It was diet soda that was to blame. The constant joint pain, the soreness, the flare-ups of his autoimmune symptoms, all of it, would happen whenever the young man drank a diet soda. “I always knew there was an inflammatory component there,” recalls entrepreneur Kevin Gundersen, founder of supplement brand Inno Supps. “It’s just a bunch of Sucralose. Once I cut that stuff out of my diet, all my skin issues went away. My joint pain went away. I just felt better. So I knew from that point that this stuff couldn’t be good for you.”
Health had always been a priority for the California native. He would put flaxseed oil in his childhood oatmeal and had a home gym by the tender age of eight. He exercised religiously and consumed a healthy diet, or so he believed until the diet soda revelation. A change to a healthier beverage and the resulting improvement in his well-being were enough to fully convince the health-conscious Gundersen that he had found something that could also help others.
Perhaps that would be the end of the story, except for the fortunate coincidence that Gundersen was obsessed with two things in life: fitness, of course, but also entrepreneurship. Dating back to his days studying at USC, Gundersen has founded around a dozen businesses, including multiple supplement brands. For him, an obsession with fitness meant a passion for fitness-focused ventures. For his products, it meant no artificial sweeteners at all.
“Almost all supplements out there have artificial sweeteners like Sucralose, Aspartame—a bunch of stuff you don’t want in your body,” explains the 36-year-old. “So I launched a company called LIV Body, with products focused on helping fitness enthusiasts who weren’t able to find a comparable supplement on the market. We were one of the only brands not to use artificial sweeteners. It was all-natural and I took pride in that because I was becoming very passionate about natural products.”
Gundersen would sell that business in recent years, freeing him to focus on other projects within his fields of interest: fitness and health. He took his experience and expertise in the supplement field and founded Inno Supps six years ago. The company, which produces a range of products for both men and women, has seen meteoric success and is one of the fastest-growing companies in the industry.
For all this success, Gundersen started his professional journey with a failure. “My first idea was the Frat Pack,” he explains. “I was a frat guy at USC and I thought a liver-cleansing multivitamin would be really appealing. I thought it was a big market. It wasn’t.”
Gundersen had just been taught a painful lesson for any entrepreneur. But the pain was worth the wisdom it produced, as the entrepreneur realized that his company’s creatine was especially popular with women. The popularity was an unintentional result of his commitment to the highest quality ingredients, such as using Micronized Creatine specifically. Gundersen explains, “A side effect of this choice was reduced bloating, something that we learned through feedback from our female customers. When we really looked at the market, we saw a pretty sizable gap.”
The company became quite successful, but after years of profit and growth, Gundersen’s principles came face-to-face with the practicalities of business. Of course, ingredients of higher quality come at a higher price, but he believed fervently that this added cost was worth it in the long-term. Facing a complex struggle to fully incorporate this belief and commitment into the business itself, the young man knew it was time for him to move on.
Kevin admits that “it was a combination of a business decision and my personal beliefs and principles.” He sold his stake in the brand and shifted his attention to what would become the crown jewel of his fitness empire, Inno Supps. Six years later, the brand is immensely popular, and profitable, proving Gundersen’s stubborn refusal to sacrifice quality for short-term payoffs was indeed wise.
Inno Supps isn’t solely focused on women, but that hasn’t meant a narrowing range of customers. “Right now Inno Supps is 47% women and 53% men,” shares Gundersen. “We found that niche in the market that took off, but my true passion is bringing supplements, fitness, health and wellness to as many people as possible, men or women. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on extra third-party purity testing, heavy-metal testing, research and development, and more. It’s that important to us.”
Gundersen hasn’t achieved this alone, but rather has had the unwavering support of a partner in each entrepreneurial venture, explaining “I’ve been with my wife for 21 years. We’ve been together since high school, and almost every single one of these projects we’ve built together.”
Next for the Gundersen family is something entirely their own, with no outside investors, no partners, just family and fitness. “We want to grow it to a massive level. My wife will be the face of the brand, which we’ll own 100%. Even my kids are eager to help, as they’re extremely into fitness just like me.”
For all of the projects, countless products and stubborn principles, the entrepreneur remains committed to his mission. “My whole goal is to promote health and wellness. Simply put, how can I get the best product in our customers’ hands? The rest will handle itself.”
