Derek Halpern

Co-founder of Truvani. Also had a popular YouTube channel about business. All tweets are my own opinion.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

When I cofounded Truvani, I had zero experience in creating my own consumer packaged goods and selling them.

This inexperience turned into one of our biggest strengths.

Here’s why…

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@kaleighf I do that with face to face conversations too.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

So, I'm at the coffee shop, and my phone rings.

I say, "Hello, who is this?" And the lady to my left taps me on the shoulder, "Excuse me, could you please speak a little lower."

That was weird, I thought. I said 3 words. So I lowered my volume because I believe in being considerate at the coffee shop.

5 seconds later, this lady answers her phone. And proceeds to talk at the top of her lungs.

I can't even make this stuff up.

So, I look over to her, and she says, "Thanks again for lowering your voice." And she continues talking as loud as she can talk.

After 13 minutes of her yapping, she finally hangs up the phone, and she leans over:

"Thank you again for quieting down."

At this point, I thought, for sure, I am being pranked.
I fired back, "Do you realize how loud you were?" And she's like, "Oh, but I was covering my mouth!"

Apparently covering your mouth while you talk creates an impenetrable sound barrier.

I fire back, "i'm not trying to have a conversation with you. Just want you to know you're rude."

The lady eventually left, and someone else came up to me and laughed. "Thank you for saying that to them."

This happened a while back, but revisiting it today makes me just as annoyed as ever.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

For years, I taught marketing and people said, “how come you don’t launch a real business?”

Now that I have a “real business,” people say, “how come I don’t teach anymore?”

I can’t win.

And that's okay.

People will perpetually tell you to do the other thing you're not doing. They don't mean anything badly by it, it's just how we're wired.

We are wired to put many eggs in the basket.

We are wired to dip our toe into new things.

But you are almost always better off: putting your eggs in one basket, and watching that basket. I think that may have been a Carnegie quote, or at least falsely attributed to him if it wasn't.

Bottom line:

Do you.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@CoachDanGo I'm in Miami. I had one of those people check the air quality here and there was a lot of silica from construction in the area. Needless to say, made air purifiers a no brainer.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@denk_tweets As they say, you work 18 hours a day to brag about the ability to make money while you sleep. lol.

[Tyler Denk 🐝 @denk_tweets]

owning a business is saying “after this week things will calm down”

every week

for the rest of your life

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

8 years ago, my wife was pregnant. I shut down my education and consulting company… and cofounded Truvani.

In September 2018, when my first was born we were launching our third product. Our ad account got banned because we had hemp protein in our product and the algo kept mistaking it for marijuana.

Life loves to throw variables. You learn to love the chaos.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@ZubyMusic Launched a new electrolyte at Truvani and sold out of the first batch in days.

When you coming back to Miami?

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

I almost signed a multi-hundred thousand dollar contract with a data provider.

And they lost the deal over 15ish thousand dollars.

Here’s what happened:

I wanted to sign up for a data company. I knew what other people paid for the service. I was ready to sign the deal the day of. And I’d have never thought about it again.

Then they tried to charge me more because “their finance guy” wanted them to raise prices.

I was ready to sign, at a specific price, and I would have signed instantly.

They insisted on the price increase and I walked away. Weeks later they came back and offered the cheaper price, but by then, my excitement for the platform waned.

I opted to skip signing up for the data platform all together. Because in the end, I’d rather spend that money on advertising instead of data.

And by that point, I found a solution for my data needs at a fraction of the price. It’s not as good. And I’m sure their data would help me make better decisions… but the excitement wasn’t there anymore.

Let this be a lesson to everyone:

To entrepreneurs: don’t sign multi year contracts when you’re excited about something. Sit on it a week. If excitement fades maybe it’s not as important as you originally thought.

To sales people: your clients excitement is more important than your product. Sign the deal. Move on.

To saas companies: kick rocks. I hate almost all of you. lol.

Note I said almost all. Some are great. Truly. And keep their customers best interest at heart. But the others… new ick unlocked, as the kids say.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@JasonJh1319 What’s even crazier isn’t the work…

It’s the people who think they’re ready to do it with almost no experience in all 5 areas.

:-)

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@heyitsalexP Founders that are driven by joy & excellence, some may say, is in fact... a brand.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@codyplof I've always watched and appreciated what @damccormick13 is up to.

Funny story.

At a conference, after the show, I went to a blackjack table. A few people sat down at the same table and I ended up meeting a lot of the Create team.

Somehow they are nicer people in person.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

You can still do all those things right…

And still have people separate. With anger and resentment. Because the people who get angry are often times the ones who are not doing the right things.

When I had a software company, equity wasn’t 50/50. Eventually, when it was clear who was doing the work and the risk… we revisited it and I gave my partner more.

It just made sense. At the time.

We are still friends today.

I could have easily held on. I wasn’t contractually supposed to do anything. But decency is what matters and when people lack it… it doesn’t matter what the contract says or who’s taking the risk or who’s doing the work.

It’s like arguing with a brick wall at that point.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@JuliaPerezzz Hotel costes

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@mbertulli It’s because these clowns think punctuation is ai since their dusty ass writes like they never strung more then two sentences together in their life.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@jforjacob Looks like you’re selling quarterly subscriptions and auto booking retention for quarters in month 1 and 2 and 3.

Right?

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@GideonShalwick lol.

No.

I’m too seasoned for these young kids these days.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

So, someone told me I should make video again.

I mean, I had about 100k YouTube subscribers from talking about business and marketing.

10 years ago.

Clearly I knew something.

Not as much as many. But more than most.

The problem:

The content that interests me these days has nothing to do with the content that interested me back then.

I don’t care about your conversion rates. Or sales pages. Or your marketing.

What I care about:

I’m a dad of two kids. One is trying to be the best gymnast in the world. The other is 2 and thinks it’s hilarious to tell me he’s going to put things in his pocket.

Running a business is cool. It’s so much cooler when you can do it while being a present dad.

“Oh you mean like work life balance?”

No.

I don’t believe in that.

You work until your hands bleed.

And then you keep working.

But I go to every gymnastic meet.

And I’d watch every practice if they’d let me.

It’s about, as Jeff Bezos said, work life integration:

I may not be as successful as some of the most impressive people…

But I can say I’ve accomplished a lot.

Especially when you consider my dad was in jail my whole life.

And my mom was on welfare.

I don’t use this as some sort of attempt to gain pity.

Fuck that.

My story is my fuel.

It’s what makes me me.

It’s what makes me realize what I’m fighting for in the first place.

I’m not here to build a great business.

It’s happening.

But I’m here to build a great business that has a genuine impact on the world.

And I’m doing just that.

Here’s to the rest of 2026.

For me,

For you.

For all of us who are trying to make a difference in some meaningfully positive way.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

@sarah_carusona That’s data we don’t share, but with all new product launches; our focus is always giving existing customers a chance before really blowing up external marketing.

[Derek Halpern @derekhalpern]

So, Truvani launched electrolytes.

And we are about to completely sell out of our first batch just a few days after launch.

Surprising because we had the clown show on Twitter suggest we did something wrong.

Even more surprising because some people on other social platforms said, "we're so over hydration sticks."

But the peanut gallery isn't your customer. Your customer is your customer.

And I promise you this sell out wasn't intentional.

We knew it would be big. It was one of our most requested products in all of our customer survey data.

It turns out:

People are in fact, sick of Stevia. Or at least our customers are.

People are tired of "natural flavors."

People want great taste - with low or no sugar.

And people want real ingredients.

What happens next?

Well...

Luckily we always prepare for success, and have the supply chain ready to ramp up production.

Its just going to take about 2-3 weeks.

But in the mean time: Truvani just entered the electrolyt game and it's going to be BIG.

Very exciting.