Coming inside of the show, the one and

only Adam Gilman. If you don't know

Hiya, you should. H I Y A. Believe they

launched like literally on the day

COVID-19 became a thing. Okay.

[laughter]

They scaled to uh no VC, no investment,

bootstrapped,

um subscription only, a hundo percent

subscription.

Went from zero to a hundred mil and

beyond. Uh I believe they've now sold a

good chunk of that and our our boy Adam

me thinks went away with a very nice

paycheck that he very much deserves. We

must bring him inside of the show, the

one and only Adam Gilman of Hiya. Get in

here, Adam.

Get inside of the show.

>> Hey guys, nice to see you.

>> Adam.

>> If you guys could talk about me every

time I enter in a room, it would be

amazing.

>> Hey, we are so down for that, Adam.

We're so down for that, always. We

appreciate you making the time to join

us. Welcome to the show, Adam.

>> Thank you. Thank you for having me.

>> Adam, you have got to give us a little

lore on creating Hiya. I there's a

number of things that stand out to me.

Of course, I I've got a bunch of kids,

and so it's just stands out to me

because it's kids supplements, vitamins,

et cetera. But I find it wild um

the option is you get to the website,

you can subscribe. Like that's what you

can do. Like this is this is like crazy

for me.

Um and obviously you guys have done it

so well um and scaled this thing up and

and now had you know, a very nice

interested party who came along as well.

Tell us about getting this thing off the

ground, Adam.

>> Yeah, so it was very much a business

born out of personal need. Um my

co-founder

>> [clears throat]

>> Excuse me, my co-founder Darren and I

both had children or still have

children. His were a little bit older

than mine at the time.

Uh and we just were not happy with the

options that existed on the market as it

relates to supplementation and

most people that have kids

struggle with certain

things that their kid does not eat so

ipso facto they don't get all of the

stuff sustenance that they need from the

food that they eat.

>> True.

>> And

supplementation is an important means to

fill those gaps. And when we looked at

what was on the market it was

uh not clean label, filled with a lot of

junk, primarily gummy as a form factor

which

uh often times meant a lot of sugar as

well.

We're big believers that there

has been a sugar crisis in this country.

We're a lot further along today than we

were back in 2018-19

when we first thought of the business

and ultimately launched in 2020 in terms

of

parents are a lot more conscious of

sugar intake with their children. Adults

are a lot more conscious of sugar intake

in general. But at the time um it was

still relatively early. So

we got to work, uh

developed the formulation

on our own with a team of advisors,

doctors, food scientists, things of that

sort. Um took us about a year to

ultimately make a product that we were

proud to put onto the market. And yes,

we launched uh day zero when WHO

announced that the COVID-19 pandemic.

>> Crazy. Crazy. [laughter]

>> Wow.

>> It's crazy.

>> Adam, Adam, could you dive into a story

you told recently about it which is kind

of called the U-Haul moment which kind

of changed the the trajectory of the

company? Could you talk about a little

bit about this what happened?

>> How do you know about the U-Haul moment?

Um

>> We do our research.

>> Yeah, I appreciate that.

Uh so the U-Haul moment was

uh we were having

fulfillment issues. Uh,

we we launched, you know, using a very

similar strategy that most people do,

find a 3PL.

We were obviously very product and brand

focused. Uh, but we were but, you know,

once we developed our product, we were

really focused on acquisition marketing,

right? And

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, from day one we were customer

obsessed, constantly speaking to our

customers, paying attention to the

feedback that we were getting. And there

were just all of these uh

fulfillment issues, the late orders,

wrong products being shipped, et cetera.

>> Horrible.

>> Uh,

the fulfillment center that all of our

product was housed at was about a 4 and

1/2 hour drive from my house.

>> Woah.

>> I made the decision that I was going to

do it myself.

>> Right.

>> [laughter]

>> U-Haul.

I was afraid I was afraid and granted

th- th- they were very nice about it,

um, the fulfillment or the 3PL that we

were using, but I was just afraid that

if I said, "You don't have my business

anymore." they were going to do

something. So, I said, "I'm just going

to have to show up there and say, you

know, I want my product and then I'll be

on my way."

Um,

they helped me load up the truck, took a

very long time, drove it back, was up

till 1:00 in the morning unloading it

back in very small

um, warehouse

rented uh, a few days and then we

in-housed all of our fulfillment and

logistics, which unlocked a lot of other

creative retention tactics and

learnings, um, along the way. But, that

was the U-Haul moment.

Wow.

>> That That is uh it's a bold move. It's a

scary move. I I have done this once

before and it was a nightmare. It was a

nightmare. Our stuff was like scattered

everywhere. I mean, it took us days, you

know? But, like if you you feel like

your business is hanging in the balance

and hey, we got to make a dramatic a

dramatic move here. Um then you got to

you got to do it. Tell me tell me about

like unlocking, you know, more

retention, you know, tactics and such. I

say this I say this because I'm I'm not

aware of too many like 100% like you can

subscribe. That's how you get this

thing. You know,

off order test, not going to do it. Um

you need to subscribe. I mean, tell me

tell me about this piece, Adam.

>> Yeah, well,

I I think subscription businesses only

work if it is a product that is truly

logical to be delivered on a

subscription cadence, right? A lot of

people try to force it. And in those

instances, it doesn't work.

One of the reasons we were very big

believers in the category, separate of

the fact that we knew that there was a

distinct need for it, was supplements

are not medication, right? They are

something that you take over a long

period of time and you need to take them

on

>> [clears throat]

>> a continued cadence in order to

ultimately see the benefit. Uh for that

reason, we insisted upon subscription

only because we wanted people to get the

benefit of the product. And you don't

get the benefit [clears throat] of the

product if you're not taking it every

day continually.

Um

being a subscription exclusive business,

we were obsessed with

understanding all of the reasons why

people did or did not love the product

and the product experience.

And we

were able to unlock those learnings to

really

improve our retention

curve to be truly best in

what taste issues people were having, we

made improvements to the taste of our

formulation. We understood that uh we we

offered four different um

flavors in our initial skew. Um

and we learned that a lot of kids like

some of the flavors but didn't like

others.

And we came up with this wacky idea that

only could have happened because of the

fact that we in-sourced our fulfillment

and subsequently built our own FDA grade

uh clean room inside of our facility

um that

a kid might want to have the green apple

flavor on Tuesdays and Fridays and the

berry flavor on Wednesdays and the

tropical flavor every other day. So,

parents could effectively do complete

customization

and we would fulfill that. It added a

little bit to our fulfillment costs,

right? But, you get somebody to stay for

one additional month and it more than

pays for itself.

Uh and and those were like the tactics

that we can employ that allowed us to

outcompete

Bayer and Unilever, which is who we were

competing against.

>> Crazy. Wow. I love [laughter] that. I

love that.

>> Thank you.

>> Yeah. I mean, you're competing against

some really big boys there. You You just

mentioned some behemoths in the space. I

mean, as D2C health brands kind of start

to scale up, where do they lose the plot

as they start to scale where you were

able to maintain the plot and take on

these big boys and honestly beat them?

>> I think you it's very important to

have a mission and values as a brand,

right? You need to really stand for

something. And I think what's so amazing

about the day and age we live in and

it's more so now than ever, even more so

than it was six years ago that we

launched where there's a lot of

skepticism about big everything. They're

skeptical about big government, big

food, big pharma

etc. And uh

that that's a huge advantage for an

upstart brand. Um

and you need to be comfortable putting

yourself out there, putting your face

out there. You know, we our face was on

the website, we wrote letters to all of

our customers, etc.

Um, and then we followed through on the

stuff that we said we were going to do.

We uh, made clean label products that

were truly best in class, and we really

helped to educate

our entire community, whether they were

customers or prospective customers or

former customers, around all the ways in

which they could have an impact on their

families' health. And because we became

their trusted advisor,

they wanted to buy products from us when

we made them because they knew that we

really stood for something.

>> Mhm.

>> Wow.

>> Makes sense. Makes sense.

>> that.

>> And talk Oh, go ahead. Go ahead, Colin.

>> I was just going to say, Adam, I would

love to talk about this exit because

it's been reported that you exited for

around $260 million, but you're still

running it. If you can correct me if I'm

wrong on that. Can you talk me through

that and why you're not on a boat in

Greece right now, just chilling?

[laughter]

I mean, I'd love to hear I'd love to

hear from you.

>> Maybe Maybe he is. Maybe this is, you

know,

>> No, I'm still work I'm working harder

than I ever have been. Um, so we didn't

sell 100% of the company.

Uh, we sold a majority stake.

Uh, and what was most important to us

was for the brand to reach its full

potential, which

>> Yeah.

>> we want to have Hiya as an option on a

global scale and something that

everybody can get access to.

Uh,

so we're we remain entirely focused on

that mission. Um, and we still have a

very long way to go.

Uh, I'm not motivated terribly by money.

There were a few things that I bought

after the sale, but um, for the most

part my life hasn't changed at all.

Um, I'm still just focused on being the

best person I can be and building the

best company that I can.

>> Love that.

>> Big data.

>> Adam, two things two things come to mind

when I think about this.

Number one is form factor, which you

have hit on, um,

you know, different than a gummy, not a

gummy. Like that's like the first thing

that comes to my mind. It's like kids

gummies, you know. But also but also on

the taste piece, I mean, you know, as a

man with children, it's like, man, if my

if my kids don't like this thing, it

doesn't matter how much I try to, you

know, preach it to them. They're just

going [laughter] to like not drink it.

They will not take it. They'll like find

a way around it. I I I would imagine

like packaging, form factor, and and

taste, and and your takes on that, your

iterations on it had to be entirely

crucial to this thing going up and to

the right.

>> Yeah, uh, well, we wanted a form factor

that we believed in, and we loved that

the form factor was something that had a

lot of disparity from the other options

on the market.

Um,

enemy marketing, I think, is a very

powerful tool, right? And we use that to

our advantage very heavily.

Um,

yeah, I I think that's effectively the

answer to the question.

>> [laughter]

>> As in like positioning, like, hey,

gummies, that's the bad guy. Here is our

form factor. We are the good guy. This

is going to actually deliver the goods

in the way that we can promise, and then

people grabbing a hold of that.

>> And taste is not,

um, perfect, right? You can't get 100%

of of kids to agree on anything. Um, we

focused on and I'm also a big believer

that if you're for everybody, you're for

nobody, right? So, um, we we focused on

making the product as good as we

possibly could. We focused on educating

parents on Listen, if your kid still

doesn't like it, this is where parenting

comes in, right? And you got to push

them

>> [laughter]

>> This is where parenting comes in.

>> I love [laughter] that.

>> I love that.

>> And

and get them used to it and and have

them understand that, you know, part of

taking care of your body means that you

sometimes have to do things that you

don't want to do.

>> That's true.

>> And

uh that that had a big impact on

retention as well. And

uh

that was our strategy and is still our

strategy to this day.

>> That's fascinating to me that that

worked.

>> You know, Adam,

a really interesting thing is the fact

that you're selling to the parents, but

the end consumer is the child at the end

of the day, but you have to really focus

on building that trust with the parent

so much because it is something they're

giving to their their kids.

How do you focus on building trust with

parents in 2026? And how should other

brands

kind of be thinking about building a

trust if they're

trying to sell the parents for the kids

right now?

>> Yeah, so we always said our customer is

not our consumer. That's the kids space,

pets space, right? Um

it might be the elderly space um but

depending on if you know, the children

are making purchase decisions for their

parents at that point.

Um and it's what I said before. Uh be

their expert advisor. Deliver value that

has nothing to do with selling your

product so that you are just focused on

getting them the right information.

And I think that's the case

for every brand. Uh even if your

customer and consumer are the same.

If you are focused on providing value,

um people will trust you because they

should.

>> Yeah.

I love that. I'm I'm looking at your at

your website, Adam. The Marvel collab?

>> I mean

>> Just a bit of a flex.

>> I mean, can we just say like having

Marvel on there like a bit of a flex?

Like that's wild to me.

>> Yeah, we never thought that something

like that would happen, but we we have

partnerships with Mattel and Disney.

Um

>> Let's go.

>> They're they're excited to work with us

and us with them, obviously. Um and

again, if it's another way to make

health and wellness more exciting to

children,

we're all for it.

>> You know, an interesting thing I would

love your your honest reaction to this.

You can say no, but

as a result of that Marvel collab, did

you see a noticeable bump from the

Spider-Man release just as a byproduct

of being in the ecosystem?

>> You're [laughter] always on this. He's

big on Spider-Man right now.

>> Big on Spider-Man. I'm big.

>> That's going to be

>> Right.

>> Um my kids loved it, too. I

>> We we didn't necessarily see a super

strong correlation, no.

>> Got it.

>> I think part of it is we're more of the

like uh

um

uh like mini versions of the Avengers in

terms of the branding there. Um

but uh we

we did not see a meaningful bump. It

just uh is something that

again, is a means for us to

reach kids where they are. If there's a

kid that is obsessed with Avengers, and

that means that one more kid is going to

say, "Okay, I wasn't willing to try

this, and now I am."

>> Yeah.

>> That's fine.

>> Yeah, and they and they and they totally

will. Like my girls like the Disney

princess thing, it's like you put Disney

you you put Disney princess on there,

it's like I like it 75% more

automatically.

>> Yeah.

>> It's [laughter] like crazy how that

works, but it's true.

>> Yeah, totally. Disney Princess was was

great for reaching young girls. So was

Barbie.

Um Hot Wheels was great for reaching

young boys.

>> Great.

>> Oh.

Most of the Disney properties are

uh besides

uh

Disney Princess are pretty gender

agnostic. So whether we did like Lion

King or Fantasia. Fantasia was an

interesting one cuz

that's

that

that's something a lot of kids don't

know. So it was something created a

connection between parents and children

cuz parents know Fantasia.

>> Oh.

>> That's Do you have any kind of dream

collabs or collabs you're currently

cooking up that you're kind of destined

to release soon?

>> Not really. You know, we're focused on

just making the best products. I mean,

we've always joked that Minions would be

perfect just because THE YELLOW

>> OH,

TRUE.

>> LET'S GO.

>> TRUE.

>> Of course.

>> But we'll just see what what comes our

way. It's It's not really something we

actively

>> [snorts]

>> work on. It It It Both of those were a

little bit more organic in terms of how

they came about.

>> I love the Minions idea.

>> The Minion Calling All Minions. We We

need to make this collab happen ASAP. I

would love that.

>> And like the bottle that like looks like

a Minion. The bottle is like a Minion

bottle.

>> We wouldn't have to do anything. We

wouldn't have to do anything. It would

be Come on.

>> That's crazy.

>> You know, one that I don't see on here,

Adam, that I know you've got in the

future to tie together that kind of

parent, you know, child relationship is

a a Stone Cold Steve Austin from the

WWF, you know. I know that one, you

know, smack the things together and take

the supplements. That's got to be That's

got to be on the

you know, on the product development uh

road map, one would guess. I'm kidding.

Uh Adam, man, this is uh this is

incredible and uh we love what you're

doing, man. I even see the the free

sunscreen. I thought that's so

interesting um in in context of all of

this.

Uh, man, tell us this. Is there anywhere

um, is there anywhere you write on, you

know, you talk on the internet

regularly, brothers? Anywhere people

should be finding you and following you

as you continue to do your thing?

Um, you know, up into the right, taking

Higher Global.

>> Yeah, uh, X just at Adam Gilman. I I put

out a fair amount of content. Um,

and [snorts] just

all of our Higher Socials.

Um,

check out our website, check out our

Instagram.

Uh, support a company that's driven

towards making kids all over the world

healthier.

>> That's incredible.

>> Yeah, that's that's the real deal. And

we can tell that you are the real deal,

Adam. Brother, we appreciate you making

the time to join us. I'm going to get

some for my kids. Make that note,

producer Jack, so that I make sure that

I buy this after the show. We love it

and we love what you do and we

appreciate you making the time to join

us. Thank you, Adam. Look forward to

having you back.

>> Thank you.