Adam Pivko: In terms of what motivates us, it's definitely changing the lives and outcomes of people's health and ultimately helping people live longer.

James Lacey: Adam Pivko is on a mission to end the era of one size fits all supplements. As the co-founder of Autumn DNA, he's taken a personal health discovery and turned it into a breakthrough in personalized wellness.

He has worked alongside world class nutritionists. Geneticists and doctors to develop a cutting edge process based on nutrigenomics matching your unique genetic makeup with a personalized supplement routine, making way for supplements tailored to your exact needs. In this episode, Adam shares his vision for the future of supplements, how his journey began and cutting edge process is changing lives.

Join us for the full episode, as we dive into Autumn DNA's approach to health and wellness.

Adam Pivko:  I think the way that I would explain it to anybody is there's way too much guessing in what vitamins to take in the world and You simply just don't have to do that anymore. So what we've done is we've made personalized vitamins that are easy, convenient and precise for you to take

James Lacey: That is, I mean, as somebody myself who I've countless times gone to the grocery store and looked through the hundreds, if not thousands of vitamins, and I'm like, what do I need? I don't know.

Adam Pivko:  I would love to have like our. Like we do a DNA kit combined with a lifestyle quiz. So nature and nurture personalized elements.

I would love to have our DNA kits on the shelf at, in front of that vitamin rack being like, don't go buy any of this stuff until you know what you actually need. But I don't think those retailers want to give up all that revenue of people trial and erroring with their vitamins and supplements.

So it's a, yeah, it's a predicament.

James Lacey: Customers would love it. This is such a, one, it's such a large industry, but also such a specific industry in some ways to get into what kind of led you down this journey. How did you get into this?

Adam Pivko:  Yeah. frankly, I just had health complications of my own and thankfully I was in a fortunate enough position where I could spend money to optimize my health, which I do recognize that a lot of people couldn't. so I, at the time I hired like this personal trainer, a nutritionist, a dietician, and it turns out my nutritionist gave me some really bad advice.

I ended up taking a multivitamin that had something that was essentially poisoning me like every day. It was really bad. And it was all under the belief that, even from a nutritionist, a doctor of nutrition or, whatever their credentials are, that supplements are just generally trial and error.

And I was just super frustrated by that. I'm like looking at the world around us. I'm like, there's no way you still have to guess. There's no way you should be trial and error with your health. Through that journey, I came across a science. It's known as Nutrigenomics, and it's basically how your genes interact with nutrition and nutrition with your genes. It's the back and forth of each. 

And I was mind blown by this and it clearly identified why that multivitamin was so bad for me by just one simple report. However, the report that I got was like I don't know, like 400 plus pages and felt like I needed a medical degree to understand. And I ended up still going on Amazon and buying a whole bunch of stuff, not really knowing if it was the right magnesium variety to get or how much to get.

And it was really just still frustrated by the whole journey, but further along my path. So through that, I basically cracked the code to understand not only nutrigenomics, but lifestyle choices and be able to blend them for myself. And then I started doing it for some friends and family and my wife, my mother, other close friends and, started, everybody started seeing like remarkably better results, so I knew I was on the right path and it was really just a hobby to begin with.

I feel like your friends probably, began to. Like you more and more at that point, just as bringing a solution like that. It's funny, I had this one friend, he was a 32-year-old electrician for the, transit board where I live and not the most eloquent dude, but a long-time friend. And he was like 32 and he was still taking like Flintstones, chewable vitamins, multivitamins. And I was like, dude, I'm like, I'm not even sure.

Like I would give those to my kid. It tastes good. So not the point. but, I was like, dude, just. Give this a try. and he's I'd love to give it a try. I'd love to see what you're working on. I'd love to try it for myself. I know there's probably something better out there for me.

So anyways, I didn't really follow up with him. He gave it a try. And then out of the blue, I got this text message from him. And like I said, he's not the most eloquent guy. So to get this text message from him, like really hit me in my heartstrings, if you will. And it said, I remember it was like, I realized now I never knew what healthy really even felt like.

Yeah. I was like, Whoa, I'm like, Whoa, I need to go help more people. so yeah, the rest is kind of history. But in relation to that, the first ever cease and desist that we got, was for the first ever ad campaign we ran, which was still taking Flintstones vitamins, step out of the stone age with Autumn DNA which I think is an awesome tagline, but that cease and desist is framed at home on my wall. so that's how I knew we were on the right path is Not only both those things, the text message from that buddy, even three days after that ad campaign started getting a cease and desist.

It's like somebody's, I'm getting on somebody's radar. Somebody's not happy I'm here and that's how you, that's how I think you know, you're on the right track.

James Lacey: Yeah. I've sadly heard that story a few too many times. and I'm just glad you keep persisting because some people, they take that as the sign to be like, Oh, no, I mean that you touched on this actually, but I'm curious what the connection between your health challenges and then also beginning to see the feedback of those around you is that initially what inspired you to step into this?

Is there anything that inspires and motivates you like still today?

Adam Pivko: Well, like what inspires and motivates like, I don't know. Inspiring for me is, I didn't feel that health and wellness is a health and wellness businesses around me were operating with the highest level of integrity that they could.

So what inspires me is something that we really stand behind it. We refuse to sell people vitamins and supplements that they don't actually need. You want to come and spend more money with me, you can, but only on what's available and recommended for you. I don't care. we're just going to say no.

It's not about money. we have a simple belief that like when we get it right for somebody, they're going to remain for a very long time with us. Because it's just the right thing to do with a high level of integrity to treat your customers right as opposed to sell them as much as you can of whatever they're willing to buy.

So it was a combination of that, integrity missing element in the health and wellness space that I think really inspired us to keep pushing. But in terms of what motivates us, it's definitely, changing the lives and outcomes of people's health and ultimately, helping people live longer.

James Lacey: That's a pretty good motivator and hey, technically, the more you succeed, the longer the lifetime value of the customer, because they'll keep living long.

Adam Pivko:  It's funny, somebody else brought that up to me, or it's like the anti-dating app, like dating app is like they want. They kill their own lifetime value by being good at it, as opposed to, for us, if we're good at it, we really enhance lifetime value for customers.

Yeah, it's funny.

James Lacey: That's great. okay. Yeah. there's a lot of kind of hitting on treasure in a way, as you began to dive into research yourself, which I think is incredible. I heard somebody say, I think it was Robert. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it was Robert F. Kennedy recently that I heard say like everybody should be studying their own nutrition or health or what they're taking now because you can trust information less and less and so this,

Adam Pivko:  I don't think it's, I don't think it's just trust information less and less, but I do think you're onto something. My dad is coming up on his 25-year anniversary for having a heart transplant which is a feat in and amongst itself and shout out to Big Pharma and shout out to doctors everywhere.

Like I don't have a hate for them, especially when, they're great, not like they're great at solving problems, but when it comes to preventing them, like that's a whole different story. And one thing that really hit home for me is like when my dad was in recovery after a heart transplant and I was visiting him in the hospital, they came in.

For his meal, they brought him his meal and it was a white bread sandwich with ham and cheese and a side jello. And I remember being like, I think I was like 13 or 14 years old. And I was like, there's no way that's the best meal you could be eating right now for recovery.

James Lacey: And you knew that at that age. Wow.

Adam Pivko:  Yeah. there's just, there's no way. Like, how are they not giving you like chicken noodle soup or like any other thing that I could think of at the time? I don't know. It's just like the fact of how big of a piece nutrition makes and overall longevity and how under focus it is in hospitals or with general, doctor and physicians is remarkable to me.

I can't believe it still exists like that today.

James Lacey: Wow. Is there? I'm curious. This is really more of a personal interest question. Is there, an age from when you have, is there a minimum age that a customer could be for you guys? Because I'm just thinking of the early year start in some ways, how incredible that would be from a young age, knowing that what you should be taking from maybe once you hit 16 years old or whatever it might be.

Adam Pivko:  Yeah. listen, if a parent's going to pay for it, then sure. I, I'm not sure how much real science and clinical data there is on children with regards to multivitamins and nutrition. And fact, the fact of the matter is we base everything, all of our algorithms, all of our technology, it's all proprietary and it's all based on clinical studies and peer review data.

So if there's not enough data about something, we're just not going to lean into it and make it as a recommendation. Now, with that being said, I do agree with you, the younger you get started, the more Probably the better outcomes you're going to have, however, it's hard to get somebody who's under the age of 30 to be thinking about their longevity.

Of course. Yeah. you just get to this crossing point where you're like, oh, damn, you wake up, you start to wake up with, you have knee pain in the morning, whatever your ailment is, prior to 30 years old, I generally just believe that the average person thinks that they're like invincible or, don't need to make that type of investment or they have other things that they want to be investing their money in that are more important to them.

But yeah, to answer your question, I do think you could absolutely start younger. And I, we don't technically have a minimum age. We do recommend 18 years old, to be doing this yourself, and accessing this data and making well education, educated decisions about your own data, which I think is important.

Yeah, but yeah, that's what you're saying.

James Lacey: Definitely. No, that makes a ton of sense. this is a pretty, for me as a simple person, this is a, seems like an incredibly complicated. Thing to step into. And so is there any along the journey? Is there any mistakes? Is there anything that you look back and that you would say to somebody that's stepping into maybe a complicated industry or solution that they're looking to create that you say, Hey, maybe this is what I learned.

Or is anything and maybe it's very just Tailored to what you're doing, but somebody might get value from it.

Adam Pivko:  Mistakes, man, endless and endless amount. that's what I've learned. That's what I've learned about entrepreneurship in general is that at any given moment, there's a million things you could be doing to improve your business. Any given second and constantly your email inbox is filled with a whole bunch of more shiny new objects and You know your buddies are talking about something else that they're doing and you know Everybody's at different levels of success and like it's really hard to judge what's right to do at what time?

Oh all entrepreneurship really is and all I think is Even working in the working world, what it is it's just guessing more often correctly than you don't like, whether it's entrepreneurship or not, like even think about your boss right now, like nobody has all the answers. Everybody around you all the time is guessing entrepreneurship just has a slightly higher level of risk associated to that guess, it's really being able to prioritize.

Understand that when you're an entrepreneur, everything takes longer and costs more than what you think it's going to do. and I think what every brand and every business should strive to do better is. Understand their customers, there's a marketing cliche that's like the brands that can afford to pay the most to acquire a customer when and although that may be true to a certain extent, I think the brands that understand their customers the best don't need to pay the most and can still win, which I think is just a better equation for operating a business.

So those two things are what really comes to mind for me in terms of like, where have I had the most faults? Where have I gone the most wrong? but yeah, those are definitely some hard learnings that I've had on my journey.

James Lacey: That makes sense. We had somebody on the other day. and they shared about a similar from the customer perspective and the value that you can provide.

They had somebody that was ripping off their product. and, or many people that were trying to, and yeah. They experienced the fact that those brands would come and go pretty quickly, even if they did grab a few customers along the way, because they had just such a low price point, but the brand, the trust of the brand, because of the value they provided because they care and because et cetera, et cetera.

It's it just was, it's unbeatable at that point. Just, like you're saying, I think, people and more and more in the, age we're in this, though there can be a lot of facade online, it becomes to the point. You can't really hide as much anymore because people will talk if it's bad.

And so it's like, you said, he's just there is this level of trust and customer value provided that is unbeatable.

Adam Pivko:  Along the lines of what you said, where it also gets extra frustrating is if you're that, if you're that original brand and, you've spent all that money and time and effort, like educating the audience, like educating an audience is so expensive.

And to just have that be all eaten up by competition, even if they are just cherry picking clients here and there, every single one of those, goes into the equation of, denominator of how much you're dividing your spend by and it adds up. I get it and I understand the frustrations.

Thankfully for us, we have an absolute massive moat around our business. It's really hard to replicate and build what we did. It took a lot of time to a lot of expertise. It took a crazy amount of doctors trying to imagine trying to get A nutritionist, a dietician, a geneticist, and a pharmacist and a functional wellness practitioner, like to agree on one thing, like it was crazy.

James Lacey: That sounds like a riddle.

Adam Pivko: Yeah, it's like getting 10 lawyers in a room and trying to get them to agree. it's the same thing. It's all based on just science. And, to, replicate what we've done would be very, difficult. we got, we were very fortunate with the team we built and everything.

James Lacey: Has there been any, criticism or, negative feedback along the way from, from either people like that in the medical field or customers, or I'm curious if there's been a negative response to this.

Adam Pivko:  Definitely never, definitely negative responses without a doubt. And I, I don't have thick skin in that sense.

I still take negative responses quite personally and perhaps that's a fault. Perhaps it's just because I'm passionate and love what I'm working on. but I. I'm proud to say that we don't get negative feedback from doctors or experts, or, basically anybody in that realm whatsoever. In fact, everything is just this is so much better than anything that somebody could be doing themselves.

This is so much, better leaps and bounds above, and how we made it easy and precise and whatever else, but, the negative feedback that we do get, I think comes from a place of, Lack of understanding or misconceptions. And for me, that's very frustrating because, although we attach ourselves to the idea and concept of DNA, which to some people, the second I say that their brain's already off in another direction, talking about Oh my God, they're just selling my data. It's going to the police, it's going to insurance. They're going to make clones of me. whatever your misconception is, we have the answer to that. 

Our answer is we're not a data company, like we're a health and wellness business that just refuses to cut corners. We're only looking at a very small subset of somebody's genetic information.

We care how your genes absorb, digest, store, metabolize, utilize different nutrients. There's not enough information that we're collecting that's even worth selling. We don't attach it to an individual person. It's all anonymized by the end of it. All of it. every single thing you want, you, want your data deleted?

Gone. I don't want to store unnecessary data. that's, we're so not a data company that like, I don't even, I don't even want your data. We need it to do our job well, but I'd rather not have it.

James Lacey: That's amazing.

Adam Pivko:  So yeah, whatever misconceptions there are around DNA, Those are probably the most frustrating to me because realistically, if you think about our business, it is our unique selling proposition, that's what makes us different. We're looking at your blueprint of what makes you, and you're going to push back and saying, you don't want me to look at what makes you, So don't personalize. What are you going to do? what's your alternative? Keep guessing. Go guess, like it's frustrating in that sense.

James Lacey: Which is, I guess an important lesson. That, probably the majority of entrepreneurs have to learn along the way. you start out with especially and I can hear the passion in your voice. And that is, I think, actually what you want people. Behind companies that are passionate about the mission, they're not there and then they have to learn how to, function a business that looks at a balance sheet or whatever it is, because it has to be able to grow, et cetera.

And so looking at the challenges of, the cost to acquire a customer, educate a customer, et cetera, are real things that you have to then have, a business had on. But at the same time, and like you said, sharing the challenges and frustration of. Feedback that is understandable, but misplaced, whereas you're just like, we're just trying to help and so I, love hearing that. And so I think that's great. Yeah, that's just an awesome answer.

Adam Pivko:  Yeah, like I said, it's got its pros and cons. Another one was just like the term science. we came out of the gate with the term science and got like crazy pushback over Look at what science has done to us, like everything. So instead, we're like, you know what, let's just not pick this battle. We swapped out the term science for the term technology. And it's the same thing. Our cutting edge technology. And nobody, who's going to fight with you on a Facebook ad when they're using a mobile device to access, Facebook, about technology, like nobody, nobody's going to pick that battle.

So it's just cut it off at the knees. We don't need to pick that fight. We don't care. ultimately we just don't care. We just want to help.

James Lacey: I love that. That's, yeah. Interesting. So stepping into the journey of building it. A company and helping people get healthy, especially being in leadership, being at the top of the ladder in some aspects, it can be somewhat isolating.

I think sometimes, obviously, you not many people are going to carry negative feedback like you do all of the above and then be thinking about everything day and night. Does it get lonely? Is there any kind of like hacks that you found of how to? Yeah, how to stay, healthy in, in, in your mind as well in that place of leadership.

Adam Pivko:  Yeah. I'm a big fan of adding a lot of value and putting some good karma out there. and throughout my years of, in the e commerce and performance marketing world and health and wellness world, like I try to share as much of that as I can on, whether it be new startups or established businesses.

And I think, yeah. Could be doing something better or need help with something. So I'm in a lot of online communities and I really do believe in the more you put in, the more you get out kind of those places. If you're just joining them and you're reading them and you're never commenting and you're never engaging, yeah, you're still going to be alone on your couch, crying yourself to sleep at night as opposed to going to meetups, getting out there, going to conferences and generally just being helpful to other people along or, near your journey.

 I feel like you'll have more opportunities to learn and grow together and that's always how I try to think of things like I don't pull some veil over my business. I really try to open it up and let people understand and offer value where they can and, and I try to do the same for others as well.

James Lacey: I love that. Yeah. I think I heard somebody say recently as well, That ability to give you can never exhaust it and it never ceases to give you joy.

and so I think, and like you said, it's there seems to be this unwritten rule that you, the more you give, the more you end up receiving. it's, it's like, you can't out give. Yeah, what you receive it's interesting.

Adam Pivko:  I also think it's like a good way to just understand who you're real, not like friends, but real contacts and connections are if you, come from a place of giving and you give them something up front, if they don't come back and say, Hey, how can I help you?

Then, what are they? It's just one of those things. It's like a quick gut check for me, even if there's nothing that they can't help me with at this time, just to offer back, tells a lot about who your character is.

James Lacey: That's really interesting, especially as you're growing, especially as you're building something and you yeah, if there's not like a reciprocal relationship, I know we're closing out on time and I don't want to honor your time as well here but is there. Okay, good. We can go for another three hours. No, is there anything that you would want to pass on that you're learning at the moment? Any literally, even whether it's in business, whether it's personal, whatever it might be that kind of like thing that would come to the top of your mind and saying, I'm learning this at the moment that is providing a lot of value.

yeah,

Adam Pivko:  Without a doubt. I got one. one that I'm hyper-focused on right now. For the longest time, I was trying to learn about our customers in a wide variety of ways, just so I could relate better, speak better, hit, hit on what's really ultimately important to them. but I've come to realize that it's really important to segment your customers and focus on where you want to be learning from, as opposed to learning from all your customers.

So I've been doing a really concerted effort of understanding and thinking about and working with and engaging some of our top longest standing customers that we've had for we have, a couple of customers, more than a handful of customers that have been with us for like multiple years to understand from them, what's driving them every day, what really drive, All of those different factors, I think is really, meaningful insight. And then comparing that to what we generally have thought about and assumed across our whole customer base and seeing where those differences are.

That's been a really enlightening and awesome learning experience for us. I would encourage anybody to try to make the same effort, especially founders to try to make that same effort and understand your best customers.

James Lacey: That's brilliant. It's almost like the, it's almost like hearing about a never-ending pursuit of product market fit in a way it's like you're so you're refining that so much and not, that's a very technical term to say, you're really just taking the time to understand people who, want to be helped in that you are having a successful relationship with. And yeah, I love that is anything, anything that's next for Autumn DNA, anything coming out of the works right now or, that you'd want to share about?

Adam Pivko:  Yeah, we have some partnerships. We have some fundraising endeavors that are ongoing that are really exciting. but yeah, some partnerships that I don't want to disclose yet because I don't know, they could be really game changing.

I don't want to, I don't want to get too hyped up on them, but, with a business like this, because we have such a moat. We get approached with a lot of opportunities, whether it's expanded internationally or be white labeled or, partner with other people. There's a lot of opportunity with this business, even though the door on retail is relatively shut as we discussed earlier.

Yeah, all that's. We have a lot in play already, and some of them have really moved the needle for us. We love our business to business approach of, offering this as an employee benefit, is one solution that we're really excited about. And there's a couple of big players in that space that want to help us.

So yeah, partnership is generally what I'm most excited for in the coming. That's a few months. 

James Lacey: That's a great idea, employee benefits. That's a great idea. I think

Adam Pivko: Yeah, we've already tested. It's already live. we already have beta clients on it. yeah, it's been nice. It's been a fun journey.

And if you think about it, it's. what, what's most important from an employee wellness benefit package is like you want presenteeism, which is more productive employees. You want reduced absenteeism, which is less sick employees. And ultimately you want something that retains employees quite well, like something that's different.

So yeah, if you're giving your employees personalized vitamins, chances are you might get somebody to stay a little longer.

James Lacey: Very true. Yeah. Oh man, this is, this has been extremely insightful for me. Just learning from you, selfishly, honestly, this is, Being really valuable just hearing some of the things you touched on, the challenges, the motivations, the inspiration.

Honestly, a lot of it has been really valuable for me. if I'm just here as somebody that's having a conversation, I think it's also going to be the same for some people that hear this. I wanted to close out with, one of our favorite questions asked being that this is the Fulfilled podcast.

Is there anything you would say about what real fulfillment is or what fulfillment is to you, maybe it's something you've learned along the journey. but yeah, what does fulfillment mean to you?

Adam Pivko: Fulfillment is delivering upon expectations that marketing and sales and the customer journey has promised, put forth, made the customer expect.

So fulfillment is bringing something that was digital, in our case, something that was digital to a physical reality in a customer's hands. if you can add some additional transparency, like tracking numbers and when to expect your expect, those expectations that you're giving a customer to be hyper-accurate, you're going to get less complaints.

It's going to be more realistic and customers are going to get it when they get it, when they expect it, and they're going to be happy. So that's what real fulfillment is. something along the lines of just delivering on the promises that you're making for marketing and sales.

James Lacey: I love that just basically being a man of your word. That's awesome. That's huge. It's not as easy to come by, it seems

Adam Pivko:  I'm really curious what other people answer that question.

James Lacey: There's a handful. Honestly, it's so, varied, but a lot of it does fall in the category of, from a faith perspective, fulfillment might be somebody's spiritual journey, with, God, but then from, it could also span to like farthest other side of like fulfillment for some people is also like really just seeing what they put out providing value to others and that's it.

It's not actually that disconnected from the original but I think the majority of what I've heard before it's always focused on giving, which is really interesting. Like you, you touched on earlier, like giving, you just always end up receiving, but there's 

Adam Pivko: That's funny. I said that too.

James Lacey: Yeah, exactly. 

Adam Pivko: Like giving the customer or, giving somebody the expectation that you've promised. Yeah.

yeah, That's great. That's great. You're talking to the right people. You're talking to the right people. James.

James Lacey: Yeah, we want to speak to more of them. It's just I feel privileged to be able to just learn from inspiring people like yourself.

Honestly, it's something I'm very thankful for. Yeah. Adam, is there anything else that you'd like to add before I let you go and also want to make sure that people know where to find out either more about yourself, connect with you or, or maybe more importantly, connect with Autumn DNA.

Adam Pivko:  Yeah, just try autumn.com. You can check us out there. we, definitely socials, whatever your preferred channel is probably producing some type of content there. But yeah, if you want to reach out to me, you're, welcome to, you can find me basically on any social platform or email me directly at adam@tryautumn.com

James Lacey: That's awesome. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thank you for coming on. I really appreciate your time. This has been so great and I'm sure we'll catch you soon.

Adam Pivko: Sounds good.