Founder's Story
Solving Stomach Issues and Sleep: How a P&G Beauty Boss and a Gastroenterologist Built YayDay | Ep 211 with Colin Walsh & Dr. Roshini Raj Founders of YayDay
Fri, 2 May 2025
Colin Walsh CEO & Co‑Founder of YayDay; CEO of P&G Specialty Beauty and Dr. Roshini Raj board‑certified gastroenterologist, Gut Renovation author, co‑founder of Tula & YayDay share how beauty meets biotech in a gut‑first wellness brand. They reveal why fiber + magnesium is only the start, and how gut health underpins sleep, mood, immunity—and even skin health.Key Discussion PointsRoots in Beauty & Medicine: How Roshini’s probiotic skincare journey at Tula and Colin’s 20‑year beauty career sparked a gut‑health collaboration.Gut Microbiome 101: What exactly lives in your gut, why its balance matters for everything from digestion to mood, and how fiber (prebiotics), beneficial bacteria (probiotics), and postbiotics play their part.YayDay’s “Triple Play”: The science behind their prebiotic fiber blend, digestive enzymes and sleep‑boosting magnesium glycinate—why it works where Metamucil and melatonin fall short.Brand with a Cause: Reinventing embarrassing “health” routines into a joyful, results‑driven ritual—how great packaging, expert science and rapid, tangible benefits build trust in a crowded wellness market.Marketing & Growth: Lessons from Procter & Gamble on creating proven efficacy, growing word‑of‑mouth, and earning “trust capital” through real customer results.Exit Strategies: What acquirers really buy (growth potential + leadership) and why thoughtful timing—and full clarity on post‑exit roles—matters for founders.Key TakeawaysYour gut is its own “organ”—its microbes influence sleep, skin, mood and immunity.Simple rituals win: combining prebiotic fiber + enzymes + magnesium delivers near‑instant sleep and digestion benefits.Brand trust is built on proven results, expert endorsement and joyful, approachable design.Marketing health means sampling broadly, showcasing real reviews and earning attention over time.Whether you build or sell, acquirers want teams who can scale the brand far beyond today’s footprint.Closing ThoughtsTune in to learn how two industry legends turned an awkward health topic into YayDay’s delightful daily ritual—plus practical tips on gut wellness, branding in a noisy market, and creating exit‑worthy growth.Our Sponsors:* Check out Indeed: https://indeed.com/FOUNDERSSTORY* Check out Northwest Registered Agent and use my code FOUNDERS for a great deal: https://northwestregisteredagent.com* Check out Plus500: https://plus500.com* Check out Rosetta Stone and use my code TODAY for a great deal: https://www.rosettastone.com
Chapter 1: Who are the founders of YayDay and how did they come together?
Thank you so much for joining us today. Let's just dive into first, how did the two of you team up to create this company, and why is gut health even important to you?
A great question. I'll give a little bit, and then, of course, I'll pass it over to the good doctor. Sure. So Roshni and I have our roots most recently together in beauty. And Roshni is the founder of Tula Skincare. And I'll let her tell that story from probiotics and skincare and how that worked. And I've been in the beauty business for the past 20 years.
And currently the CEO of Specialty Beauty at Procter & Gamble. And inside that division is the brand I was leading previously called Way, a hair care brand, founder-led, and Tula. So quite literally at a dinner about a year and a half ago, Dr. Raj and I sat across from each other talking about the dream of Yay Day. and what it could be. So that's how we came together.
Yeah, I'll jump in there. So exactly as Colin said, I, well, I don't know if he said it, but I'm a gastroenterologist. That's sort of my first love, first profession. But I ended up by a kind of strange and random route in the beauty world, co-founding Tula, which is a probiotic-based skincare line. And
That came about really because I was just always passionate about the microbiome and this concept of good-for-you bacteria that was really new when I first learned about it almost 20 years ago, and then started to think about the connections between probiotics and skin health.
Met two of my now co-founders of Tula, who were very experienced in the beauty world, and we decided together that this would be a great idea, applying probiotic extracts to the skin with all the benefits that that could have. So that's how Tula was born. It was my first entrepreneurial journey. This was over 10 years ago.
And then had an amazing ride with Tula, really learned so much about business and also just customers and, you know, marketing and packaging and colors and all these fun, creative things that I didn't really get to do in my gastroenterology life. And then we sold Tula to P&G, which is where Colin came in. And then I found myself thinking about what's going to be my next entrepreneurial step.
And, you know, I really wanted to go back to my roots as a gastroenterologist and go even deeper back into gut health. And I was thinking about what is that going to look like? Is that a gut healthy beverage? Is it a food product? And then I met Colin and we started talking and he had already been thinking about
And thinking about with his brother actually developing a next generation prebiotic fiber product that really addressed not only gut health, but the gut mind connection. So incorporating magnesium as well. And once we started chatting, I think it just immediately made perfect sense to both of us that We should join forces.
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Chapter 2: What is the gut microbiome and why is it important?
Yeah, 100%. So your gut microbiome is this community of organisms that lives within your gut. And when I say your gut, we're talking about your digestive tract, but More so I'm talking about your large intestine or your colon. That's where most of our bacteria reside. And so we have trillions of organisms living within our bodies. Many of them are good for us and beneficial.
Some of them are not so great. And so you want to make sure that within your microbiome, you have more of the good ones, a healthy balance where the good bacteria outweigh the bad bacteria. So that is literally what your microbiome is, is community of organisms within your living inside of you.
When we talk about what can throw it off balance, you know, one of the sort of more obvious ones is something like antibiotics, because that can really wipe out your good flora, your good bacteria, allow bad bacteria to grow, can really cause a disruption, what we call dysbiosis or an imbalance of your microbiome that can lead to
not only digestive symptoms, things like bloating or bowel irregularity, but also more systemic issues like mood issues or immunity problems, all sorts of other things. So you really want to keep that balance strong and healthy. And that's where things like probiotics and prebiotics come in. So a probiotic is a beneficial bacteria. It's a bacteria that offers some benefit to your health.
And you can get that through foods. So fermented foods contain probiotics, yogurt with live and active cultures, kimchi, miso, tempeh, sauerkraut. These are some common sources of probiotics. And then prebiotics, if you think about the good bacteria in your gut as beautiful flowers in a garden, prebiotics are like the fertilizer that you're sprinkling on those flowers to help them grow.
So prebiotics, which are usually fiber-based, Those serve as fuel or food for your good bacteria. So that's why with Yay Day, we created this prebiotic blend of psyllium husk, as well as oat fiber, flaxseed, many different types of fiber that really foster the growth of healthy bacteria. That's what a prebiotic is.
Now, sometimes you might see a combination of a probiotic and a prebiotic in a supplement. That's referred to as a symbiotic. And then lastly, one term you may have heard is called a postbiotic, which is when you have the live bacteria and it's killed, but the active metabolites within it are released and they can still serve positive, healthy functions. Those extracts are called postbiotics.
That is the most thorough explanation I've ever had. So I appreciate that because I don't think, you know, sometimes we use terms and we take things, but we have no idea what it even really is. And we're too embarrassed to ask. So thank you for that, Dr. Raj.
And I want to point out one thing you said that struck me, because this is also part of our motivation for Colin and I with Yay Day, because you talked about taking Metamucil as a fairly young teen or in your 20s and how it was kind of embarrassing. And that's partly what we really wanted to do with Yay Day is reinvent Metamucil.
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Chapter 3: How do probiotics, prebiotics, and postbiotics differ?
It's such a good question. I think a couple of things from my standpoint. One, first and foremost, we wanted to have a product that we knew from an ingredient standpoint was based on science and performed. And that's where the dream I have is partnering with Dr. Raj to have that expertise and understanding that we can formulate like that.
As both a customer, the other thing I was very passionate about is that we could get a result. So many things in the wellness space promise, maybe you'll live longer. Check in in 10 years and let me know if that's true. So a lot of hyperbole. We wanted real proven results, ingredients that could deliver real results. So with the promise of Yay Day...
quite immediately people feel the benefit of magnesium on that first night with a deeper sleep with prebiotic fiber and the digestive enzymes. They have no bloating. They really help flourish that gut microbiome. And within a day or two, most people have a really incredible morning movement. And so I think from a customer standpoint, if you could optimize sleep and poop,
You've really touched on some of the most magical, powerful things that I think can get lost in the chaos of the wellness industry. So wanting to have core benefits. And then to Dr. Raj's point, we wanted to approach the brand with levity, with joy, with empowerment. It's called Yay Day as this idea to help you live your best life every day. that's my selfish goal.
It's our selfish goal as founders. And we try to create that with our team. And that's what we want every customer to feel is that you can feel your best. You have the opportunity to then, wow.
I mean, I want to go to bed at night knowing I'm going to have a great sleep and I want to wake up knowing I'm going to have a great poop. Those are things that I personally really think about. So, and I think a lot of people do think about that. Um, By the way, magnesium changed my life. It really changed my life. I didn't sleep for many months. So I can relate to the fact of how important it is.
Can you dive into what is it that, like, why does magnesium have this impact on sleep? And then when I took certain magnesium, I get the craziest, most vivid dreams. Sometimes I wake up, I'm not even sure if I was dreaming or if I was alive.
No, it's interesting. I mean, magnesium and, you know, there are different forms of magnesium and some of them are better for things like constipation or other things. And some are specifically designed for sleep and magnesium glycinate is that is what we use. And that's the one that's best absorbed and best used. most effective for a good night's sleep.
It's not 100% clear why magnesium helps with sleep. And there are some theories about how it may affect melatonin production or, you know, in terms of influencing your sleep cycle. But it has been shown to help with sleep, both inducing sleep and helping you maintain a longer duration of sleep.
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Chapter 4: Why did the founders want to reinvent Metamucil with YayDay?
Literally both ends. I really like this is amazing. No, I love the fact that you're combining multiple things because I feel like it used to be you had to get one thing for one thing. And then you have a whole drawer of a million supplements. It's just confusing. And then you're spending money on a lot of things that probably don't work, like you said, Colin, or we don't know if they ever work.
we're seeing a lot of studies or health information coming out recently around, you know, how, like you said, how maybe sleep can cause the impact on stomach and then stomach can cause the impact or gut can cause impact on this. Why do you think we're seeing so many, I almost feel like it's like a, like medical connections where it used to be.
I don't, I don't remember hearing so much about people, you know, connecting things together.
Yeah, I think, I mean, at least I might be a little biased, but what I'm seeing the connections being drawn are really around the gut and how it's connected to other parts of the body. And I think that's a result of just this explosion of research and information where, I mean, 20 years ago when I was training as a gastroenterologist, it was the first time I ever heard of the word microbiome.
So this is a relatively recent field in medicine. And it's not like in beauty or other industries, there's like a hot ingredient one year and the next year is something else. But this is an actual seismic shift in medicine. The fact that we've discovered this, some people think of it as another organ, your microbiome, because it has so many far-reaching effects throughout your body.
And there's just so much active research going on between how the microbiome can affect everything from potentially autism and Parkinson's, you know, heart disease, many types of cancer. I think, and it's just going to continue to explode. I think we're honestly just at the tip of the iceberg right now.
We're going to continue to hear more and more about these connections that you're talking about and how they're real and how there's an opportunity for intervention, which is really exciting.
Sorry, I was going to say, Daniel, what is amazing from my seat is I get to be a co-founder, but I'm also a customer and I'm a customer that's traveled through this category in this space for years. It sounds like you have looking for solutions both on the sleep and the digestive front in both being complicated, ineffective and not cohesive in any way.
whether it was melatonin, which I always found I was too groggy from, from Ambien, which felt effective in short spurts, but would be, that was a real deep sleep first, and then I would come throwing out of it, or NyQuils or those type of things. In finding magnesium, especially dlicinate, that is so bioavailable and really calmly enables a great night's sleep,
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Chapter 5: How does YayDay address the competitive beauty and wellness market?
So if there's no other joy, the thing that propels me is I know that I'm a stark raving fan. And yes, I may be biased, but I promise you, I just love the result the way I feel and why I would take it every night and have for almost a year and a half since we started formulating.
I'm curious because you both seem to be very healthy. What does your daily nutrition look like?
I can go first because I'm really boring. So it's an easy question to ask because I pretty much have the same thing every day, with some exceptions if I'm traveling or going out or something. But I start with my Greek yogurt with probiotics, mixed berries, and I put some flaxseed, chia seeds in there. I take my Tula probiotic gummy, and that's my breakfast.
I then for lunch generally have grilled salmon or tuna with a bunch of cooked vegetables. So spinach and eggplant, mushrooms, some cannellini beans or some kind of beans and red peppers. And then for dinner, it could be, you know, chicken or fish again, maybe some chickpea pasta or some cauliflower rice. That's kind of my routine that my kids tease me about because it very rarely changes.
And then of course, yay day at night. And that's generally my, yeah, every day.
And I'm maybe not as good at the gas grill. But, yeah, I am protein and vegetable focused. I love eggs, so I start most days with eggs and or some yogurts. I'll find greens throughout the day. I try to get a salad in there in the middle. I love food. I love restaurants. So sometimes at night it could range from sushi to pizza.
I tend to not go wildly, you know, way off course, but I certainly indulge. And that's almost the spirit of yay day. We want it as well. That I think sometimes wellness feels a lot like work. And the idea of it feeling fun was really what we want. We want people to live a great life. And living a disciplined life or a restrictive life is really challenging for a lot of people.
Being aware, being educated, doing your best, and then having some help when you need it. That's as simply as I could put our dream or our mission around Yay Day. So, yeah. And then I end every day with Yay Day, which kind of clarifies a few sins and mistakes throughout the day.
Yay Day! Don't worry. Yay Day! Hey, it's all good. So we always like to have guests share some tangible tips or strategies around business. And I think something that could be very interesting here is because this is such a competitive space and you both, you know, Dr. Raj, you grew a skincare company for 10 years and Colin, you've been in the industry for decades too.
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Chapter 6: What are the benefits of magnesium for sleep and mood?
So we have travel packs or trial kits, which are seven days of the product. as opposed to our full 30-day canister.
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Chapter 7: How are gut health and sleep interconnected?
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Kind of sample and, you know, have people, as many people as possible try it. That's, you know, the challenge and the opportunity that I think we're exploring right now.
Yay. This is amazing. It's all really fun to say. My, my last question is around the exit. I think this is very interesting. Most entrepreneurs I talked to in the U S they're looking to exit at some point outside the U S interestingly enough, we see a lot of times it's like legacy brands, but in the U S at least it's the exit. And that's like most entrepreneurs I talked to, that's their dream.
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Chapter 8: Why is the gut microbiome considered a new organ and what research is emerging?
They want to exit at some point. So what do you see in terms of when a company wants to acquire a company, what are they looking for? And then when you are the one exiting from the company, what do you have to do to get into the space to successfully exit?
A great question. And certainly, Dr. Ash and I can speak to it individually. I've been very, very lucky to have been through two exits. previously with DevaCurl and then most recently with Way. And those exits, I would tell you, every one is completely unique in terms of what a buyer is looking for, how it fits in their portfolio or their strategy.
They're ultimately looking for growth and runway. Do they think there's something remarkable that can be much bigger? The whole idea of an exit is that they think they can make it much bigger than you have. So it has the seed of greatness and just isn't fully expanded. That's why they pay multiples and why they think they can make it great.
And my experience has been they are absolutely buying a leadership team very often. people that have been able to make that brand grow dynamically and show that it has a place in the market and it's earned the interest of someone willing to spend multiples and buy it. So very, very often a buyer is also interested in that leadership team being able to continue to add capabilities and scale to
So those brand, team, and ability to expand is the things that I've seen be most important when considering an acquisition.
Yeah, and I think from the founder, and Colin has seen both sides of it now, which is a really interesting perspective. For me, from the founder perspective, I think... Just like you said, every situation is unique. There are some founders who are ready to sell and completely wash their hands of the company and never look back. And there are many others like myself who've stayed involved.
I've stayed involved with Tula. I'm still, you know, the face of the brand and very involved with it, which makes me so happy because it's like my baby. I don't want to just give it away completely. And then there are some founders who are even more involved and are still running the companies and, you know, CEOs continue after exit.
But I think it depends on how you want to grow and whether you can grow on your own or whether you need to exit really to grow the way you want to, whether that's global expansion or new product lines. I think with Yay Day, the gut health category is It's kind of wide open in so many ways. There's so many exciting things I think we can do.
And Colin and I already have ideas of different extensions and different ways we may want to go. And so the question will just be, you know, how much of that can we do on our own? Or will there be a time where we think it would be better to do it with a partner? So there are a lot of good reasons to exit or to try it on your own. But I think it is different case by case.
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