Dr Andrew Brandeis of OK Capsule On 5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Health and Wellness Industry
Surround yourself with others in the health and wellness industry. Find a network of people to count on for best practices, support, ideas, and great relationships. I have been fortunate to be supported in my career while having an opportunity to be a leader in space.
As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The Health and Wellness Industry”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Andrew Brandeis, Founder of OK Capsule.
Dr. Andrew Brandeis is a physician with over ten years of experience practicing integrative medicine, a serial entrepreneur, and the Founder of OK Capsule. OK Capsule provides the technology, products, fulfillment, and strategic support that makes it safe, simple, and sustainable for companies to launch and scale the delivery of personalized supplement packets to their customers. OK Capsule’s enterprise platform is the most technically advanced integration solution for companies and brands to formulate, sell, and deliver personalized supplements at any scale. Dr. Brandeis earned both his doctoral degree and an undergraduate degree from Bastyr University in Seattle. He has spoken at multiple conferences and for tech and medical organizations, including TechCrunch Disrupt, on the intersection between health and wellness. Focused on longevity and breakthroughs in anti-aging, Dr. Brandeis specializes in dietary supplements as a primary modality in medical practice and is on a mission to continue to help people improve the quality of their lives and reduce their healthcare costs through personalized nutrition.
Andrew Brandeis is a physician, CEO, and Founder of OK Capsule. OK Capsule provides the technology, products, fulfillment, and strategic support that makes it safe, simple, and sustainable for companies to launch and scale the delivery of personalized supplement packets to their customers. OK Capsule’s enterprise platform is the most technically advanced integration solution for companies and brands to formulate, sell, and deliver personalized supplements at any scale. Dr. Brandeis earned his doctoral degree from Bastyr University in Seattle and his undergraduate degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Focused on longevity and breakthroughs in anti-aging, Dr. Brandeis specializes in dietary supplements as a primary modality in medical practice and is on a mission to continue to help people improve the quality of their lives and reduce their healthcare costs through personalized nutrition and supplementation.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Was a particular person or event inspired you to live a wellness-focused lifestyle? Can you tell us about your primary motivation to go all in?
There was a person who inspired me. I was 15 and met a mentor who became my personal Mr. Miagi, like from “The Karate Kid.” I was learning karate with him (really!), and he had a very healthy lifestyle back then. He owned a health food store that sold organic produce, supplements, and other natural foods and products. That’s how I got into it. My first job was working in his health food store, where I learned about supplements and saw firsthand how they were helping customers. This was my primary motivation to go all in. I value health and always have had some gut issues. I grew up as a kid with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) and figured out how to resolve it myself with supplements and by avoiding foods that triggered it. I quickly learned that “feeling crappy” sucks, and feeling good doesn’t. To this day, I’ve had a hard time with the different labels of healthy food versus junk food. There’s no such thing as healthy food. There is food, and there is junk. Food provides the nutrition your body needs.
When I’m tempted with junk, I ask myself, “Am I ok feeling awful?” As a parent, I ask my daughter to remember how sugar makes her feel. She’s seven, and I ask her, “How did you feel after you ate a cinnamon bun or ice cream?” She agrees with me. That’s not to say we don’t enjoy a treat, but it’s great that she has that awareness.
Most people with a wellbeing centered lifestyle have a “go-to” activity, exercise, beverage, or food that is part of their routine. What is yours, and can you tell us how it helps you?
Ashtanga yoga is part of my everyday routine. I practice yoga because it’s routine and repetitive, and I can see linear progress. It’s a very intense practice, and since I spend a lot of time sitting in front of the computer, I get energy, get it out of the way early in the morning, and prepare myself for the day. Yoga is very connected to breathing. I’ve read that Yoga means “to yoke,” and you’re yoking your breath to movement, all while finding a solution to a problem. I’m not into competitive sports, and I travel a lot. I know that I can practice yoga anywhere. All I need is 12 square feet of floor space.
To live a wellness-focused life is one thing, but how did it become your career? How did it all start?
It all started in that health food store when I was 15. I eventually became a manager, and at some point, I realized I was practicing medicine without an education or a license. I was treating people without understanding what I was doing, but I was very interested. I went on to get a degree in nutrition and preventive medicine. Back then, finding integrative doctors in a suburb of New Jersey wasn’t easy, so I had to figure it out on my own.
Can you share a story about your biggest challenges when you first started? How did you resolve that? What are the main lessons or takeaways from that story?
The biggest challenge I met when I was beginning was doing something that had not been done before in a regulated industry — learning about a new industry and understanding the regulations about how doing something new and novel fits in when there aren’t necessary frameworks for what you’re doing. Learning, trial, and error is a minimum level of quality that you have to have to sell a good product.
As a start-up, you’re trying to fake it until you make it, but with supplements, you’re trying to create the highest quality product while fundraising and having the minimum viable product. How do we do this on a minimal start-up budget? We can’t move fast and break things, as nutrition and supplements are not the Silicon Valley mindset of “just get it done and get it on the shelves.” With transparency and the highest quality ingredients, we need to take our time and not want to hurt people. We want to help them improve their health and offer the best benefits possible.
Can you share with us how the work you are doing is helping to make a more significant impact in the world? Can you share a story that illustrates that?
We are doing several things to make an enormous impact in this world. I’ll share two:
First, we are improving people’s nutrition in a targeted and easy way that makes them feel better, have more energy, and reduce healthcare costs because it’s easier to prevent illness than treat it–whether it’s supplements for migraines, Covid, arthritis, or heart diseases.
Second, every time we ship a product, we are saving about 200 grams of plastic bottles. All of our packaging is compostable. Each compostable packet we distribute contains about five pills. We don’t use any bottles. Five plastic bottles must be used if supplements are purchased or sourced elsewhere. We strongly believe that wellness for people should not come at the expense of health for the planet.
What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?
Consumers may not know what melatonin is for, but if they see a package called “sleep,” they’ll understand what it’s for. We are calling them “solution-oriented packs.” These packs are condition-specific, such as packs for sleep, migraines, joint issues, periods, and allergies. These packs are high-quality doctor-formulated (by me) supplements I take personally. These packs make it easy for consumers to identify based on their challenges.
Compliance is also a significant challenge for consumers. There are many advantages to putting supplements into packs. You can have them anywhere, anytime. They are convenient and effective, and from years of medical experience and being in the industry, I can tell you that very few people will open 4 to 5 bottles per day, even a couple of times per day, to take their supplements. Rather than opening 2–3 bottles, which is very cumbersome, with packs, you can keep a couple of packs at your desk or in your purse or when you travel, and when you need them, you have the solution there when you need it.
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
As an entrepreneur, I’m pretty risk-tolerant. I have tons of ideas and no fear of failing. I don’t view failure as negative. I related closely to Thomas A. Edison when he said, “I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.” I want to try stuff. It may not work, and that’s ok, but I know I’ll learn from it. I also have an insatiable desire to solve problems and trust my intuition. If it makes sense in my head, I have a hard time believing that it will not make sense in reality, be it in my career or personal life.
Two examples are launching OK Capsule and marrying my wife when we had just met and didn’t speak the same language. With my wife, I only spoke English, and she only spoke French, but I had a feeling we would work out, and we did! I feel that “When you know, you know.”
I have a blend of curiosity and creativity. I’ve always been curious and consider myself to be reasonably intelligent. I want to understand how things work and why they do. I like putting things together and finding satisfaction in finding something no one sees. I seek to make the world better for me, and I believe that if it works for me, it will likely function better for others.
Regarding supplements, I want to know what specific supplements I need, how often I need them, and why I need them. But no way am I going to take 12 pills daily, so I decided to put them into packets. I developed a company to support my compliance challenges with taking my supplements. I wanted it to be easy, and if it’s difficult for me (even as a doctor), I knew that most people wouldn’t comply with taking their supplements. As a physician, I have years of experience prescribing supplements to patients, and compliance is burdensome. But convenience ALWAYS wins, and compliance skyrockets if you make it easy for them. I’m no different than my patients.
Learning to take my 100% responsibility is another trait that has helped me the most. In every situation where there is conflict, I seek to figure out my role. You can’t change anyone else’s behavior but can change your own. So if a colleague is late to a meeting, instead of getting mad at him, I communicate that it makes me feel that my time isn’t being respected. I will say, “Time management is important for me, and it’s frustrating and disruptive for me when you’re late. What can I do to help you get to the meetings on time?” That’s me taking my responsibility for them being constantly late. I have applied this at OK Capsule, which has helped us communicate better and more efficiently.
OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition of terms so that all of us are on the same page. Wellness is a vast topic. How would you define the term “Wellness”? Can you explain what you mean?
There are different levels of wellness. One is the absence of disease. This is baseline wellness where you are not sick. Then you can optimize your health by optimizing your sleep. Some people eat like crap all of the time. They’re constantly tired, have gut issues, and don’t even realize that they’re not in their baseline steady state of wellness. They are sub-optimal.
Then some people say, “I know I shouldn’t eat gluten or sugar, so I don’t eat it.” RDA is the amount needed to avoid a deficiency. Vitamin C does so much good stuff, and you can optimize health by taking more Vitamin C. So, there are different levels of wellness ranging from sub-optimal to optimal wellness. The key is to ask yourself, “What can I do to maximize all of my body systems, from energy to longevity to mental clarity?” I think of wellness as optimal, meaning the action steps I need to take to feel my best with minimal effort. When you consume food and supplements, your body takes what it needs and carries waste products.
As an expert, this might be intuitive to you, but it will be instructive to articulate this expressly. Can you please share a few reasons with our readers why focusing on our wellness should be a priority in our lives?
Focusing on health should be a priority in our lives. If you are somebody who values feeling good, then do it! Why would you de-prioritize changing the oil in your car? If the output you want is feeling good in your head, heart, and body-mind, then just take care of it!
Many people complain about not feeling well but don’t want to work to feel better. If you want a different outcome, you have to change the input. To me, it’s so essential. I want to sleep well and wake up with energy.
Patients say things like: “I was a runner, but then my knees hurt.” So, if these runners don’t want knee pain, they have to put effort into physical therapy, strengthening exercises, and nutrition. The same goes for someone that has chronic inflammation.It’s simple to address with diet because what you put in your body strongly connects to how you feel.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increasingly growing understanding of the necessity for companies to be mindful of the wellness of their employees. To inspire others, can you share steps or initiatives that companies have taken to help improve or optimize their employees’ mental and physical wellness?
Supplements can benefit your mind and body with minimal effort and cost. Rather than having chocolate in our fish bowls at the office, we offer supplement packs. At OK Capsule, we give everybody supplement packs, and around Covid, it was “Covid Packs,” and most people didn’t get sick, and if they did get sick, they were back at work pretty quickly.
We also have an unlimited vacation policy. If my team needs time off, they just take it.
We also provide standing desks for people who ask.
Here’s the central question. What Are You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career in the Health and Wellness Industry? If you can share a story or an example for each.
First, you must have your health and wellness– your practices and behavior. Doing this makes you the consumer, so you can better understand health from a consumer perspective. This self-practice also helps you identify opportunities and gaps in the market. I, for example, ask myself, “What supplements do I need to take, and how do I make it easy?” My practice of health and wellness is a simple routine. Simplicity is key. People in the industry are more likely to take you seriously and believe in you if you look healthy. You kind of have to walk the talk.
Second, it’s critical to understand the regulatory environment in the health and wellness space. Understanding the framework and identifying opportunities without breaking laws or doing anything harmful in the industry is paramount.
The third is to have integrity. consumers must trust the supplement brand, and your customers must feel and understand the benefit. There are snake oil sales people out there and you don’t want to be one of them.
Fourth is to surround yourself with others in the health and wellness industry. Find a network of people to count on for best practices, support, ideas, and great relationships. I have been fortunate to be supported in my career while having an opportunity to be a leader in space.
Fifth is the ability to recognize the change that is coming. Health and wellness are evolving fast because science and wellness have converged. New technologies are out now and continuing to hit the market. They will drastically change the definition of wellness that I state above. There is longevity technology that’s coming out that is about to make my medical education irrelevant, such as technology around changing your genetics. If you want to succeed in what’s coming in health and wellness (5–15 years down the road), you need to pay attention to what’s coming and see how you can integrate it into a career. I am always reading new books and studying to stay updated.
You are a person of significant influence. What would that be if you could start a movement promoting wellness to the most important number of people? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think that preventing illness is way more effective than treating it. I believe that a lot. The easiest way that people can prevent disease is by removing the bad stuff from their diet and lifestyle–trying to remove stress, keep essential exercise, and avoid processed foods and sugar.
Also, take your vitamins and figure out which ones you need. The easiest way to take them is in packets. The movement I want to see happen is based on the company I started. As a doctor, I spent so much of my effort just getting people to a baseline that they could have done themselves. But opening multiple bottles of supplements was a challenge, and they usually failed at this task. It would have improved their lives if people could just comply. I tell my patients and colleagues to change the inputs earlier if you (i.e., take supplements) want a different outcome.
As I mentioned earlier, treating an illness is more complicated than preventing it. A little effort can prevent things, and healthcare costs would go way down. People would feel better.
We are blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why?
I would say I’d have breakfast with Tony Robbins. He just wrote this book, Life Force, with so many insights and knowledge that changed how I practice medicine. I think what he’s currently up to will help optimization. He understands how to motivate people to make the change that I just talked about. I think what he’s doing is great.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
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