#32 Vadim Fedotov - The Dark Truth About the Supplement Industry
6 Apr 2025 · 67 min
Vadim Fedotov, former basketball player and Bionic CEO, built a personalized supplement company after ACL injuries led him to cutting-edge rehab. Bionic pairs blood tests with custom formulas, has raised $30 million, and claims 92% of users improve key blood markers. The company expanded to 73 countries with backing from Cristiano Ronaldo and partnerships with UFC and Whoop.
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The doctor came back a week later and said, "Yeah, you're fine." And that moment he said, "Yeah, you're fine," I was like, "What do you mean? My symptoms are still there." He's like, "Yes, but you're not ill. And if you're not ill, there's nothing that traditional medicine can do for you. The moment you become ill, I'll prescribe you something and we'll try to heal you." So healthcare is not really healthcare, it's sick care. The coolest things are just starting, that's for sure. We're now on the global stage, we're now in 73 countries. We just signed some of the biggest partnerships in the US, so majority of our clients are US-based. I have examples in the team trusted me when they got outta college and said, I don't care about my compensation, I care about the role, I care about my involvement, I care about am I behind the scenes, do I understand what's going on, can I be part of the decision process? And those people are the ones who make careers with us or in the market. That's the mindset I'm looking for when I'm onboarding people.
And so you are a former athlete turned CEO. You're now building a game-changing health tech company, really. I was about to call it a supplement company, but it's a little bit more than that. So you're pretty much Ironman.
Thanks, Rob. Yeah. You know, the funny part is I would've said it's more than that from, for the majority of the time. I realized probably a year ago that actually the more you narrow it down, the more niche you become, the more successful you have. So I, I'm more than happy to call Bionic the, the leading personal supplements company in the market.
Nice.
And we're very proud of what we're able to achieve in the last 7 years. And, but we also understand that the journey's just starting.
Okay, so give us a little bit about your background. Where did you first start getting interested in health and fitness? I know mine kind of actually, like, if you're way, way back, way back, I entered the gym to get bigger for rugby. So what made you pick up a weight first, go for a run first? Where did it all begin?
I think it's probably start with my dad. So my dad was quite young, my dad was 18 when I was born. He was a professional tennis player, he was the champion in Russia in 1984. So I grew up with a dad that was on tour playing ATP tour, doing the whole thing. I saw firsthand what professional sports is. So I followed his footsteps, did all the sports you can imagine, landed on basketball, started playing professional basketball around the age of 16, joined the German national team, played against the US on countless occasions, played against a lot of NBA players, and then got scouted to play overseas in New York. And I played for the Buffalo Bulls for 4 years, Division I. So my journey around sports began in my childhood. But again, I always had a ball in my hands for majority of any time, any sport you can imagine, I was in it and I was doing it. So everything that was competitive, that was something that I was really, really trying to be involved with.
Okay, nice. And so what made— you mentioned that you went to Germany. So you grew up in Russia, you went to Germany. How come you moved?
So when I was 6, my parents moved to a town south of Munich in the Bavarian Alps called Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It got famous because it was one of the Olympic villages. It still is one of the most famous alpine ski resorts there is. So it was a really cool place to grow up, but it's one of those places you don't really become big. So when I was 16, I moved closer to Cologne and then became part of the German national team. So, yeah, I spent majority of my life in Germany, my upbringing life, and then I went up to the US, lived in London, and now I've been living in Dubai for the last 4 years.
Nice, yeah, I kind of, I lived in London for a little bit as well. Now I'm a resident in Dubai. It's funny with entrepreneurs now, all roads just end up leading to Dubai. Like I saw a crazy statistic, it's like the most amount of millionaires left London this year and they all immigrated to Dubai. So it's crazy. I was just there like 2 weeks ago. We were actually, we were gonna do this in person, but you know what, as long as there's like a good camera setup and everything, this is all good. Okay, so you're playing basketball, you're absolutely killing it. You're playing against USA NBA players. How come you stopped?
Well, first of all, I was not killing it. I would call it probably I was an average player. I was a typical not mobile, not very athletic, 6'9", 280-pound big man. I was actually offered to play American football. That's how big I was. Okay. Mostly for basketball players are being offered to play football. They probably tell you to play tight ends. In my case, they asked me to play lineman, which indicated that I might not be the most athletic person. No, I realized quite quickly that professional sports is— I was pretty good in a surrounding. I was very good in Germany. I was one of the best players in Germany. And I got to the US, and you get to the US and realize actually what world elite level is. So I went from the captain of the German youth national team to not even being the best player in the second 5 of my college. So, you realize quite quickly that professional sports is not in your future. And then, what additionally happened to me is I had unfortunately or fortunately now, I have 4 torn ACLs.
Oh, shit.
4? Most ACL at 4, 3 left, 1 right. It's most ACLs ever tore in a professional athlete that still remained and continued his career. There was even a Wikipedia page at some point that was just counting the ACLs I had.
You're setting a Guinness World Record.
And I did. So from health optimization perspective, so now I'm 40, now I know a lot of stuff. Is the interesting part was I had 4 ACL surgeries and all 4, they tried different treatments. So they tried the hamstring, they tried the patella, they tried the growth hormones, and they tried the cadaver. So I've been exposed to health optimization, recovery, and rejuvenation from the age of 18, 19 when German-American doctors were deciding to experiment with my knees to find a way how to make it more stable. So, the reason why Bionic exists has something to do when I said fortunately, I didn't mean fortunately for myself, but fortunately I was exposed to rehabilitation, to health optimization, to medical progress and innovations going on in the world that has direct impact on me, my life, my livelihood. But also, in a span of 4 or 5 years, you see how much medicine can progress when people are trying new things.
Yeah. And so when you kind of finished, you finished up your career or you finished up playing basketball, what did you do then? Because I come from a rugby background and I was the same. I was decent at rugby, but not that good, not good to the point where I'd be professional. And so how I actually started in the fitness industry myself, one thing I was the best at, what I was really good at was getting to the gym, strength and conditioning, doing all the fitness tests. 'Cause I'm a very simple man. You tell me to sprint 100 meters or lift X amount of weight, I'll do that. But with all the technical drills, I would always be dropping the ball and stuff and running the wrong way. So I was always, so rugby got me into the gym and then that's when I kind of got obsessed with fitness and got into fitness industry. So when you finished up with basketball, where did you go? As a lot of athletes can feel a little bit lost, especially when they're taken out quickly with an injury.
So 100%. And I think I'm the similar example to you, but I actually took this discipline and this work ethic to the corporate world. So when I, by the age of 24, when I finished my career in college basketball in the US, I knew that I could continue my professional sports career in Germany or in Europe and continue playing that, but it would be a very short-lived career and it would not be very lucrative. So I knew I would never make millions of dollars in my career. And have enough of a nest egg to just continue doing whatever I want afterwards. And the decision was made, okay, I'm going to join the professional ranks. And when joining the professional ranks, I realized right away when I'm given an opportunity because of my work ethic, because I'm used to working out 13 days in a row, 2 times a day, getting up at 5:30, last workout at 6:00, you have all the disciplinary things. When you're tired, when you're semi-injured, it doesn't count. Nobody cares. Nobody cares about your emotions. Nobody cares about your feelings. You never miss a workout because you don't feel well.
Yeah.
And when a person like this gets into the workforce and you see people around you who are at 4:30 complaining that they're tired or they have a headache and they want to go home or they're constantly sick, you don't understand what they're talking about. Yeah. You would have been— I mean, I make this example. I remember my junior year, I just got out of ACL surgery in my right knee. I still rehabbing from my left knee surgery. I broke my ankle. I have arthritis in both of my wrists and I have a broken nose. And I get in and they're like, this is a yoga class, please get on all fours and breathe through your nose. And it's not like I'm going to complain. I'm like, yeah, sure, I did it. But when you have that kind of mindset, getting to the office at 8:30 and sitting there until 5:00, dude, it's not the hardest thing. So, when you combine the work ethic, the ambition, And the ambition comes from sports. You're completely right. A lot of people, again, if I look at my teammates, majority of my teammates, unfortunately, they didn't really progress after the career. They went either high school basketball coach or they went, you know, not the most lucrative corporate careers.
Yeah.
Because they start missing the scoreboard. When you have a scoreboard, it makes life so much easier. When you know how many points you scored, you know if your team has won, you know how you perform. When that's taken away from you and you don't replace it with something else, then you really become miserable because nothing is driving you. There's no purpose to getting up in the morning. So my job was right away, what's my new scoreboard? And there's the Law of Massless. So the master's law is status, money, and development. And those three things I knew, okay, this is going to be my new scoreboard. How I develop, what's my status, how much do I make? Nice. But when I speak to people, the importance is not those— all three things are not equal and should not be equal at different parts of your life. When you're 25, don't care about money, forget your status, talk about development. When you get to 30-plus and you want to start a family, dude, sure, money would be nice. Nice to have a little bit of security blanket to pay for all the bills. When you have some money, you have the development, maybe you want to be part of charity, maybe you want to be a member somewhere, so status could be important to you. Become a board member or something that you really enjoy. But people need to understand that has to be a scoreboard. If you ask me right now, what's my score? It's very simple. How many people know of Bionic? Who's backing Bionic? What's the revenue? What's the market share? What's the valuation? That's my scoreboard. Now status, am I the CEO, co-founder? I don't care, dude. Like Elon Musk runs around, he's tech support. You know why he's tech support? Because everybody knows it doesn't matter what he's writing on his t-shirts. He's freaking Elon Musk.
Yeah.
So those scoreboards, the moment you're able to replace that in your life, you'll be fine. But not all people can do that. Nice. Nice.
I love that. And so when you were, you're right, you're saying, I'm going to start this company. I'm going to start Bionic. What is the point that made you literally get up the next day and take the first move to do that? Because so many people, they can't just start. You know, they always have these ideas, but they need to either be at rock bottom or they need to be at a tipping point. What was that one thing with you and you woke up the the next day you started making calls. What was it?
So there's, there's, uh, you're fully right, and I'm not the most typical startup founder because I did 10 years, I was CEO of public trade companies, I was CEO at Groupon.
Yeah.
So I have a very large corporate experience beforehand. So I wasn't the guy who got up and quit his day job on day one.
Yeah.
To start this new thing. I had responsibilities and I had a certain level that I need to adhere to. But there were two moments there was a starting point where I knew I want to do bionic, and there was a second point where I knew I need to stop doing everything. Yeah. So the starting point was when I was 2017, when I realized that I'm 32 years old, I have all these resources, all these capabilities, all this knowledge from a professional career, but still I don't feel optimized. I don't have brain fog. I feel like laziness. I feel that I'm overweight. My energy levels are not to par. You know, it's a Sunday, you can't get out of the house, can't work out. Like, everything is going the wrong direction. Although I know what I should eat, I know how to work out, I have money and access for a PT, but nothing is getting together. So, my aha moment was when I went to the doctor to explain all my symptoms. And after doing a thorough check, including blood testing and $1,000 of expenses, the doctor came back a week later and said, yeah, you're fine. And that moment he said, yeah, you're fine. I was like, what do you mean? My symptoms are still there. He's like, yes, but you're not ill. And if you're not ill, there's nothing that traditional medicine can do for you. The moment you become ill, I'll prescribe you something and we'll try to heal you. So healthcare is not really healthcare, it's sick care. When I realized, okay, so sick care is not something that somebody like me is looking forward to. I'm trying to optimize myself. Yeah. And this is the moment where I realized, okay, I want to do something in that field. I want to find out more. I want to research. I want to go on my path. And when I went down this path, and it was a 2-year path to figure out what exists, what doesn't exist, I realized that there's one thing that becomes really, really imminent. There's a lot of things that do diagnostics but don't give you solutions. And a lot of companies give you solutions, but they're not personalized to your needs or your diagnostic results. Nobody ever combined diagnosis and solutions in one. And the idea was, if you do this, what would you do? And then the aha moment when I dropped everything was the following. After meeting neuroscientists who developed the system in Switzerland over 7 years, professional athletes, we did a pilot 2018 with 40 people. I purposely chose people that I'm not friends with, but former employees or colleagues, and I wanted to get their real opinion. One of those people that used it as a pilot was the head of performance for the UFC in Nevada. Nice. And after she used it, the science results, she asked him to fly out to Vegas. So fly to Vegas, meet with the senior vice president of the UFC. This is end of 2018. And in the room, the senior vice president says, hey dude, we've never seen a product like this. As a founder, you'd never believe what you're doing is special. You always think somebody else is smarter, somebody else is better, somebody else has done it before. There's no chance. But when the person who's in the epicenter of sports, who's a couple hours away from Silicon Valley, who has access to anything in the world, tells you, we've never seen them like this before. I literally flew back to Europe, quit my day job, and launched Bionic in January 2019.
Nice. What a feeling that must have been hearing that. Like, the UFC, it's a company that I'm a huge fanboy of. Not only like the sport, I love Dana White. Like, I love his whole attitude, and I love like, um, the whole story of how, you know, he bought the company. And it's like a movie. It's crazy. For Tadah brothers, or whatever the brother's name, and how he acquired it, That is a story I absolutely love. So hey, if we can get Dana on this podcast, that would be awesome as well. And now, so listen, we're working on—
we've been partners with them in the past, so who knows what's going to happen in the future.
Yeah, it would be, it would be a real perfect fit, you guys. Like, I could see the words Bionic in the octagon, you know, the way it's like written on the, on the floor, all the brands. That'd be awesome. And now, a lot of guys watching this, they are entrepreneurs or they're budding entrepreneurs. What is the first thing you do when you want to develop a product? Like, do you just start calling manufacturers? Like, what is the first thing you do?
So no, no. So this is the very important part. The elephant is eaten by small, small bites. The worst thing you can do is going to market and getting market feedback as late as possible. The number one mistake any founder will do is A, quit his day job right away. Let's put that to—
It sounds romantic. It sounds cool, but it's not.
It's freaking wrong. It doesn't work like this. And I have experience, I tried this before my corporate career, but that's a different story. And I wanna, I wanna focus now on what you should do. Don't manufacture or develop. First, try to white label somebody else's solution and understand the market demand for it and what is missing for people. So even if you have somebody that's not, not yours and you offer it to somebody and this person is not buying it. The interaction with the person and the feedback for the reasons why the person's not buying it will give you the feedback what this product is missing to have a potential in the future for demand. When you go down the manufacturing cycle, this cycle might take 6, 12, 18, 24 months depending if it's software or if it's— if it's even if it's clothing. Yeah, whatever it is. If you think you're good and you have something and there is a niche, Try this niche out as quickly as possible. And again, after pilot that you just shared, my pilot was— there was one magic thing that I did that most people don't do in pilots. I gave out to 40 people the product for free.
Okay.
They tested for 3 months. They saw the blood test results. They saw results. My next step was, would you like to continue? So many people said yes. And I'm just like, would you like to pay? And that comparison, the are you willing to pay, is the real indicator if you have a product market fit.
Yeah, put your money where your mouth is.
100%, because all of that is just kindness or give me stuff for free, all that stuff. Because everybody, I get approached, you wanna try this, you want this, can I send you this? Dude, sure.
Yeah.
I'll try it, I'll send it, but until I buy it doesn't mean anything.
Exactly. It's so true. And so, right, so the first step is get product market fit.
Get the market feedback. Don't manufacture, take, reposition, get feedback. And then when you have enough feedback, then you can go into manufacturing.
Okay. And one thing you said there, you said white label, like, so in order to get the feedback, do you just make a small quantity of the product? Or like, how, like, let's say someone has like a protein brand, or a clothing brand, like you mentioned, but you're saying not to manufacture yet. But then how do you get the feedback?
You— so both parties you mentioned is perfectly in line with white labeling. Yeah, you go out, you believe if you're clothing— listen, clothing, first and foremost, is how I feel about the clothing. Like when you put something on it, it can be the same texture, same fiber. But if it's, if it's a certain brand, you feel better about yourself. Yeah, from a clothing perspective, can you create an idea, ideology, an IP, a brand that people want to associate with? That's first and foremost. How the texture feels, how it fits is the second thing. People will forgive you if it doesn't fit as well as long as the ideology matches their own identity. On the protein side of things is, what are you trying to achieve? You want to have the best protein in the market? Listen, I know the best proteins in the market. That's not the ones that people buy. People buy the protein that they feel works best for them. And the reason why it works best for them is because It's associated with the person that they like. It's a brand that they like. It's manufactured in the country that they trust. It's certified by the company they like, or it's a website experience that they really like. Yeah. The protein itself, like, let's, creatine monohydrate, the same across the board. It's the same. Some sell it for 3 times more. Yeah. Why? Because they have a certain athlete on it, because they put a certain branding on it, and because they put it in certain stores. It's like this old thing with a water bottle, right? You could buy a water bottle pack of 12 for, you know, 10 cents. You can buy it for a dollar at the vending machine, or you can buy it for $5 in the hotel minibar. It's the same water bottle.
Yeah, all about the branding.
Like, if you are found and you believe you can create the atmosphere, the scarcity, the inclusion of a hotel minibar when you sell your product. Why drop? Why are drops so important? Drops, when you drop, when it drops, the exclusivity and limited amount makes it popular.
Yeah, build up the hype.
You need to create— it's, it's, it is a book called Oversubscribed. Whatever you do in life, you need to be oversubscribed. And the way you oversubscribe is just do one less and people want to buy.
Yeah, I absolutely love that. And so I also like, I advise a lot of guys in the fitness industry on how to get in the fitness industry, grow, make a career out of it. And I always say build an audience first, provide value first, and then ask them what do they want? What are they asking for? People should want to buy your product before it exists. I'd like, people should be on a waiting list, like be like, please coach me, please train me, please tell me what to do. That's how I started. I was just put out content on Facebook. You know, I've been in the fitness industry for 10 years, I think 12 years now if you count my Facebook days. And I would just write informative posts as statuses, written word. Then I went on to YouTube and I was just talking about fitness myths and dispelling some bro science. And I didn't even ask for people to sign up to my program or ask for any sponsors or anything until I just made like at least 100 videos first. At least like, like, people would take my advice in the videos, they would come back with a before and after, and I'm like, I haven't even launched a coaching business yet and I have reviews and testimonials already. So, so many people, they're impatient. They show up with their hands out begging for money and, you know, they haven't even done the work before that. They haven't even built the hype. So I absolutely love that. So now you got the user feedback and it was good. People were getting their blood markers were improving and everything. What was the moment that like you decided to launch? And then when you launched, what was the like aha moment? What was the moment that you're like, okay, shit, we're onto something here?
So unfortunately I'm gonna break the fairy tale story. This aha moment took 6 years.
I love it.
We almost, We almost died 3 times on the way there. Every single thing that could have went wrong went wrong. You launched a company in the UK, a couple months later Brexit. We started sending nurses to people's homes to do blood tests. COVID started, we couldn't send nurses anymore. Um, if we opened up the, the UAE, then the whole conflict in the region started. Um, like every single thing you can imagine could have not just went completely the opposite way. But the accumulation of proprietary data and the uniqueness of the product, to this day, we're the only company in the market where you, at any given moment, you can do a before and after, as you just said, in terms of your improvement levels with your blood levels. So, every time a person sells you supplements, they don't sell you the results, they sell you the hope that you will feel better, that your body will improve. With Bionic, our ideas of a feedback loop, where you start taking supplements. This is your snapshot. You take it for 2, 3 months, you do a new snapshot, and we will focus on the improvement of this journey. So we just released a couple months ago the largest biochemical data analysis for over 400 people over the last 3 years took Bionic for more than 6 months. 92% of people have improvement levels on more, some of the most significant blood markers including ferritin, including vitamin D, that nobody else in the market even talked about. So it took us 6 years to get the proprietary database to be big enough to create and to scale a business that is very, very hands-on in the beginning. So to all the founders out there, this is not an overnight success story. I understand when the news about Cristiano came out, people were like, oh, he got lucky. Yeah, sure, we got lucky. We did get lucky, but it took us 7 years. Cristiano has been on the product since 2022. So he's been experiencing it himself for almost 4 years now. And when you get to the point of this really brand, global brand, it takes a very big foundation to handle it. One of those foundations was we grew 10x in the last 12 months. So from our fulfillment capability, because every single Bionic, every single Bionic that you get, right, is personally made for you, it's custom made for you. There's no, there's no formula twice, not for you, not for anybody else. To have this USP, this unique selling point of personalization. It also puts a limitation on you in terms of cost because it's high cost, premium because it's Swiss-made, and at the same time, it's very, very labor-intensive to get it to you. But we wouldn't have it any other way because we understand the quality that we need to bring for you to believe in the product and stay with us over a long time. Because when people ask me, how long should I take Bionic? I tell them, how long do you plan on eating healthy and sleeping well?
Yeah, yeah. I love that. Like, when people are like, if they take a supplement, they're like, how long will the effects last? As long as you take it. You know, you can't just, you can't just go to the gym and then it's, you're done for the rest of your life. It's a lifelong thing.
Same as with the gym. You might have to change your workout routine, your workout regimen. But if you just, because you worked out 3 weeks ago, it's not going to help you 4 years from today.
Yeah. And I love what you said there about the before and afters. Like, actually, showing people. Because like, with like coaching, you can very easily see a visual before and after. Or like, if you're a business coach or something, you can show improved revenue. But with supplements, it's like, I took a vitamin D supplement, you're like, I think I feel better. You know, like, it's so hard to quantify. There's a few things like pre-workout where you can take and yeah, you'll be buzzing off your tits and ready to go to the gym. But there's other things like, uh, like wellness supplements and vitamins and minerals that you don't feel the effects when you take it. So the fact that you get the blood work is, and you show the before and afters, that's, uh, that's very compelling. And so with the blood work, how do you get it? Like, how do you get it done? Because I know you mentioned there you're sending nurses to everyone in the UK. That, that's difficult.
Yeah, we're— so Bionic, last month we sold to 73 countries. So the majority of those countries, people, anybody who has a blood test, a relevant blood test in terms of markers, and that is within the last 3 months, can upload in our Bionic app and we'll be able to produce a formula for you. If you don't have a blood test, we have a product called Bionic Go, which is a questionnaire-based product which will then predict what kind of blood test results you would have. So our two products is Bionic Go, which is $75 a month, and then Bionic Pro for $200 a month. And difference is Bionic Go is questionnaire-based and Bionic Pro is blood test-based. But as you said, from a convenience perspective, if you have a blood test, you can just upload it regardless where you are in the world. Yeah, we'll ship it to you and we take it from there. Now, interesting part, what you just said in terms of seeing the results or feeling the results. Very interesting thing is 30% of the people who have significant improvements don't feel a difference. So, their body is in a better state, their mind does not understand what's going on.
Yeah.
They just improved their lifespan and the quality of their life. They reduced the risk of any of those injuries or illnesses, but the mind does not always track how the improvement internally goes. So this is an important part why the snapshot is so important. Sometimes you feel something like you said, you take a pre-workout, oh my God, this is great, and then takes off. Your vitamin D level could be an optimal level and you will never notice difference, but you don't get ill, your heart health is better, you stay more energized for longer. You know, all those things that you don't realize on a day-to-day basis in the moment, but over a long period of time, it's a humongous benefit.
Yeah, it's kind of like I wear a Whoop, and when I wake up and I have a red score or something, and I'm like, ah, I feel fine. I'll go to gym, but I'm like, nah, it's definitely not good. It's probably like, but I have a meal late at night, or alcohol, of course, absolutely kills it. It's funny, like you said, it's definitely not good for your health, but sometimes you can still, your mind will just tell you to keep on going. And do you wear Whoop or anything like that? Or do you track?
So we're officially partnered with Whoop. We're officially partnered with Oura for many, many years. Yeah. I wear all of them. I don't wear them for sleep for that reason that you just said. I want to believe myself just mentally. I have a couple of things that I do. The moment I reach 1,000 burned calories in the day, I take everything off.
Okay.
Because I wear all wearables until 1,000, and then afterwards I'm like, okay, I got my thing. Whatever is above is fine. From a sleep perspective, I'm a pretty good sleeper. I have a very good routine unless I travel, then I'm horrible.
Yeah.
Like most of us. But yeah, it's very important for any gadget that you do, including the, you know, the continuous glucose monitoring, CGMs, you should do it for at least 2 weeks to understand how your body reacts to certain things. Because especially if somebody like you or somebody who works out a lot, we're very in tune with our bodies. We know how much protein we intake, we know when we overate, we know when we ate too late, we know when we overworked out. But it's still important to have a baseline internally to better understand.
Yeah.
So I'm all for data tracking integration, but it has to be to the benefit of you monitoring. It should not dictate how you feel or what you do. Yeah.
Yeah, for sure. It's like there's some days where it kind of convinces you to not go hard, and I'm like, I don't need that. I'm like, whoop, hype me up. Stop putting me down. Like, come on, I need you to encourage me. And so in terms of, I'm sure you work with a lot of athletes, of course, a lot of high performers. What are the most common deficiencies that they have in their blood work and their general health.
So the interesting part is, the weirdest part is when people come to us and we're like, hey, you're taking supplements? They're like, yeah, I don't need supplements, I work out a lot, or I'm a very healthy person and I do a lot of sports. The interesting thing is the more sports you do, the more supplementation you need. It's actually the opposite because when you do a lot of sports, there's a lot of deficiencies because your body is using up a lot of your microelements, micro and the vitamins in your body. So there's a lot of magnesium need, there's a lot of iodine need. Because it replaced with the amino acids. So when you work with athletes, it's very interesting. Like for example, testosterone, the favorite blood marker that everybody looks at, especially if you're a man, if you're a guy. Yeah. You get a 50 blood parameter blood test. The first thing you do is like, where's my testosterone? Okay, what does it mean? Testosterone, let's say your testosterone should be between 15 to 25, above 20 would be preferred. Let's say it's 12, right? When it's 12, there's two reasons for that. There's more than two, but two main ones. Both is you're lazy, you have high stress levels, you don't work out, your lifestyle is not very good for you, you're aging quicker than chronologically, you're gonna be probably ill in a more advanced period of time. Or you're a very hard trainer, you're training for a marathon, you're probably doing Ironman soon, you just finished a 30-kilometer bike ride the day before the blood test, all those things. So, it's the same blood marker, same level, but completely different reasons. One is you're completely sedative lifestyle and one is you're overtrained. So, the information for the body is both of those people have different reasons to be in that level and they have different reasons what, how to get out of it. So, the athlete needs more nutrients to fill back up the tank that he, that he's got deficient from the workouts. The other person doesn't need to fill up anything. The other person needs to look on his HDL and LDL cholesterol levels. He probably needs to look at his uric acid in terms of food intake. So that's completely different conversation.
Yeah.
So when we talk to athletes and they're like, I'm a, I have a healthy lifestyle, I'm like, that's great. That probably means you sweat a lot. If you sweat a lot, you have electrolytes. People don't think about that. This is the more active you are, the more support you need. Yeah.
So very individual. And so in terms of like tryout your, your business journey, what's been the most meaningful moment? Like what has almost like brought you to tears? What has made you like so happy? Like, has it been a crazy transformation, some really nice feedback, and maybe just hitting a certain milestone? Like what's made you be like, oh my God, like really emotional even?
So emotionally, there's, there's things that we never advertise, we never publish, but we now have more than double digit of women in the age 35+ that never had children. Oh, wow. And that, that after taking the MicroElements improved the microelement vitamin levels to a level that they could conceive. So we have literally, we received letters and letters of people who chat with us that they thank us so much that we were part of their journey to the first child. So that's something that gets you very, very emotional as a team internally because you understand that Regardless what's going to happen in the future, uh, we had something positive impact, um, internally on people's lives. I think that's— and then of course then you have other things. So that's from an emotional customer journey perspective. Yeah. When of course you have somebody like the world's most famous person in Cristiano, the most Googled person in the world. I remember the phone call I received from his team, um, end of 2023, and literally saying, hey, Cristiano has been on your product, he really enjoys the journey, he really enjoys the communication with the team and the vision, and she would like to be part of the journey as an investor going forward.
Wait, so he hit you up?
Yes. So it was not us. You would never reach out to a, of your client and ask him to participate. That's not how this works.
Yeah.
I compared this once to if somebody comes into your restaurant and he enjoys your dish and you're like, oh, this dish is really good. You wouldn't come to me like, You want to buy my restaurant? I'm just like, yeah, of course. Thank you. Yeah, we'll look forward to seeing you again. So we were very, always very, very careful and cautious. So when it happened 3 years later after joining, um, of course this was a very big breakthrough and the entire team just went around it. And when it became public, the one thing that you need to understand is when you do a startup, it's such a tight-knit group that the people inside of it, they see the mission, they believe in the vision, they live it every day because otherwise they wouldn't join a startup. They would go to a big corporation. Get all the health benefits, get all the employee benefits, have all the security. But now they could all come to the startup. And when it breaks through, I mean, we have a lot of employees age 25, 30. They went to their parents like, see, I told you I know what I'm doing. Because when they told their parents like, hey, I'm joining this startup, this thing that didn't exist 2 years ago or 3 years ago, and the parents like, what are you doing with your life? And then something big like this happens. I remember I was so proud for my team members. I was so proud that they were able to experience this. They were able to be part of this journey. They're able to go to their parents, to their friends, to the husbands, to the girlfriends, whatever it is, and just share that what they're building is so monumental that somebody of that stature reached out and wanted to be part of the journey also.
That is insane. And like, so how did you kind of like, what did you work out? Like, he's, is he an owner of the company, an investor?
Like, was he, he's a, he's a, he's a major shareholder in the company.
That is unbelievable.
That's a major shareholder company.
Yeah, that's a pinch me moment for sure. And you also got Uncle Mike, Mike Thurston, as well.
Mike. So Uncle Mike, my partner. Yeah, one thing that I could never— like, I always give Mike the biggest credit. So Mike's been on since 2021. Yeah, Mike was one of the first clients we had in the UAE. Um, he was with us when we had probably, you know, maybe 10, 12 people. We didn't have a single employee in the Dubai office, nobody there. And he just believed on the journey. He supported us throughout. He was with us from day one. And I'm really, really proud of the journey that we went through together. Obviously, he's keep blowing up, blowing up, blowing up. I mean, his podcast, his shows, everything he does is becoming really, really big. And that he was experiencing us from day one. He always said, listen, it's like, because you mentioned Whoop, it's like bionic. He's like, Bionic in the supplement space, Whoop in the wearables. That's the two things. That's what I do. Even if you, if I wouldn't have any relationship with it, I would still use the product. That's the people you want. You want the people like the Christianos, like the Mugs, who regardless if they're involved or not, want to use the product, believe in the mission, and then makes all the other conversations so much easier.
Yeah, that's the sweet spot. Like I'm in a few contracts myself with like Alpha Lead and Ghost and they don't even ask me to post. They never ask for it. So I just use it every single day. I just do it organically. And when you're doing influencer partnerships or athlete partnerships, whatever, it needs to be as organic as possible or it's just cringe. It's just cringe and it's forced. It's just difficult for the audience to watch and it does not convert to sales. But yeah, Mike is a great friend of mine and that's actually how I saw Bionic and that's how I saw you guys' podcast as well. And I actually, like I saw him always using the brand and you like stole him from Myprotein pretty much. And then I saw like he announced his partnership. So you guys, that just goes to show how good a product is that, you know, he kind of dropped everything else and went with you guys. So that's awesome.
I mean, I'm not selling this. I'm living this, right? The thing, the good thing when you're the founder, you don't have to sell anything and wake up.
And, you know, it's like, there you go, you got him on deck.
Uh, Mike made the decision that he felt comfortable with. I am not against his decision. I'm very supportive, and I'm extremely happy and proud. And the journey has been incredibly fun, but I think the biggest and the coolest things are just starting. That's, that's for sure. I mean, we're now on the global stage. We're now in 73 countries growing. We just signed some of the biggest partnerships in the US, so majority of our clients are US-based. We're building out many different directions. You know, Remedy Place, the largest social wellness club in the US, one of the popular things, Dr. Jonathan Leary, the founder. So we're integrating with them. There's a huge, huge participation announcement. And they're like the leading social wellness club in the world. We just signed with the largest laboratory network in all of GCC and Saudi. We're integrated with them into 400 locations. So there's a lot of stuff going on that is really, really exciting. It just takes time. So to all the founders, entrepreneurs out there, guys, unfortunately, when you build a brand, there's this average time for brands to be fully established. It takes 12 years.
What?
You can't— yes, you said yes. It's 12 years until a brand has been established enough in the market for people to trust. You can speed it up by, as you said, by being a a content creator who people trust, and then you know the content creator. You don't know the brand, but you trust the content creator. Yeah, the Kardashians kind of way.
Exactly.
Yeah, that's how they got— because they just, they can skip out of 12 years, they can skip 10.
Exactly.
They can build one too. So that's a way. But if you're not that part, if you're not on that, on that level, and there's only very few people on that level, it will take you around 10 to 12 years to get— Bionic is still not established, And we're 6 years in, right? It's going to take another 6 years to get on the world level where you come in, you hear Bionic, you might just hear Bionic, you envision Bionic Blue, you understand it's personal supplements, you know it's Swiss made, and the whole story done. Yeah, I take as long as we did.
Yeah, I actually love that attitude of what you said. You're like, 6 years only getting started. Like, I think every year I tell myself, usually in January, I'm like, It's just getting, it's just getting started. It's just the beginning. And it kind of gives you this fresh approach to business. Like everything feels new and exciting. And then before you know it, you've done your 12 years and you're where you want to be. And how many offices do you have? Or where, where's HQ? Where are you guys based?
So HQ is London. So we manufacture in Switzerland, we mix everything in a laboratory in London. So that's our headquarters. And then we have an office in Berlin. And we have an office here in Dubai in DIFC. We have 3 offices and we're currently setting up shop in the US.
Nice. Whereabouts? Whereabouts in the US?
So interestingly enough, we always aim for New York, but given how everything is changing, we might, we might do Texas or Florida.
Yeah.
Certain reasons.
Yeah, just because the economy, a little bit less, less crazy, a little bit less crazy. I spent a lot of time in Houston as one of the brands that I work with, Alphalete, is based there. And yeah, it's a good time. Miami as well. It's got— Miami's turned into kind of a little bit of a a business hub, a little bit of an entrepreneur hub.
After COVID, after COVID, a lot of people moved there, a lot of money moved there.
Yeah, a lot of people moved down south from New York. They just kind of migrated down. But yeah, I love Miami. You know, it's easy to get lost in the sauce, but it's also good to work hard, meet some good people as well. And what's your like office environment like? Like where are you personally, like where do you spend most of your days?
So unfortunately, I'm a very big fan of offices. I really believe in the team culture and corporate culture. Because of COVID that was ruined.
Yeah.
Um, because we just opened the London office, just start hiring people a year in, home office for a couple years, then we open up different offices. So now we have— we started again with the full-time offices, um, in, in, uh, Dubai and in London. So London is 5, 5 days a week, everybody's in. Yeah. Dubai, we just started where they're 3 days a week, plus minus, people come more often, some of them. I fully believe you need to get 5 days back. The whole conversation, I mean, there was just, there was a public uproar that some of the public trade CEOs were saying, guys, if you don't want to work in the office, don't work. Like, find a different job. Yeah, I am in tune with this. There's a thing when you're a startup where, because you're a startup as a founder, there's certain things I expect from you as an employee, as a team member. And I can't put in a contract. Like, if a customer writes on Sunday, would I like for you to reply? Yeah, officially no, you can't. But if you do and I didn't ask you to, would I be appreciative? I would, yes. Can I then tell you you have to be in the office at 9 AM on Monday if you just work at 10 PM on Sunday to, to solve a customer problem? I can't. So I can't, I can't have one without the other. So if you give me full-out effort and support, I need to give you the freedom to make your own decisions. Yeah. And this is something where it's a balancing act. And when you're with somebody long enough, it's an easy balance. You trust them. But if somebody just joins the company and they need the structure and they're not fully in and they don't know what to do in a situation when somebody writes you on Sunday because they've never experienced this before, then obviously a structure with working times with an office makes more sense.
Yeah. And when you're hiring someone, what's the main thing that you look for?
That's the master of things. This is a startup. If you come for money or status, dude, this is the wrong place. Unless you're super far in your career, like I'm talking right now, senior partners from some of the leading companies, the McKinseys and, you know, the BCGs of the world, call me like, I want to join Bionic. I'm like, dude, why would like, you're 40 years old, you make a couple millions a year. Why do you want to join me? And he's like, I done it all, I tried it all. I just want to do something I'm super passionate about. Yeah, I'm part of it. Then I know, okay, so he wants to be part of it. He wants a status so his buddies and friends and his wife or his husband don't ask, what the hell are you doing? So they're going for the status. But that's the rarest thing. Majority of the people who I speak to, I'm like, what are you trying to achieve? What are you trying to get out of it? What's your passion level? And then what I said, and I said this publicly a couple of months ago and it got created a bit of an uproar, I will offer a salary that is just below market level. Not because we can't pay you market, we can pay you market level, but your starting salary, I want to see if you're okay to sacrifice for the understanding that you're part of something bigger. Believe me, once you come on board and you do, you perform, I'm happy to review you 3, 6 months later, I don't care. But the moment you sign that paper, I want to see How bought in are you? And when I see a 24, 26-year-old saying to me, hey, I don't work below that figure, I'm like, you don't understand how corporate development works. You don't understand how career development works. You right now are more focused on the wrong thing. That $1,000 extra might feel like a big difference today, but if you make the wrong career decision at 24, 26, it will take you to a completely different path in 10 years from today. One path will take you to $5K more, one path can take you to $20K more a month if you do the right path. And I have examples on the team who trusted me when they, when they got out of college and said, I don't care about my, my, my compensation. I care about the role. I care about my involvement. I care about, am I behind the scenes? Do I understand what's going on? Can I be part of the decision process? And those people are the ones who make careers with us or in the market. That's the mindset I'm looking for when I'm onboarding people.
Yep. And so when you're hiring someone, do you look at— this is a good debate I was reading about recently— do you look at their education, their degrees, or do you look at what they've done, their experience? And also, second question to tie on to that, what do you think of college education today? You know, Dave, that's a hot topic.
So the thing, what you do do, listen, this is, I'm not going to take anything away, I will look at your previous two spots. So if you're fresh out of college, of course I'll look at your college because I have no other— that's my only relevance that I can get. So if you're from a good college, I know you tried hard, you got through admission, you got your money's worth, you probably invested or you got a scholarship. That's good. When I was at Groupon, one of the reasons around me, I was 20, I was the youngest CEO. I was 26 years old when I joined Groupon as a CEO.
Yeah, that's great.
There was a lot of other young people there. What they did was they would go to McKinsey and hire people from McKinsey. And the reason why they hire people from McKinsey is because McKinsey only hires the smartest, the brightest, the hardest working who went through their 7 interview cycles, went to those top schools. So they had a filter process. So when I speak to somebody, I look at your resume, whatever I have previously, it's a filter process. But if you're 30 years old, and you had a very good job prior and you went, you don't have a college degree, or you want to, it's an average university, I don't care, dude. Yeah, I care what you did in the last 2, 3 years. I don't care where you went to school 10, 15 years ago. If you come from a strong player in the market, if you come from a strong player in the market and you have no college degree, I couldn't care less.
Nice.
Yeah, I agree. I care what you've done in your career most recently, because if you've done something 10, 15 years ago, it's not really relevant. I call, I tell people, listen, I hire for the will, not the skill, because if you have the will, I can teach you the skill. If you have the skill but not the will, your skill will be outdated so quickly, it's ridiculous. Yeah.
And what do you think of college today? Like, do you think it's a little bit outdated? Do you think it's necessary in order to succeed? By the way, I'm a college dropout, so answer correctly here.
Again, what is— how much of what I learned in college am I using in my everyday business? 5%. Yeah. Why do I think college is important? College is important in terms of your persona building and your network.
Yeah.
So if my children want to go to college, I would be like, where are you trying to go to? What are you trying to do? Are you going to be able to apply what you learned in college to profession? No. But you will be able to apply how you learned in college to your profession. I learned in college how to study.
Yeah.
I was taught how to study, not what I studied, how to study. I learned the template, the technique, right? Just like with a workout, like, okay, it's 8 to 12 reps, you, you know, negatively go slower, that goes high expo. Like you take proteins that like you, you learn the template.
Yeah.
If you tell me this is a biceps, this is a leg workout, I get it. It's, it's for me, it's, it's the muscle groups are different, but technique is similar. So this is what I learned in college. Second thing that you learn is from a network perspective. Who else did you go to college? And not because you know this person, because you understand their background. You know how to speak to, like, you are former rugby, fitness industry, live in Dubai or come to Dubai. Yeah, dude, I can sit with you for hours and we have enough to talk because I understand your background. Yeah, I can talk about the struggles, about the pain, about the rehab, about injuries, about lifestyle, about tax-free living. About entrepreneurship, all that kind of stuff. I know from 3 things about you. But now if you went to my same university, I could talk about that dorm, that fraternity, that bar, that professor. And so it's so much more deeper.
That's so true. Yeah. The guys that I went to school with, like, you know, school before college, it's a boarding school and we're still so close to this day. Like, like 12, I don't know, even 15 years on, whatever it is. But yeah, just, just endless stuff to talk about. It's wild. And so also one quick thing that I want to ask as well, have you got any investment for Bionic?
Yes. So we raised over $30 million in total.
Okay. And so I'm like, what's the process when like, okay, you raised $30 million. Like how, like, do you just start contacting people and be like, hey, do you got a million? Like when I hear companies saying like, hey, we raised $30 million in our seed round, or we raised $50 million. It's just a staggering amount of, of, it's a staggering figure. I'm like, how do you do it?
Set— first of all, you never raise, I mean, unless you're US or you just do an AI business, you don't really raise. You— so there's stages, seeds, there's a, a seed round, Series A, Series B, Series C, and da da da. So what do you do? So from my perspective, as Bionic didn't raise money for the first 2 years, it was fully self-funded by me.
Yeah.
When you're self-funded, you have some traction, a lot of people reach out, more new customers are asking, hey, especially if it's a premium product, what you're doing, how's it going, is it interesting, maybe, you know, I can participate. This is the level where you probably should say no because you want at that, at that stage, you want actually VC money who knows how to ramp the business, how to grow the business. So the first thing we did was a seed round where we raised, I think, 1.5 That was the first money came in. Then you do the Series A, then you do the Series B. So last round was $15 million, um, at $82 million valuation. Now the next one will be Series C, and the valuation will be something else, hopefully higher. So, so that's kind of the process going on. So it's never like found. It's to show traction. So the first thing, when you're little, it's not about traction, it's about the sector and the founder. Is the sector growing? Health is growing. Do you believe in the founder? Well, the founder just put in 2 years of his own money in it. He quit a CEO-type level corporate job. He already built a product, has a brilliant brand, knows how to grow business, grew Groupon from $0 to $300 million. Like the whole thing, like you need to have the track record before you have a track record. Yeah. So that's when you start. Then when you do Series A, then they start looking at your figures. How quickly are you growing? So at Series A, they want to— want you to grow at least 100% year on year. That's minimum, preferably 200-300%. Then you get to Series B. Series B is— it's not just about growth. They still want you to grow 100%, but they want you to acquire a customer who pays back office acquisition costs in less than 6 months. So if you give me $100, I go to Facebook or I go to Google or I go to an affiliate or I go to sponsorship and I pay whatever on this platform, $100, whoever client I get from that platform needs to buy enough product that over 6 months' time my margin is bigger than this $100 that I invested. If you achieve that, there's a product market fit. So the formula is very simple: lifetime value, which is how much money does a person spend with you minus the costs, so the margin, should be 3 times bigger than the cost of acquisition. So it's a 3-to-1. So if you want to raise a lot of money, you should have a US-centric customer base because that's the highest multiple.
Yeah.
You should be in a subscription business, preferably in SaaS, which is software as a service, or can be health. Both of them are growing very quickly. And you should acquire people at the 3-to-1 rate in terms of how much money you make per person that you acquire. If you have all this, you can probably raise $30, $40, $50 million or more.
Nice, nice. And you mentioned that like companies or investors, they will look at the founder, right? And I see you, you're on a bit of a podcast run at the moment. So how important for a CEO or founder is building your personal brand?
Without figures, it's complete bullshit and it's a waste of time. The reason why you didn't see me as much on a podcast beforehand 'Cause if I performed on a podcast, I would have nothing to tell you about. I would feel like an idiot sharing stories how I built a mediocre business over 5 years. So this is great, and then I'm appreciative of the platforms that I'm receiving. I understand that the platforms I'm receiving have all something to do with Unilever shareholders. So that's completely— I'm not naive to that. Yeah. But for me to be able to share something with somebody, with some of your listeners that might be of value to them, I need to be able to actually create a business that is viable. To grow the business to a level that is something discussable and to be interesting for other people. So I know a lot of founders who have a shitty business, who are probably going to close the business down in 6 to 12 months, who are on LinkedIn every freaking day talking about how great they are and what a great idea they had or what webinar they went to or what podcast they did. I know their figures because they asked me to borrow their money, loan them money, invest in their companies. And I'm just sitting there, I'm like, dude, This is the wrong time for self-PR. Yeah, self-PR is the easiest thing to do.
That's what— it's fun.
You don't have to— I don't have to convince yourself. It looks like you looking in the mirror in the gym. I don't mind. If you look like Mike, that's okay. You, you get to look in the gym, but you'll be having average body, dude. Put your t-shirt back on.
Exactly. Get to work.
That's the same thing with podcasts, dude. Yeah. If you have nothing to show off, shut your mouth.
Exactly. Get back to building and don't talk about something until you got something to talk about.
Yeah.
And so what is your daily routine looking like at the moment? Run us through, you know, a full day in the life.
That's the thing. I can give you an average day, but the day will never repeat itself. Okay. So I surround myself from a company and people perspective with very like-minded people also in regards to their health and their intensity they work out with. So, almost majority of my team members are former professional athletes who are very, very in tune with the physical achievements of people. So, there's a lot of days that start at 7:00 AM on the beach where we do 2-hour walks, 10 kilometers, and just have discussions around all those things that we do want to achieve or just ideate and talk. There was a thing where Steve Jobs made this famous 20, 30 years ago that he would have meetings while walking. When you walk, your brain works more efficiently and has a better— you're more creative. So that's set up. Then you start looking into, okay, what's the priority? So when you're a CEO, I always tell to my team, come to me with the big things and come to me with a solution where you know yes or no. If you don't have a solution, don't bring me just the problem. If you just bring me the problem, you just park the problem with me. We're not solving anything. Yeah. So if there's a problem, I expect people— for me to do, I do 3 things in a I provide resources, which can be the funding for the business, or can be administratively, we're set up to do business. I do business development. Nobody does business development better than the founder because I'm the living product. I have the most flexibility. I know what we can do and what we can't do. I'm able to close the deal because of the, just of the sheer, let's call it, responsibility that I'm holding regardless. And the third one is resolution. And resolution is a nice word for taking care of the shit. When all the problems happen internally, externally, anything goes wrong, regardless if it's legal, HR, if it's PR, whatever it is, you are there for the resolutions aspect. That's the three things that I do. Now, how is this structured? Again, because we have different markets, we have certain products, certain calls, certain setups from technology perspective, marketing perspective, product perspective. But your real value as a founder is the three things: resources, business development, and resolutions.
Yeah, nice. And so what time, like, what time do you get into the office at? And then like, what time that, like, what time do you train at? Like, you know, give us, give us a little bit of insight into your life.
Problem is I'm going to tell you the truth and your listeners are going to think I'm not working. Yeah. So My day is, again, it's called a beat your cardio of 7 to 9. You, you do the emails before you get, just before 7 you check the emails. Yeah. You do, you check in with the team from 9 to 10. You work out. If you do cardio beforehand, you work out at like 10. If you do, don't do the cardio beforehand, you work out at 8:30. So around 11 you're done with, you're done with your workouts. Yeah. So I'm a guy, I work out in the morning.
Yeah, me too.
I don't work out in the evening. So by 11, I'm done regardless of what I did. And then starts the work process. And then it's in that part. The good thing about Dubai is we're 3 to 4 hours before UAE and the UK.
I love that. It's such a chilled morning atmosphere. It's so good.
Well, 11 o'clock for me is 7 AM in the UK. So by the time they get up, I'm already ready to roll. But then you also have the reasons why it can be a very long night is because we have a New York based, they're US-based people, so they only get online at 4, 5 PM. And so when we have calls with them, it can be 9, 10, 11, 11 PM. So this is the reason why I would love to tell you an average day, I get in the office, I have 2 meetings, I take a break. That's not how this works.
Okay.
Yeah.
So every day is quite different.
For example, our CTO is flying in on Friday. We're going to have a strategic session on Saturday, Sunday. He's leaving Sunday night. My weekend will be in the office from 8 till 4.
Yeah, so totally random hours.
Completely random hours, whatever. Like, oh, the flight, he lands at 6 AM. Okay, well, if he lands at 6 AM, let's go straight to the beach, go for a walk, then drive to the office.
Yeah.
You just figure out whatever works. It's not about— it's about the results at the end of the day, right? You build a structure that people believe in and the mission that they drive for. They understand what they're trying to achieve, and then you provide the resource for them to do it.
Damn. Okay.
If the flexibility of the calendar is a benefit, then the calendar is flexible. If the flexibility of the calendar is actually bad for people because they can't structure the day, then you need to implement a more structured setup. But every company is different. Every person is different. I have— every single person is a different persona. One is a diva. I can't tell him shit. A girl can take the hat— like, she wants to be like— let me know right away if there's something wrong. One person, I have to like walk around, he's passive-aggressive. I can't say anything wrong. Like, everybody is different.
Nice. All right, so one thing you do have to do every day though is eat. So what is your diet and your nutrition looking like?
So I've been a big boy my whole life. I was up to 330 pounds or 133 kilograms when I was playing basketball at 12% body weight. So I was always very, very big. I then blew up in a bad way, would probably be up to 25, 26% body fat when I get corporate. I changed around a couple things and I've been very, very in tune. So I implemented a lot of the early, early window of food. So I eat right away when I get up. I get 5 boiled eggs with 100 grams of mixed berries. So I get this 30 grams of protein in right away. And I just get up to my 200, 250 grams a day of protein. Yeah, but I stop eating by 5:30 PM. I don't eat after 5:30. That not eating after 5:30 does a couple of things to me. A, my sleep quality is so much better.
Same.
And secondly, my worst calories are always the ones at night. That's my worst calories. The problem is it's like, oh, I'm just going to have this Greek yogurt. Nah, it's going to be the Greek yogurt with the peanut butter and a little bit of honey, and then you do a little bit of chocolate on top and then, oh yeah, It will never be that. So I realized to myself, I'm a very black and white guy. I don't do gray. Like, if I find 5:30 is my last thing, I would chug down a triple chocolate protein shake at 5:30, but I will not eat anything after that. So that's kind of like my window. It allowed me to get down to around 16, 17% body fat. So I'm still not in the Mike on the beach category, but I get to the point where I get to be. And now the idea is like, hey, how low can we go? But at the same time, you still want to be productive. So I think at 40, in my line of work, you need to look the part. You need to look healthy. For sure. Otherwise, you would never buy a health product for somebody who doesn't look healthy. But it doesn't have to be that, you know, that 5% body fat gym bro.
Yeah, I've been there. I've been to 5.6 is the lowest body fat percentage I've recorded myself at in a DEXA scan. And all you can do is think about food all day. Going up the stairs is a difficult task. Would not recommend. For me, the sweet spot is usually around like 10 or 12 even. Anytime I go below 10, you know, your life is kind of like dictated about thinking about what you're gonna eat. So it's really not productive. For most people, like 12 to 15, around that range is optimal. And you're not always thinking about food. Yeah. And your training, how many times a week do you hit the gym and do you lift weights? What's your training style?
Yeah, so my schedule is 4 times a week. Yeah, um, I do splits, pull and push. I do full body push, pull and push, including legs on those days. I go all out. I go, I go, um, till failure on the last, on the last, uh, set with drop set. Um, pretty, pretty intense. Like, I'm that guy, you know, cranked up music, sweating, doesn't talk to anybody, mad at everybody, just want to get done. I do record everything I do so I know every rep, and if I don't hit my rep for that day, I'm gonna be pissed for another days. But that scoreboard that I told you about, FreshSport, is still there. Like, people, when you see me at the gym, they're like, like, you're just a freaking idiot, like something's wrong with you because you've got to take this too seriously. Uh, one thing is non-negotiable: 10,000 steps, absolute minimum. 20,000 steps is the average.
Yeah.
On the days I don't work out is absolutely, I'm walking 15 to 20,000 steps right away. So I do active recovery in the morning. So instead of doing the whatever, the 8 to 10 in the gym, I will be for 2 hours on the bike, on the treadmill, on the walk. That allows me to, you know, to keep weight quite stable. The moment I'm trying to lose weight, what I do is I add the walking in the evening. So it's an additional walk in the evening. I do an extra hour in the evening, and that will allow me then to cut those extra 1-2%.
Yeah, I find when I'm in Dubai, my step count goes down so much because it's just like Ubers everywhere. Like, you want to cross the road and you got to take an Uber to go like 100 meters. My step count here in Marbella is always like it's like 12,000, 14,000. And it makes such a difference because you're literally burning calories without exercising. You're burning calories in a relaxing way. So it's like, it's easy on the joints. It's good for the mind. I'm always going on about, you know, getting those steps in, you know, if you're looking to retain muscle and lose body fat. So I've got a few little quickfire rapid questions to finish things up. So best health investment that you've made?
Got a dog.
Okay, nice.
You cannot not walk.
I've never got that answer. That is excellent. Okay.
You want to get active? Get a dog, dude. I was a beast fat when I was a kid, when I was like 10, 12, probably 12 years old. I remember I got a dog back then and it got me out of the house and away from the TV. So, that was probably one of the biggest things in terms of activity levels to become more active because just every day, 3 times a day, no excuses. And, that kind of gets you in the groove. So, getting a dog might be a very, very good thing. I'm glad I'm the first one to say that.
Nice, nice. And so, we know Bionic, it takes like, it kind of gives you, it covers all bases. If you were to choose one supplement, one ingredient, one vitamin that everyone should take, what would it be?
Based on data, it's clearly vitamin D. Okay. We've done, we've done 8.1 million people. Only 2 people had optimal levels. So vitamin D is one of those where I can blindly tell you you need at least 5,000 IUs. Depending on your weight, you probably need 8,000. I need 14,000. Yeah. But if you take 5,000 IUs, 99.9%, that's the case that you should take. That's the one supplement everybody is, is deficient in.
Nice. I literally, since moving to Marbella, like, and being in the sun, I just feel everything, everything better. Your testosterone levels, your sex drive, your day-to-day energy. I am a big fan of the sun. Some people try to demonize it, say it's bad. No, I'm like, get out in the sun. It will change your life. What does the future of health optimization look like?
It's completely personalized. There's one thing that is very, very clear. It's A, personalized, and it will be in the moment. So What you're experiencing right now, everybody gets their 5,000 IUs, you take it for 3 months. I believe the personalization will get to the point where you get what you need at this given moment. So, everything will be integrated. Your wearables will be integrated, your weight scale will be integrated, your blood testing will be integrated, your fridge will be integrated where the— your kitchen, when you get into the kitchen, will know how you slept, how you worked out, how you're feeling. How much you weigh, what your plan is for the day, and will prepare a micronutrient-rich food with supplements and macros in it to fuel you for the day. That's the future. The future is personalized and the future is very, very— has a high interval level in terms of adaptation to what you should receive.
My fridge is going to be like, Rob, get the hell out of the kitchen. It's going to lock itself. It's going to set off alarms. And finally, if you were to start Bionic again, what is one thing that you would do differently?
I would not try to do it with friends. So this is one thing that I realized. Business is so difficult, you should not risk a friendship around it. I always say, don't do business with friends, become friends with people you do business with. And that's a clear statement because listen, 95% of all business, all startups fail. Yeah. Don't put that risk profile on a friendship if you're really, really, you know, caring for it.
Yeah. Like I see people start businesses with their partner and their husband and wife, and I'm like, I could only imagine how that would go.
It's hard enough, dude. Divorce rates are high enough without that.
Yeah, exactly.
Don't add this to this.
Bro, you absolutely smashed that. I feel like I just got a masterclass in entrepreneurship. Please tell everyone where they can find out more about you and Bionic as well.
Thank you. So bionic.com is a website, bionicco on Instagram, and I'm Vadim_bionic.
Awesome, bro. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Stay in touch. And when I'm out in Dubai, I'll hit you up.
Please do. Please do. Awesome.