Founded by Aaron Singerman in 2012, BlackStone Labs is now a leading provider of bodybuilding supplements, including protein supplements, sleep aids, fat burners, anabolics, muscle builders and pre-workouts.
Singerman's journey to becoming the founder of BlackStone Labs was anything but easy. Although he always had a passion for fitness and nutrition, he fell in with the wrong crowd when he was young and became addicted to drugs. Eventually, however, he remade himself and became a co-founder of BlackStone Labs.
Singerman grew up in Metairie, Louisiana. His childhood was calm and uneventful with few challenges. His father ran his own business, a small company he inherited from Singerman's grandfather. However, as mom-and-pop stores began to disappear, Singerman saw his father's business struggle. Even so, Singerman credits his success as a businessman to the time he spent watching the family-run business.
Aaron began experimenting with drugs at a very young age. At the same time, he also developed an interest in bodybuilding. After school, he would be dropped off at the gym, where he read muscle magazines and trained with weights. Unfortunately, his drug problem continued to escalate, leading him to lose multiple jobs and move away from his other passions. At one point, he was addicted to both heroin and cocaine. After watching a friend die, he went back to his own apartment and stayed inside until he had beat the drugs.
After getting the drugs out of his system, Singerman went back to the thing he loved most: working out and bodybuilding. He took a job as a personal trainer in Houston. However, after realizing that his true passion was bodybuilding, he began looking for ways to make money in that field instead.
While trying to enter the field, Singerman spent all of his time doing anything and everything he could in relation to bodybuilding. He posted about it on the internet, read books, listened to radio shows and wrote to authors and radio hosts. He continued his job as a personal trainer to keep the bills paid, but his focus was always on bodybuilding in his free time.
One of the people Singerman wrote to was Carl Lanore with Super Human Radio. Lanore called him back and invited him to come on the show. After his initial appearance, Lanore asked Singerman about his true interests. After discovering Singerman's interest in bodybuilding, Lanore invited him to do a bodybuilding show. Together, they launched Off Topic Radio, which allowed Singerman to quit his job as a personal trainer.
Later, Singerman began working for Rx Muscle, which was the leading bodybuilding media site at the time. He worked on a radio show for this company and was eventually promoted to editor-in-chief of the website. Singerman supplemented his income during this time by finding sponsors.
After leaving Rx Muscle, Singerman became the marketing director for another nutraceutical manufacturing company, Iron Mag Labs. He convinced the owner of the company to allow him to bring his best friend and business partner PJ Braun on as the face of the company, and business boomed.
While Singerman was working for Iron Mag Labs, the owner became worried that one of their products, Super DMZ, would soon become illegal, and he wanted to sell a large amount of it quickly. Singerman offered to take on the risk himself and sell the product. With the help of Braun, he created a Blackstone Labs, LLC. He also launched a website called SuperDMZ.com. Using their marketing background, Singerman and Braun were able to sell all of the products in five weeks.
Even after the product had sold out, the ingredient the owner was worried about still hadn't become illegal. Braun and Singerman decided to invest their profits into starting a supplement company. They bought more units of Super DMZ, which sold quickly. They also created other products, and they continued to grow. They stayed away from grey market ingredients to protect their business.
During BlackStone Labs first year, they made $200,000 in sales. In the second year, they did $1.5 million. By the third year, revenues grew to $6 million. The fourth year saw more than $20 million in revenue. Since the company was first launched, it has grown by at least 100 percent every year. The company was also featured on Inc. magazine's list of the 500 fastest-growing companies. BlackStone Labs has more than 25,000 Instagram followers, and Braun himself has more than 100,000 followers. Both Singerman and Braun attribute much of their success to their dedication to creating effective products that meet consumers' needs. Their consumers are knowledgeable, and they want to know how the products work. Singerman and Braun work closely with a chemist to develop new products using the most advanced science in the field, and they share the mechanisms behind these products with their consumers.
Because of the success of BlackStone Labs, Singerman and Braun were even able to launch a second company in the sports nutrition industry: Prime Nutrition. Both companies are continuing to grow, and Singerman and Braun are excited about their future in nutraceutical manufacturing.
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