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Looking back at our live conversation with @AraKatz, co-founder of @seed, during Designed to Last: How Taste, Product, and Discipline Build Enduring Brands ✨

Ara shared a powerful reminder: not every business needs to scale to be successful. Growth for the sake of growth isn’t the goal, building something thoughtful, durable, and aligned with your values is.

Sometimes sustainability, profitability, and staying true to your vision is the win. 💛

Want to join more conversations like this? Comment RSVP to check out our events page!

Feel me? 🌱

This is what it feels like when the news is your news.

This past week was my first realization of what community can mean and what is non-flammable. The disparate ecologies of my life seemed to converge in a kind of love and humanity I wish for the world—
a bone deep kind of caring that opened me to a new definition of community.

I am so touched by the calls and texts from every zip, area and country code.
By the people I haven’t spoken to in years concerned about my children, whom they have never met.
By this shared reminder of our humanity.

My heart aches for our friends and those in our school communities who have lost so much. And I feel the missing-ness for a part of our life—the places we drop off for basketball practice, for play dates, for Sunday dinners with friend families, for hikes, for trick-or-treating, for groceries. And I noticed that as my heart’s aperture has opened, so has my perspective—a painful iOS update for the soul.

I’m not a fan of the algorithm these days (as evidenced by my mostly quiet feed) and the disease of confirmation bias it spreads, but this week #PalisadesFire taught me things:

I love this city where my family came into being with @chrisovitz
Where I met my co-founder and started @seed
Where friends and community have coalesced.
Where creativity happens that moves culture and shapes our world.

To our community that is hurting, I am here.
To our @seed Members reaching out and in need, we are here.
To our frontline responders and firefighters from near and far who have come to help, thank you in a way that no thank you’s will ever suffice.
To the humans at @Baby2Baby, @wckitchen, @bobbie and @wearfigs, and others who have mobilized, thank you.

And to LA, the 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒘𝒆 𝒍𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒆 will undoubtedly become our cinder blocks of healing, rebuilding, and resilience. 🌱

And just like that….@seed is at @target.
Another leap in a journey that started with @wildraja in my kitchen eating pomegranates.¹

Now, impacting microbiomes nationwide and on target.com. 

Thank you to each and every Superorganism on our team at @seed who worked to bring us to life IRL— 
And to the team at @target who showed us mad love (i.e. endcaps for days…). 
And to our community who have entrusted and supported us since the beginning. 

Oh, and there’s new science and a new product. 
Hot off our new publication in the journal 𝘎𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 and DDW (Digestive Disease Week) [legit, the nerdiest GI conference there is]. 
More tomorrow. 

•
¹ Contained within pomegranates is a powerful type of polyphenol called punicalagin, which is biotransformed by gut microbes to produce beneficial metabolites like urolithin-A, the new hot kid on the block in the longevity world. Also happens to be the non-fermenting prebiotic in DS-01Ⓡ’s exterior capsule

When was the last time you cried?" That's what @ Ara Katz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of @seed Seed, loves to ask in interviews. She wants to know what moves you.

In more than 250 interviews with some of the most successful founders on the planet, I've never encountered this question. It's an incredible example of digging into the essence of a candidate's humanity and understanding what truly motivates them. Often, who you're working with is far more important than what you're doing.

I had so much fun speaking with my friend @arakatz Katz this week on @ Inc’s For Starters. @ Seed—a brand we all know and love—is leading the pack in translating breakthrough science into everyday consumer health products. With 800%+ revenue growth in the last 3 years, Seed Health has quickly become one of the most trusted and beloved synbiotic brands on the market. Ara embodies the core values of a great entrepreneur. She questions all that we believe to be true and has a vision for the future that others may not yet understand.

In this episode we cover why she believes science isn’t finished until it's widely understood, how they’ve crafted their brand identity through a deep respect for the interconnectivity of art and science, and SO much more. Tune in!

To the members of our community who have been asking, searching, waiting, hoping, and seeking…

It’s here.

VS-01™—the first vaginal synbiotic clinically validated to establish an optimal vaginal microbiome dominated by 𝘓𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘴, the vagina’s most protective bacteria.

Built on 15+ years of metagenomic and microbiome research and developed for one crucial purpose: to help you finally address the source, not just the symptoms.

Link in bio to discover.

At a time when I have felt so paralyzed by how to contribute to this ever-dividing world, I am proud of the ripple we enact today.

Introducing VS-01™ Vaginal Synbiotic, our first vaginal health innovation clinically validated to establish an optimal vaginal microbiome.

To Dr. Jacques Ravel,
whose life work has prioritized vaginal health—
when science and medicine didn’t,
To the thousands of individuals with vaginas who participated across
two decades of research,
To my co-conspirator @wildraja ,
our extraordinary R+D team, led by Dr. Dirk Gevers,
and our intrepid team @seed
who have transformed
these discoveries into real-world impact–
Thank you.

And to my sister @sophiabush , thank you for lending us your voice (literally) and for always using it to amplify and advocate.

Link in bio for all the nerdy details.

Do it slow, do it quiet.

Tomorrow marks a moment many, many years (and many, many brains, hearts, sequenced genomes, and passionate souls) in the making, one that comes full circle to the very essence of why @wildraja and I founded @seed —to translate pioneering microbiome discoveries into life-changing innovations.

Our Seed-verse is expanding once again. See you tomorrow. 🚀

The last 36 hours articulated more beautifully than I could; and especially, a reminder for me that in a moment when our world feels so divided, a unifying and connective moment is still so possible.

To our extraordinary team @seed , @mollybaz , @elizabethmyer , @betsyrriley , and every single person and brand in the comments, in my DMs, in my inbox, and in my friends’ inboxes, who supported and helped @siracusastudios feel a bit less worried about humankind.

I am inspired, I am grateful, and I may give this algorithm another go…..for a bit.

Motherhood isn’t controversial. So, we put @swehl and @mollybaz’s ad back where it belongs.

Motherhood isn’t controversial. So, we put @swehl and @mollybaz’s ad back where it belongs.

🕊️