$500M Founder: “This is the biggest opportunity in the US today”

**Shaan Puri** (0:00)
The marketer in me loves everything you're saying, Raoul, because the two things you just said, those were actually like $20 million ad hooks.

**Sam Parr** (0:16)
Justin, I'm pumped you're here. You're here because, well, for two reasons. The first reason is that you have started six or seven companies that have collectively done something like $500 million in revenue in the last seven years, which is huge. And they're all in the health and wellness space. You're also here because you're one of my most reasonable friends when it comes to health and wellness because you're into fringe stuff, which is, I think, cool. But the problem with people who are in fringe stuff is they can't relate that to a normal person, you know what I mean? And they'll be like, this fringe thing that I'm into, this is only a 1% needle mover as opposed to a 50% needle mover. And so you're very self-aware, you're very thoughtful, and you've built a lot of big businesses in this space. And you're a blogger and you have this amazing blog post called The Great American Poisoning. That both Shaan and I are like obsessed with. And so I thought you could come on and kind of talk a little bit about the blog post, but also business ideas that you're into and opportunities related to this space.

**Justin Mares** (1:08)
I'm super stoked to be here. I mean, I, as I've written in that post, I literally think that the Great American, and what I call the Great American Poisoning, basically the fact that Americans are sick at record levels and are getting sicker, like our children are sick, everyone is overrated and obese. And these problems are getting worse, not better, is both the biggest problem in the US and also, because of that, like a massive opportunity for people that want to start companies or build value in this space.

**Sam Parr** (1:35)
Shaan, what emotion did you feel when you read this blog post?

**Shaan Puri** (1:38)
Dude, you could ask Diego. I went on like a 48-hour bender. First, here's what we did.

**Sam Parr** (1:43)
Was it rooted in fear?

**Shaan Puri** (1:45)
No, no, it was like outrage first, and then curiosity and skepticism. So here's the series of events. Justin writes this post called The Great American Poisoning. I read it, I'm lit on fire. Justin, I did an end of year recap for myself over the weekend. It was the number one blog. It was my favorite blog post of the year, was this thing you did. So you read that. And then I told my team, I said, hey, let's break this down point by point, because you made a lot of really interesting points. If people haven't read it, we should pull it up on YouTube. But it's like, you have this photo of this guy. I remember you go, this guy was considered so overweight that he was like a member of the circus. And it's like, if you go to a nearby Costco today, you'll find hundreds of people that are more overweight than this guy. But that was considered circus freak fat before. And you talked about how doctors would go, their whole career, a pediatrician would go their whole career and never see a kid with fatty liver disease or these things like that. And you're like, now it's more and more common. And it's just a very compelling case around health. So you combine three very interesting things. One, you have a very strong, factually based view of health. You are self-actualized around health. You're one of the sort of fittest, most healthy guys that both Sam and I know and look up to.
I've messaged you before being like, hey, water filters. Tell me, what do you like? What brand do you like? Because I trust that you actually walk the walk on it. And then third is you're an entrepreneur. So you've started two brands in the kind of like keto space, each doing tens of millions a year in revenue, you know, get distribution in 10,000 plus retail stores. You started a non-alcoholic, more than that, non-alcoholic beverage brand. Cause you're like, great. Drinking is like one of the most unhealthy things we do. How do we have the social drink that doesn't sacrifice on health? And what I liked was you had no CPG experience before that. You had no DTC experience before starting these. You went in and you're kind of like, it seems like you have this great interest and knowledge and self-hobby around health and wellness, but then you've also done it as an entrepreneur. So that's a great intersection for us on the pod because we're both interested in health and like living a good life, but also how do we profit from said good life? And you've actually done it. So I'm excited because not only have you yourself had three or four big hits in the health and wellness space, but you then brainstormed and sent us a doc of like five or six new opportunities that you think other people could go do in this space.