The Bossticks - What's Really In Your Supplements & Vitamins with Katerina Schneider Founder & CEO of Ritual

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

#555: Today we're sitting down with the founder of one of our favorite brands, Katerina Schneider, Founder and CEO of Ritual. Ritual is a health company that is setting a new standard in the supplement industry through traceable science and traceable sourcing. While pregnant and in search of a prenatal she could trust, Katerina took matters into her own hands and founded the company on the belief that better health begins with better ingredients. Today Katerina gets into what's ACTUALLY in the drugstore supplement brands, the lack of rules by the FDA surrounding supplementing, and why you should care about where your products are sourced from.    To connect with Ritual click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential This episode is brought to you by Ritual Visit http://ritual.com/skinny30 for 30% off your first month of Ritual Produced by Dear Media  

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to you by a ritual. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness.

Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. My dad had been an entrepreneur. I saw our family go from nothing to him starting a business and fall. following his passion. And I knew that like someday I was going to do that, but I didn't know what it was. And then I started spending so much time with some of the world's most inspiring founders. And I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. I just don't know what it is. Pregnancy kind of allowed me to be a little bit more creative and let go of the fact that like, hey, I can't do this. I can do this too. I can start a company just like some of these

founders I'd met with. Welcome back, everybody. Welcome back to the skinny confidential him and our show. That clip was from our guest of the show today. Long time coming. Can't believe we haven't done it sooner. Katarina Schneider from Ritual. For those of you that are unfamiliar with Kat, she is the founder and CEO of Ritual. Ritual is a health company that is setting a new standard in the supplement industry through traceable science and traceable sourcing. While pregnant and in search of a prenatal she could trust, Kat took matters into her own hands and founded the company that you've all come to love so well. Ritual has been a partner of this show for so long, and we've been meaning to get Kat on the show for a really long time now.

It only took about seven years. Some of the topics you can expect to hear in this episode are holistic medicine versus modern Western medicine, why third-party testing is so important with supplements, the FDA's lack of rules surrounding heavy metals in our diet, earning the trust of customers, and what's actually inside your vitamin. So again, this episode is jam-packed. Kat is an amazing founder. She's great on the mic.

With that, Kat Schneider, welcome to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the Skinny Confidential. Him and her. What point in your childhood do you look back and pinpoint something where you had an epiphany about health? There are so many moments in my childhood where I had an epiphany about health. I grew up in a fanatical health household to the point where we had Norman Walker juicers and we're creating press juice.

You know, we were doing press juicing before it was cool. My mom was into Ayurveda and all these different. health philosophies, so we cycled through so many of them. But as far as an epiphany, it would probably be when my mom had breast cancer that took my thinking around health to the extreme. And I started a blood type diet. I was in therapy once a week and really kind of understood the impact that stress has on your body. So I grew up, we were refugees, Ukraine. So I was born in Ukraine in 1989. My family and I moved and we lived in a welfare hotel in Brooklyn. Wow. And my dad eventually became an entrepreneur. My mom, barely knew English,

ended up going to business school and working on Wall Street against kind of popular belief. My grandparents were really encouraging her to become an aesthetician, you know, which was really typical at the time. And she's like, no, I want to work on Wall Street. And so she went to business school and she worked on the trading floor with all men. And the stress really impacted her health to the point where she stopped working in finance and actually became a macrobiotic practitioner and chef. I was just, I'm obviously in Austin with you guys. I went to Casa de Luce, which is a macrobiotic center. And so I got really into into health and wellness my whole life. I think my mom having cancer pushed me over, over the edge.

You mentioned juicing and are you Vedic. Did she use a lot of those tools in her toolbox to help heal her cancer? Yeah, she went, she really went deep into integrative health and medicine. When she got cancer, she ended up not doing chemo and some of the more traditional path. which I don't know. I would love to hear your feelings on that. We just interviewed someone who's decided not to do chemo, and she kind of went down the rabbit hole. I would love to know what you're feeling on that is,

especially because you experienced seeing it firsthand. I think it's deeply personal, however someone chooses to, whatever someone chooses to do. And I think depending on the stage, I'm not a doctor, so I probably shouldn't speak on this. But I think it's deeply personal. And, you know, it's really scary when your parent has cancer and they decide they don't want to go with modern medicine.

And how old were you when your mother was diagnosed? I was in college, so I was about 20. And actually a close friend of mine had just died from Hodgkins, who I went to college with. I actually followed her to Brown because of that. And so it was pretty, I think, transformative to me. Actually, at an early age, I wanted to be a doctor. So before I even went to college, I was like, I'm going to be a doctor. and then I think I saw a lot of blood once, and I was like, no way, this is not for me.

I'm not going to be a doctor. My mom having cancer was definitely transformative. I saw her try so many different alternative therapies, and I was kind of right there with her experimenting, even though I didn't have any health conditions at the time. It was just very interesting to me. And then I totally veered left and put health and wellness, nutrition aside. and didn't touch it for so many years. So did she end up healing her cancer?

She did. Herself, with no chemo. Yeah. When you look back, is there something that you can pinpoint? I know you're not a doctor. I'm just wondering, what was the thing that you think really helped? Or was it a mix and a medley of all the stuff? I think it was a mix of everything.

And I think it was also, you know, she was really fortunate that that happened. But it was a mixture of nutrition, psychology. and different healing treatments, alternative healing treatments that worked for her. It's so interesting to me how this is such a controversial subject to people that we can't talk about different ways that people heal. Even the person that we just had on the podcast, we had on this woman and she, you could tell that you're uncomfortable with coming out and saying, hey, this worked. And the problem is, is like, you know, some people I don't think see all.

all the options. They just see chemo. You know what I mean? Because people are sort of afraid to talk about it because of the internet. Well, people think that if you're not following strict medical decorum, that you're somehow potentially doing harm to people that should follow that, especially if you have a platform like this, right? Like, they think, well, you have a responsibility to stay in line with stuff that is either maybe more studied or more proven, right? Which I get, like, there's a valid argument for that. But at the same time, I think you also have a responsibility as a platform to show other ways of life and to show other options or else you get into this weird thing where people think you can only do something one way or think one way. I agree. And as a platform, it's not something I even

talk about. I don't even know if I legally, like they might need to cut this. But I legally, there's because I'm selling supplements, I almost can't talk about illnesses or diseases because of the regulations. But I have so much experience and things to, you know, obviously to say. Well, I think you're just sharing your mother's personal experience, which is probably fine. Totally. Just throwing it out there. Who knows? The regulators, they love listening to me, I guess.

Yeah, but it is, it is amazing. I don't know what I would personally do, but it's pretty inspiring what she does now. And now she goes and helps heal people through food and nutrition. I can't help but that that had a impact on the framing of, for me to start ritual. you know, it's really interesting. The other thing is I grew up thinking that supplements and vitamins were snake oil. Huh. I think a lot of people think that.

That's a very real thing to say. So what changed? I even opened up, because I was an investor in L.A. at some point, and I saw a lot of tech companies, but I also saw a supplement company. I remember, and I opened up an old email, and it said, and I passed, and I remember forwarding to someone saying snake oil. And it's so fascinating. because I never really took vitamins and supplements before.

I was really into wellness and alternative healing and a lot of the woo-woo stuff that's cool now, but I never took these kind of traditional vitamins and supplements because I was taught that you can get everything you need from your foods and from your environment, which isn't true. Sure. And I know we're going to talk about everything you've done at ritual, which is nothing short of incredible, but why do you think, the supplement industry as a whole gets a bad rap because obviously you're not the I used to think

the same way like okay like what you know what's real what's not what do I need to get and now doing this show and talking to so many different people you realize that maybe you can't get everything you need from your food especially now and so what kind of changed your thinking around this what changed my thinking on the industry was actually getting pregnant and it was the first time where I was like hey I actually have to take a supplement I have to take a prenatal vitamin shoot I'm stuck in the industry that I think is pseudoscience. And so it was the first time that I absolutely had to take a vitamin supplement. So then I became a researcher and I was already a skeptic going into creating a product

or researching a product in a category that I was skeptical of my whole life. What do you think supplement companies that do it right do? and what do you think the ones that do it wrong, do it wrong? Right? I think like that people, there's so many products out there, including yours. Like how do, how are consumers supposed to actually even be able to decipher what's good and what's not? That's actually the best question because I was trying to figure that out as well as I was navigating. Hear that learn best question. So I was, I mean, I've been navigating that space for the last seven years and it's so tricky because you have 95,000 supplements on the market today. And, the, you have, you know, the

last time there were any major changes and updates to regulation was 30 years ago. And there were only 4,000 supplements on the market at that time. So the industry has just exploded, but there haven't been major updates to regulation. And I think one of the things that is wild to me is everyone I meet, whether it's media or press or even just, you know, your best friend, they're like, oh, the supplement industry is not regulated. And I'm like, actually, it's a regulated industry, like point blank. But it's grown so fast that it's kind of hard to keep up with the regulation that's actually necessary. So, you know, to your question of, like, how does a consumer navigate that? I've learned a few things, a little more than a few things,

the last seven years. And I think as a consumer, you have to think of safety and efficacy when it comes to supplements. Like, is this going to hurt me? And is this actually, effective or is it snake oil? And there are a couple ways to navigate this. The first is really making sure that the products you take have third-party testing. And as someone who's manufactured, you know, so many products over the last seven years and now has the, you know, leading prenatal vitamin in the U.S. online. Third-party testing, I can't get enough of third-party testing in the fact that it's not a requirement because we've thrown out hundreds of thousands of products. Like you guys specifically, that just didn't pass, like as you were developing.

Yeah, as we're developing, because you can't just rely on a manufacturer to do your testing. And that's not a requirement. So you, you will be surprised what you will find when you third party test products. No matter how incredible the manufacturer is, no matter how the ingredient suppliers you are, you're working with, third party testing is a must. And It actually, we can talk about this later, but one of the things that's really important to ritual, maybe less so important to other companies, is heavy metals or heavy metals. And there are currently no regulations around protective upper limits on heavy metals. So the FDA doesn't set health protective measures when it comes to heavy metals.

And it's such a problem in protein, especially plant-based protein. Like, you think you're doing something healthier because you're, consuming plants, a plant-based protein instead of way. But the fact is a lot of those ingredients are grown overseas and there's a lot of contamination and heavy metals are just, that industry is just incredibly high with heavy metals. So third-party testing is so important. So that's just one. I can go on to. I just found out my favorite chocolate has lead in it. Everything. Everything has lead or water has lead. Is that okay? It's okay. So this is actually, I think, the biggest problem is that you're consuming heavy metals every day.

I mean, this water, I don't know, you know, I'm curious how much lead this water has. Our water has... Don't worry about bashing Mountain Valley. This is my favorite. This is what I have my office too. I've had this stuff on the table for years, but I don't care if anyone bash them. This is actually my favorite water. I pay full price on Mountain Valley.

They haven't sent me a fucking thing for whether it's six or seven years on every table. We can bash them all they want, even though it is great water. My favorite water. Yeah, mine too, unfortunately. So lead is okay? So lead is not okay. heavy metals in high amounts are not okay. They are incredibly toxic to your body in so many different ways.

I think that people don't realize is there's heavy metals in everything that you eat, everything that you drink. It's just the amounts that matter. And so, you know, obviously you see the headlines where they'll say, oh my gosh, this chocolate has heavy metals, but like what's the amount? And I think that that's the disconnect a little bit. But it is important because right now, You don't know.

You might see a Prop 65 warning if you're in California where if something's above a certain limit of heavy metals, you have to put the warning elsewhere. And in the U.S., there's no warning. But even with that, you don't know the amounts. And so something we started to do was actually started listing all of the heavy metal amounts in our protein online. And so it's pretty, like, transformative to the industry. And we're also going to start doing advocacy. so pushing the industry to set these health protective measures. So that's why third-party testing is important.

And I think if you could go one step further to validate that, which are certifications, that's also important. Is there a certain third-party that people should look for? Is it on the bottle, is on the website? Like, is all third-party created equal, or is there like a gold standard? Third-party testing is varied depending on the product type. So, for instance, for protein, we have informed sport and informed choice, which looks at banned substances, especially as protein is important for athleticism and all these things.

For our multivitamin for 18 plus, we go with USP. It's actually a funny story. When I was starting the company, I was asking our scientists, I'm like, what's the hardest thing to get? I was just like really competitive. And I was like, what's the hardest certification to get that no one gets? And less than 1% of supplement companies have USP verification was US Front. pharmacopia really well recognized. So we got that on our multivitamin. And so I think those things are really good, you know, validators where you're like not, the company is not just saying they're

third party testing tested, but there's another company that's validating those third party results. The problem, I think, as a founder and as an entrepreneur and a business, is that getting third party testing is really hard when you're trying to reformulate or you're trying to change things around. we're still figuring out which products get which certifications for us and what that means to kind of innovation because we also invest in clinical studies, but it's a whole other thing. So third-party testing is, I would say, another layer above. Some of the best are USP NSF. How do you go from thinking vitamins or supplements or snake oil to not?

What's the in between there? You're an investor at the time. you're writing snake oil back to a friend. What's the in between? Yeah. So how did I go from snake oil to I'm like a vitamin fanatic? I would say being pregnant and realizing, hey, I need a prenatal vitamin and how do I make this not snake oil? I couldn't think about anything else but prenatal vitamins for for months. I was four months pregnant when I started ritual. I knew that I didn't have the answers, but if people needed those products, I knew that I was the one to make them better. And I was going to raise, I was uniquely positioned to raise money, which you need

to do things the right way, because it turns out to do things the right way involved, you know, third-party testing or clinical studies or things that no one had ever really invested in before. So I got, I was pregnant. I was an investor running a fund in L.A. investing in. Your own fund or you started working for a fund? I was partners with Troy Carter, who is Lady Gaga's manager at the time. And he had an incredible investor. He invested in Uber, Dropbox, Barbie Park or Spotify. It was the best job.

I got to meet with amazing founders and help them shape the stories around their products and their brands. And it was a really interesting moment for me because my dad had been an entrepreneur. I saw our family go from nothing to him starting a business. business and following his passion. I knew that like someday I was going to do that, but I didn't know what it was. And then I started spending so many time, so much time with founders, some of the world's, like, most inspiring founders. And I was like, you know what? I think I can do this. I just don't know what it is. And I got pregnant and I'm such an analytical, crazy, like,

analytical person in my backgrounds in math. Pregnancy kind of cut out that, that voice in my head and allowed me to be a little bit more creative and let go of the fact that like, hey, I can't do this. I can do this too. I can start a company just like some of these founders I'd met with. Being on both sides of it, because you're a perfect person to ask this, when people are thinking, like they have an idea and maybe at the got to a point where they're thinking about bringing it on capital, what are the things you see people doing right and what are the mistakes you see people making when they're actually pitching a VC or an angel? It's really interesting because I thought since I was an investor, I would be so great.

at raising money and I was so not great at it. And I think that was wild. I was four months pregnant. I walked into a top investor's office in L.A. And I was just super honest. I was like, I'm pregnant and I'm going to start a company and I'm really excited. He definitely killed my vibe. He was like, you can either start a company or you can have a family, but you can't do both. And I know that doesn't answer you question, but there were things that, you know, I kind of learned along the way being on the other side and just how hard it was. I didn't have as much empathy or care to founders when I was an investor. Like sometimes I would not email someone back or show up late for a meeting, just totally disrespectful. And then when I was pregnant and I was like, I'm going to

change the vitamin industry and walking into these offices, mostly men, you pour your your heart out. And if people are being rude or disrespectful, it hurts, you know. And so that's fine. You build a tough skin. But I think if I were to ever do investing again, I would just be a lot kinder and have empathy and also like awe and amazement for people that are building companies and are, especially the last couple of years when it's been pretty traumatic, I would say. Yep. I think about this all the time. And we were talking about this SVB thing that just happened. And I think it revealed a lot about certain investors. And what I tell people all the time, that asked me this question. I was like,

at the end of the day, not all investors are created equal and not all checks are created equal, and you have to decide if you want these people in your company and on your cap table. And there are some phenomenal investors, many who have been operators before that get what it's like to be in that position and kind of like put your heart on the line and bear it all and actually go and humbly ask somebody else for money, which is not easy to do. And then there's some other people, if any of these guys are listening, they know who I'm talking about that have never been in an operator's position and just have a big checkbook and they have no empathy or understanding what it's like to be on the other side, and their input is a lot of the time

not valuable at all. To your point, it's really important if you're thinking about pitching an investor or you are an investor to put yourself in both sides of the table and understand that, you know, this is a partnership. And at the end of the day, you don't just want to take a check from anyone just because they have a deep pocket. You want to be with someone that you know is going to be in the trenches with you that's going to be in the thick of it that is empathetic, that understands. So I just say that to only maybe to caution people if they're having that experience where someone's not emailing you back or taking you seriously or being empathetic. Like you're better off without them anyway.

You don't want them on your cap table. And that's just my two cents on it. I agree. I think oftentimes as founders we go in and we're like nervous and we want them to like us. But it is a two-way interview. And you're interviewing almost like a life partner. And so you also have to be like asking questions that are important to you. hopefully you have a choice, you have multiple choices to choose from.

Yeah, like I want to know what these guys' family lives like. I want to know how they're with their kids. I want to know how they're with their kids. I want to who they're with their friends. Like, I don't want to mean. Like, it's important. And I don't just say guys. I say that for the women, too. Like, I want people that are good people.

I think the last few years have shown just how important it is to choose the right investors. There have been so many events for businesses, whether we know, we were just talking about the SBB situation, COVID, shutting down. your offices if you were an in-person company to going remote. There's just every week feels like another drama. And having investors that are not kind of followers are not just going with the hype, but really are like deeply in the trenches and are willing to support you in all these kind of twists and turns. That's been invaluable. I don't know if ritual would exist without some of our investors. What was your strategy when you launched ritual? was it to launch with one product and nail it out of the park?

Like, what was the thought process behind it? It's a great question as well. We have someone in our ear that like ask this one. Oh, really? No, I'm just kidding. So, maybe we should though. It's really great because I feel like Lauren asked really smart product questions. Anyways, I...

Sorry, Michael. No, but no one else asked these things. We're going to get in the car after and be like, like, who asked the most question? I'll tell you. I'll rate you guys. Okay, yeah, rate us after. I think it's a great question because there was a really thoughtful strategy to launching the brand. And even though I wanted to, you know, my story started with the prenatal vitamin, I decided that we're not going to launch a prenatal vitamin because we needed to earn the trust of that consumer.

Smart cookie. That's smart. And I was told actually in a- Because prenatals like maybe more sensitive? Yeah, because prenatal sensitive. It's such a sensitive state that you're in. That makes total sense. Are you acting like a podcast professional right now and eating a sucker candy?

It's just a little, it's a little sucker candy. What's going on with you? You get that from Grandma's cookie dish or what? Yeah, it is from Grandma's cookie dish. Okay, God. I just had two rituals before. It's like we've done this before. It matches her coat.

It's yellow. The best Italian candy, go on. God. I don't eat candy, I wouldn't know. Just, only sugar-free. Yeah, I have a whole thing about sugar, but it's fine. What was icing? Oh, yeah.

So we didn't launch with the prenatal vitamin at first because we wanted to earn our trust. It was interesting because I remember when I was pitching the car. company. People told me you could never earn the trust of that prenatal consumer online. That's going to be impossible. Also, that prenatals and like women's health as a small niche industry, just like wild. I mean, this was eight years ago now, so things have obviously evolved. Mindset has evolved. Thank God. But we didn't launch the prenatal. We launched our multi-itamin for women 18 plus because we wanted to earn the trust of that consumer. And I'm so proud of that product because it's the best case study of how my vision for changing the industry is, like, reflected in that product.

It now has a peer-reviewed and published human clinical study. It's published in Frontiers Journal, which is an leading international journal. It also has a clinical study is with a major university, not required by the industry. Like, most products don't have their own clinical studies, nor are they peer-reviewed and published. Has USP verification, which less than 1% of companies have. And we also got a patent on the delivery technology. So I think one thing that people don't think about is they think about their nutrients or how, you know, maybe they think about their nutrients or they think about a lot of the things that are products are made without. But they rarely think about how are those nutrients like actually getting into the body. And so Ritual's born as a technology company, obviously technology with software, but also technology in the,

delivery mechanisms of how products get in. This product has like this crazy trifecta, which was from the get-go, the vision is like how do we prove safety and efficacy with all the products that we launch? And it sounds like you had massive success when you launched this. Was that a lot to handle as a new founder? We did have massive success. People had never seen traceability on that level in this industry before. People never even questioned. like where are their ingredients for coming from? You know, if I'd walk up to someone like, you're taking D3. Where, where is that coming from? Do you know it's most likely sheep's wool? Like most people did not know that. And we're like, well, our D3 comes from lichen, you know, wild harvested lichen in the UK from this company. And we were the first company like really partner with all of our ingredients suppliers and kind of flip that on its head and be like, you should care. Because this is also, it's not just food. You're actually putting this in your body. every single day. I think that led to the initial success. It was something that no one was thinking about in this category before. I also noticed when I would blog on Instagram, it was so aesthetically pleasing.

Yes. That was different. That was different. It was important. And it was interesting because my experience in branding and things like that, I mean design and it was very passionate about that. And it wasn't, the design of the product didn't come from, let's create something really beautiful. It actually came from, how do we encapsulate water soluble and fat soluble nutrients together without them interacting? And then I met this amazing company that we partnered with that helped create this beautiful aesthetic, which again, was never there before. But it's such a, it's such a magical thing when you have like form and function combined. when something is purposefully stunning or beautiful, but it actually is that way because it serves a function.

And that was kind of the magic, I think, behind the early days of the brand. In the early days, what hats were you wearing within your company? I was wearing all the hats. But I wasn't wearing the scientist's hat. So this is like where it's kind of, I think, you know, I have a mixed viewpoint on VC money and funding these days, you know, not these days, but it's just in general. For certain industries,

it's really important to raise money and do things the right way. And supplements, I believe that this was the industry to do that in, and that allowed us to hire a leading scientist in the industry as my first hire really quickly and do things the right way.

This guy was incredible. He's still our founding scientist. We now have a chief scientific officer that's ex-faculty at Harvard Medical School, PhD in physiology. we have 20 scientists full time on staff, which is really rare, I will say. But he was this guy, and he was in an industry for 30 years. And I was just like, where all the skeletons buried? And so we spent a year just figuring that out. I think it was a cool, we were a cool pair

because he knew what hadn't been done for 30 years that he'd always wanted to do. And I was this kind of new. were soon-to-be mom who was a skeptic and was questioning everything and knew the consumer so well. And so combined, it's kind of like this art and science. It's how ritual is born. What are things in people's vitamins just generally that would disgust them? It's an interesting question because it's something I've been thinking a lot about kind of the reverse of that is that we've, as a culture, just become so obsessed with, what our products are made without, that we kind of don't even focus on what our products are made with.

So give it to us. What are they made with? You're going to be like sheep's butthole. Yeah. I mean, all that stuff. It was interesting. What? Yeah, no, not shoes but hooves and hides and all that stuff.

I mean, that's what gelatin is. So it depends. Like, I'm a vegan. I know you guys have you. No. I think everyone should do whatever they want to do. Carson, cancel the rib. I know.

No, my husband, my kids eat me. I grew up eating meat. But for me, it's not even a disgusting thing. It's more, you know, cruelty thing. So it's not even a healthy thing. Which I have no issue at all with that perspective. I think if it's a cruelty thing and that's your morals, like great, all the power to you. Yeah. I don't know, you know, I don't, I don't preach that it's a healthier way of living. Everyone's got to do it. It's not healthier from my kids. I can tell you that. On the show and I'll bear the brunt of the bad reviews. I love to do a preach on this show once in a while. So what are things that are in our vitamins that are gross? Okay. So when I was pregnant and I went to my OB's office and they pulled out that shelf when they have like all these, they have all this prescription prenatals. And, you know, you're supposed to avoid eating tuna because it's high in mercury.

This prenatal had oil from from tuna. And I'm like, this is. So they're not even making the correlation? Yeah, I'm like, this is really confusing. Lake blue coloring. And I'm avoiding Lake Blue coloring in my food right now. Why is this in my prenatal vitamin? Shalak.

Beetle poop. So the encapsulation. So the encapsulation was really tricky for me early on because I do eat plant-based. And most of the encapsulations were made with gelatin, which is like, again, we have different viewpoints on this. But you just don't know where that's coming from. Yeah. It's not like it's grass.

bed hormone-free pasture rates. Yeah. You know what, too? I actually think after talking to a lot of different people in this industry that the capsule is what gets you. I think people are so worried about what's in the vitamin. I think what you just said about the capsule, people don't realize that the capsules are made with disgusting shit.

Well, and I think one thing that we probably align on is like, if we're talking about meat products, I think a poor meat product is a terrible choice, right? Like, you know what I mean? And I think that not all meat products are created equal. So that's the other difficult thing here, right? It's like whether you're vegan, you know, plant-based, whether you have a meat-based, like it all matters the source and where you're getting from and how it's being harvested or processed or how it's living.

Like this all matters, right? It's not like, hey, you know, there's a lot of meat products out there that I wouldn't get within, you know, 10 inches. You don't want Oscar Meyer baloney? No, I mean, like there's stuff like that. So I think, you know, this is where there's so much nuance to this stuff and we're living in a time, which. you know and we know very well.

We're like, you have to be very careful of your food sources and your cosmetics and your cleaning supplies and all of it. And, you know, and it's sometimes it sounds like woo-woo crazy stuff. But it's true. Like we didn't have this kind of abundance to all this stuff before. Michael's really turned a corner with those cleaning supplies.

And your water. My parents, as I mentioned, are absolutely like obsessed with health. I would, they would stay with us on our couch. And my husband, I would go,

you know, out for a day and they'd come back. And we brought our water tester and your water is really high in heavy metals. And, you know, other things. We just installed a new filter, the latest filter under your sink. So I hope you don't mind. But that's the kind of stuff that I grew up with. And I think it's, you know, I think that it's healthy.

But I also, I've also kind of taken a step back about like the balance and like letting some things, you know, just not letting it also just stress you out. I think that's really hard, especially when I'm, like, and you guys too, like, when I'm in the industry and all I think about is, are the capsules and what they're made of and I'm meeting these people. It's like, how do you let that not just like literally become this conspiracy theory, psychotic person? The problem is, though, if you start removing things, like for instance, you know, we switched our cleaning products to branch basics. When you start removing it, the other stuff is stronger. So like, Now when I light a candle, a lot of them are off pudding because I've rid the house of all the cleaning supplies. So it's almost like we're living under all these smells and fragrances and all these things that you almost don't know it's affecting you until it's gone. It's the same thing if you're like drinking alcohol or having fast food and you get rid of it and then you reentered into your diet. It makes you sick. It's because your body's like,

whoa, whoa, whoa, this is poison in a way and it's not supposed to be here. But you get so used to this stuff. It's like a thorn in a horseshoe. You just don't know until it's pulling. out, you're like, oh, you know what I mean? But the capsule, right? You have to look what's in it. You have to look like the capsules. That's a really good observation. I think a lot of people don't look at the capsule. It's not something that we talk about, you know, as well. I mean, we have a vegan capsule. But when I was, most of the industry was, was these gel caps. And it was either gelatin. And I remember, this is a really funny story, actually. I was driving, trying to find a manufacturer. I didn't know nothing about the industry at the time. Now we've, we've,

work with like a leading pharmaceutical company. It's insane. Multiple billions. They sold part of whatever. I was driving and we went to this capsule manufacture and you pull up and the license plate of one of the cars does like soft gel too. You're like, whoa, this is not my, this is not, you know, someone who was not into pseudosite. I'm like, this is not my, these are not my people, really.

And I pulled up and they had this meeting and it's like all these guys wearing suits and and they're like, okay, so these are your options. You have the gelatin cap, which is made with like hooves and hides and like very hard to figure out where they're coming from. They're probably not grass fed. And the other option was a fish capsule, a fish gel, a fish encapsulation, fish gelatin. And I'm like, where is that coming from? and they're like tilapia and I'm like oh that doesn't sound so good it's coming from korea you know farm raised and I'm like no because I was treating it like food I was like that that wouldn't be something that

I feel comfortable sharing or eating and then what's the like what's the vegetarian option give me that one and they're like kareginen and at the time there were all these studies and they were only done in rodents where they were causing karygina was you know extremely high dosages was causing you know tumors and rodents But I was like, no thanks. And it's hard because they're not done on people. So there is, you know, that thing. But I'm like, I don't want to take. Yeah, I don't want to take that right.

You're taking a supplement every single day. I mean, it reminds me of, you know, those like little things that you give to your kids that you put in the water and they're in a capsule and then they blow up into a sponge. I love this. Yeah, but it's probably like that's what's a lot of these vitamins are in. They're in these like plastic things. And maybe if you're taking it once. here and there, but you're taking it every single day. You want to know, like you said, the traceability of where this is coming from. Absolutely. And when we were even working with our manufacturer and we

partnered on this technology, which we patented, was actually the first patent I've ever received. My parents were so proud because they didn't want me going into the supplement industry. So when I got a patent, they were like, okay, this is very exciting. But it was, even this product started out, and we didn't launch it that way, but it was only available with, with Shalak, with a sugar core, and talc. And I was like, no, like, get rid of those things. I do not want that. And I found this woman who was also trying to change the pharmaceutical industry,

and she developed this non-GMO corn protein. And so it's very technical, and it's like you have to find the right players, and you can change an industry. you push hard enough and ask the right questions and that's exactly what we did. It's like every layer of it. Name a podcast that talks about the capsule of a vitamin. I mean, I guess we're on it. I mean, I'm sure there's a lot.

I'm sure there's people that are way more than us. But yeah, I think that what it's made. I love that conversation around the dirty stuff. It's kind of in the products because for me that was like table stakes. I was like, this has to be sugar-free. This has to be vegan. It has to be non-GMO. It has to be, you know, tested for all these different things, can't include ingredients that I wouldn't want in and on my body.

And as you can see, there's, like, very few things in our product at all that are not the ingredients themselves. Like, why are these things in them? But I did think that it was interesting that as a culture, though, we've just become so focused on the clean or what's it made without. And I was like, this is so interesting because there's almost going to be a. flip side to that where people have lost focus on what is actually in here. Where is that coming from? Who's making it? I hope that comes soon, but I do feel like that's kind of missing from both kind of the beauty and the wellness industry. I want to go back to something you said, the VC said to you earlier because I think it's relevant, especially on this show. Being told

that you couldn't be a mother and a business owner at the same time, and obviously you've defied both those odds. How have you personally managed that and been able to exercise? at the level you guys have executed on while also raising a family. And it could be as granted, are there certain things that you, like, practices you put in place? Or there are certain times you're carving for business and family? Is it all kind of blended together? When that investor, who was pretty well known, told me that I couldn't have a family and a business at the same time, I used that as fuel. I was like, I'm going to figure this out. Like, this is what I want. And it was so interesting because at the time, I didn't really have people that I could look to that

that were starting companies or had started companies or large companies that did do both or that raised venture capital. And so I kind of had to figure it out. And my husband was also an entrepreneur. So we both started different companies at the same time when I was pregnant, worst idea ever. What happened was, and I think I learned, is like when you decide that you're going to be a founder and have a family, you're kind of agreeing to a commitment where those lines are just blurred all the time. And you have to be okay with that. What are some things that you went through this entrepreneurial journey that you look back on that were really difficult? One thing is we were finalists at TechCrunch Disrupt. I had just given birth. By the way,

the winner was like an 18-year-old male. And what was the company? I don't remember. Did he deserve to win or was he biased? He probably deserved to win. I always feel like people, I give them benefit of the doubt. But I was on stage. I was like, you know, basically like leaking from my breasts because I was still feeding at that time. And I showed up to the conference and I was like, where can I? Was there like a pump room? And this is like, you know, almost eight years ago.

There's no pump room at the conference. Now there is. You might have changed that. I think we changed. You know, there's probably more people that have done that. They put me at the top of a broken escalator because they're like, no one's going to see you up there. The second, and I was like not acceptable after I did that once, then I ended up pumping in a room full of wheelchairs.

And I was like, this is, this is just not okay. Like we deserve better than this and we're not taking care of our, you know, our mothers. So anyway, those kind of really hard moments fueled me to to help other female founders and minority founders to be like, hey, you can you can do both. and here's how I did it or is there anything I can do to help? Can I introduce you to VC? Can I like help you with your pitch deck and things like that? Yeah. And I feel, I mean, Lauren will probably chime in on this, but there's a different kind of guilt maybe put on the mothers because, you know, similar to we had kids when we were starting all these businesses too. And it was just normal for me to run back to work and like nobody questioned anything. But for her like, you know, especially with the platform she has

online, like some people, you know, some people chirp in and kind of, you know, discourage her a little bit for doing both. You still feel an underlying guilt. And a lot of mothers have told me you feel the guilt forever. Like, it's just a guilt that you feel. I don't know if it's innate because we're women. I don't know. But I'm looking at him. He's right back to work. Pep and his step ready to go. And it was different. Get out of that breast pump room. I hate to send a fax. I'm just kidding. It's such a double standard. I don't send faxes anymore. I mean, I remember my doctor had just given me the clearance to like do a sit-up. And it was like six. weeks postpartum. My husband walks in to our bedroom where I'm laying on the floor on a mat next to

our bed doing the Melissa Wood Health postpartum, you know, 10 minute workout because that's all I could squeeze in between, you know, breastfeeding and work. And he walks in in his bike shorts and he's like, you know what? I'm in the best shape of my life. Oh my God, it sounds like him. I can't. He did that to me the other day too. Like when I'm like struggling like to lose the rest of. rest of my pregnancy weight and he's like, I'm just dense right now. Watch your words. I was like, this is, you know, this is so fucking clue. I'm like, I literally like could struggle to lift my, my backup to do one of those sit-ups in the video. It's the narrative for me. Like, they like self-narrate their day. They give a

narration of everything they're doing. I literally have a full narration every single day from Michael of what he's doing, what he's thinking, like every thought, every feeling. It's like, I like to announce my presence. Can you just work out without like your 10 minutes that you have? We don't need to hear that you're in the best shape of your life. The biggest mistake you make is when you get in the car and you say you can't talk right now is that's just going to make me want to talk more. I got in the car and I can't talk right now. I need to work. The whole ride, he brought up 45 different subjects, seeing which one I would buy that. I just ignored him. I'm like, I'm not even doing this today. I literally just gave you the, the,

the blueprint. Do not speak to me in the car right now and you just can't help it. They can't help it. I've learned a lot from my husband though because he ruthlessly prioritizes himself and he has since I've met him and I was the opposite and now I work out every single day. And I was like, it taught me that I actually need to be more like him. I ruthlessly prioritize myself. Your husband and I would get along. I do. I think it's so important to my mental state. I was never. like that. Yeah, you do. Well, the way that I think about that is that if I, like, I just know personally about myself. If I don't take care of myself, I'm going to be a nightmare to everyone around me and then everyone's going to be miserable, right? Like I, especially, I mean, you know this as a founder. Like, I never want to be the source of stress for anyone in the business. I want to be the source of stability and confidence. Even if internally, I don't feel that way. And I'm sure you've had so many of those moments as anyone that runs a company does. But, You know, when shit hits the fan, I always want to be the person.

Even in my family where people are like, they can look and be like, okay, like, where everything's going to be okay. Even if inside I'm like, oh my God, I'm crumbling and like I need to go outside and throw up in the bushes. And the same way, but I think to your point, Lauren, earlier where you were saying like the guilt and all of that. And I think as like a new mom, and now I have three, three girls in this small amount of time. God bless your husband. Yeah, he's very lucky. He's outnumbered. He wants a boy.

But as a mom, you have to deprioritize yourself sometimes because of that guilt. And so you can't actually like pick, you have to pick three things that you're like focused on that day. It's not a joke. Don't you feel though in a way, sometimes parents don't like when people say this. But I feel having kids, and I want to be careful about it. Having kids has actually made me better and more focused in business because I have to be so much more ruthless with my time and with what I prioritize. Where before you're just kind of floating around and you're like, oh yeah, maybe I'll get to that or I'll do this. but with the kids, it's like, I don't have the time anymore to fuck around.

I got to be like, I got to get shit done. And it's actually personally for me made it easier to operate businesses even with the kid. Is that resonant at all? No, you have to have hard stops. You have to. Yeah. It's like you have to have more structure, which I never had before. And I guess I needed it.

And you actually kind of weirdly recharge from being off your devices for a short amount of time more than you would. I think in other ways, like alcohol. and stimulants and other things like that. So for me, it's actually, I agree. It's made me a better founder, and I think working has made me a better parent. I would say, like, the hard stops for me is, like, I don't check my phone until 7 a.m.

My kids wake up really, pretty early. So, like, actually a long time. And that's actually good for my health, right? Like, not checking your phone in the morning. It doesn't spike your cortisol or blue light, whatever. And then I turn off my phone from 6 to 7 as well. I think that spending time with kids, no matter how hectic it is, it like recharges me and gives you that structure to perform better on the job.

And I think also handle a lot of instability, like you said. It's just running a company is so hectic and chaotic. But also like having three kids under seven at home is even crazier. So like I know how to be the Zen person, you know. in my world. The other day I was hiding in the infrared sauna and she opens the door and she goes, Mama, I found you. Oh my God, this is creepy like American horse story. No, but to, I mean, to your point, and the reason I say it's a delicate subject is because some, and it's completely overwhelming to be a parent. As you know, I find it way more challenging a lot of ways than running

a company. But it has gotten rid of a lot of the stuff that I would use to distract myself before, right like running around alcohol late nights out like not prior to like you know it gives you this structure where and also it gives you a different kind of motivation where it's no longer just about you or you and your husband it's like oh there's like a purpose it's for children as well totally i i think i didn't really know the meaning for my life until i mean this is so cliche but like until i had kids i'm like oh i know i know the meaning of life now like it's so hard but it's also so cool to have this like new purpose in life. What are the wellness things that are in your toolbox? Like what are things you do when you wake up? What are things that you eat that are maybe

different? Like what are the little like hacks that you have? I have a kind of more I have a very different framework around wellness than I did growing up where I was trying and experimenting a lot. my framework is actually like how do you do the basics incredibly well first I think a lot of times we focus on like oh I have low energy or my skin isn't great let me do this IV and they you know or these really expensive treatments if you can afford them but I actually feel like most people suck at the basics and the basics are sleeping well and setting up you know having really good sleep hygiene and making sure that works for you The basics are nutrition and like what you're eating, making sure that that's working for you.

And I have a whole thing around nutrition. And then hydration. Like hydration to me is actually the key to a lot of health, vibrancy and also health issues. And what's really interesting is like most of us are not drinking enough water. And as you guys saw my Stanley jug back there, it's not even just about the water we're drinking. It's the quality of the water. but it's also about the foods we eat. Like cucumbers are 95% made of water.

So like eating foods that are hydrating. And then also hydrating your skin where I've really recently gotten into indestible indesstable skincare. That's something that we're experimenting with at ritual and like lower molecular weight hyluronic acid is really interesting to me because we lose hyluronic acid as we age. and that hydration is really like a key component to healthy aging. So those are like kind of the things. I think nutrition for me, what I realized when we were talking about this earlier,

is are not, it's not just like what you're eating, but how it's actually prepared. And that's been a huge shift for my life. And like, sure, people can eat all these vegetables or I try to avoid any kind of even though I'm a plant-based eater, I avoid any processed foods, which is really challenging. but what I realize is like I'm if I steam my foods versus like frying them or putting them in the oven, I feel better. It makes a lot of sense because of how the oils are treated, but that's a huge one. I mean, I have so many.

Can we do a giveaway of a bunch of my ritual favorites? Yes. Okay. All you guys have to do is tell us your favorite takeaway from this episode with Kat on my latest Instagram at Lauren Bostic and then follow at ritual on Instagram. There may not, in the history of podcasts, I think maybe we have the longest running partnership. I think like, when did you start seven years ago? Yeah. That's when we started seven years ago.

And I remember like throughout the history of this show, like ritual has been a staple of this show since the beginning. I've taken it through both pregnancies. It's crazy. It took us this long to get you on here. Before my pregnancy, after my pregnancy, I'm a huge fan of what you're creating. I love it. Where can everyone find you, pimp yourself out? Yeah.

You guys have been amazing. I think Lauren sells the products and the brand better than I ever could. Sometimes I listen to the show to hear how I should be like sell. I'm so in the weeds of like helping the team create the products that I can learn from you about how to sell them better. But we people can find us on ritual.com. We also just launched nationwide and Whole Foods. We're already the top selling prenatal there very quickly, which is really exciting. And we're about to launch something else very shortly.

What I like to do is I like to take this protein and make protein oats. I got this recipe off Ariel Lour's site. It's like a big scoop of oatmeal. I think it's like a fourth cup to get specific. And then I do two scoops of the ritual protein and I put it in water on the stove. And I mix chia seed and hemp seed in it. And it makes like a mush. And then you take the mush and you put almond milk on top of it.

And you have this amazing, delicious like 30 grams. grams of protein because the hemp seeds too and the protein powder thing after your workout. You put berries in there. It's so good. I do it like every day. I'll have to try that. My favorite is just shaking it up in a shaker with coconut water. It's like the best combination. I have no time for anything. But I think the protein is interesting. I know we don't have much time, but the protein is really interesting going back to kind of the animal or plant conversation because most plants don't have complete amino acids. So people are like, I'm getting 40 grams of protein here and you're like, well, actually, that's lacking in XYC. So you're not,

your body's like actually not utilizing the protein that well. See, we could go on and on a tango because we did a whole thing on aminos. And again, I have no issue with plant-based or vegan diets. But to your point, it's so important to highlight the aminos that people may be missing if they don't have those and where to get those aminos because people just don't know. This protein does have all the amino's assets in it, right? It does. And I think that's why it tastes great, too, because we, actually use regenerally farm peas grown in North America, which is really rare. It's better for the environment. It's kind of a whole thing. But what peas are lacking is methyanine. And so like you can't, it's not a good idea to just have pea protein on its own. You actually need methanine. So we layered

in methionine. And that's why the taste is kind of creamy and rich because we're not layering in like brown rice protein and hemp and all these other things. It's kind of a single origin protein, but it has a complete amino acids. So you're getting kind of the same benefits that you would with, you know, if you choose to drink way and others. Well, Kat, you're killing it. Don't have to tell you that. You guys are too. Where can everyone shop the product? They can shop all of our products on ritual.com. We just launched our symbiotic plus, which is a pre-pro postbiotic. And it also has a really cool technology. We just ran a shime study on it in Belgium where you can see that the bugs are getting into the colon, which is the ideal place for them to thrive instead of the stomach. Oftentimes

people, you know, take probiotics, but they get destroyed by the stomach acid. So that's a really important thing to keep in mind. This product has been our best seller to date. Biggest launch to date, it's totally blown up. It's been really crazy how it's impacting people's lives. There's one thing that I remember that I didn't talk about when you guys were talking about what to look for in the supplement industry that we're doing legislation work around. But I don't know if I can also bring up. Whatever you want. Maybe they can add it or you guys get out of it. Yeah, add it.

Is around the term clinically studied. So that is a term. There's terms in the industry that are not, that are loosely defined and there's no regulation around them. So we know that about natural or clean, but clinically studied is another one that we're really passionate about at Ritual. So companies will use the term clinically studied, but that can mean that their ingredients have a clinical study behind them, but oftentimes it's the wrong form or the wrong dosage. And at Ritual, we have a mandate by 2030 to have our own human clinical studies on all of our products. And I think that's something that people need to also kind of be advocates for themselves around. When we talk about like safety and efficacy, making sure that your products work in and making sure that your, the products and the brands that you use aren't using improperly using these terms that are, that really have no clear definition around.

Thank you for coming on. I learned so much this episode. By the way, total power move to just hire an employee scientist. I think I'm going to hire like two or three of them for doing media just to have them around. They're like, yeah, we're going to talk to our scientists down there. And she's wearing yellow to keep things on brand. Kat, can you share your Instagram handle and Ritual's Instagram handle? Ritual's Instagram handles ritual?

Oh, great story about that and ritual.com at some point. That's a really good story. How you got them, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't cheap. Did you have to send in the guy in suits?

Well, for Twitter I did. That was an interesting one. So early on, it was really important. for me to get ritual, especially in this category where people don't trust anything. I was like, it has to be ritual. It can't be ritual vitamins. Smart. It has to be the name. Like, it can't be like, hey, ritual. This is ritual and getting the trademarks and all that. But ritual.com was owned by this guy in Dallas, actually, and he had an entertainment company. And he's like, no way, this is going to be really expensive. And I basically take all the money that you just raised and give it to me. And I was

like, that's not going to work. So I called him like almost. Every day for like a very long time. And I got to know him. I got to know everything about his like family and his kids and what made him tick. And he was like, actually, I really want this other domain that's shorter. And so then I reached out to the person that owned that domain and I bought it. And then I told him that that domain was more valuable because it was shorter. And I did a trade.

Love it. And so that's how we got ritual. I love the hustle. Thank you for coming on. Kat. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You guys, we do have a different code for this episode.

It's not Code Skinny. It's Skinny 30. And it's going to give you 30% off all ritual products. I would start personally with the essential protein. I'm obsessed with it. And then I also just love their vitamins. I think if you're looking for a good multivitamin, ritual is it. So go to ritual.com and use Code Skinny 30.

Do you want to win some of Ritual's products? All you have to do is follow at Ritual on Instagram. And tell us your favorite takeaway from this episode. Super easy on my latest post at Lauren Bostick. You can use code skinny on ritual.com. I would recommend the protein powder and their multivitamin. You can't go wrong. And as always, make sure you've rated and reviewed the show.

And on that note, we'll see you next time.