Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm supremely honored to be sitting down with Nick Green, who's the co-founder and CEO of Thrive Market. Nick, it's great to see you. Great to see you too. Thanks for having me. Second time on the podcast. First time was in 2018. It's 2026. Not much has changed in the last eight years.
Just a little bit. Just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit. Of course, I speak in Jes. I didn't get to meet you the first time we had you on the show. How have you. Changed personally in these last eight years? I mean, it's been quite a journey for you. Well, I mean, personally, I turned 40 last year, so congratulations. Is that 40 is the new 20, right?
Maybe. I've got four kids, so sometimes 40 feels like the new 54 kids. God bless you. Yeah, no, it's been, it's been a, a ride. You know, we, we last year celebrated our 10th year in business at Thrive Market. The last time I was on the pod 2018, we were. Three years outta the gate. So I think, you know, just getting our sea legs in a lot of ways, you know, since then a lot of e-commerce players have come and gone.
I think we knew it was a challenging category when we got into it. I think the last, you know, eight years have borne that out. And then some, of course you had the pandemic, which transformed our industry e-commerce and kind of how we see ourselves in our mission. And yeah, we're still thriving. So it's been, it's been a rival.
We're feeling good. Is that a tagline? We're still thriving. You know, I hate to use it. 'cause usually people ask that question to me like, are you thriving? And I, I preempted it this time. Well, we're here at Natural Products Expo West, which was canceled in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the pandemic. I think today, five years after that last show was canceled.
I sense that the industry is changing in ways that have nothing to do with a pandemic, which is ironic, I think, because things, people thought everything was gonna change back then. But when you think about the current administration, federal administration, that is, you know how RFK Junior is running Health and Human Services, the rise of GLP one drugs, the growth in consumer awareness of and experience with better for you products.
It. It seems like there's this convergence of all three trends that are happening, or at least all three things that are happening right now that kind of make it very difficult to forecast how everything plays out. How do you traverse this? Very uncomfortable unknowing time for natural products and just wellness in general.
Yeah, I mean, first, I think you're right. There's, there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of volatility, and you have that, you know, politically, geopolitically, economically, technologically with ai. I think, you know, as an entrepreneur, I'm a little inured to that, that volatility. 'cause, you know, separate from what's going on in the macro, when you're running a, a business in the early stages, it's a wild ride no matter what.
So we, we experienced that, you know, self-induced in our own business for a long time now. There's obviously a lot of factors external, and I think the, you know, the key that I found. You know, during the early days of Thrive and that I still think about today in, in this really, you know, shifting landscape, is really focusing on the things that aren't changing or maybe the things that are changing in a consistent way.
And I think the, the through line for our business and our mission from day one has always been around healthy living, sustainable living, and making healthy living. More accessible, more approachable, more affordable to everyday American families. And you know, that was a problem that we wanted to solve back in 2015.
It's still a problem today, you know, we're closer to solving it, but in many ways we're still very, very early. You know, we have over 1.7 million members, but there's over a hundred million households in the us. Organic is a lot bigger than it was 10 years ago, but it's still single digit penetration. And yet you can see in movements like Maha, you can see in, you know, the.
Swiping of the food pyramid and in the recognition of what's wrong with ultra processed food and the trends towards, you know, yes, there's still a lot of diatribes, but a lot of it's just getting back to basics, like reduce sugar, reduce artificial ingredients, increase good macronutrients, increase protein, you know, these are the, to me, the secular tailwinds for our business, for our industry, and frankly the part of, part of the solution to the health crisis in this country.
Right. You look at health outcomes in the US and metabolic dysfunction and food is upstream at some level of just about all of it, and I think that over the last decade that's becoming increasingly clear. And so, you know, yes, there's a lot of factors that are changing, a lot of kind of shifting sands or what have you.
But that through line, that kind of crescendo in interest in health and wellness desire to get healthier and even tools and technology to do it right. So GLP ones are now a tool for people to basically be their better selves in that sense. Right? It's like addiction and food addiction in particular is less appealing when you're on a GLP one then.
Then when not, and I think it's giving people that boost AI. Has the potential to really enable people to understand their health and have one level in a way that they couldn't before. Man, agentic shopping is gonna change the way people, you know, shop and consume. So all of these things, to me, you, you're right there.
There there's a lot of volatility, but there is this convergence and I think that through line that we're gonna see that will continue to impact our in industry and continue to be a tailwind for. Great health and wellness brands and platforms like ours is the desire for people to get healthier.
Healthy living is a cornerstone of your business, more specifically, making healthy, living accessible and affordable to Americans. You touched on this. A lot of people are confused about what health means, what healthy means, what does it mean to you? What does it mean to Thrive market? Yeah, so this is a really good question.
We spend a lot of time thinking about it because the truth is that different people's health needs, different people's health goals are different, and you know, if you are a parent with a child that has a nut allergy or is lactose intolerant. Or you have celiac disease, you know, you're in a very different position than someone who is trying to lose weight on a ketogenic diet or just went on a GLP one.
So, you know, thrive Market, the way that we try to think about it is kind of in, in two parts. On the one hand, we wanna focus on what are those kind of universal quality standards, those things that should be true no matter what diet you're on, no matter what health goal you have. And so for us, that's around simple real, you know, whole food ingredients in the food.
It is around reducing and eliminating chemicals, artificial fragrances and additives that aren't necessary. And it is around focusing on macro contribution in a product that is macro contributions in a product that are generally healthy. So reducing sugar, you know, increasing or decreasing rather glycemic load overall.
And so those are things that are just like kind of north star things for us on health and we think are true no matter what. And then, you know, beneath that we wanna give people a lot of choice and a lot of power to find the things that fit their health needs and also discover things that, you know, may, may meet health needs that they didn't know they had.
So, you know, one of the things that we do with every new member that comes on the site. Is a pretty, you know, detailed questionnaire or intake form that maps their preferences, their health goals and their health needs for them and their family against those of our entire historical member base and all the purchasing behavior of those members.
What does that enable? It enables us to then recommend products and brands for the individual member or the new member. It also enables us to. Create shop, buy filters for them and essentially personalize the entire experience to that member. And you know, one of the things I get most excited about in the future is the way we're gonna be able to use AI on top of this data set to deliver really, really personalized experiences for every one of our members.
So, you know, our. Quality standards are some of the highest in the industry. We wanna continue to be the tip of the spear there, the kind of bleeding edge, pushing from, you know, non GMO to organic, to regenerative, et cetera, and across every kind of quality vector, just always pushing the, the, the boundary.
But then we also. Want to be able to empower people to find the things that are, that are best for them, and then meet their needs and their lifestyle. And that I think, is gonna be transformed by AI and in our, for our platform in particular as a membership business. With all the data that we have online, I think we're gonna have some really powerful tools that are at our disposal to make healthy living much easier for members.
Online grocery. You touched on this has been a boon for some companies and not really worked out for others. When you launch Thrive Mar Thrive Market, that is a lot of people, maybe even you guys, described it as. A sort of Whole Foods and Costco, if they had a baby and sold products online, that would be Thrive Market.
I dunno if that's still the case. Is it, I think the, the basic idea still is, is helpful to understand what we do. You know, we are a, a hyper curated retailer that's a little different than Whole Foods. Like Whole Foods had, you know, even in their. Kind of heyday were, you know, 40,000 SKUs were 7,000 SKUs.
So order of magnitude, fewer items, which we think in the context of trying to find healthier products. You know, you don't want an everything store. You really want to know what are the best products and start with that again, that high bar. Ultra curated approach. So in that sense, I think we're different than Whole Foods.
I think over the last 10 years, or I guess seven or eight years since Whole Foods is bought by Amazon, they've also really changed. Right? I, I described kind of their Amazon ification has been pretty well documented, and I think that makes sense for the way that Amazon is using them. But it's also opened up an opportunity for us to really step in and I think in some ways take the baton from what Whole Foods did, and I'm a great admirer of, of the way that business was run for, for many decades.
The way that they were able to bring the natural organic movement mainstream and be kind of a, a touchstone. For quality standards. And I like to think that we're helping to kind of carry that torch on and even raise the quality standards further. So I think in one, in one sense, when you say we're Whole Foods meets Costco online, that very telegraphically gets people, gives people a sense of, of Thrive Market.
On the other hand, I think it really has changed. I will say Costco continues to be a touchstone for our business in many ways. You know, just starting with membership, you know, there have been a lot of online retailers that have come and gone. None of them have been membership models, and I do believe that one of the clear differentiating and defensible advantages that we've had has been leaning into membership.
You know, membership is a forcing function to deliver long-term value to your customers. Membership gives you front, front loads your, your cash flow, and so really gives you a, a CapEx advantage on customer acquisition. And, you know, membership has also powered our mission. You know, every paid membership sponsors one for a low income family.
And it's really created a community where, you know, people are paying, they are investing in their health, and they feel like they're part of a platform that's doing the same. So, you know, I'm, I, I'm proud to be inspired by both of those, those companies and, and I think they continue to inspire us. And then I would say over the last decade, we've really created our own flavor that is now very, very unique and.
You know, I think the differentiation of our assortment, I think is, is, is, and the focus on health is very different than Costco and the way that we have now, I think taken the baton on quality standards is, is very different than where Whole Foods is today. How has membership impacted your curation strategy?
Yeah, I'd say, I mean, the first thing that helps us to curate the assortment is our data. And being online, we can not only see what people are buying, but we can see what they're buying over and over again very clearly. We can also see what they're looking for and unable to find. And you know, the ability to mine that data, and especially now with ai mine it like with just sort of incredible depth, is very, very powerful for powerful for us in deciding which bets to make on which brands, which products, and which trends.
Membership intersects in a pretty interesting way, which is that our members self-select because they care about healthy living. Like if you're gonna invest $60 a year, it's not a huge investment, but it's enough to make you think, do I want to commit to a, a healthier lifestyle over the next year? And that commitment helps drive engagement, which is very good for our business, but it also kind of curates the customer base.
Right. It's, it's a barrier to entry in a way. And so those members come in and we call them wellness champions, right? They're, they're focused on healthy living. And I think for brands that gives brands an opportunity to access these people that are on, you know, kind of the vanguard of getting healthy.
And one thing that's been really interesting and was always, you know, something we had believed will, would be the case, but early investors and, and folks in the industry are very skeptical of. That these wellness champions are not just wealthy people in LA and New York and San Francisco, like it's middle class, middle Americans.
And I think one of the things that's really cool about this movement today, and you see this in Maha as well, is it, it transcends geography, right? It transcends politics, right? There's like, you know, yup. Yuppy people in San Francisco that eat crappy food and there's moms in Louisiana that are like hardcore unorganic and yeah, that's really kind of wonderful.
That food can be something that transcends and, and I think what, what we wanna do is make it accessible to anybody. And so, you know, our member base is 50% Midwest and Southeast, you know, almost half have a household income under a hundred thousand dollars. And that gives us a lot of, you know, confidence that one, we're, we're advancing the mission to make healthy living more accessible.
And two, that we have a really big opportunity, right? Like, yes, it's a big opportunity to serve wealthy people in affluent areas, but the really big opportunity is if you can serve, you know, middle class, middle America. Where there's, you know, tens of millions of, of households. There's a lot of private label that you do on Thrive Market.
I received a box a couple weeks back, and most of it, I think 90% of it was private label. When you think about curating your assortment, how much. Is on the private label side versus the branded side first, I'm, I'm very excited that you bought 90% private label that puts you in the, definitely the upper decile of the private label consumers.
You know, overall it's closer. 20 to 25% of our sales is coming from private label. You know, we are not the retailer that puts their thumb on the scale and wants to drive private label penetration up just to, to capture margin. We also philosophically approach, we call it own brand. We don't call it private label.
So we, we, we approach own brand very differently in that we are looking to raise, basically raise quality standards and fill gaps wherever we can. And again, the data is really important here. If you're a traditional brick and mortar retailer, all you can see is what's selling. And then you like basically the private oil programs.
Like you copy what's selling for us, we can see what's. Not selling, like what people are looking for and they can't find what are the quality standards that they want, that they're not, they're not having. So we use reviews. We use empty search results. To go find gaps in the assortment. And the unique thing about that is, is sort of twofold.
On the member side, it means that we're actually delivering incremental value. We're not just having them trade from, you know, a third party brand to our brand. And then the, the unique thing for the brand side is that we're not cannibalizing their sales. And you know, that's not absolutely true, but it's definitely much more true at, at Thrive Market than I think it's with a traditional retailer.
And what we've started to do more recently also is partner with our brands as co-manufacturers, and in many cases do co-branded partnerships with them. So, you know, we, we consider ourselves a stakeholder driven business. And to me what that means is, you know. There's like, Amazon is customer obsessed. We are obsessed with our members, but we're also obsessed with our, our brand partners.
We're also obsessed with our, with our co-packing partners. We're also obsessed with our, you know, our environmental stakeholders, our sustainability commitments, and I think as a responsible entrepreneur. And part of what in my mind is, is you know, so real social entrepreneurship and mission driven entrepreneurship is not just thinking about shareholders, or not just thinking about customers, but trying to balance those considerations.
And I think part of what we're trying to prove is that, you know, if you serve your brand ecosystem while, while also building a great private a program, while also you can actually do that, and in fact that is a better way to serve shareholders than trying to, you know. Directly just build shareholder value or you know, the Amazon approach, which is also very effective.
But just maniacally d delivering customer value, we think the stakeholder model is, is an alternative and, and we think we're proving that that mission approach can work. Delivering value can sometimes mean delivering different products on a pretty regular basis. I mean, trader Joe's is known for that, where, you know, people go in there and want to find.
A new peanut butter, a new macaroni and cheese. They wanna find something at least once a week. And you see that in, you know, specialty grocers like er one, er one's always cycling through their, their beverage aisle. You know, with Thrive. I wonder, at least, I would assume that velocity, like any retailer, is the most important quality of a brand, or at least the most important reason.
That you would continue to carry your brand, but how do you balance velocity and differentiation? Well, I think they go hand in hand. You know, to your, to your point, like our, our members, I think similar to a Trader Joe's customer, look to Thrive Market for innovation, again, you go back to those people that have self-selected to join a health healthy living membership.
They want to find new products, they want to find new brands. They care about values more than they maybe care about a brand name or familiarity. And really crucially, they trust our platform. And that's, you know, so critical today you have, I mentioned this before, but every brand is making health claims and I think that so many of them are inauthentic and, and, and I think.
People have become, they're inundated by, you know, algorithmic content on the, on social media. They're inundated by marketing messages at the grocery store. Like people have become, I think, a little, a nerd to that. And, and I think a lot of people are rightfully very skeptical consumers. And so what we view our ability to do is to earn the trust of our members so that we can introduce innovative products that will be high velocity as a result.
And you know, one of the things that's most exciting for me as a founder of this business is to see when we're able to, you know, basically accelerate the journey of a great brand that's really early and that, you know, probably wouldn't get a chance to grow at the rate that they, you know, are unhr at a conventional retailer.
And often what they end up doing is they can parlay their success on Thrive Market into traditional retail, and that's fine. You know, they can take, and then what, what, what what we do is we play a different role at different stage in the life cycle. So early on we're the place that launches the brand, drives high growth across their most, pop their, their big skews.
And then, you know, once they start to get wider distribution, we're the place they launch new innovation. The place they're gonna partner with to do a, you know, special, special skew or a special case pack. And, you know, that's really fun for us to be with brands that in some cases now we've been with for, you know, close to a decade or more.
And, you know, seeing the arc of their lifecycle from, you know, zero to a hundred million plus. We've been dancing around this question of, well, what really excites Thrive Market from a brand perspective? You've touched on a number of brand attributes that could be a right fit or that that could be really attractive for Thrive Market, but just in terms of that first meeting, what, what are you looking for?
From a founder, from a brand that gives you confidence that what they're selling is right for Thrive Market? Yeah, I mean there's, there's kind of the formal criteria which come down to our quality standards. So we have a, a never ingredients list that's over 500 long. So literally the, the most extensive in the industry that I know of.
And so that's, that's a, that's a starting point. And the reality is, you know, for every brand that gets on Thrive Market, there's. A hundred plus that don't get on. What are some ingredients that folks might not expect to see on your never list? I mean, allulose is one that I can, I think of because, you know, whole Foods doesn't allow Allulose products or products made with Allulose in their stores.
Yeah, we've taken a stand on some of the sugar alcohols. We've also taken a stand and well before this became a, you know, hot button issue with the Maha movement, and so that's one we're like. You know, honestly, it's debatable though, right? Like there's people that have a strong opinion and supported GMOs for other reasons and we've, you know, and.
Arguably it's not the right thing to use GMO as a proxy for glyphosate resistance, but that's basically what we do. So that would be an example of one that we take in a hard line stance and for example, like there's products that are chicken products that if they're, there's they're, they can be free range chicken, they're consuming GMO feed.
We don't carry them on Thrive Market, and that's caused us staff to reject brands that we would otherwise have, have been excited about. Now, there are also times where we do change our quality standards. Either we step it up because new evidence emerges or we pull back because we realize, you know, hey, maybe we were like throwing baby out with, with bath water.
So we're not, it's not that we think that we are. Beyond criticism by any means. So we, we, we welcome a debate on these things, but we have, we have very high quality standards. But I would say once you, once you clear the quality bar, the number one thing that I look for in brands and that we look for on the platform is authenticity.
And again, this goes back to trust and it goes back to, you know what, over time. Uh, brands that have an authentic reason for existing that are doing something, you know, ironically, like we use all this data, but a brand that is cynically just pursuing what they think is the next hot trend. They're not gonna succeed, right?
As a platform, like what we wanna look for is who is the brand that is pursuing the right trend, but doing it for the right reasons, because that's the brand that's going to, you know, take, make, make the effort in the supply chain to do it right. That's the brand that's gonna have the compelling story.
And as I said before, I think consumers are becoming wiser and wiser. They're becoming, you know, their, their bullshit detectors are stronger than ever. And so, yeah, I think the brands that we've seen that really crush it usually have an an entrepreneur behind them. Or entrepreneurs behind them who are really authentically in it for the mission.
I'm glad you said all that. 'cause I'm gonna pick a brand that's on the Thrive Market platform that I first met at one of our Noosh live events and then sub subsequently saw here at Expo West a year ago. That brand is June, JOON, which is a brand of Shell on pistachios. You see their branding, you see their package design, and you just want to pick it up and look at it.
You taste the product and you think, oh my gosh, very high quality. Their flavorings are tremendous. Um, there's just something about June that feels like it has the whole package, but it's a brand and a commodity space. Um, it's not inexpensive for sure, and I think. It might be for a CER certain set of consumers, but not necessarily for a broad set of consumers.
I think the reality is if you are in a category that is more commoditized, like you know, shell on pistachios, that differentiation's very hard, and so I think a lot of brands are doing that. With, you know, flavor profiles with kind of unique kind of formulation innovations. I think it's really hard to do it just based on supply chain innovations and quality, but some brands have managed to do it, and what we do try to do is if we can find brands that have a product that's typically been commoditized, but they're doing it in a really up-leveled way, we try to tell those stories.
We try to get them credit for what they've done. Well, often, unfortunately, I think like people want. People want, it's like a yes and kind of thing. Consumers want to know that you're doing things right, that you have an ethical supply chain that, you know there's a great story behind the brand, but they also want it to taste good and they also want it to be unique.
And so we do try to look for those brands that, that can do both, right? It's like it's gotta be functional, it's gotta taste great, it's gotta have something that kind of like differentiates it, but yet it, you know, also has to have those high standards. You know, you'll often find on Thrive, I don't know, like one, just 'cause we're thinking about nuts.
Like, you know, skinny Dipped is now everywhere you can buy it in the airport. But when that first came out, it was kind of an innovative concept. It's like, oh, it says it's an indulgent product, but it's gonna have a, you know, little layer of chocolate versus like, you know, more chocolate than than almond.
And so, you know, those are the kind of brands that we love to get with early and, you know, drive that innovation and bring it out to new members. Sweet, salty protein. These all, yeah. I mean, for the everyday consumer, this all sounds great, sounds great for me. Trends come and go. I, I mentioned that, but I'd love to pick your brain.
I know you're not directly involved in the curation of every product or every brand that comes into the Thrive Market PLA platform, but if you were to talk to an enterprising founder who said, Hey, I'm thinking about incorporating this ingredient, this particular trend into my innovation strategy, how would you rate it?
Let's, let's just do a very. Easy. One to five here, protein and five being the best, five being the most interesting, most exciting for you, and one being least exciting for you. I'll say three and a half on protein, just 'cause I think protein might've peaked at this point. Okay. Fiber, that's the other next big one.
Fiber's probably got a little more room to run, but I think, you know, probably also like three and a half to four. I think both of those, like in terms of the mainstream probably are a five right now, but I think, you know. When you're putting protein in water and you're loading fiber into just like random, random products, you know, that's, I, that's a sign that the trend has, has run a, run a course.
Mm-hmm. Aquatic ingredients like a CMOs. I personally find that those really interesting, we do see a niche for them, but it's probably a two or three. Yeah. And by aquatic I mean marine people. People use the word marine. I used aquatic. I don't even know where that came from. I mean, so there's seaweed, snacks are great and there's a, a number of brands that have done innovative, fun stuff there.
So yeah, it's a a three, not necessarily an ingredient, but definitely a trend. Non ALK cocktails, that one we're really excited about. That's probably a four and a half. And again, like protein and fiber are bigger trends than non alk. But non ALK I think has unambiguous health benefits, right? Like pro protein, beyond a point is like diminishing returns.
And then probably, you know. Bad for you, like diminishing lower alcohol, sort of like, you know, you can go to zero and you're in a pretty good place and there's a lot of innovation happening there and a lot of people that are wanting to drink less. You know, it was well, well covered, but we did about six months ago decide to go fully on Elk, on on Thrive Market and it was a big moment for us and like when, I never would've predicted six or seven years ago when we, you know, we actually invested very deeply in creating a better for you wine category.
And the feeling at the time was people are gonna drink. That's just a given. Let's at least try to make it better by taking all the additives and crap that are in conventional wine out of it. And you know, lo and behold, less than, you know, less than a decade later, there's this mass movement away from drinking altogether.
And I dunno, I find that one very, very interesting and, uh, we've seen, you know, more growth in non-A to the point that like we took off wine and non-alcohol as a category is already almost as big as wine was after growing for seven years. Well, wine is having its own set of problems that are, that's true related to declines in consumption of alcohol.
But I think certainly the marketing of wine has, um. Not been the best of. Yeah, it had a moment during the pandemic where it looked everyone, everyone was a wine drinker. And since then I think it's been tough, tough times. Functional mushrooms. Functional mushrooms are interesting 'cause that's, you know, it's been going for a little while, but I think there's also really good science supporting it.
I would say that like there was a, a bit of a, a peak there. That's probably faded a bit, but I think that one's here to stay. Yeah, it's, it's, I'll say for myself personally, I find even like, you know, the, the non-psychoactive mushrooms to be a little bit wonky, so I don't consume them. And like, whether it's Rishi or Lion's Mane, I don't like them.
But there are many people that have found like, I think, like pretty well documented studies around the nootropic benefits and broader health benefits of, of some of these mushrooms. So I think, I think that one's three and a half. Okay. Well, I, I wonder if I should have asked about alternatives to caffeine, energy alternatives.
How would you rank that? To be honest, I haven't followed that trend so much. I think caffeine, you know, it's a multi-hundred year positive trend. I think unlike alcohol, which is unambiguously bad. Caffeine has pros and cons and also affects different people differently. Similar to some of the mushrooms, right?
So like there's some people that it's highly, highly good for me, it doesn't feel good. Caffeine can affects different people different ways. We don't carry the like ultra high energy drinks. On Thrive Market, even when they are a relatively clean caffeine source. I just don't think there's much benefit to consuming 250 milligrams of caffeine at a sitting.
But I think, you know, if anything, I would say there's a trend of putting caffeine into things that it doesn't, doesn't belong and, and people liking them. One of the, or I shouldn't say it doesn't belong, but that it hasn't been before. You know, quantum bars are an example of a good bar that's done really well and thrive, but I do think there's interest in, you know, the mushrooms are an alternative for some people to caffeine and, and, you know, mud Water's a brand that I admire a lot, and I've seen, seen what they've done for Sigmatic did it as well.
So, yeah, we'll, we'll see on that one. I think there's, you know, similar to non elk, like there's some of these non elk beverages that have also had innovation where, you know, you have it's rhodiola rosacea or some of these other ingredients that do have a mildly psychoactive qualities. And people, you know, it's as an alternative to alcohol.
I think, you know, there's gonna be stuff like that. That's an alternative to caffeine as well. Yeah. Kana is a, I think a, a Or is it kava or, well, kava is definitely an ingredient that's been around for a while. There's a new one, I believe it's K-A-N-N-A, and it's an ingredient that's supposed to give you a buzz or some sort of psychoactive benefit that is akin to that of alcohol.
That's interesting. Um, it's a, it's a relatively. I mean, there's certainly a trend now with, you know, basically nicotine in form factors outside of smoking or vaping. And the idea that nicotine can be a nootropic and have, you know, benefits for or protected benefits against neurodegenerative disease and.
I certainly haven't done the research on that. You're not gonna find a selling Z on Thrive market any anytime soon. But Nick's got a lipper going on right now, by the way, folks. No, he does actually absolutely does not have. No thank you. No, no, no. Thank you. Last one is cannabinoids. You know, uh, 2019 here at Expo West, CBD was the beginning.
Uh, it was the fir, it was the, the only ingredient trend. No one even mentioned protein. Probiotics, anything. If you don't have C, b, D, what are you doing? So, and, but CBD is a, you know, cannabinoids is a catchall for C-B-D-T-H-C, et cetera. Look we had there, there was definitely a moment there where CBD was absolutely the fastest cate growing category that we had seen to that point, and probably if I'm looking back at the fastest growing category we have seen since, it was just crazy.
And I think, you know, similar to mushrooms like the cannabinoid receptors and you know, different effects of CBD like are well documented and I do think there's a, there, there. But I just think that trend got, it went so far over it skis and got played out just really, really fast. And I think unfortunately the conflation of CBD with THC and just people's inability to kind of separate those, put a bit of a poll on the, on the space.
And I think there also unfortunately, were a lot of brands that weren't super, you know, ethical in terms of how the, like the supply chain and, and what the, the quality of the ingredients were. So yeah, there's, it's really surprising almost like I look, I, I look back at that five, five or six years ago and it seems like a.
Was it a dream? Did it happen? Is there that moment? And I will say, I think that one's also one that affects different people differently, similar to THC, which I think for some people can be quite mild and pleasant. For other people it's like a true psychotic. So, you know, we've, we've definitely stayed away from the, the THC side.
And CBD is a small category for us at this point. So at, at this point, it's not necessarily attractive. It's about a two or maybe a one and a half for you guys in terms of interesting. I I think it's, it's a one. Yeah. Yeah. Honestly. Well, I mean, I'm glad you're being really transparent about that because I think there are some questions about, you know, do I take a, you know, functional ingredient that.
Seems to be attractive to some people. You know, a niche set of consumers. It's, there's some potential there. You know, how much of that should I incorporate into my innovation strategy? And unfortunately, I think, you know, nowadays functional ingredients can be a ball drag. I think for a lot of brands, you know, you're, the education strategy is sometimes a very expensive one.
And you're not necessarily focusing on the attributes of your brand that people really wanna latch onto, like the brand story, the authenticity of your reason for being, et cetera. You know, my advice for whatever it's worth to, to, and the brands that I've seen that are the most successful, it's like, hang your hat on something that's authentically meaningful to you, that you, that you like, you connect with, and is the reason that you're actually starting the brand.
And then think about the other attributes as a constellation. And, you know, I think functional attributes are, are great, but I wouldn't hang your hand on any, any single one of them. You know, these, you see these diagrams on packages where they have like the icons of all the different attributes they have.
I think that's pretty effective. And I think most people, there's very few people that are searching for singular attributes at this point. Maybe with the exception of high protein or low sugar. Or maybe high fiber. And so, you know, I think the more bad things you cannot have and the more good things you can have, it's a pretty simple equation, but without shoehorning, right?
It's like what are the things that make sense? And if you have a, if you have a good, simple product that has clean ingredients, you know, you should be able to make good health claims on that, and they should be true. Well, the best thing you can have is taste, right. I mean, if you don't have taste of anything, well that, so yeah.
I'm glad you said that because all, you know, you can talk, you know, till the cows come home about attributes and what's on a package. Like what matters is what's in the package. And you know, that's, that's a, we have this whole list of 500 every ingredients and all of our criteria and like all these reasons that a brand, like the number one reason a brand's not gonna get on Thrive Market is if it doesn't taste good, because we will like.
There is, you know, 90% of why someone is gonna consume a product again is because it, like, that's the one non-negotiable. It has to work. If it's a functional product, it has to taste good if it's a, it's a, uh, consumable. Nick, uh, this has been so great. Thank you so much for taking the time. I hope Expo is good for you.
How many expos is this for you now? That's a good question. You were saying earlier for you, this is my 14th. Yeah. I think, yeah. For me, the first one was 24 to 2015. 2014 or 2015. And like you said, with a couple that in there that we didn't get to, but it has changed a lot. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty crazy.
But some things haven't changed, you know, again, like you see the, the, the trends that come and go. You see the excited entrepreneurs out on the floor. You feel the energy. There's part of that that's really fun for 24 hours and part of it that gets old fast, but. It's cool to see that this is still a community, you know, this many years in and for us, like we, we describe it as our Super Bowl because, you know, it's, it's high stress, it's intense, it's whatever, but it's our chance to spend time with the brands and, and be in person.
We, we had a breakfast this morning that had over 500 of our vendors out and it's just like super special to stand up and talk about the year with, you know, all the people to help make it happen. Well, I was just thinking while you were saying that, the one question I didn't ask you, Nick, is about. How you perceive Thrive today and how you perceive Thrive, you know, when you first started and how you see it in the future.
And I mean, I see Thrive as a tech company that delivers on a grocery experience that people want versus a grocery store that happens to be online. How do you see it? Well, it's interesting to mention how we were before. 'cause the first time we came to Expo it was pre-launch and we were still in stealth mode.
And the business, at that time, we were calling it Shop Tribe. So the Idea Shop Tribe, shop Tribe. Now you can't say like the, the idea of Thrive Market hadn't even come into, into being, and I think that we got. I think we got in with press passes 'cause we don't want anyone to know, you know, our great idea to build this business.
So that's pretty funny. That's, that's where we started. And yeah, I think, you know, I definitely think about us as a platform and I think that the, you know, the initial innovation in Thrive Market was the membership model. Yeah. Enabling us to offer these products at lower price. And the distribution model being online to ship them anywhere in the country.
And you know, that, that really focuses on two barriers to healthy living. One being cost and the other being geography. But I actually think the biggest barrier today is a, a cluster of software factors that are, you know, trust and intimidation and overwhelm. And, you know, contradictory information from influencers and brands and all of it.
I think a lot of people just put their head in the sand or they don't know where to start. And so I really do view us now as, as, as a platform that using technology is gonna solve that problem. I won't say we've solved the other two problems fully, but we've made a lot of progress. And frankly, the industry has changed a lot too, in terms of cost, where.
You know, Walmart is selling more of these kinds of products, but you go to Walmart, how do you tell the healthy stuff from the unhealthy stuff? And I think where, where Thrive Market will continue to earn our members' trust and continue to build that member base is as more and more people want a partner.
To help them make that healthy living journey easier. And that's where AI comes in. I mean, you mentioned it. I don't know how many times it gets me, it gets me so excited to think about AI deployed to help that happen because I think unfortunately, ai, like social media is gonna be a great kind of chaos creator, right?
You just think like content is gonna be, people will be able to create compelling content about anything, you know, whether it's true or not. And I think that's already causing people's heads to spin. You know, pre AI just on social media. But I think with AI it's gonna be even more the case. So if we can leverage these tools in a way that actually clarifies and simplifies and earns members trust and makes healthy living easier, you know, I think that's the next leg of the journey.
Well, once again, Nick, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm really excited that we finally got to have this conversation. Another eight years from now maybe. What's that? 20, uh, 2034. Is that right? Yeah. Well, there'll be 50 at that point. Like 50 will be the new 40. There you go. I mean now 50 is the new 35.
That's what the, I'm not sure. Anyway, you, you, you look fantastic. I wouldn't worry about 40 or 50 or whatever. Just keep doing what you're doing. Maybe just. Folks, you, maybe you should get a description to thrive because if Nick is eating the foods that he's selling, he's doing pretty well for himself. I consume nothing but thrive market food.
It's you's true well on much of my wife sugar. Well keep on thriving, Nick. Thank you. Thank you.
