| ● Level 4 · Wed, May 6 | 5 min read |
Level 4: Welcome Home
The latest and greatest from inside the community.
Consumer brands, wellness, human performance.
| From Bill Murphy | Vol. II · No. 4 |
willpowerhq.com is live
A new home for category-defining brands. We rebuilt the site from scratch, sharper positioning, the brand community front and center. Welcome in :)
From the Desk | 01/ 05 |
A quick word before we dig in.
There's a version of this community that's a list. A directory. A conference where you scan badges and forget who you met by Tuesday. That version is everywhere. We killed it. Willpower is something different, and this issue is us saying it out loud for the first time with a straight face. Category-defining isn't a revenue number. It's not a raise. It's a founder who looked at their market and broke the way it worked. Over JUST the last 6months... I've been blown away with the caliber of leaders and founders making a massive dent in the industry. Category defining baby. The brands that people actually talk about and want to win. IT FIRES ME UP!! The home is finally herewillpowerhq.com went live this week. Why ? Well... after going through a few designers for our wellness house landing page... I tinkered with Lovable and realized I could make MUCH more progress for something quick if I just did it myself lol (and spending more on credits than I care to admit). Welcome Claude Code to the chat. Spent a rainy Sunday in Austin locked away in the WillpowerHQ and was amazed how much I could get done in such a short time. Spoiler alert... The newsletter you're reading is part of that. New design, more curated, You should feel like you're getting one editorial point of view, and highlights of the killers that YOU know, locally, in the Willpower ecosystem. Some great highlights across: TIES, Yerba Madre, Huckberry, etc. Any big news that you want to share, feel free to email me if you want it included in the next batch. Will try to keep this weekly - but we want to be consistent in sharing what is happening with your favorite founders/leaders. What's coming May 20We are BACK in NYC. Two weeks from today we're at Remedy Place in NYC. Catalyst Series, Wellness Lounge format. Intimate room, single panel, real recovery and wellness experiences from the hottest venue in the big apple. Time to get slapped with Wellness... at the Wellness Lounge. Contrast, Redlight, IV Drips, Massages, Cryotherapy, Wellness Care Packages, etc. If you're a founder or operator at a brand the rest of the room would lean in to hear from, you're invited to apply (or forward to your friends). Doors close when they close, and we are reviewing applications. Flyer's below.
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In-person is the moat.
Three years of running Willpower has taught me one thing: digital reach/performance marketing is a commodity, the room isn't. The brands that win next aren't the ones with the loudest website or the best paid funnel. They're the ones whose founder is at the dinner, in the run club, on the panel, at the event, sending the deck before it's public.
The website is the front door. The room is the moat. May 20 in NYC is one room. Pick the rooms you'll be in this year.. and be intentional about it.
What's Happening | 02/ 05 |
Three signals from the wellness frontier.
Not every headline. The three I'd actually bring up at dinner.
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Community Spotlight | 03/ 05 |
The member brand I can't stop talking about.
 Member Brand ¬∑ Since 2024  TIES“Men contribute to 50% of every fertility journey, yet the category has been built almost entirely around women. TIES exists to change that, giving men a proactive, clinically backed option built to actually engage them in their own preconception health.
The take Luke has been a big supporter of Willpower and SHARP in the CPG space. Closed a $1.5M seed from HumanCo (Jason Karp on the board) and built the formulation with reproductive specialists. What I like about this: men contribute to half the fertility journey and nobody is talking to them. Luke is. Worth a look if fatherhood is on your radar, or if you're studying how a founder builds a wedge into a category nobody is serving. We had a Protein wave, now its a fiber/GLP-1 wave... are we on to the Fertility wave next ? Mental health & therapy was difficult to talk about 10-20 years ago. Now, post pandemic, we have normalized talking about our feelings to peers and de-stigmatized therapy. Is fertility health awareness the next mental health? |
From the Community | 04/ 05 |
From the community.
Things I actually use. The rest goes in the group chat.
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On the Calendar | 05/ 05 |
Where to be in the room next.
Two of ours and two worth your flight. Doors close when they close.
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Pick one room you've been declining and say yes.
If you're in NYC, May 20 at Remedy Place is one. If not, look at your calendar. The next 6 months: 3 dinners, 2 panels, 1 retreat. The brands you want to be in 18 months are the ones whose founders are in the rooms you keep skipping.
We're hiring our first operator.
We're looking for our first full-time operator. Someone who can run events, sell sponsorships, and build the team alongside Bill. If that's you, or if you know who that is, hit reply.
Apply on LinkedIn →That's the room for this week. See you in the next one.
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