Getting Back to Your Power, My Meeting with Rupert, Founder of Strong By Nature

There are some products you hear about, some you try, and occasionally there are products where meeting the person behind them makes you understand why they exist in the first place. That was very much my experience when I sat down with Rupert, the founder of Strong By Nature. I already knew the product well because I use it myself, and I use it regularly. But meeting Rupert and hearing the story behind Strong By Nature gave me a much greater appreciation for what he is actually trying to build.

At first glance, it is easy to think of Strong By Nature as simply another performance supplement. In reality, I think the ambition is much broader than that. It is about helping people access more of themselves when they need it, whether that is physically, mentally, professionally or, yes, sexually. The phrase that kept coming back to me after our conversation was quite simple: getting back to your power. Strong By Nature has relatively humble beginnings. The product was developed in Birmingham with the idea of creating something for busy, active people who wanted support with energy, vitality and performance without automatically reaching for another collection of tablets and capsules. What began as a relatively small British supplement business has been steadily developing into something much larger. The brand is growing its retail footprint, increasing the number of stockists carrying the product and building a much more visible presence around the UK.

There is something particularly interesting about meeting a founder at this stage of a company's journey. The business has moved beyond simply being an idea, because the product exists, people are buying it and retailers are stocking it, but you can still feel the founder's personality running through everything. You get that very quickly with Rupert. He genuinely believes in what he has created, and having used Strong By Nature myself, I can understand where that confidence comes from. One of the things I particularly like about the product is its simplicity.

We have become used to picking up bottles of supplements, turning them around and finding an ingredient list that seems to require a chemistry degree to understand. Strong By Nature goes in a very different direction. The formulation is built around five principal natural ingredients: organic honey, guarana, fleeceflower, maca root and suoyang. Honey provides the base, guarana is naturally rich in caffeine, and ingredients such as maca, fleeceflower and suoyang all have histories of use in traditional wellness practices. There is also something refreshingly straightforward about how you take it. There is no handful of pills to swallow. It comes in a sachet, you mix it into a drink and get on with your day. That seems particularly relevant at the moment because there is clearly a wider change taking place in how people think about supplements.

People are not necessarily turning away from supplements.

If anything, the market continues to grow. What seems to be changing is what people want those products to contain and how they want to consume them. There is increasing interest in cleaner labels, recognisable ingredients and formulations that feel less processed. There is also growing interest in alternatives to simply swallowing another tablet or capsule every morning. I understand that instinct completely. If I have the choice between taking something made from ingredients I recognise and consuming yet another collection of pills, I know which direction feels more appealing to me.

That does not mean that simply putting the word “natural” on something makes it magical. Supplements still need to be approached sensibly, and they are not replacements for sleep, exercise, proper nutrition or a healthy lifestyle. In many ways, I think that is part of Rupert's philosophy too. Strong By Nature is not there to replace looking after yourself. It is intended to complement the things you are already doing. What I also found interesting during our conversation was the definition of performance itself. Whenever we hear the words “performance supplement”, our minds tend to go immediately to sport or the gym. We think about training harder, running faster, lifting more or having enough energy for another session.

Strong By Nature certainly fits into that world, but performance is actually much broader.

Sometimes performance means walking into the gym and having enough energy to get something meaningful out of your workout. Sometimes it means sitting down in a meeting at half past three in the afternoon and still having the mental sharpness to make good decisions. It can mean concentration, energy, drive, confidence or simply having a little more left in the tank. If you run a business, manage people, travel frequently or spend your days making decisions, there is a performance element to almost everything you do. We ask an enormous amount of ourselves mentally as well as physically. And because this is Talking Kinky, there is another form of performance that we are probably less inclined than most publications to ignore. The bedroom.

This is also where I think it is important to be very clear about my own experience with Strong By Nature. I did not simply try a sachet because Rupert was coming in for a meeting. I have used the product for some time and it has become something I use regularly. I can only speak about my own experience, rather than making scientific or medical claims on behalf of anybody else, but for me the difference is noticeable. I feel more energised, I feel switched on, and I like the feeling of having a little more available when I need it. And yes, since Talking Kinky has never been particularly shy about these things, I have absolutely noticed a difference in the bedroom too.

That is my personal experience, but it is an important part of why I became interested in the product and the business in the first place.

I tried it, I liked it, and I kept using it.

There is probably no more straightforward endorsement than that. Interestingly, though, I think describing Strong By Nature purely as a sexual performance product would actually undersell what Rupert is trying to achieve. It is not really a bedroom product, and it is not simply a sports supplement either. I would describe it much more broadly as a performance product. The context changes depending on the person and the moment. You might want more from yourself on a padel court, during a gym session, while presenting to a room full of people or when trying to remain focused through a particularly demanding day.

And sometimes you might want more from yourself when the working day is finished and something rather more enjoyable is about to begin. The common denominator is simply you. That broader idea of performance is also part of what makes Strong By Nature such an interesting partner for Talking Kinky. At first glance, perhaps a supplement company and a podcast about kink do not immediately appear to be an obvious match. I actually think the connection is much stronger than it might initially seem. Talking Kinky has always been about curiosity, confidence, wellbeing, sexuality and people finding ways to explore more of who they are.

Strong By Nature is built around the idea of helping people feel capable of bringing more of themselves to whatever matters to them.

That might be sport. It might be work. It might be mental agility. It might be confidence. And, when the opportunity presents itself, it might most definitely be the bedroom. That feels like a very natural fit to us, and it is why we are delighted to have Strong By Nature supporting Season 13 of Talking Kinky. What also came through strongly during my meeting with Rupert was that he is nowhere near finished. The retail network is expanding, the brand is becoming more visible and the company is continuing to build relationships with stockists and commercial partners. There is a sense that Strong By Nature has reached that fascinating stage where it has proven that there is demand, but still has a huge amount of room to grow. I like businesses at that stage. There is energy around them.

You can still see the entrepreneurial DNA of the founder, but at the same time you can begin to imagine what the company might become if the growth continues. My suspicion is that Strong By Nature is still very close to the beginning of that journey. Perhaps the biggest thing I took away from my conversation with Rupert, though, was the simplicity of the ambition. Most of us ask a great deal of ourselves. There is work, family, fitness, relationships, travel, responsibility and everything else modern life throws at us. Somewhere amongst all of that, it becomes very easy to accept feeling tired, flat or slightly less capable than we remember ourselves being.

Rupert is trying to create something that sits alongside a healthy lifestyle and helps people feel that they still have something more to give. Natural ingredients, a simple delivery format and a product designed for people who expect a lot from themselves. Having met the man behind it, and having used the product myself for some time, I find that idea genuinely compelling. Get back to your energy, get back to your drive and get back to your performance.

Or perhaps, more simply, get back to your power. Length & Strength - Strong By Nature – Talking Kinky Shop

Tom
Talking Kinky

Strong By Nature is a sponsor of Season 13 of Talking Kinky. The comments above about my own experience of the product are exactly that, my personal experience. Food supplements should not be used as a substitute for a varied, balanced diet and healthy lifestyle.

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