Founder's Story - He Turns Body Heat Into Energy (Seth Casden)| Ep 295 with Seth Casden Founder of Hologenix

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Seth Casden joins Founder’s Story to explain how Hologenix is delivering health and wellness through everyday textiles, why infrared science took years to gain acceptance, and how building a meaningful company requires patience, humility, and a long-term mindset. Key Discussion Points Seth explains how CELLiant technology captures the body’s natural heat and converts it into infrared energy that re-enters the body to improve circulation and recovery. He walks through the early skepticism around infrared and photobiomodulation, why scientific validation mattered more than hype, and how adoption accelerated as biohacking and longevity gained mainstream attention. The conversation also explores Seth’s personal experiences using the technology for injury recovery, sleep improvement, and even animal health—highlighting the absence of placebo effects. On the business side, Seth shares why Hologenix shifted from pure licensing to direct-to-consumer, the importance of controlling the narrative, and the leadership lessons learned from building multiple companies over decades. Takeaways This episode reinforces that real wellness breakthroughs often come from applying science quietly and consistently rather than chasing trends. Seth emphasizes that success in entrepreneurship is less about avoiding failure and more about maintaining perspective, resilience, and integrity. Separating personal identity from business outcomes allows founders to endure setbacks without losing momentum. The future of health, Seth argues, lies in integrating wellness into daily life seamlessly—without requiring people to change who they are or how they live. Closing Thoughts Seth Casden’s journey shows that longevity—both personal and professional—is built through patience, curiosity, and commitment to real value. As wellness technology evolves, the most powerful innovations may be the ones working invisibly in the background, improving lives while people sleep, move, and live their everyday routines. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

So, Seth, always great to connect with you again. I was super happy that I got to meet you, what feels like a lifetime ago, right? I think it was almost a year ago. And when I heard about what you were doing, I was like, oh, my gosh, I need that. Like, I've been looking for that for a long time. And that was specifically the pillow and what you were creating. But you are combining health and wellness through textiles. And I have to understand how did you even get into that?

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, Daniel. It's great to reconnect with you also. And yeah, it's, you know, those kinds of responses when people hear about our technology that motivate me and get me out of bed every day. When I first heard about it, the inventor, David Hornick, he was a friend of mine. And I was just fascinated by the intersection of physical science, human, you know, human physiology, and also what natural occurring minerals can do. And then looking at how to improve and optimize the body and being a triathlet and really loving to be outdoors and wanting to live a long time, being a dad, you know, you're always looking for how to optimize your body and, you know, have a good healthy life. And when you look at what we do in our

technology, we're basically delivering health and wellness to the body through textiles, through everyday apparel and bedding and sleep products. So it's been a great journey. And I think the science is really there now. And we're seeing people that get introduced to the technology, having a similar responses, as you just had. Can you tell me, more about how does the technology work and what have you seen? Yeah, of course. So really, we're all batteries. We're giving off about 100 watts of energy every second, just having this conversation. And that energy goes into the environment and it's basically lost. And so what selling it does is it's found a way to harness that. We capture that heat and the minerals naturally

convert heat to light. And they put that light in the infrared spectrum back into our body, which improves circulation and blood flow. And so you see we have 11 published studies now showing the benefits of selling it and how it affects the body and interacts the body with the body. And infrared's just beyond the visible. So it's not light that you see what you're normally like looking at a rainbow. But it's real. And it goes up to four centimeters, you know, a couple inches into the body and provides these thermoregulation benefits.

I have to say infrared, you know, red light therapy, all these things the last few years have just been dominating the health and wellness space. How was it when you started to talk to people? Do you think you're at a time where people believe it more, understand it more, or are there a lot of skeptics? Well, I think when we started, there are certainly a lot of skeptics. People were little incredulous that you could make these kinds of impacts naturally. You know, this tends to be just healthy skepticism when something's new, particularly if this is something that it's maybe not easy to see with the naked eye. But now I think it's really, there's over 10,000 papers on photo biomodulation that have been

published over 125,000 subjects have been studied. If you look at the whole universe of using light and lasers to help people. So I think now it's really got a stronghold. And particularly with the biohacking and longevity community has embraced infrared and understands infrared. So I'd say now we're at a place of fairly wide acceptance, if not universal. And so when you started using this, I imagine you must have seen a difference or maybe someone that you know had also seen a difference. But what type of things did you start to see? And I was reading a lot about recovery and sleep performance. I think like you said,

the biohacking is maybe those three things are the things that everybody wants to achieve. especially us as entrepreneurs who work like 24-7, we many times neglect those things. Yeah, and for me personally, I had a bristow procedure on my shoulder and had to have a rod put in and a cleat and using selling it as a wrap and as like an insulation around the scar. I could really actually feel and perceive the increase in circulation blood flow. I was on the short end of the healing spectrum. My doctor thought I had healed very quickly. relative to what the average is. I also had some incredible experiences around animals with horses,

dogs and cats, you know, where there's no placebo effect. They don't really, you know, have anyone to kind of bias them and seeing how they interact around the product was also very compelling. And then, yeah, you know, friends, you know, people that have bad knee that take in a leave every day and wear a salient knee brace and don't need they leave or, you know, people that are arthritic, dogs that, you know, have bad hips and then they start walking better. So, you know, those are all individual cases, but collectively and with the science, it starts to make a pretty compelling, you know, paint a pretty compelling picture. It's something I need. I really need to get the pillow. Like, I really, really need to get. I need the brace. I got bad knees. I got,

my knees are like rice crispy treats. Yeah, it's great what you're saying about the pillow, because when we go to sleep, that's really the longest period we have for recovery. And, you know, it turns out that the only time the brain can really recover is when it's turned off when it's asleep. And so increasing circulation while you're sleeping really provides a wonderful benefit for restorative sleep and waking up feeling, you know, your best. That is the, I think that's the biggest thing I struggle with. I woke up last night at maybe 3.45 a.m. And I don't know if I even went back to sleep after that. It's definitely one of those things. And then I started looking at my phone. I do like all the worst habits that I'm trying to change.

When you went into this model, I believe you were looking at licensing and now you're really doing a lot with direct-to-consumer. What was the reason for that model? Yeah, that's a great question. We've been fortunate enough to work with some incredible brands. Under Armour is really our largest brand or most well-known in the United States right now. We also work with DeCathlon and Eon overseas. and we've been fortunate enough to be in programs with Puma and Adi and New Balance, Reebok.

And what we saw was despite really over a billion dollars at retail, very little brand awareness, very little consumer understanding of infrared and how it works and what the benefits are. So we thought the best way to approach that is to really launch our own brand and tell our own story directly to the consumer to help raise the awareness and the level of education around infrared. So this year we started selling it sleep line. We started with the dream pillow. And we just launched our sheets as well last weekend at the trade show, Longevity Fest in Las Vegas.

So we're starting to really have our own assortment of product lines in addition to socks and wristbands and some of the other things that we give away typically. So, yeah, for us, I think it's really important that we, can control the story and take that story directly to the consumer. I need those sheets. I think the sheets sound incredible. When you look at how health and wellness is now being transformed into our daily life from watches, from rings that monitor now to your clothing textiles that can do things as well. How do you see this whole, I don't know if this is like a new industry. Maybe there's a new name for the industry, but how do you see this going forward?

Well, I think the longevity, biohacking is exploding. It's billions of dollars now. There's literally dozens of shows internationally that focus on this that are attracting tens of thousands of people and the science and our ability, to your point, to measure things that 10, even five years ago, we couldn't really look at now that we can measure like mitochondrial health and we can understand these micro improvements and what really... As a founder, I'm thinking a lot about my goals for 2026. We want to hit a million subscribers on YouTube. We want to hit revenue milestones that we never have done. In order to do that, I need to build the right team. And I need to make sure I surround myself with people who are great at what they do. Because here's the truth. Finding the right people

is very hard. It's like when you're hiring, how do you even know who's qualified for the role on your team? That is where ZipRecruiter comes in. ZipRecruiter makes it easy to find top talent fast. Their matching technology works quickly to connect you with people who are a great fit so you don't waste time or money. You can even see how many qualified candidates are in your area right away. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. And right now you can try ZipRecruiter for free. Let ZipRecruiter help you find the best people for all your roles. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate within the first day. See for yourself, go to this exclusive web address to try ZipRecruiter for free. ZipRecruiter.com slash audio.

Again, that's zipRecruiter.com slash audio. ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. Powers and fuels are health on a cellular level and with supplements and nutritional support. I think, you know, a lot of these devices are measuring our heart rate, our heart rate bearability, our sleep. But we're just sort of quantifying. And now we have something that you can use, it'll show an improvement. And so you can use these devices to actually see how you're improving. So I think that's going to really help us. And I think just the more, the more science around this whole space really helps to lift us up and to show the consumer that, you know, this is part of your routine. I mean, traditionally we're told if you want to be healthier, you have to either

change your diet, you know, change how you eat, a workout more, or change your sleep. And all of those things will help, but this is also something you can incorporate into your daily routine without changing anything else and you're going to see an improvement. When you look back at your experience in business, did something that you did before this carry over? So, for example, it could be a job. It could be something that you did in school. But is there something that along the way, maybe, you know, lessons and leadership, something that really carried over to now what you use in business? You know, for one, I really like working with great people and small teams. And you don't really get that in the corporate world. I mean, maybe you can be fortunate to have some great colleagues. But having that

like passion and that shared focus that you find when you're an entrepreneur and when you're working with small teams of like-minded people, to me, that's really fulfilling. And what you're making almost becomes secondary because, you know, every day, all day, you're in, you're out. You want to be enjoying what you're doing and what you're grinding away at. And so for me, like finding the right team and then obviously a product that's that's bringing value and health to people. And, you know, ultimately at the end of the day, if you feel better, you're going to be happier and just live a more enjoyable life. And so, you know, that really appeals to me. And, you know, as far as like the path to get here, I think this is my fourth company. So, you know, that perseverance,

that understanding that, like, what some people might see as a failure is just, you know, another opportunity in a different direction. And not really losing my spirit or my, my, my, my hope just because something that I started out initially didn't work or the work the way I wanted it to. So I think like that tenacity and that perseverance I've carried with me and certainly needed for this business to succeed and thrive. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of life lessons along the way about just, you know, learning to see things with a broader perspective, maybe not such a harsh judgmental attitude of what failure and success looks like. And, um, You know, really being able to just move forward with whatever changes we need and course corrections and just keep going.

When you think about, I know you just mentioned some traits, but is there a certain trait that you think every entrepreneur or every person really has to be a successful entrepreneur? And the reason I ask is we had another guest on and they were talking about grit just because the ups and downs that they had to go through. Most people would have quit along the way. you have to be like hyper dedicated but is there is there a certain trait that you think in order to really be successful not to become an entrepreneur like anyone can open a business but in order to really be successful long term is there a trait that you think everyone needs to have you know i i'll answer that kind of maybe a little differently i think there's a trait that you can't have and and that is just like a negativity disguised as, you know, like a cynicism disguised as a lot of people say, oh, I'm just

being realistic, you know, like realistically, that's not going to work. Or, you know, I'm just, I'm just telling you how it is. And, you know, things never worked until they worked. So, you know, just because it hasn't worked to that point, isn't any reason to think that it can't be different in the future. And if you have kind of a fixed mindset, you're not open and you tend to see the world is kind of half empty, the glass half empty, you know, that's, that's not going to work. There's a lot of ways to make things work, but I can say that if you have that kind of dismissive attitude, you know, you're never going to be able to see something that other people haven't done yet. It's hard not to get sucked into that. As you know, there's great ups, but there's

there might be more downs in business than ups in the moments like over time. How do you not fall into that trap? Well, I'd say one, I have over different times. You know, you get down, you get frustrated. I, you know, I'd be disingenuous to say I'd never felt defeated at different points. But I think each time, you know, I pause, I gather myself, and I keep going. And I think a big part of that is the perspective. Like, I don't have my identity tied to the company, right?

Like, the company is its own thing. I care about it. I, you know, it's almost like a child at this point. It's 25 years old. But it's just the company and what I'm trying to do and I believe in it. But there's a level of separation there. You know, my identity is who I am and the efforts that I put in. And I don't really measure my success from the output. I measure it from the input and what I put into it. And the sincerity and the integrity of my work and my effort is kind of how I value myself. And the results are, you know, a little bit to, a certain extent out of my control. You know, maybe that is the challenging part of what, when people fall into the fact, like, this is my whole life. My business is everything. It's my life.

Like it's, it means everything. I like your separation of that. So then if something ever happens to the company, it's not like your whole world is then imploding with it. We see, you know, founders who exit or they raise money and their company is taken over. and they're kicked out of their own company, which is always quite sad. But I imagine if you can disassociate yourself, you know that, okay, I can just go do something else at this point versus like, you know, never letting it go. Yeah, but that's not a perspective I've always had, but it's certainly

as I sit here today, the one, the one I have. So where do you, how do you see, where do you see the future of just for yourself? When you look at, okay, you know, what do you want to do with the company? like do you look at things in terms of I want to hold a company for a legacy for pass it down through generations I want to exit the company I want to advise companies I want to invest I want to you know I want to do a new company how do you look at things for the future when it comes to you know business for you know it's something I've wrestled with and think about from time to time certainly when you're when you're out fundraising I think for me, you know, I don't have a predisposition. I try not to have an expectation and that tends to keep you open to more possibilities.

To the extent somebody else comes along and sees the same value that I see, you know, explore that. If nobody ever comes along and sees it as valuable as I do, then I'll probably just keep doing it myself. And, you know, you end up offering friends and family and friends of friends help as the more experience I have and the more value I can offer, then I don't know if it'll ever be formalized in the consulting role or not, but certainly gathered a lot of life experience on this journey and a wide variety of experience, you know, supply chain and business development and globally and the width of products that, you know, that we make that have our technology and all of the

science behind it and the regulatory work. And, you know, there's a lot of, uh, of, uh, different touch points this company has. So, you know, all of that experience just makes, makes for a little bit better sense of purpose, I guess, and provides a little more clarity as I get older. And so far, just reinforce that I'm doing the right thing and feel good about it. So, you know, try and stay open with the future holds and take what's in front of me and evaluate it as it comes. I like the approach. I think that, I think that can make for a healthy approach because you just never know what's going to come. Back in 2018,

somebody had offered to buy one of the companies that we had. And I was quite insulted because of the time, I didn't realize that you should probably sell if you get the chance to add a high note. And then within a year, that company no longer existed. So that was a learning moment for me. Have you had any of these learning moments for you? You know, nobody's come along with this company.

to offer me a big check that I turned away. But in another life, I was doing residential real estate development and we had built a spec home. And I think we had it listed for $5.2 million. We had an all-cash offer for $4.3. And then we had another offer for $4.7.5. And that was contingent on them selling their house. And so we took that offer because it was an extra $400,000. That ended up falling through. we went back to the person offering four three they had gone on and bought something else the house then sat on the market for a year and a half and we sold it for 3.8 and that was always something that I regretted not just taking the burden hand and the cash and you know in perspective it was fairly 5% difference 10% difference in price and it would have been a home run to sell it you know as soon as

we listed it and that was something that I you know that I learned from and A lot of times it's about the better deal, not evaluated from more money, but from more certainty. That's a valuable lesson. I think most people would run on the money side, not the value side. And maybe that's where many people make that mistake because somebody could say, I will give you the whole world. But if they can't give you the whole world in the end, then you're basically at zero, maybe even negative. but what a valuable lesson. Seth, this has been amazing. If people want to get in touch with you,

they want to find out more about the company. How can they do so? You know, reach out to our website and happy to answer any inquiries and check out our gear and I love to connect with your community. Well, I need to get the pillow, and I need to get the knee brace.

I need to get the sheets. I think I need to get everything. I really do. I have so many ailments. I feel like I'm 80 years old. It's like every day there's like some new ailment. I'm like, I must be. 150 years old in my body. So I need to turn the clock backwards. And I want to live a long,

healthy life like most of us do. But Seth, thank you so much for joining us on Founder's Story. Thanks for having me.