[00:00:27] Jay: Hi, everyone, welcome to The First Customer Podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today I am lucky enough to be joined by Rachel Sanders. She is the CEO and founder of health and wellness brand "Rootine". Hi, Rachel. How are you?

[00:00:39] Rachel: Hi, excited to be here. I

[00:00:41] Jay: we were just talking a little bit before you were down in Nashville. Is that correct?

You grew up there.

[00:00:46] Rachel: actually grew up in Connecticut and moved down here for undergrad, so I'm, a transplant, but I transplanted a while before it became popular.

[00:00:52] Jay: Got it. Okay. Well, start there. so where in Connecticut did you grow up and did that kind of have any impact on you being an entrepreneur later in life?

[00:01:01] Rachel: So, I grew up in central Connecticut outside of Hartford and I wouldn't say the location necessarily, but my household. So my household was really strong on holistic health. So I was looking at what I was doing across my nutrition, my lifestyle, way back before it was popular.

So I was looking at it when I was 10, 11 years old. And so. Right. When I was early in my career, I was working a hundred hour weeks. I did invest in banking in and around the healthcare industry. I was seeing kind of all this innovation happening, but very little innovation on the supplement side, because when I went back, my body had broken down, I was stressed.

I was dealing with burnout. I wanted to go back to my roots of kind of supplementation and lifestyle, but I didn't know where to start. I didn't really know what was going to work for me and what I specifically needed, and that was really my light bulb moment where I said, Hey, like, Why can't we apply technology and data science that's doing so well on the healthcare side of things into this holistic health side to help more people like me who are struggling to figure out how can they make themselves feel better without having to use medication?

How can they prevent illness? How can they get over illness without these prescriptions or constant pills?

[00:02:09] Jay: An interesting point where. Where does the line kind of live between holistic medicine and, like, traditional, like, I don't know, I'm not going to call it science based because then I think that maybe makes holistic sound a little less. Effective, but like, like traditional medicine versus holistic, like, where is the line?

Because you mentioned data and analytics, which I guess would typically be on the prescription kind of medical research kind of side of things. How do you how did you merge those 2 things together with Rootine?

[00:02:43] Rachel: It's a great question and I would say everything's merging a lot more. So back when I started my career, that was 10. 12 years ago now. It was a much more specific line between, let's say, traditional health care. So you're going into your doctor and you're getting a prescription medication and the more holistic health side of things, which is more, what can you do with your nutrition to prevent sickness?

And now we have access to all of this data, individual health data, whether it's through DNA testing or our Apple watch, for example, so we know a lot more what's going on in our bodies and we can actually make adjustments on a more personalized basis from home much more than we've ever been able to do before.

And this is also allowing research to get a lot faster. On the less traditional healthcare side of things and the more holistic, whether it's nutrition, it's lifestyle. And so we're seeing a lot more research come out, across all of it and a lot more data driven approaches because we have access to that data that we didn't really have before.

[00:03:44] Jay: That makes sense. And what, how do you define holistic medicine? Or holistic, whatever, I guess, is it called holistic medicine? Is it just holistic? Because typically you think of like, you know, herbs and spices and some like random stuff that people will like, say, go take this if you feel like this. And it's like, you know, it's like the natural version of a prescription.

But like, how do you define holistic medicine? Because you mentioned nutrition, which I think is an interesting way to define it.

[00:04:13] Rachel: Holistic health or holistic medicine, integrative medicine, there's a lot of different terms for it. The idea is that you're looking at your entire body and you're looking at everything from your environment to the food you're eating to the movement you're doing. And how it all plays together versus traditional healthcare, which is really just treating one symptom in one part of your body.

So if you have a heart issue, you're going to go to a cardiologist. If you have a brain issue, you're going to go to a neurologist. Whereas holistic health is saying, okay, actually what's going on in your heart, what's going on in your brain. It might be connected. Let's look at it all together and see what we can do holistically to Deal with all of the symptoms and really look at the root cause versus just put a band aid on how you're feeling.

[00:04:57] Jay: That makes a lot of sense.you said the word root a couple times, which I think is leading us towards. talking about your products, where did, you know, you kind of mentioned where the genesis of where the idea came from. Talk to me about like the actual moment of making this a product, making this a thing, like it's, everybody can have an idea, but it definitely, there's a huge chasm between that and like actually making a physically packaged item that you're shipping out or selling to people.

So what, talk me through the process of like going from ID ideation to actual physical product.

[00:05:31] Rachel: Yeah, it's a big, it's a big jump. So, Rootine, we are all, our whole mission is really about building out smarter health solutions for people to achieve their most vibrant health. And we started with supplementation and at home lab testing. And step one is obviously creating a company name. And the, concept of Rootine.

It's spelled R. O. T. I. N. E. It's one. We want to help you create simple, healthy habits that help you feel better every single day. So your Rootine, but we're also helping you get to the root of what you actually need through that lab testing and through that overall kind of understanding of your body.

but So we picked the name and then we started and there's a lot of, there's a lot of, things that happened after that, but I would say for people who are thinking about starting a business or maybe have this idea, that's the hardest thing is to say, all right, I'm just going to start pick a name.

Names change. Pick a logo. Logos change. Pick your colors or your website. Whatever you need that's blocking you, just like make the decision and go. That is really what you have to do. And that's what we did.

[00:06:37] Jay: who was your 1st customer for your what was the 1st product that you guys came out? And I saw there's a bunch of different ones on the website. What was the 1st thing that you guys actually came out

[00:06:47] Rachel: Our smart multivitamin, which is custom dose to your biological data, was our first product. And our first customers there, were Really, biohackers, VCs, investors that had been part of our really early journey, the company went through Techstars and so people in and around that ecosystem were really the first people to sign on.

Pay for it and give us feedback, which was really helpful.

[00:07:13] Jay: with about Techstars? Why did you do that? How did you do that? What was the story around it?

[00:07:19] Rachel: Techstars is a great accelerator. There's a couple, obviously that you probably heard of Y Combinator, Techstars. There's 500 startups. but it helps if you're someone who has an idea, but don't really know how to start, they help you formulate. What your idea is going to look like, how you put it down on paper, how you think about getting those first customers, the feedback, how you deal with a pitch deck, how you get investors and really support you on that really super early part of your startup journey.

[00:07:50] Jay: What made you decide that you needed that? Like, where were you at in the process when you were like, okay, we think that Techstars would be really helpful for us.

[00:07:59] Rachel: I think accelerators are great for first time founders, which I was. and they also help just accelerate the, Part of like accelerate your business. So if you get into one of the good ones, which I would say Techstars, Y Combinator are two really great ones. They can help take you from kind of A to B a lot faster.

[00:08:17] Jay: so talk me through kind of the product journey. You mentioned that you started with one thing. Now you have multiple other things. Like what's been the genesis of getting to where you guys are today. It

[00:08:29] Rachel: Yeah, we started with our smart multivitamin and then we had a DNA test as well, because the smart multivitamin looks at a hundred health data points and then custom doses you based on your biological data. So we started with a DNA test and then we added in other lab tests that can help support and further personalize your multi.

So we added in a vitamin test, a mineral test, and then the most recent test we added is a cortisol test. So that cortisol test looks at three different points throughout the day and actually, plots you along an optimal cortisol curve, which we created out of 144, 000. Data points from scientific literature to really understand what the optimal curve should look like throughout the day.

So that's the lab testing journey. And then our most recent products, which if you're kind of looking on our site now, are making up the majority of our marketing efforts are our functional drink mixes. So the evolution there is we. Really understood who our customer was and their pain points. What are the health issues that they were dealing with, which we understood both from the lab tests and just from the being in market.

So we understood people are stressed. People are dealing with sleep issues and kind of had a list of all the categories. and we also knew that people wanted solutions that really worked really quickly. And so we took that information, the categories that they cared about. Yeah. And all of the other data points that really mattered to them and developed these adapted in powders.

So they're powder blends, clinician formulated, clean label for sleep, stress, and focus. And they are designed to work really quickly. And most people are feeling the effects within 20 minutes or less. And those products are available on our site, but they're also available online on Amazon. and we'll be going into more retail shelves, this year.

[00:10:18] Jay: seems like such a big, kind of audacious space to step into. I mean, there's, you know, you're dealing with like pharmaceutical companies and like a million other supplement companies. how do you evaluate and. stay ahead of your competition.

[00:10:35] Rachel: It's really about the white space that you're going after. So today and with the drink mixes, we've realized that there's this wellness crisis happening for women in their thirties, forties, and fifties. So millennial and Gen X women are more stressed. They're overwhelmed. They're sleeping worse than they've ever slept before.

They're dealing with burnout at unprecedented rates, fatigued at 4X the rate of men. And supplements, so natural solutions, are what they are looking for. And there's a lot of research around adaptogens and other herbal solutions that can really help support this. Yet, this mood and mind health market is There is no brands for them.

So it's 24 billion. People are out there looking, they have the money to spend, but we figured out that no one's talking to them. And so we've created this, both a product and a brand and a message that's really resonating for this consumer that is actively searching for solutions for real problems. And that's how you navigate a really competitive space is you find that white space and that need that no one else is really serving.

[00:11:47] Jay: I saw, I think that you guys had raised some money, which is kind of, another first customer that we talk about. Talk to me about just that process. I mean, somebody, I mean, it wasn't a,trivial amount that you guys raise, at least from what I saw on LinkedIn. talk to me about it. What was the process?

When did you realize like, oh, we need some extra capital. Did you know that starting out? Like, what was the process behind needing that money? And what are you guys spending it on?

[00:12:14] Rachel: Yeah. Great question. So we've raised over 10 million across multiple rounds. we started with a friends and family round. we did about, I guess that first round was about a million, after tech stars. And we went in knowing that. Our product was going to cost a little bit more money to create because the original product was very innovative, very different from the market.

There was both a product piece of it and a digital product. So software piece of it. and so we raised from there and then we raised our. seed plus or minus 3 million seed about a year and a half after that. And then we raised our series a, about two years after the seed. and we just continue to scale and there's all sorts of lessons from fundraising, but we decided to go that route.

It's definitely a hamster wheel as people call it. So once you raise, you're going to probably keep raising. But finding those first investors is really around about your network. So who have you worked with before? who do you know that is in and around angel investing? How can you get warm intros to people who want to play in the early stage space and creating that target list, ranking them, getting the warm intros and just having a lot of conversations is how you raise every round, but especially the first round and then.

As the rounds progress, people want more data. You get more sophisticated investors. You bring on more institutional investors who are writing larger checks, but are going to do more diligence. And so, You kind of layer it up, but that process is still the same every single round. Create your target list, you rank them, you try to get more mintros, and then you just have a lot of conversations.

[00:13:55] Jay: That's basically the same process is prospecting for customers, I guess. Right? it's very. A very similar, experience. so how has the customer changed? Like, you guys were going after somebody originally with your smart multivitamin. Now you're selling, you know, the,the drink mix. Like, how has it changed over time?

Like, who was it originally? I mean, you know, you mentioned who it was now, but like, just tell me, talk to me about the evolution of the customer themselves.

[00:14:21] Rachel: Yeah, so we started a little broader, which I actually would not recommend. So if I were to do it again, I wouldn't have done it this way. we started broader and then we realized who we were serving and who was Really an important part of our customer journey and who really needed our product. And that's how we niched down to where we are today.

but we started more, generalized, but it's more of the like high performance biohacker type across all genders. And then that's who we served for a long time. And 60, 40 male, female, broken down into. Folks who were engineers or entrepreneurs or founders who are a little bit more high performance and wanted more data around their bodies.

And from there, we recognize this white space. We recognized the fact that we were already serving these customers, these millennial and Gen X women, and they were the ones that were struggling the most with these other people. health issues and that no one was really serving them. And so that's how we evolved from this kind of biohacker, but more gender neutral into a more specific, both gender and age group and messaging.

[00:15:32] Jay: you mentioned something you would do if you started over again today being, targeting a little more granularly than the broad approach. What else would you have done differently that you've learned so far?

[00:15:45] Rachel: Yeah. I would spend a lot more time in organic. So we, I think this is a lesson that everybody has learned over the past five years, but we started back 2018, 2019 when DTC was, there was still arbitrage there. I think we're still being able to acquire customers, from Metta and be able to do it profitably, at that time.

And so we got on that kind of Metta paid acquisition hamster wheel, and then. Didn't spend as much time on organic and we completely flipped the switch with, our new products and how we're approaching marketing today where, I've even built out my personal audience. So I went from. No audience so 0 to I'm getting like 8, 000, 000 plus impressions a month across an audience of about 100, 000 in 8 months to really drive both awareness and overall traffic, but also focusing on organic.

Whether it's content referrals, problem evangelism across all of the platforms, to really drive. A, that cost of acquisition down, but that's how you, that's how you scale profitably. you don't scale profitably from paid.

It's a great segue into the next question, which was, how do you view. Personal brand, and how do you manage yours and kind of curate and grow it? since it's so kind of crucial for you being the face of Rootine. if you're a founder and you don't have a personal brand, you need to start one today. I think it's the future of everything and it's going to matter increasingly more over time. And we've seen this trend happening probably over the last 12 to 18 months where consumers are following, People and not brands.

They want to see the people. They want the more vulnerability. They want the authenticity. That's why some of the social platforms are doing better than others. It's that's just the overall trend, especially Gen Z. So as those consumers continue to age, people want to know who's behind the brand and that's true for B2B.

It's true for D2C. It's true for everybody.so I think it's, I think personal brand is absolutely critical. I think starting one from scratch when you're a founder without one is really fricking hard. and it takes a complete mindset shift from kind of being behind the scenes, being the CEO, running the company to actually allocating time to do it because you.

Especially for doing video, less so on text, but if you're going to do it, like you have to be part of it. You can't just offshore to AI or an assistant. It's not going to sound like you and it's not going to be authentic enough to actually work. And so, to your other question of how I did it, I committed it.

To myself in true founder fashion that I was just going to do it and jump in and figure it out. and that's what I did. So I figured out, I started with how do I get consistent on posting? What are the processes that I need to go through? What kind of posts take a lot of time? What kind are easier to create?

What is actually resonating with my audience? What are the topics that feel right for me? And. As a personal brand, you want it to be as a founder building personal brand. You want it to be both you and the brand that come out together. Hopefully you have founder market fit. So that shouldn't be hard. So for me, health and wellness.

is my whole life. It's what I do for work. It's what I do for fun. It's just an easy way to kind of integrate everything. And then I am a millennial mom founder who experienced, who's a working parent, who experiences a lot of the same things that most of our customers experience. And so it's very easy for me to talk about my experiences and my journey.

and I just, Like I just went after it. I spent like a lot of time early on, trying to figure it out. And then about three, four months in. Stuff just started hitting. So I was getting my main platform is Instagram right now. I'm going to grow beyond that. I also am on LinkedIn and Twitter and all the things.

but on Instagram, I was getting views of like 2 to 3000 averaging. And then all of a sudden, a couple posts hit like 18, 20, 25 K views. I was like, okay, that's good. Let's try to recreate these. what works, what didn't like, was it the video hook? Was it the text hook? Was it the type of content?

and I just started kind of testing that out. And then those 25 K turned into 150 K turned into quickly, like within a week, 4 million, 5 million, 6 million views. And then I went from like 18, 000 to 80, 000 in like two months.so.it took a lot of time at the beginning, but then if you do it, if you do it, how you do everything else in business, which is just start, try, learn, analyze, repeat what's working, stop what's not.

That's how I scaled really quickly. And now the question is, all right, how do I scale beyond? Because I've probably hit my limit in terms of how much I can actually be a content creator on top of being a CEO, founder, and mom. Fly

[00:20:47] Jay: Well, you're very impressive. it's just like a cool, like you've figured out so many different things over this journey that a lot of people never figure out. so it's just very cool to see you brought it all kind of together in the personal brain. On top of that, I think it's just a great journey.

I think you're exactly right to that has become more and more important, and I don't think it's going to go away. And I think, like, the content driven stuff. It's not going to go anywhere anytime soon, and people know when something's and, like, pretty grossly created compared to somebody who sits down and curates content and puts it together.

So I think you've got the right track. So I'm gonna ask you 1 more question. Non business related. If you could do anything on earth and you knew you wouldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:21:41] Rachel: or like teletransport. I'm a huge, traveler. Like I love, I try to collect experiences. Like I'm much more of an experienced person than a thing person. And if I could travel faster in some capacity, that would be, I would do that. Any day of the week.

[00:22:01] Jay: I will 100 percent give you credit for teletransportation being the first time I've heard that as an answer. So you win unique points for that one. You're fantastic. I love your story. I wish you guys the best of luck. If people want to find you, where do they do that? And if they want to find Rootine, how do they find that?

[00:22:21] Rachel: Yeah. So me, you can find me on Instagram at Rachel S O P Sanders, which is S A N D E R S and my link to my website and all the things and all the content is there, you can find it in LinkedIn bio. And then Rootine is very easily accessible on Amazon. You can just search us and you can get most of our products there.

Prime two day shipping, which is awesome. We also have a website. It's Rootine R O T I N E. co and on social at Rootine underscore co.

[00:22:49] Jay: Eruf. Well, I love it. Well, I hope we get this nice weather to continue and I hope you get out and enjoy it. And I really appreciate the talk today. I think there's some really interesting stuff in there for people who may be on the same journey or want to kick off the same journey. So thank you for your time today.

And we'll catch up again soon. All right.

[00:23:06] Rachel: Yeah. Thanks so much. This was great.

[00:23:08] Jay: Thanks, Rachel. See ya. 

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