Make Mistakes, Make Magic ft. Helen Christoni of Make Time Wellness | EYB

In this episode, Laurel Mintz welcomes Helen Christoni, co-founder of Make Time Wellness, for a dynamic discussion on the importance of women’s brain health. Discover the story behind Make Time Wellness—from its origins as a COVID project to winning Best Brain Health Supplement awards and landing on shelves at retailers like Ulta, Target, and QVC. Helen shares actionable insights about supplement formulation, navigating the challenges of launching a wellness brand, and why community and honest conversations around women's wellness are so vital.

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Transcript

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You're listening to the Elevate your brand podcast, the number one podcast for entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs looking to gain insider marketing and brand building tips from some of the smartest entrepreneurs and fastest growing brands on the market today. I'm your host, Laurel Mintz, a reformed corporate M and a attorney who founded award winning LA based marketing agency Elevate my Brand. We've elevated some of the world's biggest brands from Squishmallows, Geico and Verizon to innovative startups to you haven't even heard of yet. Are you ready to elevate your brand? Keep listening. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Elevate your brand. I, of course am your host Laurel Mintz and I am joined today by Helen Christoni, who is the co founder for Make Time Wellness. Helen, thank you for joining us today. Thanks so much for having me on. I'm really excited. Well, we are all about health and wellness, especially in this new year, but I don't think a lot of our listeners are familiar with your brand. So share with us a little bit about what you've built. Sure. Over at Make Time Wellness, our mission is to get the world talking seriously about women's brain health. And we have put together a suite of, of kind of powdered supplements and gummies that are, you know, help women get their supplementation while also putting their brain health first. And it's also delicious, which always matters. And the gummies are fun. Like the whole product line is really fantastic. But I will tell you, when it all got delivered, I was like, huh? I never thought about the differentiation between women's brain health and men's brain health and health. So can you speak to a little bit about why the personalization specific to women is so critically important? Sure. So I think like, you know, when we started digging into this space, you know, just to backtrack a little bit, my, my partner was taking handfuls of these pills. You know, Emma Hemingway is my partner in the Brandon and she was taking handfuls of supplements and I think we were on a zoom one day and I was like, what are you taking? And she's like, you know, I'm taking all these supplements and I have to take all these pills every day and my doctor has me on this and that and I w I could just put all of these in a drink. And I was like, wow, you know, I can do that. And so what we did is we really set out to make an all in one drink supplement where women can just have all their Bases covered their brain, body and beauty. And why is this important? One out of five women here in the United States will get Alzheimer's and no one's talking about that. And that's compared to 1 in 10 men. And so when we were, when we were looking at the space, you know, and we've all seen like the prevagens and the folks factors and you know, and there are all these pill form supplements and they're all so male targeted. And there was nothing really speaking to women on the shelf. And so we just felt compelled. You know, it's a, it's a big conversation for women, especially in midlife, to make something that was easy, that really covered a lot of bases and that women can just check their box with one drink every day. I love it. My husband says all the pills I take, he's like, you're just making really expensive urine. That's what he always tells me. But to your point, it's a lot, I mean it takes a lot of pills, especially as you get older into midlife, to keep things sharp and tight. So I love that it's a one product solution for that. But tell us a little bit about your background in history and how you formulated this product and a little bit about the efficacy. Oh, sure. So you know, I've been in the kind of personal care and health and wellness space for well over 20 years and I started my career in product development and then went on to more of a marketing function. So my roots have always really been based in R and D and then, you know, that kind of origin story like where do things come from? Making sure that ingredients are based in science so that they have the science data validation, you know, human testing. That's so important in things that we're taking today. So when we set out to make this drink, I really just took a look at, you know, what we were all taking. We all need to be taking a multivitamin. We should be taking some sort of MCT oil, healthy fats. Very important that we have a high level of antioxidants. So we identified curcumin is really good. That's what colors our product that beautiful orange. And then we added Cognizant, which is a kind of a brand name nootropic that really has a lot of science and evidence for women that is very helpful for focus attention and just brain health and longevity. So we put it all together. Then, you know, I pulled a, you know, a colleague that worked at Mars, you know, and a food scientist, and taste was very important. So like, if, you know, it's very important that this can be something you do daily. And so, so we made this drink which is kind of like we call it Girl Tang. And you could either throw it in 8 ounces of ice water or in a larger water bottle. And like the thought process is just have a drink in the morning and you're good for the rest of the day. And you've won several awards for your products. Share with us. Be a little braggadocious. Yeah, I mean, you know, so we can't even believe it, right? Like, we really literally launched this as a Covid project and we were a fast. Like we got so much fan mail from all these great outlets, like We're a new Beauty 100 company. I mean we were in our infancy when we were named that best Brain Health Supplement 2024 for new beauty, which was a huge win for us. It was in our first year. And then last year in 2025, we're an Oprah daily best brain health supplement. So we' won Clio Awards and Stevie Awards. And so it's been a very interesting, well received brand because it's so important that you know, women, we run around and we do all these things and we're like the chief medical officers of our household, but we're not taking care of ourselves necessarily. So the make time conversation is so important, you know, because if we don't take care of ourselves and fill our cup, we won't be able to be our best self for our families and or for our work or for wherever it is where need to show up. So that's how we started. So we've gotten all this great attention. We're so appreciative and really this is just two women on a mission to get the world talking seriously about women's brain health. How much of the success? I mean, obviously the product is a great product. I'm always nervous when people send me things I have to ingest because you know, you hate to have to see send someone an email that says like I didn't love the product. Let's like, let's not do this, but the gummies that, I mean, everything was so delicious and wonderful. How much of the success do you think is also part and parcel to the fact that we're finally having these really important conversations around women's health? Like is it a part timing issue as well? I think we were a little like in front of it, to be quite honest with you. I think like we just got in front of this conversation and it really organically happened. I mean, unfortunately, you know, both Emma and I have this story. I think dementia and Alzheimer's is a part of everyone's story. And you know, I lost my grandmother to dementia, my mother in law to frontal temporal dementia. You know, Emma has, you know, things going on with her family in this area. And so we were really passionate about starting to talk about it. And then with the rise of this kind of midlife conversation, you know, I mean, whenever you have a change in hormones, it's affecting our brains, you know. And so, you know, women are talking about all kinds of stuff, but like this, like, hey, this brain first conversation just really starts to resonate. And every woman that we talked to about this organically was just like, thank you. Yes. Because we're like, when was the last time anybody talked to you about your brain? And it's like, never. Our doctors aren't talking about it, we're not talking about it. And we're like dismissing mommy brain. Brain fog, tired. This forgetfulness, you know, all these things that we go through on just life. But it's not, not, you know, when you start, you know, prioritizing, we like to talk about the five pillars of brain health, which is sleep, nutrition connection, exercise and mental stimulation. Like, when you start really prioritizing these five things in your life, you see the difference, you know. Oh yeah. And so, you know, and it's, you know, and if you're taking care of your brain, everything else will fall. Yeah, yeah. But it's, it, to your point, it is about all of the pillars and having balance. Although I think balance is bullshit. I don't think there's ever really such thing as true balance in life. But in taking products like what you've built, it definitely helps with that journey. And to your other point, like, the conversation around brain health and women's health in general has not been, I mean, even my generalist, who is a woman, they are just not set up with the right tools to help educate and empower us as women to deal with all of these mental changes. So I think that it's critical to have companies like yours that do the research, that build the products and that are building community around these critically important conversations. So thank you for that work. I think community is so important. And you know, I mean, like my doctor, you know, my doctor is a woman and you know, midlife, menopause, the whole thing, and they're very quick to prescribe. And it's like, you don't necessarily need to be loading up on, I mean, you Know, women shouldn't be taking antidepressants because they're on their menopausal, you know, and that they're anxious, you know, it's just not what we should be doing. And so the, it's so interesting, like the whole medical community and they're just lack of, just sheer knowledge in what happens with women during this life. There's a lot of really great doctors having a lot of success in the space now and they're really starting to drill down on it. I think women are demanding that, you know, they get a little more heard and things available like the fta, you know, box being dropped off, hormones and whatnot. So I think that, you know, it's just really important that we're talking about it and that it's something that, you know, we talk to our girlfriends about, we check in with them and like we say, you know, it's so important that we're trying the natural route first and that we're supplementing because we're running on empty. I mean, where I was just saying like, you know, I was so tired this morning and I was like, wow, I don't think I actually ate enough yesterday. You know, it's like, you know, you need it, you need to fuel your body and fuel your mind. And so we love the conversations we're having over at Make Time. It's, it's, it's really meaningful to us. And we're going to continue that conversation in just a moment. We're going to take a quick break. Posting once a week on Instagram is not a social media strategy. I hate to break it to you, but it's true. There is a lot more to the algorithm than meets the eye. And let's face it, your eyes should be busy running the rest of your business. So leave the caption strategies, TikTok dances and viral sounds to our social media marketing experts. Save your time later by taking just a few minutes to meet with Elevate my brand today. Thanks for tuning in. If you are new to the conversation, I am chatting with Helen Crestoni who is the co founder of Make Time Wellness. Tell us a little bit about the name. Did this come to you in a dream? Did you guys have to brainstorm around this and then like, what is the real meaning behind it? It's, I think a little self explanatory, but I always love to hear the marketing brand story. Sure. I mean it's really a beautiful story actually. So Emma, my partner had a body line and she was thinking about incorporating it into this kind of skincare line. And I was like, no, you know, I really think this is a standalone. Like, this is a different conversation. It's very important. And we were kicking around the naming ideas, and Emma would sign her cards, like, Make Time Emma and her emails. And I always thought it was so endearing. And so I was like. Like, I was just really. I really loved that. And so we went ahead and we took a look and we thought, like, what a great, comprehensive conversation we could have here. Right. Like, because it really kind of was so foundational for what we wanted to do by bringing this community of women together to just, you know, create this movement to talk about our brains, which have been so forgotten by society, and. And Making Time really lent itself to the pillars of brain health and. And just kind of the foundation for our storytelling. And that's where the name came from. I mean, it really is just a daily reminder to make time for yourself and that wellness is so critical. I say it about once a day, I think, at least the. You can't pour out of an empty cup. Right. And so the reminder of making time for yourself as a part of the narrative of the brand, I think is really, really beautiful. Beautiful, yeah. Will you share a little bit about the product lines? What came first? Did you launch these all together? I've tried all of them, but I'm sure you have, like, your hero product and then some of the other more new line extensions that you've built. Sure. So, you know, we started with our all in one powder for Brain, body and beauty, which is our hero skew. It still is today, because that's really kind of your essentials. And then what we did is we built stackables, you know, so we've made Make Time for Beauty Sleep. We're always trying to put things together to make it a little easier for women. Right. Our Make Time for Beauty sleep is a combination of biotin, hair, skin and nail formula, and melatonin. And it's like, why take two if you could take one? We're always thinking about that. And also we thought it was a great way to get kind of like a younger generation into the brand. We also have our Make Time for brain and body. Our Make Time for brain and beauty Gummy. That is kind of our gummy answer to our drink formula without the multivitamin. And so we did that because not everybody is gonna drink something. I mean, it just is what it is, you know, so we really wanted to make sure we could check the Brain health boxes and have an alternative. We also have make time for rhodiola, which is really such a great ingredient. It really kind of like, kind of reduces your cortisol while improving your performance. And we really. Everything that we create is really kind of go girl mentality. Like, what do women need to really be out there and handle their business, perform at their best, be able to handle their dailies while really being like, effective and taking care of their health first. So always a combo with us. Never pills. We're very anti pills. And it's been fun to kind of fill holes that we see on the shelf, you know, and be creative with these formulations because it's like, when you look at the supplement space, everything's very single ingredient. Like, for instance, I always like to talk about glutathione. Like, okay, what's a glutathione? Why do I need to take it? And why don't we just put them together, you know, like, why don't we put some of the stuff together to. Kind of check a few boxes, make this easier, please. Yeah. Yes. Like, women are just busy. They don't want to research what a glutathione is. And I'm in health and wellness. It took me a minute. And just for people listening, it's an antioxidant. Great. You know, and. And there are many beautiful antioxidants women can take and including, like, the curcumin that's in our products. And so, so we try to really make it simple. And in our. In our messaging, we try to describe the effect you're going to have. You know, so people are knowing what they're going to get instead of just like, trying to figure out what the ingredient conversation is. That's been kind of our approach to communication, and it's been very refreshing to hear the feedback from just women all over the country and world at this point. People are really like, do you ship here? Do you ship there? And I'm like, oh, we will one day. So it's been really a labor of love. Yeah, absolutely. And it does feel like a little treat at the end of the day. I love the gummies. They're definitely my favorite of the products because they the. The exterior and the interior, like, it just feels like a little, literally like a treat when you're eating your what's good for you in your daily dosage. So it's kind of a fun experience. And the flavor profiles are delicious. So very, very well done. And you're making it easy like that. At the end of the day, just make it freaking Easy. Why do we have to take all of these supplements and pills and things when you can take one gummy or two gummies, that can solve most of your problems. So I love that. Yeah. And I mean, you know, I have, you know, like I'm on auto ship for my own products. I mean, I, you know, which I think is really funny and hope you get a deal. I mean, but I do, you know, just to make sure they come on time and. But like I, you know, I take the beauty sleep and I take the brand beauty gummies daily. Love them, pass them out, conversation starters. Like I'm always handing them out and you really see the benefits. I mean, I think like, you know, I, I have worked with a lot of companies. It's really great, you know, when you can believe and take what you make and it's a real feel good. And thank you on the flavor profile because we really went there with this. We worked very hard to make sure that they're just pleasant and they're easy to take and they're something that you look at. I look forward to eating them every day. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I was going to say. It was like a little fun treat every day and I finished the entire container which again, I get sent a lot, lot of products and that's not usually the case. So. Very well done there. Yeah, awesome. In fact, I had a friend that came over and she was like, I want to try something. Like, oh, but I'm running low. So I had to order more. Of course, tell people, speaking of ordering more, where they can find your products. Oh, sure. Everybody could go to maketime wellness.com and you can also find us at Ulta Beauty at Vitamin Shop on Amazon. But maketimewellness.com is our site, like, and. If you could give us a little teaser, I know you have some really big stuff coming up. Not quite sure when the pod will come out, but I know you have a lot of huge growth happening in 2026. We do. So, you know, we are launching at QVC, which we're very excited about and it's been a long time in the works. And they were one of the really like the first companies, you know, they were, they were so, so excited about the brand. They still are and we're looking forward to that partnership. And then also we're going to be doing a test at Target, so we'll be rolling out Make Time at Target in April, which is very excited and so look forward to seeing us on Target shelves. We've got some Other stuff in the works I can't really talk about, but a lot of growth for the brand this year. And we just could not be more over the moon at the support from the community women all over the world, like I said. And for people like you who are just interested in just, you know, having this conversation because this one in five women will get Alzheimer's statistic is something we all need to take to heart. Like, we do not want to be that woman. Yes, yes. And unfortunately we, almost all of us, because that statistic is so very real, know someone or have had that experience in our, in our life, in our lifetime, probably multiple. So, yes, I think it's so critically important to open the dialogue and have really important conversations and frankly, solve the problem. Right. As much as we can. Yeah. And what people don't know is that, you know what the damage that's being done in midlife shows up 20 years later. And so it's, it's now that we need to start thinking. It's never, you're never. People are like, oh, I'll give this to my mom. And I'm like, oh, no, honey. Double that order. You better double. Don't be misunderstood. This is something that you start losing your short term memory at the age of 30. This is something that we need to start thinking about early. And so women are just mistaken about when they need to start paying attention. And it's never too young to start thinking about your brain health. You're so right. I'm right before Perry and it is coming for me in every way I can, like, feel it. So yes, no time like the presence. And speaking of, we're gonna take one more quick, quick break. We will be right back. We are thrilled that you've joined us here on the elevate your brand podcast. But did you know we have a ton more useful content on our blog page. Make sure to go to elevatemybrand.com and check out the tips and tricks that we share with you every week on how to elevate your brand via marketing, app advertising, branding, messaging, social media, you name it, we've got your back. Thanks for sticking with us. And if you're just joining, chatting with Helen Christoni, who is the co founder of Make Time Wellness. Let's talk a little bit about the entrepreneurial journey. It's a very different experience to have an idea and bring it to market and have it be as successful as you have been in all of these big box retailers that you so casually dropped here. I just love that talk to us about the partnership, how you guys met, and how you decided to ultimately launch the product lines. Oh, gosh. I mean, you know, like, we have a mutual girlfriend. You know, we both live here in Los Angeles. And one of our, like, one of my besties is Emma's besties. And she just thought that we should know each other. And we had lunch and we formed a friendship. We were working on. I was helping Emma with another project. And it was during COVID you know, that we just. Everybody was living on the Zoom Room with everybody. And we just started coming up with this idea and this, you know, the brand was born. And I think in the supplement industry, there's this big trade show called Expo West. And so, you know, we decided to. We batched some samples of the powdered drink, we made some sample packaging, and we didn't tell, like, anybody who we were or anything. We just went down, downstairs, we got a little booth, and we popped up a little like, you know, cheap banner, and we served make time and just to see what the reaction would be. And it was basically like our focus group. And the reaction was just like, over the moon. And so that was kind of like our first inkling that we were onto something. And then, you know, I mean, you have some. There's always. There's always mistakes, you know, that you make. Like, we had to do an early reformulation. We launched with. Not many people know about this, but we launched with also a prenatal. And we just decided that it was, like, crowded and the. And the messaging was a little, like, disconnected, you know, and so we. We decided to really focus on, you know, this brain health conversation because that was what we were really leaning into. Like, you know, we weren't, you know, Emma and I, you know, had long since had kids, and so we were kind of like, out of that. So in our cat, in our conversation and our storytelling, we weren't just leaning into that combo, you know, so we went ahead and, you know, disco that entry. We didn't. We didn't proceed with that test. And. And it's hard. You know, we're scrappy. We don't have a bunch of vc. We actually work on the brand. We're a very small team. And so it's been a lot of learning starts and stops. And with this rampant growth, too, to get this kind of distribution in your infancy, it's, you know, it's stressful. Inventory management, fulfillment, all the things that comes with a business. It's been challenging, but fun. What is the biggest lesson you think you Would take away or give to. Our audience, I think for sure, you know, stability. I think, like, you know, shelf stable. What we learned in with powder is that, you know, like in our first, in our first kind of like really making sure that your containers are where they need to be and packaging and components, that's all very important. So we did a lot of diligence there and had some learnings. But I think that anytime someone is ingesting some something, I think it's very important that you really do your testing. And we were obsessed with third party testing and validation and so I think that that was really important. Had we not done that, I think we would have been a little slower to ramp, but because we like brought in legal teams and compliant teams early because this is a supplement and had our products vetted, third party tested. Super important. And also like we cherry pick all of our ingredients and our ingredients manufacturers, we source them like we're not going to some house and doing something. Like we have identified each ingredient, the spec, the science, and have put it together. Incredible. Well, this has been such a lovely conversation in the last few moments that we have left. We like to do what we call our quick fires. So this is what comes up top of mind. Just some quick, more human questions. Are you ready? Yeah. First question. What was your favorite subject in school? Art. And how has that impacted your work every single day? I mean, I think bringing creativity to everything you do and, you know, taking risks and being creative is so important. What was the last concert or show you went to? Duran Duran. Oh, the lead keyboardist lives on our corner. Oh, yeah, I just saw him like, literally I saw them like last week. So very fresh, so funny. Next question. How do you best deal with stress? Exercise. Yes, love. Biggest pet peeve. Oh, God. When people like her having conversations on speakerphone on their iPhone, I cannot handle it. Oh, my God. Yes. I want to like, knock it out of their hand. Totally. And the last question is, what was the last thing that made you happy? Cry. Oh, gosh. I think, I mean, it was just. It was just yesterday actually. I just got a message on social media about like, you know, we have this little book club going right now. We're all reading a book and someone just messaged me just this beautiful thing on social media about how she's so grateful for our community and so happy to be a part of what we're doing at Make Time. It just like these messages touch my heart, you know that we're touching women all over the world. Absolutely love that and have loved this conversation. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Any final words of wisdom for our audience either about the product, women's health, your journey? Just final words to wrap up the conversation. I just think that if you see a for entrepreneurs, if you see a hole, don't be scared to fill it, you know, and that's where magic happens. And, you know, and if you really think there's a hole in the market, like, just go for it, I love it. Well, you certainly filled a position in the market for women's brain health, health that we all need to be paying attention to. Helen, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. Thank you for having me. And thanks to everyone who tuned in. Stay tuned for more from ELEVATE YOUR brand coming up next.