Trading Secrets - More Than Money: Health is wealth with Kion CEO and co-founder Angelo Keely breaking down amino acids and proteins

Episode Date: April 11, 2024

This week, Jason is joined by Angelo Keely, co-founder and CEO of Kion! Jason and Angelo dive into the importance of protein and amino acids for energy, muscle, healthy aging, and just about everything in your body, how Angelo started the business in his garage and the root of the idea, how important quality marketing is, how to identify your customer, the power of protein and amino acids (and which one does more for you!),  types of energy and impact of caffeine, and what to be weary of.  Resources: Get 20% off at getkion.com/tradingsecrets International Society of Sports Nutrition It’s an episode you can’t afford to miss!  Host: Jason Tartick Co-Host: David Arduin Guest: Angelo Keely Stay connected with the Trading Secrets Podcast!  Instagram: @tradingsecretspodcast  Youtube: Trading Secrets Facebook: Join the Group All Access: Free 30-Day Trial 

Come alive, come alive, and the world. Welcome back to another episode of trading secrets. Today, we are joined by Co-Founder and CEO of Keon, Angelo Keely. Kian is an active lifestyle supplement and functional food company dedicated to helping people fully experience a fun and active life by providing pure energy enhancing solutions. Angelo has been involved in nutrition, functional fitness, yoga, and meditation for over 20 years and is a true entrepreneur at heart, having started Kian out of his garage back in 2017. That is something we'll dig into, probably from the top. I'm excited to talk to Angela about today's topics, the importance of protein and amino acids for energy, muscle, healthy aging, and just about everything in your body. Not only is he super knowledgeable about the science, but he's going to make it really easy for us money mafia to understand because our health is our wealth.

Angelo, thank you so much for being on this episode, Trig Secrets. What's up, Jason? Thanks for having you, man. I'm excited to be here. You know, I was excited for myself, but I got to tell you, Arianna, our PR person and my PR person, who, like, is an avid listener of the show. I don't know how long she's been wanting this to happen. So I'm just stoked to be here with you, even on her behalf, dude. Well, Angela, I'm pumped to have you. Arianna, if you're listening, thank you for the shout out and listening to the show. This is going to be a double whammy.

We're going to make this. We're going to make this pretty good. Now, you know, here's the thing. We cover all topics on this podcast, where people make money, how they make money. The one thing we haven't done a ton of focusing on is health. And health is such a critical part of our energy, our focus, how we're repairing ourselves. And those things then contribute to our productivity, which then lead to the opportunity to make money and live a happy and healthy life. But I got to get to the get-go here because we're a business podcast, entrepreneurship. 2017, you start this out of your garage. 2024, you are absolutely thriving. I got to go to the how did it happen. story. Tell me a little bit about how it happened. How did you start a business like in your garage? What did it look like? I was raised in a family that was in the nutrition business. My parents used to import botanical herbs and then they had a nutrition. They had a

health food store, a health food restaurant. And so it was like kind of cooked into me as a kid basically to think about nutrition, to think specifically about protein and amino acids. And in my life, I ended up doing a bunch of different stuff. In adolescence, I got a lot of trouble. I got hurt. I kind of found nutrition for myself. I developed my career overseas for several years and after living in France and India and coming back to the States around a behavioral health care company. And it was really time for me to do something that I wanted to do that was like more my heart and my passion was. And so it was less about, oh, like, I think a lot of people that try to start businesses now, they're like, what's like the unique opportunity in the market? You know, like,

what's the really specific niche and how do I pitch this thing and raise money for it? My thing was like what do I care about what do I want to do and how do I make that happen and so just started with actually start with a few products and with tiny orders I'm talking like in like the hundreds and and really just started doing online marketing and trying to communicate the value of the products and then over time just continuing to iterate on and make the products better make the marketing better and the whole thing has been like you know cash flowed from operations so we never raised any money. And it's been just like a slow, consistent, steady build being focused on a product that I care about, hiring people that I really like and want to like spend my

day-to-day life with. And just doing like quality marketing, being able to communicate to people what something is, why it's important. And then do a good job. Like once you've sold someone a product, like make sure you take care of them as a customer. It's not some like complicated formula. Yeah. I know what's interesting is I think when we hear it and then we see the product and we see the labeling and we see the success. We just think too complicated and then analysis paralysis. Like I could never do anything like that. But how about one tip for someone back home that has an idea for a product, right? This is a consumer package product. This is in the CPG space. Someone back home, they have an idea for a product. They have no idea where to even

begin or start. What are some of the top tips you could give those people if they wanted to get the wheel spin and get the ground going. So this is my approach and this is the way that I think about it. So it's not necessarily the right way. I think the product's important, but I think the most important thing is the, is the customer and sales. You need to identify who is the person that you're really trying to serve and how are you going to reach them and how are you going to sell your product to them.

And so it could be a certain type of consumer that's going to be best reached through Walmart or it could be a consumer who's going to be just as a easily reached through e-commerce or someone who's going to be reached through a clinic or through a health food store, you know, whatever, whatever that place is. And then how are you going to communicate to them? And how are you actually going to get your marketing to them and how are you going to convert them into a customer? Because you can have, I've met so many people with really cool ideas and even really cool products. They've spent a lot of time and money developing their product, but they don't know to whom they're going to sell that product. And they don't know

how to market it to them and to get it to them. And really, a lot of people, honestly, with really lame products that aren't even that good can be much more successful than someone with a great product if they're that much better at identifying the consumer, marketing to them and selling to them. So what I would say is you really just got to think about that first step. Like, who am I trying to sell to and how am I going to reach them? If you're someone who's comfortable raising a lot of money and going for some really big thing, like if you're, is like it's got to be in Walmart, right? Well, you're going to need to buy a lot of them. You're going to really develop that product, protect its, you know, IP potentially, buy a lot of it,

get an introduction to someone who has distribution and sales partnerships in that space. Like, it's a big project. So you're probably going to need to raise a lot of money and be part of this much bigger thing. If you're more inclined to try to do something like the way I described, it's been more bootstrapped and kind of step by step, e-commerce is an excellent place to start because you could actually be really definitely. dedicated to offering a quality product, but you could buy it in much smaller amounts. You could test out the idea. You could just sell it to people online. And if you really are making something that's valuable and you're able to sell to them in

an online space, well, then you can take that cash and you can start to reinvest it in the business and reach more people. So I think it's kind of like, who do you really want to sell it to in? Which model do you like? Do you want to do a bootstrap thing or do you willing to go for this big thing? I don't know if I answer the question of like, what's the first step? I guess I would say, I don't think it's really the product, actually, in many cases. I mean, I think you need to have a great product.

But the thing that's going to get it off the ground is the marketing and the sales. Yeah, I think you said it beautifully. I think one of the big things that most people don't do and they overlook is they don't identify their customer, right? That was a big thing that you just mentioned. And I also think the idea of like going e-commerce, you can go direct to your customer. With that, you can bootstrap. You don't have to raise money. As a result of that, you can kind of convey.

control how you manage things. One thing I think you nailed on. And for people back home that are listening right now and they want to start a business or they're really just focusing on themselves or their brand, I think this connects to both of them. And we've had two big entrepreneurs that have come on in the last couple months. And the things they talked about were identifying who their customer is. But they went as far as actually putting a name to their customer. So Hannah talked about little Hannah and exactly what Hannah looks like. So every time she's approaching her businesses or content creation. All she's thinking about is little Hannah. Baked by Melissa has sold over 300 million cupcakes. And she talked about their customer is Jordan. When they get lost, they just go, okay,

what would Jordan say? What would Jordan do? So it's a two-part question, but did you guys do anything specific to identify what your customer is? And we heard from Baked by Melissa. We know who Jordan is. And we heard from Hannah, who's extremely successful, who little Hannah is. like, how would you actually classify who your customer is? That's a great question. We did do those exercises of like building an, we call that an avatar in kind of typical marketing speak or persona. We built a few of them.

To be honest with you, they didn't prove to be that helpful for us. And that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be really helpful for obviously these other very successful brands and entrepreneurs. To some degree, it felt kind of like artificial. Like what would this one person do in this one way? It was something in the exercise. Like it just didn't fit our culture. in our team. But what we did identify more than anything else is like, what are the need

states of a person that are, that we can fit into their life? So if someone's sitting there and they're like, I mean, this is getting into amino acids now, they're like, gosh, I've been told I should eat more protein and I need to eat all this protein every day, but I don't know like how to get enough protein. It seems really hard. Like, are there hacks to it or like other ways? Like, should I be taking protein powders? Like, what should I do? So, someone in that mind state that is a perfect customer for Keyon because we can educate that customer about what the options are and then we can offer solutions that directly address that or someone else who's like hey i'm trying to lose weight but i actually know i'm not just trying to

lose weight like i just want to lose fat but i want to maintain my muscle like i get that there's like this thing where it's not just about losing weight it's about losing my fat but gaining my muscle and like how do i do that because my understanding is like that's not really possible Like, if you go into caloric restriction, you're going to lose both. Like, is there any way to overcome that? Like, we can directly address that need state. So maybe it's more about the need states of a person than, like, you know, describing, you know, John is this guy who goes to the gym and keeps working out, but he's like not really getting gains.

And now he's realized he wants to lose these last 10 pounds before he gets married. But, you know, it's like that maybe is too artificial for us. but we can be focused on like, hey, this is the problem we're trying to solve. And I think that's the challenge for lots of entrepreneurs. And maybe what the benefit of defining a persona or an avatar is, is it makes you be focused. Rather than trying to be everything to everyone, you constrain your messaging and you constrain what you're offering to something more focused. Because if you try to do everything all at the same time, you're going to be not that good at anything. Exactly.

If you do less and you're restrained, you'll do better. It's like if you had, I mean, you probably know this. You're a guy who's already written a book. And by the way, I'm like really interested in your new book that's coming out. I like talking about me. I'm stoked. I do it. I want it when it comes out.

Like, if you have a piece of paper for every day, and every day you put the piece of paper in a different place in your room, you just have like a mess. If you put that piece of paper in a stack every day, at the end of a year, you're going to have 365 pages. And that's maybe a way of thinking about. about how you write a book or how you build a company is like you get focused. So what I would say is, yeah, we use more of like a need state to define. Like we're going to help people with this specific issue. But it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to like only be a 25 year old woman

that's living in a major metropolitan area or it doesn't have to only be a 42 year old, you know, suburban dad. It could be all of them, but only those of that, those groups that like actually have this problem. And we're not going to try to solve. there are other problems. We're not going to try to solve hair loss for the 42-year-old guy or, you know, like skin care solutions for the 25-year-old woman. We're going to solve this one issue for them. I like that idea.

Like starting by identifying, either if you're working on your brand or you're trying to work on a brand, identifying what the need stake is and staying focused on what those specific things are and not trying to do everything. I think everyone, again, gets so paralyzed, whether they're working on their personal brand or their own brand or a company's brand and literally trying to just do everything. As a result of that, they get lost in the sauce.

And so, I, Angelo, I'm going to transition into these amino acids because I'm going to get a little selfish because I got questions about them. But guys that are with me here, I got to tell you, I'm excited for what's coming because what's coming at the end of this, Angelo, I want you to talk a little bit about some of the resilience that you had to go through with the near-death experiences you had. So for people that are listening and they want to know more about Angelo, that's coming. selfishly, I got to get into it because you said something that is a need stake for me. I think about it all the time. I'm trying to put on muscle mass, but I'm traveling too much. And I just don't feel like I have the time on the road or here to properly portion out what my protein levels should be. So that's my specific need stake. But I'm just curious, even if we take a step back for that. So it's general to everybody that's listening right now. We hear supplements all the time. I hear about all the things in the world I need to do. but I don't know where to start. And amino acids usually isn't on the top of the list of things that I hear. So you're the guy.

You founded Keon. Tell me why us listening right now need to be looking at Keon amino acids and putting them into our diet. So Keon Aminos are essential amino acids. And to be able to describe what essential amino acids are, it's helpful to just start with protein. And I will get to how to help you build muscle in this story or this explanation. I can't wait. I need it. Yeah. So the reason why protein is so important and is because it's very, very different than carbohydrates and fat. The primary reason why you eat carbs or why you eat fat is for energy. If you can imagine your body's like a house, you have to fuel the electricity for your house to keep the lights turned on, to keep the dishwasher running, et cetera, with some type of energy source. Carbohydrates and fat, when you consume them, your body primarily just turns them into the native energy source of ATP. It burns them. Fat can be used for some other stuff too, like helping with building cells, etc. But its primary role is basically energy.

That's not the primary role of protein. Do you know it all about what the primary role of protein is? Is protein for like repair and growth? Because it's not energy, right? I think it's more of like repair and growth. It is. That's one of the main things that it does. And the reason why it's involved in repair of growth, again, if you maybe think about like your body's your house,

is that parts of your house start to break down over time. time. Like, if you own a house, anyone who's become a homeowner or wants to be a homeowner, like, just know, like, it doesn't, it doesn't just last forever. The roof doesn't last forever. You maybe have to replace the trim or the carpet or whatever. So in your body, it's similar. And actually, over half of your solid mass in your body is made up of proteins. Wow. So we're talking about proteins that you eat. But the proteins in your body are what form your heart, your kidneys, your liver, your brain, your skin, your eyes, your hair, as well as things like your muscle, which are more obvious, but also things you're maybe not, you don't even think

about, your enzymes, hormones, and even the neurotransmitters in your brain. These are all proteins or the derivatives of proteins. And they're similar to the way that your house is. It starts to break down over time, but much faster. So every day, all the time, the proteins in your body are some of the proteins in your body are reaching the end of their lifespan and they start to break down because they simply need to be rebuilt and rejuvenated and when they do they break apart into these little things called amino acids that's like the building blocks of them goes into your blood and the ones that are too old you pee them out the ones that are still good enough you actually you can use them to help rebuild the old proteins and that could be literally

rebuilding heart tissue rebuilding muscle rebuilding an enzyme but as you can tell if you just peed some out you need you need some more new ones yeah that's why we eat protein so when we eat protein whether it's chicken or quinoa or soy or beef you actually are digesting that protein it's breaking down into all the little amino acids it's going into your blood and then it's being used to help rebuild all of the tissues and all of these different aspects of your body that are made out of protein so like you can get like protein is truly essential. If you don't eat it, you will die. Not because you don't have energy, but because you can't rebuild all these important parts of your body. So once you know that, then the next

tip is that, or the next insight, is that there's something inside protein and all these amino acids that's more important than the other parts. And that thing that's more important are the essential amino acids. So in protein, there's 20 amino acids. 9 of them are essential, 11 them are not essential. They're non-essential. Okay. The nine essential ones, the reason why they're so important is because your body can't make those ones.

I just said you have to eat protein, but really you have to eat the essential amino acids because your body can make the other 11. You can actually synthesize them from the other ones. The other part is that those essential amino acids, that part in the protein, is the part of the protein that tells your body to create new proteins that says, hey, let's build new muscle tissue, let's rebuild heart

tissue. So those organs and muscle themselves can communicate it. But when you actually eat these essential amino acids, it communicates, hey, let's refresh this. Let's make it, let's rebuild these proteins. Let's replace the old ones and make new ones. So that's why essential amino acids on their own are so important. But you can get them from protein. You can get them from protein powder, from amino acids. We can get into that in a second. But if you really want to, if you're you really want to build muscle and that's something that's important to you. What you need to be thinking about is how can I stimulate more muscle protein synthesis? And that looks like things like resistance training, lifting weights, right? But you also have to give yourself enough of the raw

protein that you need to help rebuild all those. Because if you lift a bunch of weights, you don't need enough protein, you actually won't build muscle because you're not giving yourself the raw materials that it needs to help build that muscle. Okay. Interesting. All right. So let me let me take a pause there because let me digest everything i know it's a lot it's a lot it's a lot but we're going to bring it in here because i i'm hearing everything so we digest protein when we have protein our body digests it and then we need our body needs amino acids from that protein to continue to repair and grow and there are 20 amino acids 11 are non-essential which our body can reproduce and synthesize and then nine are essential and so nine is what we get from actually consuming protein and consuming outside

things, right? And we need these to help with energy, repair, and growth. So I'm with you on that. So then I understand now how aminos actually contribute to muscle growth, essentially as we connect it to the consumption of protein. So then comes in the idea of amino acids. Now that I understand essential aminos and non-essentials and what they do for the body, how does a product like key on amino acids contribute to what I'm getting or not getting from what I consume. Like, what does it fulfill that maybe I am getting currently or I'm not getting from my diet? And then once you answer what it, what it does, I'm also very curious that, like, what's the upside of this? Like, so if I, if I now take the supplement on top of the protein

consumption, what will I feel? What will I see? How will it look like? so two two more points i want to add about protein that then will then will help explain the essential amino acids okay so number one is you're most people should probably be eating more protein than they currently are what what's a benchmark like what yeah so here's what here's what i'd say if the the absolute bare minimum to not have things like hair like have major hair loss skin problems organ issues would be basically 0.4 grams per pound of body weight. So let's just say, if you weigh 100 pounds,

it's 40 grams, if you weigh 200 pounds, it's 80 grams, right? That's really the bare, bare minimum. If you wanna be thriving, you wanna live a more active life, you like to exercise, you wanna have a more tone physique. And that could be like, that doesn't mean like you wanna be jacked,

it just means like you wanna have like some form of, if your man, maybe more definition of muscles, maybe a woman a little less, but like not loose and flat, and you want to have like a lower, you know, body fat percentage, you probably want to be eating more like one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So that'd be if you weigh, if you weigh 100 pounds, it's 100 grams of protein per day. If you weigh 200 pounds, it's 200 grams of protein per day. So first of all, I would just say that's where lots of people

turn to protein powders because it's like, wow, like trying to get in, you know, if I weigh 150 pounds, trying to get in 150 grams of protein per day, like it seems like a lot. That's like 30 grams of protein five times a day. But if you had one protein shake, like maybe it helps you get there faster. So I'm going to come back to then like how, you know, something like essential amino acids can help get there.

But before, what I want to name is that protein is not all equal. So I gave you this explanation of protein, but the way that you evaluate the quality of a protein specifically for how it supports whole body protein synthesis. That means helping to rebuild and repair all the proteins in your body is, one, how digestible it is. Two, how many essential amino acids are in it. So some protein is not that digestible.

It's harder for your body to digest that you don't get as many of the acids. Can you give me an example just so I understand what's digestible versus what's not digestible? Yeah, and so this is one I try to be sensitive about because I think, I really, I think it's possible to choose many different diet options and they'll all work. Plant proteins tend to be less digestible, so you don't get as many amino acids out of them. as you would most animal proteins but animal proteins doesn't have to be meat it could be milk eggs etc but plant proteins are typically not as digestible and what that means is like literally when my body tries like i have these little enzymes in my body that break apart the protein like how many of the amino acids do i actually get from it like you might say it has the same amount

of protein but you don't actually get as much from it the next question would be what's the like how much of that protein that's digestible has these essential amino acids in it like the really good, the good stuff in the protein, the stuff that's like I'm getting all the benefit from. Again, it tends to be that animal proteins are higher in it. What I would say is if you more plant-based diet, I would look to things like soy, quinoa, buckwheat, other types of legumes, beans, like those are all ones that tend to be better. And then the next question is, like, what's the composition? This is where it gets nerdy and I won't waste time on it, but it's like how much of specific amino acids. And again, like animal proteins tend to be richer in the ones

that really support protein synthesis. But it's like of those nine, like the proportions of them, for most people, it gets a little nerdy if we go down that route. Yeah, no, I think it makes sense, though, like without going down that, you know, drabid hole of like the specifics of the aminos, I think it's helpful to know the breakdown of what proteins will work effectively and how they work effectively. And then enters in a possible additional supplement. So where and when and how do we know when a supplement is.

needed. So here's the one last thing about protein. Also, if you eat protein as part of a mixed meal, so let's just say I have steak with potatoes and broccoli, or I just have a piece of steak by itself, or I choose to have a protein powder, like a way protein isolate, where the protein has been totally isolated and taken everything. There's no fat in it. And an isolate, they even take out the lactose. There's no sugar. Like, it's just the protein. there is much, much more protein synthesis, like much more new proteins and muscle and rejuvenation of skin and all those stuff that comes from the more isolated form. So literally, if I have 70 grams of steak as part of a meal or 30 grams of steak on its own

or just 10 grams of weight protein isolate, they all create about the same amount of protein synthesis. So that weight protein isolate is like six time, over six times as impactful as the steak as part of a mixed meal for communicating to my body to stimulate new protein synthesis. Now what I'd say is like if you're doing tons of resistance training, you're getting a lot of stimulation already. But in trying to use a nutritional supplement to really like your goal is like I want to get even more. Like I want to make sure I'm like I'm building as much muscle or if you're like less trying to build muscle, but you just want to stay lean. Like, I'm really wanting to make sure I'm prioritizing fat loss, but muscle maintenance,

you would think about something, you would start to think in the direction of like, oh, I get why a supplement like a protein powder would work. Okay, so now here's EAAs and something like Keonaminos, and this is like the most mind-blowing thing. So then when you take Keon Aminos, which is 100% the essential amino acids, none of the non-essential, and they're immediately bioavailable. Like, you don't have to digest them. They just go into your blood, which by the way, too,

These are fermented from plants. So they're 100% vegan. So this is applicable really to everyone. Interesting. They are up to six times more effective than weight protein isolate. What? So when you go all the way down the scale, like down to like a steak as part of a mixed meal, it's like 25 times the impact of muscle protein synthesis.

Now, what I would say is like there's all kinds of good stuff in food though, right? Like I'm not saying like don't eat steak or don't eat meals that you love. love and enjoy. Like I would say, you know, I would advise everyone, eat three really good meals per day that are nutritious, that are mixed, that have good sources of protein and whole grains and fruits and vegetables, et cetera. Eat things that's nourishing to you and that you like. And if you're really trying to hit these higher amounts of daily protein and you want to be able to like, you're that much more motivated by your sports performance or your physique, or also So I think it's less your audience, but aging individuals, like anyone over 40, but especially

over 50, 60, 70 becomes that much more important to try to maintain your muscle. The idea of taking something like essential amino acids in between meals before, during after training, even before bed, makes a lot of sense because it's going to give you this significant extra boost to encourage your body to improve its metabolism and burn more fat and build more muscle. So you think about it, I'm blown away by this. Yeah. So, I mean, that's, that's like the big overview of like how, how it could fit in. I think it's, it's not a necessary requirement for someone in their 20s and 30s to like live a good life.

I think honestly, as you start to get older, 60s and 70s, it's the kind of thing where I'm like, definitely want my parents taking it every day just so they can, they can thrive into their 80s and 90s. But for a younger person who really is motivated by being able to train better and feel better, when they exercise, have an improved physique, and just feel like super vital. It's a pretty awesome supplement that really is just, you won't get it from just like eating more meat. I mean, you could, but if you eat more meat, we didn't go into this, but like,

there's a lot more calories that you're consuming when you eat so much more meat, right? And you're taking a lot bigger toll on your body, et cetera. Yeah, well, eat chicken every three hours. Right, well, it's aggressive, it's time consuming. it's also expensive we talk a lot about cost of things have gone up right one thing i would love to i'll give you a plug here too is the key on the key on protein here i'm such a huge fan of and the reason i'm bringing this up is because it connects directly to what you just said i personally we have

high cholesterol in our family it's something that i just found out about which you know builds calcium in your heart and then can lead to like you know heart disease so one thing i'm very very conscious of is cholesterol and so what i love about The key on protein is it has less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol. Not all protein powders are like that. So if I look at like a steak, which is something I should really, really truly stay away from, according to my doctor, just because of red meat and cholesterol. And then I look at isolate protein powder with less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol.

That's huge. But now the whole idea of connecting this, and this is what I need a little bit more explanation on, you're telling me that you're looking at almost 10x the productivity by putting in amino acids than an isolate protein is that because the good essentials from the protein technically are aminos and you're then putting aminos directly into your bloodstream so it's like it's almost like short-cutting i feel like by the way back home my money popular curious Canadian you guys know him right he breaks down all the things when it comes to finance that goes way over his head i feel like the curious canadian this episode because this is the stuff i don't know but i need to know and i'm trying

to make it make sense but it seems like the aminos are like it's almost like if you're filtering for gold and you're out there just like going through the sand it's like the aminos are the actual gold of the protein they're the thing we need so putting them in through a supplement is like direct complete like just into the body stream right like it's like complete saturation of what you need. Am I hitting that right? That is the basic idea. So just to be clear, it's six times as much as weight protein ice lift up to the six times, yeah, for the specific number. And by the way, too, this is not like some study that I sponsored or Keon sponsor. This is widely published research, you know, really reputable research institutions like the

International Society of Sports Nutrition came out with a position paper lately where they have 130 studies referenced and they just rip through it all and like anything that I'm saying right now is highly validated through tons of public research and I would anyone who's like a nerd go check out that ISSN study it's it's super cool okay so the basic idea is yes it's about the concentration of essential amino acids in your blood that reach the muscle and so that is why even the protein powder worked so much better than the steak was because your body had to digest it less and it got into your blood more quickly and was immediately available to your body.

The amino acids are so much more even immediately available than the protein powder. And one other thing than that too is that we can formulate the essential amino acids to be more ideally used by the body. So there's more of specific amino acids, leucine specifically, but also a bit more lysine, isolucine and valine in the essential amino acids than there is in way protein. because of that and that's what your body wants more of it creates a greater stimulus so that that's that's the basic idea what one quick nuance i want to offer though too is that up to six times that says like you progressively get older what i would say is like if you you know below 30 think it's about

three times the impact of weight protein okay so and over 30 it starts to become four times by the time you're 50 it's five times by the time you're 60 six times and it continues to increase and that's because basically as we age our bodies aren't as sensitive to the foods that we eat and sensitive to the amino acids to promote the muscle protein synthesis as you can think about it like as you get older what happens like you start to lose your hair your skin starts to sag you start to lose muscle like your body's not prioritizing build new proteins do this better so there really is like a fountain of youth kind of aspect to the essential amino acids too in that they're promoting rebuilding the skin, rebuilding the hair, rebuilding the muscle in a way that

whole food protein doesn't to that degree. So, yeah, the simple answer, though, is it's much more concentrated, it's formulated in such a way that it's exactly what your body wants. And it just, when you get that and it hits the bloodstream at the same time, it just it promotes this, this effect. Understood. Understood. Okay.

So mom, dad, if you're listening, you will be getting Keanu. My brother and his husband, they're both. And my brother's putting out a ton of weight lately muscle mass by just consuming a lot of protein. So aminos, I got to make sure that he's putting that into his diet. I do got to ask you this, though. So let's talk energy. We've talked about muscle growth. And a lot of my people out there, maybe you guys need a little bit more energy at work,

maybe a little focus. If you're an accountant, intact seasons here come and gone and you know where you're at, teachers getting focused, the nurses for their late night shift, all the good stuff, right? So, of course, caffeine, before a workout, you know, obviously there are pre-workouts. I even see this, the BCAAs out there. So there are different ways, I guess, to get energy. I guess my question to you is with those three, how do they compare to the energy that's provided by aminos and what's your take on that? Great question. So wait, just to confirm, I got caffeine and BCAAs. What was the third one? The third one was pre-workout. Pre-workout. Okay. So what I would say is

with a pre-workout, basically what you're getting is caffeine. Like that's the thing that's creating the energy, the stimulant. There could be other things in there, like nitric oxide boosters, things that basically are vasodilators. They open up your blood vessels, and that's what makes you like tingle. But it doesn't really give you energy. I think when we talk about energy, what we mean is like mental alertness, focus, attention, ability, like motivation, interest to do things. And they don't, they don't particularly do that. The caffeine in the pre-workout is the thing that like makes you feel energized. Then there's just like pure caffeine, right? You could be drinking it in an energy drink or you could be drinking it in a Red Bowl or coffee or whatever. What I would say is the way the

caffeine works, we consider it as energy, but really what it is, is it blocks certain receptors in the brain to where it creates an illusion, but not an illusion. It creates true alertness and focus, right? That can actually improve performance, but it's not like nutritive. It doesn't It doesn't improve, it doesn't actually improve like the chemistry of your brain or improve the chemistry of your body to function better long term. It basically blocks certain receptors so that you feel more alert momentarily for a short and span of time. And that's why people can build dependency on caffeine and have the, and you can take too much

and it can create the jitters or make you feel anxious or make you sweat a lot or things like that. So I think caffeine totally has a role. I like drinking coffee in the morning. but I have to watch how much I take because it could affect my sleep. It could make me feel anxious. It could actually end up not giving me more energy because I almost feel like I have too much in some way.

Third one, great question, BCAA. So BCAA stands for branch chain amino acids. So it's another amino acids product. Branch chain amino acids are three of the nine essential amino acids. So the story behind this is that, about 40 years ago, we started to study in research communities how protein worked, which amino acids were important. And we uncovered that the BCAAs were really important in protein synthesis and also even

in energy production in the body. But what we have uncovered over the last 30 years, but very conclusively in the last 20 years, is that BCAAs are not anabolic. They do not help you build more muscle. And they don't really have any primary energy role if you don't consume the other six amino acids. So point blank, BCAAs are a waste of your money. Don't buy them. Wow. Interesting. See, it's so fascinating. I always hear these BCAs and shame on me, because I'm the guy, finance guy, know what you're consuming and how you're consuming. I just assume

you have, you know, you need them. But to understand the difference between non-essential and essential and knowing that essential has nine and now BCAs have three, you're pretty much wasting your money on BCAAs, why would you not get three X and get all the essentials that you need for what you're trying to do. That makes perfect sense. And I think that's a really good lead in. So let's just call a spay to spay. The nutrition supplement market is a multi, multi-billion dollar market. And it's that way because one, we're investing in our health, which is great, and we're living longer as a result of, you know, updates and science and health investment and medicine. And I think the other part is because it's lucrative. There's a lot of people out there that are doing

a lot of gross revenue, right? And some of it is a direct result of making impact in the body positively, and some of it is marketing. So can educate my consumers a little bit? Someone who is a founder of supplement company, clearly you've done it the right way by even just your breakdown of BCAAs versus what you're doing with your aminos. What are things as consumers we need to watch out for when we are consuming in this industry? Maybe what are some things that Keon has in their products that others don't?

Don't. Just let us know the basic trading secrets of consumption in the whole health and supplement nutrition industry. I think you were really fair in the way you laid it out in terms of it's a good thing. And there's a bunch of people making money off it. And maybe there's ways in which it's like, there's wasteful product out there or stuff that doesn't really work or misrepresented marketing, et cetera. So I think I'll tell you, like rather than trying to talk about everything, I'll tell you about the approach that I took to building Key on.

why I think that those values are important, and I think it will transfer well to this. So one thing that I thought a lot about is what are products that I really want to take every day because I truly believe they're going to create value in my life, and I believe they're going to create value in my life for a few things. One is, like, I've taken them and I, like, see that they work. Because lots of cases, like, that's enough for some people. Like, if you take a product and it has real impact on your life, you know, like, I don't need to read all the studies or blah, blah, whatever. It's like, I tried it and it really worked. And I think, and that may sound too simple, but it's a real, it's a real thing. The second thing, though, too, is like, is there

really good science behind it? And I think with a lot of supplements out there, there is very limited science. And if I wanted to go and market a new product, I basically could just have like one study about a new novel ingredient, some cool new cutting-edge ingredient that was really interesting and that sounded really cutting edge. And as long as I have that one study and then I develop really captivating marketing that plays on the impulses of contemporary social media and even podcast culture and all these things about what's cool, what's new, what's the best, what's the most cutting edge? Do-da-da-da-da. I could probably, I could sell a lot that product yeah because it's just like it's people want whatsoever's new and cutting edge i've got

i've got the you know i'm safe from the fda and the f tc because i've got this one study that says it but like i don't want to do that like i it's like i want to because i don't know if i want to put that my body like i want things that have been studied a long time especially with something i'm going to put in my body like every day it's one thing if you like try something one time but i'm suddenly you know, subscribe to this product and I'm using it every, it's like it's going into my shake every day. I'm using it every time I go to the gym. I want to make sure that whatever those ingredients are, that they've been studied by a lot of researchers and there's a lot of different people giving feedback on it. And then it's clear and conclusive up until now that it is a net

positive thing for me. And so I think that those are the two first things I would look for. It's like, be wary of like new cutting edge, most, you know, like unique novel thing that's going to change this special thing in your life and more like what's been really consistently studied and there are things that stand out. It's interesting. I mean, one one interesting thing about the space I'm in is that with essential amino acids, just like you're saying, you're not that familiar with them. You're more familiar with BCAAs because that's what's been marketed.

And so you may actually take a little bit of digging sometimes. You know, you may ask a trainer, you may ask your doctor, you may not know. But there are some good resources. Like I said, this international society of sports nutrition. It's a bunch of third-party independent researchers all publishing, critiquing each other and writing reports that kind of summarize things for consumers. But I think, you know, you try to turn to if you can find certain writers and podcasters, practitioners that you can trust that can help summarize information for you.

But look for like legit science. And then I think the other thing is like take a product and like make sure it's working for you. If you keep taking something and you're like, I don't, like, I don't know, man. I don't, like, I just don't, I'm not exactly sure what it's doing or if it's working. I mean, there's sometimes maybe that works for people, especially too if like it even just like helps you feel good about yourself. But like, ideally you feel benefits. And so you look at something like essential amino acids and it's like, I can't tell you how many people have gotten in body scans, like where they measure their body fat, muscle, all that kind of stuff. And then they start their regimen of essential amino acids.

And they don't change anything else. And they see body fat percentage go down and lean muscle mass increase. Wow. And it's like, you see that and you know that. And you're like, okay, I'm like bought in. Like this is like legit. You know, like this is legit. And I didn't take some weird additional stimulant or some drug or something else.

I literally just gave myself, my body, this nutrient that it wanted to create this end result. And it's like, you have that experience enough time. You know, you see those results or we didn't answer the energy thing, but it's like you take a product and you feel more sustained energy throughout the day. And it's not like a weird caffeine energy, but it's like, wow, I actually feel like a bit more like focused and alert. It's because I'm literally giving my body precursors to the neurotransmitters to my emotions. And, you know, it's like can generate your brain chemistry. Then you're going to be, you're going to be sold on something. So I think those are things to look for.

And then in terms of like really practical kind of label examination is, you know, you're going to be sold on something. typically and this is especially true for something like amino acids like you want to know you want them to tell you exactly which ones are in it so like list them out like exactly what you don't want to see like proprietary blend on an amino acid supplement because they could be putting all different you don't know what you don't know how much of each one's in it so you want you want to know exactly what amino acids are in it and you want know the exact amounts that are in it okay and if they do that there's a certain amount of integrity they're just telling you exactly what's in it and then you want to look under other ingredients and the other ingredients and the other ingredients you

You may not know everything about the way that they process and make supplements, but it should be a pretty simple list. It should just be pretty straightforward. Like if it's flavored, there's going to be some kind of flavoring, you know, and you can choose. I'm someone who prefers natural flavors and organic flavors when you can versus artificial, but if you don't care, like you don't care. And on the sweetener side, like, is it a sweetener you agree with? And then you don't need a bunch of other stuff. Sometimes you need like a rice flour type extract. It's in really small amounts so they can help process it.

But after that, man, there's not, there's not much else that should be in there. And so if you find brands that are doing that, like, you should feel pretty good about it. That's, I mean, you just answered like four questions and one there. It was brilliant. Even the energy thing, we talked about caffeine kind of blocks receptors where aminos actually just fulfills all the receptors. And I'm looking right now at your product. I also think, guys, that it's such a really big, you made such a good points about this whole industry. There's a lot of good with it, but there's a lot of things to watch out for.

And I think it comes down to what you said. Like, if it sounds too good to be true or it sounds too cutting edge or new, like have your red flags up and also do your research. Like, this is what you're putting into your body. So what we'll do, guys, is we will make sure that we link two things. We'll link the website to Kion so you can check out the aminos. But we'll also link the studies that you suggested. And so you guys go check those out in the show notes.

But let's also talk about price point, right? So let's say that the consumer is on board. They got the aminos. and I'm looking at yours right now. I have it right in front of me, guys. All the ingredients he said that you should check out. Check out. They're here. I see nine and you can see the serving size. So checkbox there. Also cool packaging, et cetera. I see that servings per container are 30. So that means if I do one a day, I'm trying to figure out how much it's going to cost me. For aminos like this, like I would say you're obviously price points fluctuate based on where

you're selling direct to consumer, retailer. I think most of our consumers will know that. But on average, like, you know, what do you charge for something like this? And on average, one thing I think we talk about is like when people are overpricing, like if they do, let's say some competitors out there have what you set. They got the studies. They have some credibility. It's not cutting edge. It's been around for a while.

They have the ingredients list and they look good. But they're like, wow, they're charging way too much for that. Give us an idea of consumer purchasing and dollar amounts for something like this. So this specific product is about $1.50 per serving. if you just buy it one time. If you subscribe, it's $1.33 or something like that for serving. And so, again, when you think about that, it's interesting, too, because people will be like, oh, it's more or less than protein.

The protein is about $1.50 a serving, but you get actually just as much, if not more, out of the amino acids than you do from the protein. But they're about equal cost in terms of what you're going to get. And so I think what I would say is that is very reasonable. reasonably priced for the quality of the product. You could find things that are going to be a lot cheaper. And I would actually be wary of things that are like, be wary of things that are a lot cheaper. Things that are more expensive.

The question is just like, yeah, why is it, you know, why is it more expensive? And I think most of the time it's probably going to be because maybe it's got a lot of other stuff in it. Like maybe it's actually not just, like, you're really looking for an essential amino acid formula or you're really just looking for like weigh protein or you're really just looking for the specific thing. But they suddenly have like a whole meal thing in it. Like they're putting greens powder and other root things and stuff like that in it because they're trying to hit some kind of price point. Got it. And they can add a little bit more of these things. And then now

they can charge $250 or $3 for it. But it's not like. And honestly, if you want all those things, then maybe it's maybe that's a good deal for you. If you're really just trying to get, you know, I'm just trying to get more protein in my diet. I'm just trying to get more amino acids in my diet. Then this is what it costs to manufacture this kind of product and to distribute it via direct-to-consumer and get it to people and have a reasonable and net profit margin for business. That's good stuff.

So if you guys back home or if you're looking to build some muscle, maybe lose some way, just any type of repair or growth when it relates to skin, hair, nails, all the stuff. I mean, I think it's, I really, I intentionally came into this interview, not studying much about amino acids because I don't know much. I wanted my curiosities to lead me. I'll tell you, I'm sold. I'm going to start taking it every day. Mom and dad, you guys are listening.

You're going to start taking this, especially my dad is trying to put on some more muscle mass. And same with my brothers. And I think that price point makes a lot of sense. And it also gives us an idea with other price points just to look out for, especially when you have these people trying to. package everything to sell you the world, like know what you're spending money on, why you're spending money on, and what specifically it does for you. My last question I got for you on Keon amino acids is, you know, this world works in funny ways where I hear these things. Every day I'm going to start taking it. I want results now, Angela, I want to feel it.

Well, the curious Canadian I, what we're going to do is before we air this, we're going to test it for a week every single day. Angela, tell me, though, is that the right sample size? Like how long if someone starts taking this today and they haven't taken it before, should they start to see some of the results you spoke about? So what I would say is like generally with health, if we're talking about body composition, so this is muscle mass, fat, you look out into several weeks.

Like if you go to like a responsible trainer, I think, and you go to them be like, hey, I really want to get more fit. Like I want to lose, I'm trying to lose 10 pounds. They're probably going to tell you, why don't we try to lose one pound a week over 10 weeks? Okay. Because that's sustainable. That's like cutting 3,500 calories a week, and you're not, like, depriving yourself,

and it's kind of like a sustainable thing. So I would think in similar terms, you know, I would think give yourself two to three months. Okay. And you will, and maybe the simplest thing, you know, with a brand like us, we have a 60-day money-back guarantee. So it's like, give it 60 days. You know, you got to be, you got to be committed to it. you know, like take it every day.

And it could be that you take it first thing in the morning when you don't typically eat something so you make sure that you're giving your body, you know, a serving of amino acids then or you ensure you take it before you train every day. Just like find the habit that you can anchor it to where you can take it every day. And after a few weeks, you will definitely start to see results. Some people that are much more, I would say, sensitive can immediately feel like, oh, yeah, like they take it for a week and then maybe they miss one day. they're like, oh, I really noticed, like, I didn't recover as well after my exercise or I didn't

feel like I had as much sustained energy throughout the day. But what I'd say is like for the body composition stuff, like give yourself a few weeks, give yourself several weeks. And I would even encourage you, like, if you can get an in-body scan or I think they're like 30 bucks or something and you can get, you know, your lean mass and body fat measured and you can just see what it is after, you know, eight weeks. I think you'll be surprised. Pretty cool. Good stuff. Angela, what I want to do is end with a trading secret. I mean, we learned all about aminos. We heard about you starting this company from the garage to now, like, unbelievable success. And so I also didn't realize some of the impacts that aminos can have on everything, your productivity and just your energy and the overall

growth. So first, first every day is starting today. Scoop a day is starting every day and it's starting today. But we got to wrap with your trading secrets. So it's something that people can't get in the textbook. They can't get on TikTok. They can only get from Angelo, given your work experience and what you've done and how you've done it and the products that you've created. So, Angelo, what is one trading secret that you could leave us with? I'm going to double down on the theme that we started with earlier. And it is be willing to commit to a more limited focus. Really motivated, ambitious people like myself want to do so many things and try to make so many things happen. And it was so hard for me to trust.

that if I was willing to try to do less things but do something really, really well, that it would be interesting enough, that I would be successful enough. Like, maybe I'd do it and then I would just fail and then I'd be like exposed. I don't think I could name it to myself, but I'd be afraid that I'd fail and I'd be exposed for it. Whereas if I've got enough things going on, then like all these things can happen, like just really trust committing to less things and being really great at one thing. If you look at the greats throughout history, they were largely great at one thing above all else. and like if I tried to start getting good at a sport today

and I try to get good at five all at the same time am I going to be that good at them a year from now I'm not I mean maybe I'm gonna be really good if I really practice that one sport in like one position same thing with an instrument it's the exact same thing with business like just dedicate yourself commit yourself to be more restrained

to do less things and to do them really well and I promise you you'll be fulfilled you'll be stimulated it'll be fun you'll be successful it won't be boring but it'll be a bit more of a grind. Because do it like... I like what you said, though. Like, be the master of one thing, right?

Like, tell it, knock it out of the park. To be a great, all you have to do is be the master of one. Angela, a couple other training secrets you gave that will stick with me was the idea of like if you put one piece of paper every single day for 365 days around your room and don't clean them up, it won't be the perfect stack. If you do stack them, you'll start to see those results. And I know this connects to your analogy and I just love the analogies. But when you look at your body like a house, like there's going to be leaks, there's going to be

issues, what are you proactively doing today to get on top of those things? And how are you putting your house, your body, your temple, in the best position to win mentally and physically every day. And when we talk about on this podcast a lot is the ability to generate wealth and be smart with your money and then move ahead from a career navigation standpoint, it starts with your house. It starts with your foundation. So, Angela, I learned a ton from you on this podcast.

I really appreciate you coming on. But for anyone that wants to purchase Keon aminos and or find more of you, where can they do all the above? You can just find us at the website, getkeon.com. And I think we have a special link for your audience. So it would be whatever that unique link is. And feel free to call. We have live support as well as you can call and talk to people.

They can help you answer questions, go into detail. It's pretty unique. So, yeah, the website and give us a call. All right, good stuff. Guys, stay tuned to the recap. We're going to do a little giveaway. and then we're also going to talk a little bit more about aminos. In the show notes, you can find the unique link for a discount and on Trading Secrets, Instagram page and YouTube page. And Angela,

thank you for being on this episode, Trank Sieg. Thanks for having me, Jason. And you know you can't go back again to the world that you would...