How we chose the four ingredients in our hero formula

When we set out to build our hero formula, we made one decision early: we'd rather ship four ingredients we deeply understand than twelve that look impressive on a label.

This post walks through how we picked the four — what made the cut, what didn't, and why the doses are what they are.

The shortlist

We started with a list of fourteen ingredients backed by at least one randomized controlled trial in the population we serve. From there, we filtered on three criteria:

• Clinical dose available. A trial showing benefit at 600 mg doesn't matter if the supplier can only deliver 100 mg per capsule.
• No known interactions with the most common medications our customers reported in early surveys.
• Stable in capsule form for at least 24 months at room temperature.

That cut the list to six. The final four came down to a question that sounds simple but isn't: which combination produces a noticeable effect inside two weeks?

Why "two weeks" matters

Customers don't have infinite patience. Most of them will decide to reorder — or not — by the third week. If they don't feel something by then, the formula has failed at its job, even if the trial data says it works at week twelve.

This is a tension every supplement brand navigates. Long-term efficacy matters, but so does the lived experience of the first month. We chose to optimize both:

1. Two ingredients are fast-acting (effects measurable in days).
2. Two are slow-build (peak effects at 6–8 weeks of consistent use).

The faster-acting pair gives early reorders the momentum they need; the slow-build pair is what keeps customers on the formula six months later.

What we cut

Three ingredients didn't make it. We left them out for different reasons:

Ingredient A — too small a dose to matter

The clinical trials supporting it used 1,200 mg per day. Fitting that into a two-capsule daily dose alongside three other ingredients would mean cutting everything else in half. We'd rather have three ingredients at a real dose than four at a token dose.

Ingredient B — limited evidence outside one population

Strong results in male athletes aged 18–28. Almost no data in the population we actually serve. We kept it on the watchlist for a future product.

Ingredient C — supply chain risk

The only suppliers with the right purity were single-sourced from one region. A drought there in 2024 took the price up 4×. We're not building a formula that becomes unaffordable when one harvest fails.

What's next

We're testing two new ingredients in a small in-house cohort right now. If the early data holds, we'll publish the protocol and the results — including the failures.

If you have questions about any of this, reach us through the contact page. We answer every email.