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Key Takeaways
- Neuro turned caffeine, L-theanine, and B vitamins into gum and mints, betting people wanted energy they could chew instead of drink.
- Chen and Yoshimura bootstrapped for years, while flashier DTC brands raised tens of millions and mostly disappeared.
- The founders’ mix of naive conviction and hard-won discipline, plus a lucky boost from Joe Rogan and Shark Tank, turned a scrappy idea into a nationally recognized brand.
Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen admit they were naive when they set out to build Neuro. Nothing in their backgrounds suggested they could pull it off. Neither had ever formulated a product, built a brand or worked in marketing. They were just two fitness-obsessed friends who started mixing their own energy supplements, then wondered why no one had put that boost into a piece of gum.
“Red Bull created the energy drink category in 1987. 5-Hour Energy comes and creates energy shots, and we’re like, why can’t we create the energy gum category?” Chen says.
Today Neuro is one of the fastest-growing nootropic brands in the country. Its gum and mints, a simple stack of caffeine, L-theanine, and B vitamins, plus a melatonin sleep line, are sold in 66,000 stores including CVS, Walmart and Whole Foods. Yoshimura and Chen came on the One Day with Jon Bier podcast to talk about how they built the brand, why raising far less money than their rivals turned out to be an advantage, and how they built something with staying power.
Related: Liquid Death Announces a ‘Sane’ Energy Drink: ‘The Category Has Gone a Little Caffeine-Crazy’
Bootstrapping their way up
Getting a foot in the game with no experience was not easy. For the first couple of years, neither Yoshimura nor Chen took a paycheck, surviving off credit card points. Even five and six years in, Chen was making just $36,000 a year, because every spare dollar went straight back into the business. To stay afloat, both took side work. Chen leaned on savings from his old job at Hulu. Yoshimura painted murals and found other ways to bring in cash. But they truly believed in what they were doing.
“Every startup has a David and Goliath story within it,” says Chen. “You’re going against these giants. How do you compete? I think you just outwork them.”
The hardship had an upside. It kept them hungry, and it forced a discipline the better-funded brands never had to learn. Over Neuro’s first seven years, the two raised about $1.6 million total, while their direct-to-consumer peers, like Dollar Shave Club, were pulling in $10, $20, $30 million. As CFO, Chen sometimes doubted himself.
“I remember looking at Kent and thinking, am I doing this wrong? Should I be raising a ton of money?” he says.
The answer was no. In hindsight, the lean early years were exactly what kept them motivated. “It’s hard to stay hungry when you’re fed,” Chen says.
Slowly, the bet paid off. Neuro did $109,000 in its first year, $750,000 in its second, and $1.5 million in its third, growing steadily while the better-funded darlings came and went.
Related: He Got 77 ‘Nos’ Before a ‘Yes’. How This Founder Raised $85 Million to Transform Communication for the Deaf.
Making their own luck
Then came the breaks. The first was Shark Tank. In 2020, the founders pitched Neuro on the show’s eleventh season and drew offers from two of the sharks, Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec. True to form, they turned both down, unwilling to give up the equity or the control. The exposure was its own reward.
The second break was Joe Rogan. The podcaster tried Neuro, liked it, and began mentioning it on his show, sometimes just by keeping a pack on his desk. For a brand that could never have bought that kind of reach, it was rocket fuel.
But luck is one thing. It’s what you do with those opportunities that proves the durability of a company.
“Anyone can have a spark when you launch a business,” Yoshimura says. “But to keep it going, retain those customers, and turn it into something, that’s a whole other layer.”
Related: 10 Proven Ways to Make Your Own Luck
Friend in high places
One way Neuro has stayed relevant is by fostering strategic partnerships with high-profile names, from Formula 1 driver Yuki Tsunoda to World’s Strongest Man Mitchell Hooper to Chess.com. DJ Steve Aoki is a commited investor and collaborator who co-created a limited-edition Strawberry Cake mint. All their partners are high performers who rely on focus, stamina and split-second thinking, which is what Neuro is all about.
Neuro’s partnerships extend to philanthropy, too. Neuro teamed up with MrBeast’s Beast Philanthropy on a line of co-branded tins, with all proceeds funding a project that turns shipping containers into working medical clinics for underserved communities in Kenya, Nigeria, Ukraine and rural Texas.
Where they are now
The hard years are now behind them, and Neuro is finally big enough that the founders can think about what comes next. For Chen, whose perspective was shaped by a snowboarding accident at 19 that left him paralyzed, the goal was never a number.
“I know how valuable and how short life is, because my life could have easily ended in that snowboarding accident,” he says. “I don’t want money to ever be a limiting factor. The limiting factor now is time.”
What he wants is to spend it with the people who stuck around, homes with room for friends, trips where cost isn’t a worry for anyone.
For Yoshimura, the money was never the whole point either.
“Money is the most important part of any business, but it’s not the end-all, be-all,” he says. “If that becomes your whole thesis, you lose out on the greater vision. You’re not just building a product. You’re building a brand, something that’s supposed to fit into the culture.”
Key Takeaways
- Neuro turned caffeine, L-theanine, and B vitamins into gum and mints, betting people wanted energy they could chew instead of drink.
- Chen and Yoshimura bootstrapped for years, while flashier DTC brands raised tens of millions and mostly disappeared.
- The founders’ mix of naive conviction and hard-won discipline, plus a lucky boost from Joe Rogan and Shark Tank, turned a scrappy idea into a nationally recognized brand.
Kent Yoshimura and Ryan Chen admit they were naive when they set out to build Neuro. Nothing in their backgrounds suggested they could pull it off. Neither had ever formulated a product, built a brand or worked in marketing. They were just two fitness-obsessed friends who started mixing their own energy supplements, then wondered why no one had put that boost into a piece of gum.
“Red Bull created the energy drink category in 1987. 5-Hour Energy comes and creates energy shots, and we’re like, why can’t we create the energy gum category?” Chen says.
Today Neuro is one of the fastest-growing nootropic brands in the country. Its gum and mints, a simple stack of caffeine, L-theanine, and B vitamins, plus a melatonin sleep line, are sold in 66,000 stores including CVS, Walmart and Whole Foods. Yoshimura and Chen came on the One Day with Jon Bier podcast to talk about how they built the brand, why raising far less money than their rivals turned out to be an advantage, and how they built something with staying power.
