Leslie Kenny is the Founder and CEO of Oxford Healthspan, an anti-aging supplement brand that contains spermidine, a potent organic compound that inhibits six of the nine hallmarks of aging. She is also a co-founder of Oxford Longevity, which brings together scientific experts to discuss the latest breakthroughs in health and aging by providing free public health webinars.
It was fascinating to talk to Leslie about the industry, and how she has brought her supplements to market. We talked about the challenges of educating your audience, launching and managing a business globally, and the different requirements of selling supplements in different markets. Leslie covers everything from where has the strictest rules, to the practicalities of running a global business when you also have children sitting GCSE and A-Level exams this year.
Listen in to hear Leslie share:
- An introduction to herself and her business (01:21)
- How she has brought her products to market (02:24)
- The difference between natural and synthetic supplements (04:46)
- Educating an audience on the benefits of the supplements (08:52)
- The importance of understanding where and how your supplements are sourced (11:20)
- What inspired her to create her own brand(13:36)
- The process from idea to getting the product on the market (16:49)
- The impact of having a famous person, Carol Vorderman, use your product (18:15)
- Launching her product simultaneously in the UK and USA (19:04)
- The differences between health marketing guidelines in the UK and USA (19:42)
- The countries around the world that have the strictest requirements (20:31)
- Adapting the marketing message for different national markets (22:17)
- The practicalities of running a business in the USA and UK (26:10)
- The impact of Brexit on an international business (27:36)
- His number one piece of advice for other product creators (28:10)
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Transcript
Welcome to the Bring Your Product Idea to Life podcast.
Speaker:This is the podcast for you if you're getting started selling
Speaker:products, or if you'd like to create your own product to sell.
Speaker:I'm Vicki Weinberg, product creation coach and Amazon expert.
Speaker:Every week I share friendly, practical advice as well as inspirational
Speaker:stories from small businesses.
Speaker:Let's get started.
Vicki Weinberg:Hi.
Vicki Weinberg:Today on the podcast I've been speaking to Leslie Kenny.
Vicki Weinberg:Leslie is the founder and CEO of Oxford Healthspan, an anti-aging supplement
Vicki Weinberg:brand that contains spermidine, a potent organic compound, inhibits
Vicki Weinberg:six of the nine hallmarks of aging.
Vicki Weinberg:She's also a co-founder of Oxford Longevity, which brings together
Vicki Weinberg:scientific experts to discuss latest breakthroughs in health and aging.
Vicki Weinberg:By providing free public health webinars.
Vicki Weinberg:I had a really interesting conversation.
Vicki Weinberg:That's all my conversations are with Leslie.
Vicki Weinberg:Um, we spoke a lot about aging, as you can imagine, and we also
Vicki Weinberg:spoke about her product, how she, you know, how she discovered it.
Vicki Weinberg:We spoke about the supplements in her wellness industry in general.
Vicki Weinberg:Well, as wellness, we spoke about running a business that spans multiple countries.
Vicki Weinberg:All in all, it was a really fascinating conversation and I
Vicki Weinberg:cannot wait for you to hear it.
Vicki Weinberg:So I would love now to introduce you to Leslie.
Vicki Weinberg:So, hi Leslie.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you for being here.
Leslie Kenny:Thank you so much for having me.
Vicki Weinberg:Oh, you're so welcome.
Vicki Weinberg:So can we start with you?
Vicki Weinberg:Please give an introduction to yourself, your business, and what you sell.
Leslie Kenny:Sure.
Leslie Kenny:My name is Leslie Kenny.
Leslie Kenny:I'm founder and c e o of Oxford Healthspan.
Leslie Kenny:We're an Oxford England based nutraceutical company selling molecules
Leslie Kenny:that slow aging and help us live our best lives in the second half of life.
Leslie Kenny:These are all molecules studied at the University of Oxford, and my mission
Leslie Kenny:is really to inspire, educate, empower, and equip men and women who are in
Leslie Kenny:their forties, fifties, sixties and beyond, to get these molecules, which
Leslie Kenny:have been scientifically researched at the lab bench into their homes
Leslie Kenny:and their lives and their protocols now, so they can make a difference.
Leslie Kenny:Whereas most of these molecules are going to be used by the pharmaceutical
Leslie Kenny:industry, and they're going to have to be synthetic chemicals researched
Leslie Kenny:for another 17 years or so before they actually reach the mainstream.
Leslie Kenny:I've brought food derived molecules to market, which are safe and which
Leslie Kenny:we can actually use right now.
Vicki Weinberg:Wow, that's really interesting.
Vicki Weinberg:There's, gosh, there's a lot in that.
Vicki Weinberg:So, before, I would love to talk more about your products and, and what's
Vicki Weinberg:in them, but what I'd love to touch on quickly, you mentioned that the
Vicki Weinberg:pharmaceutical industry will take another 17 years to get these products to market.
Vicki Weinberg:How are you able to do it so quickly?
Leslie Kenny:Well, so we're using food derived molecules and
Leslie Kenny:food can't be patented, right?
Leslie Kenny:You can't patent an orange, and yet we know that there is vitamin C in there.
Leslie Kenny:Now, if you are a pharmaceutical company, you want to only use synthetic
Leslie Kenny:patented molecules, and because those have, the safety profile has not
Leslie Kenny:yet been proof for those molecules you need to do clinical trials.
Leslie Kenny:And those can take, say, 10 years.
Leslie Kenny:And then even for those molecules to come to the attention of a pharmaceutical
Leslie Kenny:company, it can take another seven years from the time these molecules
Leslie Kenny:are discovered at the lab bench to the time they come to the attention
Leslie Kenny:of, say, a pharmaceutical company.
Leslie Kenny:And these clinical trials are very ex.
Leslie Kenny:Expensive.
Leslie Kenny:They're very needed because we don't want another thalidomide.
Leslie Kenny:Those viewers who are a bit older may remember the anti-nausea drug that was
Leslie Kenny:given to pregnant moms in the fifties and sixties to to stop nausea, and it
Leslie Kenny:resulted in a lot of birth defects, especially in Great Britain and in the US.
Leslie Kenny:These molecules have got to prove efficacy and safety to the fda.
Leslie Kenny:They're very costly, and that means that those molecules will be expensive
Leslie Kenny:and the profits will go back to the pharmaceutical companies that sponsor
Leslie Kenny:those trials, which is, that makes sense.
Leslie Kenny:They put the money up for the r and d, but it does mean that there's a disconnect
Leslie Kenny:from the time we learn about the value of a molecule to the time it gets
Leslie Kenny:into the hands of the everyday person.
Leslie Kenny:It can be 17 years, that's the average.
Leslie Kenny:And as a patient, I remembered researching for my own diseases, which were rheumatoid
Leslie Kenny:arthritis, lupus, and Hashimotos.
Leslie Kenny:What are the things that I can do to actually make a dent in these illnesses?
Leslie Kenny:And some of them were in foods, so things like curcumin in
Leslie Kenny:turmeric or omega-3 fish oils.
Leslie Kenny:And so these are the types of things that we want to really
Leslie Kenny:make available to people.
Leslie Kenny:And we also want them to know that they are the quality standard because
Leslie Kenny:supplements are an unregulated industry.
Leslie Kenny:It is a bit of the wild west out there.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you so much for explaining all of that,
Vicki Weinberg:and I, I'm sorry to ask you to jump into all that detail first.
Leslie Kenny:No, it's just, that's fine.
Vicki Weinberg:When you mentioned that, I just thought that is really interesting.
Vicki Weinberg:But it's also scary to think about how synthetic, a lot of the
Vicki Weinberg:supplements we have might be then.
Leslie Kenny:Well, yes, the vast majority of supplements in the
Leslie Kenny:market come from China and India because those are very low-cost
Leslie Kenny:countries in which to manufacture.
Leslie Kenny:That does not mean that they are not good.
Leslie Kenny:Obviously, synthetic vitamin C, oric acid, it has been shown to be proven useful,
Leslie Kenny:and many of those will be perfectly fine.
Leslie Kenny:But for new molecules that we don't know anything about how they actually interact
Leslie Kenny:with our biology over a longer period of time, that is something that would
Leslie Kenny:concern me as a patient and I would like to then make use of where they occur
Leslie Kenny:naturally in high amounts in nature.
Leslie Kenny:And I remember having a conversation with someone at the University spin out group.
Leslie Kenny:He said, oh, well that's not interesting because there's no patent to protect it.
Leslie Kenny:And I said, I'm a patient and I think it's interesting to me if it's
Leslie Kenny:going to make a meaningful difference in my life and with my condition.
Leslie Kenny:So one of the things that the molecules that we've brought to market so far do
Leslie Kenny:is they're both anti-inflammatories.
Leslie Kenny:I think we can all understand that omega-3 is an anti-inflammatory.
Leslie Kenny:Curcumin in turmeric is an anti-inflammatory, but they also
Leslie Kenny:trigger something called, Autophagy, and that comes from the Greek auto
Leslie Kenny:self and Fiji, which means eating.
Leslie Kenny:And it's literally a process of recycling and renewal that
Leslie Kenny:our cells can do on their own.
Leslie Kenny:It's kind of like your oven can clean itself if you press a little button.
Leslie Kenny:And when we're young, that process of autophagy works really well
Leslie Kenny:because we have a certain molecule that we produce in our tissues and
Leslie Kenny:in our gut biome in high quantities.
Leslie Kenny:And that molecule has a really strange name.
Leslie Kenny:Don't be put off by it.
Leslie Kenny:It's called spermidine.
Leslie Kenny:And as we get older, our production of it goes down just like our production of
Leslie Kenny:estrogen and progesterone and testosterone and melatonin goes down as we get older.
Leslie Kenny:The same thing happens with spermadine and we can, however, get it in our diet
Leslie Kenny:from plants and all plants make it because it's so important to the survival of the
Leslie Kenny:next generation of the plant that they put it in high quantities in the endo sperm,
Leslie Kenny:there's that word again, of the plant.
Leslie Kenny:So in the seed, basically.
Leslie Kenny:And that's why also we find it in semen and sperm.
Leslie Kenny:It's also in very high quantities in breast milk because again, it's for
Leslie Kenny:the survival of the next generation.
Leslie Kenny:And spermidine, it is a really terrible name.
Leslie Kenny:It's a marketer's name.
Leslie Kenny:It is incredibly important.
Leslie Kenny:We all make it.
Leslie Kenny:Our dogs and cats make it.
Leslie Kenny:All the plants you see make it, but some plants make it in
Leslie Kenny:higher quantities than others.
Leslie Kenny:And so beans like soybeans, they manufacture it in high quantities.
Leslie Kenny:And if you ferment it, then that amount increases.
Leslie Kenny:Wheatgerm has it in high quantities, and we have a gluten-free version
Leslie Kenny:that comes from a very unique strain of chlorella that happens to have
Leslie Kenny:it in naturally high quantities.
Leslie Kenny:And we've brought that to.
Leslie Kenny:With another molecule called, nobiletin, that sounds a lot better.
Leslie Kenny:And nobiletin is in the peel of citrus fruit.
Leslie Kenny:Uh, so things like bergamo, you know, which we have in Earl Gray Tea, but
Leslie Kenny:we get ours from Okinawa, where it is in the peel of an Okinawan lime that
Leslie Kenny:has been used for hundreds of years.
Leslie Kenny:And longevity elixir in traditional Japanese campo medicine.
Leslie Kenny:We didn't know why it worked in that formulation, but now we do
Leslie Kenny:because we have identified nobiletin.
Leslie Kenny:So those are the products that we've brought to market so far.
Leslie Kenny:They trigger autophagy and they're anti-inflammatory, so they'll help slow
Leslie Kenny:down nine of the 12 hallmarks of aging.
Vicki Weinberg:Well thank you so much and thank you for explaining.
Vicki Weinberg:My question was going to be, what are they good for?
Vicki Weinberg:So thank you for explaining that . I also didn't realize that these are
Vicki Weinberg:molecules, obviously, I read up a little bit about your products before we spoke.
Vicki Weinberg:I didn't actually realize that these molecules we have inside us already and
Vicki Weinberg:that production just slows down as we age.
Vicki Weinberg:I think that's really interesting thing, and I guess is it because
Vicki Weinberg:they haven't been launched by a big pharmaceuticals company that many
Vicki Weinberg:of us haven't heard about them?
Vicki Weinberg:Is that generally how it works?
Vicki Weinberg:We don't become as aware of something until it's mass produced.
Vicki Weinberg:Does.
Vicki Weinberg:Do you see what I mean?
Leslie Kenny:Yeah.
Leslie Kenny:I mean, you do need the marketing muscle of a large company, a large
Leslie Kenny:corporate, to really get word out and educate the public about the
Leslie Kenny:benefits of some of these molecules.
Leslie Kenny:I'm sure that a lot of people weren't thinking about vitamin D until government
Leslie Kenny:and companies started putting out the word about this during, you know, the pandemic.
Leslie Kenny:So it's the same with spermadine.
Leslie Kenny:There are a couple of things.
Leslie Kenny:Spermidine is uh, part of a class of molecules known as polyamide, and
Leslie Kenny:those have been studied for decades.
Leslie Kenny:understand their value until:Leslie Kenny:Prize in medicine or physiology was granted to a Japanese scientist for
Leslie Kenny:explaining the mechanism of action of autophagy, and we suddenly realized,
Leslie Kenny:oh, actually the body has this amazing innate wisdom to heal itself.
Leslie Kenny:The cells can actually make themselves new again.
Leslie Kenny:And then the fact that spermidine triggered autophagy became a big deal.
Leslie Kenny:But before that time, nobody thought very much about it.
Leslie Kenny:And as a result of all of this attention to autophagy, spermidine
Leslie Kenny:the limelight, but also since:Leslie Kenny:there are different pathways down, which we age has become more visible.
Leslie Kenny:So I think we've all heard of stem cells and the importance of them.
Leslie Kenny:And some of them might have heard about telomeres, which are
Leslie Kenny:the in caps of our chromosomes.
Leslie Kenny:So they allow our DNA to, uh, for cells to replicate again and again.
Leslie Kenny:And maybe some of us have heard about mitochondrial dysfunction and each
Leslie Kenny:one of those is a hallmark of aging.
Leslie Kenny:When our telomeres get shorter, when our stem cells stop functioning properly,
Leslie Kenny:when mitochondria don't work so well.
Leslie Kenny:And there are an additional nine hallmarks of things like inflammation,
Leslie Kenny:gut dysbiosis or microbiome imbalance and poor autophagy and spermidine
Leslie Kenny:happens to inhibit nine of the 12.
Leslie Kenny:So that has actually been shown by scientists and we're sort of waiting
Leslie Kenny:to see if they actually help with the other three, but because there's a lot
Leslie Kenny:of crosstalk between these hallmarks, if spermidine can do the heavy lifting
Leslie Kenny:with nine, it gives your body a bit of a rest so it can deal with the other three.
Leslie Kenny:If you see what I mean.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah, I do see what you mean.
Vicki Weinberg:The reason for asking the question, I was just reflecting on the fact
Vicki Weinberg:that it does feel like a shame that we, we as consumers become aware
Vicki Weinberg:that we need to have a certain vitamin or molecule, whatever it is.
Vicki Weinberg:Often we are then getting the synthetic version.
Vicki Weinberg:That's what I was reflecting on, that.
Vicki Weinberg:Oh.
Vicki Weinberg:Because by this time we find out that we need it.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah.
Vicki Weinberg:Do you know what I mean?
Vicki Weinberg:I just, that is a shame, isn't it?
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah.
Vicki Weinberg:For a consumer that I guess that there is any option once you become aware
Vicki Weinberg:of something to look at where it's sourced and look at where it comes from.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah, I think that's right.
Leslie Kenny:And you know this, we saw this happen with coffee previously, people didn't
Leslie Kenny:think very much about sort of how clean their coffee was or pure it was.
Leslie Kenny:They weren't thinking about mycotoxins in it or whether or not it was mouldy.
Leslie Kenny:And over the last few years I've seen more emphasis on cleanliness, purity, adhering
Leslie Kenny:to high standards, testing beforehand.
Leslie Kenny:I see more consumers buying organic or wanting to purchase things locally, and
Leslie Kenny:so they are becoming more discerning.
Leslie Kenny:Right.
Leslie Kenny:And I think women in particular, because many of us have families, for whom
Leslie Kenny:we end up being the, the main grocery purchasers for, or we, many of us do
Leslie Kenny:at least half the household burden.
Leslie Kenny:We want to put what's best for our family on the table, and we do become discerning.
Leslie Kenny:We do educate ourselves because it's not just for us, you know, we
Leslie Kenny:want good stuff for our families.
Leslie Kenny:What's great about spermidine is you don't have to take it as a supplement.
Leslie Kenny:You can just get it in your diet.
Leslie Kenny:The only issue is that in Great Britain and in the United States,
Leslie Kenny:we simply don't get enough.
Leslie Kenny:So if you look at, say, the traditional diet in Okinawa, which is an island
Leslie Kenny:off of the southern coast of Japan and one of the so-called longevity blue
Leslie Kenny:zones, they actually get huge amounts of spermidine in their diet a day.
Leslie Kenny:Around 50 milligrams or more.
Leslie Kenny:Here in Great Britain and in the United States, we get eight milligrams
Leslie Kenny:from our daily diet on average.
Leslie Kenny:It's not very much, and that's why just having a bit of a top up and
Leslie Kenny:having a standardized dose that you know you will get every day in the
Leslie Kenny:form of a supplement is helpful.
Leslie Kenny:And that's essentially what we're doing in the, in one of our products, we include
Leslie Kenny:a prebiotic to help your gut biomes own innate ability to produce this substance.
Leslie Kenny:It helps potentiate that.
Leslie Kenny:So, you know, that's a whole nother thing.
Leslie Kenny:So many of us have been exposed to broad spectrum antibiotics that we've killed
Leslie Kenny:off the bad bugs, but we've also killed off some of the good bugs in the process.
Leslie Kenny:And what that particular product Primeadine original is to do, it
Leslie Kenny:has a prebiotic really to help bring that production back online again.
Leslie Kenny:So work with the body.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you Leslie, and you touched on this briefly before,
Vicki Weinberg:but what was it that inspired you to create your own supplements brand?
Vicki Weinberg:Because it seems to me like a huge undertaking.
Leslie Kenny:Honestly, I didn't want to.
Leslie Kenny:I had been fundraising for University of Oxford spin outs, only in regenerative
Leslie Kenny:medicine and because I had been told at age 39 that I had five years
Leslie Kenny:left to live, and this was in:Leslie Kenny:So I've outlived my diagnosis by 13 years.
Leslie Kenny:I was very interested in regenerative medicine.
Leslie Kenny:I was looking at companies that were doing stem cells.
Leslie Kenny:Looking at circadian rhythm, things like this, and someone at the university
Leslie Kenny:said, Hey, I know that this isn't ever going to go anywhere, but there's
Leslie Kenny:someone in immunology and rheumatology who's doing some fascinating research
Leslie Kenny:on something called spermidine and how it helps with the immune system.
Leslie Kenny:Now, as a former rheumatoid arthritis patient, I immediately was curious and
Leslie Kenny:went to meet the scientist, and we also happened to have friends in common.
Leslie Kenny:My old Berkeley roommate was someone that she had actually, you
Leslie Kenny:know, been a colleague, Gavin in France and we just got to talking.
Leslie Kenny:I was doing more research and I thought, this is an amazing molecule.
Leslie Kenny:It is ubiquitous in the plant kingdom, in mammals, us humans.
Leslie Kenny:If it is in sperm and it is in breast milk in high quantities, it has
Leslie Kenny:got to be important to human life.
Leslie Kenny:Why is it that babies have such high quantities of it?
Leslie Kenny:So I did some more digging and I just thought, this is really
Leslie Kenny:too good to be true, because it was good for cognition in humans.
Leslie Kenny:They had done those, those trials, the animal studies showed
Leslie Kenny:just really fantastic results.
Leslie Kenny:I won't go through those things because I don't want to be making any claims
Leslie Kenny:here, but it's definitely correlated with longer healthspan and lifespan.
Leslie Kenny:I said to the fellow at the university spin out arm, Hey,
Leslie Kenny:I think this is fantastic.
Leslie Kenny:Would you guys fund me?
Leslie Kenny:And he said, no.
Leslie Kenny:I mean, it's a great, it's a great molecule, but there's no patent behind it.
Leslie Kenny:And we only fund things that have patents behind them.
Leslie Kenny:And I said, I don't know, Coca-Cola doesn't have a patent.
Leslie Kenny:And Elon Musk says he hates patents because you've got to hire an army
Leslie Kenny:of patent attorneys to defend them.
Leslie Kenny:Have you ever heard of a brand, I mean, Oxford kind of.
Leslie Kenny:Some name brand appeal overseas.
Leslie Kenny:People have actually heard of the name Oxford before.
Leslie Kenny:What if we just create a brand that stands for the highest quality standards, the
Leslie Kenny:most pure molecules and very efficacious.
Leslie Kenny:And so I decided when he said, well, we don't do that, I decided, I'd
Leslie Kenny:just go out there and do it myself.
Leslie Kenny:This was also during the pandemic, and I remember speaking to Professor Katcha
Leslie Kenny:Simon, professor of immunology at Oxford, and said, I don't know, is this the right
Leslie Kenny:time to bring this product to market?
Leslie Kenny:It's April,:Leslie Kenny:And she said, Leslie, we need this.
Leslie Kenny:People need this more than ever, because they've shown that in elderly
Leslie Kenny:mice with elderly immune cells.
Leslie Kenny:It rejuvenates those immune cells.
Leslie Kenny:So she said this has to get out there.
Leslie Kenny:So I decided to bring it to market and you know, first is a proof of
Leslie Kenny:concept, very tentative steps, and it just kind of took off from there.
Leslie Kenny:To be honest, it has a bit of a life of its own.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you.
Vicki Weinberg:So how many years did it take to get the product to market?
Leslie Kenny:Well before the pandemic, I had actually gone to visit
Leslie Kenny:manufacturers in the United States.
Leslie Kenny:As you can probably tell from my accent, I am from the US.
Leslie Kenny:I'm originally from Southern California.
Leslie Kenny:We do take a lot of supplements.
Leslie Kenny:Americans, 90% of all Americans take vitamin supplements and minerals,
Leslie Kenny:and so I always wanted the US to be the target and had identified a
Leslie Kenny:manufacturer in the US and I would be shipping in my raw material from Japan.
Leslie Kenny:So I'd sourced the raw material.
Leslie Kenny:Had done all of the testing in the labs for purity.
Leslie Kenny:Found the manufacturer.
Leslie Kenny:I just hadn't pressed play.
Leslie Kenny:And so in April I pressed play.
Leslie Kenny:By the third week of June, we had a product, and then it
Leslie Kenny:was really direct to consumer.
Leslie Kenny:Again, this is just proof of concept.
Leslie Kenny:Let's just get something out there.
Leslie Kenny:I remember that the first day that we launched a girlfriend of mine in San
Leslie Kenny:Francisco bought our first bottle, which was sweet, you know, showing support.
Leslie Kenny:And initially as the orders came in, I remember seeing just people I knew.
Leslie Kenny:And you do watch those orders like a hawk when they come in because you're
Leslie Kenny:thinking this is amazing, right?
Leslie Kenny:But they are all your friends.
Leslie Kenny:And then I do remember that time when the name started coming in and I thought, I
Leslie Kenny:have no idea who any of these people are.
Vicki Weinberg:That's exciting, isn't it?
Vicki Weinberg:The first order from someone you don't know.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah, exactly.
Leslie Kenny:It really is.
Leslie Kenny:And I remember when Carol Vorderman, the broadcaster started following us
Leslie Kenny:and she's very, very open and public about the fact that she loves our
Leslie Kenny:supplement and takes it herself and has done for, you know, the last sort
Leslie Kenny:of two years, and I didn't recognize the name when she started to follow us.
Leslie Kenny:Our head of marketing said, Hey, do you know who this person is?
Leslie Kenny:And it was, you know, could see Carol Vorderman.
Leslie Kenny:And I said, oh, we should offer her some free product, you know, to try.
Leslie Kenny:And we offered it to her and she said, oh thanks, but you don't need to do that
Leslie Kenny:because I'm already on it and I love it.
Leslie Kenny:And I thought, how did that happen?
Leslie Kenny:But she hadn't used that name to buy the product.
Leslie Kenny:So as a result, I didn't know.
Leslie Kenny:And that was kind of serendipitous and I sort of felt at that point,
Leslie Kenny:okay, now we're onto something.
Leslie Kenny:Right.
Vicki Weinberg:Oh, that's amazing.
Vicki Weinberg:And did you launch in the UK and the US at the same time?
Leslie Kenny:Well, that's the beauty of Shopify, right?
Leslie Kenny:You know, we are a Shopify platform company and you can, if you happen to have
Leslie Kenny:a third party logistics provider in the countries where, you know, the internet
Leslie Kenny:goes everywhere, if you have a logistics provider there to deliver the product
Leslie Kenny:and store the product in a warehouse, you can go to market there very easily.
Leslie Kenny:So we worked with a third party logistics company that happened
Leslie Kenny:to have a warehouse in the UK.
Leslie Kenny:Several in the US and so it was actually very easy to to do that.
Vicki Weinberg:Amazing.
Vicki Weinberg:I'm just wondering, is there any difference between how you can talk about
Vicki Weinberg:your product in either country or market?
Leslie Kenny:Yes.
Leslie Kenny:There is.
Vicki Weinberg:It's a different market, isn't it?
Leslie Kenny:There is.
Leslie Kenny:There is.
Leslie Kenny:So in the UK we manufacture in the UK, specifically for the UK
Leslie Kenny:market because there are rules and regulations that are different.
Leslie Kenny:There are some more tests that you need to do on purity and safety.
Leslie Kenny:We actually run those in the US as well.
Leslie Kenny:So we sort of adhere to traditional European standards in the US as well, but
Leslie Kenny:the labels need to be done differently.
Leslie Kenny:And so you do need to know.
Leslie Kenny:So yes, our manufacturer here does work with us to make sure
Leslie Kenny:that the label is up to spec.
Leslie Kenny:And we also manufacture in the EU for exactly the same reasons.
Leslie Kenny:Because of the different regulations, we have a totally different label,
Leslie Kenny:again, to meet those local regulations.
Vicki Weinberg:That's really interesting.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you.
Vicki Weinberg:And am I right in thinking that in the UK the requirements are much
Vicki Weinberg:stricter than in many other places?
Leslie Kenny:I think actually Canada has the highest
Leslie Kenny:standards, to be really honest.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah, I'd say Canada, toughest possibly in the world.
Leslie Kenny:Then after that, I'd say the EU in Britain, and I believe we are not
Leslie Kenny:part of the EU, but the rules and regulations that we still have, I
Leslie Kenny:believe our EU rules and those are strict, and Japan maybe after that.
Leslie Kenny:So.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah.
Vicki Weinberg:I just wondered.
Vicki Weinberg:That's really interesting.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah, because I'm, I imagine that you've made it sound so straightforward, um,
Vicki Weinberg:it sounds like an absolute minefield, creating lots, essentially the
Vicki Weinberg:same product, but to sell globally.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah.
Leslie Kenny:We did smaller batches for the UK and the EU.
Leslie Kenny:Again, we were just trialing it and seeing would this actually fly.
Leslie Kenny:That was very time consuming.
Leslie Kenny:The EU and UK were time consuming, but we're a British company and therefore we
Leslie Kenny:really wanted to be in the home market.
Leslie Kenny:But Brits are not as open to the idea of supplements as the Americans are,
Leslie Kenny:and not all of them have the same idea about healthcare that Americans do.
Leslie Kenny:I think because of the fact that healthcare is free here, there are some
Leslie Kenny:people who believe that it is up to the NHS to take care of their healthcare.
Leslie Kenny:But I think we've seen with the pandemic that we do need to take
Leslie Kenny:some personal responsibility.
Leslie Kenny:So I think that's changing.
Leslie Kenny:Whereas in the United States, you know, if you don't have
Leslie Kenny:insurance, it's all up to you.
Leslie Kenny:The buck stops with you.
Leslie Kenny:And so there are a lot of people who are very incented to stay healthy
Leslie Kenny:and to take preventative measures so that they don't have to pick up the
Leslie Kenny:pieces when things fall apart later.
Leslie Kenny:Whereas here, the NHS is kind of there to pick up the pieces as it were.
Vicki Weinberg:That really makes sense.
Vicki Weinberg:And I guess, was it, I don't want to say harder, but was it different
Vicki Weinberg:selling the product in the UK and making people aware of it and the benefits,
Vicki Weinberg:was that a different job too in the US?
Vicki Weinberg:Say where people, as you say, take a lot of supplements anyway and um, I don't
Vicki Weinberg:want to say more educated, but possibly a bit more informed about some of the
Vicki Weinberg:things you can take to stay healthy.
Leslie Kenny:I think there's.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah, I think there's more interest in the US than any of the Western markets.
Leslie Kenny:Like I said, 90% of the population takes supplements.
Leslie Kenny:That's huge.
Leslie Kenny:If you think about it, children taking supplements, right?
Leslie Kenny:So the habit starts early and I remember as a five-year-old taking, you
Leslie Kenny:know, Flintstone supplements, right?
Leslie Kenny:Chewables.
Leslie Kenny:But one thing that I encountered was around the idea of slowing aging.
Leslie Kenny:So if you mentioned this to baby boomers in the United States,
Leslie Kenny:they will say, fantastic.
Leslie Kenny:I like the idea of that, and they're very keen to explore the
Leslie Kenny:possibility of slowing aging.
Leslie Kenny:Really looking at each of those 12 pathways down, which we age, like
Leslie Kenny:inflammation, gut dysbiosis, lack of autophagy, poor stem cell function,
Leslie Kenny:and saying, okay, what do I do to help that or stop that here in the UK?
Leslie Kenny:I remember early on I had people say, and perhaps it's just Oxford.
Leslie Kenny:Why do you want to stop aging?
Leslie Kenny:You know, stiff upper left, you know, that is inevitable.
Leslie Kenny:It's foolish to think that we can stop aging and also
Leslie Kenny:that's unethical to stop aging.
Leslie Kenny:So it was quite a learning experience there for me.
Leslie Kenny:On the issue of the ethics of slowing aging, it has nothing to
Leslie Kenny:do with living 200 or never dying.
Leslie Kenny:It's not at all about that.
Leslie Kenny:I'm an older mother.
Leslie Kenny:I gave birth to my youngest daughter.
Leslie Kenny:43.
Leslie Kenny:She was my first biological birth.
Leslie Kenny:I adopted my first daughter and I had done five IVFs and donor eggs and
Leslie Kenny:you know, had basically thrown in the towel on having a biological child.
Leslie Kenny:When I had her at 43, my first thought was, I have to live a long
Leslie Kenny:time, but I have to live healthily.
Leslie Kenny:So for me, health Healthspan is about being around for my children and their
Leslie Kenny:families and really being able to not be a burden to them or to society.
Leslie Kenny:Being healthy enough to also give back.
Leslie Kenny:And so my argument on extending health span is I just want people to
Leslie Kenny:be healthier, take some pressure off the NHS, have people be vital and
Leslie Kenny:vibrant as they get older so they can contribute and really, so they can do
Leslie Kenny:things like I'm doing, start a business.
Leslie Kenny:I started my business.
Leslie Kenny:I was already 55 when I started . This is not normally a time when you think,
Leslie Kenny:okay, go for a startup and commit to working long hours and on the weekend,
Leslie Kenny:but I have the energy to do it, and I'd love everybody else to have that too.
Vicki Weinberg:That's great.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you.
Vicki Weinberg:And I agree with you.
Vicki Weinberg:I mean, for me, one thing I take really seriously, in fact, I think like you say,
Vicki Weinberg:perhaps more since becoming a mother, is I want to be healthy as long as possible.
Vicki Weinberg:I don't think it's necessarily about living as long as possible.
Vicki Weinberg:Yes.
Vicki Weinberg:But for the years I am alive, I want to be healthy and active and be able
Vicki Weinberg:to move my body in, in whatever way you can, but you know what I mean?
Vicki Weinberg:Exactly.
Vicki Weinberg:Feel independent.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah.
Vicki Weinberg:And I feel like that's becoming something that more and more people are aware of
Vicki Weinberg:and talking about, which I think is good.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah, exactly.
Leslie Kenny:We all want to know who our family members are, have our cognitive abilities so
Leslie Kenny:that we can, you know, use the phone, walk down the street and not get lost.
Leslie Kenny:Right?
Leslie Kenny:Go to the grocery store and not think, now why did I come here?
Leslie Kenny:Or Where are my car keys?
Leslie Kenny:Things like this.
Leslie Kenny:We want that functionality and we want mobility and independence
Leslie Kenny:and not to be a burden.
Leslie Kenny:For me, if I could, ideally everything would stop all at once and I would
Leslie Kenny:live vitally with all my faculties, with my mobility until the very last
Leslie Kenny:minute and then it would just stop.
Vicki Weinberg:I agree.
Vicki Weinberg:That's exactly what I would like.
Vicki Weinberg:And um, also, am I right in thinking, Leslie, that you split
Vicki Weinberg:your time between the UK and the US, like physically at the moment?
Leslie Kenny:There are times of the year when I travel a lot, and I am not in the
Leslie Kenny:US probably as much as I ought to be.
Leslie Kenny:My girls are still here in the uk.
Leslie Kenny:My eldest is A level year, so it's a very important year.
Leslie Kenny:Right.
Leslie Kenny:And my youngest will start her G C S E program next year.
Leslie Kenny:So, So I do need to be in Britain, but the US is the market
Leslie Kenny:and I'm very attuned to it.
Leslie Kenny:I have folks in the US and in the US time zone, and I am up unfortunately
Leslie Kenny:later than I should be because you know of that orientation.
Leslie Kenny:But actually at the moment I'm able to do quite a lot being based in Britain.
Leslie Kenny:And I think that's also something for anyone who wants to do business
Leslie Kenny:in Britain and export it to the or have a business in the US.
Leslie Kenny:It's possible, you know, you can get a manufacturer in the US but run it
Leslie Kenny:from Britain and it's a lovely country to live in and work in I think.
Vicki Weinberg:That's really good to hear because I did wonder, you
Vicki Weinberg:know, it sounds like your business is growing and it's obviously global,
Vicki Weinberg:so I wondered if there were, you know, any impacts of that on you.
Vicki Weinberg:And it sounds like they are actually quite minimal.
Vicki Weinberg:I mean, I don't want to underplay the amount of work you must have done to
Vicki Weinberg:get to the point where you can run your business from anywhere in the world.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah.
Vicki Weinberg:Don't imagine that was a small task, but it's good to hear that now that you know,
Vicki Weinberg:you can be in the UK most of the time.
Vicki Weinberg:Yeah.
Vicki Weinberg:And you know, your business runs globally.
Leslie Kenny:Yeah, I mean, Brexit was, you know, I won't mince words.
Leslie Kenny:It was not good for small international businesses.
Leslie Kenny:It has meant that we are not able to achieve economies of
Leslie Kenny:scale in Europe because I have to manufacture in the UK and in the EU.
Leslie Kenny:My warehouses, I have to have located, you know, I have to have
Leslie Kenny:two separate operations essentially.
Leslie Kenny:And that is a drain on resources, and it makes us, frankly, less competitive.
Leslie Kenny:But we can cope at least for the time.
Leslie Kenny:We're able to cope and you know, it's working out okay.
Vicki Weinberg:That's good to hear.
Vicki Weinberg:So I have one final question, Leslie, which I ask everyone who comes on.
Vicki Weinberg:What would your number one piece of advice be for other product creators
Vicki Weinberg:or aspiring product creators?
Leslie Kenny:Have passion and purpose.
Leslie Kenny:If you don't have passion and purpose about the products that you're
Leslie Kenny:bringing to market, when things get tough, and they inevitably will, and
Leslie Kenny:there will be nights when you don't get sleep and things won't go right.
Leslie Kenny:I remember an FDA inspection in Miami where I had to stay up all night
Leslie Kenny:getting all of our documentation to the inspectors, and we passed
Leslie Kenny:of course, but it was stressful.
Leslie Kenny:You have to really believe in what you're doing so that you can bring it.
Leslie Kenny:You have to bring it every single day.
Leslie Kenny:There will be days when things don't go your way and you still have got
Leslie Kenny:to say, no, I believe in this 110%.
Leslie Kenny:And that, I think when you're also talking to retailers and to partners
Leslie Kenny:and to podcasters like you, or to the press, they can sense it.
Leslie Kenny:Does this person really walk their talk?
Leslie Kenny:Do they live and breathe?
Leslie Kenny:Do they love it?
Leslie Kenny:Would they recommend it to their mother, their father,
Leslie Kenny:their sister, their daughter?
Leslie Kenny:In our case, even our dogs.
Leslie Kenny:Yes.
Leslie Kenny:You know, you have got to have that belief and be mission driven.
Vicki Weinberg:So thank you so much for everything that you shared with us today.
Leslie Kenny:You're so welcome and thank you very much for letting me
Leslie Kenny:have a chat with you and sharing my story with other entrepreneurs.
Leslie Kenny:And I hope if they go away with one thing, it's that it's never too late.
Leslie Kenny:And if you're 55 or older, this is what I call the new prime of
Leslie Kenny:life and just get on with it.
Leslie Kenny:You'll be surprised at what you can achieve.
Vicki Weinberg:I think that's really inspiring.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you.
Leslie Kenny:You're so welcome.
Vicki Weinberg:Thank you so much for listening right
Vicki Weinberg:to the end of this episode.
Vicki Weinberg:Do remember that you can get the full back catalogue and lots of free resources
Vicki Weinberg:on my website, vicki weinberg.com.
Vicki Weinberg:Please do remember to rate and review this episode if you've enjoyed it,
Vicki Weinberg:and also share it with a friend who you think might find it useful.
Leslie Kenny:Thank
Vicki Weinberg:you again and see you next week.