What We Believe

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Our Story

We started this company because we couldn't find what we were looking for.

Not a brand. Not a business opportunity. A product. One that did what the research said it should do, was tested the way it should be tested, and cost what it should cost without the markups that come from celebrity endorsements, retail distribution, and marketing budgets bigger than the R&D.

We couldn't find it. So we made it.

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We take what we sell

This isn't a figure of speech. Our family takes OptimalAmino every day. Dan takes it. Katie takes it. Our kids take it. It goes in our bags, our travel kits, and our kitchen cabinet. It has for years — before we sold a single bottle to anyone else.

When you take your own product, you make different decisions. You don't cut corners on ingredients because your family is swallowing those ingredients. You don't skip a round of testing because your kids are taking those tablets. You don't add unnecessary fillers because you personally don't want to consume them.

Every decision we make passes a simple test: would we give this to our own family? If the answer is no, we don't ship it.

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We are the company

OptimalAmino is a family business. Not "family-style" — actual family. Founded by Dan and Katie, veteran-owned, operated from Virginia. When you email us, one of us answers. When you ask a question in our Facebook group, one of us replies. When we make a new flavor, the kids have strong opinions. When you get a shipping notification at 6am on Saturday morning, that's us up early packing your order. 

We don't have a board of directors. We don't have investors pushing us to cut costs. We don't have a marketing department separate from a product department, where one promises things the other can't deliver. The people who make the claims are the same people who verify the science, test the product, and give it to their family.

The principle we run this company on is the oldest and best one there is: do unto others as you would have them do unto you (Matthew 7:12). Make the product you'd want to buy. Provide the information you'd want to have. Charge the price you'd want to pay. Treat every customer the way you'd want to be treated. It's not a business strategy — it's how we were raised, and how we're trying to raise our children. The world is better that way.

That's not scalable, we've been told. Maybe not. But it's honest.

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We name our labs

When a supplement company says "third-party tested," ask them one question: by whom?

Most won't answer. We will.

NSF International. Eurofins. Certified Laboratories. Twin Arbor Analytical. UC Davis. Five independent labs — all named publicly. NSF Certified for Sport® on every product, every batch, no exceptions. Our labels are registered on the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database. Our NSF certification is searchable on their website.

We don't ask you to trust us. We ask you to verify us. There's a difference.

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We fund research, not influencers

We completed a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial at the University of Tampa Human Performance Laboratory. Thirty-six participants. Three groups. Taste-matched placebo. Dual statistical analysis. That's where our money goes.

We have never paid a celebrity to hold our bottle. We have never paid an influencer to post about our product. We have never hired an athlete to pretend they use something they were paid to endorse.

The supplement industry spends billions on marketing and almost nothing on evidence. We decided to do the opposite. Not because it's a better business strategy — it's actually a harder one. Because it's the only approach we'd respect if we were the customer.

And we are the customer.

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We don't add things that don't work

Our tablets contain essential amino acids and nothing else. Zero binders. Zero fillers. Zero coating. Zero dyes. Our unflavored powder is the same — amino acids and nothing more.

When the research gives us a reason to change the formula, we'll change it. Until then, we won't add ingredients just to have something new to put on the label. The clinically researched formula works. We're not going to mess with it to create a marketing story.

Innovation without evidence isn't innovation. It's marketing.

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We charge what it costs

We sell directly to you. No distributors. No retail markup. No inflated prices designed to make discount codes feel like deals. The price you see is the price — the same for everyone, every day.

We keep costs down by doing as much as we can ourselves and not paying for the things that don't improve the product: celebrity partnerships, retail shelf space, multi-level distribution. The money we save goes into testing instead and the lower costs are passed on to you.

The result is the most rigorously tested EAA supplement on the market at roughly half the price of the most heavily marketed one. That math works because we made a choice about where the money goes.

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We show our work

Every claim on our website is footnoted. Every study we reference is linked. Our Science Hub exists because we believe you shouldn't have to take our word for anything — you should be able to read the same research we read and come to your own conclusions.

We built a public comparison page that puts our product next to our biggest competitor, line by line, with sourced data. Not because we're trying to tear anyone down — but because if the facts favor our product, we should be willing to show those facts in the open.

If we ever make a claim we can't cite, call us on it.

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We remember where we started

OptimalAmino launched on Indiegogo. We didn't come from the supplement industry. We came from wanting something better for ourselves and not being able to find it.

Dan is a veteran. A portion of our work supports Spero Worldwide, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit evacuating and resettling at-risk Afghan allies — people Dan personally worked alongside for years in Afghanistan. Service isn't a brand value we adopted for marketing. It's how we got here.

We've been the small company trying to do the right thing since day one. We've grown, but the kitchen table is the same. The family is the same. The standards are the same.

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What this adds up to

We believe a supplement company should take its own product. Should name its labs. Should fund real research. Should charge fairly. Should cite its sources. Should tell you the truth even when a shinier version of the truth would sell more bottles.

We believe you deserve to know exactly what you're putting in your body, who tested it, what the research says, and what it actually costs — without doing a math problem to figure out the real serving size.

We believe the way to earn your trust is to be the kind of company that doesn't need to ask for it.

That's OptimalAmino. That's our family. That's the product in our cabinet and yours.

— Dan & Katie