Ned® is the result of two friends, Ret and Adriaan, who started in different places arriving at the same destination. For years, we’d been living lives that left us feeling empty, bewildered, and disconnected. It wasn’t just us – everyone around us seemed beset by anxiety, stress, device addiction, you name it. The so-called solutions – pills, paychecks, more consumerism – seemed only to address the symptoms, never the underlying issues. Something about this way of life just wasn’t working.

Ret discovered CBD years before it hit the mainstream. His mom had been diagnosed with cancer and after she opted to skip radiation, Ret took it upon himself to learn all he could about the available natural remedies her doctors weren’t talking about. CBD was one of those remedies and Ret spent two years bouncing from one brand to another, never developing a true sense of

trust with any of them. Sometimes it was a lack of quality and other times it was a frustrating lack of transparency about the process and sourcing. He took it upon himself to go deeper and started meeting with hemp farmers out in their fields. Finally, in the fields of Paonia, CO, he met a farmer who practiced what he preached, raising a 1-acre field of plants with the care and intention of one truly connected to the earth and his craft. Quality was his goal, not quantity. A friendship was struck.

Meanwhile, after spending a decade in the world’s largest cities working 70- plus-hour work-weeks, Adriaan had increasingly realized that something was fundamentally out of balance. Material pursuits brought with them anxiety and a looming sense of disconnect. He discovered that the life he thought he wanted brought only a sense of discontent. These feelings eventually culminated in a total burnout, topped off by a full-blown panic attack in front of his entire 75-person company. He knew a change was needed and left behind the life he knew, spending the next 2 years living out of a backpack and rediscovering the virtues of nature, simplicity, and true human connection. Along the way, he published his writings about recovering from burnout, which were recognized in publications like Thrive Global and The Street.

We reconnected over a shared passion for discovering the tools that would get to the heart of the issues we, our friends, and families were experiencing. Adriaan’s approach was focused on harmonizing the mind, while Ret delved deep into the body, pulling from his experience as a leader in nature therapy primal movement. Sharing these discoveries with others became our common purpose and eventually lead to the creation of Ned.

We decided our first “business meeting” would take place while climbing South Arapahoe Peak outside of Boulder, CO. We got turned around by a blizzard before reaching the summit but we came away from the adventure with our core principles – keep it simple, keep it natural, only work with extraordinary people, and always think of the customer and the greater environmental impact. With these in place, Ned was born and we could begin our mission – helping people feel better and live better through simple means and a deeper connection to the natural world.

Ned is a wellness brand rooted in the belief that we can all feel better and live better through the powers of the natural world. For us, helping people feel better and live better has meant creating simple and effective natural remedies that serve as a holistic first line of defense against common ailments. Turns out, it takes a lot of steps to keep things purely simple and our products are a reflection of the care and commitment required to live up to our mission.