ARTICLE / THE MAKING OF... SERIES
The making of...
HOL Health Club.
In a protein bar aisle packed with powders, artificial sweeteners and copycat wellness brands, Nolan and Mackenzie saw a gap that felt personal. As former investment bankers constantly on the move, they were living on bars that never quite delivered. High protein meant highly processed. “Natural” meant low impact. None of them checked every box.
So they did something slightly unhinged. They quit Wall Street, liquidated their savings, and started building HOL Health Club, a whole food protein bar powered by bone broth.
We caught up with the married co-founders to talk kitchen disasters, loud branding bets, sidewalk sampling in New York City, and what happens when you go all in on something together. Get ready now for The making of… HOL Health Club.
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The making of... Series
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#HOLHealthClub #founderstories #startupjourney #brandbuilding #wellnessbrand #proteinbars #entrepreneurlife #themakingof #consumerbrand #bootstrapped #wholefoods
Nolan, Mackenzie, welcome to The making of… nice to meet you. We’ve become big fans of your story and bars! Ok, Let’s start at the beginning. Who are you, and what’s the story behind HOL Health Club?
Let’s do this formally! Hello, we’re Nolan and Mackenzie, co-founders of HOL Health Club, a whole food based protein bar made with bone broth.
We’re partners in business, but also in life. We’ve been together since 2016 and got married last year. Before HOL, we both worked in investment banking. Nolan was in IB for six years, and Mackenzie for four, with two years in consulting before that.
Right now, it’s just us. We’re the w(hol)e company.
Nolan and Mackenzie, co-founders of HOL Health Club
You both came from investment banking. What made you walk away from that world and into protein bars?
We were always on the go, whether after a workout, running into the office, or in between meetings, and we constantly reached for protein bars. Little by little, we realised how much we disliked all the options out there.
The market is a spectrum. On one end, you’ve got high protein bars that are highly processed, full of powders and ingredients you need to Google. On the other end, you’ve got natural bars made with real ingredients, but they lack protein or are completely imbalanced in their macros.
We couldn’t find a bar that was truly whole food, high in protein, balanced across macros, filling, energising, and most importantly, actually tasted good. There wasn’t one that checked all those boxes. After digging into it more at the beginning of 2025, we realised we might have something.
It’s a saturated category. How did you approach research and validate that this wasn’t just a personal frustration?
Protein bars are a huge, crowded market. Saturation is a double edged sword. There’s more competition, but it also proves people are spending in the category.
We knew the only way to win was to be genuinely different, not just market it differently. We tried nearly every bar on the market and kept coming back to our original frustrations. We wanted whole food ingredients, balanced macronutrients, and high protein.
We looked inward at our own diets. Most of our protein came from meats and dairy. It was winter in New York when we were working through this, and there was a spot near our office with amazing bone broth that we drank multiple times a week. It’s great for your gut and joints and naturally high in protein. That’s when we started experimenting with a whole food bone broth protein bar and realised we were onto something.
Be honest. What were those first kitchen versions actually like?
Horrible.
The first batch hit the macros we wanted, but it tasted like cardboard. We originally wanted to be extremely low sugar, since that’s what everyone seems to chase. But we quickly realised we had to stay true to our philosophy. If it’s real, unprocessed, nutrient dense food, every ingredient serves a purpose.
Natural sugars from honey and dates provide real energy. Good fats from nut butters make it filling. Carbs power you between meals. Fiber supports digestion, which we built through dates, cinnamon, cacao and oats.
After a few kitchen disasters, we worked with a professional to refine the recipe. When we finally held the finished bars after months of iteration, it was surreal.
You’ve gone all in on this. How did you fund the early stages?
Totally self funded. We’re all in.
We’ve liquidated savings accounts, 401(k)s from previous employers, everything. It’s make or break. There’s no backup income. If we win, we win together. If we fail, we fail together.
The branding is loud, confident and different to most wellness brands. How did you land there?
This is what we’re most proud of.
We knew the product had to stand alone as truly great. But we also knew branding would be critical in a saturated space. We worked with an incredible agency called Label Maker on our brand and website, and we actually started this process before the recipe was finalised.
They gave us two very different directions. One was sleek, modern and minimal. It felt very aligned with the typical wellness aesthetic. The second was loud, colourful and built around the idea of revamping your local corner store, becoming “the essential corner.”
We were more comfortable with the sleek option. But when they showed us a page with our logo placed among competitors, we disappeared. It was clean, but it blended in. We realised that playing it safe would make it much harder to win.
Choosing the loud direction has proven to be one of our best decisions. Five months in, we constantly get compliments on the brand. It’s bold, fun and welcoming in a way that makes people want to be part of it.
We’ve seen you literally standing on the street with a sign. How else are you building awareness and scaling the brand?
At the start, it was organic social media and setting up a folding table on New York sidewalks next to farmers markets to sample the bars.
We have a sign that says, “We quit our jobs on Wall Street to make this protein bar. Please come try.” It works. Hundreds of people stop every time, and most of them say the sign pulled them in. Vulnerability goes a long way.
We’re now doing more trade shows, events with gyms and run clubs, and working with wellness communities and athletes. After securing an exciting retailer in Texas, we’ve started testing paid ads to drive awareness there, but we’re taking it slow.
As a team of two, what’s the biggest challenge right now?
Time.
When there are only two of you, whatever you don’t do simply doesn’t get done. Production delays, packaging issues, wasted spend, we’ve faced all of it. But the real challenge is focus.
It’s about separating noise from signal. Blocking out distractions and focusing on the few things that truly move the needle. It sounds simple, but noise is everywhere. In business, in relationships, in life. Staying disciplined there is what we’re working on most right now.
Ok, before we hit final question time, we’d like to say thank you for taking time out for our questions. We LOVE your work. Now, about that last Q… What would you tell someone standing at the edge, thinking about starting?
Start.
There will always be a reason to wait. A safer job. A better time. A fallback option. But you’ll never know unless you try.
No first time founder starts as an expert. You start with what you know, and you figure out the rest along the way. Don’t let fear stop you from getting going.
And have fun with it. It’s easy to get consumed by the stress and the hours, but you chose this path. Be positive. Be goofy. Enjoy the process. That’s what makes it worth it.
