We were lucky to catch up with Morgan Bierbrunner & Isabella Diilio recently and have shared our conversation below.
Morgan & Isabella, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Our mission statement at Rush Power is to encourage people to “conquer the storm.” Everyone has a “storm” or major problem that they have been struggling to overcome or have even let take control of their lives. Whether that “storm” is health issues, financial concerns or mental health problems, we believe that physical activity can be a healthy outlet to help empower people to take back control of their lives. Studies have shown that fitness not only helps one’s physical health but can also increase energy levels, improve sleep, aid in pain management, boost immune systems and enhance cognitive function. By participating in physical activity, it can positively impact every aspect of an individual’s life and help enable them to conquer their “storm.”
We want to provide our community with a healthy and convenient way to take pre-workout supplements to help enhance fitness experiences. We are committed to our customers to deliver high quality products to enhance their performance and well-being. We are introducing a new form of pre-workout to the market; a pre-workout gummy, to expand the variety of products offered in the industry.
Morgan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Rush Power is a start-up nutritional supplement company working to develop a new form of pre-workout. Founded in 2023, our company is driven by our passion for health and fitness and the commitment to our community to provide high-quality, science-backed supplements to empower people who share the same passion. Combining our years of experience in the fitness industry along with help of dietary professionals, conditioning specialists and our certified manufacturer, we are creating the first official pre-workout gummy to reach the U.S. market. We have carefully formulated our gummy to optimize athletic performance, fuel workouts and power people to push their limits. Rush Power hopes to revolutionize the pre-workout industry with our new product and provide a more convenient and fun way to consume supplements.
The company emerged from both partners’ passion for fitness which not only improved our physical well-being, but our mental outlook as well. As both partners are experienced and enthusiastic gym-goers, we were determined to make a difference within the fitness community. As our fitness journey developed, we noticed the lack of nutritional supplement options available on the market and the absence of a close support system. We found that not only were people unsatisfied with the pre-workout products for sale, but that many of the companies misrepresented the ingredients in their products. With this in mind, we want to create a company that prides itself on transparency, trust and community.
Since our pre-workout is in a form of a gummy, it is very different from our competitors which offer a majority of their products as powders, drinks or capsules. Along with that, we are also individualizing our product by offering different serving size selections to allow for customers to modify their dosages based off of their desired effects. This will prevent unwanted side effects and ensure that the product is being used correctly. To be transparent and help customers better understand the ingredients, we will provide a QR code on our packaging that will bring consumers directly to the ingredients page on our website. On this page, customers will find a list of active ingredients along with their potential side effects and purpose of their inclusion.
We are very proud to announce that we have officially started research and development of our gummies and hopefully will have the formula finalized by the end of the year! The next step in our journey is looking for potential investors and funding.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Just about a month ago we had a major set back for the company. After about seven months of working with him, our investor told us that he wasn’t able to financially go through with the funding. It was really hard for us because we are both college students who aren’t able to bootstrap an entire business and we were relying on that investor. We were already months behind and we knew this would only put us back more. It felt like we were starting from day one again because without funding, we weren’t able to proceed growing the company as planned.
We already came so far and just finalized things with the manufacturer, so we knew giving up wasn’t an option. To cover the research and development funds, I started picking up additional shifts at my part time job. After about a month, I was able to bootstrap the money for the initial development.
Currently, our main focus is raising funds and getting investors for the company. I am still picking up shifts to bootstrap the business until we get funding. I have also been looking into government and states grants as well. It has been a long process registering for these grants, but we are hoping in the end, we will receive enough money to begin our next steps. We know in the long run we will need investors so we have been attending local entrepreneurship events to network around and create some exposure for our brand.
Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.
Our manufacturing experience is a funny story. When we first started our company, we planned on manufacturing the product ourselves. We were new entrepreneurs and had no idea what we were doing. We had little experience in food chemistry besides my two chemistry classes I took freshman year of college, but we were determined to make it work. We ordered all of the ingredients and did lots of research on how to make home-made gummies. For six months our kitchen looked like something the FBI would consider as an illegal substance lab and our counters were constantly covered in supplement powder. It was a mess. After a while, we came to the conclusion that we just didn’t have the knowledge or chemistry background to make it work, so we had to pivot our idea and start looking for manufacturers.
Finding a manufacturer for our product was actually quite difficult since we are taking products from two completely different industries and combining them. It was hard finding someone that works with gummies and has a fair understanding of nutritional supplement ingredients. I think I reached out to about 30 different manufactures before I found one that would even consider the idea. Many manufacturers didn’t want to take up the challenge, so most of them right away told us “no” or that “it’s not possible.” Once we finally found our manufacturer the process went pretty fast. Even though it was hard, it all worked out in the end especially since our manufacturer is only. a short drive away.
One thing I learned about finding the right manufacturer is to just keep calling no matter how many of them tell you “no.” It will take a long time, but there is one out there that will work.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Rushpowerofficial.com
- Instagram: Rushpowerofficial
- Tiktok: Rushpowerofficial