What It Takes to Build a Category-Defining Consumer Brand with Ara Katz, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Seed Health
What does it take to build a consumer brand that doesn’t just compete in a crowded market, but redefines the category entirely?
Join us for an actionable session with Ara Katz, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Seed Health, for a conversation designed specifically for early-stage consumer founders navigating the messy middle of growth.
Seed is widely recognized for doing what most consumer brands struggle to achieve like translating deep, complex science into trust, loyalty, and long-term brand equity. All of this without chasing trends or sacrificing integrity. In this conversation, Ara will share how founders can think beyond short-term DTC tactics and focus on durable, defensible brand building.
We’ll explore:
How to build category leadership instead of competing on features or price
What it means to use DTC as an education and trust-building channel
How to scale responsibly and steadily
The role of founders in owning narrative, credibility, and long-term vision
Lessons from Seed’s growth that apply across consumer categories
This session is especially relevant for founders thinking about longevity, specifically, how to grow without cutting corners, how to balance brand and performance, and how to build something that lasts.
ABOUT THE GUEST
Ara Katz is the co-founder of Seed Health, a microbiome science company translating breakthrough research into clinically validated, gut-directed products. She helped lead the creation and commercialization of Seed’s flagship product, DS-01® Daily Synbiotic—an award-winning formulation studied in multiple human clinical trials for its benefits in and beyond the gut. Ara also founded SeedLabs, the company’s environmental research division, to explore microbial solutions that restore biodiversity and support ecosystems impacted by human activity.
With a background spanning health, consumer tech, media, and design, Ara is widely recognized for shaping how microbiome science shows up in the world—from clinically backed products to public education. She is the author of A Kids Book About Your Microbiome and is currently writing a new book with Simon & Schuster on women’s health and the microbiome.
Ara has been honored across business, science, and media for her leadership and contributions, including CNBC’s Changemakers, Inc.’s Female Founders 100, Marie Claire’s The New Guard, and Business Insider’s Silicon Alley Top 100. Her work at Seed has received accolades, including TIME’s Best Inventions (2018, 2023), Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies and World Changing Ideas (2019–2024), and Inc.’s Best in Business. Her perspective is frequently featured in leading publications, including WIRED, The New York Times, Forbes, CNN, and Vogue.
Ara is also an active angel investor and advisor across health, sustainability, and technology—including Ostro (digital health), satellite company Umbra, MindBodyGreen (wellness media), biotech like C16 Biosciences, and maternal care company Mahmee. She served on the board of Biosphere 2, a closed-system research facility for Earth science, and was a Visiting Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, where she co-created the Center for Future Storytelling and was also a fellow in CCA’s Thinking MBA program.