1. What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?

Kai Woerner: As life gets faster and chronic health issues become more common, more and more people are looking to nature for answers. That’s exactly where Natura Nova comes in. We bring people closer to the forgotten knowledge of medicinal plants and their traditional uses — knowledge that has existed in Europe for centuries but has largely faded from everyday awareness.
Much of the modern supplement market has moved in a different direction: exotic ingredients, long supply chains, and complex formulations with additives that often serve production or shelf-life purposes more than the consumer. Meanwhile, well-documented European medicinal plants with centuries of traditional use remain underrepresented.
Europe has one of the richest herbal traditions in the world — plants that have been used for generations, studied extensively, and that thrive in our own climate and soil. Natura Nova is built around that foundation: close to home, clean formulations, no unnecessary fillers.
Every product we make is transparent by design. We explain what’s in it, why it’s in it, and where it comes from. Our formulations follow recipes that have been used for centuries — nothing that doesn’t belong there, just the ingredients that matter.
In a market that rewards hype, we choose proximity, tradition, and transparency instead.

2. Since launch, what have been the 1-2 real turning points for your brand-specific decisions, pivots, or experiments that noticeably changed your growth or profitability-and what did you learn from them?

Kai Woerner: Running a supplement brand taught me quickly that getting the fundamentals right matters more than any single campaign. Early on, the most impactful decision was investing time in clean data infrastructure — structured product information, technical SEO, properly configured feeds and tracking. It’s unglamorous work, but it determines whether everything else performs. Without that foundation, ad spend is guesswork.

The second turning point was learning how to communicate in a regulated space. Health products are inherently complex — people want to understand what they’re taking and why, but strict advertising rules limit what you can say and how. We learned to lead with education rather than claims: explaining the plant, its history, its traditional use. That shift changed how we approach content entirely, and it built more trust than any promotional message could.

A third thing worth mentioning — though it’s still unfolding — is the changing landscape of search and discovery. AI and large language models are reshaping how people find health information. That’s something we’re actively adapting to, because the brands that understand that shift early will have a real advantage.

3. Which 2-3 channels drive most of your revenue right now (for example SEO, paid social, email, marketplaces, influencers), and what have you learned about making those channels work in your category?

Kai Woerner: Our main channels right now are Google Shopping, organic search, and Instagram. Each works differently in the health and supplement space, and each has its own learning curve.
Google Shopping requires clean, well-structured product data. In a regulated category, feed quality and compliance matter as much as bidding strategy — you can’t just throw money at it. Organic search rewards depth: people researching herbs and supplements want real information, not thin product pages. That’s why we invest in educational content that explains the plant, the tradition, and the formulation logic.
Instagram has been valuable for building brand awareness and reaching people who are already interested in natural health. It’s a channel where authenticity matters more than production value — which suits a small, independent brand well.
What I’m watching closely is the rise of AI tools like ChatGPT as a discovery channel. A growing number of people now start their health research there rather than on Google. That changes what “being visible” means — it’s less about ranking for keywords and more about being cited as a credible, well-documented source. We’re adapting our content strategy accordingly.

4. How are you thinking about search in 2026 – Google, AI assistants like ChatGPT, and other discovery platforms? What, if anything, have you changed in your content or site to stay visible as AI search grows?

Kai Woerner: Search in 2026 is genuinely fragmented. Google remains important, but AI assistants like ChatGPT are becoming a real discovery layer — especially for health topics, where people ask conversational questions rather than typing keywords. That shift is structural, not a trend.
What it means practically is that the old playbook of optimizing for ranked positions is no longer enough. AI systems don’t return a list of links — they synthesize an answer and cite sources they consider credible and well-documented. To be part of that answer, your content needs to be substantive, accurate, and clearly structured. Thin pages and keyword stuffing won’t get you cited.
For us, that has reinforced decisions we were already making: investing in educational content that genuinely explains our products and the plants behind them, implementing structured data across the site so information is machine-readable, and building a credible presence beyond just our own domain — through backlinks, mentions, and third-party references.
The brands that will struggle are those that built their visibility purely on paid traffic and SEO tricks. The ones that invested in real content and real authority are better positioned — because that’s what AI systems reward too.

5. What do you do to turn first‑time buyers into repeat customers and advocates? Are there specific experiences, content, or community touches that work especially well for you?

Kai Woerner: The most underrated retention tool is simply not abandoning your customer after the sale. Most supplement brands do exactly that — the product arrives, and the customer is left to figure it out alone. When do I take it? With food or without? How long until I notice anything? Can I combine it with something else?
We answer all of that. Every customer gets clear guidance on how to use their product — timing, dosage, combinations, what to expect. That’s not a nice-to-have, it’s core to the experience. People can’t be enthusiastic about a product they don’t know how to use properly.
Beyond that, we’ve built a structured onboarding flow that accompanies customers through the first weeks — emails, guidance content, context about the plants and their traditional use. The goal is to make someone feel informed and supported, not just sold to.
And then there’s advocacy. We work with people from the health and wellness space who genuinely believe in what we’re doing — not just to reach their audience, but because an authentic recommendation from someone with real credibility is worth more than any ad. The idea is simple: if someone is truly enthusiastic about your products, let them be part of the brand.
In the end, repeat purchases follow from one thing: the product works, and the customer knew how to use it.

6. If you had to write a short playbook for an ecommerce founder one stage behind you, what would you double down on over the next 12 months – and what would you stop doing entirely?

Kai Woerner: Double down on foundations. It sounds obvious, but most early-stage founders — myself included — underestimate how much time gets wasted by launching before things are properly set up. Meta titles, product descriptions, tracking, feed structure: do it once, do it right. Revisiting these things repeatedly is one of the biggest time sinks in ecommerce, and it’s largely avoidable.
Take your ad campaigns seriously. Paid search and shopping campaigns have become genuinely complex. A wrong setting — a bidding strategy misaligned with your conversion data, a poorly structured feed, a campaign type that doesn’t fit your stage — can quietly drain budget for weeks before you notice. It’s worth investing real time to understand how these systems work, not just launching something and hoping it performs.
And start thinking about LLMs earlier than feels necessary. I came to that topic later than I should have. AI assistants are already a meaningful discovery channel for health and wellness products, and the content decisions you make today will determine whether you show up in those results tomorrow.
What I would stop: chasing too many channels at once, and launching fast at the cost of launching clean. A slower, more deliberate start pays off faster than it feels like it will.