Melisse Shaban: CEO of Aramore
Episode 834
On today’s episode, we welcome Melisse Shaban, CEO of Aramore — a longevity science company redefining how we approach aging through cellular health. With decades of experience building and scaling science-driven brands, Melisse is now leading Aramore at the intersection of biotech, skincare, and supplements, with a mission to move beyond surface-level beauty and address aging at its source.
In this episode, Melisse breaks down the science behind NAD+ and why it’s becoming such a powerful conversation in both wellness and skincare. She shares what most people misunderstand about aging, how to separate real innovation from marketing hype, and why the future of skincare lies in supporting how our cells function—not just how our skin looks. We also dive into what it takes to bring complex science to consumers in a clear and trustworthy way, how Aramore is approaching both topical and internal solutions, and what’s next for the longevity category.
A must-listen for founders, operators, and anyone curious about the future of beauty, wellness, and aging—and how science is reshaping all three.
Resources from
this episode:
Enjoying this episode of #TheKaraGoldinShow? Let Kara know by clicking on the links below and sending her a quick shout-out on social!
Follow Kara on LinkedIn – Instagram – X – Facebook – TikTok – YouTube – Threads
Have a question for Kara about one of our episodes? Reach out to Kara directly at [email protected]
To learn more about Melisse Shaban and Aramore:
https://www.aramore.com
https://www.instagram.com/aramoreskincare/
https://www.instagram.com/melisseshaban/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisse-shaban/
Transcript
Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Have you ever stopped to think about how much of the beauty industry is still focused on the surface instead of what’s actually happening underneath? So many products promise results, but very few are actually designed to support how our skin functions at the cellular level. Our next guest has spent her career building and scaling science driven brands, and along the way, she kept coming back to a bigger question, what if we could move beyond traditional skin care and actually support how our cells age? And that is exactly what Melisse Shaban, CEO of Aramore, has done. So today, I cannot wait to dig into how an experienced CEO is bringing cutting edge science into everyday products and leading a category that is just beginning to emerge around NAD so, so excited to finally meet you, Melisse and welcome love Aramore. So very, very excited.
Melisse Shaban 1:52
Thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure.
Kara Goldin 1:53
Super excited. So for listeners who are just discovering Aramore, how do you describe the brand and sort of the short elevator speech and what truly makes it different from traditional skin care brands.
Melisse Shaban 2:08
The best way to think about this is that it is a supplement, topical supplement for your skin cells, so your entire body requires NAD it powers cellular turnover, which keeps you alive. And this is focused and targeted at your skin cells, at the at the basal level of your skin cells, that’s where the patents and the invention really happened. Here.
Kara Goldin 2:33
It’s exciting. So NAD plus has has suddenly become a major conversation. NAD as a whole in both wellness and beauty. So what is it that is so special about NAD that makes so much sense to have it in skin care products?
Melisse Shaban 2:54
So NAD is not novel to medicine or the medical community or, you know, I mean, NAD has been a known part of your part of how your cells are fueled forever. The challenge has always been, how do you how can you supplement the NAD? You know, it’s not terribly different than the glib ones, the glps, it’s in your body. How do you make it function and stay longer so its benefit is more measurable. And the scientists at the Stem Cell Institute at Harvard and mass Gen, these are all really brilliant folks that for 15 years have been studying the process of whether cells in your skin actually age or they just proliferate or differentiate differently. And the net, net of it. What they their discovery was is that no skin cells actually don’t age. They weaken as your NAD declines. So if we can fuel NAD, if we can keep that energy level up at the base, base layer of your skin cells, then as those layers are moving and migrating to the surface, they’re stronger and healthier, not terribly different to the learnings now, of hey, we as women need more protein. We’ve got to we need more muscle. Like we’re eating differently. We’re working out differently, because we’ve learned that some of this can really affect the health and wellness and the future.
Kara Goldin 4:20
So you were actually, you’re not the founder, but you were on the board of this company, and you were on the board of Aramore, and you have come from building multiple brands, and got this opportunity to actually come in as the CEO. So when you, when you saw this product for the first time, I guess maybe when you joined the board, were you just like, Wait, What? What? I can’t even believe this hasn’t been what. What was that? Aha moment, I guess where you said this needs to be here. So you mentioned it earlier.
Melisse Shaban 5:00
Here I’ve This is my third sort of trying to take a piece of biotechnology that had really basically side effects that were beneficial to other things, which oftentimes, in the history of our business, it’s always been an accident. Now no one starts out, typically in our business, maybe they are now today, but looking for some drug like qualities in a product, because you have to do human clinical trials and all those, and it’s always in, whether it’s Botox or some of the other drugs that have had a, you know, other benefits to men and women, they were never intended. It was a side effect. So my previous company was Virtu labs, a hair care company, and we took a protein that was designed for Regenerative Medicine with the regrowth of bone and tissue and nerves designed by a scientist in the military who was trying to conquer some of the challenges he had seen after he came back from war, and so I was familiar enough with the idea that we have to create a piece of science that understandable, that delivers on its promise, but mostly that you can see visible signs of change, because the science story unto itself gets very muddled, And it’s hard and it’s complicated, and as an industry, we sometimes commoditize that stuff, as you know, and that’s what attracted me. I was using the product Stephen Kennedy Smith, one of the many Kennedys really started this company. The brand is aramore, but the company is actually new frontier bio. And new frontier was a JFK initiative when he was in the White House, and all of Steven’s connections and companies go back to his Uncle Jack. So it has this really like interesting storytelling component to it, and it came out of these brilliant scientists out of MIT Harvard and mass Gen, and I saw the difference in my own skin. And I’m such a non believer, because I’ve been doing it for so long, that I was like, Oh, come on, this can’t be. This can’t work. And it was really just other people saying to me, what are you doing? Like, almost, if you’re in a procedure, you’re not telling me, you know, that type of, you know, questioning. And I was like, there’s a there, there, here. And I do think science now, because of the GLP ones and because of people’s desire to live healthier, longer, better lives, is it’s coming around for topical products
Kara Goldin 7:38
that’s so interesting. So when you joined the company, I guess, how many products did it have versus how many does it have today?
Melisse Shaban 7:49
So we’ve slimmed it down a little bit. There was about eight products. And you know what happens? And you know this as a business person, the science is fantastic, but we actually, as commercial marketers, we do do different things than the scientists do. And some of the things that would have been obvious to you and I just relative to customer navigation and do the does the architecture of the line make sense to the consumer? So there was a little bit of renovation to be done. I’ll put it that way, a little bit of cleanup. So anything that really didn’t have NAD in it, or wasn’t it didn’t NAD didn’t boost the product. We sort of slimmed it out of the line and cleaned it up a little bit and made it a little bit more easy to navigate, and made some of the grittiness and the textures a little bit different, things like that, things that you and I would know in our own business, but they were really they their, their mentality was, we’ve made, we’ve made a miraculous molecule, and that’s all we have to do is make great science, and if we build it, they’ll Come so, so interesting, is there one product that you make that is kind of the angel of the skews? Yeah, the energizing, the deli energizing treatment is the go to product, and it does not replace anything you’re using. It is not a moisturizer, it is not a retinol, it is not a vitamin C. So if you think about you, along with all the things that you’re doing, mostly topically, right? We never get really past the second layer of skin when we’re putting these products on. So we see an immediate benefit, a glow, you know, an exfoliation, you know, a feel. This is going all the way down to the basal cellular level and working to energize those cells so as they’re migrating to the surface layer of the skin, they’re in better form and shape.
Kara Goldin 9:49
So, so interesting. So when, when you look at what goes into a product, I mean there are so many different ingredients. And products, and you’ve been doing this for a while. How do you decide what is going to be in the product? You and I were talking about a few ingredients. That
Melisse Shaban 10:11
is,
Kara Goldin 10:11
that, you know, I was curious if something was a derivative of but I look at labels today, and for me, it’s it’s allergies more than anything else. But there’s other people who look at it and they don’t maybe want to have a product because it’s from the rain forest or whatever it is. But how do you decide, as a CEO, and also somebody who’s actually producing products that. How do you decide what’s in it?
Melisse Shaban 10:44
It’s a bit it’s a bit of a game, to be honest with you, right? If you look at an IL an ingredient list, it kind of runs down. The first ingredients are the most demonstrated ingredients in the higher, highest level. And then you work yourself down, and oftentimes you’ll see water in the top three ingredients, which is very common in the skin care business, because hydration is really important. No one would negate that, but you never get you have to be hydrated every single day. It’s not a progressive benefit. So historically, what people would do in the skin care business is they would make a very complicated il ingredient listing. So you couldn’t re engineer the IL like no one could take the exact formula, because most of the time, nobody has proprietary ingredients. They’re using the same ingredients, and they’re mixing them in a different complex so, you know, you’d make it as difficult to re engineer as possible and sometimes as expensive to re engineer as possible. So that was from a hierarchy stand standpoint. That’s the way it was historically done. The more complex, the harder it was to rip off. I think in today’s market, I think the consumer doesn’t appreciate complexity. They appreciate results and clinical differentiation. So as we think about it, our molecule, our protein, needs a chassis. It needs, I use the example, and it’s probably the wrong one, but if you have a horse and a jockey, we created the horse, the jockey is the molecule. That’s the really important part. The horse is able to carry the jockey through the eight layers of skin, break through the barrier and drop the jockey off. So those co factors, those fatty acids, were critical, because NAD you NAD unto itself does not penetrate. It’s too big. It’s a huge molecule, and that’s why people often talk about taking it, you know, through IVs and supplementation, because you can’t, you can’t deliver it any other way. So for us, it was all about, yeah, there’s, there are cosmetic ingredients that are also helping the the darkness. I mean, you want to see some things that happen at top of the skin, but the heavy lifting is our ability to create the delivery system that takes the jockey down to the cellular level and starts to work and repair those cells and feed them.
Kara Goldin 13:09
So you and I were chatting a little bit about how you’re distributed. You’re obviously online, and you’re in a number of different retailers as well as as doctors offices, but you talked about some of the different opportunities online that you’re really seeing, and this is more of a broad question, but I’d love to hear from you, sort of, you know, what do you hear out there, especially in the beauty industry, but especially in a category like this, where it’s it’s crowded, not necessarily, NAD but, but it’s crowded. And how do you explain everything to consumers and get them to say yes? And I mean, I think there’s a huge opportunity online to do that.
Melisse Shaban 13:58
I think, I think you’re right, and the content commerce is really where it’s at. Because you’re right. These are hard concepts. You know, historically the industry, and I mean this respectfully, I’ve been doing it my entire life, like, literally, my father was at Revlon for 30 years, so it’s all I’ve ever known. But you know, historically, the industry has preyed on shame and fear and aspiring to do something that you can’t do. You can’t anti age. You know, you have to pro age. Cannot anti age. If you’re, if you’re not aging, you’re you’re not with us anymore. So I think all of the shame and the and the the aspiration to avoid Aging has turned into, how do we control and manage and what can we do with what’s in our power to do that? And I think, yes, it is a very muddled and crowded field, and I think more was always better in a marketer’s mind. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I think we do one thing, and we do it well, and we have clinic the. Clinical definition on how we do it, and the discipline of staying tight in that assortment and sticking to the to what we do well in this day and age, is going to be very, very helpful. I think it’s up to the industry to police itself a little bit and to not let science be commoditized and simply say and make claims. Claims are claims. And then there’s facts. And we live in the world of facts at error more, you know, we’ve done extraordinary amounts of clinical trial data and assays, and we have an IP, a long chain of IP. That’s, you know, that we’re, we’re the 94th molecule on a chain of almost 50. So there’s been a lot of work done, and I personally believe that the consumer is not going to let consumer packaged companies get away with things anymore, which is, I’m just gonna make a bunch of claims and I’m gonna say it louder, and I’m gonna win. I think consumers now understand that we age from the inside out, whether we really accept the fact that aging starts in our late 20s, whether we’re there yet, I don’t know but, but that’s when it starts, and that as women, every decade, we’re facing a different set of circumstances relative to how we look on our age and aging skin. And, you know, we have, we have an opportunity to advance how and manage how that happens. And so it’s crowded, but I do think it will weed itself out. It always seems this, this business is funny. It always seems to, in cycles, take care of some of its ills.
Kara Goldin 16:44
Yeah, it’s so, that’s so, so true any industry, right? I always tell people, if you stay alive long enough, I tell other founders, you’re you’re doing something right, right, and others are not doing something right. So you’ve been involved in some incredible brands, science LED products, and what have you learned that, I guess, just about this consumer that is in order to actually get the message out to this consumers, and especially today, I feel like there’s just so much confusion in the market. So how does a consumer evaluate products that are especially if they’re science backed?
Melisse Shaban 17:31
I think they they have to look at the data. They have to demand the data and not get confused between true clinical data and consumer perception. If I tell you, Hey, you put the screen on your face, and eight of 10 people say, well, oh my, I look glowier. Of course, you do. You just hydrated your face. Now I’m not doing anything functional or structural to your skin. I’m simply giving I’m in your world. I’m hydrating you. I’m giving you water that makes your face look and feel better for a period of time during the day. So I think the real education comes from teaching people what they should look for and then holding companies accountable. And for me, at least historically, and I’m sure for you, having built an incredible brand yourself, and being early days, and it’s hard when you’re a first mover, you’ve got a whole lot of convincing to do. But I think when you believe in your product and you stick to it, and consumers stay with you because you delivered on the promise, that goes a long way. So I think top of the funnel is really important, but honestly, I’d rather have you know, we repeat purchase at about 42% so I would rather have a customer that’s satisfied and continues to buy the product and use the product and talk about the product in an unpaid, authentic and transparent way.
Kara Goldin 18:57
Yeah, no, I totally, totally agree. So what signals do you look for to know when a category and maybe this sort of feeds off of your answer to that question, to know when a category is is evolving and shifting you you are, or the founders actually brought the NAD concept to beauty and to the space, and you are taking it to the next level. But when do you know it’s like really shifting or or evolving? I think that that’s always a question, especially if you are a you know, early in the space, right? Like, when do you know it’s really taking off
Melisse Shaban 19:40
in in our world, it’s come out of other businesses. Certainly, previously in my life, it came it came out of science. We own strivektin and iodine, and we put those companies together, and that was really nicotinamide back in the day. And it came out of education. And seeing that consumers were starting truly to pay attention to the effects of skin. I mean, sorry, son, it took us a long time in my generation, fun was your friend, not your enemy. It was the tanner you are, the prettier you are. And we saw those shifts start to take place in sort of mid 2000s and we saw a super goop and companies like that. And so we recognized that people were going to pay attention to the ills and the effects of sun, and headed down that, that pathway. And by the way, oftentimes most products that start somewhere in skin biology are looking at skin disease. That’s really where the scientist starts. They don’t. Most true academic scientists are not looking to create a product line. They’re looking to solve a problem, and they see it as a problem that really is an unmet need and needs to be solved. But as it relates to this, where we saw things moving initially, was actually kind of in the supplement and bro space, we saw the IVs the all of a sudden, you know, I’m getting IVs. I don’t even know if it’s working, but I want to do it anyway. And all of a sudden, this whole idea of supplementation into your bloodstream has emerged as a really interesting category. And you know what? There isn’t a lot of clinical data, but if I think it works for me and it makes me feel better and it makes me feel like I’m in control, then it works for me. And so that’s how it really started. And these folks over at Harvard and MIT and all those places figured that you’re probably not getting much benefit to the skin cells. Gut and skin do connect. But when you take something and it’s going through your digestive system, in your blood, you’re you’re not getting a full load into your, into your into your skin cells. And skin cells are really picky, like they don’t like protein, they don’t like sugar. They only like fat. And that’s really what, what, what these people were able, these brilliant scientists were able to create, was this chassis, and we saw it coming from a nutrition standpoint. I mean, did you and I talked about creatine five years ago?
Kara Goldin 22:17
Yeah, no, it’s
Melisse Shaban 22:18
and I hate and I hated cottage I hated the cottage cheese five years ago too. Cottage cheese is gross to me now. I’m like, Oh, God, I had to have my cottage cheese. You know, it’s about, it’s education that happens full circle and and then being applying, applying the concepts to different parts of the body in different parts of aging.
Kara Goldin 22:37
I couldn’t agree more. So when you look at at air more and what you’re most excited about right now, whether that’s whether that’s new products or new distribution or a little bit of the above, what would you say is the most exciting aspect for you, for the company?
Melisse Shaban 22:58
I i just on a personal level, I get excited about aging, having watched parents who are no longer with me age a certain way, I get excited about the idea that if we actually manage the process of aging, and we start early enough on. Once the insults happen, it’s hard to go backwards. It’s a much steeper climb. But if we actually accept that, we can control the process of aging, medicine is doing its job. We’re living longer where, you know, nutritionally, we are more knowledgeable. I think you’re going to see, you know, the opportunity to get another 30 years of life that you look the way we do today. And I think that’s really exciting, because I think all of the scar tissue and all of the experience, if you’re healthy, it really matters in life. You know, those scars are, we’ve earned them, and they’re those lessons are really important, and if we stay healthy and virile and excited and strong, those lessons will parlay a lot onto society.
Kara Goldin 24:13
Yeah, I totally, totally agree. Melisse, thank you so much for joining today. I’m so excited about air more and where you’re going to take this. It’s, it’s really, really exciting, and it’s such, such a great line of products. So thank you so much for coming on and talking a lot more about it. NAD, as we mentioned, is just so, so hot. And if those, if you haven’t tried Aramore. Definitely go on to Aramore.com and follow along to see what Melisse and her team are building. And thank you again. Really, really appreciate
Melisse Shaban 24:52
you very much. And congratulations on your success as well.
Kara Goldin 24:56
Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. And everyone, thank you for. Listening, it’s been really exciting episode, having Melisse on and hearing a lot more about Aramore, and here’s to many, many more great episodes. So thank you again. Thanks so much. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast, just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey. I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.
