Inside the Formula | The CEO Who Said 'Hell No' to Building Supplements. Then Built One Anyway

With Momentous & TESTED by SuppCo: Inside the Formula is a new sponsored series featuring brands in the TESTED by SuppCo certification program, where we spotlight the fascinating research behind products that have received the certification. Learn more about TESTED by SuppCo.

Momentous turned down roughly $800,000 in revenue this year rather than sell a multivitamin that didn't meet its own certification standard.

Jeff Byers didn't set out to build a supplement company. He wanted to build the opposite. In 2015, Byers and his co-founder were working inside an early-stage biotech, engineering ways to move drug molecules through the skin, and got curious about whether the same technology could deliver non-drug, performance-related molecules instead. That curiosity turned into a skunkworks (i.e. side quest) project that eventually won a $1.5 million Department of Defense contract. By 2018 they had spun the project into its own company, working with elite athletes and the U.S. military, years before either of them touched a bottle of protein powder.

That history is what makes Byers, an ex-NFL player, an unlikely supplement CEO. When his board eventually pushed him toward nutrition, his first reaction was "hell no." He'd watched the category from the inside as an athlete and saw it as messy and marketing-driven, full of what he calls "Bro Science" dressed up as expertise. The turn came in early 2021, when Byers realized the industry didn't need another supplement company. It needed a better one. That reframe led him to acquire a small sports-nutrition brand called Momentous, which had already spent years earning trust inside pro locker rooms through sourcing and testing, rigor many consumer brands skip entirely.

The industry didn't need another supplement company. It needed a better one.

Momentous built its lineup around what Byers calls "the Momentous Three": protein, omega-3s, and creatine, recently joined by fiber as a fourth. The selection bar was strict, requiring a large body of clinical data, a strong long-term safety record, no cross-reactivity, and evidence of real benefit when taken consistently over time, a counterintuitive strategy in an industry that usually grows by adding ingredients rather than narrowing. 

Momentous now sells to all 32 NFL teams and has won nine government contracts, and it requires every batch of its multivitamin to carry NSF Certified for Sport. Their personal standards are so demanding that three consecutive failed production runs cost the company roughly $800,000 in revenue and four months out of stock this year, which they much preferred over shipping a batch that didn't meet spec.

SuppCo purchased Momentous products anonymously, the same way any customer would, and sent them to an independent, ISO-accredited lab for testing. The lab verified that label claims for active ingredient content matched what was actually in the bottle. Label accuracy matters: Byers points out that the difference between an omega-3 in ethyl ester form versus triglyceride form, or a whey protein concentrate versus an isolate, does not always show up on a label, yet it influences how much of what you're paying for your body actually absorbs.

I sat down with Jeff Byers, CEO of Momentous, to dive deeper into the science.

JG: "You've said trust takes years to build and seconds to lose. How does that shape a decision when there's an easy short-term win sitting right in front of you?"

JB: "Certifications are hard, and true ones cost you. Our multivitamin is one of the few NSF Certified for Sport multis, and we require every batch to hit it because our products go into sport. We failed three production runs in a row this year and were out of stock for four months, about $800,000 in revenue. Nothing was wrong with it, it just didn't meet our spec. When that happens, you have two choices: loosen your standards, which is how you die as a brand, or take the short-term hit because long term, brand is built on trust."

JG: "Walk me through what actually happens between a raw ingredient coming in the door and a finished bottle on the shelf."

JB: "Everybody in this industry gets an inbound Certificate of Analysis and could just trust it, that's incredibly common. We test the raw ingredient ourselves, and then we test again at finished goods, because a lot can change in between. A raw material might sit in a warehouse for six months before it's even mixed, then sit again before it ships. This year it was one small ingredient where something shifted through that process, and it sent us on a huge backwards look through lot control to find out what changed. The end-game certification is what matters — if you can't meet it, the product doesn't go out, no matter how many steps you got right along the way."

JG: "What do people get wrong about basic certifications, like a Certificate of Analysis or a 'made in a GMP facility' claim?"

JB: "Every single company gets a COA when a batch comes off a production run, it's one of the only things the FDA actually requires. But that COA is testing for toxic heavy metals, E. coli, salmonella. It tells you the product isn't dangerous, it doesn't tell you it's actually what the label says it is. And being made in a GMP facility just means you're not making it in a bathtub. That's a pretty low bar to be proud of."

JG: "You've told me a story about your dad and fish oil that stuck with me."

JB: "My dad's taken fish oil since around 1998, he's more into health and wellness than almost anyone I know. He buys the big-box bottle, 360 capsules for $25.99. We did the label math together: 550 milligrams of omega-3s per serving, when the efficacious dose is closer to 1.5 grams, so he'd need four pills a day just to get there. And it was in ester form, not triglyceride, which is far less bioavailable and rarely shows up on the label. He had no idea. Nobody has ten minutes to do that math standing in a store aisle."

JG: "Why build the whole brand around just three or four products instead of a broad line?"

JB: "I asked our advisory board, dietitians, researchers, the people who lead health and wellness, what they'd actually tell someone to take. It always came back to the same tight list: protein, omega-3s, and creatine, and now fiber. The criteria was massive clinical data, no cross-reactivity, and real short- and long-term gains if you take them consistently. Ninety-plus percent of people benefit from those without needing bloodwork first. Everything else, vitamin D, magnesium, collagen, is condition-specific, and you should know your own numbers before you add it on top."

The $800,000 Question: What Rigor Actually Costs

I've spent my career picking apart supplement claims, and "we test everything" is one of the  most common sentences brands lead with. I go into these conversations assuming I'll hear the same script (because I usually do.)

But Jeff took us into real specifics. Many brands stop at the inbound COA and call it done. Momentous tests the raw material coming in, and then tests again at the finished product, because a raw ingredient can sit on a shelf for six months, get mixed, sit again, and change along the way before it ever reaches a bottle. Choosing to eat an $800,000 revenue hit rather than loosen a spec is the kind of decision that's easy to talk about, but expensive to actually make. 

They even built an entirely new creatine specification instead of buying the industry-standard version. As Jeff said, they "fixed something that wasn't broken." A move many companies skip because it's operationally painful.

I make my own supplement stack public for a living, so I get asked 'what do you take?' constantly, and I get why people want a shortcut answer. Jeff gets that question too. But he often refuses to give an answer. He's an ex-NFL player who obsesses over his own connective tissue and brain health, and he still won't tell his wife's friend what to take… because she isn't him. The best answer to 'what should I take' is basically never a clean list. It’s personal and depends on you and your goals. 

Why do I think this is worth ending on… 

When the founder of a supplement company is asked, "What should I take?" he doesn't take the opportunity to push his own products because it wouldn't be right for the person asking the question… That is a true example of humility, patience, and respect for the work that they are doing. And if that is the type of mentality Jeff is bringing to the table, it gives me confidence in how his products are developed.