Concept to Creation, Chapter 1: A year ago, this was just an idea.

A year ago, +Pouch did not exist. It was just me and Zac, two Exercise Science students at Rowan, talking through an idea that neither of us could put down.

We were not chasing a product. We were chasing a question. As exercise science students, we kept coming back to the same gap: the science of what the body needs is solid, but the way most supplements get delivered is clunky, slow, and built for a gym bag, not for real life. So in March 2025 we started researching one specific thing. Could an oral pouch actually deliver a supplement the way it was supposed to? Not just hold it, but deliver it. We read everything we could find. Papers, absorption studies, late nights going back and forth over what was real and what was marketing. For a while, that is all it was. Two students and a research question.

Then it stopped being academic.

It clicked because of my sister. She lives with POTS, which means her body runs through electrolytes and has to replenish them constantly. I watched her struggle with it. Good days, hard days, and a lot of moments most people never see. One of them is the one I keep coming back to. We were traveling with our family, and she had a flare up in the middle of the airport. No water station close enough. Nothing on hand that worked fast. I stood there with all this research in my head and could not do a single thing for the person right in front of me.

That is when the lightbulb went off. Electrolytes. The thing her body was constantly chasing was the exact thing Zac and I had been studying how to deliver. The research and the reason finally met in the same place, and it had my sister's face on it. This was not a class project anymore. It was a real problem, for real people, starting with someone I love. 

Right around then, I opened an email that changed everything. An email that Andrew Bunoza and Jessica Vattima had written about the New Venture Competition. I almost did not think much of it at first. Looking back, that email is the hinge the whole story turns on, because it gave the idea a place to go and a reason to get serious.

We signed up. And on the way to our very first seminar for the competition, Zac and I caught a ride to class with Ryan. It was a normal car ride. Nothing dramatic. We had no idea that the people in that car were the exact people who would still be building this a year later, all the way to going to market. You do not usually recognize the beginning when you are in it. That ride was one of those.

Ryan was assigned as our mentor for the competition, and he never really left. What started as a competition role turned into one of the people we trust most with this thing we are building.

So that is where it all started. A research question, a hard moment in an airport, an email, and a car ride with the right people. Over the next few weeks, we are going to walk you through the whole journey, one chapter at a time, the real version, including the parts that did not go to plan.

Follow along. This is just the beginning.

~ Braeden (CEO of +Pouch)

P.S. Fun Fact: Our original name for +Pouch was HydraPouch