What problem does this multivitamin solve?
Many people do not know what vitamins are right for their particular needs. These consumers are lost in the confusing and overwhelming vitamin aisles and online marketplaces. To address this problem, Vous Vitamin analyzes your diet, fitness, health, and lifestyle to provide personalized all-in-one multivitamin blends delivered in small, easy-to-swallow tablets that fit conveniently with your daily vitamin routine. Our personalized vitamins are tailored in nutrient composition and dosing levels to deliver optimal results for an individual profile. It allows the consumer to move beyond the basic “A to Z” multivitamins based on crude classifications of gender and age.
Tell us about the founder. What is their background?
The company was co-founded by two leading physician-experts on nutritional supplements: Dr. Romy Block, an endocrinologist, and Dr. Arielle Levitan, an internist, the co-authors of the award-winning book, The Vitamin Solution. Drs. Block and Levitan, both board-certified physicians, have authored more than 100 articles on topics related to vitamins and wellness and are frequently featured in the national media on vitamin-related subjects.
How did they come up with the idea?
The doctor-founders are friends outside of work and would take walks together and compare notes on their practices. It occurred to them that many patients were coming in confused about vitamins and supplements. It was not uncommon for patients to bring in bags of pills and the doctors were shocked by what they were taking. Some patients were taking way too high doses of certain vitamins causing adverse effects. Other patients were skeptics of the category and avoided vitamins, but in turn, they were having real vitamin deficiencies that manifested in different ways but could be seen in Dr. Block’s endocrinology practice as patients mistakenly thinking that they had thyroid issues to blame for their low energy and fatigue. Motivated by the unregulated nature of the industry, medical journal articles documenting vitamin-related safety events, and lack of medical consensus around the scientific evidence, the doctors rolled up their sleeves and plunged into the science to craft a better system than they would want available to their own patients. They figured out how to leverage digital technology and custom manufacturing practices to provide safe, efficacious, and affordable vitamin solutions that address the widespread consumer confusion and dangerous self-prescribing patterns.
How can this transform the world or our day-to-day lives?
Personalized nutrition can unlock significant value for the consumer across dimensions of cost and quality. From a cost standpoint, the consumer can avoid needing to purchase extra bottles of “add-on” vitamins; that extra dose of Vitamin D or Magnesium, for example, because of the watered-down nature of their off-the-shelf multivitamin. Furthermore, many consumers engage in wasteful spending in the vitamin aisles purchasing products that are not right for their profile or can be considered pseudoscience with weak scientific backing. On the topic of quality, there are a number of clinical efficacy and safety issues around self-prescribing products in an unregulated industry. Retail clerks are a poor source of navigation, and even many medical and pharmacy professionals find that they are under-educated in this area. The use of a medically-informed digital assessment tool, like Vous Vitamin, is a helpful resource to find out what you might need for your profile and we always encourage consumers to consult with their provider to ensure that it works with their overall care plan.
What do customers love most about the product?
The simplicity of the product. It is delivered in small, easy-to-swallow tablets, taken twice daily. Our founders recognized that the design of the product was critical to long-term adherence as consumers take a daily multivitamin for years or even their entire lifetime. Many consumers are surprised to learn that this is not a personalized pill pack. A pill pack is a supply chain innovation – repackaging standard supplements in daily serving pouches – and can often result in the consumer taking 8, 9, 10, or more daily pills and powders at a cost that can easily exceed $100 per month. By contract, Vous Vitamin is product innovation, using data science to craft customized all-in-one multivitamins, that reduce the total pill load and cost $30 per month or $1 per day.
Where can people get this product?
Our free vitamin assessment is available at www.vousvitamin.com
