I have lupus and diabetes. I've had them for 32 years and I've managed them really well. But I'm very realistic. I'm not going to be here forever, and I want to enjoy every second I have left and spend as much time as I can with my family. But more importantly, I want to see this company reach its full potential. I want this to be a couple hundred million dollars. The markets that big, our products are that good. I know I can't do it on my own. We don't have the channel power. It take me 20 years. I don't have 20 years left to build it to that level. Someone that already is a billion dollar company can do it in a year or two. They have the resources. They can walk in and go, move that. Put this here. Okay. You know, because we got a billion dollars with you guys. So that's, that's the goal is nothing can ever replace my son. He's the. His birth is the best day in the history of my life. My granddaughter's quickly moved second. Like I tell him, she's moving up. She might be first eventually, you know what I mean? That's a type. But my third child is promescent. Make no mistake about it. Every day that I'm on this planet, no matter whether I'm the CEO right now or one day I'm completely retired. I will go check. How are we doing with these sales? Okay. What kind of shelf space do we have in cbs? Okay, how are we competing against this? How are we doing that? And as we're talking about these collaborations with these companies right now, they're all really worried. Well, we do this, we take over, you know, how involved are you going to be? I said, listen, get me out of the day to day stuff, you know, like the responsibility of logistics and, you know, manufacturing. That's not my strength. But I said, when you guys eventually take over, I got to be honest with you, you don't have to pay me. I'll do podcasts, I'll do these medical shows. I go to the medical shows and people laugh. They're like, you're like a God here. Every. Everyone knows you. I go because I'm honest. And there was a big need for this product and we filled it. And our mantra has always been Ron's mantra. Ron. I sometimes had to remind him, hey, we took on investment, you know, this is a for profit company. You can't. He wanted to get product out. Oh, let's just give it to him. And I'm like, ron, we have investors. We're a company. We're not the Red Cross. So we had to strike that delicate balance. But I'll never forget the doctor part of him always wanted to just do the right thing so we'd maintain that balance. If there's somebody who needs our products and can't afford them, I will make sure they get them okay. But at the same time, we want to have a successful business because we do have investors and shareholders and employees that are dependent upon this company, you know, producing revenue. But my time, when it's done as the CEO of this company, in every single day, that will officially end running the company. But in terms of promoting the company, hoping for the best for the company, that will end the day I take my last breath. I am so passionate about this and I'm so proud of what we've accomplished. And I know because I have the emails and I have the personal experiences with people that told me, you changed my life for the better. And I'm very proud of that. Those emails and those messages are really why you do something like this. Now, of course you want to be successful, but when, you know, you change someone's life for the better, or someone says, you change my marriage for the better, you saved my marriage, you realize you're doing something very positive. It's not just the financial motive. So that's why I'm so passionate about it. And that's why even once someone writes a check and takes the company, this doesn't end for me. I will always be an advocate. This is, like I said, it was 15 years of my life on a day to day basis. 15 years I was supposed to be retired, kicking back, that I gave up willingly. And I'm proud of what we've accomplished, but I want it to reach its full potential. One of the reasons we're seeking out that key partner or that acquisition right now is because we know that's necessary to take us to the next level.
- [36:47]
Interviewer
Wow, Jeff. Yeah. I think entrepreneurs can, can relate to what you're saying in the sense of, you know, when you see your product on a shelf, it's not just your product on a shelf. It's not about revenue or money. It's like you're saying the grind, the 24 7, all the work, everything that happened for 10 years up to that moment and I think a lot of people, if you haven't been in business, it's hard to understand that feeling because it becomes your whole life, right? Like, you put everything, your life, your energy, everything into it. And when you see those accomplishments or those steps, you're like, wow. Everything. Everything I did was in this moment to get to this place. And I. I could understand the emotional, like, how that feels because like you said, you don't go into business necessarily for the financial gains alone. Because honestly, getting a job and a guaranteed paycheck will. Could potentially make you more upfront money.
- [37:48]
Jeff Abraham
You go, there's a lot of sacrifice, a lot of hard work with no guarantee of any return.
- [37:54]
Interviewer
Exactly. You sacrifice everything you might give up. You're giving up your time, maybe give up your family, you're giving up these things. So when you see health, you're working.
- [38:04]
Jeff Abraham
So hard, you know. But I will tell you, between 2023 and 2024 and even into the beginning of this year, we went from having 3000 shelves, you know, we were in a thousand or 1500 targets, and we were in a thousand Walmart. So we had basically 2500 shelf spaces. Then we got all 4000 Walmart, then we got 6000 CVS, then we got Wegmans, H E B and Meijer. Now we have multiple products in every one of those. So we went from having 2500 SKUs, you know, like bases that actually have promescent on it, to 20,000 in two and a half years. And I tell people, people like, you're an overnight sensation. I go, where the hell you've been the last 14 years? Okay, I was killing myself for 14 years to become an overnight sensation. Just like you said. It took all that grind, all the work, all the setup to get to that point where someone said, this place or this. This product belongs in this space right here. And we're putting it in. Fortunately for us, Target took a chance and we really and truly hit it out of the park. And ever people are like, well, if it'll work, there will obviously work here. And it was funny because I'm the opposite. If I was the owner of a retail store and I saw something that had potential, I'd want to be the first one to have it. Hey, that gives me an advantage. The mindset is so different. No one would give us a chance. Then once we got in Target, we have these numbers. Hey, come on in here. We have companies now. We already have 20,000 locations. I'm like, I begged you for five years. And now that it's 20,000 other doors. You want it in. It's like, I don't understand that, you.
- [39:51]
Interviewer
Know, nobody wants you until somebody wants you. That's. That's for. That is for sure.
- [39:56]
Jeff Abraham
Yes.
- [39:57]
Interviewer
I, yeah, I've seen this with, you know, other companies, things that we've done, people that we've talked to. It's a very similar story. And then retail is like a make or break for some companies. It can break the company. It can make them amazing. But, I mean, I, I'm super inspired by your story. If, if people want to get in touch with you, Jeff, they want to find out more about the company. Maybe they're suffering and they need help or maybe they just are inspired by your story. How can they do.
- [40:23]
Jeff Abraham
So I'll give you two things. Number one, you can go to our site promessage.com to be educated, to find out what products are right for you and more importantly, how to properly use them. I'm going to give you my email address, too. I answer every email and I've done this and people email me and I go, oh, my God, you actually emailed back. I go, why do you think I'd give it up? If you email me, you will get a response. I guarantee you without fail. This is important to me. It's jeffjdff.abraham a b r a h a m at promess P-R-O-M-E-S-C-E-N-T.com jeff.abraham.com I am open to all questions, all inquiries. One of the reasons we're successful is we listen. And, you know, someone actually asked me because we've gone from one product where we had the delay spray. So I think we have 11 now, and we have lubes and gels and vibrators and a nitric oxide supplement for better blood flow and these kinds of things. People go, oh, my God, you're a genius. I go, no, I don't just listen to people. They go, what? I go and talk to our customers. What else do you think we should carry? Oh, you know, there's a bunch of these out there. Nothing really extraordinary. What can you do? And boom, we come out with a product. And it's funny because when we. The first second product we had were lubes and it made sense. A lot of guys were like, I was only lasting 30 seconds. Now I last eight minutes. I didn't need a loop for 30 seconds. I need one for eight minutes. So we developed a lot of lubes and so we sent out like the first hundred people that bought it, an email saying, hey, what gave you the confidence to buy, you know, lube? Everyone said, well do was on this site. It supported 100%. It was a great product because we have a 30 day money back guarantee in our products. Any reason whatsoever, you're unhappy, full refund. So then we went into supplements which were Vitaflux, which gives you better blood flow, it gives you better libido, better erections for women. It allows you to better moisturize, also increases libido and intensity of orgasm. And everyone's like, oh my God, that's a little bit of a reach because that's a supplement, not a gel or a lube. I go, our people are sexually hacked. It doesn't matter. That took off right away. And we did the same thing, sent 100 emails. What gave you the confidence to buy a supplement? They go, because if it's on this site, it's top drawer and you'll support it 100%. Then three years ago, I decided we needed our own line of proprietary vibrant. Everyone goes, oh my God, that's a toy, okay? It's not yours. I go, watch this. Okay, we launched them, same thing. So when people ask me now, okay, next year, how many products will you introduce? I say the same thing all the time. Somewhere between zero and six. They go, how's that for being the CEO? You should have the number nailed down. It should be three, it should be four. I go, listen, here's my mantra. For us to introduce a new product, it has to be as good or better than anything else in that space. So if I say to you I'm going to introduce three products next year and no products meet the criteria, you think I'm going to introduce three products? Products. One of the reasons we're successful, people, they see it on our site, they know it's top quality, know it's good, so we will never waver. That has to be the standard, okay? And I said, plus, what if next year I'd say three and I find four products that are better? The reason I keep it open, fluid, we don't have the bandwidth. Introduce more than six, I promise you. So the reason it's between zero and six is I know we could accommodate if we ever found six. And I know that if we don't find any that are as good as anything else in that space, then we'll do zero. The goal isn't to grow overnight and not sustain it even with our retail. I remember we first got in to Walmart to hold 4,000 stores. I was like, oh, my God, you conquered the world. I go, no, we didn't. We got in. Tell me two years from now or call me two years from now when we're killing it. We're exceeding their expectations, then it's time to go. Yeah, I'm happy they opened the door. We have to come through it and lock it behind us to make sure we don't get thrown back out. So I always look at when we get new retail partners, new retail opportunities is the beginning of a journey, not the end. Okay. My goal is to just get in. My goal is to get in, become a strategic partner. And they go, what else do you have? You guys sell well. And that's where we're at right now. We've added female arousal gels, buzzing gels in Target and Walmart, and we've added delay wipes, delay sprays, and certain other places. That's when you know you're successful. They're like, this company's part of our future. What else do you have? We want to bring in your whole line. That's what I love.
- [44:51]
Interviewer
Amazing, Jeff. Yeah, I mean, if I took away anything from today, there's a lot. But listen to your customers. Could be the most important thing that any company does. But, Jeff, thank you so much for what you do to help other people, help, you know, drive this mission and purpose of the company. I can't wait to see once you retire again and then see where, you know, what you do after that. I'm sure you're going to have an amazing life, but thank you so much again for joining us on Founders Story.
- [45:21]
Jeff Abraham
My pleasure.
- [45:27]
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