In this Q&A, you’ll hear from Matt Wan, co-founder and CEO of Sett, creators of a nicotine alternative for performance and productivity. Born from a fruitless search for better-for-you nicotine products, Matt discusses the challenges of scaling with an entrenched stigma.
Tell us about Sett.
Matt Wan: Sett is a consumer products company advancing public health by providing healthier alternatives to nicotine and tobacco products.
Designed to deliver the cognitive benefits of nicotine with fewer downsides, our first product is an oral pouch which combines Ceretine™—our proprietary nicotine alternative—and L-theanine, an amino acid which balances the stimulatory effects of Ceretine™.
You can think of this product as “the thinking man’s ZYN.”
What led you to pursue this opportunity?
MW: I became interested in the cognitive benefits of nicotine several years ago when I was still running my first startup, Momentous. I’m a performance nerd, so if someone tells me there is a performance advantage to be had from a particular substance then, within reason, I’m likely to try it.
My experience with nicotine was directionally positive in the sense that I felt a significant effect on energy and focus, but the deeper I dove into the products in this category, the more I was convinced that they were effectively formulated to be as addictive as possible. I also experienced quite a bit of anxiety when I was using these products, which I didn’t like.
After a year or two, after I had left Momentous and joined a VC firm, I began exploring investment opportunities in the space. Searching in vain for a “better-for-you” product, I discovered, for several reasons (many of them regulatory-related), that none existed — and basically couldn’t exist using traditional nicotine.
While investigating alternatives, one of our advisors connected me to a couple of folks who were developing a novel formulation which, they believed, could deliver many of the same benefits as nicotine with fewer downsides.
It felt crazy at first to consider selling anything other than traditional nicotine in this category, but the more time I spent on it, the more I started to see the opportunity. That novel compound is what we now call Ceretine™ — and it’s the cornerstone of our product formulations.
How did you turn your idea into a company?
MW: Given the regulated nature of this category and the need for upfront clinical validation, every single aspect of this business has been more complicated than my supplement business. In the long-term, we view this complexity as a moat. In the short-term, it’s a royal pain.
In brief, pursuing our first product meant confirming that consumers shared my same problem, assuring our Ceretine™ product could solve this problem in a way nicotine products could not, and figuring out how to manufacture and sell that product in a compliant fashion.
Just looking for some advice on how to approach the customer research process, I called my former director of ecommerce, Joshua Desabris, in late 2023. He was interested enough in the business idea that he offered to conduct several dozen interviews on his own time, and several months later, we decided to be co-founders.
Our third co-founder, Justin Allen, is someone I tried to hire for another PortCo the year prior. When we were looking for a founding operations lead, Justin was my first call. Despite having two offer letters on the table already, he started a month later as our COO.
How big can this get?
MW: Phillip Morris sold roughly $2B worth of ZYN in the US last year, which is pretty small when you compare it to the ~$100B in annual cigarette sales in the US.
We believe the US nicotine pouch market will continue to grow as it becomes viewed as a healthier alternative to smoking and vaping, potentially reaching upwards of $30B (roughly the current size of the US e-cigarette market) in 10 years.
Our aim is for Sett to be the leading brand for the most health-conscious quartile of that market. But our ultimate vision is to create a product which is materially better than nicotine for how it makes people feel during and after use, and if we can do this, then we can appeal to all nicotine and tobacco users, regardless of how health-conscious or productivity-focused they may be.
How do you reach your core customer?
MW: Our core customer uses nicotine for energy and focus—rather than purely for the sake of getting a buzz—and is looking for something with fewer drawbacks. They use it like you would a cup of coffee or an energy drink, and they use it at work, in the gym, or on the go.
Only launching this year, the truth is we don’t yet know the most effective way to acquire these folks, but our thesis is that the product will speak for itself, and if we can get our target demo to try our product, they’ll want to buy it. This means sampling and events will be a big part of our go-to-market.
What’s next on the roadmap?
MW: We just shipped our first orders in mid-March, so right now the focus is fully on product-market fit and refining how we reach and communicate with consumers.
In early May, we plan to release an “unflavored” product for the California market, and we may begin to experiment with other flavors and formulations thereafter.
The business is fully focused on D2C at the moment, but we’ve gotten a lot of interest from convenience stores, so we might start to run those tests as soon as EOY. If this is going to be a $1B brand 10 years from now, it will be because we succeeded in retail. I’m both daunted and excited by that challenge.
Anything else you’d like to share with readers?
MW: We fully recognize we’re playing in a controversial category. No matter what we do to position ourselves as the better-for-you alternative, there is a non-zero percentage of people who will have a viscerally negative reaction to what we’re doing. And that’s okay.
I’m not worried about changing their minds in the same way that I’m not worried about changing the broader public perception of nicotine and nicotine-like products.
I feel that reasonable people can disagree on whether something being addictive makes it inherently bad for you. I’ve written extensively on this subject, and I think that people are starting to realize nicotine and tobacco are not the same, and that nicotine, while highly addictive, actually has utility in a way tobacco does not.
Our goal is to make a better option for those who choose to use these products, and if that’s not you, that’s perfectly fine.
If you’re interested in having your company featured in our Q&A series, send an email to team@fitt.co.
