From Creator to Founder

My First Experience With NAD+

I eventually tried an NAD+ IV drip and became even more interested in the category. But I also quickly saw a problem. IV treatments are expensive, time-consuming, and inconvenient.

I remember thinking, there has to be a more accessible way to explore NAD+ as part of an everyday wellness routine. According to the Cleveland Clinic, research is ongoing on the effectiveness of NAD+ supplements, but they are thought to help restore energy and cell repair as you age.

That question became the foundation for Hydra Powders.

Turning Curiosity Into Hydra Powders

I’m a scientist at heart, so my instinct was to research. I spent months learning, experimenting, and thinking about how I could take my background in biochemistry and turn that knowledge into something people could realistically incorporate into their lives.

That process ultimately led me to create Hydra Powders, a drinkable NAD+ electrolyte powder designed to merge NAD+ and hydration in a simple format.

I wanted to take something I had first encountered in a clinical wellness setting and rethink how it could fit into everyday life.

Making Wellness More Approachable

One of my biggest motivations for creating Hydra Powders was accessibility. The wellness industry is constantly introducing new treatments, technologies, and ideas, but many of them are expensive, hard to understand, or difficult to incorporate into a normal routine.

I believe wellness should be both approachable and accessible.

That’s why building Hydra Powders has always been about more than creating a product. It’s an opportunity to lean into my curiosity around science and wellness and use it to help turn complicated topics into simple solutions for people to understand and explore.

Why I’m Still Curious About NAD+

The science surrounding NAD+ metabolism, aging, and human health continues to evolve, and there’s still a lot researchers are working to understand. That’s part of what makes the subject so interesting to me.

My background taught me to ask questions, look at the research, and recognize the difference between what’s established and what’s still being studied. Building Hydra has given me an opportunity to bring that same mindset into the wellness world.

I don’t think wellness is about chasing every new trend or trying to optimize every part of your life. For me, it’s about staying curious, understanding what you’re putting into your body, and finding realistic ways to prioritize feeling your best. That’s ultimately what led me to NAD+ and why it became such an important part of my journey with Hydra Powders.

Before I became a founder, I was a creator. I had spent years building a loyal audience, creating content, and learning what makes people pay attention to something online. When I decided to build Hydra Powders, I quickly realized how much of that experience would translate to entrepreneurship and how much I still had to learn.

Being the face of a brand and actually building one are two very different things.

Start With a Problem You Actually Want to Solve

Hydra Powders started with my own experience. I studied biochemistry on the pre-med track and first learned about NAD+ through my studies. Later, I tried an NAD+ IV and became even more interested in it, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how expensive and inconvenient the experience could be.

My first thought wasn’t necessarily, “I’m going to start a company.” It was, there has to be a better way. That question eventually became the foundation for Hydra Powders.

I think that’s one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned as a founder. You don’t always need to start by searching for a business idea. Sometimes you start with a problem you’re genuinely interested in solving.

A Good Idea Is Only the Beginning

Having an idea you’re excited about is the fun part. Turning it into something real is where entrepreneurship actually begins. Creating Hydra meant researching, experimenting, developing a product, thinking through branding, understanding the consumer, and figuring out how to communicate something unfamiliar in a way people could understand.

There were so many parts of building a company that I had never seen from the outside. That’s also what I came to love about it.

Entrepreneurship constantly forces you to learn. Every time you think you’ve figured something out, you’re introduced to another problem you haven’t solved before.

Being a Creator Gave Me an Advantage

Building an audience taught me a lot about understanding people. As a creator, you’re constantly getting feedback. You learn what people are curious about, what questions they’re asking, what gets their attention, and what makes them trust a recommendation.

That became incredibly valuable when building Hydra. I didn’t want to create something that required people to completely change their lives to use it. I wanted something approachable that could fit naturally into an existing wellness routine, particularly for those leading busy lives and who are always on the go.

My experience as a creator helped me think about the product through the eyes of the person who would actually be using it.

You Have to Be Willing to Learn as You Go

I definitely did not know everything about running a business when I started Hydra Powders, and I still don’t. I don’t think any founder does. You learn by asking questions, working with smart people, making decisions, getting things wrong sometimes, and adjusting.

That’s probably been one of the biggest shifts for me going from creator to founder. I’ve become much more comfortable with not having every answer immediately.

Building Hydra has taught me that entrepreneurship isn’t about knowing exactly what you’re doing from day one. It’s about believing enough in an idea to start, and being willing to keep learning what it takes to build it.

Building Hydra Powders has been one of the biggest learning experiences of my career.

Before Hydra, I understood brands primarily from a creator’s lens. I had worked with brands and spent years learning how audiences respond to content, but becoming a founder completely changed my perspective.

Suddenly, I wasn’t just thinking about how a brand showed up online. I was thinking about the product, customer, messaging, operations, community, and hundreds of decisions happening behind the scenes.

Here are five things building my first company has taught me.

1. Solve a problem you understand. Hydra Powders came from a problem I experienced myself. I was fascinated by NAD+ and had tried it through an IV, but the experience could be expensive and inconvenient. I wanted to explore whether there was a way to make NAD+ more accessible and easier to incorporate into an everyday routine. Having a personal connection to the problem made me much more invested in finding a solution.

2. Your background can be your advantage. My career doesn't necessarily follow a traditional path. I studied biochemistry. I became a full-time creator. Then I built a wellness company. At one point, those things might have seemed completely unrelated — building Hydra showed me they were actually incredibly connected. My science background shaped the way I approached the product. My creator experience helped me understand consumers and communication. My interest in wellness gave me the curiosity to keep learning. Don't assume the different parts of your background need to fit into a perfectly straight line. Sometimes the combination is exactly what makes your perspective valuable.

3. Listen to your customer. As a creator, I've spent years communicating directly with an audience, and that taught me how valuable feedback can be. The same thing applies when you're building a company. Pay attention to the questions people ask. Notice what confuses them. Learn what they love about your product and, sometimes even more importantly, what they wish was different. You don't have to act on every piece of feedback, but you should be listening.

4. Your brand is more than your product. I learned very quickly that building a product also means building everything around it. What does the company stand for? How should it make someone feel? How do you explain what you're doing? Why should someone trust you? What kind of community do you want to create? For Hydra Powders, education has always been an important part of that. NAD+ can sound complicated, so part of our job is making the conversation around it more approachable and helping people understand why we're interested in it in the first place.

5. You will never feel completely ready. There will always be another thing you could research, another detail you could perfect, or another reason to wait. At some point, you have to build. That requires acceptance that entrepreneurship is an iterative process. You start by making the best decision you can with the information you have, and then you adjust.

I’m still learning every day as I continue to grow Hydra Powders. That’s become one of my favorite parts of being an entrepreneur. The company continues to evolve, and I get to evolve alongside it.