An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Believe in science, and follow what it says. The nice thing about science is that even if you’re wrong the first time, you just learn and adjust!
As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sean O’Neill.
Founder of Toast! Supplements, Sean O’Neill has created a supplement to help you enjoy a night out while thinking about your health! A wrong diagnosis sparked Sean O’Neill’s desire to understand the effects of alcohol on the body and how hangovers aren’t really caused by dehydration but how our bodies metabolize alcohol. Focused on changing the way we view drinking, Sean O’Neill is here to debunk our theories and toast to our health!
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
When I was in my late 20s a routine physical picked up elevated liver enzymes. I was told it was probably nothing, but follow up tests were required. Sitting in my home one evening, I got a call from my doctor’s office telling me I had “cirrhosis of the liver, because of your drinking”. Now, that turned out to be entirely wrong. I did not have cirrhosis. My liver was fine. But it would take months of frustration and fruitless theories to find that out, and in the meantime no doctor could explain how someone my age could possibly end up with cirrhosis, particularly given I wasn’t much of a drinker! So I started looking into research about alcohol and the liver, and found that a lot of clinical research had been done in recent years showing how natural compounds like milk thistle and green tea could help reduce alcohol’s damaging effects, while ingredients like prickly pear even showed effectiveness at reducing or preventing a hangover. This made me particularly frustrated when I’d ask a doctor “what can a drinker do to stay healthy” and get told “not drink”, because while that was certainly one solution, the research seemed to indicate that it wasn’t the only one. Once I got healthy I ended up in business school surrounded by a largely international class who often took various products before drinking, to reduce hangover effects. The international business students were willing to test out the ingredients I’d read about in clinical research. Soon thereafter, I decided to start Toast!.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
Most people still think hangovers are caused by dehydration, and the majority of products are still based on that belief as well. However, clinical research has completely disproven that theory. Instead, the Before You Drink Gummies are based on the latest clinical research from our scientific advisor Dr. Joris Verster, founder of the Alcohol Hangover Research Group. His research has shown that a hangover appears to be caused by our immune system responding to alcohol’s inflammatory effects, with our individual genetic ability to metabolize alcohol playing a significant role as well. Unlike other products, we also recognize that people drink predominantly to socialize, relax, and have a good time, and we’ve based our products accordingly. Rather than pills, powders, or drinks, we’ve developed our solution to be an appealing and tasty gummy bear that’s shareable and fun; just like drinking. They’re the perfect toast, before you drink!
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
While we ended up with gummies, it took a while to get there. We started with pills and powders, and it was always a challenge to convince people to try them. They were intrigued with the idea, but strange pills and powders caused a lot of understandable skepticism. So our first solution was to say “hey, why don’t we make a little drink like 5 Hour Energy”? Boy was that a mistake. We didn’t know how to make drinks. We ordered flavoring powder from a company and got powdered versions of our active ingredients and tried to make a drink and it was disgusting. Seriously, the single worst smelling, worst tasting, weird bubbling orange concoction ever. We quickly learned that it’s not as simple as throwing some flavoring on top, there’s a reason that people go to college for food science and learning how to flavor things. In making our gummies, we’ve partnered with experienced gummy candy makers to create gummies that aren’t just effective, but also have that gummy quality taste and chew people expect. We learned not to try and just go at it alone when you can work with experts!
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
Disrupting an industry is good when it’s not working right, or can be improved. One simple example is ordering an Uber versus a taxi. With Uber, you just entered a destination and someone came to pick you up, usually pretty quickly. No waving down taxis on the street, hoping they were empty, or sitting on hold with a dispatcher. That innovation by itself made Uber superior to other taxi companies. Of course, Uber disrupted a lot more than that, and one “not so positive” disruption was the impact on drivers. Driving a taxi has historically been a pathway for immigrants and other poorer individuals to move up to middle class; you start renting a taxi, you get up to owning your own, then owning your own medallion, then buying more, etc. There is no real ladder to climb while driving an Uber. You make what is often a sub minimum wage. You get no assistance with insurance. Worse yet, ride sharing apps like Uber have caused a huge increase in congestion and traffic, as they’re not just replacing taxi rides, they replaced lots of walks, bike rides, subway trips, etc. Disruption can be good, but it can have lots of unintended consequences.
Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
“You learn best by doing”. When I graduated college, I thought I was going to go into investment banking. I wanted to start a company eventually, I even had an idea, but I felt I needed more work experience first. Then I had an interview with a Venture Capital firm. I didn’t really know anything about startups, and my interviewer gave me a crash course, and told me that if it was something I wanted to do, taking a different job just for experience wasn’t the best way to go about it. I needed to just do it, because nothing would teach me what I needed to know faster or better. You learn best by doing.
Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?
I’ve always been a bit of a history nerd, and one book that’s always stuck with me is Xenophon’s Anabasis. It’s the, mostly, true story of a group of Greek mercenaries who lose their leadership and are forced to fight their way out of the heart of the Persian Empire. It’s really a story about leadership. How to lead, build morale, instill discipline, when to work by consensus and when to lead individually, and a lot more. Lots of people write books about leadership. Xenophon faced the most adverse circumstances possible, and successfully came out the other side.
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Without revealing too much, I’ll just mention that our scientific advisor Dr. Verster doesn’t just research hangovers. He also has been researching sleep problems for a number of years…
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
There’s no better way to learn than by doing. When I started my first company, I had no experience, no idea what I was doing, and I was starting a company in a field (tech) I had no background in…but I learned. Sure, you’ll make mistakes, and I made plenty, but you’ll learn more and faster than you possibly could any other way. If you have an idea, just go for it.
You are a person of great influence. 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.
Believe in science, and follow what it says. The nice thing about science is that even if you’re wrong the first time, you just learn and adjust!
How can our readers follow you online?
Toast! can be followed across social media @AlwaysToast. I personally don’t have social media, but I frequently contribute to our social media and newsletters.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Meet The Disruptors: Sean O’Neill Of Toast! On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
