Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - What's REALLY in Your Supplements? Revolutionizing the Health Industry with Ritual Founder & CEO, Katerina Schneider
Episode Date: January 24, 2024Many of us who are seeking optimal health, performance, and wellness take a variety of supplements. And I think it’s only natural to find ourselves questioning— what's really in these sup...plements? How do we know if those ingredients are actually doing anything for our bodies and minds?Our guest today, Katerina (Kat) Schneider had the same questions – and she took action to get to the truth. What she discovered led her to develop a new standard in the world of vitamins and supplements.Kat is the visionary founder and CEO of Ritual – a company dedicated to re-envisioning transparency, traceability, and quality standards in the vitamin and supplement industry.And, Kat's personal story is as remarkable as her products. In our conversation, we delve into the founding story of Ritual, and discuss the philosophy that underpins their mission – a deep-rooted belief in transparency, quality, the power of science, and the foundational belief that “everyone has the right to know exactly what they're putting into their bodies and why.”It’s this philosophy – and these beliefs – that make me so excited to be partnered with a company like Ritual (and… a founder like Kat).With our partnership, Ritual is offering a huge discount for Finding Mastery listeners - click HERE get 40% off your first month of Ritual. I mean... Awesome._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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I think we're in the beginning of stages of it,
but I think we're changing the way
that people think about their supplements.
Everyone deserves to know
what they're putting in their bodies and why.
We're providing information for people to make confident choices around their health.
Do you think you're going to change the industry?
I think we already have.
Okay, welcome back, or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast.
I am your host, Dr. Michael
Gervais. By trade and training, a high-performance psychologist. And I am so excited to welcome
Katarina, Ms. Kat Schneider to the podcast for this week's conversation. I know you've questioned,
I know you've really wondered what's in your supplements. How do you know if
those ingredients are actually doing anything for your body? Kat had the same questions. And then
she took action to get to the truth. And what she discovered led her to develop a new standard in
the world of vitamins and supplements. Kat is the visionary founder and CEO of Ritual. Her journey into the wellness industry wasn't just a career move.
It was a personal quest that began during her pregnancy.
Faced with the recommendation to take prenatal vitamins, her skepticism about their efficacy
and the ingredients inside of them sparked the birth of Ritual, a company that is dedicated to re-envisioning
transparency, traceability, and quality standards in the vitamin supplement industry.
Kat's story is as remarkable as her products. She immigrated to the United States as a four-year-old
refugee with only $50 in a suitcase to her family's name. She went on to earn a degree from an Ivy League university, Brown,
and she then carved a path through the worlds of banking and finance and venture capital,
even playing a pivotal role in bringing Spotify to the United States.
In our conversation, we dive into the founding story of Ritual,
and we discuss the philosophy that
underpins their mission, a deep-rooted belief in transparency, the quality of supplementation,
the power of science, and the foundational belief that everyone has the right to know exactly what
they're putting into their bodies and why. It's this philosophy and her fundamental beliefs that make me so excited to be partnered with
a company like Ritual and the founder like Kat.
Kat's insights are not just about supplements.
They're about challenging norms, about staying true to your values and the relentless pursuit
of innovation.
So with that, let's dive right into
this week's conversation with Kat Schneider. Kat, I am so excited to have this conversation with you.
I'm very excited as well.
Yeah. Well, thank you for coming to the Mastery Lab and rolling up our sleeves about your
adventure in life, what you've built, how you've gone about building it.
And I thought we'd just start with a bit of your origin story. And so give us a sense of where you grew up and kind of your adventure to get us to this table. So let's start at the beginning.
It's a great loaded question. So I would say the very beginning was I was born in Ukraine and I came to the U.S.
when I was around four years old with my family. We were refugees and we moved to a welfare hotel
with $50 and a suitcase. And I didn't speak English. My parents didn't speak English. My dad
eventually became an entrepreneur. And my
mom actually ended up working on Wall Street, getting her MBA, learning English. And my parents
had a really big impact on my life and how I think about, you know, what I want to do in the future,
what I'm doing today. I ended up always knowing that I wanted to start something.
It was always kind of inside of me and it's part of my DNA. And I saw the ups and downs through
kind of our dinner table conversation at home, but I never knew what it was. And in many ways,
I think I felt like I wasn't good enough to start something. I ended up working at Lehman Brothers,
being part of the biggest bank failure in history, to eventually working for the CEO of Universal
Music, being his right hand, helping bring Spotify to the US, and then running an investment fund
for Troy Carter, who was Lady Gaga's manager, running a fund of over 70 companies, everything
from Uber, Dropbox, Warby Parker, Spotify, and meeting incredible entrepreneurs and founders,
knowing that one day that would be me, but I wasn't sure when that would be.
Okay. So there's a couple leaps in there that you just made that I think are really interesting.
And so thank you for hitting the high notes.
Now let's kind of get into some of the more tenor notes of it.
How old were you when you came?
I was four.
What do you remember from that?
It's a tough thing to remember at that age.
Yeah, I don't remember much. I mean, we moved from
Ukraine, which is a former Soviet Union, to Italy and Austria. And ingrained in me were stories,
stories of discrimination, of inequities. My parents were told that they were denied jobs,
that they weren't allowed to go to certain universities, and that they were always seeking-
Because of being Russian or Ukrainian?
Because of being Jewish, actually.
Oh, there you go.
And so there was a group of a million Jews in the Soviet Union called Refuseniks, and they were a minority that weren't actually allowed to leave the Soviet Union until 1989 when Gorbachev did a deal with the U.S.
And so it was literally written on our passports.
So the nationality was Jewish.
And so it was interesting because obviously it's, you know, not as much of a minority here in the US. And we moved to Italy and Austria. And I just remember
hating Italy because I hated the food at the time. Now it's my favorite food. But as a child,
those are the things that you think of. Was the move exciting or was it stressful and traumatic? What do you remember
as the main narrative for your family? It was hopeful. So there was a mindset of abundance.
Yes. Like we are going somewhere better, let's go. Yeah, for sure. And I would say it's still the mindset that my family has of the U.S.
It's the land of great opportunity, as cliche as that sounds.
And it's a land where you can make something of yourself, whatever that may be.
How do we unpack the path to living, to be a truth seeker, to be an innovator, to be selfless, and to live with passion. What would you say would be a place to start? I think modeling behavior is probably the best place to start.
And it's something I've learned so much from having three amazing know, I can tell them to do this, to share, to, you know, not eat with their hands.
And then I'll look at myself and my husband and I'm like, oh, I just grabbed this with my hands.
And I'm like yelling at just how you model behavior is probably the best way to influence not just your family but your organization and just how you show up.
So I think modeling behavior is probably the thing that I've learned the most in the last several years.
I would bet the farm that everything that you're building is coming through the presence that you
have. And then it allows you to be connected. And the presence that you have comes from an
awareness. Like you're aware of how you're holding yourself and aware of the choices of words that
you're making. And it doesn't feel as though you're whimsical or sloppy or rigid and
overly intense. There is an intensity about you. You've been told that before. How do you cut loose?
I don't know if I do, but I don't know if I need to cut loose, but I definitely, you know, even the brand name ritual, I find a way of having small habits that I incorporate into my everyday, whether it's working out every day.
And I've really gotten into yoga in the last 10 plus years or, I don't know, just fun with my kids and and kind of feeling free i love
swimming in the ocean um and cooking and making great food and what what did you say before mindful
eating mindful eating we talked about before we started like the practice of mindful eating yeah
so to me it's i don't necessarily – and it's kind of an interesting idea.
I just hosted our kind of welcome to 24 with our whole entire company
and the intention there.
I don't think about those sporadic moments of letting loose.
I think about them every day.
I was just talking about this idea of
an Emerson quote that I remembered from high school is the only thing I remembered,
but it was really just this idea that traveling is a fool's paradise and that my giant goes with
me wherever I go. And we just came back from paradise
for three weeks, but you come back and you're like, how do you feel like that every single day?
And I think for me, it's been incorporating more daily rituals, daily practices in my everyday
that make me not necessarily feel loose, but feel connected. And as you said,
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I'm pretty intentional about what I eat, and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods.
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Let's jump right back into the conversation. I want to get to the intentionality
of why you started Ritual, but I want to stay here for one more beat, which is what do you do
or what has happened in your life that has allowed you to be as present as you are? And I'm talking
about the way that you're holding yourself with eye contact and the way that you choose your words
that's showing up even
in this conversation. So, okay. So I would say if I were to go back maybe over 10 years ago, maybe
12, I don't know the exact date, maybe 10 or 12 years ago, some timing around then I, I,
I was in a relationship and I was totally in love and I, and, um, and this person broke my heart,
and I got really into yoga.
I started doing a master's in spiritual psychology,
which turned out to be kind of a cult, but I read a lot of great books,
and I became aware of it.
But it was more like I started just learning about
myself um I also even way before that when my mom had cancer I did so much therapy because of
the emotions that I was dealing with and so I did a lot of behavioral psychology at a young age
okay so you've done work I've done a lot look I've done a lot of work a lot of work at a young age
at a young age but At a young age.
But it's interesting because I didn't have anything, even when I was studying spiritual
psychology, I even hate saying that because it's not a thing, but it was like the study of yourself.
All psychology is study of self. Yeah. And if you don't know yourself,
you're going to run in circles most of your life and not have that volitional, energetic, directional power that you can work from.
And so when you say a lot of work, can you give a picture of like how many hours have you sat in a chair?
Oh, man.
So like every week for a couple of years.
A couple hundred hours there. Yeah. Before I was even 21. Yeah, man. So like every week for a couple of years. A couple hundred hours there.
Yeah. Before I was even 21, you know, without any any I would say major issues.
I didn't realize how expensive therapy was. My parents were paying for it.
And so I would literally be sitting in a chair talking about a boyfriend for for an hour until they were like, oh, your parents' credit card's
not on file.
And then I was like, oh wow, I need to stop this right now.
I'm literally, yeah, that's, but at a certain point,
I kind of understood how behavioral psychology worked
and how to understand myself.
And I think it shaped who I became or my relationships with people,
eventually how I hired or how I assess situations, maybe how I hold myself.
But I think, yeah, I did a lot of work.
And I became through over 10 years ago when I started going through that breakup, I started working on myself even more.
And I had the tools to do that and became vegan.
Are you vegan now?
Well, it's an interesting thing.
I am vegan, but I don't like that word.
And so I'm kind of trying to rethink what that is for me now.
And I would say plant-based.
Yeah, there you go.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So in 1989 to 95, I was a vegan.
There was not a Whole Foods.
It was so hard.
I'm not now.
I lean towards plant-based.
I don't eat animals that I'd like to pet.
So that's a reason that I don't eat that,
not necessarily for some of the health reasons that people might indicate,
but it's more compassionate eating.
So let's get into some of the choices you make there.
But hold on, let me start on this presence thing.
This is the genius that you work from.
This is your superpower.
And it comes from the way that your family had their experience.
What was your trauma
or your micro traumas that you've, you uniquely were dealt with? I think the trauma of my parents
was kind of a daily trauma of coming and being refugees and just the hardships that they face.
So nothing was, you know, on a daily basis, just kind of like striving and any first generation.
Yeah.
So it's that, it's that narrative.
Everything better.
Everything has, isn't good enough.
Oh, that's it.
Yeah.
I think so.
Say that again.
Well, just like, you know, it's like, I'd come home with an A minus and that's like.
Not good enough.
It's kind of from like, do you know what we sacrificed?
Yeah.
Yeah. it's kind of like you know what we sacrificed yeah yeah so i i always and then you know and
then kind of seeing i i always felt like i had to be the one to to make it worth coming here
yeah oh you just let that in right like okay so how did you believe in yourself
to build this company so you had a track record that you were doing some really cool stuff, right?
And you said you slipped in there earlier that I wasn't sure I was good enough.
And then mixed with, like, I had the weight of, these are my words, but I had the weight of my family's, I had a responsibility of my family to make sure it was worth coming, that type of thing.
How did you cross or pair
those two? Great responsibility, and I wasn't sure I was good enough to take a step.
I think you're going to speak to most people in the world right now, at least our community.
Not sure I have what it takes, and I feel this incredible responsibility like a lot of people are counting on me.
I would say that throughout different careers that I had,
I wasn't able to reconcile those two tensions.
So when I did investment banking, it was certainly not my calling,
but my voice and my opinion didn't really matter.
To? But my voice and my opinion didn't really matter to people I was working with, the role that I had as an analyst.
I can't imagine you in that world.
Yeah.
Well, I went into that world, I think, again, because I was supposed to do that.
I was supposed to go into finance
because I studied applied math,
even though I loved,
I went to Brown,
but I actually wanted to study at RISD,
which is the art school nearby.
But, you know.
Brown's a pretty artsy.
Yeah.
The artsy of the IBs.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Yeah, but I wanted.
Congrats on going to a world-class university as well.
Thanks. You know, but if I- Congrats on going to a world-class university as well. Thanks.
But if I didn't have that pressure,
maybe I would have ended up in art school
doing metalsmithing.
I can't see you there either,
but that's so, so interesting.
Yeah.
Instead, I studied math and applied math
and I ended up in computer science labs
and neuroscience labs.
And I find it fascinating because math was just a way of solving problems.
And it was just a way of thinking.
And it's something that I hope my kids love as well.
But I wasn't seen in the work that I was doing.
The fun part for me was to look at decks and like fix the fonts and the design the designs of the presentation
and the storytelling versus the financial models and so so I always knew I wasn't meant I wasn't
good at it I wasn't meant to to to be there but I got fired I mean the bank went under to pack up
my little box a week later I was rehired I had to unpack my little box and then was fired
again. And it was humbling. I remember just being destroyed. And then eventually I had this
opportunity to work for the CEO of Universal Music, who's still the CEO, Lucien Grange. And
he wanted someone with a kind of financial mathematics background because he was trying to understand the future of the music industry and to see where streaming and some of these kind of digital services played in and whether they were going to cannibalize the whole industry or change it. Spotify and I was a skeptic and challenged. And I challenged that idea. I eventually became
friends with Daniel Ek, who was the CEO of Spotify and helped bring it to the US because
if it hadn't launched in the US, it wouldn't have succeeded. But it was the first time I felt seen because here I had this major CEO asking me what I thought and allowing me to speak at board meetings with people that were two or three times my age and all men and just really cared about my opinions.
And it was kind of eye-opening that what I thought mattered.
That is worth repeating. That for the first time I felt seen and that maybe what I had to say
mattered. That's one of the greatest gifts we can give other humans is to see them, to be curious
about where they're coming from and to hold the way that they are trying to express
something with the tenderness that it deserves. It doesn't mean it's right. It doesn't mean that
it's even accurate, but this being seen part sounds like it was a massive unlock for you.
Okay. So that's probably what gave you, let's go right into the founder story.
It's probably what gave you this belief that I could walk into a very saturated market.
The nutrition supplement market is saturated with junk.
There's some good brands.
There's some ones that I've had to really sift through to trust.
And I'm betting that what we've just described gave you some of that inner belief, like I can go there and make a difference. Because I just made a difference
at Spotify. This world-class CEO valued what I had to say. I'm seeing something that is missing
in the market. And if I just point it out, I think where that thought was for you is like, actually, let me tell you a story. Tell me if I'm right or wrong. I make this recommendation to my wife and this new supplement that a brand that I trust in the supplement that I'm interested in. And she goes, Oh, okay. Yeah. She goes, but that that's not for me. That's like, that's for men. I don't feel me. I don't see me in that.
Like, I don't trust that that's even thoughtful for me. I'm not taking that mic. I'm taking this.
And it's not like she didn't do an investigation in the fidelity of the, of the substrate,
but she, she just had a feeling that this brand took a woman's perspective in mind when they're curating,
cultivating the product. I'm looking at like the fidelity of the substrate. And,
but there's a privilege that I'm coming from, you know, that she was like pointing out to me.
So I think what you did is like, there's nothing for women, very little that holds science,
that holds the fidelity of the ingredients,
and that you're going to be disruptive in that nature.
Do I have that close to being right?
Yeah, it's definitely right.
There's kind of an art and a science to what we, I, created in the beginning.
There was, A, there was nothing that met my standards on a science and for women
in general in general so you couldn't find a multi or a single single substrate to say that
this is one that feels right to me right i mean at the time i was pregnant so i was looking for
a prenatal prenatal specifically but that when i looked broader um there was nothing i trusted from um from a science or from a traceability
perspective on the ingredients from high heavy metals to artificial colorants to products that
were even lacking in key essential nutrients that people needed during kind of one of the most
vulnerable stages in our lives, there was nothing that I found that I trusted. At the time, I mean,
the industry went from 4,000 to 90,000 supplements in 30 regulation. So you had so many products
and so few products that consumers knew whether to trust or not. And I think to your point,
as a woman, there is an art and science. There's actual science. Is this safe? Is this efficacious?
Those are the two key things.
But then does this connect to me?
Does this represent who I am?
And I think when you have all those things, it is quite magic. And I think that's part of the magic that we unlocked.
I think the safety part, for the most part, most brands are like, hey, Liz, there's a
newborn or pre-born happening here. Let's be really safe. part for the most part most brands are like hey liz there's a there's a newborn you know or
pre-born happening here let's be really safe and oh your eyes just went up so i should there's
probably something you know that i don't know but i would i would imagine maybe this is super naive
that they would err on the side of safety not pushing the boundaries like hey let's get some
phosphatidylserine in there,
or let's get some sort of like whatever. Let's just do the basics. And that's a good start.
And let's do it from our plant, which we trust enough. And what you've done on the safety and
said, right, we're going to up that game a bit. And then on the efficacious piece,
are you using that word from efficacy meaning power? Like it's potent and
it's actually working? Yes. But I want to back up on safety because I, I, like you said, I,
I think my belief and going back to our conversation, I believe the best in people.
And I believe that companies are doing their best and they think that products are safe, but you can't trust your manufacturer to create safe products. You have
to test them and you have to third-party test them. And then the icing on top is actually
getting them third-party certified. What is the third-party certification that you're using?
All of our products are clean Label Project Certified,
which is the only safety certification that tests for 200 harmful chemicals
and environmental toxins.
And so when I actually talk about safety,
I think about human safety
and I think about planetary safety as well.
And I will say, and many of our projects
have even won the Purity Award
from the Clean Label Project.
But I think a good example of that is protein powders, which I'm sure you're very familiar with.
But when you look at plant-based protein, people think they're doing the clean, healthy thing by consuming plant-based protein to find out, well, not to find out even, that they're consuming
elevated levels of heavy metals. Because a lot of the plant-based protein powders and ingredients
are grown overseas where there really aren't health protective measures when it comes to
limits when it comes to heavy metals. And so what we've, and we've thrown out hundreds of thousands of products that didn't meet
our standards when it comes to heavy metals.
And that's not even a requirement by the industry.
It's just something we've set.
I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors.
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So I was with a professional team and one of our best practices from a sports science perspective
is to do some blood draws to see what's actually happening from a performance standpoint. General health and performance go hand in hand, general health
being the base, performance on top of that. And so with this one particular team I was working with,
we all popped. We all popped on heavy metals. Now, why is that important? Big health reasons.
It's also very simply one of the, let's call it, let's make it very simple.
It clogs up the testosterone production.
And so that's kind of important, like when you're in a high performing environment.
And so we had to, we had, we went to great lengths to try to figure it out.
Was it the pots and pans?
Was it the water?
Was it the, was it the sprinkler system?
We couldn't find it.
It was somewhere in our supplementation.
A hundred percent.
A hundred percent.
Well, there was a study, I think it was 2009. They studied thousands of individuals and they had,
and individuals that were consuming botanical supplements had, I think it was over 10% higher
levels of heavy metals. I think what people don't realize is that when they're consuming a lot of supplements,
especially plant-based supplements, they're ingredients that are in hugely concentrated forms.
So it's interesting because I know you talked to our chief scientist, Dr. Nima.
He's the second reason why we're here.
I thought it was the first,
the first was my wife because she loves your product. Right. So thank you. Yes. And,
and then I jumped on the phone. So we take it seriously. Anyone that we're going to,
you know, really want to support or, or put up on a pedestal. And so when I spoke to your chief science officer, I was like, oh,
Rachel's in great hands. And that you had another member on the board that I really respect as well,
Jordan. Oh, cool. Our scientific team is way more articulate and smarter than I am. But Nima was faculty at Harvard Medical School, and I was trying to hire him for years. And at the time,
we only had a multivitamin for women, which, by the way, I think is kind of the case study for how
we're doing things differently at Ritual. It now has a peer-reviewed and published
human clinical study with a leading university. And as you know, clinical studies are not a requirement in this
industry. No, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to, this is worth repeating as well, which is to get
a clinical study done is one expensive. And if I'm on the board and I'm a venture capital on your
firm or whatever, like an angel investor, whatever it might be, I need to think twice about whether we go down the science route or we go for spray and bottle. And so I know that that's not what you're doing. And so,
by the way, I would never make that choice. I'm an applied scientist myself. So, but I know that
that's the tension for some of these out of touch companies and they see a market, they see an
opportunity. It's a brand play, not a health play. And so you guys have funded, self-funded?
You self-funded clinical trials.
Yes.
We actually have a commitment to have human clinical studies on every single one of our
products by 2030.
Yes.
Yeah.
Do you really?
Yeah.
We're in the middle of five right now.
So we're working with various universities like Cornell and Brooklyn College.
Are they in your payroll?
No, they're not.
But that's what happens when you hire a lot of people from academia like NEMA.
They're so passionate about it.
And I was passionate about it because I looked, you know, it was crazy.
It's like we almost are limited by the products we can make because when you look at the amount of studies that are done
on women it's it's incredibly small okay so let's do this let's go let's go speak right to the women
in our community okay speak right to them right now that go oh my god i love kat it feels like
she's an amazing human because you're showing up that way. And unless you're kind of
pulling the wool over our eyes. I'm joking. I'm totally joking. I'm probably not speaking well.
No, no. So speak right to women that want to be healthy, vibrant. They want to flourish.
They've got big, bold ambitions on how they want to live in relationship with experience in life.
I started the company because I believe specifically
that women deserve to know what they're putting in their bodies and why. I love the starting
ground. Yeah. Yes. And I think the why is the biggest question. So not what? The why. The why.
And so we made our mission around traceability, this idea that we're not going to tell customers to take our
word for it. We're actually going to show them the proof. And that meant that we were, you know,
whether it's virtual or something else, I think that women should be looking for human clinical
studies on their products, right? If they want to know that they're working for their bodies,
right? And that's the highest level of science is what we do in, what are the best practices?
Does it hold up in a laboratory? Exactly. Or is it just an idea? And there's places where things
are just ideas are cool, but like, if you're going to make a serious investment in your health,
how does it show up in a laboratory and are the products safe? Are they efficacious? And just to be clear,
efficacious means what we, what the research says that they do, they're actually doing,
correct? And safe is that it's coming from a clean, it's safe for the planet. It's safe on
the conveyor belt. It's safe for you to digest. And each body is uniquely different as well.
Right. So, you know, maybe I'm allergic to some sort of things that, you know, so it is important
to know how your body works.
Exactly.
And I think it's thinking about safety and efficacy in the exact lens that you kind of
laid out.
And I think clinical studies on the finished product is the holy grail.
On the finished product.
Okay.
So that's actually this important distinction.
It's not that these, what would you call it?
Micronutrients.
Depends on the product because there's products that don't have micronutrients, but they have
various ingredients.
Okay.
So these ingredients have been found to be do A, B, and C and are safe A, B, and C ways.
But together is our unique product. And together,
these are the findings. We start with ingredients that have clinical studies
on the dosages and the forms. So our products, Nima would say, and this isn't regulatory language,
so excuse me, but our products are almost designed to be proven. And then we have to go and prove them
in a double-blind placebo-controlled human clinical study.
For folks that aren't familiar with science jargon,
double-blind means that the user and the researcher
don't know what sample that they're receiving or giving.
And then they measure the effects blindly,
meaning they're not given something that says,
this is going to work for you,
and wink, wink.
Yeah.
And then I think the other group is receiving a placebo.
Yeah, that's right.
So it's really interesting, and it's amazing to see some of these clinical studies, because
you see that placebo actually has an impact on people.
Yeah, because they believe that they're taking something that's going to help them.
Yeah, and that has a huge effect on them.
Yeah. And so it's even – I'm glad you brought it up because when you have an effect from a placebo trial, you have to demonstrate that you are better than the placebo.
And the placebo is, I think this is going to help me.
Therefore, it actually does from a biomarker or whatever marker that you're going to measure. And to be better than placebo means I'm better than the suggestibility
of how the mind works.
It's really quite tricky to do.
And so that's why you do a double blind.
That's why we do double blind.
We also, again, this is what happens when you hire a lot of people
from academia, like a lot of our scientists.
Our end goal is to peer review and publish our studies so you can run a study and it can be successful but getting the consensus amongst the
scientific community is the next level so people agree and they will publish your study if they
think it's a legitimate study and so And so our first study got published in
Frontier's journal, which is accessible by everyone. Again, accessibility is also a big part
of kind of our core belief system. It's not behind a paywall. Yeah. As a brand, we also make sure that
populations are incredibly diverse and excited. We're about to release the findings of another study that we just ran, which kind of in this space never really had diversity amongst the population group in the studies,
let alone women.
So I'm very excited about that.
What is Ritual's mission?
Our mission is around traceability.
And again, it's this idea that everyone deserves to know what they're putting in their bodies and why.
And we're providing information for people to make confident choices around their health.
And then the way that you've gone about your product is, let's just do for women right now.
You've got a line for men.
Thank you.
Let's just sit with women for a minute.
And I love your symbiotic, by the way.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
So you did prenatal,
but you did it by age group. We, so we didn't, we actually didn't launch the prenatal. And I,
I was talking before we, our first product was essential for women, 18 plus or multivitamin for women, 18 plus. Wait, what was the first thing you said? Essential for women. But what
about like other age groups? So we, so we we eventually launched 50 plus 50 plus and
we launched the prenatal but the prenatal was not our first product and the reason was as you as we
talked about before this business is venture funded and i went through a lot of soul searching
and i didn't feel like i felt like i needed to earn her trust before I could launch a prenatal vitamin on direct-to-consumer online.
And our first product was kind of this case study of, wow, this company is doing things differently.
They have invested in a human clinical study with a leading university.
We received a patent on the delivery technology.
So it's not just about the nutrients, but how they're getting delivered in the body.
And we also got USP certification, which less than 1% of supplement companies have.
And we talked about this before.
USP is the holy grail in third-party certifications.
It's the ultimate test for what's on the label is actually there.
It's great.
You're taking care of people without them actually maybe even appreciating
how rigorous it is relative to your competitors,
how expensive it is, and how slow it is.
And so I just, for that reason alone,
and for your radical attention to an industry that was missing an entire 50% of
the population or whatever the number is, you know, male, female, I don't know what
the numbers are nowadays, but like awesome.
And so I'm so happy that you are thriving and doing what you're doing.
And it's great to meet you because like I said, my wife loves your product. And so I'm
grateful for what you're doing. And I have great respect for the choices that you've made as an
entrepreneur to travel the harder path. And from one entrepreneur to another, those choices are easy when you're tuned in the right way
and hard to make when you're surrounded by people that aren't tuned that way.
It sounds like you went upstream and you hired people and you inspired people around you to have
that same tuning fork, that we're going to create something that is observable, that is safe,
it's efficacious, and we're going to expose the
Komodo. We're not a branding company. We are a health-based company that's going to help certain
populations based on their time and the needs that we believe they need. Yeah. I think you touched
upon a good point. We did the hard thing. And that's kind of been our motto all the time
internally is we're always going to do the hard thing. And that's kind of been our motto all the time internally is
we're not going to, we're always going to do the hard thing. We might not get credit for it right
away, but we're always going to make kind of the right, the ethical choice, even if people don't
see it right away. And so. Do you think you're going to change the industry? I think we already
have. Do you? Yeah. Old. There's still, there's still marketing companies that are getting a spray gun out of vitamin C
and calling it something. I think we're in the beginning of stages of it, but I think we're
changing the way that people think about their supplements. We created the first traceable
supply chain of its kind. So we shared all of the sources of all of our ingredients on our site
so you can see where…
How do I know to believe that?
That's not just a narrative.
Ritual.com.
But how do I know that it's not like copy editors
that are saying some really interesting things?
We literally write the manufacture of every single one of our ingredients.
So people can literally go and copy our product tomorrow.
And then you always ask me, why are you doing that?
That's crazy.
Because it's so hard.
Because most companies have this like,
whatever, whatever brand name blend.
Yeah.
And it's proprietary.
And you don't know what's actually in there.
And they're saying, trust us. Yeah. And you're saying the ingredients are not proprietary. These companies
have spent decades developing these really incredible ingredients. When you put six of
them together and you call it your unique blend and it's in a black box, that's what many of
these companies do. And then they put a really cool brand on top of it. That's not enough.
It's not enough. It's not enough. It's like baking a cake.
Like anyone could make that same cake, right? That's why I think you do think we think about
things through this kind of safety and efficacy lens. Like how, you know, if I'm trying to impact
someone's, you know, digestive health, like what's the best way to do that? And it's not just
the combination of the pre-pro and
post-biotics and looking at that holistically but is it how are these getting actually delivered
into the into the you know digestive system and and are they getting destroyed by the stomach acid
um on the safety side you know don't take our word for it. I've listed every supplier of every single ingredient.
But then we've also gotten third-party certification and do third-party testing.
So it's kind of just showing people the proof and everything.
And what I feel good about your company is I feel like I can drop my shoulders a little bit and be like, oh, that's cool.
Nice. Thank you for taking, you know, taking the hard, more thoughtful path that is, like I
said, it's taken a little bit longer to get to where you are.
It's more expensive because it's slower.
And that rigor I respect as an entrepreneur and as an applied scientist.
So thank you.
Bravo.
Let's keep going.
You made it just significantly harder for me
to create a supplement line. I've always wanted to do one, to create one. And so,
damn it. Like you've created a new standard, which I really appreciate.
Thank you. And I think it's almost, I want it to be easy for people to create more products because it benefits our health.
Maybe we should talk about it.
Well, it is like, you know, we don't make every single product for every need that people have.
That's right.
If like to me, what matters to me is changing the industry.
It's pushing the industry from a regulatory and advocacy perspective.
And there's two ways we're doing that. One is working with Congress on the term clinically
studied, not a regulated term, often misused. The second is setting health protective measures
when it comes to heavy metals. That's one way, right?
It's like.
Oh, ring fence.
Yeah, that's great.
So like how do you.
You're creating a moat.
Like I love that.
Well, not a moat, but making better products reach the consumer so that.
Well, yeah.
A moat is not the right word.
It's creating, it's elevating the standard.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you're already at that high ground,
so it makes it harder for people to get there because it takes a while.
It makes it easier for better products to stand out across different categories
and for consumers to see that.
And I think the other thing is listing the ingredients.
So we do list our suppliers.
So if someone is trying to create a standalone, you know, K2MK7 product
or even our D3 coming from Wild Harvested Lichen,
they know what suppliers we've chosen and why,
and they can go and create that.
So in some ways, I think we're making it easier for anyone
to create a better quality supplement.
Look at you.
So I would want more products to exist, I think.
That's the optimist.
Being bold.
That's the dining room table conversations of like, let's go.
Let's create something special.
We're here.
Let's do it together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think the clinical studies as well.
We created a postnatal supplement, a lot of the products and in the beginning when we're focused on women's health by investors or when I was raising money, I was like, this is niche.
Women's health is niche.
Pregnancy is niche.
Postpartum is niche.
Menopause is niche, you know, and none of that is actually niche.
It's just understudied and underfunded. And so the fact that we're investing in human clinical studies
during these critical life stages, I think will make it easier for others to create products in
those life stages because there'll be more data, there'll be more information, there'll be more
studies. Some of the studies we're doing are bigger than even just our products. One of them, we're measuring the impact that supplementation or nutrition will
have on the quality of human breast milk. So it's fascinating because it's bigger than our products,
impacts the next generation. And now one final word from our sponsors.
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Okay. I've got two questions left. I'm always a bit hesitant on the multivitamin bit.
And the reason I'm hesitant is because I don't, I don't know. I take the long path here. I have blood draws twice, twice a year
that are looking at exactly what I am. My choices are doing well for me and where I'm deficit,
even though I might be supplementing like vitamin D for me is one that, um, I consistently need,
even though I supplement. Okay. Same with omegas, same with CoQ10. Okay. So I need, it's kind of like, those are the three.
If I were to, if I were to have a horseshoe and throw it to a pin for like, I don't know,
80% of the population, it feels like omega CoQ10 and some sort of D would make sense,
especially if you're living, spending time indoors or up north or further from the equator. Not that that's important, but I'm always a little concerned
about taking a multi and then because usually multis don't have enough of what I need. So help
me think about the reason people could make a choice for a multi as opposed to the specificity
that I was just talking about, which many people are not going to go to that level and do those blood draws. So can you just give me a way to think
or us to think about making a choice for a multi? Yeah. I love your thinking because it's similar to
our thinking when we were formulating our multivitamins, which was kind of for skeptics
by skeptics. Like I was like, why do these multivitamins have 40 plus ingredients? I'm
already getting a lot from my diet. These things are never going to, I'm never going to be
insufficient in these nutrients. So we created this four-step formulation process where we looked
at average dietary intakes. Like what are people actually lacking in their diets? And it wasn't that many things.
And to your point, it was like a handful of things. Yeah, right.
And vitamin D, omega-3s, like those are the things, you know?
And so it's very interesting.
We actually ran a human clinical study in the summer.
We ran it throughout a long period of time,
but we recruited a lot of people in the summer. And I was so a long period of time, but we recruited a lot of people in the
summer. And I was so frightened that we just invested all this money and it was going to fail
because everyone was going to have sufficient levels of vitamin D. And that just wasn't the
case. So most people are actually lacking in the same essential nutrients.
In the same essentials. And just for a note, the pairing of K2 and D3 is an important greasing of the groove, right?
So the K helps the D for, I think it's absorption.
Yeah.
Is that the technical word?
So you do want to be thoughtful about, you guys are, of knowing that best science.
And so, again, let me make sure I'm hearing you correctly.
You ran an analysis to say most people are deficit here.
I'm not most people.
That's what everyone thinks.
Right.
But it is actually most people.
So that was just one part of it.
Okay.
The other part was looking at different lifestyle choices.
So diets and vegan.
And then we also looked at genetics.
So, you know, most people think they're unique,
but 40% of people have a genetic variation where they can't properly utilize folic acid.
And so your genetics actually impact how you take in nutrients from your food,
from your supplements.
And many times, even if you're eating a healthy diet, it could impact
how you're taking in certain nutrients. Same with sleep and stress and environmental conditions.
So the trick though is, I don't need you to take a genetic test. I can actually use the methylated
form of that nutrient. So we can actually use methylated folate. We source ours from Italy that bypasses
the genetic variation. And so it is an insurance policy in a way. Not everyone's getting their
blood drawn every week. You don't know what you're consuming all the time. But I do think
when it comes to multivitamins, less is more. And so we only have nine essential nutrients in our in our multivitamin
so a lot of multivitamins don't even have omega-3s you know they don't have 2,000 IUs of vitamin D
but over 12 weeks we showed that we can increase vitamin D levels by 40 percent at that level
and get people at 2,000 IUs get people to sufficient levels. So I think people
like to think they're unique and there are certainly very unique cases that more people
should be taking a lot more than what's in our products and multivitamins in general,
but it is an insurance policy. And I think if created in this way, and I would say the fourth step,
which I didn't mention, is how those nutrients work together. And like you said, we use K2MK7
as it works with D3. And the combination of those things is really important.
So we have kind of a unique and novel approach to our multivitamin. I would say it's very different.
It fits right in the philosophy you've talked about. Oh, it's controversial?
Well, I would say it's controversial in America
where people think more is more
in the sense that you kind of just throw spaghetti at the wall
and see what sticks.
It's a much more thoughtful approach
that is targeted in a way
and hopefully makes people who feel like they're special
and unique feel that way.
Because when you look at what you're taking on the micronutrient and essential nutrient level,
it's probably really similar to what you're already taking.
How many grams of omega are you personally trying to get in?
So our prenatal has 350 milligrams of DHA.
Do you still take?
I still take it.
You still take the prenatal?
I take the, well, I kind of alternate.
I mean, I also-
Wait, how many grams did you say?
350 milligrams of DHA.
And I think that's an important distinction
because people just think of omega-3s,
but the EPA and DHA is actually what's important.
For women in particular, DHA is actually what's important for women in particular.
DHA is really critical.
And it's something that your body can't produce on its own. On its own, yeah.
And I don't know.
I can't remember where.
I don't know where the clinical trials are now
or where the research is on how many bits of salmon or sardines,
you know, as a rich source that you need to get enough
omega.
I just know I'm never going to get there.
So omegas are part of my, they're part of my commitment every day.
And, and it's, we use our, we actually source our omegas from microalgae, which is cutting
out the middleman.
So we're cutting out the fish because the fish are eating the algae.
So you said from microalgae?
From microalgae.
Not krill even?
No, because all of our products are vegan.
So we're in some ways, especially, you know, it's kind of a lot of the fish sources are contaminated and it's like really hard to do the quality.
With metals.
With metals.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Look, I love that you're out in the world. I hard to do the quality. With metals. With metals. Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, my goodness.
Look, I love that you're out in the world.
I want to say it again.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate that you've made the commitment in your business and your life towards health
for others.
And thank you for making a difference in my wife's life.
And hopefully our community is going to feel that impact shortly.
And can I ask you for something?
Anything.
Can I put you on the spot?
Sure.
Yeah.
There's so many folks that are listening and then they say, you know, I don't know if I have the resources, the money to get going.
Like, can I ask you for some sort of discount that's a little bit better than maybe what you would give most people?
Yeah.
I think it's so important to commit to your health in this way and know what you're putting in your body and why, especially your audience.
And so I'd love to hook you up with 40% off.
Oh, my God. So I'd love to hook you up with 40% off, which is a lot higher than we, I think, have ever done on a podcast before.
Yeah.
Thank you for that.
Like, let me put a shot clock on it.
So most people are 10% to 15% is a typical margin that you see, you know.
So I want to say I recognize what that type of margin means.
That feels really cool.
And let's put a shot clock on it. Let's say
by the end of the month, let's say by January 31st, let's have it expire. That'll give a little
forcing function for people to say, yes, I want to support you guys, your business, and I want
to support our community. And so maybe this is just a way in for people to say, oh, I get what they're
talking about. Yeah, for sure. I believe in our products. I believe that people are going to feel
like they're working for them and that they're going to trust them. And if not, cancel anytime.
Seriously. Yeah. That's pretty easy. It's easy to do. Yeah. If you don't like it. Yeah. How do
you know a supplement's working?
Well, on the multivitamin side, you could get your blood levels drawn like you do.
Yeah.
But it depends on the type of product.
So we have a pre-pro, post-biotic, symbiotic plus, which impacts gas and bloating.
That you'll feel pretty good. My wife loves when I take your symbiotic.
She's like, oh, good. I can sit on the couch with you.
Oh no.
Yeah, right.
TMI, TMI.
TMI, but I feel better.
I feel less bloated.
I feel, I just, you know,
there's less kind of gut lining issues.
I don't really notice it on it.
It's like a little bit too invisible.
But when I come off, I'm like, oh gosh.
Yeah, same with fiber, by the way. TMI again. it on it it's like a little bit too invisible but when i come off i'm like oh gosh yeah same fiber
by the way tmi again um but i yeah i mean the sleep product people will feel within one or two
days um we we just released this product it's bios here it's the technology we developed we
looked at the melatonin supplements out there and a they were mislabeled but b they didn't
actually look at how your body releases melatonin throughout the night. I saw that on your sleep. So melatonin, I was,
I know we're going along in tooth on unique kind of supplementation here, but melatonin is
problematic. Some of the research on more than three grams. And so tell me about where you guys
are on your position on melatonin we think it's the most
effective ingredient to help people sleep um we don't we haven't seen what is your dosage it's
five milligrams but it's not released right away so that's how you're going through this this is
how we're going through it so what we saw is actually most a lot of melatonin was mislabeled sometimes 300 over the label claim i read that that's it's crazy
especially when you're using gummies like it's so hard to control and so and it's also not you don't
know what you're gonna get in the gummy because it's a liquid form yeah and it's also not pure
so there are other hormones laced with the melatonin. 300%. If they're labeling five milligrams.
Yeah, it's wild.
That would like knock you right out.
Yeah, so that's what people like.
They like being knocked out.
But then they wake up in the middle of the night
or they have really wild dreams
is what we were hearing from our customers.
Can't wake up well in the morning.
Yeah, or they feel groggy
and we're like, how do we solve for this?
So ours is five milligrams, but it's it's only one milligram or no, sorry. Yeah. It's one milligram
in the beginning of the night to throughout. And then one, as you taper off. Yeah. So there you go.
So there's the, that's the under the threshold of three. That's a really unique way of thinking
about it. And what we've seen is so incredible. Like people are literally texting me. They haven't
had a good night's sleep in years.
And they're like,
this is the first time.
So I haven't tried your sleep supplement.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
So I don't know if you have,
if you have a hard time sleeping,
I would recommend it.
I,
I'm never,
you know,
some people were like,
I don't have a hard time sleeping.
Let me try it.
And I'm like,
no,
don't,
why would you start?
That's crazy.
I've got,
I'm going through a phase right now that it's like the 3 42 a.m so then that's probably a good yeah so maybe that little extra dose um you can
time release i guess anything we developed this technology it's called biosphere it's beautiful
it's like these three tablets within one single capsule um we have a phd in dose delivery on our team she literally did her thesis on this
um works for dima and it's like fascinating that it's not just and we use italian
melatonin that's extremely pure so that's the other thing to it but it is i could see why i
mean there our team doesn't actually doesn't believe that there's enough evidence that it's actually, melatonin is harmful.
I think it's just the way that it's been being delivered.
Cool.
So anyways, we're seeing amazing results.
People are like blown away by the performance of that product.
And then we also have a skin supplement that visibly reduces fine lines and wrinkles within 90 days and it sounds like a
scam especially to someone like me but it's it really does um and it was like a category i didn't
want to go into i'm a very big skeptic of the beauty supplement space our scientists were like
especially coming from academia no way are we doing this.
And we found two ingredients that had really legitimate.
So I didn't know about this product as well.
Yeah.
Wait, this is a cream?
It's not a cream.
It's a supplement.
It's called Hyacera.
It's a single capsule that has both those.
It has lower molecular weight hyaluronic acid and phytoceramide glycolipids from France.
And together, it impacts hydration and within 90 days impacts fine lines and wrinkles.
And we just completed a human clinical study on that product, which I'm excited to release shortly.
Oh, I can't wait for that. Because I was like, there's no, you know, we know that the individual ingredients have
legitimate clinical studies, but to see them together, it was pretty mind blowing.
The hyaluronic acid has been well understood for a while, I think.
It has on the topical side.
And then on the ingestible side, there was very weak evidence, depending on the molecular
weight.
And I think that's kind of the thing that people need to think about is like,
is there a clinical study on this dosage and this form?
It's the form part that's really cool.
It's not just hyaluronic acid.
It's studying a best practice rather than just the one ingredient.
Again, stoked for what you're doing.
Thank you.
And I really appreciate the little boost you're giving our community to give, to make an investment in themselves.
So thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Now I have like, now I'm going to be driving back and thinking about myself and the analysis that you've done.
And maybe it'll change my life.
Yeah.
Good.
Yeah.
Okay.
Awesome. Maybe Rachel will become something else now let's keep going appreciate you thank you thank you all right thank you so much for diving into
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