Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ajay Sharma. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ajay, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the decision of whether to donate a percentage of sales to an organization or cause – we’d love to hear the backstory of how you thought through this.

At Salubrious Juice & More and more, we donate $1 to St. Jude Children’s Hospital for every 16oz juice sold. We have been doing this for over three years now and we are very proud of it.

I myself had a cancer scare so supporting St. Jude Hospital is important to us.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My Fifth Deployment…
….from war zone to blenders.

It’s November of 2010 and I’ve returned to Camp Pendleton after my fourth deployment as a Marine…I should be happy, but I’m terrified.

Something feels off with me… I’m tired all the time.

Not the typical, “I’m tired today.” So exhausted I can’t get out of bed to shut off the alarm clock. Four cups of coffee just to have enough energy to do the daily chores. And so tired, I’m getting in trouble for being late to Marine formations.

I’m 27, and I’ve worked very hard to set myself up for a successful career and hopefully, later a beautiful family. But what terrifies me is my onset of exhaustion threatens all of my dreams. I cannot have a successful career if I cannot show up on time. I cannot make money if I cannot make myself work. I cannot have a family if all I can think about is sleeping.

And hardest of all, I’m so tired every hour of every day, I have no energy to change. I know I need to see a doctor. I need to figure out what’s wrong with me.

I have my guesses. My diet is awful. Every deployment we eat MRE’s (Meal Ready to Eat). Food with no expiration date. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that’s not good. And Marines are constantly inhaling jet smoke and smoke from burning trash pits. At home, my diet is even worse than when I deploy. Big gulps. Microwaved hot pockets and a coffee. Bag of chilly flavored Doritos. These are my daily nutrition.

And so I set a doctor’s appointment, but instead of bringing me relief, it brings up fear.

What will the doctor find is wrong with me? And if I have a serious health issue, which deep down I already knew I did, my orders to go home to Plano, TX would be revoked. I longed to go home and see family and friends.

So I never went to see the Doctor.

Instead, I started voraciously reading books on self-healing. I called self-healing gurus to seek help. I starting learning all I could from the top health experts. I determined that had to change. I had to fix myself. I was going to feel like my best self again – for my family, my career, and most importantly for me.

Among the many eye-opening epiphanies I was gaining about health, the body needing to be in an alkaline state was my favorite. I became hopeful when I learned an alkalinized body is full of energy.

Green juices were the prescription for putting my body in an alkaline state. I’d never drank a green juice. But I was desperate and determined for solution to my exhaustion, so I decided to try green juices and smoothies, not just for a day, or even a week – for a full 30 days.

The juices tasted horrible, but I didn’t care, taste was the last thing on my mind. I persisted for thirty days even though the green juices made me miss MREs!

I hope this juice fast would be helpful. Instead, it turned out to be incredible, astonishing, phenomenal. I went from doing 18 pull-ups to 31 pull-ups. My three-mile run time decreased from 23:30 mins to 19:30 mins. And these results without any so-called “proteins.”

Drinking green juice for 30 days gave me back my life. Today, I am full of energy and vigor! I run or workout every day. I jump out of bed easily. I show up to work early and enthusiastic. And I feel confident that I’ll live a long and healthy life.

After my turnaround, friends desired to try my juices. But I knew they tasted awful! So, I set out to improve the taste without compromising the nutrients. After much experimenting, my once awful tasting green juices tasted wonderful! Quite an accomplishment in the kitchen for a Marine! That’s the day Salubrious was born.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Very recently when the whole country was shutdown due to COVID, we had to pivot to survive.

We started seeing decline in sales in March 2020 due to COVID and then we barely saw any customer when the country shutdown in April 2020.

It was beyond stressful since we had rent to pay and we had salaried team members. We had to think fast and pivot.

We wanted to focus on our juice cleanses since people were worried about their health and they wanted to lose weight as well.

We finally tested to offer “Pay What You Can” for our juice cleanses. We knew a lot of people were out of work or were worried about their job’s future. So, we advertised this offer on FaceBook and Instagram and it was a hit.

We also knew people were afraid to go out of their houses so we offered FREE home delivery as well.

This was a win-win situation for everyone. This helped us weather the unprecedented times and it helped our customer to advantage of discounted price of our juice cleanses while they strengthen their immune system and lost weight doing that.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

Funding the business was very-very hard.

I was in the US Marines and got out in 2014, the same year I went to SMU.

While I going to SMU, I was working at JPMorgan and had a job as a food server.

I was saving as much money as possible because I knew I wanted to open up a healthy option place for my community.

I wasn’t able to save the amount I needed since opening up a shop cost around $250,000. So, I pitched my idea to my friends and relatives.

My parents helped me the most with a few friends pitching in as well. I feel blessed because without them this would still be a dream on mine to open up Salubrious.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.salubriousjuiceandmore.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/salubriousjuice/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/salubriousjuiceandmore/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salubriuos-juceandmore-b7bb72120/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/salubriousjuice
• Youtube: https://goo.gl/maps/LXD533ku9CC2
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/salubrious-juice-and-more-frisco