Hey friends,
Back again with another edition of The Founder Newsletter - this is Episode 26. If you’re new here, my goal is to give you a quick synopsis of what got me thinking from this week’s episode of The Founder Podcast in 5 minutes or less.
No idea what The Founder is? Read this.
Mission control:
Learn -> Founder favorite resources
Free money -> Discount codes
And who am I?
I’m Kallaway - a future founder trying to get some answers before I jump in the ball pit myself.
Let’s get it.
This Week’s Episode (Ep 26) 👩🦱
Guest -> Giorgos Tsetis, Co-Founder & CEO of Nutrafol
Mission -> Nutrafol takes a holistic approach to tackling hair loss and is pioneering the hair wellness category by focusing on the root causes for hair growth - things like stress, metabolism and hormones.
Discount -> Use code “Founder” for 20% off all Nutrafol products
Episode available on -> Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Website
In this episode we talk with Giorgos about…
🤝 The relationship between holistic health and hair wellness
💊 Nutraceuticals vs pharmaceuticals
🧑🔬 Life as a fashion model and a mechanical engineer
⚠️ The importance of efficacy and medical studies/clinical trials
🔟 How to think about 10x growth for a DTC business
Summary 🔍
What is Nutrafol and how did Giorgos get started?
Giorgos is incredibly talented – studying mechanical engineering in the Netherlands but winding up in New York pursuing a career as a fashion model.
After getting the opportunity to travel the world on the back of a successful modeling career, he returned to New York eager to start his next venture.
Throughout his travels and early career, he always felt a deep calling to help people and wanted to find a way to make the world a better place. After starting to experience some early signs of hair loss himself and realizing he was genetically at risk given his family history, he decided to take matters into his own hands.
He spent some time using pharmaceutical solutions, but after experiencing significant negative side effects, decided he needed to find something more natural that would solve the problem while enabling him to live his life.
When he couldn't find anything on the market, Nutrafol was born.
Today at Nutrafol, Giorgos and his team are blazing the trail for hair wellness, producing superior products and industry leading science to drive transformative results.
Nutrafol’s unique in that they take a holistic approach to tackling hair loss and pioneered the hair wellness category by focusing on the root causes for hair growth - things like stress, metabolism and hormones.
About a year ago, I personally noticed that my hair started thinning and was looking for solutions. After trying some basic gummy vitamins without significant results and afraid to try the unhealthy pharmaceuticals for fear of the negative side effects, I was fortunate to find Nutrafol.
The core product is packed with nutraceuticals, giving me access to clinical strength, medical grade ingredients that are naturally occurring and good for my body. I’ve been on the product for 9 months and couldn’t be happier with the results.
Here’s why I’m a fan and excited about the future for Nutrafol:
Hair loss/growth is a space with lots of false claims and bad actors. Nutrafol is the first solution I’ve tried that actually works
I’m paying a lot more attention to what things I put in and around my body. Nutrafol’s approach is to take nutraceutical, or naturally occurring, ingredients and create a formula that targets the roots causes of the issue over the symptoms. I think this is an approach that will have staying power when compared to bad for you, side effect causing, pharmaceutical options
They’re constantly on the cutting edge. Giorgos knew the importance of having unbiased, third party clinical trials to support Nutrafol’s claims. They’ve invested heavily in their in-house research teams and external clinical trials to make sure the science matched the marketing
Giorgos’s Startup Manifesto 📜
What’s a Startup Manifesto?
At the end of every episode, I ask all of my founder guests the same question:
If you had to write a Startup Manifesto with 5 of the most important key lessons or pitfalls to avoid when starting out, what would they be?
Here’s what Giorgos had to say:
Be absolutely obsessed with what you do. Don’t just love what you do, but know how deeply you are invested. What are your reasons behind doing all of this? If that’s not solid enough, the chances that you’re going to give up are just too big.
Be willing to sacrifice. How much are you willing to give up to make a difference? I haven’t seen my family for a long time - sometimes starting a business jeopardizes relationships and it’s not easy. You must have piece with this.
Be comfortable with the uncomfortable. The amount of times I was uncomfortable and insecure and saw things as a mountain in front of me was high, but you have to have the ability to push yourself and break through. At the other side of that fear is this moment of bliss and this true growth which is so celebrational. Embrace these types of obstacles and turn them into growth opportunities.
Focus – not just professionally but personally. Identify what’s important. Are you going to do 100 things a little bit or focus on 5 things and do them really well?
Health. How can you change the world and add value to people’s lives if you don’t feel well yourself? How do you remain sharp // how do you maintain that edge?
What Got Me Thinking From the Episode 🤔
After reflecting on my conversation with Giorgos, here’s something that really got my wheels spinning:
Adding value 🤯
Giorgos is such a thoughtful guy and you could tell after talking to him that he has wisdom beyond his years.
One of the most important learnings I took away from the conversation was the idea of simplifying everything back down to, “Are you adding value for people?”
For Giorgos, this was one of the north stars that he anchored to when he started Nutrafol.
He knew that this was a massive problem and that the other solutions out there were a net neutral or negative. Sure they had some effective on preventing further hair loss, but the symptoms and side effects cancelled out that benefit.
That isn’t adding value to people’s lives - it’s simply trading and relocating it in another area.
Giorgos knew that the solution he developed had to be a net positive. No side effects, no negatives and real results.
His team’s approach to focus on the root causes for hair loss rather than the symptoms was a radical one for the industry and has been met with some skepticism. Pharmaceutical companies don’t like the fact that anybody can procure and formulate naturally occurring ingredients into a supplement that outperforms theirs.
I think this idea of adding value for people is the most important thing that matters when starting a company. You could have the best product in the world, but if it doesn’t add something that is missing in people’s lives, it’s not going to do well.
So how do you identify something that’s going to add value in people’s lives? You could either tackle a problem that already has billions of dollars chasing it (but solve it in a new way) or go out and talk to customers about what else they’re missing in their lives.
Customer feedback is one of the best ways to quickly identify how big a problem is and how sticky your solution might be.
Starting with a solution and trying to find the problem is a lot harder than starting with the problem and finding the right solution.
Wrapping it Up 📕
I hope you found this interesting and inspiring! If so and you want to help support my journey to bring The Founder to millions of people across the world, here’s a couple things that would be really valuable to me and the show:
If you enjoyed this post, share it with one friend that you think is on the same wavelength. Can’t hurt and would help spread the word!
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Listen to the full podcast episode with Giorgos on Apple or Spotify. If you don’t have an hour to listen to the full episode, pick a couple of topics you’re interested in and skim through (topic time codes in the show notes).
If you’re feeling super giving:
Find our show on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/2VCosu6) and (1) subscribe, (2) give a 5-star rating and (3) leave a couple sentence positive review. This doesn’t seem like it would move the needle but it really is a massive help!
Till next time ✌️
Kallaway
Want more? Check out other companies we’ve featured on the show!
— 🌵 25. The Sill | Eliza Blank
— 🥦 22. Levels | Josh Clemente
— 🧑🦰 17. Kombo Ventures | Kevin Gould
— 💍 11. The Clear Cut | Olivia Landau and Kyle Simon