We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Conrad Oberbeck a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Conrad , thanks for joining us today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

We are trying to build a company around convenient, flavorful, and natural, plant-based nutrition. As a lifetime athlete, competing at the collegiate and professional level, I found that easy access to effective and powerful nutrition was seriously lacking in our society. Further, I found the information surrounding helpful nutrition to be often esoteric and opaque – hidden behind an array of smoke and mirrors.

At Hangobi, we are 100% focused on an authentic and transparent approach to daily health. Each of our 6 beneficial ingredients per can deliver a high percentage of daily values for your body – an example being our vitamin B complex, which is 7 B vitamins at 100% daily value. On top of that, each ingredient is well studied and written about, allowing our consumers to have pages of research to understand how each one positively impacts their body. Our blend of adaptogens, amino acids, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and vitamin B complex all come together to create an airtight health formula.

At the end of the day, Hangobi is built to be a go-to daily nutrition option for keeping your health and performance at the top of your game.

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

While it has been incredibly challenging creating a beverage business, I have been extremely proud to bring a product to market that has never truly existed. We often position ourselves as the “true functional beverage” or “redefining functional beverages”. The reason for this, is that the current functional beverages often propose one single hero ingredient at a low percent of daily value, or pixie dust, and therefore not actually delivering the desired health impact.

Hangobi, however, is true to our message, with a distinct and noticeable benefit felt only after a few sips. This feeling, importantly, isn’t some mystical force or rocket science… it instead makes total intuitive sense – we have 6 bonafide healthy ingredients at high percentages of daily value. Just like caffeine gives energy, Hangobi gives health.

The key message surrounds our primary value proposition – flavor and convenience of a soft drink with the nutrition of a daily multivitamin or supplement.

Hangobi is now an option for all people to prioritize their daily health, without difficulty.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Similar to the pressures many businesses faced in 2020 and 2021, primarily through the pressures of COVID and supply chain contraction, Hangobi struggled through numerous delays and product misfires. An example of this is our third SKU, Calm, which has taken ~4+ more months to formulate than our currently available Wake and Essential SKUs.

Through intense research and trial and error, we are finally in the home stretch and hope to release Calm this summer, hopefully in July 2022. Our resilience is really boiled down to our intense focus on the process, not the outcome. To take each challenge in stride and work to small short-term solutions that eventually link up to large scale change.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

At my previous role, I discovered the excitement and challenges behind entrepreneurship and leadership – two primary tenants of any company. These two elements really captured my attention and over time became unavoidable reminders of a lifelong goal to strike out on my own and build something special. Hangobi is still in its infancy, but I have so enjoyed working with my co-founder and brother, John Eric, and the many different consultants and vendors that have assisted in bringing us to market.

Our key milestones to date include (1) launch in early March of Wake and Essential, (2) strong online business success and customer testimonials throughout the spring, (3) market-leading partnerships with leading athletes in lacrosse, soccer, and the UFC, and (4) our upcoming retail launch in NY and ATL this summer (2022).

Contact Info:

• Website: hangobi.com
• Instagram: hang.obi