Meet Jakob - TNS Founder
How Did TNS Get Started?
I started working out at the age of 14 years old when my dad got me a pull-up bar for Christmas one year. It might not seem like much, but that was the inspiration and motivation I needed to embark on a lifestyle change. I was the chubby kid out of my friend group, and I was tired of feeling the way I did about myself at a young age. Throughout high school, I was "that "kid who carried around a gallon jug and multiple Tupperware containers filled with my meals for the day. Bodybuilding consumed my life, so much so that I began researching and studying nutritional science and fell in love with it
Upon graduating high school, I attended Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Initially, I began my college journey as a major in dietetics. However, the dietetics program was focused on sending students on a straight path to work in a hospital setting. This wasn't what I wanted to do, as I knew that I wanted to help normal people who desire to improve their lifestyles on a day-to-day basis. I switched my degree to physiology; however, at the same time began studying under numerous PhD's in nutritional science outside of the classroom. During my senior year, I was working as a full-time personal trainer but decided to take a part-time job at a small supplement store called Rock Hill Nutrition.
Open till this point, I had a distaste for supplements. Having spent a large majority of my mediocre income as a teenager on the pointless supplements and knowing that the FDA does not regulate these products, I was a skeptic of their efficacy! But the owner of Rock Hill Nutrition, Steve Wayman, changed my views entirely. Unlike most supplement stores that I have been in, he was entirely honest with every customer that walked through the door! He made sure to explain why ingredients were effective and how they could benefit people on a level that they could understand. He refused to carry many products that did not have a scientific basis of support and made sure to explain why he didn't want to carry these products.
During this time, I fell in love with helping people and addressing their goals on a nutritional basis. I began building my business plan for The Nutrition Store immediately. Fast forward to today, TNS has become a much larger entity than I ever could've imagined four years ago, working in that small retail store in rock Hill. My motivation stems from knowing that there are thousands of stores across the country that generate revenue unethically by selling products that are not scientifically back, efficaciously dosed, and making promises to customers that are simply not honest. My goal is to create a community through TNS and dispel the myths that the supplement industry has permeated into the minds of everyone who begins their fitness journey. That's what motivates me!
What Is Special About TNS?
The Nutrition Store LLC is a vitamin and supplement retailer that goes against the grain of the traditional supplement store experience. With my background in physiology and nutritional science and having wasted hundreds of dollars in my youth going to big chain stores like GNC, I knew years ago, when I embarked on my journey of starting TNS, that we could do things entirely differently.
Fast forward to today, we have two beautiful locations in the upstate of South Carolina and are proud to help not only the local community improve their health, but we also formulate and manufacture products that over 30 retail stores in the US currently carry. Thanks to social media outlets like Instagram and TickTock, our customer base has expanded far beyond the local upstate of South Carolina into many countries across the world. I'm beyond grateful for the immense amount of support that we receive locally as well as online.
At the nutrition store, our goal is to dissect your goals and steer you towards a path of developing a healthy lifestyle, rather than just selling you a supplement and generating revenue. We take into account individual vitamin and mineral deficiencies, specific goals, and desired outcomes, as well as provide honest feedback to those who most likely don't need a supplement; they just need to improve their lifestyle.
Initially, our customers are the average Joe who wants to go buy a supplement to help them further their progress. Most are shocked when they come into a TNS for the first time, and we steer them directly out the door without selling a thing! We want to see what our customers are currently doing in regards to their dietary choices, exercise schedule, and overall lifestyle before we make any blanket recommendations on which supplements will best suit them. We request that they go home, create a 72-hour diet log of everything they've consumed and then come back to chat with us about it! Whether it's the goal of improving body composition or an NCAA collegiate athlete who wants to optimize their performance, we make it our job to be individualized and specifically help anybody who's willing to trust our insights.
