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When Dan Freed was 8 years old, he couldn’t sit still at school.
“I remember coming home and bouncing off the walls. I was suspended. I’m in the principal’s office. They’re sending me to a psychiatrist,” Freed said. To tell. “People thought I was stupid, lazy and unmotivated. I came to believe that.”
Doctors later diagnosed Fried with ADHD and prescribed the stimulant drug Adderall. Although this helped him concentrate, he also became depressed and irritable.
It wasn’t until she was an adult that Freed discovered nootropics, nutritional compounds that have been shown to support motivation, creativity, mood, memory, and cognitive processing.
“Nootropics turned everything around for me and helped me form positive habits on which to build success,” he says.
Freed is currently paper, a leading nootropic company that produces specially formulated blends to enhance an individual’s personal neurochemistry. I recently spoke about his personal and professional journey on my podcast, One Day with Jon Bier.
From chef to CEO
Early in his career, Fried began cooking at Michelin-starred restaurants and became a respected chef around the world. He attributes some of his success to his ADHD.
“That was my superpower,” he says. “A chef always has to do five things at the same time, but I was able to focus on so many different things.”
But the work also consumed him. He dreamed of taking his GMAT and returning to school. He learned how to run his business successfully from his boss, a former investment banker, while working as a sous chef on a cruise ship.
“One day he said to me, ‘If you can do all this without an education, imagine what you can do with an education,'” Freed recalls.
Around this time, he discovered nootropics, which were a complete game changer.
“I scored in the 99th percentile on the GMAT and earned master’s degrees from Yale and INSEAD,” he says. “For years, I was constantly on and off Adderall, Vyvanse, and Concerta every few months,” he says. “But with nootropics, my first thought was, ‘This is sustainable.’ There are no side effects. I’ve been able to make meaningful progress and be more productive and creative.”
Related: How to upgrade your brain to increase focus and productivity
Solve a problem
Freed learned a new appreciation for nootropics, and the trajectory of his life changed, but not without its challenges.
First, he realized early on that nootropics were not a one-size-fits-all solution. He couldn’t find a product on the market that was the perfect formula for him.
“I was constantly experimenting with different ingredients, dosages, and combinations to find what worked,” Freed says. “When we found something that worked, it was much better than anything we could find on the market. And that’s when it clicked: How can we create this customized experience?”
A business idea was born.
Fried and his team tried different dosages and different combinations of ingredients in a test group of 2,500 people until they achieved the desired results. The result is Thesis, a nootropic blend formulated for a variety of outcomes including theory, creativity, motivation, energy, clarity, and confidence.
“Nootropics are a data science problem,” Fried said. “The solution is to capture large amounts of customer data about how customers respond to different ingredients and formulations.” .
new product line
In his podcast, Freed also discusses a new product line his company has developed called Stasis, which he describes as “stimulant and synergistic supplements.”
Unlike Tesis, which was created to replace the stimulant effects of pharmaceutical drugs such as Adderall, Stasis is designed to complement these drugs.
“We target the right person based on that person’s genetics and goals, and based on knowing that the person is on stimulants that change their brain chemistry in a very predictable way. We can find the right ingredients,” he explains.
So far, our customers have given this product great reviews.
“I’ve been prescribing for almost 10 years now, and I’ve never seen such a positive response from any product,” Freed says.
Related: How leaders can help employees with ADHD succeed in remote work