Episode Transcript
All right. Welcome everyone to the Makers Business Tribe podcast. My name is Nina. I'm the founder of the Makers Business Tribe and we work with product based businesses to help them get into retail. And on today's episode, I have the wonderful Tegan with me. Tegan is the founder of a product that I've been using myself.
because I love it, not because I have to, not because she gives it to me, but because I find it truly amazing for my health and well-being. And it's global. And because Tegan is not just a mom, a naturopath, a businesswoman, but just an amazing, hardworking, driven human being that I
get inspired by so much with how many things she juggles in the air. I wanted to get her onto this podcast to get a little bit behind the scenes, to get a better understanding on what is global. What is the magic behind making it glow? What is the mission and purpose behind this? And most importantly, who is Tegan and what drives her?
to build this amazing product business. So welcome Tegan. yeah, my first question to you, can you please introduce yourself because I'm not really good at, you know, rattling down credentials. And I would just love to know from you, from the heart, who are you, my friend? So I'm Tegan, as you mentioned, I am an ex-clinical naturopath.
So I used to have my own clinic up until I was pregnant a couple of years ago when I decided to close down my clinic. I just was feeling very burnt out and really not enjoying clinical practice anymore at that point. And I just needed to sort of take a step back and allow myself to wallow in my pregnancy and figure out what I was going to do next aside from, you know, be a new mom.
Nina Huchthausen (02:46.72)
And so I guess a little bit of background on me. I started getting into, I guess, the health space in my early to mid 20s. Prior to that, I was not a healthy person whatsoever, you know, really enjoying the early adulthood partying and going out and drinking alcohol every weekend and all of those things.
eating McDonald's every weekend. And then, yeah, so I was very, very unhealthy in my younger years. I was a bit of the party animal. You probably can't imagine that now. I can't even remember really. We all have to get it out of our system at some point, otherwise you haven't lived life. you have some stories to Exactly. And so when I was sort of in my
early to mid 20s. think think I was 24, maybe 25. My mum was diagnosed with stage four metastatic colorectal cancer. And that was a big wake up call for me. And I just had this epiphany moment where I'm like, I have to like, get healthy, you know, like I have to start taking better care of myself.
you know, when someone close to you is diagnosed with stage four cancer, it really is a big wake up call. You realize you're not invincible. And my mum was only young at the time. She was like 50. And she was told, you know, basically she was going to have six months to live. And she got up, walked out of the hospital and was like, screw you, you know, I'm not, I'm not doing things your way. Like I don't, I don't believe in what you have to say. And
Yeah, she literally just got up and walked out of the hospital and that was, it was a bit of a journey. There were lots of visits back to the hospital over the next, you know, 12 to 24 months. And she ended up agreeing to have surgery, which was imperative. She had to, the tumour was huge. But then, you know, she was told she needed chemotherapy, radiation, all of this stuff, because it was spread all through her body. And she was like, no, no, no, I'm not doing that. You know, that treatment is going to kill me.
Nina Huchthausen (05:13.166)
flat out refused, did natural therapies, had the primary tumor removed and gosh it's like 15 years ago now nearly and she's cancer free. She has no traces of cancer in her body, she's had her follow-up tests every couple of years,
you know, all over her body and they can't find any trace of cancer. So I think it was this year, she was, or last year she was given the all clear as in like, you don't need to come for follow-up tests anymore because it's been so long. So yeah, that was my trajectory into getting healthier. is getting me goosebumps by the way. I feel like whenever I hear a cancer story where someone was like, fuck that.
I'm going to really change. Man, to me, I feel like that's always a bit of a sign of God. Yeah. Well, he was like, okay, I'm going to play you two cards now, my friend. You're either going to going to like, get the fuck on and take control or you or you're done.
based on your life's my mum was not an unhealthy person, like she was vegetarian when I was growing up, she was always, you know, she didn't really drink alcohol, like she was generally speaking a healthy person, like she was always like a bit of a hippie into
you know, meditation and all of that stuff, you know, back then it wasn't very mainstream and it was all a bit weird and wonderful. And so, yeah, it was a big shock when that happened and that she was diagnosed so late because she was quite unwell for at least a year prior to her diagnosis, but she was just on this wait list to go in for the scopes to get the scopes done. She had all of these issues and she was just on this wait list for so long. And if she had have got in sooner, like the
Nina Huchthausen (07:10.914)
you know, it would have been a lot better for her. But unfortunately, that's the system. yeah, that was my trajectory into getting healthier. And I started like working out and eating healthier and stopped drinking alcohol so much. and I actually ended up doing like my personal training course and did that for a period of time, but I actually found it really quite boring.
doing personal training, like I didn't enjoy doing personal training. just, I don't know, it wasn't for me. And when I was doing that, I was like, what, like, there's, really love health and fitness and all of this stuff, but this is not enough for me, you know, like personal training, it's just boring. It's not stimulating enough for me. It's superficial at the end of the day, because you're just working on the outer shell of the body. could be dead sick in your mind.
Exactly. you know, so many people, they're working out, but they eat crap and they drink crap and like they're not healthy people and they come to you and they're like, you know, I want to lose 10 kilos, 20 kilos, da da da. And you have a little bit of knowledge from the very basic, I guess, nutrition training that you do when you become a personal trainer. It's so basic, but you know a little bit.
And you sort of realize that these people think that they can out exercise a shitty diet and lifestyle and they can't. I started, the more I talked to people, the more I realized that there's just so much more to it than exercise. And then I was sort of sitting thinking, being like, I'm really bored with this. Like there's gotta be more, you know? And I started looking into different, you know, more.
extra study that I could do and then I was like nutrition, naturopathy, all of these different things and I decided to go with naturopathy because I was really interested in herbal medicine and that's not included in a nutrition degree and I really wanted to do herbal medicine that was important to me and so yeah I embarked on my five-year journey to to study and went to uni and actually while I was at uni I worked full-time pretty much the whole time
Nina Huchthausen (09:30.094)
that I was going through uni to support myself. So that was yeah a big long journey full of lots and lots of stress trying to work full time and find the time to study and do my prac and everything that goes along with becoming a clinician. so I can only imagine you, you went like all in. I did yeah.
probably millions of women, you'd like all in, I'm gonna smash this, I'm gonna smash everything else in life at the same time. Yeah, yeah. And like that's, it's actually to do that degree like part-time, I guess you could say, it's actually eight years and I did it in five because I was just so determined. I was like, I just want to get this done. And all I did for like five years was study and work, study work, study work, study work.
And I just remember, you know, being at uni and I was super interested in like the supplement space when I was at uni. I remember the reps from like Biostudicals and Metagenics and, you know, all the practitioner companies that come into the uni and talk to us and do presentations on all their different products and explain them to us and what they do.
And I found that super interesting and super intriguing. And I was always interested in product development when I was at uni. And then I sort of finished uni and was like, well, what am going to do now? I can do this or that, or, you know, I could go and get a job working for metagenics or, you know, become a rep or, you know, do clinic. What am I going to do? And I just kind of fell into clinic and, and thought that that's what
I needed to do to get, you know, get some runs on the board and work with people and really get a much deeper understanding of different people. what you learn at uni, it's like, you know, almost, it's textbook, right? It's like this happens and that happens and that happens. But the reality is everybody's different. And the reason why this person has got
Nina Huchthausen (11:49.878)
a gut issue is different to the reason why this person has got a gut issue. Like we're all so unique and we all have different lifestyles and different upbringings. And there's so many different factors that go into why someone presents in front of you with some sort of health complaint. And that was really interesting. And I really enjoyed digging deep and mapping that out with every client. But... understanding the why.
Exactly, understanding the why, the root cause of why is this person struggling with this health complaint and pulling it all apart. It's like a puzzle that you have to pull apart rather than just kind of going, you've got this symptom, so take this herb. It's like, well, that's kind of surface layer. You know, that's really no different than what a doctor does. Just, well, you've got this symptom, so here's this prescription for this drug. And that's not...
That never sat right with me. I was always very determined to pull it all apart and figure out the missing piece of the puzzle and what was going on for that person. And what I discovered was that most of the people that I saw in my clinic were chronically stressed. even though they had gut issues or skin issues or couldn't breathe or whatever,
the course was the same. Yeah, most of the time we, would always do a stress questionnaire. It was just a basic part of my initial consult was a mood and stress questionnaire. And you know, you say to someone, what would you write your stress levels out of 10? And they're like, I'm not that stressed. It's like maybe a three. And then you would run them through the stress questionnaire and like the results of the stress questionnaire every time I'm like,
You're telling me you're a three, but actually it's more like a more like a seven or an eight or even a nine out of 10. so there is like the effect of those stress hormones constantly being elevated, racing through your body is going to have like a cascade. Everything happens from the brain down. So.
Nina Huchthausen (14:12.43)
We have stress hormones, they start from the brain and then they go all through the body and then these stress hormones have different effects on different organs. Everyone sort of thinks of stress hormones just as fight or flight, but they actually have all of these other things that they do in the body. And a huge one is inflammation. Inflammation can cause all sorts of other...
illnesses, diseases, chronic health complaints, we start to see things like hormonal imbalances in women, men too, but especially in women via the HPO axis. Everyone sort of probably knows the HPA axis, but then we've got the HPO axis, is, you know, the ovarian axis, axis, sorry, where our
our brain controls our ovarian hormones. And so if we're having an imbalance of hormones in the brain, well, of course it's going to affect our ovaries. And if we're very stressed all the time, we're getting cortisol dumping into our gut because cortisol has to be metabolized and then it gets metabolized through the liver, dumped into the gut and the metabolites have to get excreted.
but these stress hormone metabolites can cause an imbalance of your microbiome. They can break down the gut wall and then we get leaky gut. So you can start to see how stress has this cascade of effects on our health. And that's when I really realized that everyone needs to be treated for stress. Like the world is so stressful now and most people don't even...
actually realize or acknowledge how stressed they actually are. Yeah, wow. And so it's kind of like what I'm envisioning right now is like if our brain just constantly thinks or if we're thinking stressful thoughts or worrying thoughts or angry thoughts, we're just like we're like under this constant like shower of things that throw us out of whack.
Nina Huchthausen (16:27.902)
And it could be probably because I used to have, I used to have eczema or for me, I think too much stress shows up through my skin. And so what you're saying is like when you are under this shower, this I'm imagining this beautiful shower head and you're like, this is nice. But no, you get some some get gut problems, some get skin problems, or maybe you can't breathe or can't sleep or
irregular periods. IBS right? It's probably a really big, really, really big thing. then of course we have like our mood disorders as well, stuff like anxiety, depression, you know, these are all a result of chronic stress. don't just get anxiety, you don't just get depression. There's a lead up to these things. There's a reason why we end up with like this diagnosis or this label.
And I like to call them labels because that's all they are. And I don't think that they're helpful. You know, I feel like many people believe that, know, I just need to get this diagnosis. So then it's like this validation of what's wrong with me. There's something wrong with me. And I just, don't think that that way of thinking is helpful to us. Cleaning up.
clinging onto a label and a diagnosis when really what we need to focus on is the solution. How did I get here and what's the solution to get me out of this? The reverse engineering, Exactly. that a kind of like because you've gone down, in my mind how I'm seeing this, you've gone down this slope that you thought was cool and now you're finding yourself in this like...
hole and it's cold and dark and uncomfortable it's like no point in labeling this stinky cold humid hole that you don't want to be in you're gonna need to like find a way out of the damn hole. That's right it's like no matter what it's like labeled the diagnosis or the label is the it's like it's the excuse to sit in sit in the mess be like well
Nina Huchthausen (18:52.142)
I've just got anxiety and I'm just going to sit here and say that I've got anxiety or I'm just a cramp. at me for me. Yeah. Now the world has to change around me because I got anxiety. Yeah, that's right. And it's like, actually, what do you need to take ownership of and charge of to change in your life to get you back on the trajectory to
you know, really good mental health, really good gut health, really good hormonal health. And like at the root of that is you need to reduce your stress levels. And we, we choose to sit in whatever we're sitting in. We always do, right? It's, it's always a choice. It's always up to us to stay sitting in the mess or to climb up out of the crab bucket and pull ourselves out of it. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. But it's in, guess the question comes back to us like, what do you want girlfriend in life? Right? Like, how do you want to live it? How do you want to live it to make some like hard choices? Because sometimes we feel like, I'd rather dress up this stinky pig than looking at the pig and be like, I don't want a stinky pig in my life. I get rid of it. You know, literally.
That's right. So how did that realization? How? What happened then? You realize this? were like, OK, everything is pointing at stress. And then what happened? Yeah, so the sort of this around this time I felt pregnant and. I was very, very.
tired in my pregnancy. you know, obviously it's normal to be tired in your pregnancy, but I've just felt exhausted all the time. And I just felt like I was not able to give my clients the best of me because I was just tired.
Nina Huchthausen (21:02.734)
And yeah, so that's kind of when I was like, right, I'm really just not enjoying clinic anymore and sat with it like, is this just pregnancy or is this like for real? Like I don't want to do clinic anymore. And I'm like, no, no, it's not just pregnancy. I have been having these feelings on and off for quite a long time now. And I sort of just stuck it out, stuck it out, stuck it out. But I'm like, no, no, now is the time. Like I'm going to be having a baby soon. So let's just wrap things up here. And you know what, if I decide to
go back after a year or two years, whatever, let's just see what happens. And I just decided, and that was it. I closed my clinic. I spoke to all of my clients and they were like, no, no, no, no, what am I gonna do now? And yeah, I wrapped up my clinic a month later. I was like, that's it, I'm done, wrap things up. And then I just took some time off and just wallowed for a while in my...
in my pregnancy. And then after I sort of started to feel a little bit more re-energized from having a break, then I was getting bored, as you do when you're, when you're a Taipei personality, you don't sit around for long doing nothing. And I was like, right, what am I going to do next? Like after I have this baby, like I want to start putting some things into place for when I'm ready and want to go back to work. And I really just
did lots of journaling over a period of time and started to tease out all of the things that I love and enjoy. And I had a huge list, but I just kept coming back to supplements. I just kept coming back to it. And then I started talking to some industry contacts and it all just really came together really quickly from there.
As soon as I started to like plant the seeds and talk to contacts and networking and finding, I had no idea what I was doing. Like, how do you develop a product? How do you manufacture a product? Like, I just started reaching out to people. I think I really bit off more than I could chew at that point. Not realizing the sheer amount of time and work that it takes to develop a product. And like I had a newborn.
Nina Huchthausen (23:23.214)
by this time when, like, so I did my brand first and came up with this beautiful brand Glowable. I think we hadn't mentioned yet. does the product do? So the product is a stress relief supplement. So essentially it's got a therapeutic dose of some really key ingredients that I would use a lot in my practice.
And it helps to support your body's stress response. It helps to balance your cortisol levels. It helps to balance your neurotransmitter levels. It helps to balance all of your other hormones as a result of that. So it's a really all round, beautiful stress relief supplement. Awesome. So really based on the, so you've went through,
all of the practice, you working as a clinical naturopath all this time, seeing mapping back that it's always come back to stress. And when you were able to step out, you're like, I'm going to find a way to help people get rid of I guess, what the body is producing when the body is under stress. So if I'm coming back to my rain analogy, yes, the rain might still be there.
Because that's the shit we need to sort out. But you're then supporting the body to get rid of that and reducing the impact of it? I wouldn't say get rid of it. I would say supporting the body's ability to cope better with it. OK. So I guess the stress response happens when we perceive a stressor. And that can be like, you know, so we
Essentially we see with our eyes and hear with our ears. So that's our perception of a stress or, and then the body does a cascade of release of stress hormones from the brain down into the body. They hit your adrenal glands, then your adrenal glands start to produce more hormones and it goes all through our body to create that fight or flight response. then, know,
Nina Huchthausen (25:49.326)
the stress hormones have to get metabolized and excreted out of the body. But we don't want this to be going on all the time. And so the product helps our body to dampen down that stress response and balance out those stress hormone levels. Awesome. So what you've created, is this the product that you wished you had when you were clinical, Yes.
big time. So I got really tired of prescribing multiple products when I was in practice. I'm a huge lover of herbal medicine, love my herbs, had a big dispensary of liquid herbs. So everyone would, I'd have to send them home with like a big bottle of liquid herbs with, you know, that would be personalized to the patient depending on what's going on with them. And then they might get
like a container of capsules of something and then a powder. And there's just all these different things because there was not one product that I was able to just go, just take this for the next month or two months. And then let's reevaluate everything while you're working on your diet and your lifestyle and starting to incorporate your breath work and your walks and getting more sunshine and drinking more water and all of the beautiful things that we.
recommend people do as naturopaths. We don't just prescribe supplements. And that was also a key thing when I was developing this company is that we are not just a supplement company. We do not just sell supplements.
I'm big on integrity in this space and I don't agree with just pushing supplements on people when it's very clear that they actually need to do a whole lot of work over on the other side as well. They need to change their lifestyle and so.
Nina Huchthausen (27:49.302)
when I created this brand, actually made the tagline, not just another supplement company. And it was really important to me that we push out a lot of education at the same time as supporting people with a supplement. And I've been learning so much just through the emails that you've been sending out on the product as well, because it's, I guess, really, you know, like I love the name global because
I mean, that's kind of like that's what I would like, right? I want I want people to say, wow, you're glowing. Yeah. Not like, wow, Nina, you look tired. You look stressed. Exactly. No, no, no. Like, how about you tell me I'm glowing? But in order to glow like the the you know, the the plan or the path is probably not just supplementing and going about the crazy life that we
that we used to live. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like the reality is supplements and medications are there to support that you can't out drink or swallow a bad diet or a poor lifestyle. You simply can't. These things are here to support and help to build us up. But at the same time, we can't just expect that we can.
pop a pill or drink a drink and it's going to solve all of our life's problems. We have to take some ownership and responsibility for change. Yeah. So and even though you focus global first big step is the supplement. What is your what do you wish for the women that you are ultimately serving with this product? What do want for them?
I want women to be able to move through their life.
Nina Huchthausen (29:55.208)
on a balanced spectrum, I would say, as opposed to having these huge highs and lows. As women, we already have to deal with that through our sex hormones, like our progesterone and our estrogen, where we have these monthly fluctuations of our hormones that can cause us to have PMS and PMD and all of these cyclic-related
health complaints that we struggle with. And again, those are a result of the body being out of balance. Like if your body is in balance and you are calm, in control, feeling clear, you're not going to struggle with PMS and PMD and all these fertility issues. They're all a result of
a problem further up the chain. And so what I wish for women is that we can help them to understand that if they can work from the top down, like from the brain down, and resolve their stress and learn how to manage their stress better, be more calm, more balanced, more in control.
every day, every week, every month, then they're going to be able to move through their life without these huge highs and lows that we as women tend to experience as we go through the different phases of life from teenager through to early adult into perimenopause and then menopause and beyond. If we can balance our hormones from the brain down, then the huge
the huge waves, I guess you could say, that women experience throughout their life with their hormones, it's less, it's dampened down. We don't have to struggle with these things so much. And I mean, ultimately, man, if we're not riding, if we're not constantly so busy trying to ride these waves and not get swallowed by them, we're going to be such better mums, such better
Nina Huchthausen (32:18.942)
wives, such better friends, such better business partners. like, because life in itself can throw so much craziness at you at any given point in time. That's right. And, I mean, we all know what it's like when we're going through a stressful moment or having a stressful day, a stressful week, a stressful month. We all know what it's like to
feel so overwhelmed and so frustrated and then the anger comes up and we snap at our partner and we're yelling at our kids and we say something we didn't mean to say to our friend and we, you know, we're having issues in the workplace or whatever it is, we all know what it's like to feel so stressed and so overwhelmed that
and the knock-on effects of that in our life. what if we could just avoid that? What if we could just feel calm and balanced and in control so that we don't have to go through those huge lows and just be able to move through life feeling in control? Yeah, and I honestly have to say, because I
I I started taking the product three months ago, three, four months ago, but more because I wanted it for my partner. And then he was like, I don't like Pina Colada. And I was like, why? I like Pina Colada. I start taking it. I can sleep a lot better. I can sleep a lot deeper, right? I'm not sure if I'm feeling different during the day, but hey, I'm doing stuff, you know, I'm not always checking in, but it's made a big difference.
In all honesty, you know, maybe I'm curious what your take on that is, but for me, I often think about, man, if I'm consciously putting best effort in to stay healthy, what would be my slippery slope that might be really, really bad to go down to?
Nina Huchthausen (34:43.918)
Could that be cancer? Could that be Alzheimer's? Could that be tremors? Could that be something where you're like, fuck. Fuck, my life's fucked. Apologies. You know, situations. And I love experiences in my life, but these are the things that I don't need to experience it.
I don't want to go down there. don't need I'm cool of missing out. So cool of missing out. I rather want to experience other things. And I know I like I put myself that those visuals in front of me at times to be like, I don't. That's why I'm, you know, I'm always keen to try products like yours to be like, Okay, can it make me even more?
Zen at times of stress, because that's just me consciously thinking I'm stressed, right? But unconsciously, I might still be in a different space.
My question is, do you feel like because you saw your mom at such an early age and you were saying at the start surface level, she seemed pretty healthy. Do you feel like this product could have potentially, maybe possibly supported her of not going down all the way? Yeah, so I really like this question because, you know, it's, it's
almost impossible to, I guess, know why somebody got cancer and the type of cancer that they got according to science and research, whatever. But my belief is that, well, according to science and research, we actually do know that chronic stress does cause cancer. We know that due to various factors and biochemical processes in the body, the result of having constant stress hormones for a period of
Nina Huchthausen (36:51.25)
you know, months, years over time and the knock-on effect of that on our cellular processes can result in cancer. And yes, my mum was a very chronically stressed person. She had a very, very stressful life from childhood all the way through. Like my parents split up when I was very young. They had a very nasty divorce. They hated each other. You know, there was a of trauma and struggle and
And she just had a very hard life and I truly believe that her cancer was a result of all of her stress and trauma. so, yeah, potentially if she had have had a supplement like this to help support her body through those stressors, maybe she wouldn't have got cancer. you know,
It's just one of those things where...
You can only surmise, can never really know, but at the same time, what I can confidently say is that chronic stress is definitely up there with one of the number one causes of cancer. And so anything that you can do in your life to reduce your stress and support your body's response to stress, your
winning. You're far ahead of everybody else who's not doing it. Statistics show, that I think in Australia about 80 % of people admit to feeling stressed multiple times a week. And I think it's about 15 % of people experience a mental disorder.
Nina Huchthausen (38:46.51)
at some time in their life. So a mental disorder is like a diagnosed depression, anxiety, bipolar, ADHD, all of those different spectrums or labels that I like to call them. So that's pretty high numbers. 50 % of people in their life will experience a mental disorder.
when it becomes a disorder that means it's kind of like it's gone on for a lengthy period of time to where it's actually become a disorder. It's not just a I'm really stressed this week or this month. It's like it's continual and then yeah like 80 % of people are just chronically stressed all the time. So it's pretty it's like why do you why do we think we're seeing such high numbers of heart disease and cancer?
Heart like stress is again one of the number one causes of hypertension and cardiovascular disease Yeah So it's pretty big to me what you're doing, right? It's like on the one hand it helps me get my glow back, right but on the other end Your first supplement
adapt and in all of the programs and things that are in the works and maybe other supplements and things, they're like, they help me get away from all of this shit that oftentimes we tell ourselves is just part of life now because everybody seems to get it. And it's not a virus that just jumps at you, know, that you kind of have to navigate through this like.
No, I think that I love Nina is just because something is, it doesn't mean that it's right. Everybody does this this way or, know, it's this thing where people always like what you said, you just here we are and we just have to deal with it because everyone else does. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. It's like when women go to the doctor and they get told period pain or that it's just normal. Here's the pill. Sorry.
Nina Huchthausen (40:58.03)
period pain is not normal and the pill is not going to fix the problem. It's just another one of those things where we're told, it's normal to be stressed all the time. Life's stressful. Don't worry about it. Hang on a minute. No, it's not normal. You should be worried about it and you should be taking actions to move away from the stress. That's okay. And I guess the key question is, do you want to be the sheep or the shepherd? Yeah, exactly. That's right.
Do you want to take your health into your own hands or do you want to go a period of time being chronically stressed and then end up in the doctor's clinic getting a diagnosis for a really chronic life threatening disease, essentially, because that's the way the world is headed. That's where we are, where people, our body is always sending us signals all day, every day, every week, every month, we're getting signals from our body. And
stress in particular gives us very good signals. Our gut gets upset usually is one of the first things that happens when we're chronically stressed. get an upset gut. We start to see changes in our digestion. And if you tune into your body and start listening, you will hear, you will see, you will feel all of these messages and signals from your body. And when you start to
hear them and feel them. Listen, don't just push them down. Don't just ignore them and be like, I'll do this. Don't worry about that. I'll deal with that later. I'll just do this or I'll fold that off. don't have time. You know, we have this whole, I don't have time. I don't have time. Do you have time for cancer? Do you have time for a heart attack?
You know, you can go along for the next five to 10 years the way you're going, but if you don't change something, you're going to end up with a chronic illness or a chronic disease that's going to be life threatening eventually. And that's a good question to ask ourselves and other people sometimes because it's like because there's always a path to it, right? You don't just there is no like.
Nina Huchthausen (43:12.27)
two minute way to get to cancer is like probably a decade's worth of consistent work. In my mum's example, they actually told her about her tumor because it was like 10 centimeters when they found it, which is huge, like a 10 centimeter tumor, like that's massive. They said it would have taken about eight to 10 years to grow that big. Yeah, so.
And by the time it gets to stage four, it's very aggressive, it's growing very quickly. But stage one, stage two, it's quite slow growing depending on the type of cancer. But the one that she had was not that aggressive, that it progressed really quickly until the end stages, which is quite normal for cancer. When you get to the end stages, it starts to progress very quickly. But yeah, we're talking.
eight to 10 years usually for most types of cancer to actually progress into something that's like diagnosable under any kind of scan or test. We all have cancer cells floating around our body at any given moment. We all do. They exist in all of us. It's the proliferation of those cells when they start to get out of control. That's when we have a problem.
we can slow those processes down and even reverse them by taking care of our health. Yeah. So you realized this and you started, you started talking to people and you're like, right, I'm going to create something. I'm going to create a company that ultimately helps women to get away from all of that stuff, reverse.
what's been happening and help them get back into that space where they can truly thrive and grow. Tell me a bit about that journey, because as you said, it's stuck. You knew nothing about how do you build a supplement company or not just a supplement company. Yeah. I had to get really clear from from the beginning. And that's why I didn't jump straight into product development. I did
Nina Huchthausen (45:29.942)
my brand first. Before I even thought about product development, what I was going to create, I created my brand and my vision and my mission statement. All of that was done first. And then I started talking with product dev and manufacturers and creating the vision from there. it was, you know, I knew from the beginning that I was going to do a stress relief supplement as my first product. And, you know, there is a pipeline on the way.
And so once I knew that I was doing stress relief, then I had to sort of go, okay, well, what is it that when I was in clinic that I was always looking for in one product, how can I create that and make it so that I like one product is the solution? It solves the problem.
And so, we started working through product development, which is a very lengthy detail. Who did you work with? So one of my lecturers from uni actually works for a product dev company now. And she, like I started chatting with her. And then, yeah, we kind of ended up just moving forward into product dev. It all just kind of.
like there wasn't a lot of like messing around. It was like, okay, we were chatting back and forth. We could do this, we could do that. And I was, because I was already so clear on what I wanted to create, we were just like, right, well, let's just get this done. So she helped you formulate this? Yeah, yep. So the company that she works for, Rihanna specifically didn't work on my program because she's the GM now.
But what they do is they help you to navigate through all the regulatory stuff. So I I wouldn't even attempt to do that on my own to get a TGA listed medicine is a big job. There's so many supplements out on the market that are not listed with the TGA. And it was important to me that we were listed with the TGA as a listed medicine.
Nina Huchthausen (47:48.672)
for various reasons. But essentially, when you've got a listed medicine, you can't just say anything you want about your product. So if you're not listed, people are just making all these wild, outlandish claims about what their product product does. And, you know, they sort of get away with it. Sometimes they come under the eyes of the TGA and the TGA will say, You can't do that, da da da. But a listed medicine, it's like these, this is what your product is.
backed by science to claim. So every ingredient has to have vigorous research behind it to say what we want to say about it. We have to essentially go away and, you know, go through thousands of studies on PubMed essentially for each ingredient that we want to put in and go do the claims that I want to make match up with these ingredients because we can only
make claims that match up with the science and the research. And that was really important to me as a clinical naturopath that we're sort of aligned with the science and not just making all these wild outlandish claims like everybody else does. Which also really means, right, like as you said at the start, integrity is everything for you. And it's not just about selling people something.
You actually really want to get the job done. Yeah, yeah. as a clinician, you you do you have this integrity around prescribing a lot of us do some don't. But yeah, it's it's really important to us as clinicians that we when we are prescribing, we're prescribing things that are actually doing what they say they're going to do and they work. So when people aren't just
flashing their money down the toilet essentially, and potentially causing them self further health issues. know, it's people that will take 10 different supplements all at the same time and they'll be tripling or quadrupling up on different ingredients. You know, turn over your supplements and look at them all and go like, do they all contain the same ingredient multiple times? So these are all things that clinicians know and understand.
Nina Huchthausen (50:18.478)
and it was important to bring that knowledge through into my products. Awesome. So how long did it take to from start to finish? It took. So we started Productive in early 2023. Productive was sort of finalized towards the end of 2023. So it took about a year.
in saying that I had a newborn. So there was like a three month period of time where I was like offline, did nothing before I was able to sort of jump back in and start navigating through and directing where things were going again. So yeah, nine to 12 months for product dev and then you're looking at about three months for the manufacturing process as well, which three to four months depending on.
supply chain and all of that stuff. Yeah. Awesome. And now you literally at, you got this product ready and you've launched your website. Yeah. Yep. So we launched back in April this year. Awesome. Awesome. So where you at to date? Where's your business at to date and what's your vision for growth for the next 12 months?
Yeah, so right now I am deep in the depths of Black Friday strategy and well, that's a journey. It's my first Black Friday. So I've been really focused on learning all of the strategy behind what goes into these types of, you know, long sale events. So that's been super interesting. And then outside of that, I have sort of been focusing on e-commerce.
and also working with you, getting everything together for when we're ready to start moving into retail. I would love to see this product in, where I see this product sits is not necessarily in chemists and whatnot. I mean, maybe one day, but initially I would like to see this product sitting in places where stressed women hang out.
Nina Huchthausen (52:38.476)
Pilates studios, yoga studios, gyms, spas like day spas. These are all the sort of places where women who are really stressed, they go to, you know, have a break, have some me time. And I, that's why I think that this product would sit really beautifully in those spaces. Because it's it's sort of a place where women actually who need the product, that's where they're hanging out. Yeah.
And it works hand in glove, right? Like if I'm going there to physically release my stress through yoga or meditation or sauna or whatever it is, right? And then the supplement in itself is that that's the inside job, right? That's right. That's it. Exactly. the outside and the door kind of like works quite harmoniously. And I feel like with your
with this big mission that you have and there's so many wellness places out there because what does the word wellness mean? It's going back to homeostasis, to well being, well feeling at ease. Exactly. That's what it is, right? Yeah. I honestly can't wait to see how we are getting it into those spaces because it's
everything has to work together. As you said, you can't just chuck a supplement, right? But the same with, there are so many stressed out yogis. they're like, I'm racing through life. But then I do 60 minutes of yoga. And whilst I'm doing my yoga, I'm already thinking about the 50 things in my brain. I'm going do this. It's so ironic, isn't it? Let's get back to them for 60 minutes. It's like,
It doesn't work like that. you know, it's, it's, think it's such an exciting journey, but it's also crazy to see that it, how long it takes to just develop one product, right? the journey. Yeah, it's that TGA listing as well. I think, I think if we weren't listing with the TGA, it would be very quick.
Nina Huchthausen (55:02.542)
or not very quick, but it would be a lot quicker. It's that process of getting your, it's like all of, guess, a research pack together for all your ingredients to map everything out and line it all up to lodge with the TGA. That's where all your work goes in. And then, you know, your assessment period with the TGA to actually get that medicine approved. It's a long time. It's a lot of work. It's a huge investment.
And it is not for the faint-hearted. But I'm sure there are a bunch of women out there who's like, I'm type A personality, and I got an idea too. What is your tip for any business women, mamas, partners, anyone with a big dream, for something they want to bring to life? What's your number one tip before they embark on that journey?
or if they are already on that journey to remember. I would say my number one tip, can I do two? So firstly, do your research and don't jump onto trends. Don't jump onto ideas and trends where like, you know, there's this big thing in this product space where it's like, there's never too many products and, know,
your product is, you know, not the same as everybody else's because it's made by you. And I don't know, I just think that's rubbish. If you're going to go into a saturated marketplace or space in any kind of product, then you better be damn well sure that you have a very, very, very strong and unique point of difference and that your product is bloody incredible. Because otherwise you're going to waste all your time.
all your money and you're going to go in and people are going to be like, that's the same as that, that, that, that, that, that, and that. So I think doing like spending a lot of time doing your research and just switching off your ego and, not creating something that you think is a good idea. Talk to people, ask them, would you buy this product?
Nina Huchthausen (57:22.446)
and just spend a lot of time doing your research is probably my number one and number two once you start never give up hmm like it takes pure grit and determination and blood and sweat and tears just just to develop a product you then have to launch it and grow it and sell it
and do all of the things associated with running a business. And I think that it's really important to understand how to run a business. Because yes, you can have this beautiful product, but if you have no idea how to run a business. Or how to sell it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I meet so many people all the time who've done, who were excellent in making the product. That's the easy part.
Even though it's it's still the easy part. Once you've got that product in front of you, you've got to sell it and you've got to run that business. And so you have to understand all of the different pillars to running a business. It's not just content creation and marketing, but you've got to understand money and cash flow and budgets and so many different things.
around having your own business. It's not as simple as just creating a beautiful product and then putting it on the internet to sell. Not anymore. Not anymore. And I think that's really, really great advice because I see so many people who like, put also all their money and time into just making it and got no money left to market or sell the product. But yeah, what you
have to make space and time and have financial means to do that? Absolutely. mean, you need to really allow like 50 % of your startup budget should be for marketing. So once you've actually developed your products, let's say you're like, all right, I've got 100K or 200K to invest into this company. Well, you can only really spend 50 % of that on actually creating and getting your product to on the ground.
Nina Huchthausen (59:41.258)
After that, you still need like 50 % of your budget. And I know that that sounds like a lot, but that's the reality of the market now is that you need that much money in your marketing budget to launch and grow your business. Yeah, yeah, no, I can I can only agree with that. And because you have to get the word out, you have to get the word out about it. And
Of course, if you choose to surround yourself with the right people, which comes back to the research part, right? If you research the right people that can join your team, that can support you in different parts, the money will last you longer. If you just like jump on anyone's bandwagon and be like, okay, they are going to help me with everything. also chances be that you just burn that cash. Like there's no tomorrow and nothing happens.
Yep, I'm a big, I'm a big believer after like a lot of reading, a lot of research, a lot of listening. Stay away from marketing agencies, you need to learn how to do this stuff yourself. And I like, I know it's fucking hard to find the time when you're the Chief Everything Officer, and you might have young kids and other businesses, or it might be your side hustle, you might be working full time, you as
the CEO, the owner, whatever, the buck stops with you always. If there's a problem, it's your fault. It's no one else's fault. It's always on you. And you need to know every little container of your business inside out, back to front. So that when you start to grow and build a team, you're like, right, this is your job and this is how you do it. And you can train them.
Yeah, so, you know, people hand over so much money to these marketing agencies to like run their ads and do all this stuff for them, but there's no accountability. If they don't get results, you don't get your money back. And the reality is a lot of this stuff is actually really easy to learn and do yourself. It's just a time thing. It's like, well, how much do you want it? Because we will always find time for the things that we really want.
Nina Huchthausen (01:02:04.526)
We'll always make time for the things that we really want. It's like, if you really want to grow your business and be really successful, then you need to know it inside out, back to front, and you need to know how to do everything. So then when it comes time to hiring, you can start to delegate out and really understand the full spectrum of your business and not just be like, God, I have no idea because that person's been doing that for the last year and I actually have no idea. Amen. Amen. And yeah, you like.
You're giving me a wake up call in one part where I know I have because I had no interest in my previous business. I can say that much that I was like, I'm just going to hand this over to someone from day one. Yeah. And I burned so much money, but I didn't know. Is this good what they're doing or is this not good what they're doing? I didn't have the the vocabulary to give.
constructive feedback because I had no idea. I could only ask questions. And of course, they're telling you it's supposed to be like that. by the time, then you can spend, can, six months can go by easily. You go down the wrong path. You're giving people money, no results. And then, but also then that phenomenon exists that
The longer we stay with someone, the more we feel like at some point it's going to work. You know, if I give up now. And a lot of agencies are very good at making you believe that they just need another month, they just need another month. Or, you know, they'll give you all these fancy reports that you can't understand. And you're like, it looks like they're doing something good. I don't know what's going on here. Exactly. But the biggest thing is being a business owner is you're being the business builder.
Right? The most successful business people on the planet, they have built it themselves. They didn't just hand over checks and let other people blindly build it for you. Because you're the only person who holds the vision. You are the only person who has the skin in the game. That's it. And no one else is ever going to treat your business the way that you do. Ever. It's the sad reality of being a business owner is that no matter how good your staff are,
Nina Huchthausen (01:04:29.858)
they are never going to treat your business like it's their own. That's so true. And I think that's what I really, really hope for anyone who's looking to turn their dream into reality to keep that in mind, because the, it's, it's, it's the product in itself, but then it's the team that you surround yourself with and the skills that you're willing to pick up and humbly learn.
and fail like a two-year-old a thousand times until you get it right, that's what's going to give you that edge because you're creating uniqueness in every single part that you build yourself and then you'll be much, much better in handing it over to someone knowing exactly how it's supposed to be done. Because that's how you create excellence. And you know when to pivot as well. Like when you're
in it and you know the ins and outs, everything about your business, you know when something's not working and you know when to call it and make that decision to pivot and go somewhere else. You're like, I can see it, it's not working and you can nip it in the butt and not let it go on for six months after you've burned through $50,000 cash. You're just like, okay, I can see this isn't working, we've got to change something. Let's do it now.
Exactly. Well, see, I can't figure it out. I'm going to talk to someone and see what they can guide me with. And then I try a different approach. Exactly. it's I try and not let other people try. That's it. Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much for this awesome conversation, Tegan, and for sharing your story, your passion, and ultimately your vision for millions of women.
for pretty much everybody on this freaking planet, To help them navigate through life, reduce stress, not going down the shitty path and ultimately, you know, walk around like happy glowing people because really, know, health, that's where life starts, you know, we get our health, we can live life. We don't have health.
Nina Huchthausen (01:06:46.85)
That's it. Health has always been my, like, number one value when, know, when you have to write down your list of values or top priorities in life. Health has always been my number one since my early 20s, because it's like, well, what happens if you lose your health? You can't work, you can't raise your children well. There's a big cascade of things that happen if you lose your health. So health always has to be at the top and everything else has to come after that.
Because unless you want to live life in front of a TV, you know, you got to be on a multi-linking screen. Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time, Tegan. I cannot wait to see what happens when we get this product into all the health and wellness spaces across Australia and beyond. And I know you have, because the last thing for people, if they want to try it out, because
If you love Pina Colada, you love this product and it just takes you two seconds to take in the morning, you got a discount code for listeners. Yeah, yep. So I'll set up a discount code and Nina will pop it in the show notes for you and I will make it business makers and let's make it 20 % off. Sweet. Awesome.
Thank you so much for your time, Tegan. I put the link to your website, your socials, the discount code and everything into the show notes for everyone to check out. Check out Tegan and make sure you share this podcast along to anyone who either needs to hear this story because they are slipping down a slope that they shouldn't be slipping down or are super keen to build a product business.
and can probably pick up a lot of wisdom from anything that Tegan has shared today. So with that, thank you, my friends, and have an awesome week.
