If you had told Roman Kristl a few years ago that one day he would discover a Slovakian cream that provides pain relief for everything from menstrual cramps to tennis elbow, he probably wouldn’t have believed you. But Kristl, a senior at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, is selling the miracle cream today via Remedi Organics, which he launched in January 2017.
An international business and data analytics major from Carmel, California, Kristl is also a professional snowboarder. While competing on tour in Europe, his father introduced him to a friend from Slovakia who made athletic pain relief creams from scratch, using ingredients straight from the Carpathian Mountains. Kristl was intrigued: As an extreme athlete, he had experienced his fair share of sore muscles and joints, so he decided to give it a try.
Roman Kristl
“After using the cream and spreading the word about it around my small community of athletes, I found that many of my friends were asking me where they could buy it,” Kristl said. “So, being an international business student, I decided to figure out a way to license and import the cream from Slovakia to Colorado. Once we found a way to import it, I started to put together a small team of friends who were willing to turn this ‘miracle cream’ into a real product.”
To help bring the product stateside, Kristl enlisted his brother Jakub, as well as his friend and DU alumnus Jack Hessler (BA 2017). Together, they named the cream Pain Remedi, but soon realized they could expand the product line and reach a wider audience by tweaking the formula to offer a female-focused product called Comfort Cream.
“Although the naturally powerful pain relief formula works extremely well for alleviating temporary and chronic pains in people’s muscles and joints, our manufacturer told us that he made a slightly adjusted variation of the formula that could supposedly reduce menstrual cramp pain,” Kristl said.
Recognizing that they didn’t have firsthand experience with menstrual pain, the three men asked their significant others to give it a try. Once they received a thumbs-up from their product testers, they decided to launch both Comfort Cream and Pain Remedi under the Remedi Organics brand.
Pain Remedi
The team has grown recently with the addition of Daniels student Jill Thomas, and this growth, coupled with the success that Remedi Organics has experienced so far, is encouraging to Kristl.
“Completing our website this summer, and getting our first Amazon sale was a big accomplishment for all of us,” Kristl said. “It just proved that we weren’t all crazy, and didn’t just spend six months trying to do something that was worth nothing. Also, hearing back from customers who enjoy our products is very rewarding. It makes me happy when people say ‘Hey, that stuff really worked!’”
But it hasn’t been all fun and pain relief. Like most entrepreneurs, Kristl and his team experienced some challenges.
“The hardest part of starting a business is not really knowing what to expect once you have established what your product will be. Sure, creating a product, setting up a marketing plan, and getting funding is hard work, but actually translating those initial ideas into real-world practices and convincing people that you and your company are the real deal is really hard work,” Kristl said.
Ultimately, Kristl and his team at Remedi Organics are looking forward to learning from these challenges, expanding the business and sharing their message.
“We believe that people need to be exposed to the harsh realities of over-the-counter pills,” he said. “Topical pain relievers like Pain Remedi and Comfort Cream can help you get back to doing what you love most without having to alter your body’s natural internal healing process. Health, humanity and sustainability are what we are all about at Remedi Organics,” Kristl said.
All signs seem to be pointing in the right direction for Remedi Organics: The company has already raised more than $15,000 in funding, and Kristl seems laser-focused on the company’s future plans.
“I will graduate in November 2017 and plan to continue to work on Remedi Organics as the CEO,” Kristl said. “We will try to sell our products in a few select retail stores starting in 2018. We are also currently working on a pre-workout cream for traditional athletes, and an arthritis-prevention cream for aging adults who don’t want to slow down.”
Slowing down doesn’t seem to be on Kristl’s mind either.
For more information on Remedi Organics, visit www.remediorganics.com.