In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

• How Kristel grew up playing tennis in Holland, came to the States for college, and met the love of her life, Michael
• Why an internship at Deloitte helped her realize that even though she was studying finance at university, she was not interested in a future career in finance
• How that realization led to a Masters degree program in London where she studied business
• Why Michael’s cancer diagnosis at 24 and Kristel’s childhood experience with her mom having cancer led her to learn even more about food and how it can help or hinder a person’s health and wellness
• How her new plant-based lifestyle and nutritionist mom and aunt helped her not only find health for herself but also helped Michael to be healthier than ever after he came home from cancer treatments
• How that first detox Kristel put Michael on paved a way for them, to not only continue to help themselves but also to share their findings with others through the products they were developing and mixing by hand themselves
• How Kristel and Michael started marketing their products, came up with a name, and realized they needed financial support to grow their new business
• How they started very small in fundraising and reached the $17 million mark after building and scaling the business together since 2015
• Why they moved from Holland to Berlin to be a part of the startup culture towards the beginning of their journey as Founders, and the ways they connected with partners that would eventually help them scale
• What brought them to the US to scale their business here and how they did it even when investors in Europe told them it wasn’t a good idea
• Kristel’s passion for helping others with their health and intention to properly source their ingredients
• Her advice, life lessons, and ways she is consistently creating a healthy company culture, especially for the 80% of her team who are women.

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To Find Out More:

YourSuper.com‍

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Quotes:‍

“You have to actively listen to actually hear something.”

“Read the ingredients list versus the nutritional table. Be actually curious about what ingredients are in your foods and what you're putting into your body.”

“But like we always felt we had to say yes to everything. It's really funny. We couldn't... We didn't focus in the beginning at all. Huge lesson: focus.”

“But I think, in the beginning, it's also a beautiful process to be a little scattered, to like, kind of see what sticks and then start to focus in on that and do more. So I guess that was kind of what we had to learn.”

“And a lot of things you hear, you try to figure out by yourself, but like, just to just hear it comprehensively and going through the process, doing it and still having someone to ask questions was so helpful.”

“That's something we're very passionate about and just really also realize that with the way we source, and especially now since we have been scaling, you can have a massive positive impact in those communities by just having partners with actually real value.”

“The process though, was really long because even when we started scaling, what you will quickly realize when you start scaling is that you need more inventory.”

“Sometimes fundraising and finding the right partner...it's timing.”

“Morning routine is everything for me.”

“Honestly I think a really big one is just trusting yourself and just really trusting my gut instinct. I think that's probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned.”

“Even when we started the business, a lot of people were like, "Oh, how did you do that?" I'm like, "I just asked myself, what's the worst thing that can happen?’"

“You have to make so many decisions every single day. I think the more you build up that skill of just being able to just decide quickly, even when you don't have all the information, but trust your instinct or just look at the information you have and just being able to move forward. And maybe you make mistakes, but you iterate again.”

“I think that the biggest thing I've learned is work on yourself and then the business will grow.”