Orion Melehan’s Post

This week marks two major milestones: 15 years in business and the year I turned 50 - two moments that feel deeply intertwined. When Aaron Hinde and I started the company in 2011, we were in the heart of a recession. We were both in financial peril, searching for a way to dig ourselves out. But we had a few things working in our favor. We had built a strong friendship and open dialogue. Our kids got along amazingly well. And we had the unwavering support of our spouses. Perhaps even more importantly, we had stress...and resolve. We saw a beverage market that felt stagnant and ripe for innovation. So, with the perfect blend of naïveté and ambition, we threw caution to the wind and declared our new venture to the world. LifeAid would revolutionize the sport and energy markets by AIDing your body with nutrients - not just quenching your thirst or jacking you up on caffeine. One long night, we bought the domain GolferAid.com for $12. In fact, we probably bought over 100 AID domains that night. We knew we were onto something simple, elegant, and, most importantly, overlooked. But it wasn’t overlooked for long. The day before launching GolferAid into the world, we trademarked FitAid. That moment cemented my belief in collective consciousness: if you’re thinking it, someone else probably is too. The day after we filed for the FitAid trademark, a group across the country in Florida filed for “FitAde” in the same category. Had we waited just one more day, our legacy SKU -and perhaps our entire story - might have ended before it truly began. Fifteen years later, the story is still being written, and Aaron and I remain at the helm of what started as a little experiment. We’ve watched companies leapfrog ahead of us. We’ve seen others raise multiples more capital, only to crash and burn. This is one of the toughest industries to survive in - and I’m grateful I didn’t fully understand the long odds back in those early days. Today, I’m simply grateful. Grateful that we’re still here. Grateful that we get to do what we love. Grateful to be building an enduring brand that helped push this industry toward better-for-you, innovative products. I’m grateful to our team for their relentless dedication to making LifeAid a household name. Grateful to our investors for their patience as we’ve stumbled forward. And most of all, grateful to our early adopters and brand evangelists - the ones who believed before it was obvious. Because of all these things I’m grateful for, I’ve never been more confident that we’ll be here for another 15 years.