The Brand
Headstrong is a sports nutrition brand built for the brain. It was founded by Evan, a former Florida Panthers draftee whose hockey career was shaped as much by concussions and mental fatigue as by the game itself, and Dr. Darren Burke, a PhD sport scientist with a history of building supplement formulations.
The supplement shelf is crowded with products built for the body and has almost nothing built for the thing that decides outcomes under pressure. Protein and creatine are table stakes. Cognitive performance is the open space.
Headstrong occupies it with a three-SKU system. Headstrong Daily is a creatine formula with brain support. Encharge is a stimulant-free nootropic. Sleeptite is an overnight recovery formula. All three are NSF Certified for Sport.
The Situation
Headstrong was pre-launch on everything that mattered. The company was moving off a single white-label test product onto three owned, NSF-certified SKUs. This change meant the storefront, the subscription and bundle architecture, the tracking foundation, the creative library, and the landing pages all had to be built before anything could go live. Launch was locked to a date.
The category was the first obstacle. Nobody is searching for brain-first sports nutrition. The go-to-market had to establish the idea before it could sell against it. That put creative on the critical path ahead of media mechanics.
Compliance was the second. Supplements sit in the tightest regulatory space in DTC. FTC substantiation standards and Meta’s health policy land directly on the language that makes supplement creative convert. Volume and claims discipline both had to hold from day one.
The Solution
SocialQ ran the store, the creative, the media, and the retention layer in parallel against a single launch date.
Foundation
Funnel architecture across TOF, MOF, and BOF. Meta and TikTok stood up with pixel and CAPI tracking validated. Reporting was live before spend so day-one dollars could be measured against real purchases. Audience architecture and a creative testing roadmap defined ahead of launch rather than assembled after it.
Commerce
PDP copy and imagery direction across all three SKUs. Subscription and bundle configuration through Shopify. Bundle SKU mapping resolved directly with the 3PL after it was identified that bundle line items would not pass through to fulfillment. This closed a launch blocker before it reached a customer.
An Amazon storefront was also built so the brand was present where a meaningful share of supplement discovery already happens. This gave Headstrong a second point of purchase from day one without splitting media attention. Four audience-specific landing pages followed (parents, athletes, brain fog, mental fatigue). Each landing page carried its own proposition so the program could test messages rather than ad variants.
Creative
One production shoot was briefed and directed to generate founder, athlete, UGC, and product assets in a single pass. This seeded the full testing library. The production fed a ten-concept video suite with hook banks and editing principles handed to the production partner. The production also included a static program built around the 21-athlete Team Headstrong roster.
Claims guardrails were written into every brief. These guardrails included no fabricated endorsements. These guardrails also included no unsubstantiated superiority claims. These guardrails also included no treatment language. Getting this right protected the ad account and the brand’s ability to keep running its best creative.
Retention
A full lifecycle audit and rebuild was done across welcome, browse abandonment, cart abandonment, and post-purchase. Seventeen messages were rewritten. Discount code architecture was split by flow. Suppression logic was corrected so re-entering subscribers actually receive mail.
Point of Resonance
You train your body. Who’s training your brain?
Summary Metrics
A FULL-STACK GO-TO-MARKET BUILD TOOK HEADSTRONG FROM A NEW PRODUCT LINEUP TO A LIVE BRAND WITH A FUNCTIONING ACQUISITION AND RETENTION ENGINE BEHIND IT:
- 3 SKUs launched
- 4 audience specific LPs
- 17 lifecycle messages rebuilt
- 100+ ad units ready for testing
Client and Go To Market
Client
Headstrong
Supplements made for brain health and performance.
Go To Market
Full Funnel
Pre-Launch Build + Ongoing Growth Program
Services
- Go-To-Market Strategy
- Brand Launch Planning
- Creative Strategy & Development
- Content Production Direction
- Paid Media Strategy & Management
- Landing Page Strategy & Testing
- Conversion Rate Optimization
- Lifecycle Marketing
- Ecommerce & Subscription Architecture
- Amazon Storefront Build
- Measurement Strategy
- Tagging Foundation & Data Analysis
More work we’re proud of.
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