Why I Started Ozzi

2026 has been a really solid year for me as a founder and as a man.

But I can’t stop thinking about this flag.

When I started Ozzi, I thought it was going to be easier. But doesn’t everyone?

As a founder who built his last business to $100M in sales, I figured a product this good would sell itself. I was wrong. The last few months of reflection have taught me why, and they’ve cemented why I’m the right person to build it.

I set out to create Ozzi because of a lifetime battle with sugar and constant hunger. Before I did therapy and group coaching during Covid, I had lower self-esteem than I’d care to admit.

A lot of that insecurity came from my perpetually skinny-fat build, among other things.

Even when I was in the gym lifting weights 5x a week, I’d still keep a layer of fat. When I’d start to trim down, I’d lose 5lbs, and all of a sudden my energy was gone and my cravings were through the roof.

It was a perpetual cycle. Eat healthy and exercise for a few weeks, then one stressful day would send me back into the same routine I’d been in for years.

I tried everything to cut back. Looking back at it, most of what I tried only added to the problem.

The Snacking Problem

From low sugar candy, to protein bars, to “healthy” protein chips, I’d do anything to keep myself full.

But those extra calories I told myself were healthy are exactly what kept me fat.

The protein bar I told myself was for hitting my macros was an extra 220 calories a night. The 15g protein chips? Another 230. My whole day of progress was gone, and I justified it for years in the name of “extra protein.”

I originally created Ozzi to replace my nighttime snacking on junk food. But the reality is it wasn’t just the junk food. It was everything after dinner that was throwing me off.

Unfortunately for everyone else, and fortunately for my business, it turns out I’m far from alone. 93% of US adults have an after-dinner snack at least once a week, and the average person does it almost four nights a week.

That wasn’t something I knew going into Ozzi. But the more people I talk to while handing out samples in person, the deeper my conviction gets. Almost everyone has a version of this story, and almost nobody brings it up first.

Even some of the fittest people I’ve met struggle with it. They just grin and bear it.

The Willpower Problem

A lot of people who don’t struggle, or who have made it past the struggle, just say “you don’t have enough willpower.” Which is fair.

But the best comparison for willpower is a muscle. If you’ve been great all day, done all the things you didn’t want to do, and then had a stressful afternoon on top of it, by 9pm your willpower is shot. Activity in your prefrontal cortex slows down, and that’s where your willpower lives.

One small slip and you’re back where you started.

Negative habits compound this. If you’ve had a bad habit for years, it’s almost impossible to break. But it’s fairly easy to replace a bad habit with a different one. The deeper I go into the habit rabbit hole, the more I see how well Ozzi fits as a solution.

So instead of a 200 calorie protein bar replacing a 400 calorie serving of ice cream, Ozzi lets people replace a high calorie habit with a 5 calorie one. Your willpower stops being the only thing standing between you and the result you want.

Ozzi (usually) doesn’t fully turn off cravings in the moment. But it turns the volume down to a level where staying out of the snacks gets a lot easier.

I Made It for Myself

After years of struggling and trying every possible solution, I realized that if nothing like this existed, I had to be the one to create it. For myself, and for everyone else stuck in the same loop.

I have a deep respect for all entrepreneurs, especially the ones who can do something they don’t enjoy for money. I, unfortunately, am not that kind of person.

To me, Ozzi is the business I was born for, because it’s actively solving a problem for me every time I drink a glass of it. It works for me when nothing else did. I fully believe in what I sell, which is a huge step up from my previous business, where I didn’t really understand the point of what we were doing.

That belief is what lets me push through every struggle. Even though I thought this would be easier, I wouldn’t trade Ozzi for any other business. As a solo founder, every challenge that comes up is mine to figure out, and I’m the only one who will.

Solving those problems energizes me. If Ozzi wasn’t something I truly believed in, I would have quit a year ago.

Still the Guy I Built It For

Here’s the part I didn’t expect.

I assumed building Ozzi would fix the problem and I’d move on to whatever came next. That’s not what happened. I still drink it at night, and not to check a batch or test a formula. I drink it because I’m still the guy who will eat a whole sleeve of cookies at 10pm if there’s nothing standing in the way.

Ozzi didn’t make me a different person. It just gave me a version of the problem I can actually live with.

That’s the thing I’d want anyone reading this to take from it. You’re probably not going to out-discipline a habit you’ve had for 15 years. I couldn’t, and I tried for most of my adult life. But you can put something in its place that costs you almost nothing.

So, Back to the Flag

The joke is that nobody starts a company because it’s hard. You start because you did the math wrong. I did. I thought a product this good would sell itself, and I was off by a lot.

But I think the flag has it backwards, at least in my case.

Thinking it would be easy is what got me to start. Needing it myself is what keeps me going. If I’d known the real number on day one, I might never have begun, and I’d still be snacking every night with nothing to put in its place.

I built the thing I needed. It’s the only business I’ve ever had where I’d still be a customer if I didn’t own it.

That’s worth being wrong about.