The Story Behind Aguulp

By Kevin Godlington
Aguulp Co-Founder

A partnership forged out of gut-brain necessity and shared values

I left school at 14 and have no formal qualifications. I joined the army at 16, coming from state care and a broken home. My apprenticeship in life was swift and steep. It forged my being and gave me the confidence to overcome almost all adversity. I left the clutch of the military, and drove my newfound civilian life hard into successful business. I made money the hard way, with toil and entrepreneurial spirit. I relished the hardship and challenge and built businesses that now employ hundreds of people across five countries.

Excellence exists everywhere. It’s no secret that remarkable, indominable people are born often from difficult backgrounds, facing complex beginnings. They learn how to overcome barriers to entry, class systems, elite-chattering-class mentality towards lack of academia, and teeth-grinding towards those who may be ‘high achievers’ but don’t come from the appropriate background to show how or why. It’s stacked against us, and we know it, but that is half the fun: proving the naysayers wrong, breaking ceilings and creating beautiful new things no one else has thought of, solving problems and bringing solutions to crowded and confusing markets.

I overcame all of these things and have truly built my businesses from the grassroots – often with worn out tools, chancing it, risking it, with little or no bank debt, frugal innovation, doing more with less, making every last quid go as far as possible – and without the contacts and address book of the great and the good of the City of London.

Despite all this, my mental health was neglected. Since childhood, owing to the abuse that came with it, I have suffered from various brain problems. In adulthood I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on various medicines. They didn’t work. Today I am on effective antipsychotic medicines, and together with a supportive family, my amazing wife, and a healthy fitness regime I prosper and don’t dwell in the dark recesses of my mind.

But! Despite this, I was and am constantly searching for natural, botanical supplements to support good brain health and cognition. To keep my brain from sugar-hungry ranting and from lying to me. To keep it sane and central to support my own and my family’s needs.

About two years ago, I met Professor Green, a.k.a. Stephen Manserson, introduced to me by my good friend Martin Robinson, editor of The Book of Man.

Stephen and I clicked immediately. We are similar in that we have both had difficult childhoods, overcome adversity and thrived. He has built his reputation and creative talents and skills off the back of sweat, tears and effort. A man who knows how to work and produce results. It was obvious immediately that we were going to get on, and it was obvious immediately that we were kindred spirits on issues that both of us had faced.

Stephen had been through a rollercoaster of tribulations with his gut health, a process which left his stomach half paralysed. He came to learn about the symbiotic link between serotonin levels in the stomach and in the brain. Put simply, his gut problems influenced his mood and cognition. And quite obviously to him, there was a direct response from nutrition that he provided for his gut and in the overall mood and levels of anxiety he felt.

We spent months wargaming, modelling, researching, studying why there was not a companion supplement, a one-stop shop liquid you could take to offer gut support and brain support in one.

Aguulp is an evolution of two years of work in the lab. Exceptionally talented human beings helped us create a total solution.

Step 1: A world first short-chain fatty acid gut test – do a poo, send it to us in the lab, we test and tell you how many good bacteria you are missing.

Step 2: Take a brain-support sachet and a gut-support sachet five days a week.

Step 3: Retest your gut in 6-12 months and see the improvements.

Step 4: Feel the benefits. Better gut health equals better brain health, mood and overall wellbeing.

Simple. And it works.

Aguulp doesn’t seek to be a supplement business but a companion business. We deliver liquid shots with up to 98% absorption rate, not the sh*t 5-20% via pills. Aguulp is a total solution for your health and wellbeing. We are bringing out a stable of simple easy to use liquid shot sachets across a multitude of interventions that affect your daily life.

We aim to be a one-stop shop and bring complementary companionship to busy schedules. All for the price of a meal out every month or a coffee a day. This thought leadership came about by necessity between Stephen and I. It came about because we wanted to solve a problem that was unsolved. Now it is.

Welcome to Aguulp and our companionship journey.