An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I have learned when planning for meetings is to write out the goal/purpose of the meeting ahead of time. I have so many meetings where I wonder what the point is, or it takes much longer to get to a resolution. If I set the goal at the beginning and refer back to it throughout the meeting., it helps the time become much more effective.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Schindler.

As a Global Thought Leader in HealthWear™, Jordan Schindler is on a mission to simplify health and wellness.

Schindler, the Founder and CEO of NUFABRX®, an innovative technology company focused on the controlled delivery of active ingredients (vitamins, supplements and medication) infused in clothing, has developed and launched a new category of health and wellness products.

Founded in 2011 after Schindler discovered that his acne was caused from not washing his pillowcases often enough, and determined to find a better solution, the idea for NUFABRX was born. After years of research and development in partnership with a PHD formulation scientist, he developed the revolutionary patented platform technology.

NUFABRX is an innovative technology company focused on the controlled delivery of active ingredients (vitamin, supplement, medication) through clothing. Providing all day relief (the compression wear can be worn up to 150 hours) and lasting through 15+ wash cycles, the patented technology is activated by body temperature and moisture so you can feel it working.

Today, NUFABRX is an 8-figure revenue business with national retail distribution including the world’s largest retailer, Walmart and is identified as one of the fastest growing companies by Deloitte, Inc 5000 and in the brand’s headquarters home in Charlotte, North Carolina. The full line of NUFABRX HealthWear has something for everyone with two collections: Pain Relief and Maternity which infused with hydration and shea butter and designed to grow with moms-to-be.

It’s no wonder that Jordan Schindler believes in learning through testing and innovation led by science.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in Arizona, in a middle-class family. From a very young age, I loved getting into any type of entrepreneurship role I could find. I was that kid on the corner of my street selling lemonade to everyone who drove by. I even sold MP3 players that I purchased from China when I took a trip there in middle school. I was always thinking outside the box! Aside from my entrepreneur side, I also enjoyed keeping active, I played tennis all throughout high school.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Work is 50% of our lives; the enjoyment of that time matters so much. Culture and team are everything and that’s why I like coming to work every morning. We call it our “Core Fibers” instead of core values, with “F” standing for Fun. If we don’t enjoy work, if we don’t get to work with people we like and we don’t get to build something that adds value to the world; then I believe something is wrong. Life is too short to accept anything less.

To that end, I’ve also started to try to put slightly better controls on technology. For example, I use the Freedom app that blocks notifications after a certain time at night. Being always on, working on vacation, and not spending enough time with my fiancée are all things I’m trying to get better at. I’ve learned that ultimately working all the time doesn’t make me a better leader, it just makes me a more tired one. That’s not the life or example I want to set for my team. It has taken me a long time to appreciate that.

Honestly though, call me crazy, but Monday morning is still my favorite time of week to check emails, get back to the grind and continue building.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney. The book tells the story about Category Creation; how Uber established and thus dominated the ride share category, how Salesforce pioneered their own industry. There are clear steps and design stage gates that need to be implemented when building a new market category. As we continue to grow Nufabrx, we’re building an entirely new category of products, HealthWear, at the intersection of drug delivery and textiles. This game changing book has laid the foundation for how we do that. We’re all about the big “lightning strike” events and ridiculous outside the box marketing ideas (cue inserting $20 into every Walmart retail box and PR blitz).

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

It’s definitely not an easy challenge to overcome, but at the end of the day, perseverance is going to be incredibly important along the journey, through all the ups and downs. You have to keep the mindset of constantly trying to swim to the next buoy, get to the next level, etc. Think about bringing an idea to life as planting a seed below the surface. It’ll take 3 years before you see anything happening, but it’s growing. Most importantly, you need to surround yourself with the right team to compliment your weaknesses. You can’t be good at absolutely everything, so find people who can help you get to where you want to be.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

It’s really all about talking to the customers and retailers you want to actually sell and buy your products, and take their feedback seriously as you continue to grow your idea/business.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

The entire process is a lot of fun. You’ll be involved in fundraising, R&D development, regulatory, prototyping, market research, etc. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy that journey and someday look back and appreciate that moment in time. When it comes to filing a patent, you can actually teach yourself how to do this online! The real challenge begins during the office action stages, and all the back and forth with the examiner. When choosing a manufacturer, find someone you like, and more importantly, someone you trust. It’s all about having a good working relationship. Before making any permanent decisions, consider if you’d want that person or company working fulltime in your organization. These people will certainly be in the trenches with you!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

I learned that one of the keys to business success is to try and understand what insights/knowledge I have that others don’t. I start with these questions that I ask myself — where do you know more than the average person? And where do you feel most passionate? In my case, it was suffering from bad skin and learning that the cause was that my pillowcase was not clean enough and needed to be washed more often. As a busy college student, doing laundry 2–3 days/week as recommended by my dermatologist, was not ideal nor did I have the time for that so I set out to find a better way. That’s where I found my passion — in finding a solution to a problem. And that’s how my company, Nufabrx, was created and the specialized category HealthWear, delivering medicine through clothing.

I’ve also started to try to put slightly better controls on technology. For example, I use the Freedom app that blocks notifications after a certain time at night. Being always “on”, working on vacation, and not spending enough time with my friends & family are all things I’m trying to get better at. I’ve learned that ultimately working all the time doesn’t make me a better leader, it just makes me a more tired one. That’s not the life or example I want to set for my team. It has taken me a long time to appreciate that.

Another important lesson that I have learned when planning for meetings is to write out the goal/purpose of the meeting ahead of time. I have so many meetings where I wonder what the point is, or it takes much longer to get to a resolution. If I set the goal at the beginning and refer back to it throughout the meeting., it helps the time become much more effective.

Also, I try put myself in the other person’s shoes and think — what do they want, what is their angle? Once you understand that, it’s easier to become focused. Backable (the book by Carlye Adler and Suneel Gupta is a great resource).

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Go build a prototype. It’s so much easier to talk to people and learn once you try to actually build it. What makes what you’re doing different or more unique than what’s already on the market? Where do you have expertise that others don’t? These are the types of questions you’ll want to focus on and ask yourself along the way to be successful at what you’re trying to achieve.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I would recommend trying to do it yourself first. You’ll need to build that knowledge base first to understand what you need and what you won’t. Then if you’re able to, look into hiring a consultant. At that point you’ll at least be better informed about what type of consultant or resources you’ll really need moving forward.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

The main question before making this decision would be whether or not you can make the product without venture capital, or is there a large upfront cost? Map out how much money you think you’ll need, and then make your decision. Keep in mind, things always take 2–3X more dollars than anticipated, so double your numbers!

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

It’s all about simplifying health and wellness for consumers and helping solve for patient compliance. We want to make it easier for people to get healthy, simple as that! We’ve also donated over $2M worth of products to those in need, which I’m very proud of. We also make it a big focus to be carbon neutral and keeping a healthy planet for everyone.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

HealthWear! This movement that Nufabrx is already set out to do uses clothing and textiles as a delivery vehicle to help people live better, healthier lives. Clothing and textiles touch us all day, every day. What if your garment could help fight cancer, or capture carbon from the environment, or even help your pet heal? The sky is the limit on what textiles can do.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would have to say Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx! As an entrepreneur who pioneered a brand-new category of clothing herself, I’d love to sit down with her and pick her brain, as Nufabrx is on a very similar path.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Jordan Schindler Of Nufabrx On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.