How I Helped Create the First All-in-One Adventure Supplement

Most supplement brands aren’t built by hikers, Optiventure is. It’s an Aussie start up that saw a gap and went for it. Jess is part of the team and explains how (and why) they started.

 

As an avid multi-day hiker I’ve covered hundreds of kilometres with a pack on my back. As the Hiker’s Nutritionist, I’ve trialled what feels like every combination of dehydrated meals, electrolytes, snacks, powders, multivitamins, and recovery supplements in search of the ultimate fuel for performance. If there’s a perfect formula for me, I haven’t cracked it yet.

Adventure life isn’t gym life. It’s constant movement, relentless weather, long days on patchy sleep, and a menu of freeze-dried carbs with nothing fresh.

An average meal on the PCT, yikes

That cocktail trashes your immune system, keeps sore muscles sore and inflammation high, leaving you dealing with constipation, diarrhea, and hills that seem way harder than they actually are. No matter how much you eat, you still feel sub-par.

That frustration is how Optiventure began.

The kind of place you want to have a big idea

The Hike That Started it All

In November 2023 thru-hiker Cam Bostock and his adventure buddy and entrepreneur Hursh Dodiha-Shah were deep in the Himalayas on a 35-day expedition. Both their packs were rattling with a doomsday prepper amount of supplement powders and capsules they had meticulously prepared, knowing that they’d be pushing themselves and fresh food was weeks away. Mid-hike they started asking: Why hasn’t anyone put all of these essential supplements into one pill?

Hursh’s pre-optiventure supplement stack

By the time they got home, the idea to create one was taking shape. Fast forward a few months, and they’d mapped out a plan for new capsules that could keep adventurers healthy when they needed it most. One high-quality formula for energy, immunity, recovery, gut support, sleep, and inflammation. No gym bro branding, no cheap fillers, or sketchy claims hidden behind constant flashy discounts. Just research-based, trail-ready nutrition tailored for the outdoors.

Cam and Hursh roped me in a few weeks later to help with the research, fact-check their assumptions, and shape the formula. I’d been working on trail nutrition plans for clients for months, and hearing their pitch was one of those annoying ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ moments. There was no question about my involvement; I was all in. Within days, we were running ingredient lists, studying clinical data, testing ratios, and working with manufacturing partners to source nutrients.

Cam, Jess and Hursh

Trail Chemistry

The following months passed in a blur of spreadsheets and prototype formulas. The goal was deceptively simple: a single capsule that delivered complete micronutrition, steady energy, and recovery support to save hikers from taking up to 13 or more different supplements on trail. Getting there meant delving deep into ingredient vetting, possible contraindications (when two ingredients oppose each other), learning about powder density and chemistry, and somehow making it affordable. Credentials aside, this was a huge learning curve for all of us. 

The Optiventure V1 Prototype

By mid-2024 we’d manufactured a tiny Australian batch of our first prototype in a TGA-approved facility. It arrived on the same day Cam was headed to the airport to hike the Pacific Crest Trail end-to-end. To say he was nervous heading to the airport with hundreds of unmarked pills was an understatement! 

For the unfamiliar, the PCT is 4,250km of punishing days, wild weather, and trail food. This was his longest thru-hike ever, but the first time he experienced no health or recovery issues along the way. Optiventure Version 1 kept him energised, well-rested, and injury-free. He finished it in just 139 days (the average is 150-180 days for the main trail) with approximately 600 extra kilometres walked due to added side-trips. 

Turns out that Optiventure left Cam feeling pretty damn good!

Next, we shipped samples to forty adventurers around the world, from the Alps to the Larapinta, and asked them to report their experience. When it was mostly positive, we knew we were onto something.

In February 2025, we officially started selling Version 1 to the public – a terrifying experience! Our small initial manufacturing batch of just 150 units sold out in just 24 hours. Our inbox filled with photos from the PCT, the Appalachian Trail, the Bibbulmun, even alpine routes in Europe. Reviews poured in, and within the first few months post-launch, we had fifty 5-star reviews!

Not Quite There Yet

While feedback was very positive, we knew there was room for improvement. The capsules tasted herby or garlicky, depending on whose taste buds were talking! We hadn’t addressed sleep or recovery as well as we could have, our nutrient timing wasn’t optimal, and there were some incredibly high-quality ingredient forms we wanted to include that we couldn’t access for the first batch.

We also wanted to ensure gut health support was the best it could be so we consulted clinical gut health specialist and seasoned adventurer Kirsty Wirth from Kultured Wellness to dial in that aspect, and once again cycled through what felt like hundreds of formula iterations.

V1 sold out, but improvements were always the game plan

That early success also exposed the next hurdle: scale. While I drilled down on the new formula for Version 2, Hursh moved operations to the U.S. for better ingredient sourcing, cost-effective manufacturing, and centralised global shipping. No point spending all our energy making something epic, only for it to be too expensive for our customers to afford to buy or get delivered.

In September 2025, we launched Version 2 with an upgraded formula, a Sunrise/Sunset system for optimum nutrient timing, and reusable travel pouches so you don’t have to take the tub on trail. 220 sold in the first week and we’re now shipping Optiventure to 9 countries. Don’t get me started on the logistics and pricing hell of international shipping when every country has a different pricing method and delivery time – ugh!

Optiventure has now made it to every continent (except Antarctica, although one of our customers is heading there in November!) Is it ridiculous to be jealous of your own product? We haven’t even done that!

Why Optiventure is Different

Adventure physiology is a complicated beast. Long days with a heavy pack spike cortisol and chew through minerals. Altitude saps iron and B vitamins. Freeze-dried dinners barely dent your micronutrient needs. Most supplement routines I see hikers using are built for sedentary or gym-focused bodies and don’t address the complex needs of adventurers in the outdoors. They’re often overly complicated and the furthest thing from ultralight.

The Sunrise/Sunset designs help make nutrients available when you need them

Optiventure is specifically designed to support outdoor adventurers and the AM/PM rhythm matches how our bodies actually work:

Sunrise:

Energy, immunity, gut health support, and complete micronutrition.

Sunset:

Recovery, inflammation support, and sleep-optimising nutrients.

As a nutritionist, I always advocate for good food before resorting to supplements. And I stand by that, even as the head of nutrition for a supplement company. But when you’re pushing your limits, and the food you need isn’t available, Optiventure is the only supplement I know of that is tailor-made to support the way adventurers move, eat, and recover – both on and off the trail.

Scenes from where Optiventure began

What We Believe

For us, Optiventure isn’t just a product. It’s the embodiment of everything that’s missing for us on our adventures. We were all spending heaps of money and time sourcing high-quality forms of the nutrients we knew we needed, but it wasn’t sustainable long-term. I certainly couldn’t afford to take the ideal forms I sourced every single day – I had to reserve them for on the trail and had a complicated dosage matrix written out with timings. The prep was annoying, but I did it because there was no other option.

Now, we take our Sunrise and Sunset Opti capsules daily. Aside from being way easier and so much more affordable than buying each supplement alone, it’s a constant reminder that we take our health, and our adventures, seriously. Every capsule we ship is for someone who’s stepping into the unknown, who wants to keep chasing summits, inside and out, at the gym, and on the trail.

If you’re a regular adventurer, Optiventure works as a daily supplement

Whether you’re chasing a Triple Crown thru-hike, ticking off local peaks, or just trying to stay trail-ready through a 9-to-5, your body deserves something far better than a random multivitamin.

What’s Next For Us

We’re experimenting with new formulations (if you’re in our Optiventure Facebook Community Group, you’ll know that electrolytes – Optilytes! – are coming!), building a global ambassador network, and listening to every single review and piece of feedback. The goal isn’t to be the biggest supplement company. It’s to be the one you trust to keep you moving when the weather turns, the food runs low, and the summits get higher.

Optilyte hydration mix testing in Perth

This whole thing started because we couldn’t find what we needed. Now it exists. And while we’ll keep refining formulas to make trail life more nutritious, the next challenge is spreading the word. This is a big learning curve for us because we aren’t business magnates – we’re hikers. We’re not here to be another flash-in-the-pan startup. We’re here to keep adventurers thriving on trail and reaching their summits for the long haul.

Every time I pop a sunrise or sunset capsule, I have a little ‘is this real?’ moment. It still feels a little surreal, but we actually did it. And getting to share our stoke, and something we’re so immensely proud of, with people just like us, is nothing short of magic.

Jess Barlow is the Head of Nutrition at Optiventure, works as The Hikers Nutritionist, and is a We Are Explorers contributor and former employee. We asked her to write this article out of sheer curiosity about the Optiventure story and the trust that Jess will always tell it to you straight.