A bootstrapped company is betting that precision formulation, sourcing and everyday habits matter as much as the next fashionable molecule.
Sooo.me has entered the longevity market with a proposition that sounds almost too simple: if you’re going to swallow a supplement every day for the next thirty years, the label ought to say something truer than “ashwagandha” in bold type. Founded by mathematician-turned-entrepreneur Erika Paulė, the Lithuanian company has built its portfolio around outcomes rather than compounds; formulation, not fashion, is the whole premise, and biology, not marketing, gets to set the terms.
The company has grown without venture capital, expanding from pharmacy chains across Lithuania into the UK through Holland & Barrett and Healf, while also taking an unconventional route into hospitality with functional mushroom coffees, collagen matcha and nootropic lattes appearing in cafés and restaurants. It is a strategy that reflects a broader ambition – to make longevity less intimidating and more habitual.
Longevity.Technology: The longevity supplement sector is beginning to grow up. For years, innovation has largely been measured by the discovery of the next promising molecule or the length of an ingredients list; increasingly, however, the conversation is shifting towards formulation itself – not simply *what* goes into a product, but why those compounds have been selected, whether they are present at biologically meaningful doses and how they interact within the exquisitely complex networks that underpin aging. It is a subtle but important evolution, reflecting the wider maturation of geroscience from a field captivated by individual interventions to one that recognizes aging as a systems-level process. At the same time, there is an equally pressing challenge: even the most elegantly designed intervention has little impact if it never becomes part of everyday life.
Preventive health has long suffered from an adherence problem – people are remarkably good at responding to disease, rather less enthusiastic about investing in their future selves – meaning that normalizing healthy behaviors may ultimately prove as important as discovering new longevity therapeutics. Perhaps that is why we are beginning to see functional ingredients migrate beyond pharmacy shelves and into cafés, restaurants and other familiar settings; whether this represents a genuine public health opportunity or simply wellness marketing in a different guise remains to be seen, but it is an intriguing reflection of a field increasingly concerned not only with extending healthspan, but with making healthy aging feel accessible rather than aspirational. To find out more about formulation as a systems optimization problem and the idea of “stealth longevity” through everyday consumer habits, we sat down with Erika Paulė, founder and CEO of Sooo.me.
Engineering formulations, not shopping lists
Paulė’s academic background is an unusual starting point for a supplement company. Having studied mathematics before completing an MBA and later design thinking at MIT, she says those disciplines shaped the way she approached product development.
Erika Paulė is the founder and CEO
“My background is actually one of the reasons I approached supplements differently,” she says. “Those disciplines teach you the same fundamental principle: before adding complexity, understand the system.”
That systems perspective became increasingly important as she explored the longevity sector. Rather than assembling long ingredient lists, she says Sooo.me begins with the biological mechanisms associated with aging and works backwards.
“Many brands were creating ‘kitchen sink’ formulas – adding ten, twenty or even thirty ingredients together because a longer label looks more impressive. But biology does not work like a marketing checklist.”
Instead, formulations are mapped against the 12 hallmarks of aging and informed by published scientific evidence, clinically studied doses and known interactions between ingredients. Sourcing is held to a standard the company describes as 99.89% purity, with formulations free from fillers, additives and heavy metals. SOOO lean, for example, was developed around metabolic health rather than conventional weight management.
“We looked at metabolic health as a whole system – nutrient sensing, glucose metabolism, cellular stress response and healthy aging.”
“I often describe our approach as mathematical optimization applied to biology. You have constraints – purity, dose, safety, evidence, interactions – and you are trying to find the most effective solution.”
Looking beyond the label
That emphasis on optimization extends to ingredient sourcing, particularly within the functional mushroom category, where fruiting body extracts, mycelium products and varying extraction methods have created considerable confusion for consumers.
“The word ‘mushroom’ has become a powerful marketing term, but not all mushroom products are comparable,” Paulė says. “Two products can both say ‘Lion’s Mane’ on the label while being completely different in biological value.”
It is a gap Paulė sees as structural rather than incidental. “Authorities mostly police the claims – the marketing language, the statements you’re allowed to make,” she says, “while largely ignoring the quality and production of the ingredients themselves.”
Rather than focusing on the ingredient name alone, she says the company evaluates extraction methods, analytical testing, batch consistency and the concentration of active compounds before selecting suppliers.
“A mushroom product should be evaluated by its biological compounds: the extraction process, the concentration of active compounds, analytical testing, consistency between batches and whether it delivers meaningful amounts of the compounds people are actually seeking.”
That philosophy extends across the wider product range.
“When we select ingredients, we look beyond the name of the ingredient. We ask: How was it produced? What is the active compound profile? What evidence supports it? Is the quality consistent?”
From promises to measurement
Longevity has always drawn its share of self-experimenters, and Paulė was one long before biohacking had a name for itself; she was tracking biomarkers and testing emerging compounds while most of the industry was still arguing about labels.
“My approach has always been based on personal curiosity and measurement,” she says. “I have always been the person who wants to understand the mechanism, test things, measure outcomes and question assumptions.”
She still monitors her own blood work – NAD+ levels after nicotinamide riboside among them – but is careful to keep personal data in its place, well short of clinical proof.
Sooo.me takes a holistic approach to longevity, with supplements supporting the five key pillars: movement, nutrition, sleep, stress management and social connection.
“My personal data is not a clinical trial, and we never position individual experiences as scientific proof for everyone. But it represents our philosophy: don’t just believe – measure.”
For commercial formulations, Sooo.me instead relies on published clinical research, broader scientific literature and regulatory requirements when selecting ingredients and determining dosage.
“The future of longevity will not be built on promises. It will be built on transparency, measurement and better understanding of biology.”
Growing without grown-up money
Unlike many companies operating within the longevity ecosystem, Sooo.me has remained entirely bootstrapped. Paulė believes that independence has allowed the company to prioritize manufacturing decisions that might otherwise have been difficult to justify commercially.
“Being bootstrapped has shaped almost every decision we have made.”
“I wanted to build a sustainable company – not a company designed around chasing the next funding round.”
That philosophy extends beyond ingredient selection to biodegradable packaging, the avoidance of fillers and additives and a deliberate reluctance to produce increasingly complex formulations simply because consumers might perceive them as more sophisticated.
“The biggest challenge I have seen in this industry is that marketing often develops faster than the science,” she says. “I built Sooo.me because I wanted to create the type of company I personally wanted to buy from.”
A Trojan horse with extra foam
Perhaps the company’s most unusual strategy sits outside traditional supplement retail altogether. Alongside pharmacies and health stores, Sooo.me has introduced functional beverages through specialty coffee shops, café networks and Michelin-starred restaurants, offering drinks including Lion’s Mane lattes, Cordyceps coffees and collagen matcha.
For Paulė, the objective is behavioral as much as biological.
“I believe the biggest opportunity in longevity is making it normal.”
Rather than asking consumers to adopt an entirely new lifestyle, she argues that integrating functional ingredients into existing routines lowers the barrier to preventive health.
“We call this ‘stealth longevity’ because it removes the barrier. Instead of asking people to completely change their lifestyle, we improve the choices already built into their routines.”
That same thinking explains the company’s branding. Products are named according to desired outcomes – SOOO calm, SOOO focused, SOOO energetic and SOOO lean – rather than the compounds inside them.
“People are not waking up thinking ‘I need a quercetin molecule today,’” she says. “They are thinking: ‘I need focus. I need energy. I want to stay healthy and perform better.’”
Quiet evolution
Longevity is leaving the clinic and turning up in the coffee cup, and that migration comes with its own delicate arithmetic: how to translate real biology into something a customer can understand at eight in the morning, without sanding the science down to nothing in the process. Whether the sector’s next chapter belongs to some novel molecule or simply to better formulation, plainer sourcing and habits people actually keep – that’s still an open question. But the conversation itself has grown up. That much is certain.
Photographs courtesy of Sooo.me