Breaking In By Breaking Free: How Zak Williams is Building PYM to Advocate for Mental Health
Zak Williams, son of late actor Robin Williams and co-founder and CEO of PYM, discusses strategies for entering the organic supplement market
If you’re trying to break into a certain vertical, you probably wouldn’t choose the one with massive amounts of regulations and a competitive field filled with big players that have a ton of money at their disposal. Nonetheless, the supplements and pharmaceutical industry is one that entrepreneurs everywhere are trying to make waves in, and just like any other industry, finding success means coupling the right product with the right strategy.
Zak Williams was able to kick the door open with his company, PYM, which sells all-natural amino acid-infused chews that have proven mental health benefits. Williams is the son of the late actor, Robin Williams, and he is using his own experiences navigating the ups and downs of mental struggles to help him build PYM.
“I found that me sharing my story and what I went through really helped others while helping myself,” Williams said. “I found that being vulnerable and taking a lens of vulnerability and opening up really ultimately ended up starting that process of healing for me.”
The goal was to create a company that truly advocates for mental health support in whatever way works best for the individual. When you think of PYM, Williams doesn’t want you to think about just one kind of product, but rather mental health advocacy in all forms.
“I started PYM with the lens of creating a brand that stands for mental health support like Red Bull stands for energy,” he said.
That means working out a business strategy that allows PYM to not compete against big pharma, but sit alongside it. As Williams explains, unlike pharmaceuticals, PYM isn’t selling a product that can cure you or be a solution to some of the health struggles you might be facing. What PYM is putting on the market is a natural product that has certain benefits, which, when combined with a routine that works for you, could improve your life.
“We’re not advocating for a product to be a cure-all,” Williams said. “Really what we’re saying is our product is a catalyst. We want to get people into the mindset of prioritizing mental health hygiene as part of their daily rituals. Hopefully our product’s a catalyst. If they’re taking our product as the solution for their mental health support over the course of their day, that’s great, but ideally, they should be doing other things to best support themselves.”
Being a part of a person’s daily ritual is more of a challenge now than it ever has been. After many months of pandemic-induced quarantine, there was a move toward more digital experiences, and yet still a very human need to connect in the physical world. Companies that can find a way to merge those two areas of life are going to be the success stories of the coming years.
PYM hopes to be writing the first chapters of its success story now by developing what Williams calls convergent experiences that will work for and with each other to create the kind of engagement that brands need when they are starting out.
To hear more about how that is coming together, listen to William’s full interview on Up Next in Commerce.
