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- [00:00]
Ryan Chen
In 2024, we were the fastest growing company on TikTok shop. And in 2025, we had 5 billion impressions.
- [00:06]
Podcast Host 1
Ryan Chen is the co founder and CFO of Neurogum, one of the fastest growing supplement brands in the country. These guys have exploded over the last few years, popping off on Joe Rogan, Shark Tank, and recently on TikTok Shop. He came on the show to talk about the spillover effect that brands experience from investing in a platform like TikTok Shop, how they're approaching retail, how they're changing their product packaging to stand out more on the shelf. But what I found fascinating was how Neurogum has been able to get their product in the hands of the rich and famous. They're with Mr. Beast there and with all these different celebrities and athletes like Andrew Schultz. Ryan gave us their entire playbook on how they've accomplished that, starting with this story. So tell us about this Mr. Beast video.
- [00:46]
Ryan Chen
Yeah, man. So Sunday, we have our first video coming out with Mr. Beast Philanthropy and then Hero. So we're really excited. So we got to sponsor basically this, like, whole mobile medical clinic, which came out of Texas A M. And so Beast Philanthropy, I don't know if you guys know how it works, but they donate 100 of the proceeds that they raise to the philanthropy that they partner with. Yeah. So we got super lucky. I'll kind of give you the backstory. But two years ago, I got to be a part of a Beast Philanthropy video for adaptive athletes. So I got into a spinal cord injury 17 years ago when I was 19 and broke my back. I was paralyzed from the waist down. And, you know, through the grace of a lot of amazing nonprofits, got into, like, wheelchair racing, trained with the US Paralympic Team. And that was kind of like one of the genesis of, like, when Kent was sharing supplements to create Neuro. But, yeah, I got invited to be a part of that video. Saw firsthand what Beast Philanthropy was doing, supporting all these, like, smaller nonprofits that might not get the light of day. And we're like, how do we. How do we work with Beast? Like, how do we donate back to something like this? And so through this wound about, like, roundabout way, one of our investors, Jared Smith, the co founder of RXBar, his president was a guy named Jim Murray, who is the co founder of Feastables with Mr. Beast. And so Jim connected me with the president of the YouTube at the time, connected me to the guy named Darren, who is the head of philanthropy. And then we connected, and we were just like, how do we give Back and donate to you guys. And fast forward two years now we got this cool, cool partnership and then we're the sponsor first with something like this.
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Podcast Host 2
Working with Mr. Beast on a video, do you get to think about the creative process with him or is it almost like very hands off? And he. He runs with like the ideation process conceptualized and everything.
- [02:36]
Ryan Chen
It's crazy because they have a pipeline of probably like 10 videos that they're working like on concurrently. So they'll give us a list of like, hey, we are thinking about sponsoring this philanthropy or this philanthropy. Like, which one kind of resonates with you guys the most? And we're like this mobile medical, like, unit using, like, old shipping containers. Sounds really cool. Like, how do we partner with that? And so, you know, we'll give Jimmy and the team a bunch of things that we want to talk about for Neuro as a kind of the shout out as like one of the sponsors. And we just let. Let them rip. So we haven't even seen the final cut or copy. We've seen some, like, snippets of it, but the video drops this Sunday.
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Podcast Host 1
What's the. What's the CPM on a Mr. Beast video?
- [03:15]
Ryan Chen
I don't even know. So I think so. I got a deck recently and this stat is insane. So Mr. Beast in the last 90 days has reached 1.4 million unique people. That's like 15% of the world's population.
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Podcast Host 1
Billion.
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Ryan Chen
1.4 billion.
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Podcast Host 1
1.4 billion.
- [03:31]
Ryan Chen
Yeah. And I mean, that number just like, almost like, is hard to comprehend, but 1.4 billion unique people have been reached in the last 90 days. So he's like 450 million subscribers on YouTube. And then the philanthropy is like maybe 30. But right now they're trying to get the philanthropy to get more eyeballs. And so Jimmy and the team has made a big effort to kind of combine that under one team. So, I mean, we're very fortunate because philanthropy has been a big part of our mission statement for Neuro. And then now to partner with probably the most viral, like, philanthropy in the world is incredible.
- [04:03]
Podcast Host 1
Kind of like the ultimate brand marketing play. I mean, you're just hoping this video goes mega viral. A bunch of people see Neuro gum, like, how are you evaluating the success of the video? I mean, assuming that it's not just a pure passion play.
- [04:14]
Ryan Chen
Yeah, I think. I think part of the, like, the idea is that if this video gets, you know, 10, 15 million views and we calculate that by impression, but we're also doing this really cool Collaboration. And you guys could probably snip it, but it's a beast philanthropy. Tin x Neuro. There's two variations on it. It's like a thumbprint and like, kind of a wave. This idea is like, you know, your action has like a ripple effect on the things around you. And it's similar to, like, beast philanthropy's, like, philosophy on a giving back. And so all the proceeds for those tins go to the philanthropy. So we'll sell the tins for like, $6. And our goal is to raise, you know, half a million dollars or more. So we've committed to the half a million, and we just want to capture as much upside as possible.
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Podcast Host 1
That's awesome. And so this isn't your first big partnership. I mean, obviously you guys have worked with, you know, people like Joe Rogan. There's a bunch of athletes that, you
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Ryan Chen
know, we've never officially worked with Joe Rogan, I guess.
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Podcast Host 2
Sorry.
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Podcast Host 1
Joe Rogan has.
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Ryan Chen
He just loves the product, which is like the best case scenario. Yeah, yeah.
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Podcast Host 1
You've actually better outcome there where Joe Rogan just loves your product. But, like, how do you guys. I think you've done an excellent job partnering celebrities, influencers, thought leaders, stuff like that. How do you all approach these partnerships? Like, where do you find people? How do you kind of structure the deal, that sort of thing?
- [05:23]
Ryan Chen
I mean, one Rogan definitely doesn't know who we are as, like, founders, but he loves the brand. And the first time he had dropped neuro was February 2020, like, right before, like, like the world shut down and. And we had seeded him product back in, I think, November 2019, through our buddy John Beer, who started Jack Taylor PR, and we sent a bunch of product out there, you know, crickets, like November, December, like, well, I mean, it's Rogan. He's probably getting millions of stuff every day. There's like, no way.
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Podcast Host 1
His garage is literally just full of, like, venison and then, like, random products.
- [05:56]
Ryan Chen
And somehow I think he started taking it and he just dropped us, like, on the podcast with Dr. Rhonda Patrick. And I just remember my phone blowing up and getting all these text messages like, dude, just Rogan just dropped you on the podcast and you just see immediately, like I said, what did the
- [06:10]
Podcast Host 2
analytics look like after?
- [06:11]
Ryan Chen
It was insane. I think, like, at. At the time, like, we were averaging 5, 10 grand on Amazon a day, and we were like hitting like 7,500 grand days post, like, that drop. And it was never. It wasn't like, here, click a link below or use Rogan20 for discount. It was just mentioning that name. And that's just the power of, like, how big his platform is.
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Podcast Host 1
So what's more powerful, a Shark Tank shout out or a Joe Rogan shout out?
- [06:37]
Ryan Chen
Rogan shout for sure. Yeah. So when we did Shark Tank, it was. We filmed it September 2019 and then we aired April 2020. So it was like right around, like two months before the Rogan. And Shark Tank was great. I think we made like a million bucks in the first, like, week, week and a half post airing. And we had got two offers but we rejected. So, like, I can go into like the, the analytics of, like, when I've
- [07:00]
Podcast Host 1
seen the TikTok clip 50 million times.
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Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [07:03]
Ryan Chen
But we were lucky that we still aired because if you don't take a, you know, deal on camera, you're less likely to actually air on, on the show. So we kind of just played like, you know, the scenarios in our head and we're like, you know what? We don't want to just take a deal on camera and kill it in due diligence. Like, we want to be honest of like, the valuation. We're just like, we can't take it that low. But Shark Tank was like about a million change and then, you know, using the clips. But the Rogan Rogan effect is like orders of magnitude bigger. Yeah.
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Podcast Host 1
That's crazy. That's insane. I mean, it just kind of goes to show too. Like, these traditional media publications, whatever they might be, are just dwarfed in popularity by what's organic.
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Ryan Chen
Right.
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Podcast Host 1
Like a creator on YouTube. The new media is just so much more powerful.
- [07:45]
Ryan Chen
I mean, you look at Jimmy and Mr. Beast, that's the platform. Like, instead of CNN, BBC, Fox or whatever, people are following their creators that they, they want. So they had the share voice. And so I think when we look at partnerships, you know, we just kept sending Rogan product. We sent him like this huge PEZ dispenser of his head that spits out packs of Neurogam. But we just try to find partners that one love the brand and that's like the absolute bare minimum requirement. We don't want to work with anybody that doesn't know about the brand or doesn't take it, because I don't want to force a partner be like, hey, I'm going to write you a check and I want you to talk about xyz. I want you to take it organically and then you tell me how it works for you. And then that makes for great content
- [08:25]
Podcast Host 2
when you're trying to Develop these partnerships and you're trying to seed some of these bigger a list celebrities. How are you thinking about getting in front of them? Like you said, you got in front of. You got to Rogan through. Is it John Beer?
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Ryan Chen
Yeah, John.
- [08:36]
Podcast Host 2
John Beer. Like, how are you getting in front of then Mr. Beast or the other kind of big players in the game? Because it's. It's not easy to get in front of those individuals and. And you also have to stand down on top of that.
- [08:46]
Ryan Chen
I think so many of these relationships are a gatekeep. Gatekeeped, right? It's like, how do you even get to Rogan? And it was just John had the relationship with like, Jamie and the producer had an address to send it to. And like, through luck and, you know, enough perseverance, like, we got through and we were just with Mr. Beast in Ghana, like last month. So we were there for like three days, spent some quality time with him, telling him more about the brand, what we wanted to do, how we wanted to be a part of this philanthropy. And now we're like, doubling down and like, we're increasing, like, what we're donating from half a million to, like, millions and going to the philanthropy. So we're very committed because I think once we saw firsthand, like, this is the real deal, like, he's like sleeping in the car. You know, like, Jimmy's not staying at the Five Star. He's like, I'm gonna, I. I'm gonna drive out six hours round trip. I'm just gonna sleep in the car tonight. And his team around him was like, there's like 30 people. It's like five of them stayed in the car and filmed, like, some stuff on the sunset. I'm like, man, that's commitment. Like, I, I want to go home and shower. Like, it's been a long day, but I just have massive respect for his work ethic. And so I think just partnerships in general, like, we find the right partner and, I don't know, just sheer will and just finding different angles to get there. And sometimes it's not just one degree of separation. It might be like two or three, but just figuring out the angle and being really honest and genuine, like, hey, this is what we want to accomplish. We want to work with xyz. Like, can you make that introduction? Or, you know, and luckily people pitch it in the way where we get their attention. And fortunately, we get these amazing partnerships.
- [10:21]
Podcast Host 1
So I'd love to kind of talk more about, like, your brand journey in terms of, like, the channels you've activated because it seems like y' all started D2C, obviously at Amazon. Had the Rogan shout out, had the Shark Tank shout out, or early on, TikTok Shop.
- [10:34]
Ryan Chen
Yeah.
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Podcast Host 1
Proceeded to, then get into retail. And I'd love to just kind of hear from you, like, okay, what were these revenue thresholds? Like, what were those levers that you pulled that really blew the brand up during that journey?
- [10:45]
Ryan Chen
Yeah. So we started the company in September 2015. Spend like 10 and a half years. We're going on 11. And we've always started with D2C. Like, we. I would say the first two or three years we didn't have any retailers. We had maybe some small, like, bodegas here and there. Our first big account was cvs, then Whole Foods. But even up until like last year, like 90% of the business was between Amazon or website TikTok shop, and then 10% was made up between like 20,000 doors like CVS, Whole Foods, now Walmart. But this year, I think, because we have enough brand awareness now, we're entering in like the discussions with the Walmart's costcos of the world, you know, Sam's Club, 7 11. But no one, I think, would have taken us seriously because we're building this category. So retailers were like, we don't even know where to put you. Like, CVS were like, we'll put you in the pharmacy, like, memory section. And 711 was like, we'll put you kind of by checkout. But Walmart was like, we'll put you in the candy and gum section. We're like, no, we're a functional product. Like, we need to either be in the supplement section or check out. But people, like retailers are not going to like, listen to us at that stage. So they were like, you know, we'll put you where we put you. You'll be lucky to even have us. So.
- [11:56]
Podcast Host 1
And what was your. Because, I mean, in a lot of those different places, I think you're in a. You're in a really unique price point in terms of like all the different locations you just described. Like, you're probably pretty. Not cheap, but, like, you're very affordable in the supplements section, but at checkout you're really expensive.
- [12:11]
Ryan Chen
Like, the whole brand campaign that we have now is like dumb as gum, Neuro smart gum. And first and foremost, we're a supplement. Like, we're the only gum and mint company on a lot of these retailers that have a supplement label. So even with Target, when we're getting on target dot com, it was, we're the first brand to have a supplement label on a funky confectionary product. It took us like a year to go through like their legal department to even get cleared. And so when we're looking at the price point, yeah, we're much more expensive than normal gum. But if you compare it to like Red Bull or coffee, you know, a pack is like 450. Or at, you know, convenience store, we have a six count. So instead of the nine count, we have six count. It's like 369. So it's like comes out to like less than 50 cents per serving and it's like half a cup of good, a half a cup of coffee and a piece of gum. So like, if you have that value prop, we try to educate the consumer that way. It's like you're actually saving money by buying Neurogum long term than like going to Starbucks or something every day.
- [13:04]
Podcast Host 1
All right, so over the last two years of building Nibble, shipping nearly 8,000 UGC ads, and getting performance data on every single one of them, it became super clear there are two types of brands. Those that understand creative volume and those that don't. The core difference was what they focused on. Brands that focused on volume plus hit rate were never complaining that Meta changed the algorithm. Their stuff just worked. And anytime we did work with one of those savvy brands, it was always on the same platform. Motion. Motion is by far the best tool to optimize your creative pipeline. Provide structure, visibility and insights that your creative team needs to make better decisions. I like to think of it as like, what Meta would actually show you if they cared about your success. All the key metrics, like three second stop rate, winning angles, formats, competitor research, it's all built into their platform so you can make quicker and better decisions. They even just launched their new AI agent, Runneth, which functions as a 24.7creative strategist, providing recommendations to your ad account. Y' all make sure to go check them out@motion app.com. all right, let's get back to the episode. Where do you have that education show up in your creator videos?
- [13:58]
Ryan Chen
And yeah, creator videos help. A lot of it's like kind of on the website, but a lot of it is trying to convey that message and that short ad.
- [14:05]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah, yeah, like price anchoring a dollar per serving, right?
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Podcast Host 2
How did you start developing your positioning strategy?
- [14:11]
Ryan Chen
I think figuring out the price point was one trying to be competitive with energy drinks. Right. Back in the day when we were starting, we were like, okay, well if Red Bull is 80 milligrams of caffeine for a can and we're 40 milligrams like half a Red Bull but one piece of gum. How do we get competitive to Red Bull's pricing but get a lot more value out of it? So we're trying to play around with that pricing model. Obviously it had to make sense for us margin wise to like, you know, be able to scale up D2C. So we're like kind of reverse engineering backwards. Like we need this margin to survive to scale. But this is still a value prop better than like, you know, coffee or energy drinks.
- [14:45]
Podcast Host 2
But even from the beginning you were looking at the Red Bulls, the monsters.
- [14:49]
Ryan Chen
Those were like our like secondary primary competitors. And we're kind of working backwards.
- [14:53]
Podcast Host 2
Not the five gums as an example.
- [14:55]
Ryan Chen
Gums. Yeah. And I mean like we, I think we built this category. You know, Neuro was like kind of the forefront of trying to put supplementation in government form. It took so long for people to be like, oh well that makes sense. And then when we had people try it, then we slowly built this base of subscribers. So I think we're over like 100 plus thousand subscribers just on D to C, like on our E commerce platform. And those people are like those lifetime value customers that we depend on.
- [15:22]
Podcast Host 2
Was there any like inflection point in the market? Because this was also during the time where the Hubermans, the ATI is were starting to talk about for example, combining caffeine with al theanine. Right. And there's a lot of products that got to not piggyback off of that. But it was like the more of culture was starting to get educated around health and wellness. Was there an inflection point that. It was almost like the education met what you had created and there was a rise.
- [15:48]
Ryan Chen
So when we first trademarked Neurogun, we were like the world's first nootropic gum. That was like kind of the tagline. And then no one knew what nootropics were unless you were like a, like a Redditor. And Kent, luckily my best friend, co founder was really big on Reddit and he was talking about like nootropics, our nootropics and just like kind of talking about our launch on Indiegogo. But we're like man, it's Indiegogo. Yeah, we were on Indiegogo.
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Podcast Host 2
That's a throwback. That's almost like a limewire.
- [16:13]
Ryan Chen
We couldn't, we couldn't, we couldn't do Kickstarter, which was a much bigger platform. Than indiegogo, because they weren't supporting supplements. So we're like, we've got to go to indiegogo. Yeah. But, you know, luckily Kent and Tyler were, like, heavy on that Reddit community, and then we just realized it's too niche. So how do we go with something bigger? And, like, energy was always exploding, right, with energy drinks. And at the time it was like Red Bull, Monster, Rockstar. And now you have like, Celsius, Alani, New and hundreds of brands popping up every year.
- [16:38]
Podcast Host 1
Okay, I have a question for you. Like, why are energy drinks so popular as a category? Not necessarily to the consumer, but everyone is like, I'm going to get a random celebrity and I'm going to start an energy drink. Is it just the margin profile is that the TAM is so big? Like, why is it so popular?
- [16:53]
Ryan Chen
I asked myself that question all the time. I think the education's there. Every, you know, Red Bull's paid the path. They started Red Bull in 1987. Now everybody's like, you don't need to educate somebody. It's like, energy drink. I know what it is. I think it's easier to get into the market, but through that process is
- [17:08]
Podcast Host 1
so diluted and saturated, it just seems so ruthlessly competitive.
- [17:12]
Ryan Chen
Like, our angle is like, well, energy drinks are usually riddled with sugar. Like 30, 40 grams of sugar. It's a lot of sugar. Like, we have zero sugar in the product. You know, one piece is like half a cup of coffee or half a Red Bull. And people get that, like, analogy. So we kind of anchor ourselves of like, hey, you know how energy drinks might not make you feel good and make you feel jittery. Try this product. And then, yeah, we've had success from people just trying, like, actually, I really like it and kind of switch over
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Podcast Host 1
just to pivot real quick. I think we have a ton of, like, brand operators, founders that watch the podcast, and I think you guys were one of the very first, like, sort of mainstream Shopify brands to nail TikTok shop and, you know, kind of create that virality and capture the spillover. Like, yeah, a maybe tell us the story of, like, how y' all got on the platform, what your first six months was look like, how you activated. What did you say? 1500 videos a day from creators. Like, just give us kind of that little high level summary.
- [18:07]
Ryan Chen
I mean, shout out to like, Jonathan Kent, everybody, like, making that effort to hop onto this platform. Because TikTok was exploding. But Tik Tok Shop was still in its infancy and we were financing was Very close to be like, hey, we're not getting any RO. We're about to cut this, I think for four months in like early 2024. Maybe tail end of 2020 share share.
- [18:27]
Podcast Host 1
Like those clear numbers like what you
- [18:29]
Ryan Chen
were doing in revenue spend like November 2023. We were like, okay, well we gotta sample Neurogum to these creators. So I remember we had a budget of 300 creators that we're gonna send free product to. Please make a video. You know, this is like these are all like the one pager of like what the attributes of Neuro are. And it was like January, February, March, April, like nothing. And we're just like, we're just sending all this product, free product, we're spending ads behind it. Nothing's like working. And then finance team was like, you know, maybe we should cut it. And then boom. We had like one video go viral and. And then the rest was history. Like we.
- [19:04]
Podcast Host 2
Do you remember what the video was?
- [19:06]
Ryan Chen
It was clipping. It was clipping the Joe Rogan content. Talking about it and it's like it wasn't us doing it, but it was a good creator. Talking about the product and then be like, hey, what is this product that
- [19:16]
Podcast Host 2
Joe Rogan green screening.
- [19:17]
Ryan Chen
It green screening thing was really popular now like the TikTok algorithms change. Like you can't do the green screening. But then they started clipping the Shark Tank episodes and like, and we just started to see that like momentum. So 2024, we were the fastest growing company on TikTok shop in the health category. And in 2025 we had 5 billion impressions. So to go from like nothing in crickets to like middle age to of 2024 to be the fastest growing brand and then using that momentum in 2025, 5 billion impressions just gave us so much of this halo effect that translated into website sales, but even more so on Amazon. So I think TikTok was still a platform for brand discovery. People are like, oh, I've heard about it on TikTok. But they still weren't used to, you know, transacting on the TikTok shop platform. So they would be like, okay, let me Google it. Find it on Amazon. One swipe, click.
- [20:08]
Podcast Host 1
And then what were some of those like different concrete metrics? Like we hit a million in revenue and we saw like a 25% boost to Amazon. Like, do. Do you remember any of those?
- [20:18]
Ryan Chen
There are some days where there were some days where we would see maybe a correlation between every dollar that we made on TikTok was an incremental 40 cents on Amazon. It's not, it's not that anymore because of the, the halo effect is not as prevalent as it is.
- [20:34]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah, there's obviously a ceiling to it.
- [20:36]
Ryan Chen
But when we saw there was a clear indication as like when we would have a video go viral on TikTok that day, we would have a big increase, a spike. Yeah, because we would. We've been on TikTok, we've been on Amazon for like nine plus years, so we know what daily averages are like and a very consistent channel. Plus we had the subscription base. But then like the, the TikTok part was just. You would see this clip.
- [20:58]
Podcast Host 2
What are some of the formats that are, that were working then on TikTok shop and now continue to work on TikTok shop?
- [21:04]
Ryan Chen
Well, I'll tell you what worked really well back then was like the clipping and the green screening. And I think, I think now with like the IP stuff, TikTok's being a little bit more sensitive on violations and like trying to close that down. And I think they know what that leaky bucket was like when you would see it on TikTok, but then Amazon would get the revenue. So they're trying to be a little bit more siloed and trying to keep that transaction happening on TikTok shop. So the tricky thing right now is like TikTok is kind of a discount platform, so people want to get a deal. But then when you're so big on Amazon, Amazon has like the buy box. So if you price your product on Target.com, walmart.com or TikTok lower, then you lose the buy box on Amazon. So it's almost like this math game of like, if we discount it too much on TikTok, but we're getting more volume but we lose that market share on Amazon, then like, how do we find that balance? So it's like cons, it's just kind of like a map.
- [21:55]
Podcast Host 1
How did you find the balance? I mean, what was the, what was the equation?
- [21:58]
Ryan Chen
I think what we came to the conclusion is, is that TikTok is the best, like the undisputed champion for brand awareness. So for us to continue to reach new customers, TikTok is still that platform. Of course we're on meta, we'll do stuff on Instagram, but TikTok is the king. And so when we have like brand campaigns with TikTok, we'll participate in it. But we're very sensitive with the team upfront. Like this is the most that we can discount and you can do further couponing or whatever on your back end. But this is the lowest price that we can advertise without messing up our Amazon business. So it's like being in constant communication and I would say shout out to the TikTok team, because then we have this, like, internal relationship that we have that we don't have with Amazon, even though Amazon's a much bigger channel. Like, we can. We're on, like, lark groups with, like, our direct account managers and, like, the head of health on TikTok to be able to, like, help troubleshoot some of the issues that we have. So being able to have that constant, like, point of contact makes. It makes a huge difference.
- [22:55]
Podcast Host 1
I mean, that's always like, one of the biggest questions. Any brand has is like, they're at least somewhat aware that TikTok is this discount platform. They're at least somewhat aware it's a brand awareness, like, platform. But at the same time, they're like, okay, well, do I go 30% off here and then, like, I need to recoup, like, an extra 8% a day on Amazon? Like, just kind of building out that equation is such a challenge for people when they're in the dark. You know, obviously you have a lot of, like, historical data now in TikTok shops, so you can make much more educated decisions.
- [23:24]
Ryan Chen
But I would say there would be certain brand campaigns that we did with, like, you know, the spring campaign or, like, the new flavors we launched exclusively on TikTok, like, December 2024, like the Wintergreen spearmint flavors that we have that we launched exclusive on TikTok for, like, a month. And we were promoting it, and we're discounting it way more than we can even discount on a website. Because, like, TikTok would then have subsidies, right? They'll be like, hey, like, you put in this much ad dollars, like, we'll help subsidize and cover some of that cost. Or else, like, we would be losing money if we were to do that same pricing on D2C. So I think those days are starting to dwindle down because TikTok needs to make money as a platform. But I think we got lucky to ride that wave. But I still see new brands popping up. I see new brands popping up every week that go viral. Now it's a matter of, like, do you have a strong enough supply chain to be able to, like, you know, ride that momentum? Because I've. I've seen companies go viral and then they can't keep up with the supply, and then the demand fades Then they make the supply and then you know.
- [24:22]
Podcast Host 1
Now y' all already know. We are super skeptical on this show about most AI tools promising the world. They have flashy demos, huge promises, and ultimately underdeliver. But I do have to tell you about one that has blown me away and saved my team countless hours of time. And that's Rich Panel. Imagine a 24.7customer support engine that handles all of your tickets, seamlessly, escalates anything requiring human intervention. And here's the best part. Upsells your customers in the process. Their onboarding process is frankly one of the craziest things I've ever seen. You input your brand and within 15 minutes it has full context on the latest, drops product information and plugs into all of your apps. That's not even to mention the cost savings. They're like three times more affordable than their competitors. I couldn't recommend this enough. So if you're a brand looking to turn support into an asset, go check out richpanel.com and tell them we sent you. Talk about the parallel path between like your explosion in popularity, retail interest and then like reaching mass retail. Now the Rogan thing happens. The brand is blowing up the TikTok shop inflection point. When were retailers knocking on the door? And then when did that flip to now? You're a darling in retail and they're like, how do we get you into Costco in some bundle, some big ass like Neurogum pest dispenser with the Joe
- [25:30]
Ryan Chen
Rogan head on, I think, I mean we've been knocking on, we've been working on Costco for a while, like you know, a couple of years, but timing wasn't right. Also we weren't dialed in on supply chain yet to be able to handle Costco. But I would say, you know, six years ago with the Joe Rogan shark tank, we had like low single digits like you, like us. Brand awareness, like unaided brand awareness would be like, you know, 3, 4%. So maybe 3% of the country would know what Neuro gum is or maybe have heard about it. Now fast forward we're like 16% and it's like we became orders of magnitude higher. And I would attribute that to TikTok. So it was like not the content wasn't news, like taking the Rogan shark tank and then founder content did really well. And so that like TikTok was a huge change. So then now when you had 16% compared to 3%, there's a higher chance that retailers and the buyers have heard about us. So they're like, you know, my neighbor takes this or my kids take this or I really love this product. I just don't know where to put you on shelves. But I think, you know, in the ten and a half years we have a lot of data on cvs, Whole Foods data, now Walmart data. And so now retailers are coming in like we could put you here and it's like we went, we would go from like normally opening an account with a couple hundred stores to now like 711 will be in 6,500 stores, like off the gate. You know, Casey's like from 0 to 2500 doors, like out the gate. So I think it's just a combination of timing and luck and getting like the retailers confident enough to where, okay, I've heard about this brand, I've tried it, I like it. I've also seen the data and I'm willing to take that bet on you guys.
- [27:05]
Podcast Host 1
How is your marketing budget allocation shifted from performance to brand as you've entered more doors and like grown in revenue?
- [27:13]
Ryan Chen
I think it's a proxy because as we've increased subscription revenue, we have kind of this baseline. So we know if we pull 100% of marketing, we have a steady business. And so as we're able to pull some of that E commerce into retail. So this year, you know, our focus is to be maybe 35, 40% of our total revenue into retail. We have to pull a lot of that into like retail spend. So for us to launch Walmart in like almost, almost nationally, it's a huge investment upfront and it's a future investment upfront before getting that like initial PO paid. So we're kind of moving budget allocation. So it's a constant discussion because E commerce is like, well like we have certain KPIs we want to hit, but as a team we have a total revenue goal. It doesn't matter where the revenue is coming from. So because retail is the big bet for us this year, we're just moving allocations around to support retail.
- [28:03]
Podcast Host 1
What's kind of like your spend breakout by channel and what's the goal for
- [28:06]
Podcast Host 2
each channel is that I'm curious about like are you looking at TikTok and be like, okay, this is going to be more of our awareness or driving foot traffic Instagram. We're looking at it for this influencers partnerships. We're hoping does X. I mean we
- [28:18]
Ryan Chen
use so many of these data platforms to kind of calculate like individual roas per channel but like the best way to look at it and my recommendation is to just look at it as like e commerce as a whole. Because if TikTok is your brand awareness play, the roas might not be there. But if you're pulled back from that, then you'll see your roas go down on Amazon. So I think it's best if you're on multiple channels, website, Amazon, Tik Tok, maybe even whatnot. Just looking at it as a combined entity. But retail is a, is a wildcard. We're still trying to figure that part out. But some someone like Walmart's like here you're going to enter this door, you're going to have to put half a million dollars minimum to support this ad credit. It's like a pay to play. Unless you put in that half a million dollars, they're not going to also such a rack. Yeah, it's crazy.
- [29:01]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah, same with like Roundel at Target. Yeah, like scam in the world.
- [29:05]
Ryan Chen
But you pay to play. You don't have to say that if you, if you paid. I think when you pay to play then they'll also, the buyers want to see like, okay, you're investing into this platform. We'll have like a Times Square billboard coming out with our friends who's like hooking us up with some spots. And like if the buyers see that, they're like, oh, you guys are doing out of home advertisement that's going to also drive to Walmart. And you know, we're working with a couple of big celebrities. Like you know, Andrew Schultz is a celebrity partner. Yuki Tsunoda, the formula one driver for Red Bull. You know Jimmy, like we're gonna be like, hey, can you push some content that says like we're gonna be a Costco Walmart. Send those clips to the buyers and be like, hey, we're getting some of the biggest celebrities in the world to talk about how to buy Neurogunk but at your stores. So all these things like add up incrementally and I think it comes down to like just a good partnership on both sides, but also the relationship.
- [29:53]
Podcast Host 1
I mean we have the product right here. We can see it in the wide shot. We'll put that on camera. Like you guys just kind of went through a big packaging brand refresh because of this retail.
- [30:02]
Podcast Host 2
I was gonna say it's because of retail.
- [30:04]
Ryan Chen
A big part of it was retail. You know, our current packaging I think looks great, simple. But I think we just stepped it up. It looks a lot cleaner. Just, you know, it allows us to expand a lot more in terms of like product offering and Flavors. So before we had the flavor represented as a color, but we're like, if we expand more flavors, we're gonna run out of colors. So what we did instead is like we picked the set color for that function. So if memory focus is this like light blue.
- [30:28]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [30:29]
Podcast Host 1
You want to create the association with the benefit.
- [30:30]
Ryan Chen
Yeah. And then the energy one is always going to be this like, like our neuro blue. And then from there we have like the sub, like subset colors that represent the flavor. So peppermint, spearmint, cinnamon, wintergreen. So we had that just like, like almost like design psychology. And then now that we have this like format and process, it's going to allow us to expand more, more functions along the way.
- [30:51]
Podcast Host 2
I think there's some things to pay attention to as well where this feels like a supplement.
- [30:56]
Ryan Chen
Yeah, yeah.
- [30:57]
Podcast Host 2
Like just from overall packaging and standing out in a supplement, it pops out too.
- [31:02]
Ryan Chen
I think our team did an amazing job with the, the packaging.
- [31:05]
Podcast Host 2
But like you put this next to for example, like you could put this next to you know, the company Seed.
- [31:09]
Podcast Host 1
Seed Probiotic.
- [31:10]
Podcast Host 2
Probiotic.
- [31:10]
Ryan Chen
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [31:11]
Podcast Host 2
It's like it's a green pill. Green pill. But it's like almost like the same pat, like not same packaging but again like it just, it fits on the shelf with a, with a supplement brand which going back to your positioning is, is key.
- [31:22]
Podcast Host 1
I'm about to take this one and just lock in so hard for us to episode.
- [31:25]
Ryan Chen
This one's our. I do, I love the Memory Focus product because for me ironically I'm caffeine sensitive. Even though it's, you know, insanely ironic.
- [31:33]
Podcast Host 2
Well that's why the L theanine's in there.
- [31:34]
Ryan Chen
So we have the L Theanine but then the membrane focus one uses 50 milligrams of like clinical grade ginseng. So it's called SE boost.
- [31:41]
Podcast Host 1
Tastes so good.
- [31:42]
Ryan Chen
It's really good. 200 milligrams a day. Clinically shown to improve working memory. So the, the company that we license this ginseng from has done a ton of research behind it. It's our most expensive active ingredient.
- [31:55]
Podcast Host 2
How do you test products?
- [31:56]
Ryan Chen
All science based. So I mean for us to do a product and launch in a market at least takes like a, a year in R and D at least. And so like we have to look at all the, the active ingredients where we're sourcing it if there's any claims. So this instead of like a normal ginseng, the Seribust one, we do a lot of data and analysis on like this company, how they're sourcing it, the papers, and then of course we have to put it in the product.
- [32:18]
Podcast Host 1
And are you running clinical trials?
- [32:20]
Ryan Chen
We did a white paper study with Harvard, MIT back in 2020, but we haven't done any other formal clinical trials. We would love to though.
- [32:28]
Podcast Host 1
I'm, I'm super curious. I mean like, so obviously Gruins just got acquired by Unilever and I mean probably one of the biggest like mafia ruled rackets of all time is like what Mars has in distribution and you know, with Hudson News and everything, like the gum world, right? Like five Gum, Juicy Fruit, whatever. I don't think we've really seen a lot of disruption on that shelf in decades. I mean 5 Gum was probably the
- [32:51]
Ryan Chen
most recent that and that was more like a packaging play.
- [32:54]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah, yeah. And they did like, I mean they were like crushing the brand. Those ads in like, oh, six were going crazy.
- [33:00]
Ryan Chen
The Five Senses. Yeah, they did a really good job, but.
- [33:03]
Podcast Host 2
And it broke into like middle school and high schools. Like it was a status symbol in, in middle school. I remember to like, you had a
- [33:08]
Podcast Host 1
razor, you were chewing five gum.
- [33:09]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [33:10]
Podcast Host 1
You know, you were on the playground.
- [33:11]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [33:12]
Podcast Host 1
Going crazy.
- [33:12]
Podcast Host 2
Motorola razor.
- [33:13]
Podcast Host 1
Going crazy.
- [33:14]
Podcast Host 2
You had t mobile, Fab 5 and some 5 guns.
- [33:16]
Podcast Host 1
You're talking about how you were shaving for the first time.
- [33:18]
Podcast Host 2
You might have a Sidekick. You might have a sidekick.
- [33:20]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah, yeah. BlackBerry if you're lucky. But like M and A in this category, like is, is the. Well, and I mean share whatever you're comfortable with. But like is it going with a Mars, Is it going with someone like that or is it coming after them? Because obviously they have the distribution locked in. But you're kind of in the supplement category.
- [33:40]
Ryan Chen
That would be like the logical choice. I mean without going into too much detail, like we had talked to some of the biggest energy drink like family offices in the world to talk about a partnership or an investment. And then we looked at like your traditional kind of like CPG holding companies too. And then, you know, we found an amazing partner that owns and runs our government manufacturer. And that felt like the right play for us because we wanted to be more vertically integrated. We wanted to be able to control the supply chain. Mars and Wrigley, I think, you know, as like a private company. Incredible. Incredibly well run. Daniel Lubetzky, who's one of our friends and mentors.
- [34:17]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah, yeah.
- [34:19]
Ryan Chen
Founder of Kimbar. He's now like the main judge on Shark Tank. I, I told this story a while ago, but you know, six years ago when we did Shark Tank, right after we aired, we got a trademark lawsuit from a drink company called Neuro. And, like, I was freaking out because, like, we're on a high from the Rogan and Shark Tank content now. Like, I'm a trademark lawsuit. I was filed for banks and highs
- [34:40]
Podcast Host 2
and the lows of. Lows of business.
- [34:42]
Ryan Chen
Literally, the highs and lows. And, like, within, like, the month of April 2020, I was like, oh, my God, we're gonna lose this business. And signed away, basically, these massive retainers for legal that, like, defend. And I just remember Daniel Lubecky was like, hey, on the show, by the way. He was like, if I really like you guys, if there's anything you guys need, like, I feel like we'll cross paths. And I was like, is this guy for real? Like, is he saying it just on the show? But, like, I had nothing to lose, so. Hail Mary. I DM'd Daniel on Instagram, and that was on the. We just did a Shark Tank update episode.
- [35:09]
Podcast Host 2
Go. Really?
- [35:09]
Podcast Host 1
I don't know why those are always.
- [35:11]
Ryan Chen
It just came. We're like the. I think the first company in Shark Tank history to not take a deal on camera and still get an update episode. But we told the story of Daniel, and I DMed him, and I told him the whole scenario. And for 18 months, he helped defend and he talked to the person suing us, the CEO of the company, their legal team. Our legal team. And we settled. And, like, we own this government category. We were able to keep our name because they wanted to bully us to change the name. But through that process, yeah, it was insane. Like, Daniel was the goat to help us.
- [35:42]
Podcast Host 1
That's awesome. Yeah. Friends in high places.
- [35:45]
Ryan Chen
So nice. And don't be afraid to reach out to people because you never know if they're going to answer or not. But I had nothing to lose. I was like, hey, Daniel, I hope you're doing well. I don't know if you remember me from Shark Tank, and you said, if I could reach out to you if I had some advice, I really need your advice on something. And that was, like, literally, like, what I texted. And that's awesome. Came back to me.
- [36:04]
Podcast Host 1
That's awesome. What. What's next? What's the future like? What are you guys really excited about from. You know, I mean, you've always been kind of ahead of the curve, you know? So is it live shopping? Is there, like, new incremental categories and marketing you're excited about?
- [36:17]
Ryan Chen
I think for us this year is distribution.
- [36:20]
Podcast Host 2
Yeah.
- [36:20]
Ryan Chen
Like, I. We did A really good job kind of educating consumers and like the 16% that know about the brand. But now how do we get that incremental, you know, huge size of the pie? And a lot of them just haven't heard about the brand because they're not on social media or our ads or our content isn't targeted toward them. So I think when we're getting into the Costco, Walmart's targets of the world, that's gonna change the game. And. And it never gets old because we were just at dinner last night and like two of the people in the front, like the host, like, were like, oh my God, like, we love Neurogam. And we're going downstairs and there's security outside. They're filming like a music video and we're talking about Neuro. And the security guard, like, with like an armor, like armored vest pulls out like, literally.
- [37:01]
Podcast Host 1
You think he's pulling out a gas? Yeah.
- [37:04]
Ryan Chen
What are you pulling out? It was like literally like a random container and we're like, that's not Nergum. He opens it and it's like pack of like pieces of Neurogum that he pops in there because he wanted like a different packaging to fit in his pocket.
- [37:14]
Podcast Host 1
Yeah.
- [37:15]
Ryan Chen
And so it's like, that will never get old for us. And so like, how do we do that and just continue to grow as a brand? Because our dream is like what Red Bull did to create the energy. Energy drink category. Like we want to be the. Neuro wants to be the category.
- [37:30]
Podcast Host 1
Functional tablet.
- [37:30]
Ryan Chen
Yeah. Functional government. So that's the dream and the goal and you know, we've been at it for 10 and a half years. I'd say the next 10 years are gonna be really interesting for us. Nice.
- [37:39]
Podcast Host 1
That's awesome, man. Well, thanks so much for coming on the pod, dude.
- [37:42]
Ryan Chen
Thanks for having me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like we could talk for hours.
- [37:45]
Podcast Host 1
We definitely could. We definitely could. I'm gonna keep trying to pry more into the. Into the business, though. Well, cool. Tell them where we can find you. I mean, I think everyone knows, but go buy Neurogum on Amazon or where do you want them to buy it? Do you want retail?
- [37:56]
Podcast Host 2
I think you want that retail. The retail.
- [37:59]
Ryan Chen
Well, check us out. Www.neurogum.com Amazon. Make sure you buy from our like, actual like Neurogum page and then TikTok shop. If you buy from our page, like you're not going to get a lot of these fake sellers because we've been getting a lot of people trying to imitate us like, literally copy our brand. So if you go with our branded page, like, you'll get the real thing and at retail, cvs, Whole Foods and then Walmart and then soon Costco.
- [38:24]
Podcast Host 1
Nice. And follow you on Instagram.
- [38:25]
Ryan Chen
Yeah, Instagram. Just Neurogum.
- [38:27]
Podcast Host 1
Okay.
- [38:27]
Podcast Host 2
All right, awesome.
- [38:28]
Ryan Chen
Thank you, guys.
- [38:29]
Podcast Host 2
Thanks for coming, man.
- [38:30]
Ryan Chen
Thanks.
- [38:30]
Podcast Host 2
Thank you.
- [38:31]
Ryan Chen
Appreciate it.