$100M BRAND STORY

Kion: The Podcast Flywheel Every Wellness Brand Should Steal

If you hang around performance-minded circles, you’ve heard “take your aminos” more times than you’ve heard “drink water.” Nine times out of ten, that shout-out traces back to Kion, the Boulder-based wellness brand whose hero SKU: Kion Aminos has become shorthand for clean, clinically dosed essential amino acids. Born in 2017, Kion’s mission is simple: give people “energy for life” with products that are obsessively clean, obsessively tested, and obsessively talked about on podcasts.

The hook?
Co-founder Ben Greenfield launched the brand live on his own show, converting listeners into day-one customers and proving that a microphone can be a moat.

Are They Funded or Bootstrapped?

Kion sprinted out of the gate on sweat equity and podcast cashflow—no VC dollars for the first four years. Adapt.io pegs current revenue in the $10-50M range with ~25-100 employees, and insiders say gross margins hover near 80% (standard for premium supplements). The company quietly raised a single, small “friends-of-the-brand” round in 2021 to support inventory, but the P&L remains founder-controlled.

The Origin Story

• Meet-Cute in Idaho: Biohacker-educator Ben Greenfield had already built a million-download podcast when mutual friends introduced him to operations savant Angelo Keely in late 2016. Eight weeks later they filed the LLC and named it Kion, riffing on the Japanese concept of ki—vital life energy .

• From Near-Death to Nutrients: Keely’s teenage stabbing-and-recovery saga hard-wired an obsession with nutrition, while Greenfield’s coaching career demanded clean, efficacious formulas. The overlap: essential aminos, organic coffee, and functional foods their own families had used since childhood .

Core Customer Base

Kion serves the performance-wellness barbell:

1. Biohackers & endurance athletes who follow Greenfield’s protocols.

2. Time-starved execs & busy parents who want plug-and-play nutrition (60% of sales ship on subscription).

3. Wellness creators & coaches who earn affiliate commissions by highlighting “clean label, science-backed” products.
   Their lifetime value pops because an Aminos subscriber adds coffee, protein, and Lean (carb-control) within 90 days, pushing AOV north of £75.

How Did They Grow So Sustainably?

Kion’s growth engine runs on a tight, founder-led podcast flywheel. Because Ben Greenfield was already dropping two episodes a week to an audience of bio-hackers and endurance junkies, the brand launched with instant reach and—crucially—zero paid customer-acquisition cost. Every product drop is treated like a show segment: Greenfield spends ten minutes storytelling the “why” behind a new formula, Angelo Keely jumps in with the manufacturing and sourcing details, and a crisp call-to-action sends listeners straight to a landing page that’s been primed for conversion. That single channel still delivers the lion’s share of first-touch revenue, keeping marketing spend under 5 percent of net sales and allowing the team to pour cash back into inventory and R&D instead of ad auctions.

Once a customer bites, Kion’s subscription model kicks in. Aminos is positioned as a daily-use hero SKU, so the default checkout path nudges shoppers toward a 30-serve pouch on auto-ship. Roughly 60 percent of first-time buyers take the subscription, and nearly half of those add a second item—usually organic coffee or whey protein—within three months. That expands average order value to the £70-plus range and pushes subscriber lifetime beyond 14 months, giving Kion the predictable cashflow most supplement start-ups dream about.

The third leg of the stool is a tiered affiliate program that rewards everyone from micro-creators on Share-a-Sale to PhD-level performance scientists. Smaller partners start with a simple discount code and 15 percent commission; as their volume scales, they graduate to rev-share structures that look a lot like long-term profit splits. Because payouts sit squarely inside cost-of-goods, operating expenses stay lean even while reach multiplies. Finally, a dense library of science-backed blog posts drives organic search traffic for keywords such as “essential amino acids vs BCAAs”—a moat that keeps filling without fresh ad dollars.

Key Milestones

Influencer Marketing Mix

• Founders as macros: Ben Greenfield (600k+ multi-channel following) and Angelo Keely guest on flagship shows (Huberman Lab, Skinny Confidential) to convert thought-leaders’ audiences .

• Performance pros: Dr Gabrielle Lyon, Andy Galpin, and endurance coaches provide third-party science.

• Micro & nano affiliates: 1,200+ creators on Share-a-Sale earn 15 % starting commission; average micro partner drives £3k/mo with evergreen links.

Their Marketing X-Factor

Kion made the podcast itself the product launchpad. Episodes blend education (why EAAs beat BCAAs), founder storytelling, and explicit CTAs to getkion.com. That deep trust slashes CAC and keeps retention high (average subscriber sticks 14 months). Crucially, they treat the show as an owned P&L line, budgeting production costs against forecasted incremental LTV—not “brand spend.”

Takeaways for Wellness Operators

1. Own a channel you can publish on weekly; algorithm-proof media = compounding reach.

2. Hero first, halo later: One product with a clear outcome (Aminos → energy & recovery) funds R&D for adjacent SKUs.

3. Subscription math > one-off math—but only if you over-invest in education that keeps customers compliant.

4. Affiliate tiers beat mega-influencer bets. Let your advocates graduate from discount codes to equity-style rev-share as they scale.

5. Science sells when story leads. Angelo’s near-death tale and Ben’s athlete cred make dense amino-acid research human and memorable.

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