 This is, Start of the Store Front. The concept of biohacking has been around for a while now, and the term can encompass everything from tracking your sleep, to getting a blood transfusion from a younger person in an effort to fight aging. Yes, really. The idea is to find ways in which we can harness the fullest potential of our bodies so that we may perform at our best in whatever we do. The term biohacking can be a deterrent to some, as the more extreme methods are often the ones that come to mind when discussing its merits. Our guests today are Lauren Berling-Jerry and Katie Capps, co-founders of Hiredoast. Their goal is to make biohacking more approachable and remove some of the stigma that comes with it, by designing products like the infrared sauna blanket that can easily be used in a home, and by educating their community on the benefits of routine, self-care, and wellness. So listen in, so we cover everything from why biohacking has never appealed to a broad spectrum of women, why it was hard for them to be taken seriously the first time they raised money, and why they decided to offer themselves up as test subjects for the most extreme biohacks on the market. Now onto the episode. All right, welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking to Lauren and Katie, the founders of Hiredoast. Thanks so much for coming. Either one of you can take this question. What does Hiredoast do? So Hiredoast actually started about six years ago, and we launched with infrared sauna spas. So we used to have locations all throughout New York and one in Brooklyn. And pretty much it was like a tanning salon model for infrared saunas. But we had these really cool locations because we had space within a space and we had partnerships with like Equinox and Eleven Howard, which is a trendy hotel, or in the basement of Alchemist Kitchen, which is like a cool wellness place. So it was kind of like this underground vibe and experience. And each location was very different. And we just had infrared saunas there, but we really made the experience amazing. So it was like red light. We had, you know, Burning Man style music, fridges in each of the rooms. So it was like sponsored product, you get free drinks. You know, we just like thought of everything when it came to the experience. So it really just like took off the location business quicker than we expected. And about, I would say three years ago, we launched our first take home experience, which was our infrared sauna blanket. And we just really wanted to bring infrared to the masses and we knew that opening locations was going to be very slow in doing so. So we wanted to develop something that was affordable, easy to use, and just as powerful as the infrared sauna. So we launched our first version three years ago and have always been working on better versions. But pretty much we saw that side of the business, the sauna blanket side of the business grow at 400% versus our location business, which was growing at 20%. So we were like, hmm, there's something with this infrared sauna blanket. I think it reaches way more people. So we decided that we were going to not open any more locations, but rather develop, you know, more products that could bring the higher dose experience to people's homes. And then pretty much what happened was the pandemic hit and just accelerated that idea for us. We closed all of our locations overnight. The demand for the sauna blanket went up for X. And the next thing you knew it was just Katie, myself and one other employee. We used to have 60 employees just to the three of us. And we kind of like had to restructure the whole entire business. And we quickly became a direct to consumer business and with just a lot of focus on creating, you know, wellness technologies that really ignite people's vitality, make people feel good. Just in terms of like, I'm just curious. So obviously SoulCycle came out, they went the whole coaching route and obviously in a non-pandemic world that works. The thing I'm curious about and the thing that I want to touch on for our listeners is more around what was the friction you were running into. And so I can imagine, obviously you have a certain amount of locations, the employees, the overhead, blah, blah, blah, blah. That becomes like a very, almost like a hamster wheel type of grind. But what was the thing you guys kept hitting on that didn't work? Was it outside of just locations? Was it staffing? Was it getting the right vibe in every different location? Like what was the thing where you guys started to go, you know, this isn't it, this isn't scalable? I think one of the big challenges for us that we discovered as we built our wholly owned location was just the build out of a sauna concept can be very extensive, particularly because of the plumbing. You know, we always want to have showers in our locations and we can. But just getting the permits, especially in New York City, you have to like pull crazy permits to build showers. So that was kind of like a roadblock that we didn't really see coming that kind of like informed our strategy as opening as a space within a space. And then from there, like Lauren was saying, the online product sales were taking off. So we saw that kind of as even more scalable and profitable than space within a space. But it feels like such a left, right? And so when you guys decided to start on, on making the blanket, what was your first step there? It's almost like learning a brand new sport. I see you have a tennis racket behind you. That's awesome. I'm a tennis player. But like, what was that like in terms of like, okay, where do you even start? Where do you go? Did you guys have sauna blankets? Were a bunch of them on the market and just weren't working? What was the first step in getting the prototype ready? Yeah, I mean, very early on Lauren and I partnered with Clearlight and Raleigh Duncan. So he's the CEO of Clearlight, which is the number one infrared sauna company in the US. They make like the cabins, like the one you can see right behind me. And he's been in the industry for, you know, 20, 25 years. He's very familiar with infrared technology and the different formats that it can come in. So we had him on our board of advisors and essentially, you know, pitched him on the idea of helping us co-create these sauna blankets. Prior to the model that we came up with, there were these kind of like rudimentary models that we'd seen in LA at different spas there. But the technology was really low quality. They were super high EMF. The vendors just looked like really sketchy that were producing these things. So we kind of brought an expert on our team, came up with a great design, and then he helped us source like the most amazing manufacturers in the world that we now have exclusive agreements with. And we have a patent pending on our fourth version. So that was kind of our approach. And then when it came to just price point, was that a hard decision to make where you guys, because I can imagine if you're going from in-house visit compared to buying a blanket that can seem like a big jump, but if you just run the numbers, it's probably not. But what was like the price point discussion around how to go to market with it? Yeah, I mean, I think it's a combination of, you know, obviously we have to take into consideration our cost of goods and what kind of margin we're targeting. But then, you know, to your point, we looked at what our customers were typically spending to like come visit us at the spa. And we wanted to offer them a price point that was a good value proposition. Like instead of, you know, doing 10 sessions at the spa, just buy one of these, which is the same price. And then you can do it at home for the next five years. So we wanted something that was definitely like lower price point than a full at home sauna, which can be like around $5,000, but still something that was like, okay, it's clear what the value proposition is. And I can afford this. And yeah, it's a little bit on the high end, but it pays for itself eventually. So that's kind of how we settled on our original price point, which is now, you know, $5.99. And when you guys launch, is there anything that you learned about your customers that you wouldn't have guessed? Like, who is buying it? Where do they live? Are the demographics a little bit odd than or surprising, I guess, from what you would have originally thought? I would say it's not surprising. I don't know if that's because Katie and I feel like we are demographic. So attracting more like-minded and women and women from the ages of 25 and up, just kind of looking for the same things that her and I were looking for. Didn't surprise us at all. But, you know, since we've launched other products like our infrared PENFMAT, we've noticed this is much more appealing to men. And I don't know if it's because it's more recovery based or you don't have to, like, put on different clothes and sweat in them and they can hop on at any time. But, you know, until we launched that product, we really saw our business be like almost like 80 percent women versus men, which also gave us the opportunity to own that because there are so many brands out there, especially within the biohacking space that are catering more to men. And, you know, Katie and I really saw the opportunity to speak more to women. Her and I are biohackers ourselves. But yet we were always like looking to men for advice there. And we kind of dug into why women aren't really into this biohacking space. And, you know, like really like got into the minds of like women and what is so intimidating about the whole biohacking industry and really like have modeled our business, you know, strategy and our products and our content around like trying to solve this issue because it's such an amazing community to be a part of. Such amazing products. But when you say biohacking women are like, no, no, don't get it. You know, I don't know if it's the word hack or whatever it is, but it just doesn't speak to women. So is that the big point of friction or the hesitation there? Is just the word itself? Like, did you find anything else as to why women are hesitant to get into biohacking as a whole? I feel like it's because there's no real women leading in this space at the moment. Like when you think about biohackers, it's the Dave Asperes of the world, the Ben Greenfields, the Luke stories, and it's like really male dominated. And the narrative is all around like faster, stronger, best muscles, like fasting, like keto. And it's just like those things don't always work for women because women have different genetic makeups. We consider our hormones. We consider like, you know, wanting to have kids. And like, how do you like detox before that? And then after kids and none of this was included in the biohacking world, which is like kind of where Katie and I come in with, you know, wellness tech that is solution for women and men as well, but really speaks to women. I'll just say this much for the month of March, we're doing a campaign with cat footwear, which is called Do More Her Way. And we're literally only interviewing female founders. My wife is a, she owns her own construction company. And so she's obviously someone in a heavily dominated male industry who has to deal with all sorts of things like people asking her if her husband owns the company or her dad owns the company and all this crap. And then I also invest in personally invest in a lot of female led companies. And in that scenario, I'll tell you one quick story. There's a woman named Brooke. She just had a baby and she's fundraising whenever she fundraises, she dyes her hair pink and it becomes like her cape and she just fundraised while pregnant. And so we have a lot of female listeners. Obviously, I wish we had more because the space in podcasting is so male dominated still in terms of even listenership. And on YouTube, I think 70% of all YouTube videos across the board are watched by men. Are there any stories that you guys can share just around what it's like to be two women entering biohacking before that, you know, you guys are launching a company. What have been some of the things that you guys have found that have either been gems along the way or I'll give you one example. There was one woman I spoke to and I asked her, like, what is it like fundraising while pregnant? And she had the best answer ever. She's like, it's amazing if you have the right team. And so, you know, she felt like there was no reason for her to worry. She knew she was going to leave the company for a few weeks or months or whatever it may be, but she was fine because she had the right team. And I think when I think about all founders across the board, men don't think that way, right? And so I'm like, this is a superpower. This is such a nugget that only a woman a woman has. And that level of insight is so remarkable and makes the company that much better without people really knowing it, right? Without like it being so abundantly obvious. Do you guys have anything that you really tap into as two female founders and friends? It's a good question, you know, like looking back to when we were trying to raise our first friends and family round to open as a space within a space. I think it was very hard to get taken seriously as two women, first time female entrepreneurs. I'm sure you hear that a lot. So it was initially challenging, but then I think once we did open and we were, you know, kind of competing against maybe other like drip concepts or IV concepts that were led by male founders, I think naturally like the press and media tended to gravitate towards Lauren and myself and our story. So that was kind of like a nice positive to come out of being a female founder. Anything on your side, Lauren? I just feel like, you know, women are the main buyers in their households. And I feel like a lot of these, you know, biohacking companies are missing the mark a lot of the times. And I really feel like it's given us the opportunity to like own this gray space and be like the first like female led biohacking company that really like speaks to women and makes them feel like they can be included into this space and not feel uncomfortable or or not worry about it because it's not like meant for them. So I really see it as more of an opportunity than anything else. And I'm excited about it. And to be honest with you, you know, most of our team has been women up until what six months ago. We just started hiring more men. So we've always had this like amazing foundation of women on our team too, as well, which has been really awesome. So I would say like I have to say I felt more supported by women than anyone else in this whole entire journey. So it's really awesome to be able to create products that speaks to them. No, I totally love that. And then let's talk about your YouTube video. So you guys are releasing a whole new series called Biohacking where you guys put yourself in very uncomfortable, super vulnerable positions as founders together. Can you just give our listeners a window into what that YouTube page is about and what you're trying to experience there and what information you're trying to get out to the public? Yeah, it's a great segue. So it's called Biohack Hers, which is kind of a really cute name. But, you know, as Katie and I were, you know, dabbling in this biohacking space, we started to realize that most of the studies that are done in the health and wellness and fitness space are done on men and not on women. And it actually, I think it was like until 15 years ago, women weren't even required to participate in studies, which is crazy. And still to this day, men are six times more likely to be chosen in studies than women are for obvious reasons. You know, we carry children, we get pregnant, we're breastfeeding. There's a lot of times where we can't be a part of studies, plus our hormones change throughout the cycle of a month. Worse versus men are on a 24-hour cycle. We're on a 24-hour cycle plus a 28-day cycle. So our needs change, you know, our whole bodies change. Our minds change, you know, depending on where we're at in that cycle. So it's really hard to do consistent studies on them. So for obvious reasons. But it's made it really hard for us to navigate this space because we'll try something and we'll be like, wait a minute, you know, like this just makes me feel stressed out. I don't feel better. My hormones get worse. And we've really had to like navigate this space very differently. So I think the show is just really like coming at it from a female's perspective and like how we feel afterwards. And then also going after goals that speak more to women versus men. Like I said, men, you know, tend to go for, you know, longevity, wanting to live forever. They want muscle building. You know, they want just different goals in women. Women have always like, you know, wanted things that make them feel either either detoxing before having a baby or they want, you know, better skin solutions than Botox and filler. Just very different goals in mind. So the show premise is pretty much Katie and I trying the wildest health hacks out there. Using ourselves as human guinea pigs and then reporting authentically on our experience, you know, with it, especially to women because of course we're too female, you know, trying to tackle all of this stuff. So it's just really awesome. I think a lot of women are in awe of things that are out there that they didn't even know existed, you know, different technologies in the space and things like ketamine therapy or radio frequency for your vagina or like just peaking practices that are, you know, tontra focused that can really like help our overall well-being. So I just think that there's going to be like a lot of like kind of strange moments where they're like, wow, I didn't think that existed, but like this is really helping me because I can actually like use these things to tackle what I'm trying to do. In terms of building a community and expanding the reach of your business and yourselves and your influence, I think for one, the bio hackers space that you're creating is is great because it lends credibility to everything you're doing that you're trying to experiment. You're you're putting yourselves out there in a very vulnerable position, as Diego said, and I'm curious, like I've also seen another segment that you did on a show called MVP, where you pitched to athletes and had them as ambassadors. I'm curious in your minds, what works better in terms of building your community and creating an engagement? Are you finding that this space that you're creating now with bio hackers is better than, say, athlete ambassadors? I think it's still early days in terms of kind of pioneering this bio hacker space. You know, we just launched our first couple of episodes last month. So it's like a newborn baby that we're nurturing and, you know, trying to help grow and spread the word on. But in terms of, you know, a strategy of having, you know, affiliates and ambassadors promote our products. I think that's worked incredibly well for us, especially as we kind of like cultivate these, you know, health and wellness thought leaders and doctors and functional medicine practitioners promoting our product. That's been extremely effective because, you know, some of the technology is still unknown to people. A lot of people still don't know what infrared is or PEMF or red light therapy. So when this is coming from a health expert, that kind of third party seal of approval goes a long way, you know, and of course we love it when athletes are using the product and endorsing it as well because they train harder than anybody else. And if higher dose products can help them, then it's, you know, probably going to help the average person too. So I think Rob Grinkowski and Camille Kostick have been loving our higher dose infrared mat, which has been great. A lot of like MMA fighters who need to cut weight before matches love using our blanket for that. Actually, the blanket was featured in the movie bruised, which is about like a professional fighter trying to cut weight. And I think Holly Berry is the lead in it who is in our blanket. So so yeah, I love seeing how the products are penetrating different verticals and resonating with people. Did you reach out to Hallie after that and see if she would come on full time as an ambassador? No, but it's on my list. So if anybody knows her, let me know. As you guys are launching your YouTube channel, what else is in store for 2022 for you guys? Any new products you're working on, maybe differentiating into other biohackers type products? Anything on the horizon for this year? Yeah, we're actually launching a whole CPG line of products that complements the wellness tech that we've already launched and enhance the experience at home. And we're building rituals all around the experience. So like, what can you do pre, post and during your son of like it experience and yeah, it's a mix of topicals and ingestibles and our hero ingredient across all of the CPG line is going to be magnesium. We really love magnesium. Katie and I personally take three to four different types of magnesium that do different things. But really the opportunity is the fact that, you know, 60 to 70 percent of North Americans are deficient in magnesium, which is because our soils are so depleted of it and magnesium is responsible for over 300 very important functions within the body. And those include some of the main reasons why people come to us detox, weight loss, skin relaxation, sleep. So we really see this as like a hero ingredient that could go across our whole entire product line. And then on top of that, you know, we have products that make you sweat like you've never sweat before. So hydration is a really big key and magnesium is one of the main electrolytes to keep water in the body. So there's going to be a really cool story just around magnesium as our hero and then topicals and ingestibles that complement the devices and just build out amazing experiences at home. And that's going to be launching around May. I'll share a quick story with you. We had a founder that created almost like a hormone balancer. She had PCOS. And so for a year, she had her own struggle with this and nothing was working. And so she would just go to the store and create her own literally like became her own her own scientist until she found the solution that worked. And now she has this like huge company. And we had her on the podcast. And one of the things that I was so amazed by it's like a bad story turned good. So her Facebook accounts get shut down. And that like her Facebook page was where all of her community was built. And so like that's where they would interact customers would interact with each other, blah, blah, blah. And so the Facebook page goes away. It gets hacked or it gets deleted. And so it's zero. They try to get it back nothing. And then she creates like this app where she literally invites all of her community members to purchase products, to talk to each other, to hold each other accountable. And in my head, I'm like, that's very difficult to pull off. That's like basically creating a different version of Instagram just for your world. And what are the odds of this working? So then she's here and she's showing me and she's like, take a look. And it's like all this incredible engagement on this app that she built based on losing her Facebook page. And people can buy directly from her app. And I think one of the things like, as an NFT investor in the crypto space right now, you basically learn it's community or die. It's really that simple. And so when you guys think about, obviously it's like launch the products first, but how, you know, I think the hard part is like actually getting engagement with the community members in a meaningful way. What do you guys do in an effort to do that? Is do you guys hold like retreats? Do you guys hold like events? What are the things that you really do to literally create community? Yeah, actually two things. So we were really lucky to start with these infrared locations where we built a cult like following in a community and, you know, we had that personal touch with our customers coming in. How are they doing? How are they feeling afterwards? What do they not like about the sauna? How do we make the sauna better? Just like picking their brains. And I think that people in our community have always like really appreciated that about us, is like we really want to learn from them. And that's how we make our products really amazing. So we were really lucky to have those locations in order to do that. That's how we really built the brand. And then, you know, now that we're more of this direct to consumer business, this has been like our main challenge, right? It's like, how do you continue that on building that community in the brand? And I think it really is the content strategy like we're talking about. There's really such a need for education within this space, like Katie said, like people don't know what infrared and PennFar and red light therapy and how it's good for them. And how do I use them at like, what do I do? And so we're building out a whole content strategy on like educating the consumer on why they're doing it, how they should be doing it, giving them experiences while they're in it, breathwork, meditations, you know, access to other affiliates and influencers within our network that are creating content with us that are curated on our wellness tech. And then, of course, the biohackers. And at some point, maybe we'd like to have an app later on where we can help people track how good they're doing, if their sleep is better, if they're losing that stubborn weight that they wanted to lose and then have the content strategy on that afterwards. But I totally 100% agree it's community or die, especially in today's day and age where we feel like we can't really connect with people the way that we used to now that everything's online. Yeah. And just to add to that, too. I mean, I think we never want to launch a product that people go, yeah, it was okay. Like everything that we launch, we expect people to be fully addicted to. And I think that really helps with engagement. Like we did a survey that showed 80% of our clients use their sauna blanket one to two times a week, which means higher dose is actually very top of mind for the customer because it is so addictive. And I think that really helps build an engaged community because they're thinking about higher dose, it's part of their life. So we found that when we send out newsletters, we have like a very high open rate and whenever we tap customers for product, market research studies, etc., we always get a strong response rate. So I think, yeah, like having an amazing product is definitely helpful for building community, too. I'll say this much. I use the blanket probably once or twice a week myself, usually before a tennis match, sometimes after or just like if I had a long day. But Dr. Rod DePatrick, like I'll watch videos of her while I'm laying in the blanket, just to get to expose myself to the benefits of it because I don't think anyone goes deeper into the research than her. It's pretty remarkable. She's my ultimate favorite. If we could only get a hold of Dr. Rod DePatrick and yeah, dream collab. Yeah, because we really do believe that our sauna blankets get your core body temperature hotter than any other sauna. So we feel like it would release heat shock proteins and she's like the heat shock protein queen. We'd love to work with her on that. And of course, like just to power women herself, she's definitely by far one of my favorites. We will advertise this podcast when it releases directly to Dr. Ronda and all her followers. And we'll see what later I'll do it. We'll run some ads and see we'll target her see if we can get an engagement from Dr. Ronda. That would be epic for me and for you guys. Yeah, I'm curious about the story of your company going from brick and mortar to D to C and one of the stories that I've heard recently about Peloton is that most of their sales are coming from their in store locations. People in the health and wellness space really like to touch and feel a product before they they make that purchase. And with you guys going from brick and mortar to online sales, it's not easy to do first of all. And I'm curious if you ever ever think like that you might go back to like pop up stores in in addition to selling directly online, just so people who might be on the fence about it have the opportunity to experience the product or try it out and kind of get their feet wet in a sense. Is that something you've considered at all? Totally. Yeah, we definitely see the value in an omnichannel approach. So we're just trying to figure out the most strategic way to execute on that, which we feel like is through, you know, a hotel partner or another location based experience that's already up and running. You know, we recently launched our product in preview in Miami, which is like a concept store where you can go like touch and feel our mat before you buy it. So I think or even like a show fields, right? So there's more of these concepts popping up that are like shared real estate amongst several different brands. So we've been talking to some of those concepts. But again, there's nothing like actually going to a location and trying a session and getting that incredible sweat. We do have two locations open in New York where you can do that. But yeah, in the pipeline is adding several more over the next couple years. I love the hotel concept. I just think that's such a no brainer that would be like I would love that, especially after like a, for example, like if I'm going to Aspen or Deer Valley and I come back to the hotel and I can just be in a sauna blanket that like that like the snow crowd to me is no brainer. Just yesterday I was at Irwan, which is a grocery store here in L.A. and I they have like Valley parking anyway. And so I get in my car at the end of it and there's like two new companies that are creating sparkling water and they like just place them in my car. And they're like, hey, that's for you. And I'm like, that is so intelligent. You know, it's like these little things that these little touches, which now I love the grocery store even more. And now I've just learned about two different products that I would have never done. And so yeah, I mean, I would that would be incredible if you guys could be in hotels. I think that's that's an easy touch. Yeah, we love the hotel model. It's just such a great experience. And a big part of our experience is like doing the cold water shower afterwards. So you know, have to have your own private hotel room with your own shower there and it's just like there's nothing better. So yeah, we would preferably love to continue to open locations with an amazing hotel partner and have these active show rooms for us for product. I know TheraBody or Thera, the TheraGun there, TheraGuns are now in some hotels, which is smart too. Well, listen, thank you guys for coming on the podcast. I really appreciate it. Tell everyone where they can find you, where they can support, where they can watch your videos, all that good stuff. Yeah, please check us out at Hiredoast.com. That's where our blog is where you can watch Biohackers too as well. And then our Instagram at Hiredoast. And then my Instagram, if you want to follow me, even I'm not that great on Instagram, but is at Lauren Burlingery and Katie's. Mine is at K letter TKAPS. I'm also not that great on Instagram. So you might just want to go to Hiredoast.com. At least you're honest about it. Thank you guys for joining. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for having us. That was our conversation with Lauren and Katie from Hiredoast. Since you've stuck around for the credits, why don't you just go ahead and subscribe or even better. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It's honestly one of the best and easiest ways you can support the show. We are at Startup Storefront on every social media platform, except for Twitter, where you can find us at STS Podcast LA. The team consists of Diego Torres Palma, Natalia Capolini, Lexi Jamison, Owen Capolini and me, Nick Conrad. Our music is by DoubleTouch. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next time.