Episode
The Gatorade for Your Eyes: An Optometrist Builds a Drink for Screen Time | Dr. Roger Wu, The Eye Drink
- Podcast
- Invst Guru
- Published
- Jul 27, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1468
- Processing state
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- https://preipohype.com/podcasts
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Summary
Every eye doctor in America tells patients to take AREDS2 vitamins for their eyes. Dr. Roger Wu tracked how many of his own patients actually did it and found the number was under 10 percent. Meanwhile, the same people were drinking Gatorade, energy drinks, and probiotic sodas without being asked twice. So he built the vitamin into a beverage instead. Dr. Wu is an optometrist with two practices in Southern California and the founder of 20/20, maker of The Eye Drink, a ready-to-drink functional beverage formulated for eye health and aimed at anyone spending two or more hours a day on a screen. So, everyone. He walks Jeff through the entire build. The formulation labs that told him copper, zinc, and omega-3 could never taste like anything, several of which wanted $50,000 up front just to attempt it. The co-packers who refused to run oil-based ingredients through their equipment. The fight with his lab over sugar that started at zero, ran through about 30 prototypes, and settled at 5 grams of pure cane. And the study he ran inside his own practice, measuring macular pigment in 72 patients at baseline and again at 90 days, then re-running the whole thing because the improvement looked too good the first time. The business side is just as candid. He launched at the biggest eye care conference in the country in September 2025, then pivoted in February out of the optometry channel and into retail after beverage industry people told him the doctor route would take years. Samples are now with Sprouts and Bristol Farms, an Amazon reseller came inbound, and he is raising a bridge round: a Reg CF on Mr. Crowd and a Reg D for accredited investors ahead of a Series A, with most of it going to marketing. The last stretch is the part that will stay with you. A seven-year-old with dry…