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When Dan Freed was eight years old, he couldn’t sit still at college.
“I remember coming home and bouncing off the walls. I’ve been suspended. I’m in the principal’s office. They are sending me to a psychiatrist,” Freed says. “People thought I was stupid, lazy or unmotivated. I started to believe it.”
Doctors later diagnosed Freed with ADHD and prescribed him the stimulant Adderall. It helped him focus, nevertheless it also made him depressed and irritable.
It wasn’t until he was an adult that Freed discovered nootropics, dietary compounds that support motivation, creativity, mood, memory and cognitive processing.
“Nootropics changed everything and helped me form positive habits on which I built my success,” he says.
Freed is currently the corporate’s founder and CEO thesis, a number one nootropic company that produces specially formulated blends to enhance individual neurochemistry. I recently spoke with him on my One Day with Jon Bier podcast about his personal and skilled journey.
From chef to general manager
Early in his profession, Freed became a chef in Michelin-starred restaurants and have become a respected chef all over the world. He attributes a part of his success to ADHD.
“It was my superpower,” he says. “As a chef, you’re constantly working, doing five things at once, and I was able to concentrate on a lot of different things.”
But work was also burning him out. He dreamed of passing the GMAT and going back to high school. While working as a sous chef on a cruise ship, he learned from his boss, a former investment banker, how you can run a successful operation.
“He told me one day, ‘If you can do all this without a degree, imagine what you could do with an education,’” Freed recalled.
It was around this time that he discovered nootropic drugs, which completely modified the sport.
“I scored in the 99th percentile on the GMAT and earned a master’s degree from Yale and INSEAD,” he says. “For years, I was on and off Adderall, Vyvanse, Concerta every few months,” he says. “But nootropics were the first thing that made me think, hey, this is permanent. It doesn’t have these side effects. I was able to make significant progress and be more productive and creative.”
Solving the issue
Freed’s newfound appreciation for nootropics modified the trajectory of his life, nevertheless it wasn’t without its challenges.
First, he realized early on that nootropics weren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. He couldn’t discover a product available on the market that will be the right preparation for him.
“I kept experimenting with different ingredients, dosages, and combinations to find what worked,” Freed says. “When I found something that worked, it was much better than anything I could find on the market. And then it hit me: How can we provide this tailored experience?”
A business idea was born.
Freed and his team tried different combos of various doses and ingredients on a test group of two,500 people until they achieved the specified results. The result’s a thesis – nootropic blends formulated for a wide range of results, including logic, creativity, motivation, energy, clarity and self-confidence.
Freed says: “Nootropics are a data science problem. The solution is to obtain vast amounts of customer data on how they react to different ingredients and formulations.”
New product line
In the podcast, Freed also talks a couple of recent line of products he has developed called Stasis, which he describes as “supplements that work synergistically with stimulants.”
Unlike Thesis, which is meant to switch the consequences of pharmaceutical stimulants reminiscent of Adderall, Stasis is meant to enrich these medications.
“We are able to find the right ingredients for the right person by taking into account their genetics and goals, and knowing that they are taking a stimulant that predictably changes their brain chemistry,” he explains.
So far, customers have given the product exceptional reviews.
“I’ve been in the formulation business for almost a decade and I’ve never seen such a positive response to any product,” says Freed.