Ecom Growth Insider · Podcast episode

Gene Oh: Insurance for When You Drink

With Gene Oh · Published 2026-05-26 · 46 minutes · Hosted by Andrej Tumachowitsch

Gene Oh: Insurance for When You Drink

Gene Oh had a guaranteed path to being a doctor. Brown's PLME programme admits you to medical school at eighteen, his father is a doctor, and his family was delighted. Then he studied abroad in Seoul, took one of the liver-protecting jelly sticks that sit at the checkout of every Korean convenience store, woke up feeling fine, and decided to bring the category to a market that did not have it.

What makes this a useful episode is that he had to build two things at once. The category is new in the US and so is the format, which he calls two fronts of the same war. He could not advertise a hangover cure either, because the FTC and FDA will not have it, so the positioning had to be earned rather than borrowed.

You get the research method that found his real customer, the rebrand that followed when the data disagreed with his assumption, and the retail move that turns a fridge door into shelf space nobody else is competing for.

What you will take away

• He did the customer research with a backpack and a Typeform. He carried five hundred units each of the three leading Korean products back to the States, mango, green apple and peach, then spent two months in bars and clubs around Providence handing them out with a form asking about taste, texture, packaging and name. Hundreds of responses became a brief his manufacturer could build from.
• The data said his customer was not who he thought. They launched targeting college students, because that is who he was and who tested the product. Six months of sales and customer interviews said the buyers were social, health-conscious people between roughly twenty-nine and forty-four in big cities, drinking at weddings and work events rather than tailgates. Different buyer, different pain, so the brand had to move.
• He changed the brand and the formula at the same time. Most founders will not touch one of those. He did both: a more elevated brand for the customer the data described, and a formula rebuilt around every effect of alcohol rather than just the morning after, adding prebiotics and ginger for the gut, electrolytes for hydration and B vitamins for depletion.
• The constraint produced the positioning. He cannot say hangover on the packaging, so the line became insurance for when you drink, alongside prevents rough mornings. Leaning on the health angle rather than the hangover angle also widened the case: one or two drinks may not give you a hangover and is still not good for your liver.
• A new category has to borrow credibility from somewhere. His is Korea. The product being at every convenience store checkout, endorsed by big names, is the proof that the concept works, and he leads with it rather than hiding the unfamiliar format. He argues the novelty is an asset too, because it is memorable in a feed.
• The timing problem is a retention problem. You have to buy this before the pain, carry it, and take it before you drink. His answer is retention and mind share: flows, promos and email that keep the brand present so it surfaces at the moment somebody is about to go out, plus getting physically next to the alcohol.
• A fridge mount is net new shelf space. A Forbes feature in February brought inbound from distributors, and the first New York distribution deal followed. The mechanic he likes is a custom mount on the alcohol door fridge: it does not displace another product, it is a new category so the revenue is incremental to the store, and every sale there is a customer acquired at no ad cost.
• Focus is the thing his mentors keep repeating. Meta, Amazon and TikTok Shop, and nothing else for now, even though the inbound to do everything is constant. He is equally direct that the hundred-hour week is a myth worth dropping: there is a point where volume of work stops being the thing that moves the business.

Full transcript

Lightly edited from the episode captions for readability. The episode is the record - where they differ, the audio wins. The source is the published video's own automatic captions, which carry no speaker labels and no timings, so this runs as continuous prose rather than a speaker-by-speaker transcript.

When I found this product concept in Korea, you know, these jelly sticks that everyone takes before drinking, I just was enamored by the whole experience. I kind of saw as an opportunity to bring a product with product market fit in adjacent market to the states. My guest today came into Brown's PLME program. That's the 8-year combined undergrad and medical degree. One of the hardest programs to get into in the Ivy Leagues, a guaranteed path to becoming a doctor.

He left it to sell jellysticks. Gino is the founder of Daygard. And I don't say that to make it sound crazy. Once you hear the story, it actually makes complete sense. Gene was studying abroad in Soul, tried these liver protecting jelly sticks that are basically everywhere in Korean convenience stores, and woke up the next morning feeling great.

He saw a billion dollar category in Korea with zero presence in the US. So, he decided to build it from scratch. They can't legally call it the hangover cure, so they landed on a framing that I actually love. and now they're pushing into retail after the Forbes feature that brought in inbound from distributors all across the country. This episode is about creating a category that doesn't exist.

It's about building with no blueprint. Let's get into it. My guest today is a Brown PLME dropout who now sells Jellysticks at 3:00 a.m. Gino, welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you for having me, Andre.

I have to start with this. Um, you were in Brown PLME, the 8-year MD program that is one of the hardest things to get into at the Ivy League level, and then you left to sell jelly sticks. How was the the convo with your parents? It's a great question cuz, you know, I'm Asian-American. I'm Korean-American from the Boston area, and you know, the stereotype that most Asian-American parents want their kids to go to med school, I'd say it's pretty accurate.

Um, part of it too is my dad is a doctor and so he loves his job and he always kind of wanted me to go down a similar path. Um, obviously the whole family was ecstatic when things worked out with college admissions and I got into this combined undergrad med school program. But I think they also realized that you know I got into med school technically when I was 18. You know a lot changes between 18 and 22 which is when I studied abroad in Korea and kind of encountered these products for the first time. I think over those years during my undergrad and during a gap year I took between high school and college I reflected really really deeply on like what was actually fulfilling and what I wanted to do long term with my life.

I've always found entrepreneurship to be fascinating and you know it can have a very scalable impact through owning your own business. And when I found this product concept in Korea you know these jelly sticks that everyone takes before drinking it and helps protect their liver and gut health and helps them feel better the next morning after drinking. I just was enamored by the whole experience and I I kind of saw as an opportunity to bring a product with product market fit in an adjacent market to the states. Um at this point I was a senior in college and I had the opportunity to take some gap years before med school at Brown and I was like why not just go all in on this see where it takes me and you know at this point it's uh something I couldn't imagine doing otherwise. So, I think my parents have seen this journey over time and they've seen how much passion and love I have for it and how it's a really good fit for my personality now that I'm a bit older and more sure of myself and they're very, very supportive.

So, my dad who's a doctor, he actually helped me formulate this product and my mom actually in the early days helped us with product fulfillment. So, we had thousands of boxes in our garage and in my basement and she would help pick pack the orders, drive the UPS every day and send them out. So, it very much feels like a family business at this point. Nice. That's great to hear that they're so so supportive, even if you don't go the traditional route of becoming a doctor, lawyer, engineer.

Mhm. Um, and I'm curious like when when most people in their early 20s discover like something cool like you mentioned when you discovered the the product, um, they just tell their friends and family about it, maybe take some of the products with them to the US, but you had the instinct to turn it into a company. Where do you think that that's that come from? Yeah, that's a great question. Um, it's funny because literally the first time I tried it, I was just so enamored by the whole concept.

The next morning after putting the sticks to the test, um, I I woke up, I felt amazing, and I was actually staying at my best friend's place. He's, uh, his name's Felix Lee. He's an international student from Korea. So, he was doing his military service in Korea while I was studying abroad. I was staying at his place.

We we both woke up feeling amazing. And we kind of just knew then and there that this had so much potential in the states and we're like let's just give it a go, you know, like can't hurt to do secondary research. Can't hurt to like talk to some professors and mentors at Brown and just hear their thoughts on it. I think it was obviously taking that first step which was not the most natural thing but once we started to dig into it a bit more started like doing research started reaching out to manufacturers and kind of interviewing potential customers on what they thought we just got really excited about the whole thing and just went with it. Um yeah, I think uh that's a big part of starting a company is uh a just having the audacity to think that you can bring something to market and monetize it and then b having a good co-founder.

Like I think I was really lucky in that I found this product that clearly worked in Korea already and then to that second point it was my best friend who you know I've known since the first week first week of school who was so interested in doing with me that it just felt like a natural fit. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a great starting point. And I assume the the medical background that you had led you to like obviously have a way better understanding of the science behind what you're what you're selling.

Um would you say that the the medical training that you had changed how you approached uh building building the brand versus like how regular founder would build it? Yeah, I think so. I think to some extent um you know as a premed student and as someone who was on track to go to med school uh I had done a lot of clinical research in the past working at labs at like Harvard med school and at Rhode Island Hospital near Brown and I was very comfortable with like clinical science and so once we started delving into like what an effective formula would look like. You know, we were combing through tons of articles on like liver support, liver science, and like the specific ingredients and how they like affect biochemical pathways in your liver and your central nervous system. And I think it made it a less daunting exercise I think in the beginning and then over time like even Felix who didn't have like a medical background, he was able to like learn these skills on the fly and um I think it just helped with getting over that first like kind of mental hump.

But at this point, you know, there's all these great tools. You know, you have like abundance of LMS and and AI tools that can help you analyze clinical studies, kind of search them at scale. I also had my dad, who's a doctor, help like look over them in the beginning. And so I had a lot of um kind of very fortunate circumstances that helped me out in the beginning. Nice.

And then you mentioned you you tried the product um while you were studying studying abroad in in Korea and then you you brought it brought them back to the to the university to Brown and started handing them out to like people at bars um to parties and like walk me through what were you thinking or what were you watching out for um and what were you hoping to see happen once you do that? Mhm. Yeah. I think, you know, the fact that these products are so popular in Korea gave me a lot of confidence in the concept. Like you can find them at the checkout of every convenience store.

You see rappers from outside of bars and clubs and they're endorsed by big celebrities like BTS. Um that definitely helped me with the initial like kind of juxtaposition and lack of confidence in starting a company. But I also knew that in order to scale this product like we had to tailor to our consumers. I think something that we've always heard from our mentors who are building in CPG and honestly in any field is you need to understand who your ICP your ideal customer persona is as soon as possible. Understand what their preferences are, who they are, what they want to see in a product like this.

And so what I did is I took 500 of each of the leading um products in Korea back to the States. One was a mango flavor, one was green apple, one was peach. And then for literally two months, I went to bars and clubs at Brown in the Providence area. I went out with a bunch of sticks in my backpack and a type forum that had questions about the taste, texture, packaging, flavor, name even, and I just had hundreds of people try the three variants and give me feedback on what they like the most and what they wanted to see in an American version. So, we're basically able to aggregate all of this like great customer data into like a very concise and easy to understand manifesto which we could then send to our manufacturers to help us build.

Mhm. And how was the the feedback of the people? Was it like all positive? Were there also like people not liking it? What were like the main main takeaways that you got initially?

Yeah, I think generally people really love the product, you know, because it's very portable. It's uh it's a jelly stick that you just tear open before during drinking. Um they love that it's communal. Like in Korea, it's like good manners to bring a few of these sticks to the pregame and share them with your friends. And they also loved how it just tasted great.

Like it didn't really taste like a supplement. Uh it also removes like the kind of barrier that you're presented when you have like a shot bottle or a pill version of this cuz that you want to take more discreetly. You might need water with it and it's kind of just an inconvenience. I think people love the whole form factor. So, they love the fact that it's super popular in Korea.

And I think one thing is that some people were thrown off by the whole jelly form factor. You know, jellies are very, very popular in Asia, but they're not the most common thing in the States. So, for them, it was a very novel, you know, experience. Some people were kind of weirded out by the texture at first. I think others honestly found it to be a positive because it was like tasty and also was more memorable.

But ultimately, we decided that the the form factor was something that we really loved. And you know, when you bring any type of product to market, like not everyone is going to love it, but you just need to find who your loyal customers are, the people who champion your product. And we felt like we had enough positive feedback that we could definitely push in this direction. Yeah. And I mean, in Korea, there's al already this huge culture around that um around that product.

And as you mentioned, you can you can buy it literally everywhere. Um, did you ever worry that this this behavior would not would not transfer to the US market because obviously like how people drink alcohol and how they yeah consume the products is quite different than than Korea. Yeah, definitely. I think um the fact that we're kind of creating a new category is definitely a daunting challenge because not only is it like a relatively new and growing category like being a hangover and alcohol aid, uh it is also a completely new form factor. So we're kind of tackling two birds uh with one stone or two two two fronts of the same war you could say.

And that was definitely a challenge in the beginning, but it also really helped us refine our marketing angles because at this point we've been selling mostly on, you know, uh, Shopify through DTOC and then on Amazon. It really helped us refine exactly what the pitch is to prospective customers, people who only interact with you through a video. And helped us understand like, okay, we need to talk about how it's very, very popular in Korea. we need to really lean into the jelly form factor instead of shying away from the fact that it's completely new. And then also emphasizing how it it makes the whole experience very portable, very convenient, very social.

Um I think another great thing about this jelly form factor is that it's very bioavailable. So the technology itself is actually very very good for basically metabolizing these key ingredients which are oriental raisin tree, milk thistle, elcistane, turmeric. Um, you know, these days in the supplement industry, there's been a huge trend moving towards convenient form factors, namely gummies. Um, and so you see brands like Gruins, they just got acquired by Unilver for 1.2 billion. You see brands like Create raising a lot of money and making a gel or a gummy for creatine.

Uh, but with this trend, people are starting to realize that gummies, you know, they're packed with pectins. They're um they're very very uh harsh on your gut and packed with preservatives that just aren't really good for you. But this jelly form factor kind of has that same portability and convenience, but because it's more watery and gelatin based, um water gelatin based, your body absorbs these ingredients much more efficiently. So, you kind of get the best of both worlds. And so, we're very very happy with this form factor.

And that's the reason why we actually want to expand into all supplement forms in this jelly form factor so that we can start doing, you know, a daily liver cleanse product which we have poised to to launch in August of this year. We're eventually going to make a stick for creatine, for sleep, for energy, for dieting, for skincare, all in this jelly form factor. Exciting. Mhm. And you already mentioned you basically had to like open up a new category with with this product.

How would you say how do you how did you manage to create demand for for something that people don't even know that exists? I think um I think a huge point of credibility is the fact that these products are very popular in Korea and Korean culture is becoming very prevalent in America. You know, I have to give credit to my Korean brothers and sisters in media and in skincare and and in art and whatnot who are kind of paving this path for us. But once we can explain through say our meta ads or even in inerson pitches that this form factor is becoming super popular in Korea, that just adds a ton of credibility to what we're building. Um, I also mentioned this earlier, but I think the fact that it is so novel has actually been uh an advantage for us because it sticks out and is so memorable.

And um, I think, you know, it's never easy creating a new category because there is an educational component that goes with it. But I also think that it is something that we're going to invest in right now such that we have like a mo and a long-term advantage as we grow this company. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's obviously always a huge advantage of being like the first in the in the category and create it. Mhm. And I think another big challenge for you is the the timing of the product because basically someone has to to buy it, carry it with them and take it before they even start drinking and before they experience the pain of the of the drinking. And a lot of e-commerce brands can really um advertise with a pain that they're they're solving, but for you it's kind of like non-existent yet or you have to rely on the past pain of like when they were drinking the last time, right? Um how how do you solve that?

Yeah, I think um what it really comes down to is really strong customer retention strategy. So like obviously you need to educate them the first time you like introduce a product like this but once you bring in a customer it's all about showing how much we appreciate them whether it's through giving them special promos or experiences um it's through our email marketing like using Clavio and our email flows to make sure customers are reminded that this is really good for your health and it also helps with that hangover and just making sure that we occupy enough mind space such that you know when they are drinking they're like oh I wish I had a day guard right Um, on that note as well though, I think a big reason why these products are so popular in Korea is that you find them at the checkout of every convenience store where people already buy their beer and their soju. So, it's very much an impulse purchase. Like, you're rarely going to find Koreans who order it on coupon, which is like their Amazon equivalent. And so, for us, something that we're really pushing into this year, in addition to launching that new product, is pushing into some retail.

Um, we uh got featured in Forbes in February and that article went pretty viral. It got a few hundred thousand views and we started to get a lot of inbound from retailers and distributors all over the country. And so now, you know, we signed our first uh distribution agreement in the New York City area. We're poised to be in a few hundred sea stores and bodeas in the New York City metropolitan area. So, we're really excited to see how that can kind of improve our our uh kind of penetration into this market and and kind of fit into, you know, your routine when you're going out.

This way, it's kind of just at the checkout uh or on these custom fridge mounts we made that hold just our blocks on alcohol door fridges such that customers are reminded at the point of purchase of alcohol that they should be taking something like this and they can just buy one or two sticks at a time depending on their needs. Yeah, I think that will be a huge additional unlock for the brand because as you mentioned like if someone is already buying alcohol they're currently checking out it's just a very very easy like upsell for them. Um that makes the the whole experience the whole drinking experience way way easier like way better for them uh way more pleasant and at the same time yeah they don't have to think about it's like days in advance um and they can do it at the at the same time. Definitely. And I'm I'm also really excited about retail.

Obviously, it's great for us because it's technically brand exposure being in all these like physical channels as well. Like that's technically a zero dollar CAC, right, for every customer that comes in and purchase it from the store. I think another great thing is that it's mutually beneficial for our retail and distribution partners because a, you know, because we're making this custom fridge mount that just sits on alcohol door fridges, it's actually creating net new real estate in the store that does not take away from another product. It's also a new category. So, it's incremental revenue.

It's not as if someone were to bring in a new protein bar and because they like the packaging in that one more, the retailer is missing out on revenue from other protein bars. It's like very much an incremental revenue for the store. And then the last piece is that uh we've been doing some heavy club sampling here in New York and in Boston. Uh we we sample Dayard at Mission, which is the largest Asian nightclub in New York City, at Lebane, which is a staple in the meat packing, and then two big ones in Boston. Um they really like us because they've told us that their their customers actually order more alcohol.

You know, people try the jelly stick and they're like, "Oh, well, I'm protecting my liver and my gut. I'm kind of mitigating that next day rough morning like I might as well get that next bottle, that next beer. And so it actually opens up a lot of upselling and cross-selling opportunities for these retailers as well. Yeah, it it has to be worth it for them that they that they took it. So they need to they need to drink more.

Interesting. Definitely. Um you you can't call the the product legally a hangover cure, right? Um so you landed on insurance for when you drink. How how long did it take you to to find that that framing and like what did you test before that?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you're totally right. According to the US FTC, like you can't actually use hangover language and the FDA class classifies hangover as a temporary disease state. So, you can't put hangover on any of our packaging.

Um, we just wanted to use, you know, uh, similar wording. So, something we say is prevents rough mornings, right? um that very clearly communicates the value especially in the context of alcohol. Um another thing is that we lean into the health benefits of the product. So the ingredients in Dayard actually will reduce inflammation in your liver and gut.

They'll reduce oxidative stress and it'll help uh prevent GABA rebound which is the reason why you get anxiety the next day. And so we really lean into this health angle because everyone knows that even having one or two drinks may not give you a hangover per se, but it's still not very good for your general liver and gut health. And so if we can also leverage like saying, "Hey, we'll actually protect you. We'll provide insurance for when you drink," that we found has resonated a lot with our ICP. Nice.

And you mentioned in the beginning like finding that that messaging u match with the with the ICP is really like one of the most important things in the beginning and really make sure that you speak to the to the right person with the right messaging to to get them to resonate with the with the product. Mhm. Definitely with that um you also a few months ago you did a quite big of a of a pivot or rebrand. Um I think initially in in in March 2025 you you started with targeting college students primarily and then in November 2025 you relaunched with a with a new formula and also with a completely new brand targeting more like healthconscious millennials. Mhm.

And most founders are even terrified to like change one thing and you basically changed two things at at once. um walk me through like what were you seeing that that made this necessary? Yeah, so our first test product uh which is the one we launched in March of last year that was like this pink kind of like bright peach flavored product that was very tailored to who we thought was our ICP which is college students. I think part of that is you know a lot of people who have these jelly sticks in Korea tend to be on the younger side cuz their legal drinking age is actually 20. It's a bit younger than here in the States and drinking is such a big part of their culture.

Um, and the other thing is that, you know, Felix and I were college students at the time. Like I was a senior at Brown and he was um, he had just wrapped up his sophomore year at Brown but was doing his military service and so that was kind of the only world that we knew. And also a lot of our user testing in the early days was uh, from me going to these college bars and clubs and handing it out to college students. And so that whole packaging was very much tailored to, you know, people between the ages of say 21 and 24. Uh so very much like our demographic, college students and people who had just graduated.

But after selling the product on um DTOC and on Amazon for at that point around 6 months, we realized through our customer data and just through interviewing a lot of our customers throughout this entire period that most of them were actually a bit older than we thought. So instead of being college students, they're actually, you know, social healthconscious millennials, people between the ages of 29 and 44 who live in big cities like New York, Boston, LA, San Francisco, and they drink more for the social reasons than to get trashed at like a college tailgate. You know, you can find them drinking at weddings, on the golf course, date nights, corporate happy hours. And so their pain points are actually very, very different. um in addition to wanting to mitigate that hangover, they're more health focused, you know, um they care a lot more about like their longevity and you know, how their body can recover uh particularly their liver, especially because everyone knows alcohol is uh you know, a toxin that puts a lot of strain on that organ in particular.

And so we wanted to change our branding to speak more clearly to this ICP. We wanted to make it feel much more elevated. We wanted to uh feel like something that would be uh much more seamless with like kind of that like social urban dweller instead of just a kind of party hangover remedy. Sounds like completely the opposite uh opposite brand voice like from party college students to like the premium wellness for for adults pretty much. How how big was the was the shift for the for the brand?

I mean, I think it was massive, right? Because in addition to changing our branding entirely, you know, we also changed our formula to be much more health uh health comprehensive. And by that, we mean instead of just having ingredients that were tailored toward hangover mitigation, we also included new like like basically ingredient pillars to address all the effects of uh alcohol in your body. So originally it was mainly liver supporting herbs and ingredients which are still great for your health and for your liver health but then we added prebiotics and ginger for your gut support. We added electrolytes for hydration and then B vitamins 1 2 3 and six to help with vitamin dep from alcohol.

So that way we we made it a much more comprehensive formula and that's also where we dubbed the coin insurance for when you drink. Now we kind of address all the pillars of health that are affected by when you drink. And I think that made the product much more effective from like a health perspective and from a feeling good the next day perspective, but it also opened up new uh marketing angles for us because there's no other product in the market that has this much of a comprehensive formula. And with with all the like where the brand is going now and the new products that you're that you're launching, is the focus still on on those audiences and do you basically want to provide everything that you can to to those audiences or do you also want to expand to other people? Yeah, I mean I think we'd love to start with our current audience.

You know, we think uh that people who drink in this demographic are also the ones to be more mindful of their daily liver health. And that's also why we're kind of pivoting to this new product as well. Uh we think that if you drink and you like taking something like Dayard to protect your liver, you probably do care a lot about your liver health and in general. And that's why we think having a daily liver cleanse support that will be something you take every single day. That will fit very seamlessly in your lifestyle because um there's all types of toxins that put strain on your liver.

You know, your liver is your body's main detoxifying organ. So in addition to alcohol, like sugar for instance, like fructose in particular is gram for gram more harmful for your liver than alcohol itself. You know, fatty liver disease is very very prevalent in America because of that. And we wanted to make something that could serve our customers on a day-to-day basis while also opening up the the market even more significantly because, you know, a good portion of Americans drink. I believe the statistic is 220 million Americans do drink alcohol, but every American has a liver.

So, we just wanted to serve more people and also help the ones that we already do serve. That makes sense. And in terms of growing the brand, I mean, you have you have Tik Tok, Instagram, direct to consumer, Amazon, now also like wholesale and and retail on on top of that. What would you say what's currently moving the needle the most right now? Like which channel is responsible for the for the most of your growth?

Right now it's a mixture of Amazon and DTOC driven mainly by uh meta ads. Uh we do also invest a lot in organic content. So organic content that we can post on Instagram and on Tik Tok. Um in the early days too in particular it was driven by a lot of founder marketing. So I made an effort to grow my personal brand on Instagram.

I think within four months I got it to around 30k followers and that was a great way for us to kind of put a voice and an identity to the company in the early days to kind of a educate our consumers but also uh kind of weave them into the story of how we brought this from Korea to the states how like started by two you know Ivy League students and like how I dropped out of medical school. Um, I think founderled marketing has has always been very helpful for meta ads as well because we've noticed their highest performing ads typically involve me talking to the camera and explaining the story. And so that's something we're going to continue to push with this new product as well. Um, again, like I said, I'm very very excited about where retail can take us. Uh, personally, we're pretty um we're pretty cautious about expansion through distribution.

So, that means expanding through opening up new distribution accounts. What we really want to see is um, you know, working with a few really, really strong distribution partners and seeing good sales velocity in all the retail um, channels that they operate within. And so for now, I think we're going to keep it relatively small and just monitor that success and see, you know, what practices we can do to improve uh shelf velocity in each retail location. But once we build up a case study of say like a few hundred, a few thousand stores where people are actually buying DGAR consistently, then it'll be a very very good platform for us to go to say like a national distributor or national retailer and kind of go from there. Uh I think we're also really blessed in that uh a lot of our mentors are also Brown alum and CPG operators.

Like one of our investors is Gabby Lewis, the uh founder of Magic Spoon Cereal who very much uh was able to start a successful DTOC business for his like high protein low carb cereal and then expanded to retail and scale the company. Uh, another investor is Marco Deleon who's a founder of Van Waffles and he very much did a similar strategy and so we get to uh, basically keep in touch with them very very consistently and ask them these questions. Uh, they've also offered to like kind of open up these more retail uh, channels for us once we kind of hit the right shelf velocity in these locations and we see it as a very like uh, promising way to expand in person. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

And you mentioned also the the personal brand. Um that that helped you a lot. Um would you would you say every founder should should build a personal brand as well? I think it absolutely helps because you know in this day and age where there's so much AI slop on the internet and you know metacs are rising across the board. I think what really really cuts through is having an authentic brand story, brand voice.

Um, I think, you know, with any consumer good, you, you know, technically are like a commodity good. Um, anyone can come in and replicate your formula and branding and packaging and try to sell to the same customer base. But I believe what Felix and I have is a very strong brand. Mo is our brand story. you know, us being those two scrappy young college guys, me dropping out of medical school, him like, you know, not doing the corporate path that would have given him a visa to stay in the states and kind of putting everything on the line for this company.

I think that is something that resonates a lot with our customers and that's also why this Forbes article that featured that exact same story, I think, you know, was able to go so viral and give us this huge lift. So, I think every founder just inherently has an interesting story. You know, I have so much respect for anyone who goes off the beaten path and really bets on themselves. I also think there's another level of like respect I have for consumer founders because it is such a cutthroat space. It's relatively low margin.

It doesn't have the same like kind of sexy um appeal as like say like an AI company, especially in this day and age. So I think any founder should kind of share their story online and I think it can only help attract a either good talent to come work for them. Uh b customers who are going to be loyal to the brand now and in the long term and c for finding other founders you know like-minded people who resonate with your story and will reach out and want to like you know be a part of your community as you continue to grow the company. Yeah. You mentioned the meta ads being a big big portion of the of the growth and and responsible for for acquiring new customers, but then you also have like camper campus ambassadors at like Brown and Georgetown.

You also have a have a DJ that you're that you're sponsoring. Um why are you are you still doing those things or just spending more on on meta ads? I think um we still are doing all those things. You know, I think at this point we have our team is around 20 people as apparently and so we do have a lot of bandwidth to tackle many things at once. So we do have ambassadors at schools kind of doing the grassroots thing of getting into like college bars, college parties, having college ambassadors, kind of making it cool within these circles because a lot of these kids end up graduating then going to New York, Boston SF and kind of becoming the ICP.

So very much am happy with that. I do think Medads has become a very big focus because something that we've heard repeatedly from our mentors like Gabby and Marco is um focus is the most important thing in the world as a founder and instead of trying to spread ourselves too thin and try to do you know say everything at once because there really is like a million things we could do to kind of move the needle forward. it's best to just like take your your your um kind of top talent and really focus on one thing at a time. So, we would like to continue scaling this channel as much as possible before really like kind of scattering our focus and trying to do too many things at once. And how do we manage to to not get distracted by the thousands of shiny objects all around you?

I think that's just an experience thing. Um, I think it's it's one of the hardest things and probably the most valuable skill as a founder is understanding exactly what's the highest leverage at any given time and really doubling down on it. I think in the early days, you know, we very much were chasing every shiny object ever. Like every time we got inbound from a potential partner sampling opportunity, we're like, we have to send product, we have to go, we have to go push it in person. You know, every time we had like a social media collab opportunity, we'd kind of jump on it and explore it.

But now I think we are at a stage where you know we've built a somewhat of a sustainable business and and have a lot more experience and also great mentors who can kind of keep us in check and we have done a very good job of understanding like what you know um what use of our time actually is moving the needle forward on a day-to-day and I think for most consumer brands in the early days especially ones that are TTOC focused it really just comes down to three channels right like you've got Meta driving like you know traffic to your DSC site. You've got Amazon and you know doing Amazon keyword refinement and then this new one which is like Tik Tok and Tik Tok shop. Um you know you could start going to other platforms like Apploven or like Direct TV or you know there's a whole myriad of others but I think there's so much ground to cover in just those three alone. I think those are the most conducive to uh consumers buying patterns in this day and age as well that instead of like trying to chase everything at once, we're just going to try to make sure that we can do the the best we can in in these verticals for now before trying to do other things. Obviously, retail is going to be another like whole um kind of story in itself.

But I think actually fits very seamlessly with our meta ad strategy because we can like you know do geo targeting. We can um also use it as a channel to drive brand awareness before people go into the stores so that like they see it at the counter these checkouts and then they're more likely to buy it then and there. Yeah. Yeah. And I I totally agree with that with that strategy.

I mean obviously retail is a completely different beast and that is very very valuable but completely different different game. Um, but apart from that, I think most brands diversify too early and they they think they have to be on every single platform and test every new new strategy to acquire clients. Whereas, if they would put all of their time and all of their focus on just Meta, for example, or just Meta and Amazon, they would get way more results. Um, and a lot of brands think they've saturated their market when they're spending, I don't know, five to 10,000 per day on meta ads when in reality they could spend 10 times 100 times more um, and still get results if if everything is is set up properly. Mhm.

I think especially because with these platforms like in addition to scaling spend like another like huge lever is just trying new marketing angles, creative volume especially with Andromeda these days is really important. And so you can never really have enough of that. And so I don't see a reason to pivot at this moment. Uh I think there's so much content that we can still continue to test and and try to iterate on. You know, it's it's funny cuz like with these ads sometimes what can make the entire difference is literally the first 3 seconds.

So just changing hooks, you know, you can change the body as well, changing music, B-roll, sound effects, like there's so much that you can do within even one concept to change it and see what works that I just find that there is no shortage of work on that front at the moment. Yeah. How many concepts or creatives in general are you currently testing? Um, right now, transparently, we actually are about to sell out of our product entirely in a week. So, we actually tapered our meta ads budget down very significantly.

So, right now we're only testing around 100 creatives. Um, we do expect to ramp that up again uh because we've air shipped some pallets from Korea to the States. We'll have those ready to go by the end of this month and then we'll start to ramp that up again. But, you know, the key is to get, you know, as many creatives per week uh and have a budget that can sustain that load of creatives so they get adequate spend. Um, I think our goal is to test like at least 20 creatives per week and then as the team grows and our budget grows like up that up even more and more whether it's you know video concepts or or static concepts.

Yeah. And now if if Day Guard Guard wins like like really wins, what does the uh America's like alcohol aid market uh look like for you in 10 years? You know, the alcohol aid market is actually growing pretty significantly every year. I think the TAM at the moment is around two$ two and a half billion dollars and I only expect that to grow in 10 years from now. Um, you know, in an ideal world like we would want to be the largest player in that space and be like a household name.

Um, I'd like for every single basically retail location in the United States that serves alcohol to have Dayard as well. So basically every convenience store, bodega, deli, liquor store having it us at the checkout and then also on the uh fridge mounts and their alcohol door fridges. Um I'd also love to do a lot more onrem which has been a harder channel to crack because there is such a big education component and you know a lot of these on-prem like bars and clubs they're independently owned. So logistically it can be very difficult to like scale on that channel. But I'd love to have the brand awareness such that everyone kind of just knows that if they're going out, they can find dig art like at the venue or at the bar, at the club.

And it just becomes a no-brainer because, you know, if you're going to pay, you know, say 7 to $20 a drink at each of these places, like why wouldn't you also spend $3 for a stick that's going to prevent your hangover and protect your health? Um, I also would love to uh improve our presence on Tik Tok shop and on on Amazon as well. I think those channels are only going to grow more and more, especially as people start to try it in retail and we'll want to reorder in bulk on Amazon or on a Tik Tok shop. Um, and so just making sure that we can kind of conquer all those channels, I think we'll be in a very very good spot. Yeah.

Now to to end this episode, I have five um lightning questions, bullet questions. Uh so please please answer those only with like one phrase or maximum two. Okay. Okay, let's do it. So the last thing that you ordered online that genuinely surprised you.

This this is lowkey a hard question. I don't order many things online. I did order my girlfriend some pepper spray because it's not available in the city. So, I ordered it to my friend's apartment in Rhode Island and then when I was home to surprise my mom for her birthday cuz she lives in Massachusetts, I picked that up and then drove it back to New York for her. So, I guess I was surprised that it's not available in every state.

I think every woman should be able to get pepper spray, but totally unrelated to day right now. What is uh what is one brand outside your category that you study closely and why? We like to study Gruins a lot. Obviously, it's it's also in the supplement DTOC category, but you know, I've actually met Chad Janus, the founder of Gruins, and I have incredible respect for what he's able to do. You know, scale this company and sell it for 1.2 billion within two years.

and their just ability to leverage like microcreators and grow in a scalable way is just so so impressive to me. So definitely have a lot of respect for Gruins and their team. Yeah, their their marketing is is definitely next level. Always I also always look at them for for inspiration. They're they're really good.

Not to mention their customer retention. You know, I I I know this is more than one phrase, but I think uh I I would just love to to to to add like, you know, I think a a big mistake for early stage CPG companies is to just focus on rorowass and revenue, but I think looking at a company like uh Gruins, you start to realize like those are very much vanity metrics. And the key is like how do you lower your CAC? How do you improve your customer retention and uh just your general LTV? And I think that's taught me a lot about how I want to optimize this business.

What is a commonly shared piece of founder advice that that you think is actually wrong? Oh man, these are great questions. Andre, advice. Oh, I got one. I think in the early days, it's really easy to just kind of gaslight yourself into working more hours because you think that's what's going to move the business.

I think as a solo founder or like when you don't have a big team around you that's absolutely necessary like you should be working every hour of the day to like kind of get this off the ground but there is a certain point where like you know just the volume of work is not going to be moving the needle on a day-to-day it's really like thinking about what is the the highest leverage item for the company every any given point and doubling down on that. So, I think the whole myth of like every founder should be working 100 hour weeks is is honestly kind of toxic and not really conducive to long-term long-term success. So, you never worked 100 hours in a week. I absolutely did, especially in the first year and a half of the company. I was also juggling a consulting job at one point while doing this company.

So, that was part of it as well. But I think these days I like to really really make sure that every hour of my day is spent doing things that actually are either bringing in revenue or kind of seating us with the right investors or right distribution partners. And anything outside of that I like to think of as noise and if you know there is extra bandwidth maybe we'll look into it. Yeah. What is the the biggest bet that you're making in the next 12 months?

Um definitely launching this new daily liver support product. Um, I think that, you know, it's going to really improve the frequency of use of our product with our customers. It is going to improve our LTV, which will then allow us to have more um kind of power with the CAC in our marketing spend. And uh I also just think it'll be a very very natural transition into doing all of these daily supplements for like skin, energy, sleep, creatine. And if it does well, I think it's going to position us very much to be America's joystick company, not just its alcohol aid company.

Yeah. And the last one, doctor or founder, if the if the 22year-old Jean could pick could pick one of those things, what does he choose? This is the easiest one. Founder, for sure, 100%. I have so much respect for doctors.

I said my dad is a doctor and I think they truly do God's work. But for me personally, I find being an entrepreneur the most fulfilling and fun thing I've ever done in my entire life. And I think genuinely like I've never been this happy ever since I started this company. Like there are stressful days, but it's like the most fulfilling work that I could ask for. I love the fact that I get to do this with my best friend from college, too.

And I would I wouldn't change a thing. So I'm very very blessed to have found this path. Awesome. That's great to hear, Jean. really appreciate you hopping on, especially after you talked about the focus and how important it is to to focus on um the most important things with uh with allocating your time and resources.

Where can people learn more about you, about the journey and and follow you? Yeah, of course. Thank you for having me, Andre. This was great. Um you know, people can follow me on Instagram where I do document our founder journey as just @ gene o.h.

So, ge neo.h. uh they can follow us on Instagram at take daygard and also if anyone wants to text me or has any questions like obviously I do want to focus on their company but I've had so many like like other founders and mentors take time out of their day and and like help me at this early stage so I want to be able to do that for anyone who's listened to this point of the podcast you can literally text me 781-467-9870 happy to at least you know take a 15 20 minute call awesome That is great. Mhm. Cool then. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Andre. Take care. Thanks.