Willpower Weekly: Issue No. 11 - Purpose, Platforms, and the People Behind Them

We wouldn’t be Willpower without the people who choose to build with us.

This year was our first real breakthrough in New York. One fireside chat turned into a room. A room turned into a rhythm. And now there is a community forming here. Founders, operators, builders, and people who are genuinely curious about where the space is going next.

These are a few of the brands shaping that conversation with us.

David Protein was co-founded by Peter Rahal (co-founder of RXBAR) and Zach Ranen (founder of RAIZE) with a shared goal to redefine the protein bar category.

David began with a clear mission: help people build muscle and lose body fat through smarter nutrition, built on simplicity and quality.

Each bar reflects three research-backed principles:

• Eat around 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight

• Avoid excess calorie intake

• Minimize added sugar

Inspired by Michelangelo’s David, the brand represents beauty, intelligence, and discipline. Every bar is designed to deliver maximum protein with minimal calories, without compromising flavor.

AIIR isn’t a traditional agency, it’s built for brands in motion.

Founded by Heather Morris, AIIR brings strategy, storytelling, and cultural relevance together for some of the most innovative names in health, wellness, and performance.

Their work spans earned media, digital strategy, creator partnerships, and brand collaborations, all rooted in storytelling, not spin.

Heather’s mission is simple but rare: amplify founders and products with purpose, helping them get seen, heard, and understood by the right people, at the right time.

No fluff. No smoke. Just strategy that moves with and for the brands shaping what’s next.

NRTHRN Strong brings a new workout modality to New York City inspired by cross-country skiing, one of the most effective total-body training forms.

At the center is the patented NRTHRN Trainer, which mirrors the natural motion of skiing while blending cardio, strength, mobility, and balance for a full-body, low-impact workout.

Founded by Nicoline Roth, whose first experience with the trainer during Covid sparked the concept, NRTHRN Strong is built on Nordic principles of strength, simplicity, balance, and connection to nature.

After opening in Copenhagen and running a Hamptons pop-up, NRTHRN Strong has opened its first permanent U.S. studio in Flatiron.

Founded by Kenny Santucci, Strong New York is a fitness and lifestyle brand built on the belief that strength is a state of mind.

Their annual fitness and wellness expo brings together thousands of people for workouts, panels, and shared experiences centered around movement and community. The mission expands year-round through activations, podcast conversations, and apparel.

The goal is simple: help people get stronger physically, mentally, and emotionally, together.

Founded by Mike De Santis and John Benjamin, Rally is a wellness and muscle recovery company focused on helping people move better and live longer, more active lives.

Their flagship orbital massage tool has been recognized as:

• TIME Best Invention 2025 in Sports and Fitness

• GQ Tech Award 2025 for Best Massage Gun

Rally also has a Medical Advisory Board of experts in physical therapy, orthopedic surgery, and performance training, ensuring the product is grounded in long-term functional support rather than temporary fixes.

One of our hot seat speakers this week, Gail Becker, built CAULIPOWER the way a lot of meaningful brands begin, from a lived need that hit close to home. When her sons were diagnosed with celiac disease, the gluten-free options available weren’t just limited, they were bad. And while most people would settle for “better than nothing,” parents know the instinct that kicks in when it’s your kids. You find another gear. You build the thing that should exist.

CAULIPOWER launched its first product in February 2017, and it didn’t just enter the better-for-you frozen aisle, it reset the expectation of what that aisle could taste like. (And yes, we’ve tried the pizzas, they’re actually good, not good-for-gluten-free good.)

This month, CAULIPOWER was acquired by Urban Farmer to build a vertically integrated frozen foods platform. It’s a meaningful move because it reflects where the category is going: aligned values + supply chain control + product that people actually want to eat. The acquisition isn’t just a financial outcome it’s validation of building with clarity, purpose, and real craft over time.

Austin has become one of the few cities where work, wellness, and community naturally blend. People aren’t just looking for a gym, or a co-working spot, or somewhere to grab a coffee, they’re looking for a place that supports the full rhythm of how they live. A third space with purpose behind it.

That’s why Gevity is interesting.

Founded by Connor and Espoir Michalek, Gevity is a new 18,000 sq ft work-wellness space opening in Austin, designed to be a hub for performance, recovery, and community, all in one place. It’s built for the people who move through their day fluidly:

work call → workout → recovery → back to work → stay for an event.

No context switching, extra commuting, or breaking flow.

What’s inside:

Workspace: coworking zones, private call rooms, treadmill desks, conference rooms

Performance: a full functional gym and studio classes

Recovery (The Gevity Lab): ice baths, sauna, massage, IV therapies, next-gen recovery tech

Experience: community programming, events, and the Gevity Café

They’re running a soft-opening preview November 13–23, giving early access to try the space before the full public launch.

People in Austin don’t just work. They’re training, iterating, refining, on their businesses and on themselves. So when a space lets you do all of that in one place, it feels like the right environment to stay in motion.

E-commerce isn’t a side channel or a support function anymore. It is becoming the center of brand discovery and conversion. The consumer instinct is now to check online first. That shift was trained by the first wave of direct-to-consumer brands: Dollar Shave Club, Casper, Warby Parker, HelloFresh, BYLT Basics. They taught people that the most direct path to a product is usually the best one.

From Andrea Steele, Head of E-Commerce Strategy at Kraft Heinz, here’s what is actually changing:

Why this matters:

Brands are moving from the question: “How do we get attention?”

To: “How do we make it effortless to buy the moment someone wants us?”

There’s a shift happening in the celebrity x CPG world. We’re moving past the era where someone could just put their name on a product and call it a brand. Consumers can see through that now. The partnerships that are resonating are the ones where the celebrity already lives in the world of the product, where the connection feels natural, earned, and obvious once you see it.

Cloud23 is a great example of this shift. The hot sauce is Brooklyn Beckham’s brand, but you wouldn’t know it from the branding. His name isn’t in the brand name and it’s not used as the selling point. It shows up in the story, not the shelf. The priority was clear: make a product people pick up because it tastes good, not because a celebrity is attached to it.

He built it the way any founder would, testing recipes, iterating in real kitchens, building distribution one door at a time. The benchmark wasn’t attention, it was “Can this actually earn its place on a Whole Foods shelf?” That’s a different approach entirely. The product has to hold up. And that’s exactly the point.

The same holds true with Padma Lakshmi x Diaspora Co. Padma could attach her name to just about any spice brand and sell volume overnight, but that’s not what this was. Diaspora Co. is a small, founder-led company built on fair sourcing, transparency, and preserving the integrity of regional spice traditions. They’ve grown slowly, intentionally, and with a scrappy kind of rigor that’s earned them real trust rather than loud reach.

Padma’s work has always centered food heritage and honoring where flavor comes from, not just how it tastes on the plate. Diaspora has lived that philosophy since day one. So when they released Gunpowder Podi, it didn’t feel like a celebrity stepping in to boost a brand. It felt like alignment, a shared belief system made physical. A match that made sense before the press release.

The takeaway:

The new version of a “celebrity product” isn’t someone lending their name.

It’s someone lending their identity, lived experience, and point of view.

If you're building in CPG, a few things you may want to have on your radar this month:

1. Fall ’25 SKU Showcase Pitch Event

The final showcase for the current cohort, an evening of storytelling and connection with founders, operators, and investors across the CPG ecosystem.

Keynote + judge: Allison Ellsworth (Co-Founder, Poppi)

Tuesday, Nov. 18 · 4:30–8:30 PM CT

RSVP Here

2. SKU Spring ’26 Info Session

A brief virtual session to learn more about the Spring ’26 Track, the application process, and how the program supports early-stage CPG founders.

Friday, Nov 21 · 12:00–12:45 PM CT

RSVP Here

3. Free Packaging Audit (via Arka Packaging)

Our friends over at Arka Packaging are offering a free packaging audit to brands in our network.

They’re helpful and often find ways to lower packaging costs.

Connect with the founder, here.

4. Eudēmonia Summit

Eudēmonia Summit is a 3-day health summit, taking place November 13-16th in West Palm Beach, Florida, that blends life-changing talks from more than 150 experts with heart-pounding workouts, restorative treatments, and an expo featuring 120 of the world’s most innovative health and wellness brands.

Get tickets here and use code “WILLPOWER20” for 20% off

5. Willpower Presents: A Texas Holiday Party 🎄

We’re closing out the year in true Willpower fashion, good energy, good people, and the brands that made 2025 what it was. More details coming soon, but we’re giving our community first priority to get involved.

If you’re interested in sponsoring, vending, donating product, or something else, fill out this form.

This newsletter is usually light, but we also know many people are being directly affected by the SNAP benefit lapse right now. If you or someone in your orbit needs support, or wants to help, here are resources that are active and valid as of November 12.

Food Access

Discounted / Free Meals & Groceries