Habits and Hustle - Episode 39: Rob Fried – CEO Of ChromaDex

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Rob Fried was the former head of production at Columbia Pictures who switched gears and is now the CEO of Chromadex, an integrated nutraceutical company devoted to improving the way people age. In today’s episode, he talks about his back and forth successes in the film industry, but how his passion for the research behind anti-aging kept pulling at him.  Fried’s diverse experiences in different fields make this episode super insightful and unique. He educates us on some of the latest research in anti-aging while integrating tidbits about his path to success as a film producer, screenwriter, studio executive. Youtube Link to This Episode Chromadex ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Did you learn something from tuning in today? Please pay it forward and write us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts. 📧If you have feedback for the show, please email [e-mail]  📙Get yourself a copy of Jennifer Cohen’s newest book from Habit Nest, Badass Body Goals Journal. ℹ️Habits & Hustle Website 📚Habit Nest Website 📱Follow Jennifer – Instagram – Facebook – Twitter – Jennifer’s Website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Vitamin Water Zero Sugar just dropped in all new taste. It was zero holding back on flavor. You can be your all-feeling. I'll play and all self-care you. Grab the all-new taste today. Vitamin Water Zero Sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin Water is a registered trademark of glassso. Welcome to the Habits and Hustle Podcast. A podcast that uncovers the rituals, unspoken habits and mindsets of extraordinary people. A podcast powered by habit nest. Now here's

your host, Jennifer Cohen. All right, so today on the podcast, we have Rob Freed who was a very successful movie producer who then pivoted and transitioned into being CEO of a company called Chromodex which is a very innovative health company. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Thank you, Jen. It's really nice to meet you. I actually am a big fan of your product and I've been taking, it's called True Niajin, and I've been taking it for probably

a year, even before I even knew you existed. So that's why it's even more of a pleasure to meet you in person. I guess we should start because living here in LA, of course, we're living in Hollywood, everyone moves here by the droves to get into the movie business, right? Like, anybody, they're like cutting off their like right arm just to like be an assistant assistant. And here you are, like at the top of your game, and you're producing very, very successful movies like collateral, Godzilla, Rudy, and then you're like, you know what?

I'm going to leave and just basically go into different kinds of entrepreneurial experiences. So explain that process and why? Why Rob? Why leave movies? Yeah, why leave movies? Like the glamour and the glitz for this. So it wasn't a decision, it wasn't one day I decided

I was gonna leave the film business. Okay. I think that I, if I reflect back, I think that I am blessed or cursed with the courage to pursue my passion. And I've been that way as long as I can remember. And I was excited about making films. I felt like I had something to say early in my career. And then I felt like I had said it.

And then some other things excited me that I pursued. So then like so you're from New York, we talked about earlier. And then you so you moved to LA to become a producer, like what was like a start from the beginning. Like give me the trajectory of your life, like from when you were an embryo, no, I'm not skinny, just from like how you kind of started. So when you were in New York, you said,

I'm gonna move to LA and how did that even be, how did you become so successful in that world? Because, like I said earlier, and like everyone knows, it's one of the hardest businesses to break into. Well, I think in terms of the success that I had in the motion picture industry, I think a lot of the reason why I was successful early is because I was not somebody that was committed to being successful in the motion picture industry. That's interesting. So in some ways I was different. Okay, how? I didn't care as much. It wasn't

part of my DNA to make films. So how did you fall into it? Or get into it? I grew up in New York and my my father was a Holocaust survivor and And I had four brothers and sisters. And it's an extremely, extremely close knit family. And to my parents, the idea of family was very, very important, as was, frankly, Judaism. Right. And it was important that we get educated. So my father managed to escape and come over in September of 1939. And he joined the war, fought in the war.

And then after the war met my mother in the Bronx, in New York. Wow. And I started a bar mitzvah and wedding photography studio in the Bronx, which is still there today, 60 plus years later, and my brother runs it. That's incredible, really amazing. This is all very familiar to me. This is kind of sound like you grew up similar to me. So.

And we have a lot of family, as I said, in Canada. Yeah, exactly. We'll play that whole Jewish geography thing afterwards. Okay. So I went to college at Cornell and studied industrial and labor relations, which is a straight like immigrant workers, and I went workers in economics. And then I got an MBA at Columbia.

So you're really stupid as what you're trying to tell me? Well, and when I graduated school, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I contemplated many alternatives. I actually had applied to their law school and I contemplated working on Wall Street. But Columbia Pictures, the film studio,

was interested in hiring a strategic planning analyst. I was actually in Palm Springs for Spring Break and the job got posted. And I called them up at Columbia in Burbank and I said, you know, I'm in Palm Springs, they said come into interview. So I drove in to Burbank, interviewed with them, and they offered me the job, and I took it.

And the job was basically a grunt. Right. I was writing scripts and doing financial analysis and breaking everything down into cash. And at that time, in the mid-80s, that was sort of a new way of thinking. You know, the software platform was something called Visicalc, which is the predecessor to Excel.

But the idea of thinking financially and breaking things down into cash and analyzing them and creating the optimization strategies, the calculus of the business was new. And because it was new, I became a known entity throughout the company as this young guy who was doing something new. Right, an innovative. Right, so it kind of like follows you with your career, it sounds like it's the beginning.

And I wasn't running around wanting to read scripts or meet stars or I wasn't politicking. I was just doing my financial analysis and my work and I was working for the president of the studio. And so I became a known entity. And promotion, promotion, this change, that change eventually, within three years, I got to be the executive vice president in charge of production at Columbia Pictures. It was a bizarre series of events. Just after three years. Wow, that's fast.

That's a fast track, like beyond. Yeah, when I got my first production job, I had never read a screenplay. Wow, that's crazy. But the movies were hits. Like, you know, just for whatever reason, I was very fortunate that the films that I worked on early were very, very successful movies. Well, I was asking you. Like Bulldum and Hoosiers and, and I think called Mississippi Burning and Robocop. These movies were all successful. So I became the hot guy. Yeah. Right. No, exactly. What was it? So when you left Columbia, what was your title about when you left? The first, when I left the studio?

Yeah, when you left the studio. Well, in the early 90s, Sony bought the studio. Right, I remember that. So I had already achieved this relatively high level position, so I had a lot of stock. And I got this windfall check. I remember calling my father and I said, Dad, look at this check that I got. It was like crying my eyes, it's always he. I can imagine it, right?

And so I quit. I started my own, I said I'm on my own now. I've done what I need to do and I'm going to start producing. And I start producing movies right away because I felt I didn't need to be an executive anymore. So that's when you left Columbia, Sony, and then... And I became a producer at Columbia. And then you became, so kind of like you got,

you had like a deal with them, kind of, like a production deal. Production deal. So the under your umbrella. Yeah, freed films, as it were. And then under freed films, was that where collateral was then? Yes, sort of. So I formed free films and again, I got very lucky, like Rudy and Axe murder were the very first two movies and I produced it. The first thing I did was take a course at UCLA on producing. Yeah, right, so you can no idea how to do that. Really, I mean, and then I produced a short film just to learn. And I want an Oscar for

the short film. It was just unbelievable for two of this lot. You want to ask, who's the short film called? It was called Session Man. It was about a really cool story about a session rock guitarist who wants to get a call to play with the equivalent of the Rolling Stones. Oh, wow. And then during the session, the overnight session, the equivalent to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have a fight and Keith Richards character quits. And the Mick Jagger character says to listen, you know, we're about to go on tour. You wanna tour with us.

We'll place Keith Richards. And he's a guy, he's in his 40s. It was played by an actor named James Remor. You know who that is? No, who's that? It's great actor. It's great actor, but character actor. Oh, I don't know who that is.

Anyway, so he's like playing the whole night and can now with the style. I went from a session guitarist to the stones. And we had a great session guitarist through the music, again in Wadiwak tell. To this very day is one of the truly most respected session guitars in the history of rock and roll, played the, actually played the guitar. And then as the sun's coming up, the Keith Richards character comes back and he makes up with Mick Jagger and he's back and this guy's out. You know, but for a few hours, you know, he was in the stones.

He was the guy, yeah. And then he packs up his guitar and he gets in his car as the sun is coming up and he drives home and he gets to his house and he gets into bed with it. And just as his wife is getting up and she says how to go, honey, and he goes just another session. Oh my gosh, that's perfect a good, I'm gonna watch it. So then when I find it, now it's like how many years later, it's like 30 years, 25 years ago, right? So yeah, I don't know. Well, maybe send me a link and I'll watch if you have it.

Where would it be? I have a DVD of it. A DVD. Okay. Yeah, you want to see that? Sure. Set it to me. I'll watch it. I mean, so how do you think the music, the music, the movie business has changed from now, like, 2019, where I feel like every movie now being produced or being made are Marvel movies, like superhero movies that are going to be a guarantees, sure, fire hit,

right? Yeah. Besides that, and like where you were, when you were at the top of the peak over there, what else has changed in the movie world? Well, obviously streaming has changed. Right, well, yes. So this phenomenon where blockbusters dominated a large percentage of the overall box office began really in the late 70s, early 80s. I mean, the phenomenon of a

Star Wars, EAT and EAT where there were actually this idea of a blockbuster versus a hit started then and then I even remember looking at all the numbers when I first started at Columbia and seeing that Ghostbusters was a game changer for that studio. So a smaller and smaller percentage of films consume a higher percentage of the overall revenue, and that's been going on now for a long time. The Marvel thing was just a continuation of that idea that people are drawn to good guys, bad guys, special effects,

and a happy ending, this idea. And same with animated kids films, that these are the things that consume the box office. The K-Day in my view of films in general was the 70s, right before that happened when the screenwriter was still great and yet production techniques were good and acting methodologies, we started to get to real acting.

Right. You know, the method acting as it were. So the movies from the 70s, I still think to this day are like the best movies at Hollywood as a period of time. For me personally, if I had a great story to tell, I'd do it again. I just am not inspired in that way right now,

inspired by an entirely different thing. Different area. That's interesting. So it's not that you didn't really technically lead. You just had your run, and you were passionate about that moment and then you had other things you wanted to pursue and you just kind of segue into that basically. Yeah, I had a friend who started an internet company in in 1994 called Web TV. And at that time I was the CEO of a company called Savoy Pictures, which is a movie studio. Yeah. What was under Savoy? What movies were under there?

Oh, we, simple plan was a big, big one. Okay. We did a lot of thin line between love and hate was there. We did, we did an endless number of lower, like $20 million. Oh, like lower budget movies. Okay. Yeah. So I went on his advisory board and the internet was just the commercial internet was just starting and it was I kept flying back and forth to Silicon Valley and it grabbed my interest in a very dramatic way. This, the potential for the internet to me was exciting and more exciting than perhaps making another film. So I started an internet company at that time.

It was called What's Hot Now, which was an e-commerce service provider. We managed all of the online stores for virtually every studio and cable network. And where is it now? Did you sell it? It's sold. Who would you is it now? And you sold. You sold, who did you sell it to?

QVC. Oh, OK. So you've kind of had like, it seems like you've had like one successful career. And then you kind of morphed into another version of another successful career into another. Well, I wouldn't say that. The what's hot now financial financial experience was a negative.

It was not very successful. Yeah, even though that entity but all the assets, it wasn't a return on investment. And it was, I recall at that time, it was 2001 when we had to basically shut it down. I was in a very strange place, because here I had built up this movie career, but I had more or less moved out of it into an internet career.

And I was coming out of something that from a financial standpoint was not a success. And I was a little lost. Who am I? Right. You have your identity wasn't really formed. So then go from where so then like go from how you went from the internet, like where did your pivot come into like health?

And, and. While I was running What's Hot Now. Okay. I met a venture capitalist named Frank Caulfield. He had a company called Cliner Perkins Buyers in Kaufield. And we were at a party. That's a really big one, by the way. That's a good one.

Yeah, okay. And he's a great guy. We became quite friendly. Okay. And he turned me on to one of his other portfolio companies, which was called Geron, which is still around. And Geron was a super cool company, I thought, because they were studying something called Telemirs. Oh, yes. were studying something called telomeres.

Oh, yes. This is in the 90s. This is in the 90s. Keep coming back. You got plenty of space. Oof, not how you would have done that. You like working with people you can rely on, like USAA, who has helped guide the military community

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and classes. Live video enhances every conversation. Go live on your terms with Vonage. Learn more at Vonage.com. So this is so interesting to me because you're saying things that were happening literally 30 years ago that are now just now becoming like kind of like people are becoming a little curious about it. Tell people what that is because. So telomeres are little fragments on the exterior of chromosomes and every time the cell divides that little fragment shrinks a little bit. And when

it becomes just the size of a stub, the cell becomes senescent, meaning it functions, but it no longer divides. And so what I would say, just on very layman's terms, what why people are interested in that from a health perspective is because it can tell the actual age of somebody, right? So isn't that why it's very big right now too? Yeah, well, there's theoretically, if I measure the telomeres on your chromosomes,

I can tell you're a metabolic agent. Yeah, you're metabolic agent. That's the thesis, right? So that's why people who are like super fanatical about like longevity and so forth like that, which is now becoming a huge, huge trend. It's about you could take tests to figure that out. So anyway, this is what I find.

Okay, go ahead. So your friend, tell him yours, go ahead. It's not my answer. So there was this company that had identified an enzyme called telomerase that existed in certain cell types, frankly, notably cancer cells, where if a cell had telomerase, the telomeres would not shrink despite the fact that the cell divided. So their idea was, well, what if we took the telomerase, that enzyme, and we put it into other cell types, could we make them immortal?

enzyme and we put it into other cell types, could we make them immortal? Oh, and the answer was yes. In other words, that enzyme applied to other cell types could keep the telomeres long, even when the cell divides, so they would divide indefinitely, become immortal cells. So I thought that was like incredibly cool. Yeah. And I actually began investing in Geron, in that company at that time, and started obsessively reading about that technology and about that science. And I actually endeavored to meet some of the scientists.

Wow. Yeah, so I just became interested. Yeah. Despite the fact that I think, yeah, curious. And also wanting to stay young. Yeah, like most of us in life, right? So so then what happened? So this I the the the the science of the anti-aging science, which really became a big thing with telomeres in the late 90s, the industry sort of started pivoting

away from telomeres towards something called sartunes. Sertuin genes, I'm telling you the chronology of anti-aging science over the last 20 years. So the biochemistry community, the genetics community that was studying anti-aging, started becoming more interested in this thing called sertuins, which are a set of genes that apparently get activated when there is extreme caloric restriction.

that apparently get activated when there is extreme caloric restriction. So when the body consumes very few calories, there's a famous Cornell study from the 1930s that shows that animals live longer when they have very restricted calorie. Is that why intermittent fasting is very big right now too because you're able to restrict your calories and that's part of what this is all about as well. Yes, it's related to this idea. Related. So there are a bunch of scientists in the late 90s and early 2000s that said, well, we know that if you restrict calories, we can extend life.

Can we mimic that with an ingredient? Can we mimic, can we find a molecule that mimics caloric restriction and they thought they had found one in the skin of red grapes called resveratrol. Yeah. And it's not. So there was one study where I'm sick, the equivalent to a 60 year old mouse turned into a physiologically 20 year old mouse when high doses of resveratrol were given to the mouse. And it was an incredibly popular, famous study. And that began the red wine craze of... That was the root of the whole red wine.

The red wine, paradox, the French paradox, the red wine craze, drink red wine, you stay younger. This idea that it elevates resveratrol, which will activate the sirto craze, drink red wine, you stay younger. This idea that it elevates to Rizvera Chro, which will activate the Sartuan genes, Sartuan genes, the genetic, the Darwinian philosophy towards Sartuan's is that when there's few calories out in the world available to us, the body adjusts, they activate these genes so we can survive

as a species, despite the fact that there are fewer calories available. That's the thesis. So they thought they had found a way to activate this gene in Rizvera Troll, and it became a very popular. So what happened then? So how did it evolve? Like, so then you're having, what happened to this whole thesis and now 25 years later? Turns out it doesn't work. It turns out, yeah, it's good to say, besides that. So then what had happened with you when you were learning about this and you were meeting with all these scientists and you were figuring this out,

so what did you do? Like what was your next move? At that time, after what's hot now, I started, I went back and started producing some more movies. I made collateral, I made something called Man of the Year with Robin Williams, I made something called the Man in Toronto with Eugene Levy. I made several quite a few movies. And, but also right around that time, our son, we had a son who was born premature.

So I stayed at home. I worked from home for a number of years. When he was clearly fine, and our life was stabilized, I dove back in and I started doing a couple of additional things. One thing I did was formed a startup company, which was called Spiracles in 2007, which Spiracles was, my kids were little and I wanted to create a body of work that they, when they became of consciousness, they could look at and feel proud. This is who we are.

So it was a large collection of life-affirming stories of inspiration and hope. They're all real like powerful, like little mini-routies type of thing. A little stories of overcoming obstacles. There are stories about redemption, stories about things. Where is that now? Where are all these? Spiracles were sold to hallmark. Okay, so then, but it could still find these little stories, okay, because I've got little kids. They have a streaming site called Hallmark Movies Now, which was this company called Spiracles, is now called Hallmark Movies Now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I know what that, yeah.

But all during that time, I continued to obsessively read about this anti-aging research and science. And I was, you know, if you worked with me during that spirit clips era that you would joke about it because I was always talking about Resveratrol and NAD and... And all the... Well, we need to get to the NAD because I find this interesting because you're basically, again, somebody who was extremely curious and very interested in longevity and anti-aging. And then you made that curiosity really your livelihood and your business and what you focused on. And that became successful. Like it said, I feel like a lot of people who are very entrepreneurial

or who are very successful entrepreneurs, the through line is they took something that they were superly obsessed over, curious, whatever the word is, and basically focused on it to make it a business, and which leads me, I guess, when you just said like NAD, like so you realized that from all this stuff, where did this come from? Like not true, not true, but like NAD. So, explain to people like what your evolution was, like how you then became involved with obviously chromodex and the ingredient with it. So, it turns out that sertuins are not activated by a risk of a retrial. Right. That's what we left off, right? That's when we left off, right? And the scientists were trying to figure out why. Right.

And one thesis was that it requires a tremendous amount of energy to activate Sir Tuan Jeans. So they said, well, how does energy get created inside the cell? And the way energy gets created, I mean, look, the human body creates more energy per gram than the sun. Wow. The human body is basically an energy factor.

Yeah, that we know, but that's a great stat. Say that again. It's what, what's the number? More energy per gram than the sun. Wow, okay. Interesting. I didn okay. Interesting. I didn't know that. So actually, there's like probably another great amazing startup opportunity within what

I just said, but that's a future career. Yeah, I was gonna say. But it could be basically a side hustle. Right. So then yeah, so go on, so tell me. So you figure it out. So we eat food and we eat bread there and the and certain molecules from the food we eat combine with the oxygen within the cell in within an organelle called mitochondria to create

what we call a dentistry and triphosphate ATP or energy. ATP is essentially essentially energy within the within the cell. And it's created by these organelles called mitochondria. And in order for mitochondria to create that energy, they need very high levels of NAD. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, NAD. More from our guests, but first a few words from our sponsor. Say goodbye to endless grocery store trips and take out food because HelloFresh has you covered. From step-by-step recipes to pre-measured ingredients, you'll have everything you need to get a wow worthy dinner on the table in just about 30 minutes. I've got to tell you I've been using HelloFresh for a while now and both my kids and husband love it. They're also so accommodating.

You can add on extra-sure meals like garlic bread or cookie dough. You can change your delivery days, your food preferences. It is awesome. And for a limited time only, you can get 9 free meals with HelloFresh by going to HelloFresh.com slash hustle9 and enter hustle9. That's 9 free meals by going to hellafresh.com, slash hustle 9 and enter hustle 9. NAD is vital is a key metabolite for converting food into ATP. So what we what the scientists said was well maybe the NAD levels are too low to activate these Certo and genes and they started looking into NAD, elevating NAD in order to activate the serotonin genes. And in terms of how they realized, wait a minute, NAD level is really

decline, like as we age. Yeah, exactly. So people produce NAD, but it does decline as you age. So how do people then, so you're trying to figure out how to then give, give, get, well, you can tell me. Okay. Yeah. But you're doing good. Thank you. I'm trying. But so I'm a big believer in NAD and I just so I want to be, I want you to explain that I, I was telling you earlier, I used to get the, I still do, I get these IVs of NAD and why I get them is because it's great for anti aging, it's great for focus, it's great for energy, and it's, I thought, the best way to get it into your system is obviously through IV.

Then before, like I said, I even knew you, I found these true niangin supplements, which is a much more accessible way to do it. That's a better way to do it. I'll explain to you why. Yeah, exactly. But I want people to understand, like, NAD to me, I mean, that's a better way to do it. Now, I'll explain to you why. Yeah, exactly. But I want people to understand like, NAD to me. I mean, yeah, of course I may know because I'm in the health space, you too. But for people who don't know, that's why I want you to kind of tell people like what

it is and not what it is, but like why it's so beneficial and why you're basically dedicating your career now to this thing. Because when we realize that NAD declines, more accurately, you can describe it as NAD declines under stress and getting old is stressful in a lot of ways. But it's physiological stress. So getting old qualifies as physiological stress. And virtually every age-related disorder

that you can think of is also associated with a decline in NAD. So this was discovered there was a published study in 2010 that said NAD declines with years. And then in 2012, in December of 2012, another study was published that replicated that original resveratrol mouse study that showed if we elevate NAD levels, indeed, we can turn a 60-year-old mouse into a 20-year-old mouse physiologically.

And concurrent with that. A 20-year-old mouse? That's a big difference. The quits, like a mouse looks to you. Yeah, okay. I was going to say that's a big, yeah. The equivalent. Yes. So for a person that what would it do? Do you have those do you have those stats?

We do not have stats on how effects longevity. Okay, we don't okay No, because how would you do that? Well, it's interesting true nitrogen is an ingredient the scientific name is nicotinamide riboside and nicotinamide riboside is a precursor to NAD, meaning if you take true niogen, it will elevate NAD levels. And that you buy already naturally produces. Yes, but it declines under stress and with age. But if you take a supplement of it, what is it? It basically helps produce it? Yeah.

Okay. So if you just take NADAD like you're doing when you get the ID The problem with NAD pure NAD as a molecule is it's ionized. It has a phosphate on it It there is because of the chemical structure the molecular structure of NAD there is no known transport mechanism for NAD, there is no known transport mechanism for NAD to penetrate the cell. So the majority of it is you're peeing out. I think that's with anything, right?

Like even if you take a vitamin C drift or an IV, right? Like if you're overproducing it, you'll pee it out anyway, right? If your body can't handle that amount at one, there's an excess. If there's an excess, you'll pee it out anyway, right? If your body can't handle that amount at one, there's an excess. If there's an excess, you'll pee it out. Yeah. So that's why there's a lot of controversy,

even over IVs in general, right? Because some people say they're like, silly, if you don't need it, and you're putting it in your body, you're gonna pee it out anyway. And there are other doctors who are big, staunch believers in it, right? It's like very controversial in that way.

So to talk about NADIV first, yeah. So as I said, NAD as a molecule has a hard time getting inside the cell. So what we believe happens is when you do an IV NAD drip, much of it converts into true nitrogen into nicotinamide riboside in the blood, and then penetrates the cell.

OK. Once it's inside the cell, it's miraculous to what happens. It very efficiently and very safely converts into NAD inside the cell. Once you have elevated NAD levels inside the cell, you have higher levels of first and foremost ATP. There's actually more energy, even without adding calories,

your cell is a bulkier, stronger, more energized cell. But it also activates all the repair enzymes in the cell. So many people who do these NAD-IV drips, first of all, it takes like four hours to get a grand of that. You're telling me, listen, first of all, not only that, it's very uncomfortable, like you're nauseous when you're doing it. There's nausea, there's chest pains, there's headaches, there's side effects. No, there's the loy side effects. It's not pleasant, but you're in the right place. One thesis why is because NAD doesn't penetrate the cell and it's converting

into NR. So then then let me ask you this. I mean, take NR and you'll elevate NAD levels and you won't have any of those side effects and you could do it orally. Take NR as true nitrogen. No, I know, I know. So why, what I'm curious, I guess, to say about it, is that what I found with a lot of IVs, you take it initially,

I felt it the first few times. I felt it the next couple of days. I felt more energy and more focus and alert. But then I feel like the fourth or fifth or sixth time you take them, they lose the efficacy. And I thought they were losing the effectiveness is because my body already had so much of it already. It's kind of capped its level, so to speak.

Well, we don't have any published studies on NADIV drips. We have well over a hundred true Nijins' case. And when I say, I'll just give you a little perspective. So Chromodex, as a company was a testing and ingredient company. And I can tell you the story of how I got involved. I was going to say like, so how I mean, I knew you were obsessed with longevity and anti-aging and NAD, but how did you then get into this Chromodex then, which is the company that produces it? Like what's okay. so go chronological. Go chronological.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So when I read those studies, I was working at Hallmark, because they had acquired that company that I had formed. And I, you know, every, virtually everybody knew that I had like a little bit of an intellectual obsession about the science of aging and NAD and telomeres and Rizvera Chual and Sir Tunes, et cetera, et cetera.

Your plate 265. I'm going on. Going on. Yeah. So when I read that study, it went to another level. Because now I realized that everything has pretty much been theoretical up until now, but now there may be an actual actionable thing that one can do. And so I researched it on almost a different level now, and found that there was

a company in Irvine called Chromodex, which is this chemistry lab of incredible scientists, chemists, biochemists, lab technicians that was formed by great chemists named Frank Jackson, That was formed by great chemist named Frank Jackson Still on our board still at the company that had developed a portfolio of interesting ingredients That they were supplying to mostly the dietary supplement business and one of those ingredients is this thing called nicotine in my Riboside that safely and elevates NAD levels and I looked looked at it and I thought, holy jeez. So there were manufacturers really. Yeah, basically. So I started investing in the company quite a bit

and getting to meet him. And it was publicly traded and meeting the scientists, they had a relationship with the inventor of nicotinamide riboside. I became friendly with him. I got him Dr. Charles Brenner. And eventually I went on the board. In 2015 I went on the board of directors of Chromodex and got to look inside of what was happening at the company. And I thought it was an

interesting company that wasn't really growing but was sitting on an ingredient that changes people's lives. Probably the most important ingredient of all time. And I'm just going to give you a little anecdote, relating back to before the studies of what an indication of how important nicotinamide riboside is. If you're a company like Chromodex that develops portfolios of ingredients, so what does that mean, develops a portfolio of ingredient? It means I heard a rumor that there was a tribe in Peru that, you know, would chew on an ancient root to cure arthritis.

Right. Okay. And so, they got that ingredient that was found in the root and they patented it and then they started selling it to supplement companies. Okay. That's an ingredient company. Okay. Right. Right. Right. If a company like that gets a phone call from a Harvard and says, you know, we hear you have this Peruvian root, we at our expense would like to do a study on your Peruvian root to see if it in fact is effective against arthritis or whatever indication at our expense.

A phone call like that's a good call for an ingredient company. And if a call like that happens five times or ten times, you hit a home run with your ingredient. Right, absolutely. But in the last six years, Chromodex has has received over 170 of those calls. Wow. From Harvard, from Mayo Clinic, from Scripps Research Institute, from NIH, from Cambridge, from Oxford, from Dartmouth, from Cornell, from Pick a First Rate Biochemistry Research Institute, and they aren't studying their ingredient,

nicotinamide riboside. And the reason for that is because for decades, scientists have understood the relationship between NAD and metabolism. And this discovery that NAD declines suggests, we'll wait a minute, there are all these diseases that are associated with metabolism. Anything related to aging is metabolic, arthritis, diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancers, hearing loss, cognitive loss. Indeed, anywhere there's a high concentration of cells, elevating NAD would have a therapeutic

benefit theoretically, so there's all these studies being done. Vitamin water just dropped a new zero sugar flavor called with love. Get the taste of raspberry and dark chocolate for the all warm, all fuzzy, all self-care, zero self-doubt you. Grab a with love today. Vitamin water's zero sugar, nourish every you. Vitamin water is a registered trademark of glass O. A journal is a journey, a place to gather thoughts

and become the best version of you. Papier creates thoughtfully crafted notebooks, journals, and more. They're curated journals cover themes like wellness, goals, and gratitude. of you. order. That's 10% off at papir.com. So you guys the only company, I feel like this is an ad for the company and it's actually not, it's not actually, no, no, no, it's not you. I mean, it's just, it's what it is though, right? Like is there any other company in the world that actually produces this ingredient? Not legally. But okay, so you're the only legal company that produces it. And the only one that has patents, legal, right FDA approval, safety studies, you know,

if you're going to, if you're interested in elevating NAD, which everybody should be, I think it should be in the water supply. Okay, yeah. You should take true nitrogen and nothing else. That should be your source. So, so Chromodex manufactures the ingredient, which I can't even pronounce. Nicotinamide riboside. Okay, you said that, perfect. You do it. And then Nicotinamide, not bad. Okay, not bad, right. And then that ingredient goes into true niagin.

It's true niagin, it's own entity then. No, it's a brand on the back of the box. It's a brand under Chromodex, right? Okay, got you. Okay, so then, do you buy cell to other big supplement companies too who are also doing it? There are a couple of companies to whom we supply it, we call it nitrogen. Okay. So you can buy nitrogen. There are one or two other dietary supplement companies that are offering NIAG in for the time being and perhaps longer. We are doing that. And we made a deal with Nestle.

Nestle is interested in putting NIAG in in boost. Really? Okay. But probably a little like a primary small amount. Like probably like. Oh, and actually they want to put a fair amount of it in there because The amount of published studies and it's expensive though. It is expensive. That's probably the main issue You know it's not cheap like how much is a bottle of this go for?

I think it's the retail price is 47 bucks 47 bucks. Okay, so then let's say okay, so then Chromodex you have this product that has true niagen. So you sell it to other people, it's the same product though virtually, right? If it's called niagen, it's right. It's probably legit. There are just so many companies trying to jump on the bandwagon, and one or two is actually blatantly stealing in terms of infringing on the patent. I'd run from that, not only is it illegal, but there's a safety concern. And in China, we see a lot of that in companies claiming

to have nicotinamide riboside in China. Okay, so then, how did you become the CEO? So you were on the board, you were an investor. So you were basically an investor in Chrome with X. You became a board member, and then how did you become the CEO of the company? You just wanted to one day and said, this is my money. So I'm going to be like, what happened? Like, what was the process? I got to know the other board members and some of the large investors and the company was experiencing some

issues. And it needed a new I had a, I proposed a new strategic direction for the company where we focus less on analytical testing and on ingredients and on this one ingredient and we become the one company focused on this ingredient and NAD in general. And the existing management team was, the board and the investors liked that idea but the existing management team was not constructed to do that. Right, right, right. They weren't storytellers,

they weren't consumer facing people. So the board asked me if I would do that. Yeah, it sounded like you're a natural fit given the background that you have. You see? It's not such a big change after all. It's actually not at all, exactly, well, like thinking.

You can go home now. No, so basically it makes sense. So then TrueNide is the one products, or when one company with under the umbrella of Chromodex, that you're really focusing on. So then how are sales? When I mean, I went in, initially, as the president of the company in March of 2017,

that's a little over two years ago. That first quarter, we did TrueNide in sales of about. That's a little over two years ago. That first quarter we did true knives and sales of about $100,000. Okay. Last quarter, I believe we did about 9 million. Okay, wow, that's a big jump. And was your projections for next quarter or next year or? Of course, it's a public company,

so we don't provide projections. Of course not. But you could, the growth trajectory has been significant as people are learning about NAD and learning about true nides and learning about the company and the commitment this particular company has to safety and compliance with the FDA. Our relationship with the FDA is excellent. We are committed. You know, one thing that has been surprising to me since coming in and operating this business is the frankly unscrupulousness of the dietary supplement business. Well, there's no, like, there's no, it's like the barrier to entry is very minimal. Anyone can just basically put a shingle on your door and do it, right?

That's the problem. And there are some very impressive people at the FDA who run the dietary supplements division, and I've met with them a few times, and I'm really impressed with them, and believe in their conviction that they need to protect the public, but it's intensely underfunded. So it's very difficult for them to enforce the regulations, the rules that exist, but they understand that the percentage, if you buy a dietary supplement in store, the chances are it's not what it says it is. That's really bad. Or it doesn't do what it says it's going to do. You've got a health claims issue and then you've got an actual ingredient and labeling issue. Right. These are important issues.

It's deadly. It's deadly. Yes. And there are examples of people who have been hurt. So how do people, how do you prevent that from, if you're saying they're underfunded and anybody with this, anyone can just kind of just say and do what they want, that barrier is so low, how do you protect that from happening? Like, what's... That we are approaching it in two ways.

One is by being the best in the industry. By having a brand that's trusted not because you like our marketing materials, but because you like our science. And that we don't put a product in the market unless we have done exceptional amounts, not only safety-chaining, but as studies, but efficacy as well. That one of the ingredients that we had was an ingredient called terastil bean. Terastil bean. Terastil bean. I could say that one. That's excellent. Thank you. Thank you. I get an

A-plus over there. And what does that do? Terastil bean is a cousin to Resveratrol. And what does that do? Terrestrial being is a cousin to Resveratrol. Mm. Okay. Only it comes from blueberries, not from red grapes. Oh. So that's an interesting ingredient, and the company was doing quite a bit of revenue selling that ingredient.

But a study came out that indicated that it elevates LDL cholesterol. Mm. Really? We no longer sell it. It's off the market, at least from Chroma Dex. Wow, that's so responsible. So we ate, we're eating the loss because if you don't invest in the brand, if you don't invest in the credibility, then whatever credibility you have as a brand is phony. Right.

So the best way to be trusted is to be trustworthy. Yeah. And so my first answer to the question of how you solve that problem is by leading by example. And that's our commitment as a company at Chromodex. And the other is to develop our relationship with the industry and with the FDA and with the other regulatory bodies. There's a patent process, there's an FTC, there's an FDA, they are here for a purpose to protect us. Right.

How are you educating people on any deal? Like I know I just kind of gave a very water down, you know, definition of what it is. But can you tell people what exactly are the benefits of taking it and then we can go into like the other products actually? Sure. Or if we have time.

How are we doing on time? Well, you had to be out of here. Okay. Well, there's two questions, you asked. One is how does one get the word out and the other is what? Well, how are you guys educating people on what NAD is and what exactly are the benefits of NAD on a much more? You know, a little more detailed than just me saying it's great for energy and cognitive function and alertness Just give me give me maybe give me a few other little benefits. Well, who should you take it? Who should take it? Okay, that's three questions. I know. That's my that's why you're going to be here for four and a half hours.

All right. Well, the first question is there are certain very smart, very progressive, very well-researched podcasters that are inviting us to come on and speak and talk about. That's true. That's true. Okay. Good to know. Yes. Thank you. I take as a compliment. Go on. Next. The benefits to NAD. You have to be careful because until there's a published clinical study, you can't make an actual health claim and that's good that the FTC protects us this way. So why don't we, so, okay. There are five human clinical studies that have been published.

Okay. And there's a website called clinicaltrials.gov which shows that there are 40 total being done. So most of them have yet to be published. So what are you comfortable saying that it's good? What we can tell you is that it's safely, that true niogen safely and efficiently elevates NAD levels in the cells. And we test blood cells and you show that it elevates NAD.

And we also show it elevates ATP, energy within the cells. So we can say basically, its benefit is energy, increased energy because you feel comfortable saying that. A decrease in inflammation, an increase in, what did you say? Because you were using a lot of very big words. NAD ATP. Right. But that's energy inflammation. What was the other one that you said you

feel comfortable saying the benefit is? I forgot. OK. Well, you should take more of the NAD. The other thing that we can say is that it promotes the repair of the sale. Right, so repair, right. So, so, so. That's a big one though. So enormous. This is why so many athletes are taking. That's why I mean, this is why this is why I'm a big yes. That's why a lot of people, I feel like that's why I was very interested in this because I know that it's becoming much more known,

more mainstream, but it's still not mainstream, and I think it's a very important thing to kind of get out to the public. So the question is who should take it was the third question. Right, and that was my other question. You know, getting old sucks. Yeah, you're telling me. You don't know. Well, thank you. That's very nice for you to say. But here's unfortunately the truth at some point you will. Yeah, well, I'm feeling it. I mean, yes, I get it's all relative, but you're saying people as the age after what? Is there an age you're saying people should start taking? Well, we show that NAD levels begin to decline in your 20s. Wow, that then what's the percentage of decline? There have been publications, there's literature out there that's saying you have half as much

at 40 as you have at 20. And then at 60? Half as much at 60 as you have at 40. So then if people take NAD daily, can you say what that... Yeah, it will elevate for two or three weeks if you take it every day or the FDA recommended dosage of true niogen is 300 milligrams. Okay. Candidly I take much more but you do how much so how much would you take of this stuff? I take 600 milligrams a day and then if

my body was how many pills that's four, okay. But when I am experiencing any kind of physiological stress, like I was out in the sun, or I traveled, you know, across country, or I stayed up late, or I had a couple of too many drinks, or I'm fighting something. I know that the cells are fighting. I know skin cells are fighting radiation. I know this, so right? Right. I help them. Right. And helping them. So I up the dose. You're up the dose. So what other products do you guys even have under chromatex that like you're focusing on besides? If we could find a product that was this great, I promise you we'd sell it.

Right. But right now, it's this one. This is the main look. Every really people should be taking this thing. I mean, a lot of people have back pain, a lot of people have trouble sleeping at night, a lot of people don't heal quite as quickly. They're working out, but they don't work out quite as well as they used to work out. No, I get you. What happened with people who don't, I mean, you said yourself, it's not exactly, it's not like it's like a five dollar bottle. What mean, to hit the mainstream, you have to have a price point that's much more acceptable to everybody, right? Yeah, it's expensive, unfortunately. So what do you do for that?

Do you dilute it and sell it? And you eventually roll out a product that's a little bit more diluted that has some of it by Nestle's boost? I mean, I don't know, you should come help us at market. I know, right? You guys can't afford me. No. That's probably true. Yeah. Well, we could try. We can, you can try. We can have a, we can have a conversation offline. That, that we do show a dose response as low as 100 milligrams a day, going up to a gram a day. We can show that there's within a few hours or NAD levels are elevated, even as low as 100 milligrams. So even a little bit is better than nothing.

Correct. Okay, that's that's that's good to know. Right. So these are just very concentrated. But I mean, so then okay, so now okay, so I think basically I know you guys got to run. So what we can do is we can like wrap this up if you want and we can just kind of wrap this up and then come back, you can come back and we can talk about other things that are basically on my little cheat sheet of stuff to talk about. That's my pleasure. That's good.

Anytime. All right. So how do people find you Chromodex? Give us the whole spiel. Me personally. How about not you, personal? I don't think you want people. How do people know about where they find true nitrogen, Chromodex, blah, blah, blah? It is in a few specialty retail stores right now, but really where they sell I think Bristol farms

Okay Press juicery and bulletproof coffee presently sell in the US. Okay, in candidates and Whole Foods Canada a well-health Canada This isn't Whole Foods in the US. No Hmm, why? The retail business has got its own set of economics. So we're really just an online company. Got it. And we're really just truenidejohn.com and amazon.com.

Right. What Amazon could be a massive beast for you if you do really well good at digital marketing and Facebook ads. And can you be helpful with that? You never know, maybe. Okay. I mean, this can be a whole other situation. Well, this sounds great. Okay, guys, so that's basically this is Rob Freed, a movie producer to CEO of a very

innovative health company called Chromodex. It was a pleasure having you on the podcast Habits and Hustle, and I'm going to leave with what one thing because it's a, Habits and Hustle. And I'm going to leave with what one thing because it's a cold habits and hustle. Give me three habits you do every single day besides taking true nitrogen. I have coffee with my wife every morning. Okay, what time do you wake up every morning? 6.37. Okay, another one. Give me two more habits. I work out every night at 10 p.m. What do you do for your work out? What's my daily routine? Yes, first of all, I love to watch. I'm obsessive about baseball and I'm also obsessed about excellent limited television series. Which ones do you like to watch? The one that I mean, I've literally watched almost everything. I'm watching presently watching designated survivor. All right. Which was on ABC. Oh okay is there

anything else that you can recommend? Yeah I mean I love. Me too ones that recommend too. Okay well I watch more. I loved I loved breaking bad and I loved That's an obvious one breaking bad tonight. What's an obscure one that I love? Yeah, cuz you're like yeah, you should or yes, we won movie that's obscure Picky blinders That a movie I loved picky blinders. No, it's a it's a limited British limited series Okay, also the bodyguard was great did you see that one? No, I didn't see that. The bodyguard was a great limited series from BBC.

So it was Piki Blinders. I heard Shistle was good. I watched all of Shistle. But you're doing okay. I'm going to be watching that like in the next video. It was overrated, but I, sorry if you're the filmmaker. I liked it. It was overrated.

But I loved Fowda, which... Oh, I love Fowda. These are his really shows, actually. And then there was a great one called Taboo, which is also. No, another one is really one? No, that was on USA Network. Oh, was it? It was also a BBC produced or a British production.

And I really enjoy watching these things. I just finished the fourth season of, I forgot what it was called. Anyway, I watch a lot of these series, and I also watch a lot of baseball. So what I do is I get on the bike for an hour, and I watch the limited series, and then I do another half hour of ice, you know, weights.

So always at night? Always at night, 9.30, 10, and then I shower and go to bed. Hmm, I like that. Normally you hear the reverse, and the more you do that, but that works, as long as you get any good in, doesn't matter when you're doing it. And I'm always feeling like I have tremendous amount of energy.

And just years ago, I wouldn't be able to have been able to do that. I know why that is. I'm going to why. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. Rob was a pleasure. And hopefully I'll see you again soon on this podcast.

It's warm in here. Get you think? I'm beyond. I'm sweating my ass off. So that's why we better wrap this up. Thank you guys. Thanks, Rob. Thank you, Joe. Bye-bye We inspire you. This is your moment. Excuses we in heaven that the habits and hustle podcasts power by happiness. This episode is brought to you by the YAP Media Podcast Network. I'm Holla Taha, CEO of the award-winning digital media empire YAP Media,

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