Why Perelel is getting into protein after 5 years of supplement growth

“The roadmap that we originally had for the first year to 18 months was very different than what we encountered, in terms of the world and how we had to pivot,” she said.

But the company gained momentum in the direct-to-consumer subscription world and has grown an average of 600% year over year since its inception. Sales have more than doubled in the last three years, with Perelel currently selling around 182,000 vitamins a day. 

Behind the scenes, Perelel has invested in its growth by getting into new product categories. It has 21 SKUs, including a men’s supplement and products catered toward other wellness needs like hydration or sleep support. 

Gioia joined the Modern Retail podcast this week to discuss the company’s growth journey and its latest product launch, a protein powder with creatine and fiber. Though creatine may read as a masculine product, Perelel’s research has tapped into a growing recognition of its benefits for women, too. It can be to help with brain fog, fatigue and muscle retention, for instance, during postpartum, menopause and perimenopause. The product has been in development for about two years as the team looked to perfect the formula, Gioia said.

Here are some highlights from the conversation, lightly edited for clarity and length.

Using authority to connect with customers
“In every touchpoint of how we connected with our customers from day one, it had to be coming from our doctors so that they felt like they could trust this product and this new brand. And we’ve continued that connection in how we develop products and how we create different content programs or how we respond to an individual customer service ticket. It all needs to be coming from doctors. And it’s great to have our medical co-founder [Dr. Banafsheh Bayati]. If we ever post something on social or say something that doesn’t feel credible, she’ll message us and we take it down and we say, ‘Oh sorry, let us do some more research. Let’s circle back there.’ And that’s how we always have to show up — it’s rooted in that medical trust.”

Why Perelel decided to launch a protein product
“We just launched a protein powder, which I don’t think we ever said we were going to launch in that category. We were very focused on vitamins and supplements and maintaining the authority in that space. 

But we stayed really close with our doctors about what this customer is asking us for, and what our doctor is seeing her patients ask her for. And we kept coming back to the fact that women were asking us about protein. ‘What is safe during pregnancy?’ ‘What do you recommend?’ ‘How much should I take?’  It is a cool thing that our customer is asking us these details in a category that we weren’t playing in, but it really made us look into that and say, ‘Should we be playing here? How should we be playing here?’

We worked on this for the last two years with our doctors around: What are they seeing for women? Our medical co-founder at the time was going through her own perimenopausal journey, and so protein was really top of mind for her, too, and for her pregnant patients. And so it was such an opportunity for us to take in all of these insights from our medical team, as well as what our consumer was asking us, and create something better for her.”

Perelel’s approach to subscriptions
“When we first launched, we only had these 30-day multivitamin packs and our customer was taking them every day. And so, we could really build into that 30-day cadence, and making sure that they didn’t run out of vitamins was our biggest challenge.  As we’ve expanded the business and launched new products, we’re testing, learning and iterating into how and when they use those products and how we can make that easy and convenient for them.

The other challenge that we had for our (prenatal) pack specifically was we needed to accommodate the user who was changing throughout this journey and was subscribing.  So maybe she was subscribing to the conception support pack and trying to get pregnant and then finding out she was pregnant. What did she need when? Ultimately, what we were trying to do as founders was make this woman’s life easier. So we had to make that experience easier, and we had to collect her due date and know where she was in her pregnancy. We had to update her subscription alongside that.  And we’ve had to do a lot on the tech side and also pulling in data, to make sure we are switching the customer to the second trimester pack in time for it to land, for it to make sense for her. Those are a lot of the challenges on the subscription business. But it’s been really great to see that grow.”