We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Logan Christopher. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Logan below.

Logan, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I started Lost Empire Herbs with my two brothers. In the beginning we were doing it just to fund our own supply of high quality herbs. There wasn’t much intention beyond that in those early days. So, first and foremost, we were our own customers. We certainly didn’t know anything about the supplement industry. And in some ways that was a blessing.

As we grew we were focused on what we, as consumers, would like to see. When we found out about some of the shadier parts of the industry, what was often the norm, we decided to do things a bit differently.

I feel like the supplement industry could use a whole lot more transparency. So when we begin to do independent third party lab testing on all of our herbs, we posted the results online for customers to see for themselves. We also go beyond just the legally required tests of identity verification, microbiology and heavy metals. We’ve been testing things for glyphosate, for GMOs, for pesticides, and more. Testing is expensive so it’s an ongoing work, but this helps us stand out from the crowd who typically rely on supplier COA’s (certificates of analysis) and nothing more.

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

Lost Empire Herbs was founded around the idea of “performance herbalism”. My name is Logan Christopher, and along with my two brothers, Zane and Cloud, we started the company to support our athletic endeavors. As a performing strongman, and with my other business Legendary Strength, I was pushing the boundaries of fitness. I got into herbs as a way to support my endurance, energy and feats of strength. For me, it was taking Cordyceps mushroom for the first time that I felt greater stamina in my workout and I was hooked from that moment on.

Having learned about Chinese Taoist philosophy of tonic herbs, those that support superior health, this was an easy way into herbs. And a very different route than most take, where it is about fixing a health problem that exists.

Over the years we’ve come to have a main focus around hormone health. In our modern age of endocrine disrupting chemicals, literally everywhere, humanity needs this support from nature. Our best selling herb is Pine Pollen, which is a rich source of phyto-androgens that can be helpful for balancing and boosting key hormones for both men and women.

But its not just about hormone health either. There are nootropic herbs, such as the trendy Lion’s Mane mushroom, that help with cognitive support. There are adaptogens like Ashwagandha that help you to handle chronic stress that is so common today. There’s others for mood support and sleep.

We stand out from the much of the competition because of our commitment to quality, then backing that up with great customer service and education on not just herbs but holistic healthy living.

Perhaps I’m most proud that our customers echo everything I’m saying. On the 3rd party review platform TrustPilot we’re rated at 4.7 stars out of 5 with over 4,700 reviews. That is not easy to reach as a supplement company particularly.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

The main method we keep in touch with customers is through email marketing. It’s a tried and true method and his been a huge part of what we do pretty much since day one. We send out a daily email to our list. For those that don’t want daily emails we offer a weekly newsletter option as well.

The average person has no clue what to do with herbs or how to incorporate them into their lifestyle. A big part of our brand is educating consumers how to use herbs as well as living a healthier life. I often say that herbs won’t fix everything, instead they’re a part of an overall lifestyle. (The herbs often can be a jumpstart in giving you energy to make some of the other changes necessary.)

This daily email may focus on a review of a customer for a certain herb and how others might want to try it. The email may send to a 4,000 word article on our website, a deep dive into some health subject. It may deliver a video, or a rant about something. And, of course, there are many deals from sales to new product launches available too.

Email marketing keeps us top of mind for our followers and is also a big portion of our revenue.

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

We were not in a good place in 2020. We’d taken on debt in trying to grow the business. While there was a lot of activity, it wasn’t necessarily translating to the bottom line.

Ours was a family business. We had hired friends. We honestly cared for the people we worked with. But some of them were not working out, so we were making decisions based on too much empathy in some cases. We’d also made some pour choices like the six-figure mistake of trying to move onto NetSuite which was far too big for us at the time.

Then the coronavirus panic began. With my view of the world I knew that it wasn’t going to simply be “two weeks to flatten the curve”. That the difficulties would be expanding a much further timeline than that.

So this became a “rip the band-aid off” situation. Even though it was painful to do, it was the right choice to make. We laid off about one third of the team, while still keeping the rest on. We massively streamlined our ship. Over the next couple of years while revenue dipped slightly, profits rose and we were able to get out of debt. We haven’t used debt to fuel our growth since.

While it was a painful lesson, we did learn a lot, so that as we’ve grown since then, we’ve been much better at making sure the right people are in the right seats in our business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lostempireherbs.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/lostempireherbs
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/lostempireherbs
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/20366090/
• Twitter: https://x.com/lostempireherbs
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/supermanherbs
• Other: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/lostempireherbs.com
  https://www.tiktok.com/@lostempireherbs