#048: Dan Freed’s $13.5M Triumph: Turning ADHD Struggles into Nootropics Success

No way.

Again, and we also— are you hiring right now? We were one of the first companies to pay for psychedelic therapy. I mean, this was years ago, and we've had like— every time I have a psychedelic experience, I would do ayahuasca and I would come back to the office, I would tell everyone about my experience. We've had quite a few people that go off and do ayahuasca or ketamine or MDMA.

Dan Fried, co-founder of Thesis, has emerged as a pioneering force in the wellness space by developing personalized supplements designed to enhance cognitive function. His journey is marked by overcoming early challenges such as an ADHD diagnosis at the age of 6 and dropping out of high school at 16. After years of working in elite kitchens, including a Michelin 3-star restaurant in France, Dan discovered his passion for brain-enhancing compounds while pursuing higher education. This led him to co-found Thesis, a company that recently secured $13.5 million in funding. In this episode, we dive into Dan's extraordinary path from a troubled youth to a thriving entrepreneur. He reflects on the key turning points that influenced his career, including how nootropics played a crucial role in his academic and professional achievements. Dan also offers an in-depth look at the science driving Thesis, the company's approach to personalization, and their mission to influence the future of mental wellness. Welcome back to Season 2, Episode 11 of the Turning Pro Podcast. Today we have Dan Fried, who's the co-founder of Thesis, joining us. Thanks for joining today, Dan.

Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

So I want to jump right in. The first thing I want to talk about is actually the story that you just told me before we hit record while you were in the bathroom, Adrian, because I'm absolutely mind blown by this. So maybe just give a quick background on what Thesis is, and then I kind of just want to jump right into it.

Yeah. So Thesis is nootropics made for your brain chemistry. I have struggled with focus and attention my entire life. And, you know, I've been on and off medication. I had a lot of struggles in school. I'm just not made to sit in a classroom. And when I finally found nootropics, it unlocked the ability for me to do that, to focus for long periods of time. And so the process of finding the right ingredients for my brain chemistry was this iterative approach that took 6 months and thousands of dollars. We essentially took that process that I went through and compressed it down so our customers can find the right ingredients for them in less than a month for less than $100.

So I think an easy way for you to tell your story to people listening, because as I mentioned to you before we started, one of the craziest stories that I've heard and seen from the guests we've had on this, uh, podcast so far. But would love to you to— love for you to tell your story in tandem with, uh, the fact that your investor didn't actually believe your story.

Yeah, so I'll give you more of the backstory. You know, I was expelled from preschool. I don't remember it, but my parents, uh, won't let me forget it. And I was just always in the principal's office getting suspended, having behavioral issues. When I was 6, they sent me to a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with ADHD. This was the late '80s, so the go-to was Ritalin. They said, you need to put this kid on a lot of meds. My mom was concerned about giving Ritalin to a child, and there was still a lot of stigma around ADHD back then. It wasn't the same thing as it is now, um, and there's still stigma now. And so I went untreated and continued to struggle in school. By the time I was 16, I was failing all my classes and ended up dropping outta high school. And I went to work in fast food. I was making minimum wage making sandwiches at Subway. I watched my friends graduate high school, go off to college. I was still working minimum wage jobs and it was demoralizing. It was so difficult because I couldn't understand what was wrong with me. Like, why couldn't I do what seemed so easy to everyone else? And, you know, I got a lucky break and ended up becoming a chef. It was one of the luckiest things ever. I was waiting tables in a restaurant and one of my regular customers happened to be a chef, and he hired me basically on the spot even though I had no experience. And he took a bet on me, which was incredible, changed my life.

What was the conversation that led to that?

So he would come in a couple times a week in the afternoon when it was slow, in between like the lunch and dinner rush. And eat with his wife. And one day he came in with a chef's coat, and I just told him, like, he was somebody that I knew because he came in multiple times a week. I was just like, you know, my dream is to be a chef. I hope one day I can do it and maybe like culinary school or something. He's like, listen, I work at the hotel across the street. It was the Westin Century Plaza in Los Angeles, so it was a really nice hotel. He said, come in, fill out an application. So I went in, I filled out the application, I gave it to the woman in HR. She looked at it and she's like, I'm sorry, you're not qualified. Like, you have no experience, you, you never went to culinary school. I said, Chef Andreas told me to come in and do this. She picks up the phone, he walks in 2 minutes later, he's like, hire him. They hired me on the spot. And then I worked there for about a year doing like mostly banquets, but some like restaurant work, and I learned how to cook from scratch. It was the most incredible opportunity. And when I left, I left to start traveling and cooking, and I asked the chef, I'm like, "Why did you take a bet on me?" And he said, "You know, I saw you in that restaurant working your ass off, and I knew that you knew how to work, and I could teach you how to cook." Whereas a lot of the people that are coming from culinary school, they know how to cook, but they don't know how to work. And yeah, I'm forever grateful that he took a bet on me.

How have you taken that lesson and that learning and apply it to Thesis as you've hired, I'm sure, dozens and dozens of people?

I do that all the time. I mean, it's ingrained in our culture. We call it like placing bets on people. If I am not qualified for my job now, Nobody would hire me to be a CEO of a company that's growing at our rate. And just recognizing that and, you know, the core foundation of what we do at Thesis is like our culture is built around growth. And so our first employee, he— it's his second job out of school. He was like 2 years out and he just kept messaging me, cold email. And he was with us for 3 and a half years and he was basically at a director level. So for somebody his age, that is incredibly impressive. I was saying when I came in here, we have somebody doing our media buying, managing a 7-figure budget, and it's his first job out of school, out of college. Yeah.

Wow.

Literally, he started as an intern right out of college and he's been with us ever since and he's grown so much. And it's— that's probably one of the best things about what I do, is that I can place bets in people now. And, you know, it's one way that I can pay back the people that did that for me.

So you— so you meet the chef, you become a chef for a year, and then what happens?

Then I traveled internationally for 10 years. Once I got into cooking, I— the type of focus that you need to excel in a kitchen is completely different than what you need in a classroom. And I was good at something for the first time in my life and like really good at it. It was always my dream to work in a Michelin 3-star. And so I started traveling and cooking and I would do a contract for 6 months or a year and then I would move to another country. And so in my mid-20s, I think I was 23, 24, I was working in France and I was at a big hotel chain and I was about to become an executive chef. And I said, I knew that if I took the role of executive chef, I would never work in a Michelin 3-star. So, I said, you know, like, I wanna go after my dream. I don't care what it costs. And every, I applied to every single Michelin 3-star restaurant in France. Every day off I had, I would just walk into the kitchen and I would say, who's the chef? How can I try to talk to them and pitch them? I got laughed at. I had people who thought I was like crazy and just rejection after rejection until one person gave me a shot and they hired me. I went from being a sous chef, so like second in command of a hotel, to being a commis, which is the lowest like peeling potatoes. It's the lowest paid position above a stagiaire. In one year, I got promoted 4 times and made it to saucier, which that was my dream. Saucier is the most technically skilled position in a restaurant. And to do that at a Michelin 3-star restaurant in France was like, that was it.

And then from that moment, were you like, okay, I got to get into e-commerce because I know this is a personal pain point for you.

From that moment, I became incredibly miserable. I burnt out. It was, I don't know, quarter-life crisis or something. I had a couple of really bad things happen to me. And when you achieve your dream and you're that miserable, it's also like brutal work environment. Working nonstop, high pressure, screaming, yelling in the kitchen. And so when I burnt out, I bought a one-way ticket to Thailand and spent a year there and then took a couple more twists and turns. And, you know, in my late 20s, I just realized that I couldn't cook anymore. At that point, I was an executive sous chef on a cruise ship. I couldn't imagine doing that for the rest of my life. I saw what the chef's quality of life was. I was already starting to burn out. I mean, on the ships we were doing 100 hours a week, 7 days straight for 6 months at a time.

And high volume of food, right? Yeah.

I mean, what, thousands of meals? Yeah. So like when you talk about nootropics and stuff, at that time I was an executive sous chef. I had the key to this refrigerator full of Red Bulls. That's it. It was like a gigantic fridge full of Red Bulls. And I would go, I was in charge of, you know, 30 to 50 chefs depending on what my rotation was. And I would just get Red Bulls and start passing them out to everybody. I mean, everybody's like sleep deprived and working nonstop. And my body just couldn't take it. I was like, it was such a struggle to get through those contracts. At the end of 6 months, I felt like I was dead. Like I didn't— I would have to go. I would usually travel and I would just take a week to recover before I could like go out. And that's when I decided it might be time to switch careers. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. But every, every path that I tried to take, people wouldn't give me a chance. You have to remember, I had no high school diploma, never took the SATs, no undergrad. And so that's when— that and a couple of other things— I decided to go back to school. I thought that would give me the credibility and ease going into another, another career. I wanted to get an MBA, which again is pretty crazy because I didn't have an undergrad. I found a school in the UK. They agreed to admit me based off of my like unique background if I could score in the 80th percentile on the GMAT. So I got a book and I started studying. It felt like I was back in 10th grade. I just couldn't sit still. I remember like the first time trying to take a practice test and I just couldn't do it. It was like hours and I would be like doing something and then forget what I'm doing and I'm like staring out and daydreaming. And it was like, it was such a painful thing because I, I had never done that successfully and I hadn't been in a classroom for 10 years at that point. So Instead of giving up, I was just like, I was desperate. I would do anything to, to get over this goal. And so I started, you know, cold showers, keto, fasting, workout routines, really going into what can unlock focus for me. And I had heard about nootropics. This was more than 12 years ago now. So I heard about it on a study forum, went out, bought everything I could find, you know. So I was buying things like that you could find in CVS, and I was also buying products from like Russia and Mexico, and I was just trying everything. It took me a while, but I found a couple ingredients that worked. And then when I figured out how to combine them into a formula, the results were life-changing. So, whereas before it would take every ounce of energy just to sit there and try to stay on task, I, with nootropics, it was like I could just get absorbed into studying and an hour, 2 hours would go by and I would be fine. You know, when I took the GMAT, I ended up scoring in the 99th percentile, which surprised the hell out of me. Wow. Yeah, I was equally surprised.

Yeah.

When I told you the investors didn't believe me, they had me send them the GMAT score. They're like, they said there's no fucking way you could do this. And I sent it to them and they're, yeah.

Um, was this at all influenced, like, your story reminds me so much of like The 4-Hour Workweek and Brain Quicken, like Tim Ferriss starting his first supplement company. That I think was a nootropics company.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was not. I still have not read that book. I'm a huge fan of Tim Ferriss and I've heard it's a great book. It was just honestly a lot of luck. I had no idea what, what I was doing during any of this. I had no idea. I wasn't trying to go to a good school actually, after I was going to go to the school in the UK. and it was like, uh, no-name school, but I was happy. I didn't, I didn't even know what an Ivy League school was. Okay. That's how, like, I had no concept of like higher education because I had never taken the SAT. And then I had transitioned from being a chef after I took the GMAT. And so I was like looking for jobs while I applied to schools. The highest paying job I could get was a GMAT tutor. 'Cause there's this one company that said all of our GMAT tutors scored 99th percentile. And that was like their marketing value proposition. So I got that job just because of my GMAT score. And now I'm tutoring these people who are applying to Harvard, Stanford, Wharton. I'm like, wait, I'm tutoring these people. Why can't I do that? And that's when I started like really going after it and starting to apply to some of the best schools in the world. And again, just like the Michelin 3-star, one of them let me in.

I'm so fascinated about this backstory, especially coming from the service industry. Even at the top level of, like, I guess the, like, high culinary world, it's still incredibly grueling. And there are so many people that you and I both know that went to Columbia undergrad and then McKinsey for 2 years and then grad school HBS or something for a couple of years and then raised capital and started a DDC brand. Maybe this was like 6, 7 years ago or something like that versus the background that you're coming from. And so I want to hear more about taking some of those, not just early learnings on betting on people, but you've gone through long hours dealing with getting yelled at, getting rejected. Walk us through kind of like fast forwarding to today, how some of that grit kind of spills into how you build a company and how you've scaled it.

Yeah, I mean, work— I've always given everything I have to work. It's just something, even when it wasn't my company, I, I do think it feels a little bit different when it's yours, but work was always something that I wanted to excel at. Um, I think my job now compared to being a chef, it's different, but they were both incredibly difficult. This challenges me in different ways, but coming from that environment, I don't do 100-hour work weeks now. I get sleep, I get to go to the gym, to do all these things. I don't have to sacrifice my health in the way that I did then. I think that was a really great experience. I think a lot of my— the culinary industry is one of the few where at a really young age I managed a lot of people. By the time I was 25, I was comfortable managing 50 people. I had already understood how to hire people, how to let people go. It's very different in the context of a kitchen. It's, you know, for one thing, as a chef, I deeply understood what everybody underneath me did. As a CEO, that's impossible because there's just so many different roles. But as a chef, it's like I could— I can butcher, I can bake, I can like do garde-manger, I understand everything. But a lot of those early management skills and just like the lessons from then are still with me. And I worked international for 10 years, and so the first time I managed somebody was in Turks and Caicos, which was such a huge challenge and like dealing with international unions and different cultures and different languages forced me to adapt in a way that I think is— one of the things about a startup is you constantly have to adapt. The company changes so fast. And that early— those early years taught me that.

So you went to Yale, correct?

Yeah. So I went to INSEAD to do my MBA and then I really enjoyed school. It was— that was a surprise to me.

So ironic.

Yeah, it was crazy. I was somebody who— I hated going to school and I loved it. And so I wanted to do more. And I got offered a partial scholarship to do another master's degree at Yale, which was basically a year to indulge in my intellectual curiosity. There was no reason to do it. Except for fun.

And then where, where did Thesis come into play after, after going to Yale?

So I was always an evangelist for nootropics. As you can imagine, it had such a huge impact on me. So I was giving them to my friends, my family. It was just a part of my life since taking the GMAT. And After Yale, I moved to New York. I was working in early-stage startups, um, and I started in my apartment doing these trials of nootropics. Essentially, I saw that when I would just give what works to me to other people, sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't. And so I thought, how can I create a process where people could try a lot of different ingredients figure out what works for them, and then I could take that data and customize their next box. And so the early, you know, this was like 2016, which is crazy. That's like 8 years ago. And it was just a side project. I was selling like the first boxes, I think I was selling for $20 outta my apartment. And then before I knew it, like friends of friends started to text me and I'm going around the city selling these boxes and I made them nicer and bigger, but it was just a side project until early 2017 where I had this decision. I had— at this point, there's a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt for student loans because I went back to school and I got offered— I was in the late stages to be offered a really good role. And I also had this nootropics thing where people were just texting me non-stop, and I saw that they really liked it. And so it was like this fork in the road, and I had a conversation with a mentor of mine, and it was like, you got to make a decision. Like, these opportunities don't come around often. You, you have a product that people are like going through all this pain to, to do and to keep buying. And so I, I just did it even though it was the last thing I wanted to do at that point for financial reasons. And from there I was just in it.

So can you maybe explain to people listening what nootropics are? Because I imagine not everyone who's listening to this right now even know what a nootropic is.

Yeah, so nootropics are ingredients that impact the— essentially the levels of neurotransmitters in the synapses of the human brain. There are other mechanisms of action, but that's the primary one. So, you know, I can show you some of our products. Essentially, this is a starter kit. And what we do that's unique, what, what we found the real challenge is, is finding the right ingredients for your unique needs. There's a lot of nootropics out there. Most of them are just kind of like a one-size-fits-all. Here's a bottle, take this pill, it's going to help you focus. But my brain is different from your brain. Not everyone has the same needs.

It's—

wait, it's, it's logic, motivation, clarity. Is that right?

Yeah, those are some of ours. So this is— I brought you, I think, all of our products, but this is only 4 of them here. Um, so you can see I have it in my room.

I was like trying to remember what the 4—

each one of these. So I took Confidence this morning, which is not in this box. When I do podcasts, I usually do Confidence. Confidence is geared towards serotonin GABA. I used to have a lot of difficulty public speaking. I've done a lot of work on it, but I still get a little anxious. Confidence just soothes my nerves, makes me more articulate, kind of verbally, verbal fluency. Clarity is another one of my go-tos. So for example, this has 7,8-dihydroxyflavone, which mimics BDNF. It essentially can cross the brain— the blood-brain barrier and mimic BDNF. It allows people to focus and enhances memory.

I want to talk about some of the routines that you pair with these, right? Because I think a lot of the time that people— like when we had Michael from Ketone IQ on, and sometimes my first reaction when I see things like this or caffeine pills or different nootropics I'm like, oh, I can sleep 4 hours and I'll take one of these, I'll get right in the zone. And so walk me through how you think about sleep, exercise, diet, and then layer these on top to get to kind of that optimal state for you.

Yeah. So my view on it is slightly different from a lot of people. Nootropics are cornerstone habit for me. So I don't think that I could succeed at the job I have today. I sit in front of a laptop for most of the day without nootropics. My brain just can't do it. That being said, there's no magic pill, so it's not one thing in isolation. Nootropics kind of like gave me the momentum that I could develop healthy habits, and that's where kind of like that exponential growth comes from. So obviously going to the gym, eating healthy, um, Nootropics also kind of opened up this experimentation thing for me. I'm, I'm constantly doing different types of peptides. I, you know, I love experimenting. Um, and so I'm constantly cycling through different things. I think the behavioral interventions, you can't get the types of results that I've gotten without significant behavioral interventions. I also think nootropics being that cornerstone habit gave me the ability to really develop those habits. Otherwise, you know, in the past I would want to do things and I would just never make any progress.

I want to talk a bit about the ads that I see targeted on Instagram and Facebook and whatever platforms I'm on. And yeah, I think Instagram, it's like every 3 or 4, say, like on your stories when you're clicking through. And as I'm clicking through, maybe in the morning and I'm seeing ads, I'll see, you know, little things for like a new type of shoe. And I'm like, I don't really need that. It'd be cool, but I don't need it. A new type of t-shirt. I'm like, I have t-shirts. I don't know if I need that. And then when I see your ads, it leans so specifically into just, I think, a pain point that everyone feels. And I'm sure as a company you guys feel this, like it's a real pain reliever versus just like nice to have another t-shirt. And so walk me through. I'm curious. I feel like it'd be so fun to be the founder of a company that's really providing something that solves a pain point versus another backpack, another candle.

It is. So one thing I'll say, nootropics are not for everyone. For me, this is a must-have. You know, when, when COVID hit, we had— this actually surprised me— we had quite a few customers that messaged us and were like, I want a year's supply. We had people that were like, hey, I moved back to Europe, can you ship me 6 months worth? It was like, that's where it sat, like right up there with toilet paper. Like, holy shit, I need this.

That's crazy, a year's supply.

Um, but you know, going back to my childhood, I— my sister, she's a doctor. Growing up, she never struggled the way that I did. She would just come home, she would sit down and do her homework for hours, like, as soon as she got home. There's no— and it's, it's crazy that we are siblings. Um, there are a lot of people that just don't struggle. I think that there's fewer and fewer because you have macro trends like TikTok, smartphones, work from home, where there's more distractions, more things vying for your attention. But they aren't for everyone. Not everyone struggles. What gets— what keeps me going? So starting a company is incredibly difficult. I remember we closed our Series A last year and there were some like just brutal, like you're getting rejections, you're— it's all day in meetings and all night doing like models and trying to get investor stuff. And I would just sit back and I would read the testimonials and, you know, we get reviews. We also get people that are just so moved that they send letters. One person got into their PhD program that was like their dream. Um, one person, this was actually really recent, it, he's a composer. He composed music on the Creativity Formula and a lot of people struggle with kind of like writer's block or like creative blocks. and he was just like, this has changed the way that I relate with music. Here's what I made. And he sent it to us and we listened to it like as a company. Um, and so in, we get that in every all hands, we read multiple reviews, testimonials, thank you letters that people send into us. And it's incredible to know that we're having that impact.

What would you say is the process as a user to think about like how to identify which ones work for you as an individual?

So we call them winning moments and it's different for everyone. So one of our board members, he, I mean, he was a mentor of mine for a couple of years before he joined the board and he plays tennis. And so he was trying the product. This was like in the very beginning. And he said, Dan, I was in this tennis game and it was like the best of my life. I don't know what was happening, but it was just like everything was slow motion. I could feel everything in a way that I've never felt before. And it was incredible. Clarity was his blend. And I don't play tennis. I haven't had an experience like that. Another one is just, you know, people don't even notice the results. So that's like a winning moment where somebody just has this click. Where it's like, holy shit, something's here. Other ones are, you know, where this is. So this is one I've heard, you know, they never fold laundry. It's just kind of like always in a pile and everything's kind of just like messy. And while they were on this, they didn't even notice. But like, their laundry is put away.

Which one is that? I got to give that to my girlfriend.

So it's different for everyone. But usually things that go for dopamine or norepinephrine. So that would be energy and motivation do really well with things like that. People are like, hey, like I cleaned my garage for the first time. It's been on my to-do list for a year. So there's things where people don't even notice. It's just like shit gets done or there's where somebody feels it. Like for me, when I really noticed it was working, it was those early GMAT days. Where I went from struggling to— you could see it in my scores, like my practice test scores when it started working just went like that. But it was also, I would sit down and then 2 hours would go by and I was still doing that. That never— it was impossible for me to do something like that previously.

Yeah. Cause I think for me as a user, which I mentioned to you, I very much think about like, you know, what are, what are messages in terms of the different offerings you have and like situations where you should be taking it or where it's best suited. And then I think about things that maybe invoke stress for me, or, uh, like an example for you would be when I have days where I have a lot of calls, I get like very riled up and anxious at the end of the day where it's like, I have so much to do, but I, my mental battery is on zero. And I know that the way that I feel is not good. And I wanted, that was kind of one of the examples that like prompted me to be more curious about this was like, there's certain things that I do in my life that I know make me feel a way that I don't love. So it's like, how can I find something that can maybe help combat that? And I think one of the things for me though is that I'm not very good about like checking in with myself. Like, okay, I did this one thing differently during this event. How did it make me feel after the fact? I feel like I kind of just go through it and take it at face value. And I don't know if that's something you've heard from users or not. Uh, I don't think I've been great about actually sitting down and checking in with myself. But I very much am intentional about thinking about different situations relative to what you guys say each of the different offerings helps with, and I use it in those moments.

Yeah. So it's— I'm an advanced user.

It's—

there's, there's a lot of things in what you said. On days like that, like today, I'll take two. So I took Confidence before this and I'll take a Clarity later in the afternoon. I am in back-to-backs. All day until 9 PM tonight. Uh, like literally, I can show you my calendar.

Oh, I believe it.

It's like, I, I probably won't— I'll like eat really, really quickly. Um, this is not good or healthy. The— this is kind of like, I wouldn't be able to do it without nootropics, but even with nootropics at 9 PM today, my brain's going to be scrambled and I'm going to be burnt. Yeah, like it extends what I can do, but if I just take that and I pile more things in there, it allows me to do more, but I'm still going to feel that. Um, because this is a short week, I'm choosing to do that today, but I know, just, I know myself, if I did this every day, I would not be happy. I would not be able to go to the gym. I would not be able to keep my healthy habits. And like that feeling at the end of the day where it's just like, I feel like my brain scrambled. I can't do that every day.

Do you have any moments or specific recurring times? It could be every day, it could be every week. I know some people use journaling, some people talk to their significant other or friends to kind of sit down and like, hey, this is what happened this week. How am I feeling about it? Because sometimes I feel like before starting a company, I used to do that all the time and I was like an early-stage investor. And I didn't need it at the time because I didn't have crazy days until 9 p.m. And now that I'm on those back-to-back days, kind of similar to you, maybe not till 9 p.m., I feel like I don't even have the time to think about like sitting down and reflecting on it, but I definitely need to. And so I'm curious, do you have any of those baked in? Like every Saturday morning you look at your past week and you're like, this didn't make me feel good. I shouldn't have been doing this.

So I have an executive coach where we kind of go over things like that with my fiancée. We do relationship scrum where we see— so like, I live with her. I've lived with her for 5 years. And so she can see like, hey, Dan, every night you're coming home, you're like burnt. And she— it's great having somebody like that. I have one-on-ones with my direct reports and I have people that I trust. I have great investors and board members that I check in with. Um, I do psychedelics, um, so that's kind of like my really big check-in.

Let's go deeper on that one. I'm, I'm interested.

Yeah, I mean, so I have different practices. The one that's closest to kind of like a self-check-in is I will do ketamine and/or 5-MeO-DMT. I will do it alone and I just go really, really deep and it gives me perspective. It's a time that I can kind of like evaluate. And so it's almost like a meditation routine that I've developed over many years. Um, and that's like checking in with myself and it also just clears away. It allows me to process because I'll build up like resentments are the worst. It's rare that I get— like, I'm always constantly clearing things so that I don't get resentments. But when you're in a business, there's like legal issues and people issues and all these things pop up. Um, it also helps me process things where I'm like, I have a decision and I don't know exactly where to go. I'll do a really deep psychedelic experience.

How frequently do you do that?

It depends. Sometimes it's a couple times a month, sometimes it's once every 3 months. When I'm going through more stressful times, I usually do it more just because there's more to process.

Is there a specific trigger that you're like, okay, I need to go do one of these things? And is there— is that one of the people that you're working with, your exec coach or your partner or your direct reports that will proactively tell you, okay, you're not showing up as you need to? Or is it— I assume you can also feel it partially personally. I'm just like, I'm overwhelmed.

Yeah, I feel it. For me, it's kind of like I feel that I'm called to doing an experience. I, I have a lot of great people in my life. This is, you know, when you look at founders that go a little crazy, I'm always curious, like, how does this happen? You know what I mean? Like, you've heard all the stories. There's all this stuff. I'm like, I don't get it. Like, that's really fucking crazy, you know. I have a board that— they're incredible, you know. And I'm honest with them and I listen to them. We don't always agree, but having that relationship that I know if I start going crazy or I start like behaving in a not good way, or if I'm struggling, say like, Dan, what's wrong? We're a big feedback culture. So This is one of the things that I did a couple weeks ago. I asked the entire company for feedback. Just 3 questions on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is like, Dan should be fired, and 5 is, he's incredible. Rate me. What are things that I do that you like? What are things that I do that you wish I didn't, or things that you think I should start doing? And that was it. And I sent it out to everyone and then I published the results. I anonymized it and every single piece of feedback I addressed, I'm like, hey, you know, all of these things are about this one issue. I understand this is what I'm doing for it. There were certain things that I disagreed with. I'm like, you know, I know that you're saying this, but I actually kind of like that and I think it's okay. We can disagree here. Um, and I let everyone in the company read it.

So I have a question on that. Did you anonymize it before they gave the feedback or you only anonymized it in terms of sharing it with everyone? Because we did a feedback loop with our company, but we let it be anonymous so they didn't feel like they were gonna be judged if you knew that this one employee said this one thing.

Yeah. So we do two things. We have fully anonymous feedback. Where I don't even know who gave it to me. And we do that regularly. We do that for me as an individual and we do it for the company where it's like, what are things that you like about the culture and stuff like that? In this one, we— and we don't share that transparently. You know, we address the feedback. So we're like, hey, people are saying this and we do stuff like that at all hands. In this exercise, it was not anonymous. When they give it to me.

Got it.

But it's anonymous when I share it. But it's also— there's the agreement that this is going to be shared transparently. There's no editing, um, and that's a different type of doing it. But it shows them that I'm really receptive, you know. There were— even though it's not anonymous, there are some pretty, um, strong feedback in there.

That's an amazing thing to do as a leader. I think there's a lot of people who like the idea of being able to do that but don't have the courage to face the reality of maybe what people think about them.

It's terrible.

So good for you for doing that. That's crazy.

Yeah, I mean, it's really helpful.

I have a question about your leadership style. I think when things are going right in any of our businesses, sometimes it's easy to be more kumbaya, you know, let's make sure everyone's happy. Maybe you just closed a big funding round or you're growing like crazy and it's easy not to let things slip, but everyone's getting along, everything's going well. And then there's the more wartime where it's like, this business may die soon. And have you found kind of like an intermediate where you're always carrying a bit of both, or do you kind of shift between different styles?

So when things aren't going well, it's tough. Like it's a very different type of environment. So we're profitable for most of the lifetime of the company. There's been several times where we burned money and it's okay. It depends on kind of like what we're doing. And sometimes it was just like shit was going really, really bad and that's why we were burning. When you're EBITDA positive, it takes a lot of stress off there. Like you see the— not just EBITDA positive, we're cash flow positive. So when you see the bank account going up every month, it's a really, really comforting thing and it gives you a lot more flexibility. It's like, oh shit, we fucked up, we lost a lot of money, but we still have a lot of money and like it's coming in. Um, it's a different mindset when it shifts. Um, one of the biggest things that I've learned, it's never okay to tolerate mediocrity. I think a lot of people, like there's the ends of the spectrum where it's like, okay, like this is really not good. And it's a pain point that whether it's like a particular employee or team member, or it's like a situation when it's way over here, people are like, holy shit, we got to address this. The thing that is a blind spot, and it's still something that I'm working on, is where, yeah, it's okay. It's not really doing anything bad. It's just not great.

Yeah.

And when things are going well and you have mediocrity like that, not addressing it is always a mistake. It's like That's— I, I see that a lot in other people's companies, and I advise other startups now, um, and that's something that I always try to be proactive on.

I want to talk a little bit about Adderall. So I think it's something that is very accessible in today's culture. I think there are a lot of kids who use it when they shouldn't be. I think there's this preconceived notion that oh, I can't focus, so if I just take Adderall, now I can focus. I want to maybe just dive a little bit more into the details in terms of like what that's actually doing to your brain, because I, I'm going to go off on a whim and say that a lot of people listening to this take it and probably weren't actually legally prescribed it. Uh, so would love to get your thoughts just on that as a broader topic.

Yeah, I mean, I've been on and off medication for decades. Um, I don't take it anymore. I'm very fortunate that Thesis is all I need to, to really be successful. It gets me kind of everything I need with none of the, the side effects. With Adderall, it works. It's a highly effective medication for ADHD. For me, the reason why I don't take it is the side effects outweigh the benefits. And, you know, I like to joke that Adderall should come with a warning label: may cause you to become an asshole. I am highly productive, but a miserable human being that nobody wants to be around. And I remember like looking at the pill in the morning and it's like, I can either take this and I know that I'm going to be productive. And I'm like, as long as I work on the stuff that I'm supposed to work on, I'll get a lot of shit done. But I'm not going to want to go out at night. I'm not gonna— like, I know that crash feeling where I just want to come home, sit in a dark room, um, and I just didn't want to live like that. I also noticed that when I take it for extended periods of time, it doesn't actually help my productivity because I'm in that constant, like, crash cycle. It hurts my productivity. For people who are taking Adderall. We have a second product which I also brought for you. So this is Stasis. Stasis is meant to be taken alongside stimulants. Stimulants can be anything from coffee to some of the stronger prescriptions. And essentially the benefits of Adderall happen because it's increasing levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the synapses. It's flooding them with that. That's also why you get this kind of euphoria, especially when you start taking it, um, and it feels like, you know, boring shit that it's really hard to do. You can just like dive into it because you have this flood of dopamine. Unfortunately, it also increases levels of glucocorticoids— cortisol, the stress hormone. Uh, it increases levels of oxidative stress. Exercise increases levels of oxidative stress. Adderall happens to do it significantly higher. And it, it can do things like oxidative stress. There's something called a hydroxyl radical, which is very damaging to cells, and Adderall increases levels of this. What we've done with Stasis is we've essentially precision targeted ingredients to counterbalance some of these. So if you know that you're raising levels of cortisol, taking an adaptogen to balance that out can balance out just overall mood and well-being. If you are increasing oxidative stress, we have some of the most powerful antioxidants on the planet like astaxanthin and Oceanix to neutralize those free radicals. And to me, this is just kind of like a no-brainer for somebody that's taking it. I've never met anyone who's taking Adderall who doesn't know that it's somewhat harmful. It's kind of like smoking. I used to be a smoker. It's like even before they discovered smoking's bad, like, I just knew it, you know what I mean?

Like, you, you kind of know.

Yeah, it just can't be good for me to light something and inhale it into my lungs.

And I, I fucking love nicotine. I, I don't use it anymore, but it's, um Yeah, I, I do think that there are some people that need Adderall and should be on Adderall. I think that the dangerous pieces to Adderall— there's a lot of people using it that don't need to, um, and don't understand the damage that it can do. There's a lot of people taking multiple psychoactive medications, which I'm strongly against. I think it should only be used in the most severe cases. So when I say that people taking Adderall in the morning, then Ambien or Xanax at night, people taking anti-anxiety, antidepressants, because, you know, and this is a common path, somebody will start taking Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse. A couple of years later, hey, I'm a little depressed. Hey, I'm a little anxious. I can't sleep. And then they start mixing more medication. Before you know it, people are taking like a handful of psychoactive meds, and that just can be extremely dangerous. And then there's the dose creep. So a lot of people, they'll start on 5, 10 milligrams, then it's 20, then it's 40. I've talked to people legally prescribed 90 milligrams per day. Per day.

I thought 5 to 10 was like the— my friends that use it, I think, are around 10.

I know, I know a couple of people who— I had one girlfriend who was at 70.

Yep.

But she didn't know, like, what that actually means on, like, a relative scale. Like, not realizing that the person next to you is taking 5mg a day and a doctor told you that you should be taking 70, so you just, like, take it.

I think the thing that I've been most surprised about Adderall is that I have a number of friends that take it and don't tell me. Not that they need to or anything like that, but usually when people are smoking or vaping, you can kind of tell. Or if people are taking like Klonopin or Ambien or something, like you can kind of tell because they're knocking out early or something like that. But when we first met, I don't know, 3, 4 years ago or something, it was funny. I was living with— it was a group of 4 of us living in Williamsburg, and I remember it was like 4 or 5 weeks in and I'd met you and I'd taken some of these home and I tried a few, but I have pretty serious OCD, but I've never had issues with ADHD and I just have coffee and they it added something nice to my day, but it wasn't that like I need to have. And then all of a sudden, because there were some extras lying around, my roommates and the other people I was living with started to take them and they are still ordering them to this day. I think all 3 of them are still using it. And I, for the longest time, I was like, why do they specifically— like, I liked it, but it was like, I'm already having coffee. Like, I'm not sure if I need it. They were still taking it to this day with them in the new apartments I'd live with them in. But I think the funniest part of that story was that I remember there was— before I realized that they had all— they all told me that they were taking Adderall. I remember there's like a week period where I don't know if they're upping their dose or something, but on multiple days I'd finish work and I'd go to living room to hang out and all of them were nonverbal. They're all kind of assholes. And I was like, what is going on? I was so confused. And then I think that weekend or something, all of them were like, oh yeah, we all share prescriptions. I was like, that makes a lot of sense. It was a weird moment where you kind of realize like, oh, there are side effects to this, cuz I'm hanging out with you all and I can tell.

It's just so accessible. That's like the, the biggest thing to me is I think a lot of people who started doing it didn't even need it. Like, I think it's a great comparable is a vape.

Yeah, like there—

the vape was initially created to get people who were smoking to stop smoking, and all of a sudden it made a bunch of kids addicted to nicotine who never lit a cigarette in their life. I kind of feel like Adderall is similar in some ways where people you're, you're like distracted for 30 minutes in college from a test, and the kid next to you is like, oh, take an Adderall. And all of a sudden that's your routine. So every time you study for a test, you're taking Adderall. Um, I guess my question for you, do you see this as like a substitute for— like, if people listening who are on Adderall, is like this a really good way to try to get off of that? I guess so.

We don't try to get people off of Adderall. I've gone off Adderall Many times in my life, it's something that should be between them and their physician. Yeah. What I look at our approach is it's this kind of like two-pronged approach. So Thesis is the healthy, safe kind of first line of defense for people who have issues with focus. I think, you know, it's crazy that if you go to a doctor, really the only tool that they have is Adderall. And there's a lot of people that I do think ADHD is probably overdiagnosed. It's hard because in the past it was underdiagnosed. There's a lot of people, you know, my goal 5 years from now, if people have trouble with attention and focus and they go to the doctor, the doctor says, hey, why don't you try Thesis or Nootropics for a couple of weeks? If you still need help, come back and you'll get a prescription for Adderall. and we'll give you something like Stasis to mitigate some of the side effects that come along with that and help you protect your brain. Um, at product maturity in the future, that's what— that's a system that I see. I do think that there are people that need Adderall to function. It's highly effective when it's at the right dose and it's managed well. Um, and I also think in, in children it's okay. I just think in practice, when you see how the population's taking it, people who don't need it taking it on an as-needed basis, people taking way too much, mixing it with other things, it's doing more harm than good.

What about the relationship with antidepressants? How do, how do nootropics play in with that, if, if at all? I feel like this is like an education class for me right now.

Yeah. So I also have had different periods of depression in my life, and I've been on and off antidepressants before. Um, I have not taken antidepressants since I started doing ketamine, which was probably like 6, 6 or 7 years ago when I started doing it.

Wow.

As a part of my practice.

At-home ketamine, or like going to the doctor's office IV?

Uh, I do at-home intravenous ketamine.

How did that— was it like you were taking antidepressants and then you started ketamine and then stopped, or it's like you stopped antidepressants, were trying figure out a way to like combat that and then start ketamine?

No. So I suffer from bouts of depression every couple of years.

Okay.

Um, so like when I mentioned when I quit the Michelin 3-star and took a one-way ticket to Thailand, I went through a severe depression, um, for a couple of months, and antidepressants got me out of it. I would only take them for a couple of months until I can like get out of bed, get my life together, and then I would go, uh, off of them. And that, that's happened handful of times in my life. And the last time I felt myself going down that— because I can kind of like feel, um, my mood and my body's changing— I— when I was at Yale, they were doing the ketamine trials, and I knew, um, the attending psychiatrist who was involved in them. And I just remember her telling me like, this is life-changing. She was at the inpatient ward, and she was saying like, it's incredible how this turns people around. So I read the clinicals myself and then I replicated them, and I was just like, okay, I'm going on this ketamine profile. That was an intramuscular thing, and I just followed exactly what it said, and I didn't— I— it changed my mood. And so I developed a practice with ketamine that is healthy and used in a really good way. And since then, I haven't had a bout of depression.

Wow. Of my friends that have taken either some of the— there's like all those at-home ketamine.

Yeah, there's tons of them.

And they've— they usually start on those and then they start going in clinic and doing intravenous for like, you go for a few hours or like New Life. I think they have some versions of that. And I've only seen positive results. It's really incredible. I'm sure there are bad results here and there, but of my friends and small sample pool of like 10, It's pretty incredible what I've seen.

So ketamine is the only drug that I do that has addictive potential. Um, so like most psychedelics don't— you can be like psychologically addicted, but it's very, very rare. Um, ketamine, I think— I don't know anyone that's really had a bad trip. I know some people that have had negative experiences, but not really negative. I know a couple people that have gotten addicted.

It's like chemically nicotine addicted, or you—

the— where they're doing it every day. And they— yeah, um, and ketamine is incredibly harmful. It— you build a very high tolerance. So for context, there are some people that do the entire amount of ketamine that I would do in a year, they do it in a day. Um, and that's very damaging to your brain, to your bladder, has tons of, uh, permanent and, and harmful side effects. It's rare. I mean, I, I'm a huge proponent of ketamine. I think there's a lot of— it should be available through telehealth. I think there's a lot of great clinics that use it. It's just being aware that it can be addictive for some people.

Where should— I think there are a lot of folks, especially kind of like mid-late 20s that have maybe been through a couple career transitions. That's also our age. So we have these conversations a lot of friends that, you know, they've obviously heard of nicotine because people smoke when they're going out, but around ketamine, around MDMA, around Adderall, around antidepressants. Obviously, PSA, this is not a medical show. Don't trust us. But where should people go when they're interested in those compounds? Because if they go to a physician and ask, 'How should I think through ketamine?' They may not give you a good answer. Like, where can people go to learn about this stuff that's not just some podcast?

Yeah, it's tough. I mean, there's great information sites out there. Um, Third Wave is a good one. Paul Austin does a great job of putting out really clear information. Um, are— so I— the three areas of my life where I evangelize and I just absolutely love it are nootropics, psychedelics, and dogs.

And dogs.

And dogs. I think I will always work in one of those three categories. I'm always saying like getting a dog was one of the best things I ever did.

What kind of dog?

Uh, she's a mix, but kind of like a Labradoodle, really curly hair. Uh, we actually have a thing where we had a stipend for anyone at the company who wants to get a dog we would subsidize it and we have paternity leave so that you can spend time. No way. Again, and we also— you're hiring right now. We were one of the first companies to pay for psychedelic therapy. I mean, this was years ago and we've had like every time I have a psychedelic experience, I would do ayahuasca and I would come back to the office. I would tell everyone about my experience and they can see the change in me that we've had people Um, we've had quite a few people that go off and do ayahuasca or ketamine or MDMA. I think it's just more being honest and open about it. Um, it's unfortunate because it's not legal. It's really important to know that you're doing it in a safe environment, that what you're doing is safe, because there's a lot of stuff out there that isn't. And it's hard for people who just don't know where to go or how to do that.

I think part of it is also surrounding yourself by folks with like a pretty open mindset, because that naturally leads to social settings where you can talk openly about these things. And so I'm not saying like go to Burning Man, but there are certain friend groups for sure that again are not doctors or physicians. But it's not like you're just looking up online like where to go do ayahuasca. And yeah, usually those circles can kind of get you into the first couple steps. And a lot of the time it's like really nice clinics. I've never done it, but I've always been intrigued.

I mean, there are also a lot of doctors who are starting to work with psychedelic medicines. Yeah, I mean, tons of them, both like clinicians and psychiatrists, PhDs, a lot. I mean, because of the circle that I'm in, I know a lot of doctors and either they do it personally or they do it in their practice. It's just they can't advertise.

Dan, this has been awesome. I know we're over an hour now.

Oh, are we?

Yeah, we've kind of just gone.

Sorry, I was about to keep going.

No, you can ask one final question, but I want to be conscious of your time because I know you have calls back to back until 9 PM. So maybe you can wrap it up with one final question. Okay.

We got to talk about turning pro moment. And so over the past, let's call it 3 to 4 years running Thesis, Was there a specific moment or series of moments where specifically your leadership style and your ability to scale the company noticeably changed? You kind of started operating on a different level.

Yeah, I mean, there's been so many. Um, one of the things about the company is it changed me fundamentally as a human being, and it's constantly doing it in a way that like I look at it as it's turning me into who I want to become. We, um, I had a thing for applying to YC, and it was like, you know, I applied the first time when the company was a couple weeks old. We ended up applying 7 fucking times, which is crazy. Adam, no way, 7 times. We had interviews, multiple interviews, they flew us out there, all this stuff. Every single time we were rejected.

Invite them to the party when you exit.

The last time, Adam, my co-founder, sat me down and he's like, dude, why the fuck do you keep doing this? Like, we're at like, I think it was like a million a month in revenue.

You were still applying?

And yeah, because I just— all of my friends went to YC, they do such a good job at marketing. But one day, not that long ago, we did like this company offsite in Mexico City and Adam was there. My other first co-founder was there and I was going through all these old pictures and I found the YC videos and I just started watching like the first one and you could see the transformative growth, the way that I talk, the way that I present. I've pitched this company a 1,000 times. I can't tell you how many investor pitches have gone like sideways and rejections and all this stuff. And just having that visual when I, I almost cringe when I saw the first video, I'm like, it's, it looks like a different person. And there's a lot of things like that where at the time there's like really stressful moments. We had like a minor layoff where we had to kind of like restructure a team. Which is one of the hardest things I had to do. We had co-founder issues. Like, all of these things fundamentally changed me because it— they were very painful learning experiences, but you don't really notice it when you're in it. But looking back at some of the pictures and seeing some of the, the people that were along the journey, it's just like, holy shit. Like, even what what I was like a year ago doesn't compare to what I can do now. It's just an incredible growth trajectory.

Great way to finish the episode.

Great way to wrap. Can you talk to that camera on the left? Tell 'em where people can learn more about Thesis and Stasis.

So you can go to takethesis.com and if you want to find the right blend for you, we have an easy quiz that will point you in the right direction to getting your first starter kit. If you are somebody who relies on stimulants and you take stimulants, I would recommend going to takestasis.com and you can learn about some of the ingredients that we have in there and how taking Stasis is synergistic with stimulants.

Oh yeah. Thanks for coming on, man.

Dan, this is awesome.

Thank you.