The Science of Fitness Podcast
Welcome to the Science Of Fitness podcast where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things health, fitness, performance, wellness and business.
Hosted by Kieran Maguire, Co-Owner and Director of Science Of Fitness with an Undergraduate degree in Exercise Science and Masters degree in High Performance, the podcast includes guests and friends of SOF from all walks of life sharing their knowledge and stories within their field of expertise.
Join us as we provide listeners with digestible and relatable educational tools and entertaining stories to inspire a healthier and more fulfilling life.
The Science of Fitness Podcast
S2 EP21 Creating a Niche in Performance Nutrition w/ Damian Fitzpatrick, CEO of Pillar Performance
Damian Fitzpatrick, a former New South Wales Waratahs rugby player turned entrepreneur, joins us to share his remarkable journey from the field to founding Pillar Performance. Damian opens up about how his battle with sports injuries sparked the idea for his niche performance nutrition brand, now a staple for over 90% of professional teams in Australia. His transition from tackling opponents to tackling business challenges offers a unique perspective on the intersection of athleticism and entrepreneurship.
This episode isn't just about Damian's journey; it's a masterclass in navigating the global supplement market and the hurdles that come with it. We discuss the importance of batch-tested products in sports nutrition, the role of agents in rugby, and the dynamics of market forces that drive young athletes to make hasty career decisions. Damian shares his aspirations for working with tennis legend Rafael Nadal while reflecting on how his experiences have shaped his approach to creating innovative micronutrition products.
Looking ahead, Damian passionately discusses the future of personalized supplements in healthcare and performance optimization. He emphasizes the need for evidence-based practices and consumer education in a market cluttered with exaggerated claims. As we introduce Tenderfort, a groundbreaking collagen peptide designed for endurance athletes, Damian provides insights into the entrepreneurial mindset required to succeed in this competitive industry. Join us for an episode rich with personal anecdotes, business wisdom, and a glimpse into the future of health and wellness through tailored supplementation.
Welcome to the Science of Fitness podcast, where we aim to inspire you to live a healthier and more fulfilling life, as we share evidence and anecdotes on all things relating to health, fitness, performance, business and wellness. On today's episode of the Science of Fitness podcast, we have Pillar Performance CEO and founder, damian Fitzpatrick. Damian has come from a professional career in rugby, playing for for New South Wales Waratahs and then overseas in Europe, and very quickly transitioned to starting the company Pillar Performance and in today's episode we discuss all things from Damien's journey from elite sport to entrepreneurship, supplementation at great lengths and then starting the business and working in such a competitive industry and where the health industry, not only in Australia but globally, is going to go. This is a very enjoyable episode. We get into a lot of detail about the product, the industry and business in general and we hope you enjoy. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to the Science of Fitness podcast. An exciting episode here to pretty much wrap up 2024 for us. Damien Fitzpatrick, owner, founder, ceo of Pillar Performance. Mate, welcome on.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me Very excited.
Speaker 1:I'm glad to wrap it up Nice it's been a good year, wrapping it up in style as we do. Before we get into anything too detailed, we're going to start with our rapid fire questions, so I want you to try to keep these as short as you can, maybe one liners, and then we'll get into all the specifics that people are really listening for. So to kick things off, given Pillar Performance is a supplement company, what's the one supplement you won't go without?
Speaker 2:Omega, omega, very closely followed by magnesium. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's, two.
Speaker 2:Two yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, Rugby or business. Which one have you found tougher?
Speaker 2:Rugby, physically obviously Business, venture business. I would put in that category Intellectually, emotionally much harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interesting yeah, business, intellectually and emotionally. It's a whole new level Post-workout recovery routine. What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Ocean swim for me, love it. Something about salt water um do love an ice bath. Love an ice bath? Um, sups, obviously yeah, but uh, there's something about recovery, something about ocean swimming, something about salt.
Speaker 1:It's the soul yeah, exactly cleanses, yeah, yep. Um, if you could, yeah, only give one piece of health advice to, I guess, anyone that asks what's kind of the one big standout for you.
Speaker 2:I've always gone by the mantra something is better than nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So you know, on those days you wake up, do not feel like a thing, Do something, Walk, Breathe Something that you you know it's better than just throwing it out, you know? Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1:Breathe something that you you know it's better than just throwing it out, you know? Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:Most surprising thing you've learned since starting Pillar. I remarkably how drawn to the consumer space I am. Yeah, didn't think obviously had the idea for the company. Didn't think how broadly I would love consumer product goods. I could be in a conversation with anyone. You could be selling windscreen, wiper detergent and I just love the conversation. Yeah interesting.
Speaker 1:We'll dig into that. One In your career, your proudest moment so far, on or off the field, what sort of comes to mind? We don't often give ourselves the opportunity to reflect on this stuff, as Aussies particularly. What do you reckon?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think now in business the proudest moment. The first few years you don't get much of an opportunity. But I think now, knowing we're used by over 90% of the professional teams in the country we only launched three and a bit years ago, so that's a pinch me moment We've seen the product on international shelves as well. Still a very yeah. Very cool when you get off a plane and it's like okay well, we're in Spain now.
Speaker 1:Here's the product. Yeah, it's cool, that's awesome. If you could collaborate with any athlete or brand in any way, shape or form, pillar yourself personally, who would it be?
Speaker 2:Everyone would laugh at this, who knows me? But yeah, rafael Nadal, without a doubt, pipe dream. But yeah, I've long admired everything he stands for.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he's pretty unique, yeah, interesting, and I love that he's for lack of a better term, you might even hate me saying this come from under the shadow of Roger Federer and my grandma. When we used to sit and watch the French Open, he used to go he's a bloody pirate. I love Roger Rafa's a pirate. You know, when he was young and he had that never say die to you kind of attitude, it was all that I loved yeah.
Speaker 1:And now he, in his own way, is sort of on the same level of the Roger, who's just Mr Nice Guy, Mr Cool, Mr Nothing's Hard is sort of on the same level of the Roger, who's just Mr Nice Guy, Mr Cool, Mr Nothing's Hard doesn't sweat.
Speaker 2:Rafa's everything opposite that but is still like him. Well, that's part of the reason. The endearment for me with Rafa is also because, the deeper you look at them, from the youngest age, rafa never broken a racket, never backchats anyone. You mention any pro on the circuit, the most polite, real mannered. Whereas Roger came through he had a temper problem. Yeah, it was only yeah. It's very easy to turn when you're right at the top. Yeah, roger did probably the greatest you could ever imagine. The image shifted. But you look right up until then. You read Roger's book. You know his parents were about to pull him out of tennis because he couldn't. You know he'd throw his racket, he'd spit the dummy. Whereas Rafa's uncle said the other day he coached him his whole life, said I've never had him back. Chat to me once he's a grown man one over 20.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think that discipline for me that goes unspoken, purely also because Rafa didn't speak English for a long part of his career. So you know, roger's the same Rafferoni really came on the English scene the last 10 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Interesting. Yeah, yeah, and this is probably one of my favorite ones. One supplement trend that you think is overrated Pre-workout I'm old school mate, Lived in Europe.
Speaker 2:Have a couple of coffees.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pre-workout, I love that, yeah, okay cool. Yeah, yeah, free workout, I love that, okay, cool, mate, let's um, let's get into nothing. There's, there's so much I mean just off that I don't want to cover. But let's go back to your journey. You know you've come through, played professional sport, um, before that growing up, what got you into footy? Where did you grow up footy into pillar? Let's go through the whole story.
Speaker 2:Grew up in Sydney in the Lowenor Shore, so very in terms of contact sport codes, not a lot of AFL at the time when I was growing up so I'm 35 now kind of started playing rugby when I was five, so AFL hadn't really hit that part of Sydney Again, not big rugby league country either. So rugby union was what it was Actually got introduced to the game via my mother. My father was a professional sailor, had never played the game, went on to coach me for a lot of years in my junior days. But it was actually my mum who migrated from the Netherlands to New Zealand, introduced our family to rugby as you do as a Kiwi and fell in love with the sport. I kind of was very much, knew that there was a natural talent there from the minute that I started playing. So went in as a five-year-old. They put me under sevens, under eights also because I was probably a bit oversized but had the ability.
Speaker 2:So as a young kid, when you're good at something you've seen some success, you just do not stop doing it. And yes, I progressed all the way through, had a ball, played a range of other sports, but you know rugby was always this one where A the body shape was definitely leaning towards that way, but had a very big childhood in swimming as well. So I loved that. But I had to get to the point at 12 or 13 to make the decision. You know one or the other in a way, because you know body shapes do. If you want to take both seriously, you have to go one way or the other.
Speaker 2:And so I decided to start taking rugby really seriously, went to St Joseph's in Sydney massive rugby school and had an amazing apprenticeship in terms of what coming through rugby and if you want to look and have an aspiration professionally like coming through that school, that was a pathway where it was a genuine possibility and there was a pathway there and a program that enabled you to go and play professional rugby. And I loved that, absolutely loved it. Loved everything about the school and the kind of the culture that it created, if that was what you were drawn to do. Also loved that. You know the school did really put everything on a pedestal.
Speaker 2:It wasn't just rugby. The school happened to have a bit of competitive advantage at that. I think over the last decade a lot of the schools have caught on to what that competitive was and a lot of it wasn't. You know it was intangible. You know what I mean. It was just things that you know Joey's worked out a little bit earlier than everyone else, but wasn't necessarily a secret source of sorts. He's replicable if you're willing to put the time in Time and work right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then from there went on to play. I got contracted straight out of high school to the Waratahs so I was really fortunate I went into the academy there and, through an injury, made my debut a year out of school, much earlier than I should have Definitely, was on that field when I shouldn't have been on there. But, yeah, started the journey into professional sport at 19. So then played five years with the Waratahs, had a number of injuries, as we'll probably talk about a bit later Ended up going on from those injuries, going and playing in Europe for two years in France, which I absolutely loved, really formative time in my life, with some pretty difficult times with injury and surgery and things like that.
Speaker 2:But then, long story, I was able to come back to Australia and fulfill kind of the last four or five years of my career with the Waratahs, which I'm really proud of. Never kind of reached the heights that I would have really loved to in rugby, my injuries certainly. Yeah, there was a physical limitation that I could do. But you know, at the end of the day I was able to fulfill a career in professional sport for kind of 10, 12 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not many people get to say that, particularly in rugby. In rugby, the contact sports.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and I think it probably goes with Grant. Like you know, everyone listens to American sport podcasts and you know if you're going into the NFL, it's a two-year shelf life for a player, sometimes less yeah, and everyone just assumes when you sign your first contract you'll still be there 10 years later. I think in rugby league, rugby union, afl, yeah, I think it's under, like it really is just assumed. But like, if you're playing that long, you've got very lucky, very lucky, very, very lucky. A because of the amount of competition, but B purely because of injury. They're tough games, brutal. A lot of my close teammates. Now we all come out of the game and we're having dinner and we go. Guys, we're lucky to be sitting here. It's a brutal sport.
Speaker 1:Some of the ones we play here in Australia, absolutely, and there's so many sliding door moments that sort of contribute to that as well. Be it coaches, snc coaches, support staff, what the program is offering at that time. Injuries, you know, like, pretend the world. We have the luxury we don't really in australia because it's so competitive in those contact sort of sports. Um, but if you could develop three, four, five years as a 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 year old and then make your debut physically, you're probably, as you said, a little bit more ready to be on that field with these men. You're rolling on there at 18 years old. Something that I've looked at and seen guys that have had to retire early from injury and that sort of thing in the rugby space where they probably just started too young because we don't have the luxury of a multiple-layered feeder system as some of the bigger rugby nations do.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think a lot of it also comes with. And the reality is, financially it's not like you know, if you sign an American sporting contract, you sign a European or European football contract, the financial support just off that signature alone allows you to play the long game a little bit, whereas with our sport you sign your contract, you're only really starting to bear fruits once you get on the field. So there is this huge rush to get on the field because then there's a knowledge that you'll be offered really quickly. So it's get in, get out, and it comes from the top and also the players that was my mentality and definitely it was a mistake.
Speaker 2:I would have loved to have been more patient. And there were players that I played with, for example, someone like Bernard Foley later, a bloomer probably, really came on the scene, both physically from a professional standpoint I think you know physically his training and I suppose also the way he approached his training as well Like he's still playing now and probably can play until he's 40. Yeah, but he really really came on the scene a bit later. Yeah, and I've seen that benefit so many players. Yeah, being just more ready, having more time, you know, in those lower ranks as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's sort of not that we can fix Australian rugby's problems. There's a lot going on there, but it's probably an important message to the developing player and that young player that's in a rush. And I mean, I see it, we're in the club system here and have been involved for eight, nine seasons nearly now, and so many 21-year-olds going. No, I need to cash out. I. Nine seasons nearly now and so many 21-year-olds going. No, I need to cash out. I'm done, I haven't had my opportunity. And it's like hang on, mate. But then the system goes oh, mate, you're 21, you're getting on. I'm going to look at this 18-year-old. At some point we've got to draw a line and go patient. Club system, club scene that's how you develop your capacity to handle those bigger bodies without the speed and the impacts that comes with an elite level footy game.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're in a difficult market here. Market forces play a very unique role, yeah, and those forces don't exist in, say, australian rules, yeah, whereas if you're coming through as an 18-year-old player in rugby union, if you play in the outside backs, you have a lot of choices. There's, you know, 16 to 18 NRL teams you could go for. There is a whole world of international teams you could play for in rugby and internationally in rugby league as well, and that there creates, you know, essentially quite high. You know, a lot of options for players. Then you've got agents in their ears. You know the agents are also only getting paid when they're on the field and signing contracts. So the AFL have got an amazing opportunity because they can build long-term pathways for players, which means you build robust I suppose robust bodies that can last long careers, whereas, you know, in rugby and rugby league there's options for players, which makes decision-making really difficult and sometimes makes decisions short-sighted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and from a business perspective, it's very hard to develop a marketable product, particularly based on players, if they're turning around after three years.
Speaker 2:And you're spot on. I think that's been one of rugby's really most difficult problems to solve. How do you sell a product when there is such a transient nature of what the product is and the product realistically, yes, it's performance, absolutely. But how do you build understanding or how do you build familiarity at the household level when the names are changing week? In week out or year in year out.
Speaker 1:Year in, year out. I mean, you think about back in the day when those Gatorade bottles had Adam Gilchrist on it, absolutely, and they had Kirtley Beale and probably Matty Gitto or something like that. They had that name associated with the brand and companies were assigning themselves to it. Now it's turned over. You know it was named the last three 5.8s for the Wallabies. Totally. It's changed a fair time.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, maybe we can go for days on this, but it's not what we're here to solve for, I guess from a career perspective. So you've had the luxury of playing, as you've said, lucky to play professional sport for so long. There was obviously something that called out to you in the performance space, heading into recovery, supplementation, and you know what got you here. So when did that idea hit you? Was it in your playing years? Or were you like, oh, I'm retiring soon, what the hell am I going to do? Or were you always sort of passionate about the performance side of things as a player? It happened late. Were you always sort of passionate about the performance side of things as a player? It?
Speaker 2:happened late. I never no, I didn't know. I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I really did think, and most of my tertiary education was in finance. So I'd done an MBA and I did an economics degree and I really did think I'd be rolling out of rugby and probably entering into a bank. That's what I thought. That's probably what I think a lot of people expected.
Speaker 2:It happened that somewhere in my final two years of my career did I see that there was an opportunity for a product class that didn't exist. So that was taking this concept of micronutrition, or call it performance health, this category which had always and predominantly been focused on preventative health, and starting to actually really make it specific for a performance outcome. And I learned that through my own experience, because I was, as I said, had a lot of injuries, three ACL surgeries. I needed micronutrients, I needed high-strength inflammation products. I wasn't going to be able to stay on anti-inflammatories forever, even though that's what was getting me through Monday to Friday training. And so when we looked at the category myself and a group of dietitians there was some great brands in the practitioner-only space For anyone in australia like that's, that's the category that stands behind the pharmacy, in pharma, um, uh, behind the pharmacist in pharmacy um, and then you have your over-the-counter products, uh, your more consumer brands swiss, black moors, um, your household names. All of professional sport had turned to the practitioner only category, um, and these are the products that were available to us as athletes in Australia, alongside all of our sports nutrition products, more specifically, proteins, pre-workouts example. The gap that we saw was that those products that were being offered to us at the practitioner level, while being category leaders at a national level, were actually positioned in the market to target 55-year-old plus women. It's a really specific demographic, but I had the opportunity to sit down with some formulation teams from these companies the benefit of being a pro athlete and hitting LinkedIn and saying, hey, can I pick your brain on a few things.
Speaker 2:Probably didn't realise that we'd go off and ideate this space, but yeah, it kind of led us into what I assumed was the case. Um, a lot of margin pressure on the product. Um, not targeting the, the or the need state. We'd call it um that we would want from a performance perspective, but targeting it more from a preventative health perspective. Um, and that there for me was just. That was the aha moment that said, okay, I know I've got a fire in me somewhere. Um, I think there's a number of people who know me pretty well. That would have gone, yeah, like if anyone was going to do their own thing or not really understand, or could go and work for someone else, it would have been him, even though you know that was probably the path I was going to go down was maybe more of the corporate space.
Speaker 2:So when the idea came, I certainly thought that this was an addressable market, big enough to make something off. At the exact same time that was my final year of my contract I had been having thoughts that rugby wasn't really doing everything for me anymore. Mentally wasn't as stimulated. I felt I'd kind of reached, um, the level physically that I that I was able to, and I think, as a player, when you stop wanting to compete in something, that's when you know it's probably time. For me it was a really interesting one. I physically wanted to stop competing, but mentally I wasn't being.
Speaker 1:I wasn't competing if you know what I mean. I was going through the motions.
Speaker 2:I was sitting in team meetings I was kind of doodling on my you know, I'd have been like I've heard this all before, like there's not, you know. So mentally I wasn't, yeah, I wasn't stimulated by that front. So then when this idea came up, I started to deeply look into the consumer space and we got very. That's where I suppose our timing worked really well and a lot and people have wondered how now it's so international we. One of the things that I think we timed really well and the gap that I saw in the market was that in that COVID period, people were starting to ingest information on health, performance, performance health we should call it um in a far deeper manner, meaning that no longer were they happy to take a product as a, as a category. They were happy, they were looking into the ingredient in that product.
Speaker 2:And I think it came on the back of, you know, probably four or five major thought leaders huberman, atia, um, ronda, patrick all of these um, amazing researchers and and scientists and physiologists out of the US. Covid hit. Everyone started to absorb information. We had nothing else to do. So you're either going for a run and absorbing this kind of information. You spit out the other side of that, you've got a hugely powerful push of endurance, participation and also an incredibly far knowledgeable customer base that wants to start to perform not just as an athlete, but also externally as well, at home and life and everything in between, as a human being. Yeah, yeah, and I think that was where we timed the position really well, because we knew that existing brands in the market weren't servicing that.
Speaker 2:They were servicing it from a preventative and a medicinal level, but no one from a performance level, yeah, and so our original, like my original vision was I really wanted to disrupt the practitioner-only category in Australian pharmacy. I wanted to have, you know, the black jars sitting at the back, sitting at the back of pharmacy up against a sea of white you know, medicine bottles, yeah, and you kind of look at it now and you're like, yeah, it could have been there and maybe it will one day. But what we actually found was when Pillar started to take off in that mid-COVID period, people, our customer wasn't inspired to buy Pillar through some you know a channel From Citi, yeah, a channel where people who are sick are.
Speaker 2:You know you come over to Pillar as a customer because you know it's how it makes you feel, it gives you there's. It's how it makes you feel there's obviously a product and a research element to what we're doing. But how we've tried to position the brand is to make a category which has always sat in that space of preventative health and a different demographic, to bring it far closer towards physical performance and personal performance as well.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting. I mean, there's so much of that that resonates with us, like even our physio sort of opening the physio up the business, which we did around that sort of COVID time as well, and it was. We don't want it to be a clinic, you know, we want, as opposed to the white, there are lights in a clinic and we want to make it a sexy, dark, somewhat intimate, but also integrated space into the gym space. And same thing a lot of people that are getting treatment for needles and issues don't want to feel like they're sick. Yeah, and that's what's motivating their treatment.
Speaker 1:And when you walk into a clinical space, you kind of feel that, whether you like it or not, um, so for us there's no waiting room, it's into a gym. There's, you know, people training, you see them and off you go, get your treatment and onto the floor. So, but it's that same sort of space and it's that evolution as you've and that information that people have now absorbed and they're really, if they're somewhat attuned to their health, they're going. Why wait? I'm 55 and I've got all these indications that my health's now compromised. I've got to get onto all these supplements to sort it out. It's like why wait, let's go Absolutely. And some of the things they're saying, like from an exercise and a supplementation of diet perspective, like preventative measures for cardiovascular disease, start in your 20s, early 20s, and it's taking the right omega supplementations, considering the food you're eating, it's the lifestyle habits, it's the sleep, it's all those sorts of things.
Speaker 2:Oh, and I'm sure we've got groups of friends we're like, I mean, the amount of times I've heard the, you know the, the phrase all cause mortality you know, amongst like this is this is a phrase that no one has ever spoken about in our demographics, right, people now understand that and if you want to try and solve for that, as you said, it starts in your 20s and it starts with something as unsexy as your cardiovascular health, which can be solved through supplementation and also lifestyle.
Speaker 2:But I think what you guys have done downstairs like that simple psychological shift from Allied health clinic as a solution to being able to then open it up onto a gym floor so people can have a. You know they're having treatment, but they're seeing exactly where and why they're doing it right there. It's just that psychological bridge that you know. I think there is a certain. There will always be a place for healthcare, there will always be a place for allied health, but there is a significant shift towards performance and allied health, fitting within the performance Exactly and being able to connect. That is what you guys have done downstairs so well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's considering, and, you know, particularly in Australia. You know we've talked about the States a little bit, but it's not something that I guess Aussies really sing about as going. You know, it's that tall poppy thing almost. But take yourself very seriously. If you're a mum of three kids, take your health seriously. If you need supplementation, invest in working out what you need and how it's going to help you your training, your exercise, your sleep, your recovery because there's a performance element to what you do. You know, and that might be running around being able to squat, stand up, do little simple things and just being healthy and full of energy and living a life that you know you really enjoy. There's a performance element to consider that and I think all the information, as you said, that's now available. People are starting to think about themselves like that, which is really exciting.
Speaker 1:There's obviously sort of two things that are driving you here and it's quite interesting to hear there's one part of you that's, you know, done the education and the study and the economics and the finance. That I think is a really important thing and, uh, I would probably say is stood under driving a successful business that's scalable. And then there's the fire and the passion of competitiveness that is the athlete in you and they. They need to and fro. I guess, how often do you find yourself arguing in those two sort of states internally, um, and how much have either of those states driven the business to where it is now so quickly?
Speaker 2:yeah, you're right, and they you definitely as a, as a founder entrepreneur. Um, you need you. You need both. In in what percentage? It would be an interesting one because there'd be some amazingly successful case studies of more of one and far less of the other. As I said in my rapid-fire questions, I've grown to absolutely love the consumer space. I've loved the unit economics behind it. I've loved thinking about channel strategy. I think deep down, I've realised that I have a pretty handy ability of sales and marketing as well. But, as you've said for us and it's no secret, when I ideated this space, I knew it was going to be big and I knew there was a first mover advantage if we got it right. So we want to raise venture capital and with that you have to have your ducks in a row.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, yeah, that's a big thing to do.
Speaker 2:Absolutely and you make a decision, signing that imaginary document that you're signing up for a certain rate of growth You're signing up for you're taking other people's money and turning it into a vision, and there's no or for me personally, sometimes it does happen that way, but there's no backing out which for me, was the perfect transition from rugby because it literally allowed me to reinvest all of that competitiveness, energy, passion, love, which I was so afraid when I was playing that I'd never find again. I think that's every athlete's biggest fear Will I ever get up and be so deeply invested or passionate about something ever again? Besides family and external, obviously, but in terms of work and a lot of people, you know, a lot of people aren't um entrepreneurs are that and I knew that and I it's and there's there's risk. There's there's emotional, you know, there's financial um risk. There's a massive risk on ego Take a huge hit. I think a lot of people probably thought I was going to go into banking and then you go out and you're going from zero nothing.
Speaker 2:You're out there, you're trying to sell a product, one unit at a time, and it does.
Speaker 2:It takes an ego hit, but that's what it does take, and over time you start to see a compound. But, as you said, going back to it, how much of it is financial literacy, how much is the other? I think you need a combination of both If you want to grow quickly and obviously take on, you know, venture capital. You need to understand that every decision you make there has to be a repercussion somewhere on a P&L, somewhere, as you know, and so you know that knowledge of being able to invest capital to you know, whether it's long-term investment into a product or it's long-term investment into a market, it does need to show somewhere and have strategic thought around it. But at the same time, you do need to be able to sell and market your product. You need to be able to move quickly and the reason that startups can move quicker than corporates is you. You know you can make a decision in a day and activate, and your you know your investors and shareholders. They don't want you to stop that.
Speaker 2:So it's this balance of being, you know, risk a little bit, risk adverse, but also, don't, yeah, risk a little bit risk adverse, but also, yeah, don't, don't lose. Don't lose that power to be agile.
Speaker 1:Um, and it's, it's the perfect balance when you get it right and I think it's critical, particularly in the market. You guys are in totally, because if we talk supplementation mate, I've been I've been.
Speaker 2:I've been up in this in the block there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for 12 years and I remember, I mean even when I was oh man, I think I was like nine or ten years old and my brothers were playing rugby I grew up in Zimbabwe, south Africa, and rugby in South Africa is everything and they were rugby players, water polo players, swimmers, and creatine was the thing, yeah. And so Dad fully nerded out and he got, you know, just creatine, he got it isolated and he got the protein and he measured it out each scoop and put it in. And measured it out each scoop and put it in. And that was when I was like 10 years old. So you know the whole supplement market oversaturated noise, it's just the prettier bag. And then it just got so static. So how many times were you at a family barbecue or with mates going I'm going to the supplement game and they just laugh you off going idiot.
Speaker 2:Totally Well, and that's the thing, the way we I mean the gap and the wedge that we found was actually. A lot of people have asked well, why did you start? And Pillar, in its essence right now, is actually it's a pharmaceutical brand, tga listed here in Australia. It's FDA in the US. We're completely regulated.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're the first company to have regulation over nine European regions, the US and Australia, but under pharmaceutical. So when you look at micronutrients as a category, that's where it sits, not to say we're going to sit there forever. There's certainly some interest in other categories that are scratching at me quite profoundly right now. But when I kind of said, oh, we want to get into, you know, and we purposely coined it micronutrition, because we were so like, I was so over people calling it vitamins and minerals or supplements, because that's not a clear definition of what it is like. You're either a macronutrient or a micronutrient. Vitamin and mineral break down into so many significant other layers. It just doesn't. Whereas in australia, in the uk we decided to call the category that, in the us it's obviously called supplements, um, but then it's like, okay, well, what is? What is a sports nutrition product? What is it? And you know, and there's, there's this, what is happening? There's this convergence of you know. Now, all of a sudden you've got an energy drink that's coming into supplementation. You've got, you know, you have sports into traditional sports nutrition products that are now coming in. You know, there's just going to be this essential space where it's non-food related supplements, right, and that can be for any ailment, any kind of need state you need to solve.
Speaker 2:We're obviously going to come at it from performance health. That's where we really want to coin it from. But you are right, I got there's a lot, there was a lot and I'm sure there probably still is. There's a lot of eyebrows raised. When you go, you know, firstly, you're going to go do your own thing, you're going to go into supplements. Okay, oh, you're, you know, rugby player going into supplements. Wow, how original. Yeah, um, no doubt I'm sure there's a lot of people who thought you know, this isn't going to work, this will fail.
Speaker 1:Um, yeah, absolutely, and it's, um, well, you know, then, that's the other side of. Is that, as you said, that sort of natural affiliation to the king and queen of business? It's sales and marketing, totally, yeah, and if you had a natural calling to that, I mean you can just hear it in your voice and your understanding how did you go getting your head around it? Because micronutrition is detailed. I remember doing two nutrition courses at uni going, oh, mate. Courses at uni, going, oh, mate. Too much chemistry dodged it ended up going to my master's, realized that it's all one integrated system. And if I didn't consider the micronutrition and even just nutritional aspects of performance, it's just naive. I'm not going to be a good performance coach. So, um, yeah, were there sort of? How much learning did you have to do? Was that just sort of through osmosis in the later part of your career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, huge amounts of learning, Still learning, to the point where I've had to bring in better people to the company for that. We recently, this year, brought on our first full-time in the formulation team. Our head of research, dr Dan Plews physiologist, career researcher, understands everything from macronutrient supplementation for high performance sports all the way down to micronutrition has been incredibly influential in the embedding of the HRV or heart rate variability statistic that you're now seeing in wearable data. I got to the point now where I had a lot of conviction that Pillar was was going to go and do what we were hoping was going to do and it was time to start to bring in some some better help.
Speaker 2:But originally, um, it was, it was purely through osmosis. I, because of what you know, I was very much a citizen scientist, athlete scientist, what you want to call me, um, because I needed the products. I was also never the guy to just, you know, take something. And then it. I started reading and that was where the idea came in. It literally was the Omega I was given. I was reading how much I had to take to take the pain out of my damn knee and I was like I have to take 12 capsules of this and I'd go to the dietician. I said why am I taking 12 of these capsules Like I'm going to turn into a dolphin? And they said, yeah, but I'm reading this research out of Scandinavia that says I need to take 2,000 milligrams of EPA. I said there's only 180 milligrams in this capsule you've given me and that was where it came from and they said, well, that's the best that's available on the market. I said, okay, well, we'll see about that. So then I found one in Norway very core demographic of products that I personally needed and then, as the idea started to spin deeper and deeper, it started to bring in more of the performance dietitians.
Speaker 2:So Pip Taylor is obviously part of our team. She was working obviously pro triathlete, worked with the endurance base At the time was Brisbane Lions and been also netball, so I had worked in a number of sports as well. So Pip then was a part of the Sports Dietitians Association. So I had access to a lot of the other dietitians and we realised there was a everyone was suffering from the same issue from the professional team space, which isn't who exactly we were targeting.
Speaker 2:But when we launched we were our first customers, which is also a bit of a pinch me moment. So we launched and our first customers, which was is also a bit of a pinch me moment so we launched and you know, first customers were afl teams, um, nrl teams, which was really cool, yeah, um. But yeah, we found that there was a need across a number of sports. The products weren't batch tested, um, which means you know that there was no security for for teams and athletes. Um, you know that there isn't a be all end all for selling, but it's, it's still an important factor that we needed to solve coming into the market. Yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 1:I mean it's yeah, in hindsight it makes so much sense.
Speaker 1:But I'm sure you know, as I said, diving into it, having those blinkers on and going, my experience was this there's a massive gaping hole in a market that appears saturated, and then dialing into it the opportunistic element of COVID and this information era that we're living in and people really turning to performance, health, as you've said, it all kind of stacks up to this lovely little recipe mate. So good on you for getting it going. And I'm sure you know there's been ups and downs and challenges and all that sort of thing and I guess from you know this little idea forming to moving it forward to being a bigger company. You are off-boarding, you've got sales teams, you've got marketing, you've got researchers and you've got to keep everything sort of ticking and flowing over what are kind of the biggest lessons, challenges, things you've sort of learnt, and now building out a big team to deliver this vision that you you've sort of had as as a as an entrepreneur excuse me, um, oh yeah, there's challenges and lessons every day.
Speaker 2:Um, I think, right now, for us, we, we knew when we, when we launched and just you kind of have to listen to where your customers are and we knew that the wedge that were coming into this space that was the point of difference was there were two elements. Obviously, it has to start from product. If you were to build lifetime value with a customer and build sustainable value in your business, it's going to fall over eventually. Unless you're a prime type hydration drink, you've got access to the ears of the world. Different category, fmcg. But if you want to go into supplements, it has to start with the product. But, realistically, anyone can create an amazing product. I can put the smartest scientists in a room and they can create the best product, and it's probably somewhere in the world, but no one knows about it.
Speaker 2:And so, learning who our customer was, where they were, um, when we learned that? Um, it was obviously the endurance world which which came over very, very quickly to the category um, and the reason for that was purely because there is a certain amount of sports where nutrition plays, let's say, possibly after baseline aerobic training, it plays the second most vital role in execution on the day. So you can't finish a marathon? Oh, you can, probably, but you, you're not going to go very well if you finish it on nothing. So if you don't have nutrition dialed in and understand how many you know grams of carbohydrates per hour, when and why, and how it, you know, sits on it on a stomach, um, you just won't be able to compete at that sport or be able to perform at what. What you're trying to do, whether that's you know, that's you know, the tour de france is a completely different event, toughest event in the world, um, in terms of what they're going through, but there's, whether it's cycling, distance running, long distance, triathlon, um, those are the three sports particularly that understand, and I would, I would, actually I would put bodybuilding in there as well. Interesting, um, obviously not, not, not potentially a, an olympic sport, but it's, it's, it's still a sport in its regard, or a discipline. Who also equally understand and it's very funny, we laugh about that just purely because of the difference in body shapes and aerobic systems used in those two, um, but I would put the four of those in a category that the need of nutrition is up there with the most important. You can't do it without it.
Speaker 2:And those are the customers who came over the brand very quickly, purely because we had a point of difference on product. When we realized that, we said, okay, biggest challenge was it's a small market or smallish if you compare it to the mass market of other sporting verticals, we knew we were going to have to go find that internationally. So that set about a bunch of challenges. We now, in the three years, had to set up manufacturing in Europe for our European business. Now we're manufacturing the US for the US business.
Speaker 2:So three layers of complexity on supply chain, regulatory yeah, I would say those are 2023's problems and probably our biggest. You know, proudest moments were solving those. 2024 has come with scale, different problems, but 2023 definitely was the biggest challenge of the year. We couldn't keep the product in stock, realised we had to set up manufacturing internationally to service our customers over there, and yeah. So now the challenges are different. You know, now it's the challenge of how do we build out a team, how do we structure each region correctly, how do we try and drive the business from Australia, which isn't the friendliest time zone to, you know, east Northern America or Europe in general? So going through a little bit of those teething problems at the moment, global, small global team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting. Can't even begin to imagine mate. So then, if you sort of think about the consumer and their perception of supplementation and the average Joe, you know, not the elite athlete, who majority of them, as you'd know.
Speaker 1:A coach said, dietitian said, you know, therapist, doctor, team doctor said take these at this amount. And they do it and off they go. They don't really need to think independently. The average consumer does. And you're competing against big pharmaceutical companies because, as you said, you're in that space and that's sort of how you thought you'd enter the market. Your budget, your marketing, all that sort of thing have you. And I guess what's your approach, moving forward to cut through that noise, because the difference in the quality of product is the first thing that you wish everyone understood. I think when people take your products and I've seen it firsthand experience here they go. It's kind of weird. It works, yeah.
Speaker 2:It really doesn't work. My HIV was three months and you're like yeah.
Speaker 1:And then you're like, okay, well, there's a 30% placebo thing, Like let's not, but there is something here that works. You've worked it out. You felt it yourself way back before you even had the company. What way back before you even had the company. What's, I guess, your approach with that? And is it just a small drip? Fills the bucket every single moment.
Speaker 2:No, maybe this is giving away a bit of the secret sauce, but maybe not because it's not rocket science, but something I learned very early on, very quickly, and it actually came about like this product here that I got in front of me. This is probably the product that I was the most when we launched the brand that I was in front of me. This is probably the product that I was the most when we launched the brand that I was the most proud of Motion Armor. For anyone who doesn't know it, look it up Incredible if you've ever had cartilage removal surgery, if you've ever suffered from arthritis. First company we were bringing in Nem Eggshell Membrane. So it's a glucominoglycogen. Works very similar to glucosamine and chondroitin but has clinical trials to help with the harvesting and regrowth of cartilage. Now also used a boswellia extract in there which, let's just fast forward, it's probably where curcumin was 20 years ago. Boswellia extract are now operating in that space Product sounds amazing.
Speaker 2:It's got true trademark license. I worked out how to do that. Right at the beginning I was like this is going to change the world. It should change the world. It's an amazing product but very difficult to market because when you are a brand, new brand, limited marketing capital, zero credibility call it. You cannot launch a new. You might be able to, but I haven't worked out how it is very difficult to educate a customer on not just a new brand not to you know, have them trust you as a brand and a product, but also to then put on your shoulders having to educate them onto what two new novel ingredients are in a category which is as complicated as orthopedic surgery right.
Speaker 2:So I was like oh, you know great name and I still think the name is great and it's a big internal joke within the company. Anytime we talk about motion armour it comes up on the sales. You know monthly sales stats. Everyone's like oh, motion armour, you know it's Damien's little baby. But what we learned was it's really difficult to do that.
Speaker 2:So what we did learn very quickly after that is, as you've said, there has been a huge amount of capital put in over decades and decades into the supplement space on the education of certain categories, not certain ingredients. Now, the shift that's come in the last four years is that there are thought leaders that are now educating on ingredients. Four years is that there are thought leaders that are now educating on ingredients. So, for example, where I realized that, okay, with motion armor, too difficult to spend the money to educate on the ingredient, whereas you take the magnesium category, for example, there has been hundreds of millions of dollars and decades spent educating consumers that magnesium can be used for recovery, muscle recovery, anti-cramping, sleep, all the general things that we you know nervous system health, all these general things that we kind of associate with magnesium. But it doesn't go any deeper than that.
Speaker 2:So I was like, okay, well, let's start from there and and realize that we don't have to then educate them that what magnesium does does those things. Just start the consumer journey from there and the education curve and then realize, excuse me, and then have the consumer understand now, this is what magnesium does. You know that. Let us take you the rest of the way and take you from. Okay, well, this is now why this magnesium will work, because and these are the why this is why that magnesium previously didn't yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense because that's kind of.
Speaker 1:The next question is delineating a quality magnesium product from a non-quality one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The absorption factors, the layers of magnesium. In itself, I mean, we've got it here. It's very simple.
Speaker 2:It's a category that is hugely complex, like everything in micronutrition and supplementation. If you look at amino acids, but let's take magnesium, it's a category that is hugely complex, like everything in micronutrition and supplementation. If you look at amino acids, but let's take magnesium. Magnesium everyone knows what it is. Not many people know that there's 11 forms of it.
Speaker 1:So no one knows what they're looking at on the back of their pack. So they just go to Swiss Ultra Magnesium and let's take 10 of these and it'll be sweet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, this is what happens. Then they say let's take 10 of these, and it does nothing. So what does it do? It turns that consumer away from the category for good. So one of the things we've had to do is not only come in and educate them why we were different but also say give it another chance, please.
Speaker 2:You know, I know the category in the industry. So there's as much as we can thank brands in Australia like Black Mores and Swiss or Thorne in the US for creating a category. We've also got a, you know. They've also got, you know, a couple of questions to answer and the fact that they also turned a lot of people away because what they were putting in the bottle didn't match the claims that were being made. Yeah, they didn't match the aspiration that was being built through great TV ads. So then you know, but it also gives an opportunity for a challenger brand to come in and solve that gap. So that's what we did. So it's one of those ones where you get the formulation right, you find a unique way. So we obviously use wearable data as the wedge. We say, guys, don't trust us. Take the product, take a sample of the product, go and look at your wrist when you wake up tomorrow morning and see what your HRV does, which can show overall body readiness or your deep sleep and, thankful.
Speaker 1:Now, with the technology, pretty much any watch on your wrist is now measuring that or, if not, you're wearing an aura ring or a whoop um at the same time, yeah, um then, like so many stars are lining up right in in all this, because five man, I could say, five years ago not many people were talking about their hiv absolutely didn't exist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exist, so yeah I remember actually I was doing it like a neuro course and sort of worked in sort of neuro space to a certain extent from a performance consideration and uh, and they're talking about hiv, this is in 2016. Yeah, I'm like what the hell is this now? Yeah, it's like one of the first things I'm talking to. You know customers that are walking in here in their mid-50s, 60s going. I'm really worried about my HIV. I'm like hang on, let's just you know. It's cool, though, right.
Speaker 2:I think I sit there and smile when I hear this.
Speaker 2:I sit there when we talk about you know conversations over dinner, people talking about you know all-cause mentality Like it is cool is it is a shift that is happening and it's only going to get wider.
Speaker 2:It's not turning around anytime soon. What the consumer expects of their health care, their supplementation, their nutrition, is going to be far greater and and make brands create a different standard, which is what I've kind of told our team and what we one of the things you know what we've got to do. We put ourselves out there to set the standard. You actually you have to keep setting it the entire time because consumers are not going, they're going to turn away far, far faster, and the brands that aren't willing to rise to the standard because we're happy if we lead the standard and the shift in product quality and where we're bringing the ingredients from, most of our ingredients come in from Europe and then everyone else starts copying us. Well, you know, at the end of the day, how good Like, at least at the end of the day, we walk away and we've created a different shift in standard on supplementation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, You've influenced not just the industry and supplementation but general health. You know Exactly. And that's kind of the metric and I guess there's an element of you and your performance that got you into this. From an injury perspective and a rehab and a recovery element. There's obviously a care and a health care and for lack of a better term almost a practitioner side of you that goes we need to be better for this industry. Where does that sort of come from? What stemmed that?
Speaker 2:Because you're motivated to have the 55-year-old mum taking these products because you know they can help. Yeah, I just think there is a shift happening in the consumer right now and in healthcare. So if we talk about it right at the very macro level, let's talk about healthcare. There is a shift that needs to happen in healthcare, and companies like digital platforms telehealth probably the evil word but digital platforms like Eucalyptus that is able to use modern day and modern day data, ai advancements to start to personalize the care for a patient, like the patient-doctor relationship can start to be more like a brand and customer, because as a brand, we treat our customers like gold, because without them we don't have a business.
Speaker 2:Whereas I think for a long period of time, healthcare, that patient-doctor relationship, has kind of been there and thereabouts because there's no alternative. Well, now there is and there are platforms out there that are going digital, which actually create a more close relationship like a brand customer to a doctor practitioner. And where I feel really passionate is supplements have a massive role to play in that, because the consumer is now demanding personalisation, because they want their data. If they have the data and they're giving the data, whether it's through diagnostics, which I'm really really passionate about and something that I'm really looking into as part of Pillar and creating that kind of diagnostic feedback loop, like don't just take our magnesium or do take it, but now test whether it's working, yeah, and if it is working, keep taking it, if it's not, let's try and find something else, don't take it.
Speaker 2:That is all available, and the consumer is now demanding both healthcare and doctor to become more personalised, and supplementation plays a huge role in that. That is why the supplementation industry needs to lead the personalisation of that data drive, and that's kind of where I'm really passionate about it, because we have a duty of care, like as in that being in that flywheel of healthcare, yes, our wedge is performance and pretty obviously it's coming at it from an athletic perspective. Right now, the performance is going to get wider and wider and wider and then it's going to go from performance into just general pop, and we know that we have a role to play in that. But as a small company, we're coming at it at a different angle.
Speaker 1:But that's what excites me as well, yeah, and I think it's exciting for the consumer to, as we sort of touched on, it's not clinical, this is a performance thing that you're doing for yourself. This is to make yourself better, not to heal something that's wrong with you. It's like you're good but you can be really good Totally If you approach it like this In, if you approach it like this In terms of, I guess, red flags for consumers, you know what are things that have been maybe not shoved down their throat, or I guess there's now so much noise across this space. What are some of the things that you know people should probably be looking out for before they invest money, time, into supplementation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really, really good question. The easiest way is to obviously to to do a bit of research, know what form of a particular ingredient you want to take and, if it's something as macro as, say, a whey protein isolate, go and dive a little deeper as to where it's from. You know, like you can, because you, you know you can synthetically create an awful lot of stuff, and also you can, you can, you can source ingredients from certain parts of the world which have a higher quality history than other parts of the world. So go and and dive into that. Um, and you really kind of do need to do a bit of bitty background research, particularly when it comes to the micro side. Um, and is that just simply jumping?
Speaker 1:on google.
Speaker 2:I think it's jumping on google I think if you're into podcasts there, there is so much readily available information out there now, like the work that you guys are doing here. You can talk to your trainers. You can talk to your strength coaches. You don't have to go. That's the beauty of how far education knowledge is spreading. You don't have to walk too far to talk to someone who can give you more knowledge than you currently have. That person doesn't need to be an expert, but they can give you more knowledge than you currently have. That person doesn't need to be an expert, but they can give you a little bit more knowledge than you started the conversation with.
Speaker 1:And you can make an informed decision as a result.
Speaker 2:Absolutely In terms of red flags, like there's a number of tricks that brands can play. It's more down to in terms of some of that getting into more particulars on serving sizes and things. But if you know the ingredients, it's very difficult to play a trick on consumers. But again, ask and this is where it gets quite frustrating. Don't sometimes ask the people that you think, like you know, it might be a pharmacist, for example. There's been many times that I've gone in as a mystery shopper and I've questioned pharmacists and they've just walked me over and pushed me onto their home brand. Yeah, thinking I'm. You know, johnny, come lately. Yeah, you know you turn it over.
Speaker 2:I said oh you guys also um attached to this. So and so, so and so, so you know and it's just like you know because at the end of the day, it's there's, there's commercials involved, everyone's trying to make a dollar, um, so yeah, those are some of the things.
Speaker 1:Sometimes look for information, but maybe try and question it a little bit absolutely and I think, as positive or negative, the spin is on it in terms of the covid, the entire covid thing. And I don't want to bloody sound like a conspiracy theorist, but just people got better informed and they started to ask questions and and that's really important, and if you're working with a practitioner that genuinely cares about the health outcome or whatever performance outcome you want to deliver, um, they're going to lean on evidence and you know solid backing for what they're cares about the health outcome or whatever performance outcome you want to deliver they're going to lean on evidence and you know solid backing for what they're probably suggesting as best their knowledge. And you know my brother's now finishing med school and he was just telling me how much harder it is for him to answer questions quickly and why that world has to just go the quick. Next one, because behind that person that's asking a simple question is hundreds of other people that really need a lot of help because their health is so bad.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, you know, sort of as that consumer that is healthy. There's other ways and avenues you can lean on. As you're saying, there's information through podcasts. There's really great web pages. There's so much stuff out there and I guess it's looking for that red flag that the promise is too good to be true and I and I guess the product that doesn't say, well, test it on yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're probably measuring some sort of data. There's something measuring. You see if it works and if it doesn't cool, go further. You know, how far do you think people should go and I guess there's two, two, two layers to this question In terms of getting a better understanding as to what micronutrients people might be I guess low in from a blood sample, hair tissue analysis, et cetera. How far do you think people should go in terms of getting all that checked out and at what age should they really start to worry about it? And then, second to that, where do you see it going? You mentioned personalization. What sort of five years look like in terms of this industry, the space for the consumer?
Speaker 2:yeah, I, it's, it's. I mean I probably alluded to a little bit um a little bit before, but where I think the space is going or where, at least where you know you can probably get from from my angle, where I want to take the space is um, is to use, is to use testing, to use diagnost diagnostics as the starting point, the feedback loop and maybe the end point. And when is too early to do that? I'd say it's probably around the same time you're looking to start to supplement.
Speaker 2:There's not an awful lot of evidence to say that any young teenage years you need to start to be supplementing in that instance. But mid-teens to later teens is when a lot of people get into supplementation and start to take their, you know, body into their own hands in a way. You know you can time that education with that and then to start to gain that trend across your life, which is what I wish I did when I was younger. But there's some barriers to that taking yourself to the doctor, going to pathology In Australia we still don't do at-home testing yet.
Speaker 1:Yet Fingers crossed.
Speaker 2:But there's certainly a few things that are on the pipeline that we're looking into. That is going to make life a lot easier for people to have a very clear understanding of baseline on supplementation, both micro and macro. So I recommend starting from there because, as you've said, it's and we want to be that company that people can trust in terms of when they go okay, I want to start to supplement. We're not going to sit there and tell them to continue to take it forever. If A, it's not working or potentially B, we need to change the dose. So putting those interventions in place for people in terms of supplementation so they can take it into their own hands.
Speaker 2:I also think that mirrors perfectly with this innate fascination with everyone for data. There is because people can access data, because we're more curious and willing to question authority more. You can take your own data and take it into your hands, which is why supplements, healthcare everything needs to keep up with that curiosity. Otherwise, the world's going to fall over because there is so much ready-made knowledge out there now People are willing to question. I think it's going to have to set the standards significantly higher from a product and also a practitioner. So someone like your brother going into his half an hour consults are just going to be rapid fire. Why? It's going to be like talking to a toddler.
Speaker 1:The whole time. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're going to get more informed and more informed. So that's where I think the next landscape of five years is going to be. It's obviously longer term than that, but over the next five years, wanting of data and people taking their performance and their health into their own hands significantly, um grow yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then you know, economics will do its thing.
Speaker 1:The quality will rise, cream will rise to the top, and I guess, from a macroeconomic perspective it's quite interesting because, you know, I spoke to an economist that was a researcher that used to train us a long time ago before she moved into state, and she said her research was in the influence of exercise on the economic costs of healthcare.
Speaker 1:And it was things like you know, gdp is kind of bubbling along, healthcare is going up and up and up and it's costing governments more and more and more, particularly in Australia, and something's going to give because we're going to run out of money. There's only so much you can tax a society before you can't afford to pay for everyone's health, and that's sort of something that we're actually staring down the barrel of as a nation in Australia. The US has got a very different system. I don't know if they've been over that edge, but you sort your shit out yourself and you pay for it, and your company might put insurance in or whatever, but your health, you pay for it. It's not sort of funded by the government and I think, in saying what you're saying, if we can, the consumer can take the independence back onto themselves, get their data, learn their information, make their decisions and lean on the specialists, lean on the doctors and the dietitians and the practitioners to guide their decision-making and their information.
Speaker 2:It's going to create a more independent, healthier, happier, better-performing society, which is kind of exciting and you're spot on, and I hope governments listen to this podcast, but you are so spot on when you think about it at the very highest macro level of the governments are the ones that are going to have to fit the bill at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:Why, if you're a, a government, are you not thinking now about subsidizing prevent, the preventative side? And there's going to, you know they're going to be thinking a shift between trying to solve curatively, which is significantly more expensive if it comes down to surgical intervention or long-term medication, as opposed to maybe supplementing something on the preventative side, like, let's just say like what you're wearing on your wrist there like a whoop. Imagine if the government just subsidized some form of wearable so people could have more autonomy over what their body is doing, whether it's an at-home testing kit, so people are taking their own bloods into their hands on a quarterly basis, having their own platform, as opposed to letting okay, no, no, that's going to be expensive. But then eventually, over time, you then realise, well, if you're solving it decades before the problem actually happens, which one's going to end up being more expensive Exactly. That's where I think there is a crossroads right now, where I'm not in those rooms, but I'm sure someone is thinking about it.
Speaker 2:I'd certainly know that's where I'm talking. The team over at whoop, that's their. You know that's the vision, um, you know, creating a world where, where it's going from curative, you know, moving it from curative into preventative, um, and and stopping it well before it happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's, that's kind of it, right? Yeah, everything as you're saying and it's funny even from a performance perspective, and even you know how we'd like to operate things in here and, as you're saying, it's not go see your doctor and then go to your trainer and maybe you'll speak to a dietician or the pharmacist and they don't know who they are. It's like this integrated system where we're talking to the doctors and the surgeons and the dieticians and it's a cross-reference and I've upped this dosage of this because they're feeling a bit fatigued and dieticians sort of prescribe that and therefore I can ask more. They're doing a half marathon. Let's up a bit more of the recovery supplementation They've injured themselves. Let's look at a couple of other products, and so it sort of goes. And if everyone's talking the same way, the consumer is just going to get awesome outcomes every single time. And yeah, I think you know it's inevitable. The market's going to speak for itself and people are more health conscious.
Speaker 2:And that's not even considering what is happening on the GLP-1's side of things. You know semiiglutidazempic, like there is a huge amount of unknown on that space but at the same time there is a huge amount of benefit for what those drugs can do for people who are so far over you know over the edge in terms of obesity what those drugs are doing to pull people back into health for the longer term, yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:But there again, like when there's you know there's repercussions, everyone goes oh, but what's the downside to that drug? Yeah, but what's the downside for a heart attack at 40? Yeah, kids without a parent, that's what's the you know like, and so it's always yin and yang.
Speaker 2:Yes, the drug is. You know it's an extreme, Potentially risky. But this you know don't take it so you can be, you know, shredded bob at the festival. You know you take it when, when you have a serious need for it. But at the same time, there is also then other ailments when you take medication like that.
Speaker 1:That needs to be addressed and there needs to be strategies come exactly right yeah yeah, yeah, no, it's interesting, cool mate. Let's, uh, let's bring it home, home with some some, I guess, lessons and and you know, career situations and stories that you might have. If you could go back to yourself when you kicked things off you were raising capital for this thing what would you say? What would you wish Damo knew then?
Speaker 2:I wish I knew that. Yeah, I probably didn't. I beat myself up too much a little bit in the fact that you know they're just when you launch a business. It is just a war of attrition of problems, you know, and that's why I think entrepreneurs love talking to each other, because there's only people that can understand the deep shit that you're just constantly in and it's the ones that can learn to swim through it. Um, and I think you know, like just sometimes giving myself those moments where it's like you know, this is you know you feel sorry for yourself, yeah and you really try and beat yourself up about it.
Speaker 2:But like, if I could just say back, like just when these moments come, just move past them, because the next, you know they're going to come again in two days time. So there's no point beating yourself up about it today. Yeah, you know, um, but yeah, I think maybe still too early in the journey to really have something profound. Tell myself back then yeah, yeah, but man still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it moves quickly I think you wouldn't have thought about 2024, that much you know. When you're right, let's just get around see if it works totally, and now it's it's yeah, it's really unique.
Speaker 2:I've spent the last kind of back half of this year, probably for the first time, and I think it's just because of where the business is, the team we've got some great people running their backyards of the company that I am now thinking kind of six, 12, 18 months out, which is that's new.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh, this is a fire. I said, yeah, that's a fire.
Speaker 2:There's still fires, but it's like there's. You know, I kind of only have to come if it's a really big one, or just you know, come when it's over and be like there was a fire. What do you think of that? Yeah, well, you know, good bucket of water on that one. Well done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've enjoyed the shift, which is nice yeah yeah, let's fast forward to Damo 10 years.
Speaker 2:What's he saying to you? Now, that's an easier one. I hope he's thanking me. I hope he's like you got it right.
Speaker 1:Well done, that's an easy one.
Speaker 2:I really hope he turns around and goes hey well, you did something right there, mate, well done.
Speaker 1:Look at us now. Yeah, I like that Some sort of you know. Yeah, maybe just high five. It doesn't even have to say anything, it's just a nod. 100%, that's too good. Last one I want to touch on this collagen product. You guys just launched it.
Speaker 2:Tell us a little bit about it yeah, it's one that we've been wanting to bring for a long time tenderfort, it's a painted collagen peptide. We brought it out from Germany into Australia. I'm going to pause on this.
Speaker 1:Yes, People hear peptides and they go. What?
Speaker 2:the fuck is that or that's illegal? Exactly, athletes can take it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a bit of a taboo word in Australia. Yeah, thanks to a couple of instances there. Guys, yeah, collagen is made up of peptides. Essentially, collagen has essentially makes up they're called collagen helixes. They're made up of three different um three, three different forms of peptide in there, um 10 to 4 at a very, at a very high level.
Speaker 2:Um has been clinically trialed type 1 collagen for tendons and ligaments. So when we were looking at this space, collagen has certainly not a novel category. But what was an unmet market in terms of that space was for a brand and a product to come in to solve for what we felt was one of the most over, probably one of the most common injuries for any athlete, particularly our core demographic, which is endurance athletes, hamstring tendinopathy, anyone with Achilles injuries, our core demographic, which is endurance athletes yeah, um 10, you know, hamstring, temper off 10 tendinopathy. Um, anyone with, you know, achilles injuries. Um, all of all, yeah, all ligaments intended um injuries can be solved by this. So that was the gap that we found. There wasn't one product on the market that was saying no, no, tendon ligaments, we're going to try and solve for that. So we went on a search to try and find. You know there was. Then we knew there must have been a peptide in the lab out there that was looking for that. Okay, came across ten to four and we brought it into the market. Help, so we've got a German hum of the business so we're able to do that license a little bit easier than we were back in the day. But yeah, it's only been on the market four weeks now, having some phenomenal feedback already on it, which is great. Yeah, great, sold out of the first bunch, so I apologize to anyone who couldn't get it. It's coming back in very, very soon, which is great.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, a bit of a directional shift for us. We obviously up until now micronutrition, you'd notice, yeah, collagen isn't, you know, it's a peptide, it's a peptide, it's a macro, it's a part of a protein, it's certainly a macronutrient. It's um, you know, we never kind of said we're going to be the micronutrition brand forever. This kind of gives people an indication on where we're looking. If we feel that there's, there's a performance, health, um, need state that we can solve. And and we think our customer has given us the brand permission to dive into that space we feel we've got, you know, can partner with labs that have done the research. That's one thing people can understand.
Speaker 2:Now, when pillar launches a product, we're either going to go and do the research. We have phd students now going and doing the research on magnesium because we felt that there weren't enough clinicals out there for, specifically for performance or hrv. So that's what we're bringing into the market, that's what dan and his team are doing. Whereas it's with, or if it's with a product, you know where a company's already gone and a lab has already gone and done and patented and tested the product, that's that's what's going to be included in our product. So kind of a bit of a hallmark when we bring in a new um, new product yeah, cool, um, so you know in a nutshell who's it for.
Speaker 1:Is it for that sort of half marathon, marathon runner, that that's getting there but dealing with a niggle and you're getting the hands-on treatment. You're doing the gym, you're doing the isos and all the rehab yeah, I add this in. It's just going to sort of stack.
Speaker 2:This is a no-brainer, I think. I think there is a collection of products and hopefully, where we take our curation of products out to is is there's some non-negotiables that can be taken between you know, a stage of life now, all the way out until you know we're potentially in the grave, and I think collagen sits in there. Your collagen stores need to constantly be, you know, yeah, and the really sad fact is that every year after you turn 30, you lose 1% of collagen in your body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's really sad to know I just turned 30. Thanks for remembering that, han.
Speaker 2:I thought you only yeah, you look young, it's nice. I thought you only yeah, you look young, it's nice, you're holding it well.
Speaker 1:Are you taking collagen? Your skin looks good. No, mate.
Speaker 2:But yeah, no, a bit exactly. So collagen is one of those ones you have to stay on. But also it's a fantastic like the research behind 10 to 4 day that Jolita did out of Germany was specifically around return to injury. There was one study that they did with the AIS as well. Well, had athletes coming back from injury significantly faster than non use or placebo group. A lot of it comes to do with this tendon stiffness. So a lot of people think you know, oh wow, if you read, you do the research into tenderfall collagen, oh wow, but it says a stiffened tendons. I'll say, yeah, but that's what strengthens tendons. That's the point. That's the point you know anything about really oh, that's just you know.
Speaker 2:And we actually, when we're translating all the labeling into Germany, like our head of ops, who she's fluent English-German, she's like oh is stiffness, am I like? She goes I swear I've translated this word incorrectly. I said no, no, you haven't. Like stiffness in this instance is a good thing.
Speaker 1:Well mate as a high-performance S&C like stiffness is everything it's free energy, it was free energy. And Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world Gout, gout. You've seen him. That guy's nothing but tendons, yeah, yeah, and the stiffness in the tendon is free energy. There's no metabolic byproduct. That's exactly what we want to develop, and if you've got a nopathy or any sort of tendon issue of any kind, you're not going to use it as well and we were playing.
Speaker 2:And this is the space. There are so many high-performance athletes and coaches that are educating and pushing and understand how much, like on a knife's edge, tendons and ligaments are particularly tendons.
Speaker 1:Well, this gives them their functionality right, it's a stiff band.
Speaker 2:And we felt that there was an education gap there that we want to solve. So, with this, please go on to our channels or podcast and have a listen to what the ingredient can do, but also go and have a read of what it could do if you are suffering from either of those injuries or want to prevent it potentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, mate, too good, really really good. We can go down on all sorts of rabbit holes. I think we've managed to bring things back a few times here. So it's been a pleasure, mate, really exciting, I think the biggest thing for me as a practitioner and made so many errors and learned on the fly.
Speaker 1:But there's sort of three tiers from a performance and a health perspective and my specialty, if you will, is in the mechanics and the movement and making people get that right. And that's just practice and you know just detail. There's the neurological, psychological, what you think, how you believe, and then the sort of subconscious neurological elements and then there's a chemical and that's your nutrition and your health and if you positively influence one, it's going to positively or motivate you to positively influence the other from the way you breathe, might influence your digestion and everything else. And I think you guys addressing the chemical space from a micronutrient is it's just. I suppose you're ticking a box that just people are so scared of because of all the noise, lack of quality. Where do I want to? Should I get another pre-workout? Should I take more pre-workout? Should I take more pre-work? And I'm like, mate, as you said at the start, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1:A good night's sleep, couple of coffees and a piece of fruit will do wonders yeah and then it's just looking at the recovery, certain profiles, that subjectability and what you need from yourself. So, um, mate, kudos to you and you know, considering when I, when I sort of was digging into some of this stuff and saw you guys kicked off in 2021, I thought you'd been going for about 11 years, just given where you're at and and what you're doing. So, um, you know your hard work, your passion. You can see it oozes out of you. Make credit to it and credit to what you're doing. I'm very excited to see the next five years for pillar. Awesome. Thanks, mate. This has been great. Yeah, been really good and cool. I'm sure we'll do a couple more of these and get some of that research team to talk a little bit more about the little intricate details in the products, mate, but, uh, thanks for your time yeah, that'd be awesome, I think, if anyone wants to dive in on anything.
Speaker 2:Guys, sometimes we, um, we, yeah. We don't want to put in front of you what you don't want, maybe just yeah. If anyone wants some more info, yeah get in touch with the soft boys.
Speaker 1:Reach us, reach out and we'll uh, we'll look to answer it through you guys. Yeah, absolutely thanks, mate cheers. Thanks for listening to today's episode. For more regular insights into soft, be sure to check us out on instagram or facebook or visit our website at scienceoffitnesscomau. Once again, we thank you for tuning in to the science of fitness podcast.