Chad Hussain

New formats win: bet on form factor, not a better version

Grüns founder Chad Hussain argues the highest-odds path to a winning consumer brand is inventing a new format for an existing category rather than making a better version of an incumbent. Examples he cites: nicotine pouches, non-nicotine Zen-style focus pouches, and his own greens-in-a-gummy.

“I honestly think that's the biggest opportunity for founders. Like, people just want to rip on the formats that work. But I think if you want to have the greatest odds of success, it's by creating a new format, right? So if it's a blunt, awesome. If it's these little Zen pouches that people are doing now and making those like Focus, that's non-nicotine, Great. Like, new formats win.”

Steal thisTake a category everyone knows and change the form factor (gummy, liquid, pouch, shot) so you create a new category with no direct competitors.

Dr. Squatch sold to Unilever for $1.5B

Hussain cites Dr. Squatch, the men's cold-process soap brand, as Grüns' closest execution model. He notes it sold to Unilever for $1.5 billion, attributing its success to fun pop-culture partnerships (Harry Potter, Star Wars, SpongeBob) that make consumers relate to the brand.

“So what's cool about it is, so they just sold to Unilever like last year for $1.5 billion. And in that business, what's cool about it is one, cold process soap is more natural, I would say.”

$30K month one to $230K month two; $8M burned to profitability

Grüns did roughly $30,000 in revenue its first month and $230,000 the second, crossing a ~$1M run rate within a month of launch. Hussain says the company burned about $8M of primary capital before reaching profitability.

“Yeah, month one, um, we did like $30,000 of revenue and month 2 was already like $230,000. So I guess we like in month 2, a month into the business, we had already crossed the, the $1 million run rate, probably $2.5-3 million at that point.”

LTV = fully-burdened gross profit over a fixed 3-year window

Hussain defines LTV not as revenue but as fully-burdened gross profit over a fixed 36-month window, stripping out COGS, discounts, returns, fulfillment, shipping, and merchant fees. Using a set 3-year period (rather than a true 'lifetime') makes it a consistent number to optimize against.

“I use a 3-year period, so 36 months, and LTV is fully burdened gross profit, meaning Sam orders our product. What is the— what are the total costs stripped out of that value to get it to Sam's door? So you've got product COGS, you've got discounts, returns, you've got fulfillment, shipping, uh, merchant processing fees. Like, you've got all of that that gets it to the door. That's your lifetime value over a 3-year period.”

Steal thisMeasure LTV as fully-burdened gross profit over a fixed 36-month window, not lifetime revenue, so you have a stable number to optimize CAC against.

Why nobody had made a comprehensive greens gummy

Hussain, a self-described gummy fiend, realized the entire gummy industry was built around 30/60-count bottles, which capped how much nutrition you could deliver. His unlock: package a full dose as a pack of ~8 gummies, like a bag of Sour Patch Kids, so comprehensive nutrition fits a gummy format.

“And the big aha moment for me was the entire gummy industry is built around these 60 or 30-count bottles, transparent bottles with a cap on the top. That, that is as gummy exists. So I asked the question, What, what would need to change? What would it need to look like to have gummy be comprehensive nutrition? And then that's when I went down the path of like, okay, if it's a, you know, a pack, how big's the pack? How many gummies are in it? What's the flavor of the gummy? Right.”

The 3x LTV:CAC rule for a fundable consumer brand

Hussain's bar: if your fully-burdened-gross-profit LTV divided by CAC is 3x or more, you have a business worth acquiring. He frames marketing efficiency ratio (MER) as the inverse of marketing spend as a percent of revenue (spend 20% of revenue on marketing = 5x MER).

“And this is the end of it, is LTV to CAC. So if you're, if your business has an LTV to CAC of 3 times plus, you are golden. Anytime people talk about profitability, anytime people talk about MER, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. Uh, it's like marketing efficiency ratio. I, the way that you think about it is like if you're, if you spend 20% of your marketing or of your revenue on marketing, then the inverse of that is a 5x MER, right? So 1 divided by 20%.”

Steal thisTarget a fully-burdened LTV:CAC of 3x or higher; set your CAC ceiling from day one so every team member knows the max you can pay for a customer.

Set your CAC ceiling artificially low at launch to guarantee 3x

Grüns set a hard CAC ceiling everyone knew from day one. Hussain deliberately set it very low at launch so the business was guaranteed to clear 3x LTV:CAC; the allowable CAC is now 2x higher than on launch day, not because LTV improved but because he'd built in margin of safety.

“When I first started, I mean, I can't really tell you, but what I'll tell you is it's 2x higher today. Than it was on day one of launching the business. Why? It's not because we magically got better LTV. It's because I set the CAC so low to ensure that we'd be able to hit it.”

Steal thisSet your acceptable CAC artificially low at launch so you're guaranteed to clear your LTV:CAC target, then loosen it as the data proves out.

Be Ozempic's best friend, not 'nature's Ozempic'

While rivals ran 'nature's Ozempic' ads, Grüns positioned itself as the companion to GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic, Zepbound, tirzepatide) rather than a replacement, riding the trend's momentum without making a false, off-side claim. Their ads also lean sassy ('poop more') instead of clinical, because fun ads stop the scroll.

“Everyone around us is like, nature's Ozempic, or like they'll say something like that, which is like objectively wrong. Like you're not supposed to say that. We've never taken that approach. We are what we would say the best friend to Ozempic, Tirzepatide, Zepbound, whatever the sort of GLP-1s are.”

Steal thisHijack a hot product's momentum by positioning as its companion, not its replacement, so you surf the trend without making a claim you can't defend.

Find the angle, then build the entire funnel around it

Hussain's marketing playbook: test ads in high volume to find an angle that sticks (e.g. gut health), then build the whole funnel around that single message. Static, UGC, and cinematic ads all push the same angle, which then dictates the landing page, pop-up, email, and SMS the customer receives.

“Once you've identified an angle that seems to be running, then you build the entire funnel around it. So you've got you've got static ads that talk to that angle. You've got UGC sort of voice-to-camera angle ads that run at that. You've got, like, more like cinematic type shoots that run at that angle. Everything that you're just plowing all sorts of ad concepts toward, or sorry, ad structures to that angle. From there, where people land is really important. What people receive as a pop-up is really important. What people receive as email and SMS is really important. Everything is tailored to that message.”

Steal thisOnce an ad angle is winning, build a dedicated funnel for it: matching landing page, pop-up, email, and SMS all tailored to that one expressed customer intent.

One template, swap the headline: a new ad funnel in a day

Hussain says you can run a hundreds-of-millions D2C brand off Replo (a Shopify plugin): build one landing-page template, then for each new angle just swap the headline and copy blocks. A brand-new ad funnel takes a day and reliably beats a generic landing page.

“You can just create a template. The only thing you need to swap out is like the headline, whether it says gut health or it talks about pick your other ad theme, substitute the like, uh, little blocks on the page with the new ad copy. It's like, it's not that hard. Like in a day you can create a completely new ad funnel that is going to have incremental performance against a sort of general landing page.”

Steal thisBuild one landing-page template in Replo, then clone it per ad angle by swapping only the headline and copy blocks; a fresh funnel takes a day.

Use PubMed to formulate a supplement without running your own trials

Asked how he knew Grüns worked before launch, Hussain says he didn't run his own placebo-controlled trials. Instead he read thousands of existing PubMed studies on individual ingredients (e.g. vitamin C) to predict outcomes and land on a formulation, then tested label and format perception with consumers.

“I mean, if you put vitamin C in your product and there's thousands of studies about what vitamin C does, Sure, maybe I don't know the precise outcomes of 120-person blind sample survey placebo-controlled trial, but like, I can pretty much guess what the outcomes are going to be based on the thousands of other published studies against vitamin C.”

Steal thisFormulate a supplement by mining existing PubMed studies on each ingredient instead of funding your own trial; validate label and format with consumers pre-launch.

An ACH distribution layer that splits your paycheck before you see it

Hussain pitches a fintech that sits between direct deposit and your checking account, automatically routing income to rent, car payments, savings, and investments before you ever have to exercise willpower, so only your spendable money (e.g. $500 for groceries) lands in your account. He says the infrastructure already exists.

“What if you become the essentially the distribution layer of ACH transfers? So it hits this distribution layer. And before that person has to have the willpower to decide what they're going to do with it. And this is helpful for so many people in their lives, right? It gets wired out to the rent that they have. It gets wired out to their car payment. It gets wired out to blank over here, over here into their investment. And so what actually hits their account that they're spending against is $500 for groceries or whatever it is.”

Steal thisBuild the distribution layer for direct deposit: auto-split each paycheck into bills, savings, and investments so only spendable cash hits the user's account.

Paycheck-splitting fintech could exit for $500M-$1B in ~2 years

Hussain predicts that whoever builds his ACH paycheck-distribution idea well will be acquired for $500 million to $1 billion within roughly two years, since the infrastructure already exists and it would impact millions of people's finances.

“I think you get acquired. I think if you run this business, you're going to be acquired for $500 million to $1 billion in like 2 years if you execute this right.”