Chief Endurance Officer

How can a spinal injury at 17 lead to building an exciting endurance brand? In this episode, Greg McDonough sits down with Rei Lalo, the founder and CEO of TRIHARD, a company redefining personal care for athletes and swimmers. Rei shares how a life-changing injury inspired his passion for endurance sports and ultimately led him to create a brand dedicated to helping athletes protect their skin and hair from the harsh effects of chlorine. Rei and Greg discuss endurance as a mindset, entrepreneurship through uncertainty, and what it takes to turn personal challenges into industry-changing innovation.

Takeaways:
  • Adversity can be your greatest teacher. Rei’s recovery from spinal surgery taught him discipline, focus, and endurance, qualities that later defined his business journey.
  • Innovation starts with empathy. TRIHARD was born from Rei’s firsthand understanding of an athlete’s unmet needs, proving that great ideas often come from personal pain points.
  • Adapt to unexpected markets. When COVID shut down public pools, TRIHARD thrived by identifying and serving a new audience: families with backyard pools.
  • Stay laser-focused, then expand. Rei’s early decision to specialize in chlorine protection gave TRIHARD authority in a niche before branching into broader swim care.
  • Persistence beats perfection. From unpaid internships to global distribution deals, Rei’s journey shows the power of doing the work before you’re “ready.”
  • Wellness meets performance. Rei’s perspective on swimming as both exercise and meditation offers a reminder that endurance isn’t just physical, it’s mental.

Quote of the Show:
  • " I want to get to a point when people protect themselves from chlorine, the way they protect themselves from the sun." - Rei Lalo

This Episode is Sponsored by TRIHARD! Use Code TCEO for 20% off their Website: https://www.trihard.co/?utm_source=tceo&utm_campaign=podcast 

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Chief Endurance Officer is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 

Creators and Guests

Host
Gregory McDonough
Greg McDonough is a seasoned executive who has owned and operated businesses in the professional services sector, navigating them through both good and tough times. He brings his personal experience of knowing what it’s like to be ‘in the owner’s seat’ when working with clients, taking time to ask the questions others may not.
Producer
Rebecca Leberman

What is Chief Endurance Officer?

Join host Greg McDonough on a transformative journey as "The Chief Endurance Officer" explores the incredible power of positive energy and sustained effort. This podcast delves into the real-life stories of individuals who have harnessed the endurance mindset to achieve remarkable goals in every facet of life – personal achievements, professional success, and athletic triumphs. Visit our website www.chiefenduranceofficer.com for additional resources and exclusive content, and subscribe to hear these inspiring episodes every Friday!

Greg Mcdonough: I am super excited for our guest today. In his early twenties, he moved to the US to build a career in advertising leading global innovation campaigns for clients like General Motors, L'Oreal, and Microsoft falling in love with swimming. He noticed that swimmers lacked proper skin and hair solutions causing him to launch his company In 2019, he has led the company in developing innovations.

Like Pres Swim, protect protection products, and the first IGEL for Goggle Marks making it easier for athletes to perform without compromising their skin and hair. And I have to say, as a father of two swimming daughters, thank you. Uh, he's the founder of the CEO of Try hard. Please welcome RI Leo Ri.

Welcome to the show.

Rei Lalo: Thank you very much for having me. It's a great introduction. Uh, you reminded me a few things that I almost forgot. So that's, uh, that's.

Greg Mcdonough: Well, if you need to write them down, we could take a moment for that. Uh, but before we do that, re I'd love to know how your endurance mindset has impacted your life unexpectedly.

Rei Lalo: Interesting. Okay. Um, I think, I think the idea actually that led me to create try hard a few years later. Um. To give you a little bit of background story and also how it's related maybe to endurance mindset, is that when I was 17 years old, um, still in high school, about to graduate, um, I already did a lot of endurance sports, um, swimming, biking, running.

I was always active. Um, wasn't great in school, so I needed to be good in something else. Um. But, uh, unfortunately, I, I, I, I had a very serious, uh, spine injury, uh,

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

Rei Lalo: At the age of 17. Um, and I actually tried to really recover from it with, uh, physiotherapy. But, uh, at some point I was really not able to step on my foot. And, uh, doctor told me, look, if you want to ever go back to run, You might need to do a surgery. so at the age of uh, 17, I really did like a spines surgery. Um, that wasn't really easy on me. Uh, it was like, you know, the last, uh, year in high school, uh. Um, it was supposed to be a very funny year. Uh, I was also in the scouts, very active, so it was like the last year in the scouts.

Um, but I was not able to really participate in all the events I really needed to recover at home. Um, I actually started doing a lot of aquatherapy. Uh, so as part of the recovery process, I did, uh, therapy, but then I also wanted to try to do aquatherapy. Uh, I lived right by the, by the ocean, and we also had a pool near.

Nearby. So, and decided to do that. and I basically, I was walking in the water in the pool for about like an hour every day, um, just to strength the core muscles, uh, uh, work on my mobility. Um. And, you know, as a 17 years old, uh, uh, kid, when everyone else is like celebrating outside, like go to the pool every day and focus, you know, on, on, on the goal on recovering and go back to your active lifestyle and to your life in general, uh, was really something that I put myself as a target and I think. The endurance mindset that I had there about like, the discipline to keep doing it every day. I think really it's what's helped me to, um, to recover eventually.

Greg Mcdonough: Yeah, that's a, that's a tough way to learn it, but that suspect, it's played a positive. Part of your life since then, you know, developing that endurance mindset at such an early age. Um, can you recall back of, of like what was the motivation that that helped you sort of stick with it? I obviously. You wanted to recover, you wanted to get back out and, and play with your friends and do that and recover from your spinal surgery.

But there's gotta be something that was deep down that said, you know what? I can do this. Like talk to us through sort of the self talk and the preparation you needed to stay motivated every day.

Rei Lalo: Yeah, so I think I'm, as a person, I would say that, um, you know, I also have a DHD. So to me, being in school and sitting on the chair in class was like something very, uh, hard to do. Um, I always felt a little bit like a mediocre student in high school. Um. Although, you know, outside of the, the, the, the, the school, uh, I was quite popular.

I was very active. So to me, um, just being physical, physically active, it's something that just helped me overall. You know, men in the mental health, uh, just to feel good, but also something that I was really good at. Uh, it's something that helped me to really connect to other people. Um. And feel this like self-fulfillment. Uh, so to me, not able to do it was something very frustrating and I felt like almost like losing a big part of myself. So I think knowing that it's possible to get back to it, um, it's just a matter of how much I focus now on working on it. And, and, and, and. Working with my core muscles and so on. Um, it's, it's, it's up to me. Um, it's almost like you're doing a marathon at the end of the day. It's the same distance. It's depends on you on how fast you're going to finish it. Um, so I basically took it to my own, uh, recovery process and said, look, if you do it an hour a day and not 30 minutes every day.

um, you know, uh, I won't say the, it's, uh, uh. Uh, twice faster, but it is, uh, help you to, to get stronger quicker. So that was my motivation to get back to myself, bring myself this joy of, of active lifestyle.

Greg Mcdonough: That's a, that's a great lesson there. Re and thank you for sharing it. Um, we'd love to know how that experience fast forward a handful of years, gave you this innovation, this idea for the products that are now try hard.

Rei Lalo: Yeah. So that was when I was 17 years old, so about, um, yeah, 15 years ago. Um, so it wasn't right away that I started trying hard, but when I was, uh, um, uh, after that I recovered. I also became swimmer. Uh, I started doing a lot of open water swimming. Um. Just lap swimming. I, I became a really good, uh, swimmer. Um, and then at some point I was able to go back to, um, to bike again, to do some cycling, uh, road cycling. Um, and then eventually I went back to do marathons as well. And I decided that, okay, now, when I actually picked up swimming as well, because beforehand I didn't do a lot of swimming. So when I picked up swimming as well, let's try to do some triathlons. Um, so after, actually about two years after the surgery, I, I did my first triathlon, um, and I came, uh, second in my aid group.

Greg Mcdonough: Wow.

Rei Lalo: Um, so that was like. Uh, one of the, the, the, uh, proudest, uh, moments of my life, I also really enjoyed the race. I felt like, you know, it's diverse. You do a little bit swim, bike, run.

You never get bored by it. Um, and, and I really enjoyed it. Also, learning about different sports, different nutritions, different, um, it, it, it fascinated me, the sports itself. And, and then I continued doing a lot of triathlons. I'm 70.3 Ironman. Uh, I was, I would say I did, uh, maybe 10 races a, a year. I was not professional obviously, but I was a age group, competitive level. Um, so that's when I fell in love with triathlon. Um, and I kept this, this sport as a hobby. Uh, and up until today, um, so triathlon and endurance sport was always a big part of my life, but I never did anything business oriented, uh, with, with triathlon. Um, so when I grew up, actually, as I said before, I wasn't like the best student, but socially I, I, I did stand out. Um, so I started throwing parties in, in, in my cities, uh, really, you know, organizing, uh, big parties there. Um, that got, you know, 400, 500 guests. So it basically was like a legitimate good business for me when I was in the age of 21. I also did because. In the scouts and, and, and people that grants from high school, they always wanted to create their own merch, right?

Like their shirts and branded, uh, different apparel items that they wanted to do with their own slogans and logos. So I actually said, you know what? Maybe I can help, you know, these are young people, I'll go too manufacturing facilities. I'll tell them, good guys, I can bring you this young audience. I started, um, more. Be the middleman in many, many of these kind of, uh, projects. And also I had a great, uh, income from that. so I was always very active, uh, in a young stage with some side hustles, uh, that I said, okay, you know, it's a great audience. Some of them don't know how to speak to different business order. I have a feeling like I, I, I, I understand the language.

Let's try to, to bridge these two worlds. So that's how I got into the world of business. I would say that I was always very. Active in that at some point I started a, a, a digital marketing agency, uh, that specialized only in, in, in, uh, very young au in more the young audience. And actually, um, we used to be maybe one of the first agencies in Israel to do influencers campaign Before it was even a

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

Rei Lalo: Term, uh, it was like 15 years ago.

I didn't have any tools or so like social media was, was. Already growing, but you didn't have any tools to really identify who an influencer is. but because I just knew many of them, uh, many of these people from like personal connections, I told them guys, look, you have 50, uh, thousand followers on Instagram.

Back then, it was a lot. Uh, let me represent you with the big brands there in the country to see maybe if they want to. So actually I did this. I had a network of a hundred. Uh, kids I would say that I knew that are just influential in the, in the country. Um, and we brought in a very big, big brand international brands that went into Israel.

I, and they wanted to reach this young audience, so they went through advertising agencies, uh, to get to me. I was almost like a subcontractor. Every time that they had a campaign that they wanted to amplify and bring to this young audience, I was the one that basically doing more the influencers campaign. Um, and then this agency got acquired, um, at some point. So I was like, okay, what's next? I knew that I don't want to go to university. I really knew that it's not, I, I felt like, you know, I, I don't want to do this again to go to school because I have to, I feel like there is an advantage here and I, and, and I have some skill sets that maybe I can try double down Um, but I also knew that I want to do more global things. I felt like, ah, you know, Israel is a small country. At the end of the day, it's a little bit limited. Like I want to. Improve my English. Um, so I came to New York. I had like a, round trip ticket for seven weeks. I joined the, uh, English school here in, uh, in the Empire State Building. So it's a school, you count with people from everywhere in the world. You know, you have the New York, um, um, energy. Um, and I started learning English to, to tell you that I learned that, that I improved my English that much during these seven weeks. Uh, not really still, it's still work in progress. Um, but it was really a fun experience, you know, being in New York. Um. Seeing that I can overcome this language barrier and open myself up to the world was very attractive to me then, so I said, you know what? I'm going to stay in New York for a little longer. it's just about talking to, to, to people more in English, it's, you don't really need the school. I started looking for apartments, like even apartments that are very big, like five bedrooms, apartment for my family.

I told to the broker, like, yeah, I just, I just wanted to go see. Many apartments so I can speak English with them. Uh, so this was like a free, free, uh, free school for me. And I stayed really for another month. Uh, I was also looking for an internship. I said, maybe I can work as an intern. You know, I saved some money from the company in Israel. I can stay here for like a month or two, uh, and use my savings. Um. And long story short, I, uh, uh, I was connected. I got connected to the, the, uh, the lady that started actually the global innovation team at McKen.

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

Rei Lalo: As well, she was, she worked in this other agency that I, I, I worked with in Israel. Someone connected us. I went to see her for a coffee then I told her, look, I really want to, I think you do something very interesting. You're in marketing, but also work with technologies and innovation. Like I love this intersection. Do you think I can be your intern in any way? She said, look, I just started the, my, my job.

I don't think I can have anyone in my team yet. I cannot justify this expense. So I said, okay, so I'll work for free. No problem. I anyway, just wanna stay around here and be in the city and like I. Said, let me check that. And she actually got married just a few days after and the her boss came to the wedding and while they're on the dance floor, she tells him, look, there is this kid who is like really stubborn.

He wants to really work for us, is willing to work for free. Uh, what do you think? And then he said, look, there is an internship program this summer. If you want, you can join. And yeah, let's take it from there. I joined the, internship program. Um, and they have about 50 interns every program, and about five of them get a, a full-time offer. And, and, and offer for a full-time job at the end of the program. So I was lucky to be one of them. And I took the job, I stayed there. That was the work that you mentioned at the introduction At McCann, I became an innovation strategist and I was promoted there to a manager level. I worked there for three and a half years, that's basically was like more all the, this chapter right before try hard.

So it's everything.

Greg Mcdonough: Sure.

Rei Lalo: me to this is also how I got to New York what I did in Macken was actually to work with, as you said, Nestle Al Coca-Cola. Help them understand what are the upcoming trends, new brands that are, that are, um, uh, penetrating their category from different, uh, type of niche. What do they do differently?

How marketing wise, product wise, how can they learn from them? Maybe even acquire some of them, partner up, create similar products. So I was always on this inter intersection of emerging consumer brands. Um. and, and the big companies and understand what they're looking for. And at some point I said, look, I don't know if I'm ready, but I have this appetite to, to start something on my own.

So this was after like three and a half years that I worked for McCann. Um, it was a great, I had great time. I learned a lot there, but I felt like, okay, I want to go back to be entrepreneur. And I basically said, this is a great way to maybe combine my passion to endurance sports. because I do think that. you look into the active lifestyle ecosystem in the last 10 years, you see a lot of innovation in, in, in sports apparel, um, all the athleisure brands that they're coming up and really disrupting this market. And, and, and it's huge. If you look into programming companies, like Peloton and, and, and Strava and Swift and all the different companies to do something different in, in, in, in, uh, sport programming. Um, then sport nutrition, we can also see there is a lot of innovation there. Uh, but when I looked at it from the more that the, the personal care perspective, I realized that despite, um, uh, active lifestyle really entails multiple side effects, right? Chlorine, deme, sun exposure, chafing food, health, uh, scout for cyclists, like there are many, many side effects, but there is no one brand that owns this category.

The sports specialized personal care. And I felt like, you know, there is a white space here that I, I want to feel. I, that's when I started working on Tri Hard. Um, I actually came up with the idea and started like defining what it could look like and I did it, you know, while I was in full-time. I just, I came in two hours earlier.

I stayed two hours later, weekends. I just like worked on it as a passion project and when I felt like there is something interesting that we can try. I brought in basically a, a guy that used to be in, a teammate of mine in the transplant team. and he owns, uh, a r and d lab and, and, and a personal care F factory. I told him, look Ron, his name is Ron. I said. I really want to get into this space. I briefed him. I gave him the, the, the sales speech. And then, I told him, do you think we can develop something like this? He said, for what? But for the chlorine, you said chlorine. You say sweat. You said this. I said, I don't know still what will be the product, but let's, let's start thinking about different things. the first product that we developed. Was actually a body wash and shampoo that, you know, we said, okay, there are some ingredients there that can help with the dry skin and scalp that uh, you get after, uh, sweat. Um, but also things against glory. There was a little bit like same product for multiple things and I said, look, let's put it on Amazon very, you know, low budget. promote this product under different search. So for example, people. Thousands of searches, by the way, every month for people looking for chlorine shampoo. Uh,

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

Rei Lalo: Do I remove chlorine from my skin, blah, blah, like these kind of keywords. So I said, let's promote this product, uh, across multiple different, uh, keywords in, in swim related, running related chafin swept. So on. Let's see what, what, what, what we see. very quickly I realized that about 90% of our conversions come from people looking for. Chlorine related things, And I realized that this, there is an opportunity here because there is high awareness. Almost everyone you talked about, uh, when it comes to chlorine will say, I don't like chlorine.

Right? No one will say, I love chlorine. Uh, some suffer more, suffer some, some less, but everyone has some sort of reaction to it. But then when you look into the market, you barely see, uh, brands that really specialized in this space, that really they're all about, you know, protecting, uh, any pool goers from, from chlorine. and I said, no, no, I think there is a great way to, to start this company by FO laser, be laser focused on aquatics. Um, and then take it from there. we basically reformulated the whole, all the, the, the entire line to be very chlorine focused. Uh, we brought in like 300, uh, uh, triathletes and swimmers to test the product.

We did three, uh, testing grounds. Um, we, we redesigned our packaging entirely. We basically put all the, the after swim, after swim, body wash. Uh, in the forefront of the packaging, very big ladders like we wanted to be, to show the consumer that this we do only chlorine protection, nothing else. Like we are the master of chlorine protection. so we basically reformulated the line, we rebranded it, and then we relaunched the brand as a, as a swim care brand, both on Amazon and direct to consumer. and that's how we got started, basically. Yeah.

Greg Mcdonough: And and was that 2019.

Rei Lalo: 2019.

It's when I incorporated the company, but we

Greg Mcdonough: Got it,

Rei Lalo: we, we, we relaunched the brand officially with the, with the Swim Care branding in, in January, 2021.

Greg Mcdonough: got it. You know, it's interesting how you. Started with swimming and then led you into cycling, and then got you strong enough for marathon running and then ultimately triathlon and going forward. And it, it's similar to me. I was, I was a swimmer, long distance swimmer for a bunch of years and my wife was doing triathlon and I'm like, I could be a triathlete and I don't wanna be a Sherpa anymore, so let's start doing the long distance triathlon.

Um, but I don't find many of us in our sport that actually came to the sport from a swimming background. It's usually that's the barrier for everyone. And it's either the pool time or the chlorine or the open water. Um. Any insights for those fellow athletes out there that are struggling to sort of get in the pool in order to get to their Ironman start, um, that you could share from a swimming's perspec perspective.

Rei Lalo: Yeah, my, my personal advice will be, uh, um, get a spine injury and then. No, I'm kidding. I, I honestly, I understand this in a way, you know, like everyone was, um, biking when they grew up running, but swimming properly, it's not something that everyone grew up doing, right? You everyone grew up going to the pool, but not necessarily. F focusing and working on their, their, their stroke technique. Um, so I understand why it's harder for people, especially when it comes to many triathlons happen in the ocean also. So swimming against the waves and cor, it's also not easy and, and can be a little bit intimidating. Um. But I would say this way, I, I think actually that I, I realize that many people get into triathlon because, um, they got injured running, and then they realize they need to do some sports that are low impact, full body. Um, and, and this is actually from, at least what I see around me, that many people that want to do triathlon. It comes from two reasons. One. People that did marathon and now they want a bigger cha. Like a more, not bigger necessarily, but just, uh, a new challenge. Um, and the second one is many people that actually got injured in marathon and now they need to find a little bit different sports.

They want to stay active. They cannot do long, uh, distance running anymore. They get into it. but if I, if, if I can give advice to someone of like, why go into swimming? I just feel it's, uh, you, it's almost the on one of the only sports endurance sports that you do, uh, almost meditate as well. Uh, the fact that you focus on your breathing, uh, and you almost disconnect yourself from, from the outside world.

And you don't hear anything under the water, uh, to me makes me very peaceful. Give me this, uh, um, mental relief a little bit from the day. And I feel, you know, the growth of mental health and, and, and wellness and, and meditation maybe will also, um, um, get more people into swimming as well. At least that's what, that's what I hope. I can tell you that, uh, this is for sure my favorite sport, uh, still.

Greg Mcdonough: Yeah, that's a hundred percent right. There's such, you know, calmness for me when I'm in the pool and not so much open water. 'cause you're kind of dealing with a lot of, if it's ocean right? Or with a lot of bodies around. But when you're in the pool and you got your half lane and you're just long stroking from one side of the pool to the next and as your head goes underneath the water and you get that silence, so you almost hear that little tingling.

Um, there's something for me too. There's something magical, uh, which is probably why you and I are attracted to the water.

Greg Mcdonough: Um,

Rei Lalo: For

Greg Mcdonough: re I'd love to, to change topics on you a little bit and talk about the business side of try hard and what challenges do have been in your entrepreneurial journey. What unexpected things have popped up as you have, have you, when you redid the line and rebranded and pushing out your new strategies, but as a business owner, what sort of unexpected things have come through that that have surprised you?

Rei Lalo: I think actually one of the biggest challenges or the, the unexpected, um, obstacles that I, I had in this journey in January, 2021, we launched the brand and after the rebranding and I was like, okay, we, we, we going for it. Um, two months later, more or less, right? If I'm not mistaken, that there was COVID started. Um. And in the first time when I thought about COVID, I said, well, now actually all the, the, the gym pools, resorts, they're all closed. and, and what, what does it mean to the business? I was in the event, I was first place. I was very nervous actually. I thought, like I, one hand everyone buying online and we were like, online only brand.

So I said, okay, it's good from this perspective, but then. Maybe people going to stop going to the pool and for how long? So I was a little bit nervous about it, but what I found out actually was very interesting because that was the first time that I realized how big the residential pool market is. Uh, people that actually have pool in their backyard, there are 10.4 million residential pools in the US all of the sudden. Everyone is using their pool. The pool market actually grew significantly during COVID because families were together at home can go outside. They do still want to be in the backyard, want to do something, and they invested more and more in the pool, spend more time there. And obviously residential pools, 95% of them use chlorine. Um, so. My, my, my, my, uh, consumer was completely different. It wasn't this fitness competitive swimmer that go to the, to the gym pool. Um, it was actually more families, um, using the pool in the backyard. Um. And also pools in, in more residential, um, uh, buildings, buildings that have pools and amenity. Um, this became our, our, our target, uh, uh, audience back then. Um, so first, the first in the first place, I thought like, okay, we are, it's going to kill us. But then actually it led me to find out about a completely new segment that honestly, I didn't think about before.

Greg Mcdonough: That's a super, yeah, there's hundreds of pools in my neighborhood that were built during those COVID years. 'cause you're the point you made, right? You, you do still need to get outside. You wanna get some exercise, you're sort of stuck in your backyard. Um, you know, re we've got audience members here who are entrepreneurs.

We've got endurance athletes. We've got a pretty broad brush of listeners. If you had a magic wand and could wave that wand, what's one thing that our community could do to support you and, and try hard?

Rei Lalo: maybe, maybe with what now? Basically the company, the, the, the challenge ahead of us, right? There are, there are maybe, maybe two, two growth, uh, trajectories here to the company. Um, maybe they will be also the same one after the other, but the first one, and. W when trying hard?

entered the market. You know, I went after the heavy user, I call them, right?

The weekly swimmer, the fitness, the performance swimmers, the people that really feel the pain of chlorine, um, daily or weekly, now try hard, resonates with them well and they were doing well, uh, with this audience. Um. But actually after reading, also a lot of clinical trials, chlorine damage really starts from a brief exposure. Um, and even people that go, um, only in the season to resorts or water parks. Uh, or use their, their, their backyard pool. Uh, chlorine really, uh, affects you from the first exposure and obviously, uh, get worse over time. Like as you, as you, uh, get exposed to it more and more. At the end of the day, it's a really, a chemical bleach that. Disinfect the water great in a great way, but it does have a lot of, uh, harmful effect. So to me, the, the, the, the, the market here that we are going after is much bigger. Um, I want eventually to get to a point when people themselves from chlorine, way they protect themselves from the sun, you know, to almost create these, uh, the first sunscreen for chlorine.

Um. So one of the things that I'm on the most now is how we basically expand this brand in terms of the products, the, the, the, the, the way that we use the product, the way we talk about the product, uh, the messaging, the marketing, the communication, the pe, the, the brand partners that we bring in. How do we now. Uh, expand this brand from fitness swimmers only to actually fitness swimmers and all pool goers. Uh, I think this is basically where the company is heading. Um, and if I can, you know, bring in all the, the listeners that have very different perspective, both as consumers and maybe also as professional to think about it together, this is really something that I feel, uh, uh, the company can really benefit from.

Greg Mcdonough: You know, I can visualize the end cap at a store that always seems to appear in that march April timeframe filled with sunscreen. I could see you side by side, so it's not, to your point, not just protecting yourself from the sun. Protect yourself from chlorine open water, you name it, because it is a different product and different process to keep your skin and your hair clean than your traditional shampoo or your traditional conditioner and soap.

Um, can you talk a little bit about the differences between, you know, what you buy off the shelf at your supermarket to clean your hair and your body relative to the products that, that you're producing?

Rei Lalo: Yeah, so we have two main active ingredients, um, in the product. Uh, many companies actually, uh, I mean not many, but. Maybe the other companies in the market that, uh, also try to focus on chlorine use vitamin C. Uh, a lot of those formulas are more or less the same. Uh, but that's the active ingredient. Our active ingredients actually are, um, uh, red allergy uh, is developed in indoor environments.

So basically this. This ingredient we source from a biotech company, uh, that grow a red allergy in indoor environment. Red allergy by itself has a lot of skin in her properties, uh, in calming, irritated skin. Uh, really have a strong high hydration properties. Um. And, and some other, uh, benefits as well. So we actually took these ingredients and put it in the forefront, um, Dsy Salt. Um, and these two together, um, basically work as the main active ingredients that help to form the shield around the skin and hair in the Pres swim products that really helps to, um, reduce the absorption of chlorine. So we have two products that you used before, then we have the products that you use after that.

These also helps to really provide these, uh, deep cleaning that extract the chloride more effectively. In the body wash, for example, we also use, use a biodegradable apricot scrub that also helps to provide these deep cleaning. Um, so yeah, it's just basically this main active ingredients, uh, that we use in the product. Um, and then the dose that we actually have, um, um, in the formula and how they all work together. So the formula is different. The fact that we are the only brand actually that also provide both pre and post swim product. So it's a comprehensive solution. It's preventive and, and treating. Um, so yeah, these two are things that, you know, I don't think any. Big company, the target, like all the, the, the entire country, uh, will get so granular and, and, and specific in solving because at the end of the day, the, the smaller brands, uh, have the privilege to focus on niche because,

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

Rei Lalo: You know, they can, they don't have to reach every household in the, in America.

Greg Mcdonough: So where's the best place for an audience member to find your product?

Rei Lalo: So we are now, uh, on our website, try hard.com, uh, Amazon Swim Outlet. Um, and actually we launched the Dick Sporting Goods earlier this

Greg Mcdonough: Hmm.

Rei Lalo: And next year we expanding. Nationwide with, uh, dicks. So we'll be almost in every, um, in every state, almost maybe even every city. Not every city, but every state in, in, in the us. Uh, so Dicks is a great partner for us. We are going to be right next to the swim goggles and swim cups. Um, Yeah. And hopefully next year in some other sporting goods, uh, retailers as well.

Greg Mcdonough: Yeah. And I was, I was, as I was sharing with you before we hit record, I walked into my swim stop this past week looking for a tech suit from my daughter. And two of your products were on the shelf. And, um, I went up to the owner and I said, Hey, curious how this try hard is selling and do customers like it?

And she's like, yeah, they love it. Um, so just a little bit of feedback from a local, local shop. Re an audience member wants to get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Rei Lalo: Um, so I'm on LinkedIn. I'm quite active on LinkedIn, um, Ray Lalo, um, and then email, REI at, uh, try hard us.com yeah, available over there.

Greg Mcdonough: Brilliant, and we'll include those in the show notes. So any listeners that were curious, uh, please scroll down and grab those and reach out. Ray, it's been great having you on the show today. I love the products. I'm so excited for our partnership. I'm really pleased that my girls are using it now. These.

They, they're complaining less about chlorine and they smell a little bit different, but they won't admit that it works. But as teenagers, you know how that happens. Um, but keep innovating and keep solving problems for our industry. We really need it. And I, I really appreciate, uh, sorry to hear your story about your spinal injury when you're 17, but that led to this innovation and, um, I'm, so, I'm grateful for both.

Thanks for being on the show today.

Rei Lalo: Thank you so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.