← The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
652: IM8 Founder: What It REALLY Takes to Build a $200M Supplement Brand
01:02:09
Danny Yeung went from selling baseball cards at age 12 to scaling Ubuy-Ibuy to nearly a million a month in revenue in just six months before Groupon acquired it in 2010. Then during Covid, he launched a PCR testing operation that processed 28 million tests and generated over $800 million in revenue across three years. He listed the company on the Nasdaq at a billion-dollar valuation—then watched it crash to $40 million within 18 months. Instead of giving up, he bet the entire company's future on launching IM8, a consumer supplement brand co-founded with David Beckham that scaled from zero to nearly $10 million a month in just over a year.
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- [00:02]
A
Hey, founder fam. I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e commerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know on average OMNISEND customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code FOUNDER50. Just head to omnisend.com founder without the e to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. Okay guys, I have a crazy interview for you today. You've probably seen their ads imate. They are absolutely everywhere. Danny Young, he's the co founder of ima. He is going to detail every everything that these guys are doing. Spending two to three million dollars a month on ads, how he scaled this business from zero to nine figures in just over a year. One of the fastest growing D2C brands online. We go through landing pages While they have 50 different landing pages, what their split testing process looks like, how they scale spend, how they lost 400 to 500k in 3 days. This interview is crazy. If you have a D2C brand right now, you are spending money on paid ads. You need to watch this,
- [01:36]
B
hear the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
- [01:50]
A
Danny Young, from selling baseball cards at age 12 to scaling you buy, I buy to nearly a million a month in revenue in just six months before Groupon acquired it in 2010. What do you believe about business that most founders get wrong?
- [02:12]
B
I wouldn't say most founders get wrong. I believe there's always multiple ways to create value and create a company. I just been one that's been always obsessed with product and understanding. Is this something that really can solve a problem? Right. So a lot of times people are unrealistic with their idea thoughts about the product. But number one always starts with a product and if you have an amazing product then there's a lot that you can build upon with it. Right? But yeah, sometimes people, they just think a shady product will work if you put great marketing to it. Right. I think firstly you have to have a great product. A great product is like baseline, right? You can't even play without a great product. So I think for any founder, you just have to ensure what your product is and what's the USP over an existing market leading product and be realistic with yourself and realistic with your friends and peers and your employees. Then that's the recipe for success as the initial baseline.
- [03:12]
A
Now you've scaled multiple companies, your current focus is ima. We're gonna delve deep into that, but before we do. And that's the nine figure business. You've grown it to nine figures in like, under like just over a year, which is crazy in of itself. You know, from, from, you know, zero to close to $10 million a month. Like crazy, crazy, crazy numbers. So want to talk about prenetics? So Prenetics, during COVID you had launched 40,000 PCR tests daily. You were selling 40,000 PCR tests daily, generating over 800 million in revenue across three years.
- [03:57]
B
Those are crazy times. I mean, to be honest with you, thinking back those three years, probably the toughest time of my entrepreneurial career because it was literally 24, seven operations, right? Because when you're dealing with COVID testing, I mean you have to get the results very, very fast out to individuals. Because especially in Hong Kong, we needed to get results within a 24 hour period of time, sometimes even 12 to 24 hours, right? So we had a team of literally like 2000 plus people on the logistics, operations, supply chain. 247 operations for nearly three years. Like mentioned at the height, we're doing 40,000 PCR tests on a single day total wise. We did 28 million tests across a three year period of time from 2020 to 2022 and was just insane, like literally insane period of time. Where the origin of that was April. I remember April 2020. We met with the government in Hong Kong. They're like, hey, we was like, do you guys need any help? They're like, we don't need any help, we can do it ourselves. And then we're like, oh, that's fine. And then I just saw there was some opportunity in the public sector because it was very difficult to get a COVID test. And when we started doing it, we did it in three weeks time. We got a Covid at a at home COVID test that you send to someone's home, you send it back to our lab and you get results in 24 hours. We did that in three weeks. So our capacity earlier on was 100 to 200 a day and we sold out every single day. So the volumes continue. And we're just trying to do something to help the community. And then that was April, right? And then when Covid got much worse in July, then the government came back and called us. They were like, hey, Danny, the situation's gotten much worse. Can you help us with mass PCR testing? And they're like, okay. I was like, what do you want us to do? Right? They're like, we need to test 300,000 restaurant workers across 16,000 restaurants. Yeah. I'm like, and how. What was the timeframe you need to test to be done? They're like, we need it to be done in four weeks. And then again, there's very, very different going from 200 tests a day to thousands a day. You know what? I said, yes, let's do it. And we were able to complete 300,000 tests. And this was door to door testing, right? We went literally, myself included, for the first weekend, literally walked to restaurants, passing out PCR saliva kits, collecting it, bring back to the lab, working 18, 20 hours a day. Right? So it was insane, but somehow, I don't know how we did it, but we were able to do that 300,000 tests in four weeks time.
- [06:52]
A
Yeah. It's wild. So. So there's a, there's a. A clear through line with your story and the businesses that you build and scale. So I want to get to your current project, but before I do, because Imate is massive. You see it everywhere now. You've got incredible partners behind the brand. You co founded it with David Beckham. You've got like so much going on and this brand is scaling super fast. So I want to talk about, why did you decide to list that business on the NASDAQ and then bet the company's entire future on launching a consumer supplement brand which is ima. Like, what, what, what happened there, man?
- [07:32]
B
Yeah. So, you know, strategically, when we're going through Covid, right? Again, the business was, you know, very, very, I would say, a decent size. Right. We're doing upwards of 200 million annual revenues. And. But of course, we always knew Covid would end someday. All right. We didn't know exactly when. This is like 2021, right. And we're doing massive testing. So during the height of this testing, we was like, hey, you know what? This is a good opportunity for us to list on the nasdaq. Yeah. So we then got, you know, UBS C dealers or our bankers, they thought it was also a great opportunity. So we listed on the NASA in 2022 because we felt that was a good opportunity to enable us to, you know, survive or thrive post Covid we didn't know when that was. And so that's why we, we listed the company in 2022 and when we listed there was still Covid. Right. And so we had a billion plus valuation when we listed, you know. But of course, you know, post Covid, everything came crashing down. Yeah. So of course, yeah, as with any entrepreneur or startup wise, it's not all like, you know, rocket ship growth. Right. So we went from billion valuation, we, within 18 months, I think our low point valuation, we hit like 40 million. Right. So you can see how fast, Right. We're able to grow but you know, at the same time how fast that downturn is also. Right. So we, yeah, at 40 million, things look very, very bleak.
- [09:01]
A
What was it like with investors, man? Like and shareholders?
- [09:06]
B
It's tough, man. I mean, honestly, you know, some, some investors. And again, I, I take a big sense of responsibility and pride because, you know, to be fair, all of my, a lot of my best friends are friends. Yeah. That I've known for 5, 10, 15 years. They all invested in pre medics, even pre IPO. During the IPO. And then so that gives another sense of like literally you talk to anyone that knows me and my, because I, I always have like this intertwined with personal and work wise. Right. So they all invested in myself and love it. They just invested in me rather than whatever the company was doing. Right. So I sense that responsibility. But of course, post Covid, how do you replace 40,000 tests on a daily basis? You can't. And so our revenue dropped off the cliff and we knew we needed to do something very dramatic. And coincidentally we're thinking about getting into the supplement space, the consumer space, you know, just given that was also my background at Groupon. Right. But with genetics the last 11 years, I was like, hey, we take in a very clinical and scientific basis from diagnostic DNA testing, even PCR testing. Right. So I was thinking, how do we merge science with consumer. And then. So this is where we led to thinking about the consumer supplement space. And coincidentally I had a good friend in Hong Kong, Michelle Laminaire. He knows David very well. And me and Michelle was at dinner and he was like, hey, I want to see David in the next few weeks in London. Yeah. And he's like, you know, do you want to join? I'm like. It was like, are you sure? And I'm like. And he's like, yeah, just come along. Okay. I was like, fine, let's do it. And then I went over to London to meet with David and you know, that's that's how we got started.
- [11:01]
A
Crazy. So what's it like building a company with someone as famous as David Beckham? Because you as well, you didn't do what a lot of brands do where you do paid endorsements like you, you, you are strategically bringing on well known thought leaders and well known celebrities or influencers and you're making them equity partners. Which is, which is really interesting, but yet talk me because. Yeah, you've co founded the business with David Beckett.
- [11:32]
B
Yeah. So I think you know, you know, from that first conversation with David. Right. So it was never about commercial terms. It was always about a, what was the impact and what was the problem that we wanted to solve. Right. Going back to the product side. Right. So we knew, you know, when we did our research and etc wise, you know, there's a big gap in terms of supplements, there's a lot of mistrust in the industry. Right. So we started with the product and again when we spoke with David, I told David and his own frustrations in the supplement categories that he felt it was also very overwhelming. Right. And that's for David. Right. Imagine he has the best doctors, nutritionists, team around him and he, even for him it felt overwhelming. And he was also struggling to maintain his daily intake of supplements because he's kind of, you know, especially showing me his stack is like, you know, a dozen or so, you know, different types of supplements. Right. And when he's traveling then it's also very difficult to maintain that because you have to pack it all. A lot of times you forget it's just not an easy thing to do for the majority of people. Right. And it was like, hey, you know, when we started talking it's like, yeah, there must be a better way to do this. How can we create something where we have a all in one solution in a powder format where you can carry with you anywhere, easily shareable, easy to travel with and, and key thing is has to be scientifically backed because that was the key thing. David said, you know what if he has to put his name on something, number one, it has to be the best in the market because it will get more heavily scrutinized. Right. And that's what we did. We said, hey, let's do it. But at the same time we also brought along the best scientific advisory board that was available to us, which the likes of Dr. Don Musailum from the Mayo Clinic, Professor Suzanne Devcola from cedars Sinai, know Dr. James Green, the former chief scientist of NASA. So all these individuals and it's also very rare that these guys came together to support one company but a supplements brand, which was the first time they've ever done so.
- [13:41]
A
Yeah. So I want to talk about growth because it's insane. But before we do, how did you pull that off? Like what you said, like the amount of expertise, the amount of ambassadorship that you have behind this brand is very impressive and it builds instant trust credibility. It's a, it's, I think it's a very key ingredient, obviously, besides having a great product, but from a marketing perspective, very, very strong. So talk to me, how did you pull that off and how did you know it was the right move thinking
- [14:15]
B
about the industry as a whole? Right. Again, you know, there's a lot of mistrust in the supplement category. Even when I talk to people in the industry, when I was thinking about this is like everyone told me, hey, Danny, don't get into the supplement industry is extremely competitive, extremely cutthroat. There's a lot of bad apples here. But when I hear that, I actually sense an opportunity. Right. So, okay, if that's the case, hey there means there's a big, big opportunity if we can create a science back credible product. Right. And again, I'm not a scientist, but you know, the last 10 years, I think with Prinetics, it also enabled me to understand how scientists think, what their motivations are, what their pet peeves are, what they actually want to achieve. So I think that 10 last 10 years of being in a very clinical setting really also allowed me to reach out individually to these scientists. Right. Because I wanted to have a very broad scientific advisory board with broad experiences so everyone can weigh in on their own expertise rather than like a someone that knows it all. Right. And I just, you know, found them one by one via LinkedIn, Internet and just kind of, you know, cold call them or send them a message on LinkedIn and said, hey, who I am, what I have done. And again, to be fair, I think my background, you know, with Groupon as well as the last 10 years prenext that of course it signals credibility as well. It's not like this, you know, random guy that's just, yeah, out of the blue. Right. So I think that had something to it. But at the end of the day, you just have to find these individuals and everyone's willing to hear you out as long as you are providing them with value. So that's one thing I always try to do regardless of if it's David, the scientific team, all these other ambassadors, number one, even if we don't work together. I'm always trying to provide value to the other side. Whatever I can do, like making introductions, providing some value on whatever I'm doing, any of the AI stuff that we're doing, just always trying to provide value and we're able to apply value. I think ultimately it becomes much greater than just a pure transactional. Yeah. Thing.
- [16:30]
A
And all of these ambassadors and experts, all of these people, they're equity partners, right?
- [16:38]
B
Yes, they all have, you know, equity.
- [16:41]
A
And you did that strategically.
- [16:43]
B
Yeah, I, I always felt the ambiguously, if we do well, you know, everyone should do well. And then that was also very important because again, a lot of these transactions are just too transactional. And then. Yeah. If they believe in it. And again, give me example. Even David. Right? Yeah. I'm sure you imagine the last. Yeah. 10, 20, 30 years, so many big brands, companies, et cetera, they're like, Dave, we want to give you equity. But of course, just because you want to give them equity, he's not going to take it. Right. Because you know, when he takes equity, that means he has to really believe in it. He can take many endorsement deals. It doesn't really, you know, it's not going to change too much. Right. But when he takes equity, that's a signal that he's invested into the brand. He believes in the founder, he trusts the founder and trusts the long term direction of where the brand is going. Right. So I think the equity piece was very important because we didn't just want, want to have. Yeah. Endorsements. We wanted people that truly believed in the brand. And to be fair, that's for every single one of our ambassadors, they have equity. And this, in a way is skin in the game. Yeah.
- [17:52]
A
And what would you say to founders that want to hold on, want to protect? What would you say?
- [17:59]
B
It's like, what are you trying to protect? Right. I mean, I always tell like younger entrepreneurs, they're like, oh, you know what? I don't want to give up, you know, 5%, 10%, etc. But then I always felt, you know, even from my own experience, I mean, this is like my fourth, fifth company. I'm very, I would say, very flexible with equity. Yeah. Because I rather have, you know, 10% of a billion or 10, 5% of 5 billion. Right. Rather than 100% of 50 million. Yeah. Whatever that is. Right. So I always tell founders like, hey, if they can provide value, that equity that you give, it makes the pie so much bigger. So I always believe, you know, if, if, if they're able to take it and they want the equity, then it actually ties in the incentives much stronger. So I would be very flexible to the young, to the entrepreneurs listening about their equity.
- [18:49]
A
Yeah, I, I really appreciate your, your experience there because I think for many founders, they want to protect equity and it's, you know, whatever you're doing, man, the whole strategy is paying off. I want to unpack this because I could talk to you all day. Right, so let's start with some straight facts. You launched iM8, you generated $581,000 in its first month. And that was in, that was in December of 2024. So half a million dollar a year. Half a million dollar a month business in month one. Then you scaled it to $10 million a month in one year. So $10 million a month by December 2025 in one year. Like that is insane. So talk us through what did you do for launch and how you like. Yeah, and we'll delve into the numbers. But like what was the key things that you did for launch to just go off the back like that?
- [19:43]
B
Yeah, so we launched in December of 24. I mean that was strictly online, right. So that was just kind of testing the market, seeing it works. And Again, we had 581,000. I think it was a decent launch. And then in January we actually had an official launch where we had a launch event with David in New York. He was on the Today show. We had a press conference, meet and greet and et cetera, et cetera. Right. So I think ultimately that's the value of having such a famous co founder, right? Because basically you're able to cut through a lot of noise. For example, what's the value of having your product on Today Show? Right. So many people watching, right? So just him on the Today Show. I think that day we had like a thousand orders, right. And this is organic, right? And then so just by that, and then January wise, I think we, yeah, went to like million plus in revenue. Right. So every single month we just continue to doubled, I think other points in that journey. In the first year, I think, yeah, in, in June we signed up Arena Sabalenka. And then so that also elevated a lot of credibility amongst the athlete sector. Right. Because here's arena, world number one tennis player is like, oh, wow, you got David and now arena, right. And she's active, right. So you know, everyone loves Arena. And her story also resonated very well because Jason Stacy, her performance coach, started using the product in January and we didn't even know. He was just like, he Was like, hey, they want a new supplement or gene. He saw us online, he ordered it, he took it for a month, then he gave it to Irina. It's like, Irina tried it for three months. And I'm sure, you know, at their levels, he's monitoring every single meal, every single day, diet, all the changes, how she's feeling. And she took it for three months and it's just like, hey, she's feeling great. Recovery was significantly better. Energy levels and she didn't get sick. Yeah. And then she then had her team reached out to me and we struck a partnership. And that also created a lot of growth for us and a lot of credibility. Right. So link for the first six months, those are like two key pieces. And again, just continue. Also doing lots of testing online because we're 100% TTC. Right. One other thing I will share that we did from day one, we shipped to 31 countries from day one. I think this was also a big part, I would say my experience at Groupon. Right. It's like, hey, thinking very big and global from day one, like you said, we went all in. Where I was like, you know what? I know we have a great product. Right. I think the world deserves this product on a global basis. So we didn't just say, you know what, let's try us and then blah, blah, blah, go to other markets. Right. From day one, we're in 31 countries. So logistically it was, yeah, it was a nightmare to get through all these different countries. Yeah. But we did. And I think ultimately, yeah, US is our biggest market. Canada's, I mean, UK is now number two, Canada's number three. Australia is number four. Singapore is number five, Hong Kong's number six. And then, yeah, so if you're listening
- [23:02]
A
to this episode, you're probably running a brand and trying to figure out how to scale your ads without burning cash. And that's exactly why we built founder operators. It's our private membership where Nick Shackelford himself and the founder team, who are the operators behind $200 million in profitable ad spend, actually work with you every week. They get inside your numbers, diagnose what's holding you back, and really help you learn how to scale your ads. This isn't a course, it's not a community full of beginners. It's really a room of serious direct to consumer founders with a team that's managed $10 million a month in ad spend telling you what to fix and in what order. So if that sounds like something you'd be interested in, you want help scaling your ads, you want to be part of a like minded community of D2C operators, go to founder.com operators or hit the link in the show. Not. Yeah, so okay, I love you say that because I see so many founders, they launch in just Australia or just America. And I agree, when I've built companies, I always go global from day one too. Because why, why not use the power of the Internet, you know, like that's the leverage, man. Like that's the scalability. You know what I mean?
- [24:20]
B
Yeah, exactly. And if you have a one product that can go crossover, cross boundaries. Right. And yeah, and again, we're not like we weren't like localizing any of the ads specific for uk, Canada or Hong Kong or anything like that. Right. So I think this is also the value that we found. And again, we're so grateful that David agreed to be a co founder. But David's a true Internet, he's famous everywhere, right? So he's great. So that made this also very helpful from day one.
- [24:52]
A
Okay, so now this is gonna get a little technical, but this is gonna be fun because we talked about this offline. You know, because you are a publicly listed company, you have to put your numbers out there. A lot of D2C brands, a lot of companies at scale, they have to hide them or they don't have to, but they choose to hide them. So we can talk about some really cool and interesting things and understand how you're navigating the growth of this business at scale. So the first question I wanted to ask you is you're currently operating roughly at a 3 to 1 LTV to CAC ratio over a 24 month period. So your average order value right now is about $200 with acquisition costs around 220 to 230. So for founders that are struggling with marketing costs, what's one simple way to know if your customer acquisition is actually working? And how do you, how have you engineered the economics here? Talk us through that and talk us through some of the challenges you've faced along the journey.
- [25:53]
B
I mean to be fair to put it simply, it's quite simple, right. If you think about it, right. I mean number one, you have to have, you have to calculate your gross margins, right? So our gross margins are 60%. Right. And then so I think if you look at. Also another key factor that we look at especially for early on is say how fast you're recouping that customer acquisition costs. You know, for us, based upon gross margins wise, it's actually about four Months, period of time. Right. So, so that means when we're spending $230, we're recouping that in a relatively short amount of time at four months. So that means that we can scale very aggressively when we're operating at a three to four month payback period. Right. You know, for example, hims and hers, I know their payback, again, public information, their payback period is 12 months. Right. So very, very long. Right, Correct. And then, so if you're able to operate at a 3, 4 month payback period, then you can, you can kind of go aggressive. And it also depends on business model. For us, you know, last year, I think early on, yeah, our, our, our average order value was, was about $110. Right. CAC was about $130. But because we are a subscription business and 80% of our business is subscription, we can afford to have a slight loss on our first order and then we'll make it up on month two, month three, month four. Right. And then we'll get paid back there. But if you're dependent on, let's say your first purchase has to be profitable, then you need a ROAS of at least 2 to 3x for it to make sense. Right. So for us it works because we are recurring business model. So I think every business is different depending on your business model. But ultimately you just need to understand the unit economics really, really well in every little detail.
- [27:38]
A
Right, Yeah, I agree. This is fundamentally key. So we recently launched a new community at Founder called Founder Operators. And we help D2C brands scale with ads. And we created this customized software which we call the Founder os. And once you plug in the numbers, we can work all of these things out. Because believe it or not, a lot of founders don't know these numbers as well as they should. And this is the key to unlocking scale because I'm sure if you guys wanted to spend 30% less than what you're spending right now, you could be profitable on the first purchase. But you choose not to because with extreme scale, obviously there's diminishing return. So you have to find a way to make the scale work. Correct, Correct.
- [28:21]
B
I mean, to be fair, we can be profitable tomorrow if we wanted to. Right. I just turned off my new customer acquisition engine because I have enough recurring subscriptions or customers today to be profitable tomorrow. Right. But then again, what fun would that be, right. If we stop scaling right now? Right. So we don't want to just farm our existing customer base. Right. I believe we have an opportunity to be one of the world's biggest supplement brands in the next three to five years. Yeah. So I think right now we're still scaling on the growth side of things.
- [28:50]
A
So let's talk about the scaling. So your marketing engine currently runs about 2,200 plus meta ads that we can see right now. Yeah.
- [29:01]
B
Public ads library. Yeah. Yep.
- [29:02]
A
Yeah. And you've got roughly 50 individual targeted landing pages, which is interesting in of itself. So what's the one mistake that you see founders make when it comes to running ads on meta at the scale that you guys are running it at? Like, you must be spending at least a few hundred thousand dollars a day, right?
- [29:22]
B
Yeah, total wise. I mean, right now we're spending like 150,000 to 200,000 a day right now on meta and Google. All right. Yeah. I think the diversity of our ads and the creative and the volume and the funnels actually allowed us to unlock spend. Right. Because I mean, giving example, like, of course right now we're spending a decent amount. But I wanted to. Just because you want to spend 150, 200,000, you can't. Unless you want to. You can't. If you want to have a decent roas. All right, you can. But then if you don't have the diversity of the volume of content, you're just going to get hit with really bad return ad spend. Right. So, yeah, from last year till now, again, we've been always, constantly testing in terms of how do we unlock spend. Because we know, for example, this category by default is very, very big. So there should not be a limitation for us, our spend, as long as our creatives are good. So I would say for the first part of 2026, that's one thing that we really focus on. How do we get our creative volumes much higher and creative diversity, which of course Mandy talks about a lot and especially I think prior to, I think late last year, we had about 800 ads, you know, running at any given time. Now we have, you know, 2000. Right. So this has taken a lot of work. I would say it's also quite complicated process. Right. Because just volume enough doesn't work.
- [31:02]
A
So talk me through that. Like, why so many targeted landing pages and what are the common mistakes founders make? Like, even. Even for founders that are perhaps doing 30 to 50 to $100,000 a month, watching this, this right now, why so many.
- [31:17]
B
Yeah, be careful. Because basically you have something different Personas, right. At the end of the day, you have something different Personas, you know, so right now let's Say, you know, we'll have a landing page, you know, for arena, we'll have a landing page for ollie Bearman, the F1 driver. Right. We'll have a landing page. You know, I guess if you're taking GLP1, we'll have a landing page. For recovery, we'll have a landing page or energy fatigue. So whatever the product does, again, people want to see specifics and of their Persona rather than just a generalized one for all landing page. Of course, we still have our general page. If you go on our website and go to our pdb, that's a generalized. Right. But if you're clicking on the ad that shows Irina Sabalenka, you want to listen to her story. If you're clicking on an ad that says Ali Bearman, we go give you the story, the background about who he is, why he's wanted to be a part of ima. So all of that journey and then that becomes a very authentic storytelling piece. Right? It's all about storytelling. Right. Because at the end of the day, we don't want to just sell our product. We want to sell being part of this community that we've been able to build.
- [32:23]
A
And when it comes to angles and creative tests, what do you have a KPI just for people to get an understanding. How many angles or new angles are you planning to launch per week with your scale?
- [32:35]
B
I mean, we'll launch at a minimum two to three new angles and we'll just continue test per week. Yeah, per week. Right. But of course now there's always a baseline of our. Because we already have like a baseline of like a dozen or so different Personas. Right. So we're just constant add to it. Right. And there's, there are certain ones that hey, we see, hey, there's more opportunity to scale that. So we're further optimizing things that work. Right. So just because something is already working, we're always trying to fine tune that further. Right. And there's always a. Yeah, again, I think we're always trying to do better than yesterday. Right. It's like, hey, when we see success, oh, that's great. How do we double down on that? Right.
- [33:16]
A
And when it comes to, you said when you started, you know, AOV wasn't as high as it is now. Is there anything that you can share with our community that you know they have to be doing or tests that you've ran or anything that we. When you're looking at other founders, D2C businesses where it's a common mistake that they make anything you could share there.
- [33:36]
B
Yeah. So I think, yeah, last year our AOV was hovering around $110. Right. Again, our business is actually quite simple because we only have two SKUs, so we actually don't have that much opportunity to cross sell or upsell. Because you only have one other skill. Right? Yeah. So we waited about a year until we launch a 90 day subscription because we couldn't have done that early on because let's say we launch in December 24th if we had a three month subscription, we had no social proof. So no one's going to pay you $235 for a three month subscription because you have zero proof. Why would they do that? Right. So when we launched a 90 day subscription, that was a big thing for us because now 35 to 40% of individuals are choosing the 90 day subscription over the one month subscription. So that increased our average order value very significantly. So from about $110 to a little bit more than $200. Right. So I think constantly trying different offers and the great thing now with even the landing pages offers is that you know, with AI all these things can be tested so, so fast. Yeah. So I think it's just constantly, constantly testing.
- [34:53]
A
How are you using AI to test these so fast?
- [34:56]
B
Yeah, I mean you think about all the landing pages. Right now you can build out landing pages in like 10 minutes. Correct? Right. So I think we use a lot of manus, we use a lot of cloud code, you know, to basically get out landing pages at scale. And of course we have to fine tune it, qc, check in, et cetera. Wise. Right. But you know, landing pages now used to what, take like, it could easily take a week to make a good landing page. Right now literally a very good landing page can probably be done in like two hours with back and forth fine tuning, etc.
- [35:29]
A
Yeah, yeah, you're so spot on. So like with this new community we've launched, we've obviously got our OS software, then we do the coaching, help you scale. And our lead, lead guy that's heading up and helping us build the curriculum, he scout spend to, you know, 100, $200,000 a day like you guys have. And he's been saying to me, Nathan, like the next iteration for us, for our software is helping founders launch landing pages at scale, optimize them at scale. And that's what we're looking at building because it's, it is the new way. And if you are not doing this in 2026 running ads, you're just leaving so much money on the table. Even just, you know, going to a PDP or going to your. Some people steal their, their main collection page or their homepage, which is crazy, right?
- [36:10]
B
Oh, exactly. And even, even for the same Persona, you can test two different landing pages. Right. Right now. Right. Just put in the meta, just, you know, same ad and just go landing page A, landing page B. Right. For this, for different Personas. So you can do that at scale. Right. So there's a lot of stuff that we do currently.
- [36:26]
A
Yeah. Okay. And you've found that obviously the more angles increasing aov, working through the LTV to CAC ratio, that that's how you've slowly scaled spend over time. Right. You've just got, just got the unit economics just fine tuned. Fine tuned. Fine tuned.
- [36:41]
B
Yes, correct. And of course, I mean it's not, you know, there are periods of time when we're testing things out as like, you know, which is. Yeah, of course. I always. Is always. Even though we're a public company. Right. Every time we spend money, I always treat it like myself. So sometimes you just have to go through. Yeah. The pain of it. Right. Sometimes, you know, you're spending to learn. Right. And then sometimes there was period of time where I think was February, where there was a few days where we went testing, we tested a lot of volume, like high spend just to see what would happen with certain vault creatives and et cetera, and it didn't work. Right. And so those few days we're doing like 0.4, 0.5 ROAS. But if we continue that spend at that level, then the, the unit economics falls completely apart. Right. So there will be periods of time where you just have to spend money to learn. And then once you dissect that data, those insights are so valuable to help you understand, okay, what went wrong and how do you fix it. So it's a constant thing because again, everything's changing so fast.
- [37:49]
A
Yeah, 100%.
- [37:51]
B
Sometimes you have to pay to play, basically.
- [37:54]
A
Right, agree. It's part of it. It's part of the play when it comes to scaling with ads. So. Okay, so let's talk about bitcoin because literally you guys made headlines because you invested a portion of a portion of your balance sheet into bitcoin. And you also. Yeah. Like at the end of 2025, you announced a halt to new bitcoin purchases to concentrate capital entirely on scaling ima. So talk to me around that strategy and, and why you, you at first wanted to put bitcoin on as part of your balance sheet as a Diversification, but then switched up. Talk me through that.
- [38:44]
B
Sure. So I think again, this is part of, you know, running a public company. Right. So there's always like to, I always have to manage, you know, the IMA side and then the public company side of things. Right. So last June. Yeah, again, you know, we, last June we're thinking, you know, what do we do? You know, our, our trading volume was a bit lower. And I always think with any strategy that we do, okay, we want to see what's the upside and what's the downside. All right. If there's significant upside and very limited downside, that's where a, you know, there's always going to be a downside of every decision. And we felt at that time there was going to be significant upside versus very limited downside. And if we say, we said, you know, let's buy, let's start buying bitcoin, we have extra cash on the balance sheet is a great way to get people talking about it, understanding it. And you may, maybe they'll invest in the stock. Right. And then which actually did it generate lots of PR? Our trading volumes I think went up like 2 to 3x after that. And I always said, you know what, if at one point it doesn't work, we'll just stop buying bitcoin. Right. And that's ultimately what we did because the business grew so fast. So even June until December, I think it doubled. Right. We're probably doing about 5 million a month in June and then by December we're doing 10 million a month. And then, you know, of course then we had investors come to us and which even for myself, like, hey, now, why are you guys wasting time with this bitcoin stuff? Right? Let's stop it, focus on Ima. And ultimately that's what we did. So in December 4th we said, you know what, we're stopping buying any bitcoin now and into the future. Just given the growth opportunity of ima, we'll just fully focus on that. But ultimately I think it did do what it intended to do, which was get more volume and liquidity in. And we got some amazing investors out of that.
- [40:37]
A
Clever. One thing you did, which I think is interesting that I have to ask you about, is you partnered with Superpower this month.
- [40:47]
B
Yeah, a few days ago. Yeah.
- [40:48]
A
This is March 2026 recording this to offer IMA subscribers $199 blood testing membership for just 49. So I want to talk about the strips, the strategy there. Why not build internally versus partner? And the thinking there obviously is that it will help with retention. And what are you seeing thus far?
- [41:11]
B
Yeah, no. Great. Yeah. So I think, you know, the first question is like, you know, you can't build everything ourselves. Right, Right. So I think Dave already, you know, Superpower Max and they've already built a great platform in a very short amount of time. And then so I want to focus our attention to growing ima. Right. So I think this is, again, not focusing on it could be a distraction even building it. So because we are already on such a clear growth trajectory of ima, doesn't make any sense for us to build anything separate from that, only what's adjacent. Sorry to IM8. Right. So that's why we partnered with Superpower. And to be fair, it's like, hey, we feel that a lot of people, they take some of them and say, how do you quantify the result? Right. Of course, a lot of people feel much better. Energy recovery, their gut. And now it's an opportunity where people can take a superpower test. They test at baseline and then they test again three to four months after they take ima. So now they can see the data and the results of the impact the supplements is making. So I think it makes sense for us, our customers get 75% off and for us, for Superpower also makes sense because, you know, they're getting a customer that is very vested in their health.
- [42:27]
A
And the thinking is you will add perhaps more other partnerships to help your members as well in the future to help with churn.
- [42:40]
B
I think we're always looking to deliver value. Right. So I think ultimately it's a community that we're trying, we're building here. So anything that creates value for the customer, we'll look to adding. Of course, we're not going to have like, you know, 10, 15 different partners. Right. These has to be very defined and even give you an example. As part of our 90 day subscription, customers get exclusive access to our team of scientific, scientific advisors, performance coaches. You know, for example, individuals get access to, you know, Dr. Don Musam, do a zoom on a quarterly basis, you know, with a group. Right. They'll get access to Bobby Rich, David Beckham's trainer. Right. So they get these insights. Yeah. Free. And they'll be able to, you know, literally ask them questions, you know, as part of the quarterly master classes. Yeah. So again, trying to always deliver value.
- [43:32]
A
So when it comes to IMA, you guys are projecting, you know, 180 to 200 million in revenue for 2026, which is just insane growth. Like one of the fastest growing DTC brands that we've seen online in the past few years. You guys are targeting an adjusted EBITDA profitability by the fourth quarter of 2027. So like you said, you could be profitable tomorrow if you turned off ads, however big tam global scale. How to founders balance growth versus making money.
- [44:09]
B
Now I think now great question. Right. So I think at least for again, just even though you think that you see my career and background. Right. It's always been growth and I think with growth and the profitability will come. Right. But you have to get to a certain point and again we have a limited window of opportunity, I believe in the next, you know, few years to really grow fast and capture market share. And so this is where, at least for us, we're prioritizing the growth over profitability. And we also have a very strong balance sheet. Right. Because we also sold off a lot of our non core assets in the past 18 months that allowed us to have this growth mindset. So every company needs to operate based upon their cash position, right? Yeah. So I think we've been in a fortunate position because now with the assets that we sold, we now have total liquidity of approximately $160 million with zero debt. So this allows us to be in this growth mindset. But at the same time we also have to be mindful that hey, we want to grow at a capital efficient way. So it's not growing at all costs. Right. So for example as I mentioned in terms of in the role as a, where we cap it at 0.8x. Right. Is that last year we lost $18 million. This year even with 3x growth and hitting 180 to 200 million, our loss will be in a similar range, about like 15 to 20 million dollars. Right. So at this level of growth I would say it's actually, you know, pretty good Metrics. And by Q4 27, you know, we expect to be fully profitable because at scale wise then a lot of the costs that we incur are just going to be amortized out. Yep.
- [45:53]
A
So talk me through your decision making framework around how you make decisions scaling companies at this speed. Because there's a through line with the speed that you grow companies, which you grow companies. So can you give me an insight into how you make decisions? Because you will have to make them fast at this level of scale.
- [46:11]
B
Yeah. And again, I think I've been fortunate because I have started four or five companies from scratch. I've also been an investor in many successful companies that went on to be billion dollar companies. So that gives me a lot of knowledge and I would say expertise in terms of again making decisions very, very fast. I would say this is a very founder led organization. Right. So I'm very operational as well through the entire business. So that also allows me to make fast decisions. Right. You know, saying again, in, in each my past startups, I pretty much operated every single role. Right. So I know quite a lot. So that allows me to make fast decisions. Again, going back my framework for the decisions. Okay, what's the upside here and what's the downside? Right. And if there's significantly greater upside to that decision and very limited downside, then yeah, we go for it. Right. But a lot of times I think maybe founders, they focus a lot of stuff on things that may not move the needle. And then so I tend to focus a lot of my time on things that I personally can create value and that moves the needle.
- [47:24]
A
It's so tough though because there's so many fires. What's your philosophy there?
- [47:29]
B
Yeah, there's a lot of fires, I'm sure in the DCC space. Right. There's always something going on. Yeah. Again, you know, we try to limit that as much as possible, of course. And even with the fires we have to react fast. And a lot of key things I always tell my team is that we always have to try to think one step ahead and be proactive rather than be reactive. Again, we can't always be catching all of the fires, but I think for the majority most part, we've been able to do so.
- [47:59]
A
And what about your execution framework you guys are making moving super fast. What anything you can share from an operating rhythm, goal setting, KPIs, talk us through that.
- [48:12]
B
It's definitely evolved, you know, over time. Right. Because again, we are moving very fast. Right. My operational framework also, again, kind of making, going back to decision making, I'm always available. Right. So I would say yeah, I'm definitely like in intertwined with the business. I'm like 24, seven available. Anyone can reach me. I always say, you know, if I don't respond within 24 hours, just ping me on WhatsApp, whatever, etc. Right. So I never want to be a blocker any of the decision making or if I don't know the answer, I'll make sure I find it from somewhere, someone I know or someone that's very resourceful. Yeah. So I think operational framework and I talk to my team quite frequently, I mean definitely on a daily basis. Right. So just very involved with the team is I think you have to be at this level of growth. Because I think the challenge, even with, let's say meta or even the decisions that we make around there, the natural thing is majority of people, they can't make these decisions because the amount of money is so much. Right. So only the founder level can really take chances on going this. Because at the end of the day it's my responsibility regardless of anyone else. So you have to be highly involved in the process. Especially when we're growing so fast. To be fair, it's like, you know, if, you know if last year we did 60 million full year revenue on IMA. If this year I say, you know what, let's just do 100 million, I could like go to the beach every day and not do anything pretty much. Right? Seriously? Seriously. Yeah. Because we're already there. Think about it like last in December, we're already at 10 million a monthly revenues. So if I wanted to just hit 100 million, 120 million this year, I literally wouldn't need to be doing much. Very, very limited. You could run itself pretty much. Right. But because we are shooting for growth, we are looking to unlock span, we're looking to bring new products to the market. Right. So this is where then I still have to be very involved and I love it also. Right. So I love growth. It's like, you know, some people are chasing that, right. So I chase the growth and that's kind of like adrenaline for me. And I want to create impact, I want to create impact for the customers. I get a lot of adrenaline when I see, you know, customers, you know, talking to us, feeling good about the product and how it's changed their life. And of course even our ambassadors, our shareholders, holders or investors. So it's, I'm loving the progress and loving what I'm doing.
- [50:44]
A
And you've held off entering China despite the opportunity. How do you decide when not to expand and what to focus on and what to kind of an opportunity to pursue. Talk me through that.
- [50:59]
B
Yeah, So I think, great question. Right. So I think I always look at, okay, if I'm a. If this year, you know, I'm growing to 180, $200 million. Right. It's already a quite big growth from last year. Right. So again, it's going back a. What's the upside, what's the downside? Right. Maybe I enter now, but I'm already growing so fast that I don't need to enter China right now. Right. So for example, another thing we don't need to do, we don't need to enter retail. Right. That over complicates the business. And to fair, we rejected every single major retailer that has reached out to us and they've all reached out just given how they seen the brand. Yeah. And yeah, it's like, hey, we don't, we don't need retail because the metrics that I'm seeing right now are online still growing very, very fast and all the unit economics still make a lot of sense. Yeah. So if we're growing that at this rate already, it's like, hey, then we'll look. Okay. At what point point do we need to enter China or need to enter retail? It's probably going to be, you know, 12 to 24 months out. But even for China, more specifically, I want to enter China when my brand is so strong globally that when you enter China, then everyone's going to be really talking about it. You will have like, you know, 2,000 people in line trying to buy or whatever. Right. So that's when I want to enter China because I think a lot of founders, yeah, they may think, well, you know, China is a huge market, they want to enter asap, etc. But 9 out of 10 companies, they fail in China because it's a completely different business model in China. Whatever works outside of China, even what we're doing now, it may be working, but it's completely different in China. So you only have that much resources and that much bandwidth. Right. And then so yeah, so we just need to. Yeah. Be patient. Yeah.
- [52:55]
A
I was, I was doing another interview with some interesting founders before and friend said to me, patience, patience, the meaning of that is just hard work and I really like that. Couple last questions. This has been awesome. I could talk to you all day man, and just geek out on the numbers, the growth, how you guys are doing it. This is really helpful. Is it going to help a lot of founders? It's. Thank you. So you launched your daily ultimate longevity product in October 2025, targeting the 12 hallmarks of aging, which immediately increased average order value from 110 to 150. And we talked about that. But how do you know when it's the right time to launch a new product, raise prices or go up market or go premium.
- [53:42]
B
A lot of it. You have to understand your product too, right? Yeah. Because ultimately again when we came to the market, you know, we wanted to be a premium supplement brand. So by default wise again, you see our daily ultimate sense was 89amonth, 78 for the three month subscription and we again for health and wellness, you know, Longevity is something I think we can all appreciate and want to not just live longer. Yeah, but we want to live longer, healthier. Right. So with our longevity product, we launched it In October, again, 10 key compounds targeting the aging hallmarks and slowing down the aging process. Right. So going back to your question, again, we knew that was a very, very good product and that consumers, if they value and they see the breakdown of it, they'll appreciate it. Right. And again, I challenge everyone, whoever meets, like, hey, how do you you guys compare to the Greenspout? I was like, very easy, don't trust my word. Just put our ingredient list into cloud, put into ChatGPT, put in mass, see what it says. Don't trust me, Trust what AI says. Right. Because AI is going to be unbiased. Right. So we best product in the market today and we're very proud of that. And so I think if you have a best good product in the market, consumers will pay for that. Right. And then ultimately now our average order value is well over $200, which is really high for a supplements brand, probably one of the highest in the industry, I would imagine.
- [55:07]
A
What hasn't worked? What has been some of like the big things where you're just like, fuck, I just wasted like half a million bucks or a million bucks and I can share it with the community of tests that you've ran which you think are really valuable, that you thought would really work out, but they haven't.
- [55:23]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think as I mentioned earlier, I think in February we tried this unlock spend with Meta and just kind of like going from 100 grand a day to 200 grand a day or I think it was maybe even more than that. Right. So I think over a three day period of time we probably wasted 4 or 500,000 USD, but it was a very painful learning lesson for us. Right. And then that really said that, you know what if we really needed to unlock spend, we need to change a lot of different things that we do on account at that time. You know, to be fair, we have multiple accounts, so we consolidated a lot of the accounts into a single account on Meta. And the Creatives, we really relooked at the Creatives to really ensure that it actually had enough diversity, otherwise you would be cannibalizing the audiences. Yeah. So it was a very painful lesson. But again, sometimes when you have these painful lessons, it really forces you to think differently and learn from it. And then now we've been able to unlock them. Right. And now we're again, we're able to Spend, you know, upwards of almost 200,000 a day while maintaining a good return ad spend that allows it for to be profitable.
- [56:43]
A
Okay, last question then we have to wrap. Excuse me. So, last question before we wrap. This has been awesome. I could speak to you all day about this stuff, man. Like, thank you. Looking back at everything you've built, what does success look like for you now? Beyond money and is it ever enough?
- [57:07]
B
You know, to be fair, I've never looked at just a pair of the money aspect of things. Right. I ultimately believe. Yeah. For me, I. I love to create. I love to create products. And for me, why? Yeah, I'm so. Yeah, yeah. I just love what I do today because again, I guess I get to meet amazing people around the world, I get to travel, I can meet amazing people and I get to kind of like share, you know, what we're creating here.
- [57:34]
A
Right.
- [57:35]
B
So I think the more you just have to love what you do and going back to the product, you can't just do it for the money. But if you have success. Yeah. Ultimately that will come. Right. And even to be fair, like, you know, even you have to believe in it. Like, oh, I always believe you have to go in it all in. Whatever you decide, you can't have like a backup option. Right. And then this is how we went into it a lot. Every one of my previous business. Business also, I gave up a lot to do it. Yeah. Even, you know, give me an example. I mean, when I did you buy? I buy. I lived in the US at the time and I packed my bags and moved to Hong Kong, which I never lived in Hong Kong before. I never did E Commerce before. Right. I just packed my bags in one month and moved there. So I gave it all in. So I had no options but fail. Right. If it didn't work, I would be like, it would be very embarrassing. Yeah. So even for Iman, it's like, how do we create. Create the best product into the market? How do we get all these people around? And you have. It's like, I think we did combination of like a hundred different things that we did. Right. But I didn't go back to your question. In terms of what success looks like, is this creating impact day in and day out?
- [58:44]
A
All right, so what also is exciting for you that you wanted to share?
- [58:49]
B
I mean, I think one piece of this, which is just quite crazy from when we started this brand. Whereas now we have so many amazing, big, big athletes that are using the product. And again, you started with David Beckham, of course, Arena Started in June. Last month we also announced Ollie Bierman is doing amazing after two races at F1. I was just with him in Shanghai. He's on the product. His parents are on the product and I can share now. We recently signed out Giannis, two time MVP world champion. So it's just amazing. And these individuals, their teams have reached out to me, right. They love the product and so I think that's been amazing to be surrounded with this top athletes. Because the great thing about athletes is that they have so many options when it comes to this category and so many people are looking to them. And our products NSF certified for sport. So it means that if you are an athlete, it's free from 280 banned substances around the world. Right. So just the fact that, yeah, I'm not. It's just sometimes I scratch my head. Is, is this real? Right. So all these people. So it's been an amazing journey thus far in the last, you know, 14, 15 months.
- [60:00]
A
Yeah, it's crazy. You, you're, you're really rewriting the playbook for D2C growth, especially from ambassador standpoint, you know, like Nike did. And it's super impressive. So congratulations on all of your success thus far. You're welcome back anytime. I'd love to have you back on in the future when you guys are, you know, past 200 million ARR. But thank you again.
- [60:20]
B
Thank you, Nathan. Appreciate it.
- [60:22]
A
Hey, founder fam. Thank you so much for tuning in today and if you enjoyed this episode, please take the time to leave us a review and let us know what you think. This podcast is 100% free. We work so hard to go out and find the most successful founders and entrepreneurs all around the globe. So your feedback helps us grow, improve, and even bring on more incredible guests and insights. So if you have a second, please take a moment and leave us a review. It really means a lot to me and the founder team. It makes so much of a difference. Thank you again for listening and I'll catch you on the next episode.