LIFEAID Beverage Company, LLC

We've landed on the shelves at Sheetz Getting your Creatine fix is now more convenient than ever. Jordan Plunkett, MBA had the vision and made it happen. #Creatine is hotter than ever. I remember taking creatine a dog's age ago, in high school. Inside our convenient FITAID Creatine packets are 5g of Creapure , the gold standard! "POWER UR DAYZ WITH CREATINE" Great marketing Sheetz Pick up pair on your road trip this summer! Available in Watermelon Rush and Juicy apple! (always naturally sweetened) Aaron Hinde Orion Melehan Emily S. Garrett Campbell Elva Muñoz-Schell Jacob Sosna Ashlee Knotts Michael Murphy John D. Wagner III, D.B.A., PMPLauren Rivers Teri Manzelli

Today marks 15 years since Orion Melehan and I cofounded LIFEAID. If you’ve been in beverage, you know that’s not a hype story. It’s a survive to thrive story. We’ve come close to running out of cash...more than once. We’ve had major retailers discontinue us. (Nothing teaches you about concentration risk faster than losing a big account.) We’ve had co-packing disasters that forced us to destroy nearly $1MM of product. We’ve hired the wrong people. We’ve launched SKUs we later had to kill. We’ve walked away from “easy revenue” because it wasn’t profitable revenue. We've passed on a high-valuation raise because the terms included bad preferences. The headline looked great. The details didn’t. The devil is always in the details. Here’s what 15 years has taught me: 1. Growth without margin is dangerous. Revenue is seductive. Distribution feels like validation. Big POs feel like momentum. But if the margin structure isn’t real, if operations can’t support it, growth becomes the thing that kills you. In beverage, you don’t usually die from lack of ambition. You die from bad math. 2. Saying “no” is a growth strategy. Intentional growth means saying “no” more than you say “yes.” No to deals that don’t pencil. No to sales you can’t support. No to investors whose incentives aren’t aligned. No to SKUs that dilute focus. No to revenue that flatters the top line but erodes the bottom. Just because you can grow doesn’t mean you should. 3. Diversification isn’t optional. Retailers will pull back. Buyers will change. Categories will shift. If your entire business depends on one channel, one account, or one bet, you’re not building a company. You’re building a gamble. Durability comes from balance. 4. Alignment beats hype. The single biggest advantage we’ve had isn’t a product decision or a capital raise. It’s people. We have long-tenured leaders who have grown with the company. We are aligned. Henry Ford once said, “When everyone is moving forward together, success will take care of itself.” I’ve seen that play out in real time. In the hardest moments, when cash was tight, when product had to be destroyed, when setbacks hit, alignment kept the ship steady. Not ego. Not vanity metrics. Not press releases. Alignment. There’s one line I come back to often: The goal in beverage is to stay in the game long enough for your wins to compound. This is not a sprint industry. It’s a resilience industry. If you avoid the decisions that can sink the ship… If you protect margin… If you build a fully aligned team… If you grow intentionally instead of emotionally… Your wins stack. Not overnight. But powerfully. Fifteen years in, I’m deeply grateful. Grateful for the scars. Grateful for the lessons. Grateful for our team. Grateful we stayed in the game. To every founder building something real: Protect the downside so you earn the upside. Compound interest works in business too, but only if you’re still standing. Cheers to the next chapter. Aaron

Today marks 15 years since Orion Melehan and I cofounded LIFEAID. If you’ve been in beverage, you know that’s not a hype story. It’s a survive to thrive story. We’ve come close to running out of cash...more than once. We’ve had major retailers discontinue us. (Nothing teaches you about concentration risk faster than losing a big account.) We’ve had co-packing disasters that forced us to destroy nearly $1MM of product. We’ve hired the wrong people. We’ve launched SKUs we later had to kill. We’ve walked away from “easy revenue” because it wasn’t profitable revenue. We've passed on a high-valuation raise because the terms included bad preferences. The headline looked great. The details didn’t. The devil is always in the details. Here’s what 15 years has taught me: 1. Growth without margin is dangerous. Revenue is seductive. Distribution feels like validation. Big POs feel like momentum. But if the margin structure isn’t real, if operations can’t support it, growth becomes the thing that kills you. In beverage, you don’t usually die from lack of ambition. You die from bad math. 2. Saying “no” is a growth strategy. Intentional growth means saying “no” more than you say “yes.” No to deals that don’t pencil. No to sales you can’t support. No to investors whose incentives aren’t aligned. No to SKUs that dilute focus. No to revenue that flatters the top line but erodes the bottom. Just because you can grow doesn’t mean you should. 3. Diversification isn’t optional. Retailers will pull back. Buyers will change. Categories will shift. If your entire business depends on one channel, one account, or one bet, you’re not building a company. You’re building a gamble. Durability comes from balance. 4. Alignment beats hype. The single biggest advantage we’ve had isn’t a product decision or a capital raise. It’s people. We have long-tenured leaders who have grown with the company. We are aligned. Henry Ford once said, “When everyone is moving forward together, success will take care of itself.” I’ve seen that play out in real time. In the hardest moments, when cash was tight, when product had to be destroyed, when setbacks hit, alignment kept the ship steady. Not ego. Not vanity metrics. Not press releases. Alignment. There’s one line I come back to often: The goal in beverage is to stay in the game long enough for your wins to compound. This is not a sprint industry. It’s a resilience industry. If you avoid the decisions that can sink the ship… If you protect margin… If you build a fully aligned team… If you grow intentionally instead of emotionally… Your wins stack. Not overnight. But powerfully. Fifteen years in, I’m deeply grateful. Grateful for the scars. Grateful for the lessons. Grateful for our team. Grateful we stayed in the game. To every founder building something real: Protect the downside so you earn the upside. Compound interest works in business too, but only if you’re still standing. Cheers to the next chapter. Aaron