Melissa Urban (Whole30) - How she founded Whole30 and created her own health & wellness content empire

Our guest today is Melissa Urban, Founder of Whole30. The Whole30 program eliminates cravings, improves physical energy and quality of sleep and has changed millions of people’s lives. It’s a pretty amazing story. We’re going to hear how Melissa changed her lifestyle completely, getting into nutrition and getting in shape. Why she started a blog and ran this 30 day diet experiment and that turned into what became Whole30. How she approaches partnerships with CPG brands that fit the Whole30 identity, and what led her to create her own products. Without further ado, here’s Melissa

1. When did you become interested in nutrition and fitness?
2. Why did you decide to blog?
3. What compelled you to write a book?t
4. How do you approach partnerships or relationships with brands?
5. Why did you decide on the name Whole30?
6. How did you think about the differences between the Whole30 diet and the Paleo diet?
7. What was the original intention of the brand?
8. Who is the target audience for Whole30?
9. Was there a clear path to success and a business plan or were you just kind of figuring it out?
10. When did you decide to start launching your own products? I.e. salad dressings?
11. How do you select the right partners to license products for?
12. Did you ever think about raising capital for Whole30?
13. There are lots of food fads out there. How do you think about longevity, sustainability with Whole30?
14. What do you think is misunderstood about nutrition?
15. Do you iterate what’s allowed and not allowed on Whole30?
16. Recently you came out and said that MSG for example is now ok on Whole30 when it wasn’t allowed on the diet before. How do you think and approach the evolution of Whole30?
17. Do you have any advice for other founders in your willingness to learn and evolve?
18. What do you see as the future of wellness or what makes you excited about?
19. What’s one book that inspired you personally and one book that inspired you professionally?
    1. The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter
    2. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight
20. What’s one piece of advice for founders?