Hi Earthrise community,
Adam here, back again with our second Founder Update. I wasn’t sure how people would respond to the first one… and honestly, the amount of love, replies and support that came back floored me. So let's wind it back and do it again.
Dark Matter is officially live
Our new adaptogenic hot chocolate, Dark Matter, finally launched, and the response has been absolutely unreal. We’ve been working on this one quietly for months, tweaking the flavour, balancing the cacao richness, making sure the mushrooms support you without overpowering the taste. Seeing it in your hands now feels very surreal.
It’s cozy, indulgent, functional and honestly one of my favourite things we’ve ever made. We’ve already had people tell us it’s replaced their nightly dessert… which is exactly what we were going for. We're very happy with the results so far and have started exploring other variants of this product. Stay tuned.
Parting ways with our marketing agency
We made the decision to let go of our marketing agency. Not because they were bad, but because in 2025, marketing has become brutally expensive and increasingly disconnected from what actually works for small Aussie brands. We realised we were paying for things we could do better ourselves, and that authenticity beats “performance fluff.”
More founder videos, more real content, more community, more transparency. Less polished agency stuff that doesn’t reflect who we are. It feels like the right call, and so far, things already feel lighter. Big shout out to our CEO John for learning how performance marketing works and taking it under his wing. It's a numbers game and it goes way over my head. Thanks John!
Personal learnings
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea that real success often comes down to simply getting about 1% better each day, not through dramatic reinventions or massive breakthroughs, but through a steady accumulation of small, almost invisible improvements that compound over time. Running a brand has shown me, more than anything else in my life, that progress rarely arrives in big cinematic moments; it usually comes from adjusting a process that used to frustrate customers, tightening up communication with a supplier, refining a product ever so slightly, improving the clarity of our messaging or fixing a small issue in fulfilment that no one outside the team would ever even notice.
When you’re in the thick of it, these changes can feel insignificant, almost laughably minor, but when you zoom out you start to realise that the entire business is built on these tiny, repeated choices to do something a little bit better than the day before. The 1% rule has become a kind of grounding philosophy for me, especially on the days where everything feels overwhelming or chaotic, because it reframes the goal from “solve everything at once” to “just move forward, even slightly.”
In the context of Earthrise, this mindset feels incredibly true. We’re not trying to “hack growth” or land some magical turning point; we’re trying to make the website smoother, the packaging more thoughtful, the ingredients more traceable, the support experience more human and the brand more aligned with what we believe. None of it happens in a single leap... it’s a long chain of small steps that eventually add up to something real. And honestly, reminding myself of that has made the journey feel a lot less like a sprint and a lot more like something sustainable and meaningful.
Wholesale is growing faster than expected
One of the most exciting things happening behind the scenes is wholesale. Every time I see our bags sitting on a shelf, it hits me all over again that this is becoming a real, physical presence in the world. And we’re not slowing down.
We’re actively looking for new wholesale partners across all of Australia. If you own a café, gym, yoga studio, supplement shop, health retailer, co-op... or know someone who does please email us. 2026 is going to be big for wholesale and we’re ready.
Finalising investments
Wrapping up the year
With gratitude,
Adam and John
Co-Founders, Earthrise
