Photo: Jeremy Glickman via Instagram
Illinois Wesleyan alum and co-founder of Lifestacks Supplements Jeremy Glickman launched Tempo coffee creamer to Amazon on March 21. Tempo is a Keto coffee creamer. “Keto” refers to the Ketogenic diet a high-fat, adequate-protein and low-carbohydrate diet that forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates.
Glickman won the IWU Entrepreneurship Fellowship first prize of $5,000 back in the Spring of 2020 to put towards his business ventures, which for him remains one of his proudest moments so far. Glickman said he used to see signs on campus for the fellowship as a freshman and thought it was cool that a student could win money from IWU to make a product like this.
“I always wanted to do it but never got around to it until my second-semester senior year. I won the contest right before we were sent home from COVID so it’s like my final memory from IWU. It was exhilarating and to have some good news during that time was helpful,” Glickman said.
In the Summer of 2019, Glickman was doing a financial advising internship when he ran into old high school friends who were working on a line of supplements. They ultimately decided that no one wants to take more pills than they already do so they started collaborating on new ideas. This turned into the idea for a coffee creamer that would have function rather than just flavor.
“We wanted to make a product that would be more exciting, more consumable and a product that people would enjoy getting to use. with the extra benefit of being functional,” Glickman said.
Glickman said his goal was to always be an entrepreneur in some way. In high school, he did a program called catapult for young entrepreneurs hosted at the University of Chicago School of Business.
“That was a gateway into the process of learning about entrepreneurship and starting a business. That’s also where I met a lot of connections including my current business partner, except this was for something completely different, but it was our first glance at seeing what entrepreneurship could lead to,” Glickman said.
Glickman and his main business partner were both runners and college students–which he said comes with extremely busy and stressful schedules– when they made the product, so an extra boost of energy was extremely valuable. They both wanted to make something that as consumers they would use if they found something like it out in the marketplace as most coffee products are not very functional and don’t necessarily enhance your diet.
Glickman and his team had worked over the last year trying to perfect the product and just recently finished the manufacturing process. The creamer, however, was expected to launch sooner than it did due to impacts from the pandemic. Glickman said their team experienced supply chain issues as some of the ingredients were harder to source, but were able to develop a partnership with Amazon.
“We’ve had quite a few setbacks, but the main benefit of Amazon is that you don’t have to be in-person, you can order it from anywhere and you don’t have to have contact with anyone so that’s a benefit for us right now,” Glickman said.
Glickman and his team wanted to use the best possible distributor for their product where it could get in front of the most possible consumers which the best they think to do this right now is through Amazon. Currently, they’re trying to capture the audience for Keto coffee creamers. When their coffee creamer initially launched it was on page eight of Amazon, but was on page one just three days ago.
“It’s very challenging to try to make sales without having any reviews yet. When you launch a new product it gets buried behind other products with thousands of reviews and has been selling for years. We have our work cut out for us, but we’re making some great progress and it’s even better than we expected for how it’s looking,” Glickman said.
Glickman and his business partners were the first people to sample the product by using it daily and then had family members and friends try it, but now they’re expanding to anyone who is looking for healthy coffee creamer. Glickman said that everyone who has tried the product so far has had nothing but great things to say about it.
“We’ve been getting positive reception which is extremely encouraging. A lot of people have said it brightens their day or makes it easier to prolong their focus at work and overcome the afternoon slump which is great to hear,” Glickman said.
Glickman’s business partner told him that while staying at an Airbnb he had the host try it and said it made her day much better so she brought it to her coworkers try and now they’re all “obsessed” with it, taking pictures with it and ordering it.
“It’s been really fun and exciting to see how it’s affecting people and what the initial reactions have been,” Glickman said.
Glickman also said that his time at Illinois Wesleyan prepared him for the work he’s doing now especially through networking. Glickman was an economics and finance double major at IWU and developed strong relationships with those professors by meeting and communicating with them consistently outside of class. Glickman has continued to maintain these relationships throughout his journey which he said is the most valuable part.
“This week when we launched the very first thing I did was email those professors which it’s pretty cool that almost a year later they are still interested in following this whole journey as well as the judges from the contest and seeing what’s going on. Wesleyan was very helpful and a great place to be before starting this,” Glickman said.
Glickman said he ultimately wants to help run Lifestacks full-time and after the company can formulate a good cash flow from the coffee creamer they want to be in a position where they can create new products in the future.
“Our vision is to have a line of functional products that most people would consume every day but make them more functional by infusing them with nootropic formulas which are cognitive enhancing ingredients that can turn normal food items or drinks into consumable products that can make some aspect of your day better,” Glickman said.
Those who are interested in following more of Glickman’s journey can find him on Linkedin or Instagram @ jglickman.