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What do you do when the one thing you built your product around is the one thing nobody cares about?

Anthony Sherman was 18 when he and his best friend Max found a university patent for antioxidant chewing gum. They tested it in their kitchen, ran 10,000+ customer interviews, and got a brutal answer: nobody cares about antioxidants. Now, as mechanical engineering grads, they’re building Boostgum, a tree-sap alternative to the gum on every checkout shelf.

Their most viral videos feature a literal car tire. Why? Because the stretchy polymer in most gum is the same one found in tires, rubber bands and glue.

We explore:

Why chicle (tree sap) lost to a synthetic base in the 1950s, and why it was ten times cheaper
What 10,000+ conversations taught them: sell the feeling, not the ingredient
How two 18-year-olds took on a university’s licensing terms, and spent a year and a half getting them rewritten
Why a “million views” video can really be 210,000, and the hook mistake that causes it
The “TV problem”: shipping gum costs more than the gum, and retail won’t take you without the followers
What Poppy’s $2B exit taught them about leading with community, not prebiotics

They had 1,704 followers on May 6, 2026, the day they went full-time. By the time we recorded, they were around 49,000. Today the account is past 100K.

Listen now to hear why the smartest hook in gum is a car tire.

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😊 The Guest: Anthony Sherman

Look into the company Boost Gum

Their Chewing Gum Ditched Tire Polymer and Hit 100K+ Followers in 7 Months - with Co-founder of Boost Gum Anthony Sherman

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Their Chewing Gum Ditched Tire Polymer and Hit 100K+ Followers in 7 Months - with Co-founder of Boost Gum Anthony Sherman