’I’m obsessed with building companies’: Why Uri Minkoff is focused on growing a brand he and his father launched in the ’90s

Uri Minkoff knows a thing or two about getting a brand off the ground. Beginning in 2005, he and his sister built the luxury brand Rebecca Minkoff, ultimately selling a majority stake two years ago. During those early years, he also launched his own technology company, Fortis Software, that he led for about a decade until he went back to focusing on his joint venture with his sister.

And, it turns out, Minkoff and his father co-founded a business in the late '90s that Minkoff is only now beginning to really focus on.

BodyHealth is a nutrition and supplement company that's been around since 1997. It sprung out of Minkoff's father's physician clinic, which Minkoff also helped get off the ground. The clinic is called LifeWorks -- "And we built what has now become the largest or second largest integrated medical clinic in the country," Minkoff said.

Through LifeWorks, Minkoff and his father saw demand for supplements and medications aimed specifically at top-tier athletes. "One of the things that we found early on is, clinically, what the doctors found was that protein was a big issue -- and, particularly, protein digestibility [and] absorbability." That is, many people were trying to take a protein supplement, but their bodies weren't actually absorbing it.

Over the years, BodyWorks launched more products but focused more on the medical retail track. Over 20 years, its distribution ballooned to over 2,000 physician offices, even with Minkoff not actively leading it or focusing on its growth. But now he's set his sites on growing BodyHealth even more -- focused specifically on direct-to-consumer.

Minkoff had the realization a few years ago that "there's no reason that we shouldn't tell the story and expand this," he said on the Modern Retail Podcast. "Let's do repackaging that's appropriate for consumers, that's not just going to be on physician shelves."

So far, it's working. BodyHealth will be in 1,000 store shelves by the end of the year. In August, it debuted on Erewhon shelves -- something Minkoff is very proud of.

What has helped BodyHealth grow, said Minkoff, especially over the last year is its direct connection with customers. The brand has a vibrant Facebook page of over 30,000 members where its most obsessed customers share ideas, feedback and recipes. "Our email list is growing wildly, because of the content that we put out there," Minkoff said.

It also helps that Minkoff has some business successes in his back pocket to inform of his how to build BodyHealth. "I'm obsessed with building companies," he said. "I'm obsessed with creating products that are for end consumers. And I've kind of been that way my whole life."