Keys Brand Founders Announce Formation of Applied Alchemy, Inc.

Natural Products Company to Offer Market Entry Services to Startups and Mega-Brands

From Snake Oil to Quantum Dots

Snapshot:

There are some knowns in the universe. There is much more unknown. Solving the problems of companies wanting to succeed is a combination of ‘First Principes’ thinking and ‘Skip Generation’ philosophies that drive and distinguish the followers from the innovators. Staying underground, achieving results and then breaking away from the pack is the key to an enlightened company made up of enlightened people. Vaporware is just that.

Doing it the way it has always been done is beyond annoying. It is a waste of everyone’s time. Worse, it builds a just average company with just ordinary people. Averaging down instead of jumping ahead.

Applied Alchemy is a company that combines the right talent at the right time to teach people how to jump forward quickly. Whether something needs to be invented, assembled or deconstructed, they applied first principles thinking to all projects.

In the past, the Applied Alchemy team has figured out how to use infrasonic sounds waves to homogenize all-natural skincare products to keep oxygen from tainting and reducing shelf life. They have developed airless pump technology for the same skincare products to prevent spoilage, and so they did not have to use chemical preservatives. Working in cooperation with a US National Lab, they developed quantum dot technology to make troops invisible to night vision and may also revolutionize sunscreens. Compacting rocket fuel through super-cooling and ultrasound compaction for more power was hard, but not impossible.

Along the way, they help destroy and rid mediocrity.

Clients have/include:

Pfizer
Johnson & Johnson
Qalucomm
Apple
Department of Defence
Comcast

Press Release:

For Immediate Release – Cheyenne Wyoming.   Keys Natural Skin Care brand founders announced today the formation of a new company designed to offer natural products market entry services to startup and mega-brands wanting to enter the natural personal care industry. The company will also offer custom designed functional ingredients to other companies.

Bob Root and Wendy Steele announced today Applied Alchemy, Inc. to provide every imaginable service to companies wanting to enter the natural personal care market. These services include everything from concept, ideas and formulations to industrial design, manufacturing and fulfillment for any size company wanting a presence in the rapid growth natural products market. The company will also offer proprietary functional ingredients designed by the company and through its research grant process.

Applied Alchemy will marshal the talents and energy of many vendors, scientists and entrepreneurs to provide any and all services needed to enter the natural personal care market. Root, a former Silicon Valley High Tech CEO and Steele, a former Coca-Cola Vice President have assembled talented and dedicated scientists, engineers, designers, marketers, manufacturers and back-country formulators to leverage their talents to help both startup entrepreneurs and large corporations enter the natural market swiftly and efficiently.

We know talent when we see it!

Wendy Steele offered, “We can provide any or all of the necessary talent to help both large and small companies to enter the natural market swiftly and efficiently with minimal cost and maximum impact.” Root offered that, “The myriad of disparate consultants and so called experts often slow and even discourage the process of getting to market. Our business is about swift and efficient entry where we work with company founders or top executives to fast track market entry and maximum market share.”

Applied Alchemy Inc., are not consultants. They are guides into what is often uncharted territory for large well-known brands who often assign these projects to managers that have never experienced product development or market entry. Root, former High Tech Silicone Valley CEO and author of the book, Chemical-Free Skin Health adds, “We have spent the last 10 years building a natural brand and have experienced all the bumps in the road from consultants who have no clue to vendors whose agendas never had our best interest at heart.” He added, “Great companies are always born from a need. Great brands require experienced dedicated experts that have, ‘been there’ to get there.” “We know all the good guys and even more important, we know all the bad guys in industries.”

Back Country Medicine

Applied Alchemy Inc., was incorporated in 2013 and began quietly working to develop entire new ingredients, products and processes to help companies and entrepreneurs. It has set the charter for a foundation and research grant process that will seek functional elements and structures. The foundation, which is now named, “Back Country Medicine Research,” was conceived to be started at the University of Wyoming, Wyoming Technology Incubator to fund student and professor research grants that would develop new ingredients and new products. The grant winners who successfully develop new ideas into reality will also participate by receiving royalties from Applied Alchemy, Inc. for their ideas and functional ingredient or finished products.

Knowing who are the good guys and who are the disingenuous is part of success.

Applied Alchemy has been percolating for the last couple of years as the team has planned, thought and implemented relationships with top vendors that have been first vetted for their sincerity and integrity. Root added, “One would suspect that the first step in building a truly natural product are the highest quality ingredients. It actually begins with the integrity of the partners that will help to build and develop these products. Sincerity without compromise is second. Big or small brands must develop their natural products for a reason. It is not just about a green cap on a white bottle with a daisy on the label that makes a true natural product. It must be what it does for the consumer that will build the brand. Just saying you have a natural product no longer works in a market where ‘word of mouth’ reigns supreme.” Root is in the draft stages of a new book titled, “Outrunning the Devil.” that details his experiences as an entrant into the natural products market 12 years ago.

Experience is the Key!

Wendy Steele suggests, “Bob often comes across as a very friendly agreeable sort of guy that tends to disarm bad guys and strengthens relationships with sincere people. After 25 years in high tech startups in Silicon Valley, he recognizes the good from the disingenuous. He knows how to get products to market employing the insanely great to get there quickly and efficiently. This skill is not lost entering the natural personal care market for entrepreneurs or large corporations. My own experience at Coke, taught me that our brand was built on its history and integrity. Coke started as a natural elixir and grew to be one of the biggest well know brands in the world because of the company beliefs and dedication to their customers. Their foray into the natural market over the last 20 years has been artful and effective.” Applied Alchemy offers both artfulness and effectivity to people with integrity wanting to enter this market.

Big brands often need us more than startups!

Wendy Steele offered, “I think what shocked me the most was that we realized at the early stages of Applied Alchemy that the big companies were the first to respond to our idea. It seems that many big brands chartered intrapreneurial managers to launch their green brands. I liken this to the adage, ‘doing things the same way and expecting different results.” Bob was involved in the early days of the Apple Macintosh where an elite group was isolated from the Apple culture to develop a new revolutionary computer for mere mortals. Brands that we have already talked to had limited success entering the natural market because they used people and tactics honed in their conventional chemical based products. Sometimes tweaking a tactic, process or method of getting to the market makes the difference. Consumers smell truth and big companies often have to start at the back of the pack to be believable. Then when they gain credibility in this new market, they can use their horsepower to rocket to the front.   Saying you are natural means nothing. Proving it and gaining the confidence of consumers lets a brand break into clear air letting them show their stuff. We learned this at Pfizer many years ago helping to launch new brands for them.”

CEO’s Must Be Involved…It is too tough a market to delegate!

More often, the manager that starts to work with Applied Alchemy is the CEO!   More and more we are seeing chief executives engage in new ventures. Often it is because they want something to do besides tending to the management of the business. More often we see that they recognize that a startup in the natural personal care market needs focused attention, speedy decisions and no second-guessing. The CEO knows that the personal care sector is one of the toughest markets and to keep on top of the business, it takes a fast hand with 100% energy focused on success

We do everything from turn-key to mentoring

Applied Alchemy is very unique. It will act as a mentoring investor for startups, to advising mega-brands to a complete brand development and market entry brand. Often, services that can break the back of startups that deplete their cash are taken back in royalties as the brand succeeds. This innovative thinking also permits startup entrepreneurs to focus their skill on making their product succeed and not worrying about developing skill that they do not have that defocus their attention away from building their business. Root added, “The first thing that we let entrepreneurs and intrapreneurial managers know is that ‘we have their back’. Our experience and skillsets allow these people to use their own talents to oversee a brand. If we turn-key an entire brand or mentor the process, our experiences, good and bad, help provide extreme shortcuts to market success.” Steele added, “These brand managers, by default, must maintain the integrity of their brand as well as understanding their customer. They need to spend 100% focused on success and not worry about if an ingredient is late or the line cannot affix a recycled material label to a corn based plastic bottle.”