Bloom Nutrition founder Mari Llewellyn
In the fast-paced and competitive world of health and fitness, it takes more to build a successful brand than just a passion for wellness.
Mari Llewellyn, the founder of Bloom Nutrition, knows this all too well. Her journey to the top wasn’t easy, but she persevered and created a thriving business that inspires people to live healthier and happier lives.
Watching her on Instagram, it’s hard to imagine she wasn’t always the epitome of health.
But at one point in her life, Llewellyn weighed 250 pounds. She was also diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a mental health disorder characterized by unstable moods, behavior and relationships.
She remembers a lot of self-loathing and how she could hardly stand looking at herself in the mirror. Her low self-esteem led her down a path of unhealthy habits that left her feeling utterly drained.
Llewellyn reached a turning point when she decided to take control of her life and embarked on a journey of self-discovery. She became passionate about fitness and nutrition and started sharing her knowledge with others.
She posted a body transformation video on Instagram, which led to hundreds of DMs asking about her workout plan.
So she went to Kinkos and made a PDF guide to her workouts and sold them on Instagram for $5.
Llewellyn said, “We’ve sold tons of PDF training guides. We’ve sold thousands of guides.”
She knew she had found her calling and wanted to build a larger company around it.
So she and her husband Greg took all the money they made from the PDF guides and invested it in exercise tapes.
Once they chose a prototype, they had 1,000 bands sent to her father’s house. They crouched down and hand-wrote the shipping labels, and all 1,000 of them themselves.
They relied solely on Mari’s Instagram to promote the product. It was an instant hit and turned out to be an incredible business.
But a trip to a local GNC taught her that they might be able to build an even bigger company.
She went there to buy some pre-workout powder and noticed that all the supplements and marketing in the store was aimed at men.
Think lots of red and yellow and pictures of things exploding. That didn’t resonate with her at all.
She wanted to build a product that appealed to people like her and her community. Then Bloom Nutrition was born.
Llewellyn focused on a few key products that she knew would be effective, rather than creating a wide variety of options.
She said: “Having a wider variety of products can be confusing for the customer. By specializing in one thing, companies can make it even better and keep improving. I think simplicity is scalable. And when you focus on a product that you want to do very well, that is the key to success.”
And Bloom Nutrition’s success has exceeded Llewellyn’s wildest expectations. Last week it was announced that Bloom Nutrition products are now available in Wal-Mart stores across the country.
Her journey to success was anything but easy, but her dedication to health and wellness kept her going. Her story testifies to the power of passion and perseverance.
Llewellyn said, “The most successful companies and the most successful people are people who are really, really passionate about what they do.”
Jane Prior, Chief Marketing Officer at The Vita Coco Company, said, “Mari’s authentic approach to building meaningful relationships has created a supportive, uplifting community that inspires people to take charge of their well-being in an accessible way.”
Llewellyn is proof that with passion, perseverance and a little bit of hard work anything is possible.