Months after deciding to launch his own supplements business, Mike Yewdell developed a cough. He thought it was harmless, but when it didn’t go away, he went to his doctor. It turned out to be a rare form of cancer called Hodgkin lymphoma.
“Everything came to a halt,” he recalled. “The only focus was my life.”
Treatment was only meant to take six months. But after several failed rounds of chemotherapy, his journey to recovery became complicated.
“My odds dropped from a 90% chance of survival to 30%, which was such a scary number,” he said.
To support his immunity, his doctors recommend a green powder supplement as well as protein to boost his metabolism and body weight. When his stomach reacted badly to whey protein powders, he opted for a vegan version. But when it came to flavor, he felt both blends left a lot to be desired.
“It was the most disgusting thing I ever had in my life. I was like, ‘how are people buying this? It tastes so bad.’”
Yewdell vowed that when he recovered, he would make versions that offered the same health benefits in flavors that were appealing. Three years later, in 2020, he started Be Amazing with Russell Saks and Tarun Singh, his two best friends from his college days.
Saks, Be Amazing’s CEO, has been a serial entrepreneur since his teenage days, while Singh, the CMO, has what Yewdell describes as “the most beautiful and creative mind.” Together, Yewdell says they have the right balance of attributes to make Be Amazing excel.
“I love talking about those two because they’re the reason we’re so successful,” he said. “Without their vision, I don’t think Be Amazing would be where we are today.”
While the trio always knew they would sell their products in the Amazon store, Yewdell wanted to spend a year building the brand and developing the innovative flavors that would eventually set them apart. After a tumultuous first year that nearly ended in bankruptcy, the founders launched an influencer campaign for their sour blue gummy-flavored pre-workout supplement. It was a strategy that paid off—the product went viral on TikTok.
Soon after, the friends launched Be Amazing in the Amazon store, with the sour blue gummy supplement as their first item. Yewdell says the product was a near-instant success.
“The minute we launched with Amazon, we started seeing sales,” he said. From year one, Be Amazing, which now carries an extensive line of nutritional powders, gummies and beverages in flavors like brown sugar oatmeal and birthday cake, has experienced steady 100% year-on-year growth.
Be Amazing’s innovation in flavor development is one thing that sets it apart from other supplement brands. In addition to finding inspiration in everyday indulgences, Yewdell and his co-founders also use tools like Amazon Product Opportunity Explorer which allows sellers to analyze the search habits and user behavior of Amazon customers. It was by leveraging this Amazon data that they came up with the Chocolate Brownie Batter product line.
Another thing that sets the company apart is its unique licensing deals; Be Amazing has partnerships with IHOP, Dole and SunnyD, allowing customers to get their nutritional supplements in flavors like Double Blueberry Pancakes or Dole Whip® Strawberry.
Yewdell says Amazon Vine, a program that helps sellers get unbiased customer reviews, has been instrumental in getting word out to customers about Be Amazing’s breadth of products and flavors. Amazon’s Subscribe & Save model has been equally valuable for building a loyal base of repeat customers.
“We’ve seen so much customer acquisition on Subscribe & Save, which is so valuable because of the guaranteed income it provides,” he said.
Currently, Be Amazing has hundreds of customers renewing their orders automatically through the program. The result, said Yewdell, is that the brand has outgrown even their most optimistic projections, achieving six-figure monthly sales four months earlier than expected.
Their success with Amazon has not only fueled job growth—the company hired 24 new full-time employees, a third of which live locally in Nashville—but enabled Yewdell and his co-founders to donate to causes close to their heart. In four years, Be Amazing has helped raise over $450,000 for cancer research, planted over 1,000 trees through a partnership with the charity One Tree Planted, and gifted nearly 1,000 months of free therapy through betterhelp.com.
“It matters to me that our brand is philanthropic,” said Yewdell, adding that his cancer diagnosis has given him a new perspective on what matters in life.
“My impact and legacy have become way more important to me than the dollars in my bank account when I pass away.”