The Most Surprising Recipe For Success Nowadays? We talked to Noobru’s Visionary CEO Martyn Cook, to Find Out!
The Most Surprising Recipe For Success Nowadays? We talked to Noobru’s Visionary CEO Martyn Cook, to Find Out!
Where are you coming from, to be able to share this with us?
As a serial entrepreneur and biohacker, at the age of 33 now I have nearly 20 years of entrepreneurship under the belt — Yes, really! I started business at the age of 14 writing websites, moved into e-commerce, and since then I’ve sold everything from dog collars to houses, all leveraging the Internet, and have built up multiple 7-figure e-commerce brands.
If you add to that co-founding a Digital Entrepreneur Mastermind that hosts luxury meet-ups around the world, hosting the Smarter Destiny Podcast with dozens of successful founders of digital businesses in the 7- to 9-figure range, and still having found the time to write several popular books, speak from stages around the world etc… I think it’s fair to say that I’ve not just been around the block, but hopefully also improved and added to it along the way!
Your latest brand is Noobru™ — what is it and and why is it called that?
Noobru™ is a cutting-edge nootropic drink that comes in powder form in single-serving sachets — all plastic-free, eco-friendly, and convenient. As for what the drink is: it’s a blend of 11 top-quality active ingredients that work synergistically as a cognitive enhancement / general wellness drink — we’re really pleased with it!
The name itself is from “noo” as in “nootropics” (also sounds like “new!”) and “bru”, like “brew”, an informal name for a drink. Noo+bru, nootropic drink!
How did you come to start up Noobru™?
I like looking after my body, and hate taking tablets! I got fed up of taking a dozen different tablets every day, especially when I found out that most supplements in the old-fashioned tablet form don’t even get absorbed into the body properly — most of it gets flushed away. So, I thought what if I could combine them into one tasty (and easily-absorbed) daily supplement? Fast-forward some time and a lot of work, and that’s what we did.
On the Smarter Destiny Podcast you talk a lot about the idea of being an “Enlightened Entrepreneur”. What does this mean for you, and how do you personally “practice what you preach”?
As entrepreneurs we have a responsibility to not just make money, but also use our position to do good in the world, making it a better place, and lifting others up.
To take Noobru™ as an example: of course the product itself improves people’s lives (making them smarter, happier, stronger, generally living better, hitting their goals, etc), but also there’s a charity element that’s been baked in from the start:
We’re channeling funds into a great organisation called “Project Healthy Children”, which fortifies meals for children who would otherwise go malnourished — which is a huge problem affecting billions of people, and is the leading cause of death of children in third-world countries. Basically, we believe everyone should have the chance to live their best life, and there’s no reason people should literally have their lives endangered by food poverty in this century. So, Noobru’s mission is to fortify 1 billion meals by 2025 — a goal that’s challenging enough to be motivating, but definitely achievable! Our donations are directly linked to sales, with each purchase of Noobru™ funding at least one child’s meals’ nourishment for a year.
And of course, while positive actions are great (and they are!) it’s important to try to reduce negative actions too — which is why all our packaging is plastic-free and eco-friendly, and everything’s vegan too, showing that it’s possible to put out a great product without it literally costing the Earth.
Go here to learn more about the Smarter Destiny Podcast
What makes it different from other similar products on the market?
Firstly, the above! The meals-for-children mission, and the considerations for being eco-friendly and ethical in all areas of our operations.
Beyond that: for one thing it’s been a bit of a trend-setter when it comes to drinkable nootropic stacks — competitors are trying to catch up. Being a drink rather than tablets means you’re actually getting to absorb the supplements you wanted.
Also… I may be biased but in my opinion it’s the best stack currently out there! As our in-house doctor said to us, she looked at a lot of competitors’ stacks and they were missing key ingredients. I think that’s probably for cost reasons, but at Noobru™ we’ve taken care to get the best ingredients from the best sources available, to put out a really top-end product.
How did Covid-19 impact your business?
The pandemic struck just after our launch, so, on the face of it, not the most awesome timing!
But we knew we had to step up and do our part, so with help from our in-house doctor we produced Noobru™ Shield, a blend of nootropics and powerful immune support agents. We actually got a large wholesale order from a German hospital almost immediately, so that was great to be able to help like that!
As for other aspects of business, we’ve been lucky that we run a “contactless” business — online payments, contactless shipping, etc, and we have a great team working remotely from around the world, like our amazing COO Judith Lockhart, who works from Melbourne, Australia. A lot of companies have had to do a bumpy transition to online meetings and all that — for us, it was a lot smoother.
What comes next for Noobru™?
We’ve got quite a lot in the works! In addition to our flagship product Noobru™ Advantage, and the steady seller that is Noobru™ Shield, we have a third product in the pipeline, that looks to have more of a powerful kick than the mellow “relaxed calm alertness” of Advantage. Amongst other ingredient additions, it’ll be the first Noobru™ product to include caffeine, something we’ve purposely omitted in the other products, to keep them accessible to people who avoid caffeine. But since caffeine does have its pros as well as cons (as well as its popularly known qualities, it unlocks some extra benefits of other ingredients such as l-theanine), so it’ll be there in this future product, so people can choose their path, so to speak.
In the more distant future, the end goal is to offer completely personalised nootropics — using testing kits to tailor the perfect blend to each customer. On the one hand, getting from here to there means a lot of work… On the other, we have Noobru™ fuelling our progress! So it’s a great position to be in as we keep striding forwards.
What’s your advice for fledgling entrepreneurs?
If you’re anything like me, you’ll need to be passionate about the problem that you’re building a solution for. I need to be able link a charity element to the niche (that our customers would care about), and it needs to be challenging enough to stretch my mind and ability. Also, to me it’s very important that whatever the product is, it needs to be innovative — I don’t sell “me too” stuff anymore and figure the harder it is for me to produce the product I’m selling, the harder it is for competitors to rip off.
As for the “how to”… When researching and creating a new product and especially when looking for suppliers, I’m making cold-calls to potential partners that I’ve found on google as far down as page 10! I choose to call, rather than email, as it provides an opportunity to learn more about the manufacturing or supplier process in this space — it also enables me to get to know the potential partner and figure out if they’re a good fit — do they shy away from a challenge? Are they prepared to grow with us and innovate in the way they do business too? Do they share our values? You just can’t get those answers from sending emails — often you don’t even get a reply!
I actually go in-depth into 9 different ways you can have a massive positive impact on your business using the phone in my book 1% Secret, which you can get for free here: https://www.1percentsecret.com (when I say I wrote the book on scaling businesses, this is the book I’m talking about!)
In addition to the advice above, I have a “rules of engagement” checklist for projects and brands I get involved with; some of the key questions on this list include:
- Is a similar product already selling?
- Is it consumable (repeat customers)?
- Is it easy to ship?
- Is it sustainable and eco-friendly?
- Is it a big enough space to sell 9-figures in without being more than 20% of the market?
Lastly, what are some words of wisdom you live by?
“I didn’t come this far to only come this far”
I love this motto as it speaks to the point that there are always ways to improve, and opportunities to be better. I don’t tend to settle; I’m always questioning the ways things “have always been done” and looking for efficiencies, tweaks, and areas to optimise. So why give up at that point? Definitely appreciate how far you have come and be grateful, but that road ahead has so much excitement and challenge waiting for you — let’s keep going!
