Zack Abbott — Co-Founder & CEO of ZBiotics: Building the World's First Genetically Engineered Probiotic

Welcome back to the Casey Adams Show. Today I am joined by Zach Abbott, the co-founder and CEO of ZBiotics. Thanks so much for coming to the show today, Zach.

Yeah, Casey, great to be here. Excited to chat with you.

Absolutely. So, you know, for the context, Zach, I remember, um, what, probably a year and a half, maybe 2 years ago, I was out at a friend's house who I, I take their feedback and their recommendations extremely strongly. And he goes, hey man, you gotta, you gotta take the ZBiotics before we We go out tonight and that was the first time that I ever came across your product and I've always been just so impressed and amazed by what you specifically created and what the team has brought to market. And, you know, for those that may not know that have now stumbled upon this podcast and didn't have the luxury to have a great recommendation from a friend, what is ZBiotics and where did this journey start for you and the team?

Yeah, yeah. So first I'll say that I think your story is the one we hear most often. Like somebody said like, yeah, a friend brought it out, you know, to the bar or like I was at a party and somebody, you know, it's always that. It's like a friend's like, hey, you gotta try this stuff. That's always the best way to kind of discover the product without a doubt. Yeah. So ZBiotics is the company and we make genetically engineered probiotics. And so, we just take probiotic bacteria, safe edible bacteria that, you know, you eat every day and then we genetically engineer them to perform some useful function in your body. And so, the product that you had experience with is our first product and our most popular one is called PreAlcohol. And so, that product is a small liquid beverage that contains a probiotic bacteria that's been engineered to break down the toxic byproducts of alcohol that makes you feel not so great the day after drinking. So, the idea is that you drink this drink before you drink alcohol and then, that probiotic works in your gut while you're drinking to help break down this byproduct called acetaldehyde while you're drinking. And then, when you wake up the next day, you feel better because you haven't been exposed to kind of this very toxic molecule that kind of wreaks havoc throughout your body.

Yeah. No, I remember another shows you've done and I appreciate the context there. And I know I was reflecting on an episode you did a while back with Ben Greenfield who I've had on the show. And he's so technical and scientific.

Yeah.

Scientific himself, and I, you know, I don't want to try to go down the deep dive that, you know, you can get on places like that, but I do want to spend some time just to kind of dive into a little bit in terms of afedaldehyde. I don't want to mispronounce that. Uh, what is that? And where did this sort of recognizing that, hey, there isn't something like this out there, you know, you were someone that, uh, had this idea. There's many directions you could have gone in. Why the pre-alcohol to start, which I know you guys have expanded from and plan to continue to expand from, But why was that the first sort of product of choice based on early research leading into the, you know, start of the company overall?

It's kind of funny. I mean, like, I, when I started the company, like, my background is that I have a PhD in microbiology. And so, and in my PhD, I studied bacteria and kind of like all the things that they're capable of, like how do they turn different functions on and off. That was kind of like what I studied. And I was really captured and excited by nerding out like daily on how cool bacteria are and all these great things. I think probably most people initially thought of bacteria as agents of disease, right? We think about bacteria, we think like infections and spoiling food and things like that. And so that was like my initial interest was like, oh, these bad things that I want to learn about so I can help fight them. Then when you really get in there, like in learning about it, the vast majority of bacteria that we interact with are actually not pathogenic, they're not disease-causing, they're either neutral or beneficial. And I think there's been this rising interest and a lot more awareness around your microbiome, which is all the bacteria that live in your body and do all these great things for you. And then, people are getting so excited about probiotics and these are safe edible bacteria. So, I became really interested in that, how do we take these bacteria that are not bad, that are good and these cells are incredible. They sense their surroundings, they respond, they do all these functions. The microbes in our gut help us get nutrition from our food. They help inform our immune system. They actually help our neural development. Our brains are better because of our bacteria. We've co-evolved with them and they do all these functions for us. And so, this idea that I had this idea that we could take a probiotic bacteria, something you already eat every day that's safe, and then, you know, engineer it to— so it's performing thousands of functions, right? Like, so engineer it to perform one additional function, everything else is doing. And that function would be something that we know would benefit you in some way, right? So, like, all the other things it does may or may not help you. They're all for the benefit of the bacteria, and then sort of tangentially they might help you. But, like, we could get that way more specific if we just, like, focused on kind of, like, one function that we knew would be beneficial. So, then I was like, okay, what is that function going to be? And, uh, it wasn't originally help you feel better the day after drinking. Like, that was not what I was thinking of. I was in academia and I was like very much like, okay, like, you know, what are like cool things we could do? And I was definitely like, um, not, uh, like, I knew I wanted to— so first of all, initially it was like, oh, like, well, what disease can we cure with this, right? Like, so like, what drug could I build? Uh, then I worked in— after my PhD, I went and worked in the drug industry for a while. uh, a contract research organization designing clinical trials for drug companies. And, and what I took from that was that like, it was a, you know, very important industry. It's doing very important things, but like there wasn't a lot of opportunity for somebody like me who was like an individual innovator. Like I would, I would sort of get like absorbed up into that industry and not really have the impact I wanted to have. So I thought like, this is a great opportunity to take biotechnology to consumers instead of just going to the drug industry. So I thought like, okay, what are like consumer benefits, like consumer health, like everybody's so much more interested in being proactive about their health when they're healthy. And so, you know, that's the boom of the supplement industry. Um, and I think, you know, some of those things are actually beneficial and some are not, right? But like the idea that we could build something that would really help consumers out. And so I had all these ideas that were really interesting scientific ideas that were definitely not consumer interesting products, right? And so I pitched these ideas and people's eyes would gloss over and stuff. Um, and the first time I pitched the idea of a probiotic that could help you feel better after drinking, I literally set it as like one sentence at the end of a pitch. And I said it as a joke. I was like, yeah, we can do, you know, I pitched this idea for like helping your gut recover better from radiation exposure. And, and I give this whole pitch about that. And like, yeah, it was like, you know, nobody cared. It was like totally pointless. And like, I mean, it was, it was interesting scientifically, but like not a good consumer product. And then at the end I was like, yeah, but we can do so many things with this technology. We can do X, we can do Y, we can do Z. So like you could, we can even help you feel better after drinking. And, and I could see like That moment, like, eyes opened up. They're like, whoa, what was that? And I was like, oh no, I'm just, I'm just saying you can do anything, you know. And, uh, and, and then, you know, I saw that I kind of like started like moving that up the pitch when I told people about it. And, uh, and that was like the moment—

interesting—

when people kind of got locked in. And so then I started like considering, like, could we actually, you know, what would that actually look like? Could we actually do that? And so I dug into the kind of like the science and what we knew about, um, kind of alcohol and how it affects your body, and then saw that like this molecule acetaldehyde was like a really important part of that problem. And so, the idea that we could take a bacteria to break down that sounded super straightforward biologically. So, then I was like, oh yeah, I think that actually we have a pretty straightforward way to do this. And nobody had done this before. When we launched our first product, it was the world's first genetically engineered probiotic of any kind for any function. So, this idea of doing this in and of itself was innovative. And then, targeting acetaldehyde was very innovative as well. And so, Um, it was just kind of like low-hanging fruit, honestly. It was pretty great.

I find that so fascinating and I want to kind of double-click on a part of that story a little bit in the sense of, you know, you're mentioning, oh, by the way, it could be, uh, help you feel better the next day in alcohol. Like the idea of founders kind of putting their reps in, talking to investors, talking to friends, getting feedback. Like you could have been in a lab, never heard feedback, never kind of mentioned that or had that feedback loop to help you recognize that, hey, this might be the opportunity with this technology. When did you, uh, I, not when, but like how many times did that occur when you started to really take it seriously versus the other ones? And like, were you weighing the different paths that this could be utilized on? Because I kind of want to, you know, reference a lot of founders that I kind of, I've spoken to and even myself at times for past companies is sometimes you're building in one direction. There's one comment that you hear, you hear it again, that really just slowly moves that 1% trajectory in a different direction or pivot, you could call it, but it's very, uh, unknown at the time. And I kind of want to like zoom in a little bit more on that moment to see like, were you going down the, you know, radiation, you know, gut side and then this just kind of bubbled up over a 6-month period, 2-month journey. What did that look like?

Yeah. Yeah. I think that I got lucky in the sense that like I was unintentionally, you know, unintentionally doing best practice, which was that I was getting a bunch of pitching reps in before I actually ever did anything in the lab. Wow. Because I wasn't—

You're pitching like, here's a document, thoughts, ideas, etc.

Mostly verbal pitching. Yeah. Yes. But like putting together presentations occasionally and things like that. And, and the reason for that was that like I wasn't actually intending to start a company. I don't think I would have had the patience to do that if I was like, you know, sitting at my desk like with like ZBiotics LLC or whatever, like, like I would have been like, oh my God, I got to start building. But like, because I was just sort of like I had another job and so I was just sort of like, and I was just really passionate and interested in this idea of genetically engineered probiotics. Like nobody, I was like very surprised to find out that nobody else was doing it really. And I mean, there was a few other companies, but they were largely in the drug space. And so I was kind of like, man, this is just such a cool idea. And I was just like passionate about it. So I was sort of exploring it. And so I entered like a pitch competition and I was, would tell, you know, every time I was out with friends and we get into a few beers, I'd like, you know, it'd always come out because I was always kind of like front of my mind. And so I ended up kind of giving that pitch a lot before I ever actually started building something. And so this idea around— and so I did, I was doing research online about like, you know, like what is the biological underpinnings of these different diseases. And so I sort of had this like list of ideas that I had, and I had prioritized them based on what I thought was interesting. But then as I sort of told the other people, I kept kind of getting feedback like that. Uh, and you know, to your question, it definitely took a few times of you know, to believe people when they were really not interested. It wasn't just that I wasn't pitching it well, that like, it was genuinely not an interesting idea. Yeah. And, and then like, uh, but like, I think that it was quick. Like, I think it only took me 2 or 3 times to see that the moment I talked about alcohol, that was when people clicked in, you know? Yeah. And like, and, and that was like, so that really, so then by the time I actually started building something, I was that I was already set on that idea. Yeah.

And I appreciate you kind of diving in there and I think we could spend so much time on that, but it's really cool to kind of hear that. I guess you could say, and I think there's so much value in that as well. And I can know that from my journey of when you kind of box yourself of Z by X LLC, you kind of, you think you're going in one direction versus kind of having this more lighthearted idea zone. I like to call it the white space of entrepreneurship, or whether it's after you sell your company or you're kind of working on something like before it's so serious, you have this sort of ability to kind of move in different directions and not take yourself so seriously, if you will, before kind of going all in on something.

That is exactly right.

With that said, I saw, you know, I was reading on the site and kind of doing my research, and I was so just— I saw this one paragraph. It said, you know, in 2016, you rented a laboratory just down the road from Cal. For the next 12 months, you spent every waking moment in the lab. At the time, you lived in Sacramento and you were commuting 90 minutes from Berkeley on a good day. And that led you to sleeping in the lab. Like, tell— I, I wanna zoom in incredibly hard on this topic because like, what was your life like when you were kind of going to start this? You picked this lab 90 minutes away, you have to commute, you're sleeping on the floor. What was your life like? How did you think about this idea? And you know, what was this early moments of the journey like for you?

Yeah. You know, honestly, I, I, I always say that that was like maybe one of my most favorite times, uh, at Zebotics, uh, because it was like the time of my life when, or time in the life of this company and my life where I was just, I very much had permission to just be completely singularly focused. Like, yeah, I didn't, I wasn't married, I didn't have kids. Um, I, you know, I was able to just like really focus on the startup and I was able to just do what I, what I was trained to do, right? My PhD is in microbiology. I'm trained as a scientist. I'm not trained as a CEO or as like a company leader, right? I'm trained. And so my whole job for the first year was just me in a lab by myself making the science work, making the product work, right? And so it was nice. Like I didn't have to worry about anything else. I mean, I'm sure I was worrying about other things. I'm sure it was like trying to do it. But the reality was that like, you know, the vast majority of my focus was just like build this bacteria, build this platform. And so yeah, I was actually, I was living in Michigan after my PhD. I was living in Michigan and then I started this company and I knew I wanted to go back to the Bay to build it. So originally from Sacramento, so I flew home. I was like, so I was like, oh, I'll stay with my parents. And then I got a lab in Berkeley. And yeah, amazing 90-minute commute without traffic. And so I would basically, I would drive, I would drive to the lab, drive to Berkeley on like Monday. And then I would, and I got a gym membership at a gym down the street. And I basically like amazing work all day, and then go to the gym at like, you know, 11 o'clock at night. Get a workout in and then take a shower and clean up and then go back to the lab. And I would like, and I'd lay out like a sleeping bag.

I saw the photo. I'm like, oh my gosh. Like you hear the stories, but having the documents to prove it is so iconic.

It was pretty funny. Like I, yeah, I was like, this lab was like rickety. It was like, it didn't have any insulation. It was like plywood walls and stuff. And so like it was, it would get cold at night. And so I like literally laid down cardboard to keep it soft and like, which is stupid. I could have just gone and got like a a bed mattress, but I just, you know, whatever. Yeah. And so lay out the sleeping bag and I would like lay in bed and there was— I had a blow dryer and I would like blow hot air into the sleeping bag to keep me warm and stuff. And I would lay there and then like I figured about like 2 months in like that there was a car— there's a conference room in this co-working space. It was— which was carpeted. So I started going and sleeping in there and then like setting my alarm to get up before anybody got there. But it was a blast. I like— it was honestly like super fun. I'd wake up, I work all day and then like, you know, and repeat. And then I would go home for a couple days like when I needed a break and stay with my folks and then and then come back and stuff. And it was, yeah, it was great.

That's so amazing, man. I mean, when I saw the photo, I was like, this is so iconic and so cool to see. And I wanted to spend time there in terms of with your parents, you're going there, kind of, you know, it's something that just to kind of draw the parallels, I think I heard a completely different zone of genius, but MrBeast, the creator, say is he's like, look, I'm someone that I'll go singular focus as hard as possible. But then when I recognize I need a break, I pull back and I completely shift gears and then I get back into that. And I think there's an element of what you just said that I think is very similar to not only him, but many founders I've spoke to where it's like, yeah, if you have the ability to have that singular focus for a day, a week, a month, a year, whatever it may be, and then you can pull out when you feel you need to have a quick break. It's cool to hear you say that. So that's amazing.

Yeah. Yeah.

Something I want to talk about that I've always been so fascinated by is just co-founder dynamics, early stage meeting co-founders. And you said it yourself in terms of you were in the lab, you weren't, you know, this, uh, like you weren't getting a business major, et cetera. You were, you're a scientist. And I, I want you to kind of dive into how you met your, your co-founder and, um, you know, Stephen Lam, I believe, grad student. Where did this relationship come from and how were you thinking about the business side of this once you had it? Like that lightning in a bottle, you had this product, right? What was your, okay, now I need to set up this, you know, LLC. Where do I go to? Who, who do I go to? And how did you find that, you know, that core partner?

Yeah, that was, you know, honestly, the best thing that ever happened to the company was finding a co-founder and finding Stephen Lam. So we, you know, so I, yeah, first year of the company was just me in a lab building the product, right? And then I had, once I almost exactly to the day, like a year after I started, I kind of, I had the strain by the platform built. And then, I had the specific strain that could break down acetaldehyde built. I tested it on myself, which is a pretty funny story in its own right. You can imagine as a scientist writing a protocol for what do I know I'd have to do to make myself feel terrible that I feel. Terrible. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

And having to A/B test that too, testing without the product and stuff to make— So, that was fun and also rough in its own way. But then, I had developed a fair amount of confidence that I thought the product really worked. Um, and so, um, yeah, I was in like, okay, like now what? And it's like, okay, now we're moving out of what I know how to do, which is the science, and into like building a company and like bringing a product to market and productizing the ingredient that I've invented. Um, and, and so I knew there was like a— I had a lot of ideas around like— and I, in this period of time, I'd also continued to get my reps in on like pitching the product and the idea, stuff like that. Um, but there was like all this operational elements of building a company, like How do you form the company? Like, how do you pay your taxes? Which I definitely, turns out, was not doing right. It's like one of the first things he thinks, like, hey, you owe like a lot of money in taxes.

I was like, oh my goodness.

Yeah. So it was good. So I was looking for somebody who was basically able to like operationalize the business. And I didn't know exactly what I wanted. I just knew I wanted somebody who had a totally different skill set than me. And I was introduced to Stephen. So I, you know, did a startup accelerator. Like how many?

Very small.

Yeah, it was by, right. So it was did by Y Combinator, but like the initially that, so we ended up going through the full program later, Stephen and I together. Yeah. But they, for like, they did this like test thing called a fellowship program that they ended up abandoning after 2 or 3 batches. And I just happened, it was like a zero to one thing. And so it was like, you know, like a $20,000 check or something. It was very small and like it was just like a remote program or whatever.

Yeah.

But because of it, I was able to get access to like the Y Combinator community. Amazing. And so I saw on like internal forum, Bookface, somebody posted Stephen's resume and said like, hey, I have a friend, he's like finishing up his JD MBA, like dual degree program, and he's looking to get involved in like a food or ag tech startup. And I said, you know, hey, I'm kind of a food tech startup, right? And I was like, this guy's got 2 degrees for the price of 1. He sounds great. And so I reached out and said like, hey, it might be a little bit earlier than what he's looking for, but like, you know, I'd love to talk to him. If you think he might be interested, I'd love to kind of like, you know, pitch him what I'm doing. So I get off and they're like, yeah, that's probably not what he's interested in. But like, you know, well, and so they connected me and, and, uh, I could tell within 5 minutes that like Stephen was like clearly like very smart and he just like oozes like integrity and honesty. And so at that point I was sold, like he's got a degree, like he seems like a nice guy, he seems smart. So it was from then on I was full-court press to try and get him to join the company. And oh my God, that's, yeah. So I did a lot to get him to join, but he eventually did. And that was huge.

That is so, I, I love hearing that. It's such a, uh, you know, I think it's sometimes you'll hear like founders, oh, they grew up together, they met in school, but it was in a forum, you saw the resume and then you have that leadership of you got to sell them on joining. I think it's such a cool, you know, fun story to recognize and point out. So I appreciate that.

Yeah. And I think that like what there's pros and cons, right? Like the idea that we were able to build a relationship from scratch and have it be a co-founder relationship and we didn't have any baggage of like, yeah, of previous friendship or relationship and other dynamics, right? Like, yeah, that actually was like awesome because like we like could set expectations from the beginning about like how we wanted to communicate. And it took a while for us to kind of get it right. But like, yeah, we, you know, learned how to disagree well and all that stuff. And we could build that de novo. And that was great. That's amazing. Obviously, like we didn't, like he could have been a total psycho or a jerk. I would've known him vice versa.

And like, but like, so that's, you dig with anything.

Right. But I think that there was a lot of advantage in building a, a co-founder relationship from scratch. Um, that has resulted in us having a super, super positive and productive relationship for the last 10 years.

That's amazing. No, kudos to you guys. I mean, I think hopefully founders listening, if they are sitting there, you know, with, as a solo founder looking for a founder, maybe it's whatever it may be, it's like finding someone and setting this, like setting the floor dynamic of a co-founder relationship doesn't always have to be the, the guy you've known for 5 years, 2 years, whatever it may be. So that's really cool to hear. So I appreciate you sharing that. And, uh, I think I, I have to kind of dive down the rabbit hole of, you know, the protocols here, not only for yourself, but also for Steven. It's What did this look like in the early days? Are you sitting in the office drinking a bottle of wine and saying, here's how I feel Monday, let me do it again Friday and see how I feel? Because that didn't even occur to me. I'm like, yeah, you know, outside of friends, you had to make sure it worked on yourself. So, you know, what did this look like, you know, when you had that 12-month lease at the office in the lab and to finally find and get that final product, lightning in a bottle, if you will?

Yeah, yeah. I think There's a few little kind of funny stories about that. I mean, I think when I first, I was so in the science when I was building it that when I had the strain, the bacterial strain that is now in our final product, initially didn't kind of register because in my head I had all these, oh, I have to do this and this and this. And then I remember it was maybe a week and a half after I actually had it that I was like, and I was just kind of in the momentum of testing it in the lab and stuff like that that it finally clicked. I'm like, wait, Like if this is the product, like if it works, this is it. Like, I, like, I was like, oh, I, like, I have to, I have to test this, you know? Like, I mean, so I, of course I was like, I was testing in the lab and I was making sure for instance, you know, the whole point of the bacteria is they can break down acetaldehyde. So I was like validating that they could do that and got some of the conditions, blah, blah, blah. But then, okay, it's like, it's ready to go at this point. I'm like, you know, like, like the bridge builder, the ancient bridge builder, you know, stands under the bridge, they pull out the scaffolds. It's like, hey, I gotta, I gotta be willing to test this. First. And so I wrote this like protocol of like, you know, here are the, here's like what I would personally need to drink to be convinced that I would, or that where I know that I would not feel great the next day. And so then like, and then so I, you know, I followed that protocol and I drank the product first. And like at that point it was like super, like it was like very much a prototype. Like literally I was like drinking like like with a little straw, like drinking like this like bacterial suspension out of a little test tube. Like it was very sketchy. But yeah, I did that. And my now wife at the time, you know, girlfriend was like spotting me like, you know, like, okay, you know, you're gonna be, you know, and, you know, I woke up the next day after that first test and I was like, you know, I was like, I woke up and I was like, ah, I was a little groggy. It wasn't, you know, it's hard to evaluate, you know, like how do I feel, whatever, I don't know. And then, I went, I was like, I was like sitting at the kitchen table, like eating breakfast cereal and like reading like on my phone, like reading on my phone, looking at my phone. And it was like 9:30 in the morning and like all of a sudden it dawned on me. It was like, after what I did to myself last night, there's no way in any other universe I would be sitting at the table at 9:30 in the morning, like eating breakfast and like reading my phone, like totally miserable. And so I was like, hey, you know, obviously I'm a very biased participant. That wasn't proof, but it was like an n of 1 that like, at least it wasn't a disaster, you know? And so then we sort of like slowly, and so when I tried convince Stephen to join. So I tested it a few more times, and my wife tested it, and we had some friends test it, whatever. And, and every time it was like, you know, it was doing really well. And so when I tried— so Stephen hadn't joined the company yet, and so he came out, uh, so I was like, he finished his, his grad, uh, program, and, uh, he was still kind of on the fence deciding whether he want to join or not. And so I like, look, fly out to San Francisco, we'll work together, you know, Berkeley, we'll work together for a week and just kind of get a feel for each other, you know. And, um, and so we did that, and worked together all week and, you know, it went great. Um, and, uh, at the end I was like, look, man, we gotta, you gotta try this part. You gotta find out.

You gotta go out. That's the recruiting strategy.

Exactly. So it was a win-win, right? Like, okay, we'll have fun together and like, hopefully you wake up the next day feeling good. So we went out in San Francisco and like, we, you know, went to some bars. I made sure again that he would have a very authentic experience of the product. So like, we had a, we had a very good time. I'll put it that way. Um, and then, uh, he was supposed to wake up the next morning at like 7 in the morning. To meet up with friends to do— there's this very famous kind of San Francisco thing called Beta Breakers. It's essentially like what it's technically a race, but it's basically a parade all day where people walk in costumes and stuff like that. And he was supposed to meet up with a group of friends at like 7:30 in the morning for Beta Breakers. And even after the night we had, he was able to wake up the next morning and make out to meet up with his friends, which ended up being really valuable because his future wife was in that group of friends that he met that day.

No way.

Had the product not worked, He might not have ever met his wife.

Oh my gosh.

And he is currently on parental leave with his second child with her. And so it's— oh my gosh, it was amazing.

So, so I feel like you couldn't have scripted that story. That is so iconic.

It was, it was amazing. Yeah.

So it's so great.

He says that he was ready to join the company anyway, but I always say that, that, that was the moment that, you know, that I got him on board, you know?

So yeah, that's so good. One, I guess you could say naive question from my end is, you know, the thought of like drinking something before or after, I think there's this taboo thought, you know, growing up, you know, when you're first starting to, let's say you turn 21, you start having some drinks, you're like, okay, let me have some electrolytes the next morning and drink water. And there's this, I've heard you talk about this in other interviews, but why the pre-alcohol shots? And then also I want to kind of dive into that as well. And when I first saw the product, it felt like I was like walking out of a science lab with like this, the small shape and it was like this cool little bottle. I'm like, oh, this is a cool product. And I'm also curious to know in terms of, um, like the small amount, the small bottles, and we can kind of get into brand and the positioning, but kind of talk to me about like the value of Before versus what people may think, um, how they should sort of hydrate the morning after.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh, this is an important part for, for me. Um, so I, uh, when we, when we really sat, when Steve and I really sat down to kind of like build Like, so I had an ingredient that I was like confident in, but when we sat down to build a product around that ingredient, it was— we really, we really wanted to like look at, at how we can make the best possible product in every way. Not just like, yes, I believe that I have built a functional ingredient that was more efficacious or better than anything else out there, but in and of itself, that wouldn't be enough to kind of like win or be successful in the category. There's a lot of good science that totally fails, especially in the consumer space, right? So it was really about like everything related to user experience. So Steve and I got this time very deliberately got our reps in. We handed out literally, we calculated over 10,000 samples of the product before we ever commercialized it. And wow, we would go out to like, you know, so we went through Y Combinator and so we would go to like all these like Y Combinator startups when they had like their holiday parties, we'd go hand out product there. We had, you know, connected with local like, uh, running groups and blah, blah, blah. And when they had like a bar crawl or something, we would like set up at the first bar and like hand out. And every case, every situation, we would, the two of us would show up and physically hand people free samples and we like would see like how skeptical people instantly got when we told them that the product was meant to help them feel better the day after drinking.

Yeah.

Like they were like, I don't want it. And we're like, it's free. Uh, and they're like, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't need that. And they were like, and so we had learned like all of like the, the psychological hangups people, you know, in this country there's a lot of guilt around drinking. Um, which is not actually the case in many other countries, but like, you know, our puritanical roots and we all, you know, And look, alcohol's not good for you, so it's not like it's a bad thing that people have guilt around it, but it's just a reality. And so people see like, if you feel bad the next day, it's evidence that you behaved irresponsibly. So people don't wanna admit that they're, they're about to do something bad for themselves.

Yeah.

Even though they're like, they know they are. Right. And so, um, uh, it was interesting. We had like kind of get over all these psychological hurdles, but we learned about 'em from having those conversations. And so when we designed the product, it was, and everything about it was meant to address like the two major objections that people have. One was this product isn't going to work. There's a bunch of snake oil out there. I've heard about them, tried these products before. They're stupid and they suck. And then two, okay, fine, even if it does work, I don't need it because I'm not the kind of person, I don't think of myself as a big drinker and I don't want a product that's for big drinking and stuff like that. So everything we did around design and product. So first of all, the product drinking before you drink, that is actually necessary for in terms of the mechanism of action I chose to pursue to fix this problem. And so you need the bacteria. These are live bacteria that are in in your gut microbiome expressing this enzyme continuously, like a factory that makes this enzyme that breaks down acetaldehyde. So, the factory has to be in there when the acetaldehyde is forming while you're drinking. So, you have to have it before you start drinking.

Got it.

But, it turned out that that was also actually really good for dealing with those objections. The fact is that our product is not meant as a get-out-of-jail-free card or pain avoidance. And so, something you took the next day would be sort of like you wake up and you feel like crap and you're like, okay, I'll take this and I'll fix it. It's like, this product is about like making responsible, like healthy decisions in your life. So if you take it before you drink, that's your first like action of intention for the next day, and it, it sort of sets up a cascade of like responsible behavior. So you take this before you drink, and that's already a commitment that I want to have a good day next day, tomorrow. So then you're also probably going to do other responsible behaviors like not drinking on empty stomach. You're probably going to like pace yourself. You're probably going to like hydrate. You're going to make sure you prioritize your sleep. All those things. And so, so it's really like in that way we're also saying like playing into the idea of like the person who's like, I don't need it, I'm not a responsible drinker. We're like, we agree, this product is for responsible, mindful drinking. You're taking this with intention and you're probably going to do a bunch of other good things too. So that was important. Then the design, like everything else out there was, to your point, electrolytes, like hydration. It was in crappy plastic bottles that are meant to go like the checkout counter at 7-Eleven, right? Like Exactly.

Just to even interject, you have it back to the initial start of this podcast. I think it's like my buddy takes out of his pocket this little sexy small bottle and it's like, right, he's just handing me, you know, the red pill, the blue pills. Like, whoa, this is, this is cool. I want to try this out. So continue. I just want to let you know, it's like this, this shape is really memorable, if you will, from my experience.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And that was what we were going for, right? Like this, it's a glass bottle. It like is black and white. It like the idea was like, this is something nice enough that you would want to have it at your wedding, which is a great use case for ZBiotics, right? And indeed, weddings are a really common— oh my gosh, bride and groom buys it, they give to the wedding party or they put it out at the bar at their wedding and it's like, yeah, this isn't like a bright blue plastic bottle. Nobody would want it at their wedding, right? Yeah. And in the same way, if your friend handed you that, you maybe take it because he's your friend, but like you'd be like, what is this crap? Right? Yeah. And so we, you know, we really designed like it all with like very much the intention of like look, there's very— there's world cutting-edge, world-first science in this product, right? This isn't just electrolytes in a bottle. This is getting at the actual root cause of the next-day effects of drinking. And so we wanted the brand and the packaging and the product experience to all feel like it was a world's first. And so everything about the product experience, like a small— so we want it small so it's portable. You could bring it out, you could share with your friends. We also didn't want it to be like a pill because first of all, Who wants to stand around at a bar with their friends and like pop pills together? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not the same kind of experience as like if you take like a liquid shot, right? Which is very similar to what you're doing anyway. So like everything about the user experience was like very intentionally designed and it was like all based on all of the reps that Stephen and I got about people's hangups and fears and everything. And, and so really, you know, tried to build a product that earned credibility, earned trust, and like that people, you know, that like did justice to the science that was in the bottle.

It's really cool to hear. You've been at this, again, 2016, 10 years now. I'm so curious, you talk about weddings or these, you guys hear a lot that friends recommended. Once you guys did kind of productize it, you go through these accelerators, you're bringing it to market, what were some of the most interesting growth factors that you found for this, again, one-of-one type of product category that comes with so much at least for me too. I remember first learning about it and then you kind of dive into like a consumer education, like you, you want to learn about it, you want to kind of dive in as someone that's not scientific, right? And I'm so curious to know, like, what were some of those growth factors around like customer education, like really getting it out there, um, to the masses from, you know, now 10 years into this journey?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, look, a lot of reps on that as well. Like, what do people need to hear and what don't they need to hear? Like, yeah, as a scientist, my first instinct was to like pitch the science hard, right? Explain why this is so amazing and different, right? And I have a good story on this. In the early days, in the early pitches that we were giving for the product, I'm talking to some other founders through YC and these two Irish guys and they're like, oh, what do you do? And they have some HR company or something and they're like, what do you do? And so I tell them like, oh yeah, I have this genetically engineered probiotic platform and I've engineered the promoter and we can stitch, I'm going on and on about the science.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah. And I just like see them like, you know, like eyes glossed over, like not at all. And I go, and I could tell like that I'm, I'm about to blow their minds because I realized that I'd like been messing up the whole pitch. And so I'm like, I'm like, yeah, you know, and so anyway, our first kind of application is the probiotic that helps you feel better the day after drinking. And they both just go like, just blow up. And one of 'em goes, fuck man, lead with that. Like he was like, that's, that's amazing. He was like so excited about it.

Oh my God.

I was like, oh Jesus. Like, Yeah. It's like, yeah, you know, the whole pitch, like, you know, totally changes, like when you realize what people actually care about. And so you start with like the benefit and like, but what we learned was that like, because if you say you have a product that helps people feel better after drinking, they're like, okay, that's cool, but I don't believe you. It's gonna work. So what we learned was that like all this, like kind of like everybody says like, oh, you know, don't talk about the science. Like people don't care about that. It's like the reality is they really needed to hear it. They needed to hear it. They just need to hear it at the right time. And the right amount of depth. And so we did a lot of testing with that. We kind of found the sweet spot. And so what we found was like, for instance, like an explainer video is like an animated video that kind of showed how things worked and stuff. It was actually a really amazing tool for acquiring customers. It just needed to happen in the right order. It's like, hey, we have this product. Yeah. Helps people after drinking. Turns out it's not dehydration, which is what you thought it was. And like, here's, you know, here's why and like, and here's what it is. And this, here's our product works and like people, that was enough to get people like over the hump of like, I don't think this will work. Cause it differentiated us enough from the other stuff, but not so deep that, you know, I'm like nerding out too much on the science, you know? So it's kinda like this good spot.

Yeah, for sure. No, I love that and I appreciate the context so much. I love that story too. The Irish lads and happy St. Patrick's Day, by the way, you know?

Yeah, true. It was, I mean, it was hilarious. Like I, like, I guess one of these things you couldn't script it. It was like, oh my God. Like, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. One thing that I know we talked about it a lot at the beginning and I wanna spend some time on it towards the end of this conversation, which is, you know, the future of ZBiotics, right? That they, with this idea of there being so many variant applications for something like this, I, you know, you can't spill the weeds on all the future roadmap, but like, what are you kind of most excited about? You know, you, you've been in the market for 10 years. You obviously have like the, you know, the core pro flagship product that you, that we've been speaking about a lot of this conversation. But as a scientist and with this brand and the penetration in the market and this sort of invention-focused mentality from day one. Where do you think about the future of how this technology can be applicable to different variants of, you know, humans and how we all want to live our lives more healthier?

Yeah, I mean, truthfully, this is the part of the business that I'm still like the most passionate about. Yeah, like our first product is great and I love like how great it's doing and how much of an impact having on people's lives and how we're able to like get like our science and like biotechnology in a consumer, like in the consumer space. Like I think this is a whole kind of, you know, we're at the front of like a wave here of like of opportunity. And so, building on that is like I think what I'm most passionate about as a scientist kind of like what are other— look, we have this hammer, we've hit the one nail, right? Like how do we— what are other nails we can hit with this hammer, with this tool of genetically engineered probiotics? And so, I'm very excited about that. So, we launched our second product about a year and a half ago. It's called Sugar to Fiber. And so, that's a probiotic that's engineered to take sugar from the foods you're already eating and stack that into fiber in your gut. So, literally converting sugar into fiber in your gut. And the point of that product is to help— 95% of Americans don't get enough fiber every day.

Yeah.

You know, established by CDC. It's like, this is like a major deficiency. Our food system has drastically changed in the last like 50 years. And because of it, we're not eating as many whole foods, we're eating more processed food, we're not getting enough fiber in our diet. And so, this idea that a bacteria can make more fiber from the food you're already eating in your gut, um, is a pretty exciting idea. Um, and so my point, I mean, in addition to the fact that that is de facto our second product, when we thought about what to build next, the idea was we wanted to build something that was really different than the first product, but like kind of hit the same overall trend of this idea of like somebody, a healthy person investing in their health. Yeah. And so I think if like the overarching thread of like what are the products we can build I have like a million ideas and we're working on a bunch of things, uh, as we speak. Um, and the overarching thread of that is like, uh, we can use modern biotechnology to build biological solutions to problems that modern humans have to deal with, right? Like, so these are problems that we're dealing with today that we did not— our biology didn't evolve to deal with. We've created these problems for ourselves fundamentally. So like, even if you think of like alcohol as a relatively modern human invention, it's like last 6,000 years. Humans have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. We didn't evolve to deal with alcohol, so we use modern biotechnology to build a solution to that. So for a healthy person in a modern life, right, not enough fiber in your diet, that's also something that even 100 or 200 years ago humans didn't have to worry about or deal with, but now we do. And so when we think about all the things, like there's all these toxins and pollution that we're being exposed to from our food and our drinking water and the air, and there's Also, there's a lot of good things that microbes do for us, like extracting nutrients, creating provitamins and vitamins for us that we also could engineer bacteria to deal with. And then, I think there's a third element, which is human performance. So, when we think about sleep and exercise and exercise recovery, again, these are things that we likely didn't have to deal with until relatively recently. And so, how do we engineer microbes to kind of help us perform better in a modern world? Ultimately, that's kind of like what we're riding on, but there's just, there's all kinds of stuff we can do.

That's so fascinating. I think that's one of those, this idea of like going wide versus going deep. Like there's so many use cases and, you know, I want to, I guess I'm curious around like yourself and the team in terms of the science and kind of where you spend time in the lab, et cetera. How has that changed over the last 10 years? And what does that look like today?

Yeah, I'm no longer, you know, spending like, you know, whatever, 16 hours in the lab and sleeping, right? Like, in fact, I never touch a pipette anymore. I don't do any bench science anymore at all. My job is, I think one of the things I love about being a startup CEO is that my job fundamentally changes pretty much every 6 months. And I really enjoy kind of like the opportunity to learn new things and new functions. I think a lot about these days around company building and obviously from the beginning, I learned a lot about pitching and fundraising and communicating my science in a way that people care about, um, and, you know, learning about, uh, product design and product development. I think that's one of the areas that I've really loved to kind of like be able to have the opportunity to kind of like expand my skill set in and learn more about. So, um, yeah, it's, it's kind of like, I think like I had a mentor say to me once that like being a CEO is like your job is to like whatever the company needs right now that you can't, that, that the company can't do, it's your job to basically learn it like 15 to 20%, uh, and then like enough to understand what you need and then go hire somebody who can do that job really well. Way better than you can. And then you go on and you find the next thing. And that's kind of like your job is to continually hire yourself out of a job and keep finding the new problem that you need to solve. And so I think, yeah, you know, that is kind of how Stephen and I operate, is like, we— what, what's the new, like, important thing right now? We're looking to go to, um, you know, retail and hospitality. And so like, uh, just like digging in deep to understand that, that challenge, that problem, and then find somebody who's an expert at that. And now we know what they look like, and then we hire them to kind of do that job really well.

That's amazing. And quickly, I'm just more so curious in terms of direct-to-consumer versus that retail expansion. How has that looked like, you know, the last 5, you know, 10 years overall in terms of where has the company purely been focused? And, you know, I, I look at it when it comes to, you know, different events or, you know, all the good, nice restaurants in the big cities. Like, is your goal to have this sort of affiliation with certain types of businesses, brands, etc.? In terms of just being a part of the experience.

Yeah, exactly. Like, again, it all goes back to like earning trust, earning credibility in a category that, you know, frankly doesn't have a lot of trust or credibility. And so kind of everything we— every place we choose to be is like a reflection on our brand and who we are. So we're really cautious about that. So for the, you know, for the first like, you know, 5 or 6 years of the product being on the market, we launched in 2019, um, we've, you know, has largely been e-com, and that's because we could really control the narrative really well there and learn from our customers and figure out what worked and worked. But as we, you know, in the last year, we've really started to, to do a push into retail and hospitality.

And, uh, when you, when you say hospitality— sorry to interject, but I don't know if I'm making this up or if I'm remembering clearly. Is it that like at certain establishments ZBiotics may be on the menu of like you can order it as a pre— exactly, because I've seen this before. This is already happening, right?

Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, I've seen this before and okay, I'm not making this up.

No, it's been, and it's been, that's been awesome. Right. Like, I mean, it's obvious, right? Like, I was like, well, of course we would have more people drinking. Right. It's like, well, yeah, but we had to, we had to, we had to earn the right to get there. Uh, so yeah, exactly. So right now we're like really nice restaurants where like it'll be on the menu. Like one of the restaurants brings out like a little ice bucket with a little like glass coupe that they poured in. It's like, it's awesome. It looks so cool. We did this activation at like a ski resort in Aspen and and it was like, it was awesome, you know? So, so all this kind of like, you know, stuff that really like highlights like how this product fits into like, you know, what we're not doing, for instance, is like we're not doing like, you know, gas station convenience stores and we're not doing like, you know, like, you know, college campuses or like nightclubs or things where like it's not like it doesn't fit like this, you know, idea of what the product is for, which is like healthy drinkers who are like having a nice social night out. but also like want to prioritize their next day, right? Like that's like, that's really, and so when we think about like that, that we're like, you know, nice hotels, nice restaurants, like places where people are, are gonna probably enjoy some nice wine or some nice cocktails.

Yeah.

But they also have their next day they care about. So really being deliberate about that. And then in terms of like, you know, retail, like, uh, we're thinking about like, you know, where are people like, like, you know, where are our customers probably shopping? Yeah. And then kind of like looking in there.

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, I love that. And I, uh, I just went on a ski trip recently with some friends. We had some ZBiotics there and you can't sacrifice a ski, you know, ski morning the next day. That's the worst thing you want to do.

You're paying, you know, whatever it is, $150 for a ski ticket, for a lift ticket. You cannot afford to like even miss a couple hours the next morning. Yeah, absolutely.

I love it. Well, I, um, I could talk to you all day, Zach. I'm so just fascinated, as I said at the beginning, just by the story of the brand and the product overall. And, you know, I want to sort of end with two quick questions, which is, yeah, this is a product that looking back was so dependent, uh, and was your doing. You're in the lab, you know, 12, 16 hours a day. If you could go back in time to talk to the Zach that's in the lab 2016 sleeping on the floor, you know, what were your expectations and what would your advice be to your younger self back then?

I think my advice would be like, I don't know, first of all, like enjoy this time. Like, you know, even if it feels like a little, you know, there's plenty of times I think I remember it nicer than it was. There's plenty of times where I was banging my head against the wall in the science. So like, just like, hey, enjoy this. This is like the last time you'll actually know what you're doing. And then, and also to be patient. I think that like there's this like feeling like it's always gonna be slipping outta your fingers if you don't like take every advantage of every possible opportunity. And I actually think that like more focus and like focus, especially as I kind of got out of the lab part and like kind of looking for the things that grow the company. Like just like what, what, what, what? Yes. Like people do billboards, like you don't need to do one right now. Right? Like doesn't make sense for your brand. Like what do you, what does your brand need right at this moment? It's, it's usually a lot less. Than you think. Um, and so I think, I think that was kind of like the, the biggest piece of advice I would give myself.

Yeah, I love that. Well, I, um, appreciate the context there. Last but not least, you know, we're heading into spring, summertime, vacations, everything. People, if they made it this far in the podcast, they obviously, uh, they need to spend some time to be proactive about future. Where's the best place for everyone to learn more about ZBiotics, to, you know, to buy it, to try it out? Because I know, again, and I say this with just being a fan of the product is it's such a great experience and it's something that I've naturally shared. And I know that people, if they get their hands on it, it's just one of those products that it's hard to forget. It leaves an impact on you. So congrats on that. But last but not least, where's the best place everyone can stay connected with you and the team?

Yeah, I mean, zbiotics.com is definitely, you know, you go to our website, we try to put a lot of information on there. Like you can dig in as deep or as little as you want, hopefully. And if you have other questions, you can always Email us. I'll, I'll, I'll field any questions that kind of like go above the basic stuff on the science. So always happy to kind of like chat with folks if they're interested in learning about it or if they want to get it. So yeah, that's the best thing. And then if you need it right away, you know, there's also online, you know, on our website, you'll find like a retail location. So you don't want to wait for it to get shipped. That's the other option.

Amazing. Well, Zach, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show today. Huge congrats on everything. And I can't wait to just follow along for the next 10 years, man, and see what you guys are brewing up internally. So I can't wait to see.

Thank you so much, man. This was great. I appreciate it, Casey Adams.