[00:00:04] Welcome to Think Oral, where we connect and connected between oral and physical health. I'm your host, Dr. Jonathan Levine. And I'm your host, Maria Filipova. Let's get at it.

[00:00:22] Hello, everyone, for another exciting edition of the Think Oral Health podcast from Health in Vegas. As usual, I am joined by Dr. Jonathan Levine, the co-host of this exciting podcast. Hello, Jonathan.

[00:00:36] Hello, Maria.

[00:00:37] We are so excited today because, first of all, we are buzzing with excitement from all the entrepreneurs, the insights, the serendipitous connections that we're making as we are experiencing this innovation vortex of this conference, HLTH.

[00:00:55] Isn't that the truth? Unbelievable energy in this place.

[00:00:58] It's been amazing. And so I'm hoping that we could channel some of that energy to our listeners today because we have one stellar entrepreneur who is joining us today who is truly disrupting what we believe is healthy in oral health and truly making oral health accessible and affordable and cool.

[00:01:17] How about that?

[00:01:18] So I'm pleased to be joined here today by Cody Levine.

[00:01:22] He is the co-founder and the head of brand for an enticing and exciting new brand called Twice.

[00:01:29] Hi, Cody. Welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:32] Hi, Maria. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:33] And hi, Doc.

[00:01:35] Hi.

[00:01:36] Good to see you.

[00:01:36] So for those of you paying close attention, you probably heard that my podcast co-host and our stellar guest today share a common last name.

[00:01:46] And so, Cody, please, let's start there.

[00:01:49] Could you tell me if the decision to go and become an entrepreneur was a family trait or is entrepreneurship hereditary?

[00:01:57] Yes. I would say it absolutely runs in the bloodline in the Levine family.

[00:02:03] Growing up, I remember being seven years old and I was packing product on the ping pong table in the basement.

[00:02:11] No better training than that.

[00:02:13] My brother and I were mom and dad's fulfillment center.

[00:02:16] That's right.

[00:02:17] And seeing their journey as entrepreneurs definitely lit a spark and a flame inside me.

[00:02:24] So fast forward over the years and our family is incredibly close and being in the dental industry and building products that make people healthier, it's woven in our fabric.

[00:02:36] We say we have dental DNA.

[00:02:38] Wow. Dental and entrepreneurial DNA, I would probably say.

[00:02:41] Yeah, that's for sure.

[00:02:42] Yes, we are a very close family.

[00:02:45] And the boys, I guess they couldn't get away from being entrepreneurs as my wife and I started two oral care companies together back to back,

[00:02:53] one after the other when we sold our first one.

[00:02:55] And the boys went to the same school I went to, Cornell.

[00:02:59] They played lacrosse at Cornell, but they went the route of business where I was a science major.

[00:03:05] But then fast forward, Glow Good Foundation with Let Love Rule, the missions, and they both came up to me after the first mission, like the second day.

[00:03:15] And they said, Dad, we can't believe what your team does.

[00:03:17] You are changing people's lives.

[00:03:20] We want to start a company all about the power of the smile.

[00:03:23] Now, Julian was doing private equity for about seven years.

[00:03:26] Cody was doing digital marketing and strategy and branding.

[00:03:29] And I looked at him and I said, wow, you millennials are geniuses.

[00:03:34] You figured out how to go into the family business without those seven extra years of school.

[00:03:40] That's right.

[00:03:41] Very impressive.

[00:03:41] Impressive.

[00:03:42] And they've been working really hard at building brand here.

[00:03:45] Well, do tell us a little bit about the brand and tell us about Twice and why Twice is different.

[00:03:50] Yeah.

[00:03:51] Twice is an oral wellness company.

[00:03:52] And we have a holistic set of products, toothpaste, floss, mouthwash, and teeth whitening that empower people to take control of their oral health.

[00:04:01] As we know, and as you guys know intimately, the mouth is the gateway to the body and oral health is overall health.

[00:04:07] And so we got inspired to build these better for you alternatives.

[00:04:11] Growing up, even as the son of a dentist, I didn't really know what products to use and why.

[00:04:17] That's right.

[00:04:17] And I didn't know what was in them and why the ingredients were in there.

[00:04:20] So we've always been product obsessive and we committed to building a clean, effective product set that helps with cavities, canker sores, teeth whitening, dry mouth, you name it.

[00:04:33] We use natural and effective ingredients that are tried and true in a new kind of holistic approach to oral health.

[00:04:41] This is about creating a healthy oral microbiome.

[00:04:44] This is about raising pH.

[00:04:45] I've been inspired seeing my dad share knowledge that pH is a contributor of dental disease.

[00:04:53] If you have an acidic environment in the mouth, that's demineralization.

[00:04:57] So believe it or not, there are oral care products out there that are acidic with low pH.

[00:05:02] Wow.

[00:05:03] So a simple thing like raising pH through your products can significantly impact your oral and overall health.

[00:05:08] I love this.

[00:05:10] And could we maybe double click on this a little bit for all of our listeners out there who believe that they probably have a good oral hygiene, right?

[00:05:17] They're using the off-the-shelf products.

[00:05:19] They're like, I must be doing well or okay if I'm brushing my teeth at least once a day, hopefully twice a day.

[00:05:25] Could you just give us some quick and easy tips on when we are buying that toothbrush or the mouth rinse or the toothpaste?

[00:05:35] What are the things we should be looking for?

[00:05:37] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:05:38] It's a great question because there's so much choice on the shelf and it's overloading.

[00:05:42] And it's actually a red, white, and blue shelf.

[00:05:45] You walk in and it's Crest, it's Colgate, and it's Sensodyne.

[00:05:49] And when you're at the shelf, you've got to look at the ingredient labels like you would for food.

[00:05:54] You're looking for an ingredient called sodium lauryl sulfate, SLS, synthetic detergent that's in conventional products.

[00:06:01] It's a known irritant.

[00:06:02] It causes canker sores and it's unnecessary.

[00:06:04] So you're looking for an SLS-free toothpaste.

[00:06:07] When it comes to mouthwashes, alcohol is the number one public enemy, number one in my world.

[00:06:12] Wow.

[00:06:13] It is alcohol-based mouthwashes has a population hooked thinking that their mouth is getting fresher.

[00:06:20] That's right.

[00:06:20] When in fact, it's pulling saliva out.

[00:06:23] It's drying out your mouth and it's nuking your oral microbiome.

[00:06:26] It destroys the diversity.

[00:06:28] It destroys the balance.

[00:06:29] So you're looking for an alcohol-free rinse, which are hard to come by.

[00:06:33] You're looking to get rid of artificial dyes.

[00:06:35] There's no reason artificial dyes should be in anything you consume, whether that's a food product or an oral care product.

[00:06:41] And you're looking for super ingredients.

[00:06:43] It's not just about what's not in it.

[00:06:44] It's what's in it.

[00:06:45] And you're looking for something like baking soda, which is an alkaline pH ingredient to raise the oral pH.

[00:06:52] You're looking for an alternative to fluoride if you're looking for that called nanohydroxyapatite.

[00:06:56] We sell that product at Walmart.

[00:06:58] You're really, you're looking for added benefits that help create a healthy ecosystem in the mouth.

[00:07:05] I love that because we're dispersing myths, which is the tradition on the show, which is,

[00:07:09] it sounds like the one word I picked up on there is Walmart.

[00:07:12] And I picked up on this for two reasons.

[00:07:14] Number one, scale.

[00:07:16] So it's publicly and widely available.

[00:07:19] So products that are free of pathogens or things that make your oral health worse are widely available.

[00:07:26] And number two, it seems like the price point is accessible too.

[00:07:29] So the myth that healthy products, cool, well-branded products come at a premium needs to be dispersed as well.

[00:07:36] That's right.

[00:07:37] Look, Cody talked about choice on the shelf.

[00:07:39] But really these large oral care companies that have been around for decades and decades that have tremendous amount of market penetration, they do have a choice.

[00:07:51] And the truth of the matter is there is a lot of documented evidence on many, really all the things that Cody just described.

[00:07:59] Yeah.

[00:07:59] We want to make the world a healthier place.

[00:08:02] And with their marketing power and their advertising power and the dollars they put behind it, it's really time to get away from the traditional conversations and understand that between the science and the research that is now known about the microbiome of the mouth, how it impacts the rest of the body,

[00:08:21] and how these products can cause harm, you really got to move away from them.

[00:08:27] One of the biggest issues is the sulfates.

[00:08:30] People get about 12% of the populations get these mouth sores.

[00:08:34] There are people that have something called lichen planus, which is basically a, we call it a disquamative lesion.

[00:08:40] The epithelium comes off.

[00:08:41] What you're creating is a portal of entry into the human body.

[00:08:45] The mouth has 700 species of bacteria, 8 billion bugs, and the mouth can seed all over the body.

[00:08:52] When the mouth is inflamed, okay, 50% of the population has some form of gum disease, 50 to 70 actually.

[00:09:01] And over the age of 65, 70% has chronic inflammation for the older adults.

[00:09:08] Now think about that because these are the people that are developing systemic inflammatory diseases also, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, all these types of inflammatory diseases.

[00:09:17] So when you have this inflammation in the body, this is when we get into trouble.

[00:09:22] And you got to start with the right habits, looking at the ingredient lists of everything, the foods we eat, care products we put into our mouth, all of these things.

[00:09:33] Skin care products, everything.

[00:09:35] Exactly. We got to be diligent and really get educated about the truth of all the things that can make us healthier and really allow us to think of our journeys more of a wellness.

[00:09:50] Let's not wait till we get sick. Let's go back 20 years, 30 years.

[00:09:54] Let's get good habits into our 20s and 30s.

[00:09:57] So to prevent a lot of these issues as we go.

[00:09:59] Yeah, both your comments are making me think about the empowered consumer.

[00:10:04] Yes.

[00:10:05] All these large global billion dollar companies tend to forget the power of the educated consumer who now, because we have so much choice, if we're educated to make the right choice, a beautiful convergence of different disciplines happens.

[00:10:20] Because I am very mindful of my nutrition.

[00:10:23] But I have to say that I trusted the all these companies that if I'm buying toothpaste, I'm buying toothpaste.

[00:10:29] It's good for me.

[00:10:30] And so in that convergence space where we are applying lessons from health care, from consumerism, from nutrition into overall health.

[00:10:38] I think that's really powerful and it unlocks a whole new opportunity.

[00:10:42] Absolutely right.

[00:10:43] Let's switch gears for a second, though, if we could, Maria.

[00:10:47] And let's talk about entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial spirit, what you started with.

[00:10:52] Cody, you and your brother started this company.

[00:10:55] You both left your jobs.

[00:10:57] You took the risk.

[00:10:59] You probably knew there was going to be a lot of pain and agony doing something like this.

[00:11:04] Tell us a little bit about that whole journey and some of the big learnings you might want to be able to share with the listeners of that entrepreneurial journey.

[00:11:11] Yeah.

[00:11:12] And maybe before I talk on the kind of business adventure side, what we found and what has worked is tapping into and building trust with our customers.

[00:11:25] Yes.

[00:11:26] And just one note on kind of most folks don't know that canker sores can come from products in your oral care products, like an ingredient called sulfates.

[00:11:36] And when you get educated on it and when you reach out to the world and the power of the internet is incredible, where you find people dealing with the same things you're dealing with.

[00:11:44] That's when it really struck us.

[00:11:46] And maybe it ties to the entrepreneurial journey of telling our personal story.

[00:11:50] I used to get canker sores.

[00:11:52] I didn't know why.

[00:11:53] Wow.

[00:11:54] I used to use Sensodyne.

[00:11:55] I stopped using Sensodyne.

[00:11:57] We made a sulfate-free toothpaste.

[00:11:59] My canker sores went away.

[00:12:00] Wow.

[00:12:06] Of people, millions of views later, people saying the same thing.

[00:12:10] Yeah.

[00:12:10] Oh, wow.

[00:12:11] I didn't know that that's how I got them.

[00:12:13] I bought your toothpaste.

[00:12:14] I've been using it for six months.

[00:12:16] I haven't had a canker sores since.

[00:12:18] So the power of trust.

[00:12:18] This is very powerful.

[00:12:19] So just to our listeners, we have a lot of clinicians and academics who have been our guests and who are listeners based.

[00:12:25] What you're describing is not a TikTok-empowered millennial.

[00:12:30] It's decentralized, crowdsourced clinical trials.

[00:12:35] Because it's craving answers.

[00:12:38] That's right.

[00:12:38] It's craving answers.

[00:12:40] So I think part of our journey was tapping into that and leaning into personal journey.

[00:12:47] And that process as an entrepreneur going into an unknown territory, building a new product against, it's literally David versus Goliath.

[00:12:58] Like, we are up against the megacorporations that run our entire society.

[00:13:05] We're one of the only privately owned family-run businesses on the Walmart shelf.

[00:13:11] Wow.

[00:13:11] We're surrounded by megacorporations, which is incredibly exciting and also incredibly daunting.

[00:13:17] Yeah.

[00:13:18] And so that journey of getting started and taking the risk and saying, you know what?

[00:13:23] I believe in this.

[00:13:24] This needs to be told.

[00:13:26] We need better solutions.

[00:13:28] And here's why.

[00:13:29] And we stand by this.

[00:13:31] That type of purpose and passion is what every entrepreneur needs to hold on to.

[00:13:35] Because there's moments when you feel despair.

[00:13:38] You feel lack.

[00:13:39] You feel fear.

[00:13:41] You say to yourself, what the fuck am I doing?

[00:13:44] Excuse my French.

[00:13:45] What are we thinking?

[00:13:46] Is this going to work?

[00:13:47] Are people going to like it?

[00:13:49] Is this going to help people?

[00:13:50] And those little moments of someone saying, hey, my son's autistic and this is the only toothpaste that they've found that they can actually use without feeling sick or nauseous.

[00:14:02] Like, thank you so much.

[00:14:04] You changed our life.

[00:14:05] Those are the moments in entrepreneurship you're like, holy shit.

[00:14:09] Yeah.

[00:14:09] Like, we got to keep going.

[00:14:11] Yeah.

[00:14:12] And just to connect the dots, once a product is approved to be marketed through the FDA, the only way you can hear about some of these stories is post-market surveillance.

[00:14:21] That doesn't always happen, right?

[00:14:23] You have to have the TikTok experience, the community of people to hear those individual personal stories.

[00:14:28] So thank you for sharing that.

[00:14:30] And as a last question, an invitation.

[00:14:33] What is your invitation for, again, we are at health, currently highest concentration of decision makers, investors, innovators, open-minded in healthcare for the next 24 hours.

[00:14:47] What is your invitation to all those leaders that would help advance your cause and what you're doing?

[00:14:53] It's a great question.

[00:14:54] And it's so inspiring to be here.

[00:14:56] And I look at the medical and dental integration, and I look at all the innovation happening in the dental office, in discussions around metabolic panels and salivary diagnostics and all these ways to learn more about our patients' health and our people's health.

[00:15:14] And my invitation is to not forget what happens when they leave the room and they go home.

[00:15:21] They need to feel empowered.

[00:15:23] They need to feel like they're in control, and they need to feel like they're taken care of and in a space of continuing that health at home.

[00:15:31] And the products you use every single day, twice a day.

[00:15:35] You know, I love to hear you guys saying that patients go to the dentist more than they do the primary care physician.

[00:15:40] Well, they use my products every single day, twice a day.

[00:15:44] So you can impact people as far upstream as possible by setting them on a path to long-term health and longevity through their daily little actions.

[00:15:54] So my invitation is don't overlook it and dive deep into where they spend the most of their time at home and what are those products that can transform their life by shifting their routine.

[00:16:06] And as a—I'm going to amplify that message because it's really powerful.

[00:16:11] Specifically, I'll focus it to the investor community.

[00:16:14] Yesterday, we heard that only 2% of the health care investing goes to oral health startups.

[00:16:20] That number is even smaller when you consider direct-to-consumer oral health startups.

[00:16:25] So a lot of the innovation and the funding goes to B2B products targeting dental offices and professional products.

[00:16:33] So talk about an overlooked opportunity and underfunded innovation space.

[00:16:39] So join in.

[00:16:41] That's the invitation.

[00:16:42] And that's the invitation.

[00:16:43] And Maria, we are moving in a very positive direction.

[00:16:46] Because with these new venture capital companies and private equity going into the dental oral care industry in a very big way, we can follow that money.

[00:16:56] And that money is going to help support the innovation that's necessary to have a much better health care system, a more efficient and effective one, and healthier outcomes for people.

[00:17:07] That's right.

[00:17:08] Here's to it.

[00:17:09] And thank you again for joining us on this podcast.

[00:17:11] Thank you, Cody.

[00:17:12] And thank you, Dr. Levine, as usual.

[00:17:14] And thank you, Maria.

[00:17:15] And thank you, Cody.

[00:17:17] Levine is right.

[00:17:18] Thank you, Maria.

[00:17:19] Great to be here.

[00:17:20] All right.

[00:17:21] Nice.

[00:17:26] Thanks for listening to the Think Oral podcast.

[00:17:30] For the show notes and resources from today's podcast, visit us at www.outcomesrocket.health.com or start a conversation with us on social media.

[00:17:43] Until then, keep smiling.

[00:17:45] And connecting care.