MTE on Story of a Brand Podcast: Inventing a New (Read: Better) Approach to Energy

MTE Co-founder Jeff Boyd was interviewed in a July episode of Story of a Brand: MTE – A New Way to Recharge to talk all about his life as a wellness entrepreneur in the biohacking space. Ever lowkey devoted your entire self to a project only to feel like you can’t talk about it, because if you did, you’d never stop talking about it? We live for opportunities like these. Welcome to the bookmark-summary version:

Searching for Something New: The Beginning  (minutes 9 – 17)

Jeff describes being at a major crossroads after selling his business in 2019, a moment that brought unexpected pressure rather than freedom. Luckily (?), the onset of the pandemic gave him space to reflect, and he realized he wanted his next venture to be something he genuinely believed in and could speak about from the heart.

Passionate about health and wellness – and personally burned out and overwhelmed from his last project – he noticed that friends and family were also struggling with anxiety, brain fog, low energy, and reliance on stimulants. Frustrated with the incoherence of supplement stacking and products you can never tell whether or not are working, he wanted a simpler solution that would also be more effective.

Identifying the Problem: Energy is Outdated (minutes 14 – 20)

After an exhausting search for a single, not-sketchy solution that could address all these health and wellness concerns, he was like – well why would I not just try to create one? Entrepreneurs always be entrepreneuring. And the first step was to assemble an A team of formulators, biochemists, nutritionists, doctors, manufacturers who understood the shortcomings of high-caffeine energy drinks and explore the possibility of something different than traditional energy – something that would provide a boost + relief in the moment while offering deeper, root-cause wellness support.

Brainstorming the Formula: Foundational Support (minutes 20 – 28)

Recognizing energy is useless if you’re not addressing the problems causing your brain fog, dreary attitude, anxiety, and chronic fatigue, Jeff identified sleep as one of the first places to start. Sleep is sort of the key to everything – gut, mental, and physical health. So if there were a stimulant solution that didn’t mess it up, combined with a calming solution that doesn’t knock you out, everything else would fall into place. Empowering his team, the was to create something with ingredients that worked in harmony as more than the sum of their parts – focus on interconnected influences, not isolated ingredients.

The Energy Balancers: Paraxanthine & GABA (minutes 28 – 31)

A new product required a new energy solution, and Jeff and the team settled on paraxanthine, a new nootropic. It provides a smoother form of energy than caffeine, with a faster half-life and way less risk of interfering with sleep. A byproduct of caffeine digestion, paraxanthine literally has all of the good and none of the bad – seriously, the research says so.

In tandem, adaptogens and additional nootropics like GABA and theanine promote stress resilience and a clear calm that isn’t drowsy. GABA is a native neurotransmitter that calms overexcited neurons, and theanine increases alpha wave activity in the brain, which is associated with a calm that doesn’t come with drowsiness. The combination of compounds basically keeps you feeling great throughout the day without the jitters and stress while setting you up for a good night’s sleep.

The Sleep Supporters: Ashwagandha & Saffron (minutes 31 – 34)

Speaking of sleep, obviously there had to be ingredients targeting nightly recovery. And, of course, they’d have to have the evidence to back their efficacy. Enter: ashwagandha and saffron. Well, they both do a few other cool things, too, but they’re definitely talented at supporting circadian processes and hormone balance.

The research on saffron is serious – not only is it packed full of antioxidants, but it’s shown an ability to improve low mood in both neurotypical and neurodivergent people, as well as support sleep health and stress resilience.  Ashwagandha is an adaptogen that helps resist stress, boost mood, and revitalize systems, but the most recent review of the literature found sleep observations across several studies also saw ashwagandha improve sleep health.

Launching a Legend: MTE in the Marketplace (minutes 34 – 48)

Delving into the operational aspects of building a business in such a crowded space as the energy and supplement market, Jeff describes how early validation of his vision came from a series of little moments that added up to real momentum. Selling out the initial product run ahead of time, rapid sales of new flavors, and a consistently high repeat customer rate signaled not only that the market demand was real, but that people were responding to what MTE has to offer. Jeff touted the D2C strategy as a way to build a tight-knit community where they could educate customers and referrals to build trust before the product blew up, which, it did – MTE is now in retail and on Amazon!

Quality Over Cost: Cutting Out the Crap (minutes 48 – 58)

The idea of community – family and friends before the marketplace – comes through in every aspect of Jeff’s vision. The ingredients couldn’t just be any old ashwagandha or a bunch of sucralose so they can keep up with the low-cal crowd. The decisions behind the formula were driven by purpose rather than profits. Is saffron expensive? Yes – but it delivers real, evidenced results. Is stevia a more costly approach to zero-cal sweeteners? Also yes – but it doesn’t mess with your cardiovascular and metabolic health the way artificial sweeteners do. Did we need to add chicory root for fiber and probiotics? No – but it sure does support the rest of the ingredients and really round out MTE’s intended vibes.

Seems like a bunch of no-brainer decisions imho.

The Bottom Line is Community: Everyone Should Get to Feel Great

At the close, Jeff took the opportunity to put the real message out there: life is about treating everyone with dignity and respect. And that doesn’t just mean human-to-human kindness, it means thinking about what we put in our bodies each day. Everyone should have the opportunity to perform at their best without sacrificing your mental or physical health, and there wasn’t really a product out there with those intentions before we came along.

Everyone should get the chance to experience the natural support for foundational wellness that a formula like MTE offers. Except there’s no formula like ours out there, so you should probably go check it out 😎.