From Chanel in China to Evowarrior: Marie Berry on Community Led Growth and Bone Health

In this episode of Growth Mavericks, host Adam Callinan talks with Marie Berry, a marketer turned founder who went from Adidas and Chanel to scaling a joint venture in China from three to 180 people in a year, exiting a software company, and now building Evowarrior, a women first rucking brand. After a DEXA scan revealed early bone loss, Marie dove into bone health, osteopenia, and weight bearing movement, discovering rucking as an accessible way to build strength and bone density. She realized most ruck gear was designed for men, uncomfortable for women, hard to wash, and visually unappealing, so she set out to design a beautiful, functional vest and a modular weight system tailored to women. Marie breaks down how her global brand background shaped her approach, why she accidentally but brilliantly built community before product, how she integrates mindfulness, sauna, and movement into staying sane as a founder and mom, and why fun, discomfort, and listening to your inner voice are core to resilience and long term success.

Show Notes

You will hear about:

• Growing up adopted from Bolivia and raised in Germany, and how that shaped her identity and appetite for discomfort and adventure
• Building a marketing career at Adidas, Ford, and Chanel, then scaling a joint venture in China from three to 180 people in a year
• Moving to the United States, bootstrapping a digital consultancy to fund her software startup, exiting that company, and taking a breather in venture capital
• The frozen shoulder and DEXA scan that revealed early stage bone loss and opened her eyes to how critical bone density is for women as they age
• Why bone health is a longevity lever, how bone density peaks in your twenties, and why weight bearing movement like strength training and rucking can help
• Discovering rucking as a practical way to add resistance to everyday life and how a personal 30 day ruck challenge unexpectedly turned into a 100 person community
• The problems with existing ruck vests for women: built for male bodies, impossible to wash, uncomfortable, and visually unappealing in everyday life
• How Evowarrior’s vest and modular weight system are designed for women, body aware, and aspirational instead of clinical or tactical
• Partnering with BodySpec so customers can pair rucking with DEXA scans and real bone density data
• Why she started building the community before the product and how that community now shapes product decisions and inspires version two
• The tools she uses to stay grounded as a founder and parent: sleep, daily movement, sauna, journaling, and simple mindfulness practices
• How her definition of success has shifted away from external achievement toward alignment, family, and building something that truly matters

Episode Highlights

• (00:25) From Adidas and Chanel to founder life and rucking
• (06:27) Adoption, global upbringing, and chasing discomfort
• (10:29) Moving to China, building teams, and loving hard things
• (18:26) Parenting, resilience, and giving kids room to fail
• (22:36) Trusting gut over optics and caring less about outside opinions
• (32:35) The DEXA scan, osteopenia, and the bone density wake up call
• (36:42) Discovering rucking as weight bearing movement and daily practice
• (38:48) Community first: the 30 day ruck challenge that exploded
• (40:25) Why most vests fail women and what Evowarrior is changing
• (43:03) Pairing rucking with DEXA scans and building the Evowarrior app
• (46:26) Hardware timelines, resilience, and thinking like a software founder
• (50:17) Community led growth as the new playbook for consumer brands

Listen and explore

• 🎧 Growth Mavericks Podcast
• 🛡️ Evowarrior rucking vests and community
• 🚀 Pentane – The Command Center for E-Commerce Profitability

Creators and Guests

Host

Adam Callinan

Adam Callinan is the founder of Pentane, a financial and advertising command center that empowers brands to drive predictable revenue and intentional profit. Previously, Adam co-founded BottleKeeper, a bootstrapped consumer brand that scaled to $8M in sales within three years – without employees – and was later acquired in 2021 as an eight-figure business with a team of four, marking Adam's second successful exit.

What is Growth Mavericks?

This podcast dives deep into the tactical moves that drive business success, as well as the mental and physical resilience required to sustain it.

Hosted by Adam Callinan, a seasoned entrepreneur with multiple exits, an avid outdoorsman, and an family man with crystal-clear priorities, each episode unpacks real-world challenges, actionable insights, and the mental and physical disciplines that fuel long-term personal and professional growth.

Whether you’re scaling a startup or refining your mindset, disrupting your default is how business and life strike a balance.

Adam Callinan (01:01)
Today I'm joined by Marie Berry. She is a marketer turned founder who went from Adidas and Chanel, some really fancy brands to scaling a joint venture in China from three to 180 people in just a year. And then exited a software company and is now building a women's first rucking brand. Rucking has become a really big part of my and my wife's life up here in Montana and has been for years. So this, this really hits home with Marie. She stumbled into that world

after a DEXA scan flagged early bone loss, she turned to rucking as a way to build bone density, which is actually a medical treatment is weight resistance and training. And what she found is that many of the ruck products were really built for men and men's bodies, which I am acutely aware of because I have a number of ruck products and my wife uses them and we were built very differently. this...

is a really interesting conversation with someone with deep domain expertise in brand and building organically, even before she has launched the product, which is really brilliant. She makes commentary around not doing that intentionally, but you can tell that that is built into who she is and driving trust and building community, which is really fantastic.

We also spend time talking about remaining sane through all of the discomfort that comes with both building and doing physically hard things like rocking long distances and whatnot. if you're an Ecom operator and you're considering a community led growth strategy, this is really a fantastic conversation.

So please enjoy my discussion with Marie Berry.

Adam Callinan (02:36)
I am really excited to finally have the chance ⁓ to talk with you. You have some really interesting experience and come from an interesting place. Can we start with just sort of your general background? think it starts to tell a great story.

Marie Berry (02:53)
Of course, yeah, no, thank you for having me. So my story, I've always been a marketer. So after my studies, I worked for Adidas in Germany and then in Paris.

⁓ And then I had the opportunity to go to Asia ⁓ where I worked for Ford Motor Company and then Chanel as part of a joint venture with ⁓ WPP, the holding company, the ad agency. So ⁓ I've seen a lot of like...

brands and marketing tactics for large corporates. And I would say that was like the first decade of my career. And I think after that, was really China that made me realize that I'm actually a founder at heart. Because even though I worked for large brands while I was in China, it felt like the West because I moved there.

end of 2009, I believe, 2010. So was like after the Beijing Olympics, but just before the...

World Expo when all the large companies set foot there and ⁓ I was the third employee. We scaled the team up ⁓ to like 180 people within the first year. ⁓ so it was, it felt really like building not just campaigns and marketing plans, but like building teams, finding office space, recruiting, like doing everything. And I realized that I loved that.

you know, seeing like that you can build something from zero. ⁓

And yeah, so then the next decade of my career was really focused on being a founder because I eventually moved to the U.S. where started a couple of companies, ⁓ one that was a digital consultancy. And to be honest, my way of bootstrapping for the actual idea that I had, ⁓ which was then the company Cara, which was a software that made tons of variants for

marketing material, marketing collateral, which sounds so trivial right now with AI, but at that time it was still managed through freelancers or individual ⁓ smaller marketing agencies that created tons of different variations from one marketing campaign. ⁓

So yeah, like I did that ⁓ and sold the company around five years ago. Had to stay with the acquirer for a year for my earn out, joined a venture capital firm, ⁓ which was great, but also a little bit of a, let's say sabbatical from my founder life. And I had my second child during that time. We moved to Miami ⁓ from New York. So it was definitely kind of a reset. And

Now, I this, I started a new company in a space that I really didn't think I would ever built in, which is wellness and building a consumer company, which I also never expected. So let's see where this will lead to. ⁓ But yeah, like I've, ⁓ I don't regret anything. I feel like I had great experiences in the past. And I didn't mention now geographically where I was, but I also jumped around quite a bit. So.

We can go into that later.

Adam Callinan (06:33)
Yeah, it sounds

like it even pre US. can I? Were you? I say this in the context that it's a typical Americans and I also say this in the context of I have also traveled a lot, so this is not a judgment statement. It's really just part of reality. Americans don't have a tendency to go and live in other countries. So were you originally were you born in the US or were you born elsewhere, which led you to Europe and then China and other parts of the world?

Marie Berry (07:02)
Yeah, I only moved to the US in 2015, actually. I've never lived in the US before. I was born in Bolivia, but raised in Germany, and then lived in London, Madrid, Paris, mainly for my studies, and then started my career in Paris. And then for work, I went to China, where I stayed for six years, which...

felt like six months, but time flew by. And then in 2015, I moved to the US. So, and now this brand that I'm building now, it's interesting how it somehow reconnects me to my roots because I was born in Bolivia and have indigenous roots, but I was actually adopted as a baby. So my parents are Germans and were

hippies and still young and already had two kids from ⁓ like biological kids like so

my two older brothers and then my younger sister, they're like blonde, blue eyes, very German looking. And ⁓ yeah, so it was like a really spontaneous thing that they adopted me because they heard through friends that adopted from an orphanage from Bolivia ⁓ and heard about the situation and that there's a lot of kids that are free for adoption or will be born and it's already free, know, then they're free for adoption.

And ⁓ yeah, so they adopted me when I was ⁓ a week old, ⁓ even less than that. So just a few days old. And then they, ⁓ it was, that's a whole other story, but they kind of like got me out of Bolivia. And then legally I was adopted when I was... ⁓

five years old in Germany. So it was a long legal battle, ⁓ but I grew up in Germany in a very, you know, small town.

protected and loved my childhood. And I feel like during that time I was quite connected to my roots because my family always told me where I was from. And I feel like as kids you're like more playful with it. you know, playing that because of my indigenous roots, like I don't know pain and small things like that that you invent as kids. And ⁓ but then over the years

when I moved, I feel like I lost some of that identity and took on more of a global identity, global persona. ⁓ And only now, being in Miami, where everyone that speaks with me speaks in Spanish and says, well, whatever you say, but you're Latina, I can tell. And having kids now, I think that brought me back. now ⁓ I'm really...

proud of that ⁓ background and my roots.

Adam Callinan (10:09)
Yeah, what an incredible foundation.

That's, you know, like it starts to tell this story as you move through chapters in life, like how those things line up. Do you. When you started to move around, having grown up in Germany, I know again, this is why I was it was a safe guess for me to say that you probably were not born in America. Europeans move around very freely. I mean, that is part of like being a European as you can get on a bus or a train or a plane and get.

Marie Berry (10:35)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Callinan (10:43)
across to another country in a very, very short period of time.

How did the move go from that to China, which is an, I have been to all those places. They are wildly different cultures. What was that like having grown up in Western Europe and then spending so much time in China?

Marie Berry (11:04)
⁓ I loved it. It was hard and I think that's what I loved about it. ⁓ It was hard for a little bit and then you learn how to kind of live as an expert. ⁓ But I think because Europe is so small, so it's relatively easy to move from one country to the other and it's quite normal for people to travel across borders.

Like, obviously you have to, like I spoke the languages in each of those countries, which helped, but in general it's relatively easy to assimilate. ⁓

And I felt like in London, I had a great time and it wasn't that difficult other than for the first time living away from your family. Madrid, I had the time of my life living a very student life. ⁓

life and like yeah like I love that too and then Paris I think was for me the first time that I lived like a local because I studied there and then I worked there and I really felt like I live a Parisian life which I loved.

And then China was very, different because now it might be a little bit different, but like at that time, you you get into a taxi and no one speaks English. So it was really like.

And you didn't have all the tools that you have now with like easy translation, you just hold the phone, you know, so it was like scribbles from someone to, you know, show the taxi driver the address. And so it was kind of survival mode in the beginning, but it was kind of fun. And I think

I actually liked every time I moved that I felt kind of uncomfortable and I had to figure it out because it's like those moments where you then feel like, wow, I did that on my own and, I didn't know anyone. I didn't have a place to live. I didn't have a bank account. Now I have all of that. And so I've always loved this, seeing like, I can, even though I felt sometimes like, shit, like this is.

weird and I don't know, you know, who I should call if something happens. ⁓ And I feel like in Europe, I felt pretty comfortable living anywhere. But then China was a new challenge. ⁓ So I loved it. ⁓ But I have to say it was also very different to now because during that time, a lot of ⁓ experts moved there. So in the 90s, it was like large corporates that sent

some people there or you know, people like larger corporations built manufacturing plans and it was like, ⁓ kind of...

more so like large expert packages and people lived in gated compounds. But I feel like when I moved, was also like a younger crowd that moved and started to like build this excitement around a new market. So that's why, I mean, I was mid 20s, you know, and I could build a company like build that.

like really a strong, ⁓ you know, amazing company like Ford. And so it was this amazing feeling of like, we're all in this together, you know, like all mid 20s, mid 30s people that were there for their careers, but also for the excitement of living this adventurous new lifestyle.

Adam Callinan (14:58)
Yeah, the force discomfort piece is so interesting. And we will definitely spend a lot of time on that. feel like I feel like all this is a very blanket statement, but I'm to say it anyways. I feel like all education comes from some form of discomfort.

Marie Berry (15:13)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Callinan (15:15)
Like real development comes from discomfort.

Marie Berry (15:18)
Yeah, I'd agree with that. yeah, it's it's in the end. And we talk about that a lot at home, like my husband and I about raising kids, right? Because you don't want to coddle them. But it's also hard to let them fail. But ultimately, it's almost like micro or mini failures that, you know, every day lead you to more

⁓ experience and to be more resilient. And ⁓ I don't know if for me the adoption story that I knew and the fact that I looked differently got like, I don't know if that was like helping me to be more resilient and like be more aware of this and ⁓ probably a little bit. ⁓ But yeah, I always was drawn to it because I knew that

having that weird feeling that I'm like, you know, I would think like, I'm not sure about this, the reward would be much higher. So I was kind of like that adrenaline of, ⁓ I'm like playing with fire. ⁓ And I'm kind of alone. No one really knows, you know, that I'm here in this new country or, you know, trying out something new. But then it somehow works. ⁓

and then I feel really great.

Adam Callinan (16:47)
Yeah, it's the balance of that. You know, it's like the intelligent balance of the risk. Right. I mean, it's like you're not going to die. You're probably not going to So pretty much, you know, there's not too much short of that, that, you know, it's going to take you down a bad path. mean, maybe that's not a fair thing to say, but that's like an amazing, I mean, there's a lot of bad things that happen. Let's be clear. But when we take, you know, yeah.

Marie Berry (16:53)
Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no it's...

Adam Callinan (17:15)
Again, like we get into like rural parts of foreign countries. again, I don't know. That's it can be magic,

Marie Berry (17:20)
my god.

In hindsight, I'm so glad and lucky that, you know, like, I didn't go the wrong path at some point because there were many paths that I feel like I could have taken the wrong turn. And that's why maybe I'm like thinking about my kids and I'm like, I want to guide them in a way that they, you know, like are on the right track. But I also want them

Adam Callinan (17:36)
Yeah.

Marie Berry (17:48)
to have their own experiences. And for that, I am super thankful to my parents because they were really ⁓ crucial. mean, not only did they adopt me and obviously enabled a very different life, ⁓ but they also raised all four of us ⁓ pretty laissez faire. ⁓ And we always knew they supported us, but...

Also without cell phones and all this, feel like we could just do whatever we wanted to do. you know, we could judge ⁓ if something was good or bad. ⁓ And we often did also the bad things, you know, but learned from that.

Adam Callinan (18:30)
I mean, that's a key piece. I'm also a parent. have two young kids, a four and a seven year old. And we have a lot of the same conversations. really? Four and seven? Amazing. Yeah, I mean, so we're dealing with probably a lot of very similar stuff just in a different environment. It's the parents' responsibility to equip the children with the tools to be able to navigate the world as adults and young adults.

Marie Berry (18:37)
Same. Yeah, four and seven, yep.

Adam Callinan (18:58)
And that's what it, and my parents did that for me. Like I won the lottery I was born to in an exceptional family. They did that with me. And it's obviously now I see that as the downline responsibility with my kids, but it's obvious that your parents did that with you as well. Like they gave you the tools to be able to navigate, you know, those environments, which is really, really powerful.

Marie Berry (19:02)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think though that in addition to that, now that you're asking me in that way, ⁓ there's obviously that, yeah, resilience that comes from experiences and, you know, parents letting you fail, letting you experience those things, but then also attitude and...

manifesting, visualizing, even though, you know, as a kid I didn't have those terms to describe this, but I think I always...

thought about this, like I always knew I wanted to live abroad as a very young kid. I knew I like didn't want to be in a small town. And so I was seeking out those experiences. And yeah, I was like visualizing how it would feel, right, to live a life in Paris and.

really like, I mean for me it's like visualizing before going to bed and thinking this is what I'm dreaming about and that became my habit ⁓ over the last, I mean 35 years or something like that, that I go to bed and I know my kind of dream, let it be house but it's not even about the materialistic side of how the house looks like but it's more so about like

realizing, this is how I grab my cup of coffee in the morning and how it feels to walk in that house. ⁓ And so I feel like that's how I also kind of pushed myself ⁓ to think anything is possible. ⁓ And my husband and I are very big on that.

trying to kind of visualize and manifest. We never thought we would live in Miami. We did have a vision board when we initially met to see, you know, like, are our lifestyles or our goals compatible? And ⁓ we had palm trees on there.

But thought like that clearly won't happen because we're both very ambitious and you know, after living in like all like big urban cities where like we wouldn't live anywhere with palm trees. And ⁓ now we live in Miami. So I think, you know, I'm a big believer in those thoughts and the law of attraction. ⁓

And whenever things go sideways, have this, like, I try to get over it quickly, you know? So it's like, for me, then I have to think about, okay, in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter? And the answer is typically no. ⁓ And for all the other things, I often have, like, I feel like I was always lucky.

in life and only later on realized that it's also probably engineered through my attitude. ⁓ yeah, for that I feel kind of lucky that maybe I have that naturally, that I'm positive and you know try things out and don't care too much about what other people think of me or ⁓ you know how it might look like from the outside. ⁓ So

That's, I think, the other part of building resilience and building that mental strength over years.

Adam Callinan (22:53)
How do you trigger that sort of self-reflection on whether or not something is important? Is that like a practice or is that just inherent to you at this point?

Marie Berry (23:12)
It's pretty inherent. think I actually used to think much more ⁓ rationally, even though I was a very free spirit, let's say, and my KPI was more so fun. I was ambitious, but I was also thinking like, is this fun? And do I want to?

live there, travel there, like do I want to hang out with these people? Like fun was always important to me. But I was still ambitious in a way that I wanted to achieve something that I was proud of. ⁓ But so that's why I think ⁓ a few years ago still I was like thinking a little bit more rationally about this. Now

I'm actually following my gut much more. And it might be age-related ⁓ that I feel like now I'm in my 40s and I feel like I really ⁓ care less about what other people think and I'm like more trying to focus on my own truth and like listen to my inner whispers because

I realized that's actually the only, like that's the key, right? Like be true to yourself and almost find out who you actually are and then ⁓ go in further because I feel like I haven't really done that in the past ⁓ because I was kind of more chasing fun and another new experience and it's been great and I had great success quote unquote, you know, from the outside.

But it's only now that I feel like I'm actually on the right path of finding, I don't know, it sounds so cheesy, but like what my purpose is or what my calling is. ⁓

because of different reasons. mean, there's like society that has specific norms. There's, ⁓ you know, obviously I was influenced somewhat of like my parents, my friends, and, you know, I wasn't immune to that. ⁓ But I think there's a mix of things that made me rethink this, probably COVID. ⁓

having kids and having like building a family and realizing, you know, what you're doing this for and also age, you know, once you get older and you're kind of, you know, less F's given. ⁓ So yeah.

Adam Callinan (25:53)
We're in very, very, very similar positions. I have, I mean, you basically just gave a four minute diatribe of exactly where I'm at in life. And that I have a four to seven year old, I'm 43. I don't give a flying fuck.

Marie Berry (26:03)
Great.

Adam Callinan (26:09)
about what anybody thinks, with the exception of my wife. I care deeply what she thinks and some people that are very close to me, but they're close to me because they're either family or they're people that I have that I choose to have that relationship with. I have had business success, but that's not how I define success at all. Like my that's that's a piece of the puzzle, but it's not anywhere remotely near the whole puzzle. So I think I think honestly, part of that is probably.

Marie Berry (26:09)
Right, yeah. Of course, yeah. ⁓

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Right. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (26:38)
It probably is an evolution through life and like the stages in life that it has some age component in there, but I don't know. Yeah, we're very similar.

Marie Berry (26:50)
Yeah, yeah, it's pro do you know, ⁓ is it Arthur Brooks, I believe who's talking about that and the different life stages and kind of happiness. So ⁓ yeah, I think there's, ⁓ there's probably a truth to that. ⁓ It's kind of the normal cycle of life. ⁓

Adam Callinan (26:56)
Yeah.

Marie Berry (27:11)
But I do love that now I trust ⁓ my path and I trust my universe, like the universe much more than I did in the past. And I feel like before I just called it luck and now I just feel like, no, this was meant to happen, you know.

Adam Callinan (27:29)
Yeah, you have the experience base and the wisdom, which is a thing that is earned and built over time to be in a position to trust that, which at 25, I sure as didn't have that. At 35, I don't think I had that. But I agree that I feel totally differently about that today.

Marie Berry (27:44)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm sure, I mean, we're saying this now, but there's also days, right, where it's like 30 minutes or like, my God, you know, you're like stressing about something. Yeah, exactly. And then you like find your base again. But in general, I think, yeah, that's how I feel.

Adam Callinan (27:58)
What am I doing with my life? Yeah.

And I guess the reason that I asked the initial question of like, there a trigger because of that exact experience that you just described, there are 100%, let's be clear, times every single day where I feel like I'm out of control. And I have specific triggers in my life that help me to separate from that and reset my own perspective. So I was like,

Marie Berry (28:26)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Callinan (28:35)
And now to me that is inherent. Like I don't do that. That's not like an act that I have to write down or schedule in. It's like I have things built into my life that I've done for a long time that helped me separate from that. But I do think that that is really important is that reset a perspective of like taking a step back and being able to look at it and go, that's actually not important, actually at all. Like it's not important.

Marie Berry (28:55)
Right,

yeah, yeah. And whenever you don't have it, maybe it sounds like your wife is maybe someone who can remind you of it. But yeah, I have those built-in routines or like that foundation as well. Like for me, there's some basic non-negotiables like, you know, enough sleep, ⁓ working out.

Adam Callinan (29:04)
Of course. Absolutely.

Marie Berry (29:22)
eating healthy during the week, on the weekends I'm fine to do whatever. ⁓ And also some kind of mindfulness practice. So there was a time when I was doing much more yoga. Now I'm doing much more rocking, which I actually realize is so great for my mental health ⁓ and journaling. So ⁓

whatever mindful practice works, but I feel like I need that in order to be sane, you know, and like be set up for the day.

Adam Callinan (30:40)
Yeah, and we are gonna go into the rocking. We'll do that next. But I do think it's important to spend a minute talking about that mindfulness because I think people have this connotation that having some mindfulness practice means like sitting down on a floor, legs crossed, trying to do your own in some meditation, which makes it hard for people to dive into. I don't think that that's true. I do have some of that in my life and I had to implement that.

Marie Berry (30:57)
Hehe.

Mm-hmm

Adam Callinan (31:08)
after some really difficult things in business and life happened. But you can have those mindful experiences without needing to be sitting somewhere still. You can have them just out on a walk in the woods or on a rock up a hill or just somewhere where you're like mentally disconnected from the grind, from whatever that is for you.

Marie Berry (31:30)
Yeah, 100%. I mean, especially having kids as well. It's sometimes just having time for yourself, you know, and ⁓

I now have a few things that are relatively new to me, which is sauna, for example. After workout, ⁓ doing sauna, I do all those things more so for my mental health, but I love the fact that it actually has all those studies about longevity and that it's good for your health. So yeah, I love that. It's like both.

Adam Callinan (32:08)
Yeah, sauna, you had to bring that up. Oh yeah, I've been sonning for a long time. was at a friend's house last night with four guys crammed in a sauna. It actually wasn't crammed. It was a very nice size sauna, but sonning and it's a huge part of our life as well. And to the listener, no, I'm not a medical doctor, but there have been a lot of studies out of Finland and the Nordic countries around sauna and at 80 degrees Celsius, which is about 175 degrees Fahrenheit.

Marie Berry (32:11)
Hahaha

Adam Callinan (32:34)
20 minutes a day, four days a week decreases all cause mortality by 40%. That's all the, mean, you don't want to die from anything, but it's the stuff you really don't want to die from like cancer and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and all the really bad stuff. It's like literally sitting in a hot box and sweating your sins out for 20 minutes a day, four days a week, 40 % reduction in all cause mortality. Aside from exercise, there is nothing that is going to accomplish that. It's crazy. And it feels good and it may helps you sleep and it's good for your mental.

Marie Berry (32:47)
Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly.

Adam Callinan (33:03)
So rucking, how did you get into rucking and how did you decide to start a company around it?

Marie Berry (33:10)
Yes, I, I think...

A few years ago I would have dismissed it as a weird fad or not really a workout. ⁓ But so I'm 42 now, but I was 38 when I had a frozen shoulder and went to the doctor. They did all types of tests and one of those tests was a DEXA scan and ⁓ that, you know, sees your body composition, including bone density.

and saw that I had ⁓ early stages of bone loss, so osteopenia, which...

I was like osteopenia, osteoporosis, like just hearing this, was like, I associate that with my grandmother, you know, I had just felt like this is weird. This is like a senior condition. ⁓ And yeah, kind of dismissed it because I was also like, can't be because I'm super fit. do, you know, triathlons, play tennis and have always been super active. I eat healthy. ⁓

And yeah, but then I realized once I dove into the research that it actually is important and ⁓ bone health is important for your longevity and just like aging well, especially for women. ⁓ And some of those stats are... ⁓

really crazy how early everything starts because actually around year 28 at 25, the bone density peaks and then around age 30, it deteriorates by one to 2 % every year. And then there's also some studies that say one in two women over 50 will have an osteoporosis related fracture in their lifetime.

and ⁓

I don't want to go there, but if those fractures happen to be in specific parts of the body, the mortality rate is even higher. you know, like it's not getting better. And especially in menopause, those one to two percent then change to be more than 10 percent. So you lose quite a lot of bone density ⁓ during the years of menopause. And so that's when I was like, OK, so wait a minute. Now I already have.

less bone density than I should have for my age, what can I do? ⁓ because especially when I then get into proper menopause, you know, I want to come from a good base so that, you know, I can work against that and ideally offset ⁓ that decrease. And so the doctor was saying there's either medication or weight bearing movement. And that's everything from

lifting, any kind of strength training. ⁓

jumping because it's the impact that it has on the bones ⁓ and also rucking. So this is how I got to rucking, which is walking with weights. So you, you know, wear a vest or a backpack and like artificially add more weight to your body so that your ⁓ skeletal body needs to carry more. And with that over time, you can increase your ⁓ bone density and strengthen your bones.

And for me, I mean, there's several studies out there. It's always hard to isolate those because, you know, obviously if you're rucking, you typically also do other things ⁓ and like your nutrition. ⁓ So there's like, because it's quite controversial. Some people are out there like, this is not the one solution. And, and actually I agree. It's not the one solution. But I think it's a great compliment to any

Adam Callinan (36:59)
Yeah.

Marie Berry (37:17)
strength training and workout routine because it's something that is typically very easy to implement in your or incorporate in your day-to-day. So ⁓ I go to the gym every day, I work out every day, but...

If I don't, for some reason, make it to the gym or don't make a specific class, I can always walk for 30 minutes outside with a vest. Or I would take Zoom calls, you know, maybe change them to be a phone call and walk outside. So that's how ⁓ I got started. It was really from this health scare that I was like more aware of resistance training.

versus cardio because before I was the typical, you know, running yoga and just like cardio training person. And yeah, so it changed me and. ⁓

Adam Callinan (38:03)
right.

Marie Berry (38:17)
That's how I found rocking in general. And then this year in April, because I'm just the person who loves to rally their friends and I prefer to do things in groups and with other people, I started this 30 day rocking challenge and thought it would be just a handful of friends that would join me. I think I did one post on Instagram and I don't even have that many followers, but it was like some of my friends in New York that said, like, I want to do this too.

So ⁓ that's when within a month we were more than a hundred hundred people.

Adam Callinan (38:54)
Hmm.

Marie Berry (38:54)
And

I realized that it resonated with many women specifically. ⁓ And yeah, so that's how it started because I was rocking in a group first virtually on WhatsApp, but then we built in-person groups and I was obviously wearing a vest every day and then saw the flaws in those vests that were there. know, like it was like, especially living in Miami, you were sweating.

Adam Callinan (39:15)
There we go.

Marie Berry (39:24)
of the vests you can't wash in the washing machine. They're built for men with like, you know, plates on the front and back, just not built for a female body. And ⁓ yeah, so that's when it started. And I, ⁓ the fact that I started my career at Adidas called some of my friends and was like, do you have ⁓ a better vest at Adidas?

Adam Callinan (39:41)
right.

Marie Berry (39:52)
and they were like no and some people were like what is this and so that's when I saw

the opportunity and jumped on it and started sketching.

Adam Callinan (40:01)
I've been rocking for probably five years, like back probably at the beginning of go rock, which is a brand. They also do events and things like that. Obviously you're familiar with them. And I, I started doing it because of some backcountry hunting stuff that I do in Montana and needing to be able to train to carry heavy things up mountains and things. And it became, it was such like an eyeopening experience and way

Marie Berry (40:11)
Yeah, yeah,

Adam Callinan (40:29)
to exactly as you described, compliment an already active lifestyle. I got, I mean, I went like far down the rabbit hole. But to your point, like now I have a couple of rocks and my wife who is, you just turned 40 and is five, seven and 115 pounds, like one, they stink because they're impossible to wash. And I've been sweating them for five years. And we bought her like a plate carrier before, you know, before you and I had connected.

Marie Berry (40:33)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Adam Callinan (40:57)
And she like does her best with it, but it so doesn't fit. And it's, mean, it's not built for her remotely.

Marie Berry (41:00)
Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like the design itself is just not built for the female body. ⁓ But I mean, now there's, you know, new models coming out. And I think people are seeing the opportunity. But I think one thing that ⁓ I don't know, I just feel like.

I'm trying to do with this brand is not just making it good for the female body, which is kind of like a non-negotiable, but like also make it look beautiful and sexy and aspirational because

I was triggered because of osteopenia, Like bone health. But I don't want this to also now be like an osteo pack or whatever, right? Because most of the tools that are out there that are supporting bone health are called osteo something. So it's like clinical, you know, like I don't want to wear or be associated with any of that.

Adam Callinan (42:01)
Yeah.

Marie Berry (42:07)
Obviously there are brands like GORUCK, ⁓ which, you know, I'm actually looking up to. They've opened the category and ⁓ I really love a lot of things that they do, but it's very clearly their positioning, you know, like comes from the military or like inspired by the military and like some of the events that they do. It's more so like the Tough Mudder or Spartan Race type, ⁓ which, you know,

Adam Callinan (42:25)
Totally. Yeah.

Marie Berry (42:36)
is great too for a specific audience, but this

Adam Callinan (42:38)
Okay.

Marie Berry (42:40)
I just built for me to be honest, you know, where I'm like, I don't want to be like in a SWAT team and I still want this to look cool. And like if I go ⁓ out and I'm rocking like afterwards, I grab a coffee, I want to look good. And so ⁓ yeah, this is what I'm trying to do. You know, we're ⁓ making ⁓

bone health and strength or functional strength look sexy for women.

Adam Callinan (43:11)
Yeah, the the visual I have of my wife walking into a coffee shop with a plate carrier on looks like a bulletproof vest I mean that yeah what I think what you're doing is is absolutely brilliant and it makes a ton of sense and I am Revised or re looking at the at the site and see your the modular weight system is brilliant. It's not like a one

Marie Berry (43:19)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (43:33)
one way it fits all so you have the ability to kind of increase or decrease weight, which makes a lot of sense.

Marie Berry (43:38)
Yeah.

And also, mean, people can buy the vest for vain reasons if they want to. But ⁓ because of this. ⁓

personal story that I had and now I feel like I know too much about bone health and why people should care about it early. That's why I really wanted to make sure more people get to do a DEXA scan and just are aware of their numbers. that's when very early on when I started just designing the product, I reached out to BodySpec, which is a company that does DEXA scans. They're one of the market leaders out there have done this for more than a decade.

a very sophisticated team and ⁓ operation. And the co-founder is also a woman and, you know, mom and experiences similar or has similar needs and desires. So we bonded over that. And now we have this ⁓ partnership in place, which allows me to offer my

evil warrior vest and the consumer would get a free or like complimentary DEXA scan. ⁓ So that's something that I felt very strongly about from the very beginning and I hope that ⁓ people will be more aware of their bones from the get-go.

Adam Callinan (45:05)
Yeah, that's a great pairing as part of the story and the brand to get outside of your point to the sort of military inspired. All the other way that's largely that they're either like a rocker rogue, which are these like heavy weightlifting, outdoor, intense things. And that's that's totally fine. ⁓ But I think that direction is really interesting and compelling. And a partnership with a DEXA scan is super cool. The things people can discover and be able to track.

doing a Dux the scan is brilliant.

Marie Berry (45:36)
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, another thing, I mean, we're building an app as well that lets you log your Rucks. And that's something that anyone can use. So not just people with my vest.

and that was really born out of the community that I built of women ⁓ seeing how they track their rucks and their weekly walks. So I'm excited to launch this soon as well.

Adam Callinan (46:06)
Yeah, what's the timeline? I see it's all, it's on pre-order now. How's your timeline look for launch?

Marie Berry (46:13)
Yeah, it's fingers crossed ⁓ mid end of December. ⁓ And so I have already, you know, some of the vests out there for testing right now. ⁓ I've had my community actually test all the previous prototypes, but now we're ⁓

like the final samples as I'm waiting for production. And for the app, ⁓ we're trying to pair it around the same time, so December, maybe January, ⁓ once we open it up for a larger group. In the beginning, we'll probably do a little bit of beta testing with a smaller group.

Adam Callinan (46:54)
This is great. That is very cool. The timing of that could be great with the holidays if you can get it out. I'm sure you're pressing for that.

Marie Berry (47:01)
I know, yes,

yes. I mean, speaking of resilience and kind of the, you know, trying to get over hurdles, that's definitely one thing I'm...

yeah, struggling with every day because I'm more of a software founder where timelines are very different and you can control them by just working on an app or, you know, any digital tool. But ⁓ having factories involved and having timelines that are so out of your control ⁓ has been really tough. ⁓ But, you know, so this is where

my routine and like mindfulness and I'm trying to like remind myself that in the grand scheme of things it's not that big of a deal.

Adam Callinan (47:44)
Yeah.

Someone tagged me, someone I know tagged me the other day on like a LinkedIn post for, there were one or two other people in it for founders that had started both a consumer product company as well as a software company and what the differences were. And I went on this like tirade of the differences, but a lot of it revolves around that capacity to control chaos because in it, like in a consumer product, at least you get the product and you have the product and you're like, great, now let's go sell the product. That's pretty black and white, but the process.

Marie Berry (48:13)
Yeah.

Adam Callinan (48:20)
between having the idea and getting that into a customer. There are so many entities and companies and countries and unions and like so many hands that touch that thing between concept and customer. Makes it, can make it a lot more chaotic.

Marie Berry (48:36)
Yeah, 100%.

I'm working already on V2 and V1 is not even in the market. I'm trying to like, I guess I still try to work like a software founder and, you know, go to market quickly and iterate. ⁓ And I hope I'm not losing that because otherwise, I don't know, you're not really a founder.

Adam Callinan (48:45)
Hahaha.

No, I think that is absolutely the right approach. That's one of the big mistakes that we made at Bottlekeeper was waiting too long to launch our second and third products. So we, I mean, and it ended up working and that's fine, but we waited, there was too much space in between our first product and even iterations of that product, like colors and things that didn't really matter. But like our true second product, we should have launched two years ahead of when we actually launched it. So I definitely think you're on the right track.

Marie Berry (49:14)
Mmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Adam Callinan (49:34)
Awesome, where do you want people to find you, to find your company, et cetera?

Marie Berry (49:40)
Yes, I mean you can pre-order now ⁓ and we also have a lot of events out there so you can test the product. So we just had like a more than a hundred people event in Miami in partnership with MindBodyGreen which was great because a lot of people could test the product. ⁓ But yeah, so you can go to evowarrior.com

Yvowarrior.com and same on Instagram at Ebowarrior.

⁓ There's also in the bio ⁓ link tree and so you can see all our events and our weekly in-person meetups because we have in Miami three different routes three times a week and then we also meet in New York ⁓ twice a week, LA and Austin and we have a pretty engaged ⁓ virtual community on WhatsApp ⁓ and I have almost daily requests for new groups to

formed in other markets. So ⁓ definitely on socials you'll see all the updates for that.

Adam Callinan (50:53)
I have to bring this up. I don't want this to take 20 more minutes. I wanna be sensitive to your time, but I have to say to early stage operators or people that are thinking of starting consumer product companies, right now we're in 2025, so in 2025, building the community before you put out the product is absolutely brilliant because you cannot acquire a customer.

You can't build your revenue models and your customer acquisition models entirely on paid media like you used to be able to do. So building the community before you launch the product is absolutely brilliant.

Marie Berry (51:25)
Right. Yeah.

Yeah, I wish I could say it was intentional. It was actually, it wasn't, but now I see the power and really, I mean, the most beautiful byproduct of it. I love the community and it gives me and I think everyone who's part of it so much more than just the product.

Adam Callinan (51:34)
Well, whatever.

Marie Berry (51:53)
⁓ And yeah, that's also it will continue to be my inspiration for future products as well.

Adam Callinan (52:00)
Yeah, it's the right way to do it. Absolutely the right way to do it. Intentional or not, you ended up there. Your intuition worked.

Marie Berry (52:04)
Yeah,

yeah, exactly. Awesome.

Adam Callinan (52:08)
Well,

this has been super fun. Thanks so much for coming. I really appreciate it.

Marie Berry (52:14)
Yeah, thank you. I feel like we could do this more. And now I feel like I want to meet your wife and your kids since there's a lot of there's a lot of parallels. Yeah.

Adam Callinan (52:20)
Yeah, yeah. If you ever end up in Montana or in Miami, I'll let you know. Yeah, it would actually be super

fun to do this again as things are moving to kind of get the before and after. That'd be awesome. Cool. Well, thanks again.

Marie Berry (52:33)
Yeah, for sure. Perfect. Thank you so much. Okay.