The use of nootropics, chemical or natural substances that have a positive impact on mental skills, is an emerging field in neuropsychology. The most common nootropic in use today is caffeine, which has been proven to improve thinking skills as caffeine has an impact on neurotransmitters in your brain that helps with short-term memory and learning. Nootropics are also becoming popular beyond caffeine as supplements are being developed to help with mental acuity. Thesis is a supplement brand that’s focused on improving cognitive performance by focusing on your individual chemistry as well as your specific goals. Most nootropics brands offer a one-size fits all approach to their offerings; Thesis instead takes a personalized approach, using the first month to understand what works best for a specific person and then formulates the ingredients based on specific factors. This initial assessment can be done for only $79, while other offerings could take you six months and cost ten times that. Offering formulations for energy, creativity, logic, clarity, confidence, and motivation, Thesis has helped over half a million customers since 2017. All nutrients used are vegan, offer high bioavailability (absorbed efficiently), and are rigorously tested for purity.
AlleyWatch caught up with Thesis CEO and Founder Dan Freed to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, which brings the company’s total funding raised to $13.5M, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Thesis has raised $8.4M in Series A financing. Our investors include Unilever Ventures, Redo Ventures, Alive VC, Break Trail, NBA player Kevin Love, and model Kate Bock. Previously, we raised $5.1M in an unreported seed round that included Unilever Ventures, MBX, Trust Ventures, Redo Ventures, and XRC Labs.
Tell us about the product or service that Thesis offers.
Thesis offers a customized approach to cognitive performance products, or nootropics, based on the user’s unique brain chemistry. Through the highest quality ingredients, Thesis helps people boost their cognition and productivity.
What inspired the start of Thesis?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had trouble focusing. I even dropped out of high school after failing all of my classes. People thought that I was lazy or stupid, and it was a very painful experience. It wasn’t until I discovered nootropics that I found my true potential. I was never lazy or stupid; I just couldn’t focus. My brain chemistry wasn’t set up to function in the traditional structure of the American educational system. When I found the right combination of nootropics that worked for my brain, I was able to adapt and succeed in a way that I never thought would be possible. Without nootropics, I wouldn’t be where I am today or be able to function in my job.
How is Thesis different?
While other nootropic brands take a one-size-fits-all approach, Thesis is customized to each person’s unique brain chemistry. We give customers the opportunity to experiment with the highest quality nootropic ingredients in a systematic way that maximizes results. We condensed a process that would otherwise cost over $800 and take six months to complete into a $79, one-month process to test different formulas and find the combinations of ingredients that work best for each person.
We have the highest quality ingredients that are all tested for purity by third-party labs, the gold standard for safety. All of our products are manufactured in the United States in facilities following FDA supplement manufacturing guidelines (cCGMP regulations).
Also, we have some of the strongest health and wellness advocates who use our product, including Dr. Andrew Huberman, Rich Roll, Kevin Love, and Kate Bock.
What market does Thesis target and how big is it?
Thesis is the first line of defense for people who have trouble focusing and being productive. Unfortunately, this is all too common in today’s world. Given macro trends like TikTok, smartphones, working from home, and more, people are struggling with focus more than ever, and nootropics is a category in hyper growth ($14B global market in 2023). Thesis offers a highly effective, approachable product to help people try nootropics.
What’s your business model?
Thesis is DTC and products are available on our website.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
At the beginning of Covid, we got a little nervous because we didn’t know how our audience would respond to what was happening. A lot of people were losing their jobs. While we did lose some customers, we sent free boxes to customers who expressed that they loved our product but couldn’t afford it anymore. We also saw customers hoard our product like toilet paper, asking to buy six months or a year’s supply at a time to make sure they had enough of it. In good times and in bad times, people still need to focus. Whether people use Thesis to power through a high-pressure job or are looking for a job, Thesis provides meaningful benefits, and I couldn’t imagine my life without nootropics. I’ve taken nootropics for ten years, and it would be one of the last things I would ever cut.
What was the funding process like?
Thesis was growing profitably and investors started to notice. We received a lot of outreach and started meeting with people that we really liked. We then decided to set up a process and formally opened our Series A. We are fortunate that we received multiple term sheets.
Thesis was growing profitably and investors started to notice. We received a lot of outreach and started meeting with people that we really liked. We then decided to set up a process and formally opened our Series A. We are fortunate that we received multiple term sheets.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Capital markets have shifted and are now much more risk-averse. We are profitable and have a strong growth trajectory, but the fundraising process still took us longer than expected. We took a much broader approach to fundraising and spoke with many investors, versus the narrower focus we had in our seed round.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
The number one factor is that we are EBITA-positive and growing, so we didn’t need the money. The second is that the nootropics category is a historically highly fragmented market with a lot of competitors (candidly, a lot of shady competitors). Thesis stands out because we are best in class from our supply chain to our values and testing protocols to our partners. We’ve partnered with some of the most incredible voices in the health and wellness space, including Dr. Andrew Huberman, Rich Roll, Kevin Love, and Kate Bock. We are assembling a world-class scientific advisory board that sets us apart from the competition.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
Our main focus for the next six months is hiring. Now that the round has closed, most of our time will be spent building our executive team to set us up for explosive growth. Our focus now is more on the long term, taking our company to $100 million in revenue per year and beyond.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Now is a time where, if you have to go into survival mode, do it sooner, rather than later. Focus on your customers. We made it through our early days of bootstrapping by focusing on our loyal base of customers who genuinely loved our product. When we weren’t in hyper-growth, I was able to spend a lot more time focusing on our core customers and setting our foundation focused on our customers.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
In the near term, we are expanding our offerings on both a product level and on a content and community level. Nootropics have been transformational for me, and I’ve taken them daily for the last ten years, but nootropics alone can only do so much. To see incredible results, you have to combine the right nootropics with healthy habits. We’re building a content strategy that will help people develop and maintain healthy habits to get the most transformative results.
Another thing we’re really excited about is our second product line, Stasis. Stasis was born from a customer need. We watched so many people take stimulants and deal with the downsides of taking them, so we created a formulation specifically designed to support the brains of people taking stimulants. We launched Stasis eight months ago and it has exceeded all of our expectations.
With a plethora of commuting options in the city, how do you typically get to work each day?
I am fortunate that I live five blocks away from our office, so I walk to work. I’m in the office every day, and I bring my dog to work.
