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Most people reach for a coffee, energy drink, or pre-workout when they need to lock in.
Eric Drymer reaches for a pouch.
He’s the founder of Ultra, a nicotine-free performance pouch brand built around one core idea: focus should be clean, intentional, and optional — not addictive.
In less than a year, Ultra has gone from launch to 1M+ cans sold, closed an $11M Series A led by Left Lane Capital, and carved out a new lane inside one of the fastest-growing categories in CPG.
On the Playbook HQ Podcast, Eric breaks down why he walked away from vaping, how paraxanthine became Ultra’s secret weapon, and why he thinks pouches are the next major performance ritual.
Before Ultra, Eric was just trying to quit vaping.
He switched to nicotine pouches like ZYN — seeing them as a “less bad” alternative. Same ritual. Less harm than inhaling chemicals all day.
But there were two problems:
So he’s in the gym taking vasodilating pre-workout to improve blood flow…
…and at the same time, he’s got a vasoconstrictor pouch in his lip working against that.
That tension became the spark for Ultra.
“We weren’t trying to be anti-nicotine. We just didn’t want to trade long-term health and performance for short-term focus.”
The insight: people weren’t just using pouches for stimulation.
They were using them for focus — at work, in the gym, on long drives, late at night.
Ultra set out to build a pouch designed specifically for those moments.
Ultra is a nicotine-free, caffeine-free performance pouch.
Their first product line: Focus Pouches — discreet, plant-based pouches loaded with:
You get a clear, tactical boost in focus — without nicotine, without high-dose caffeine, and without the same crash or long tail.
The intent isn’t to be “less bad.”
Ultra wants to be a better tool entirely.
Most people don’t know they’ve already “used” paraxanthine.
When you drink caffeine, your body metabolizes it into three primary compounds:
Each behaves differently in the body.
Eric breaks it down like this:
Ultra uses paraxanthine because:
“There’s really nothing else I can take at 5 p.m. for a boost that doesn’t wreck my sleep. That’s the power of paraxanthine in a pouch.”
Ultra isn’t trying to be another drink or powdered mix.
Eric went all-in on pouches because the ritual already exists:
Nicotine pouches already conditioned people to pair that ritual with specific goals:
Ultra’s thesis: build formulations that fit the real intent behind each of those moments, but without nicotine — and with ingredients that are actually good for you.
Focus is just the first play.
There are two more product lines in the pipeline for this year, plus new strengths and flavors.
Ultra launched in May 2025.
In the first 6–7 months, they sold over 1 million cans, becoming the #1 nicotine-free pouch brand globally by velocity and volume.
Then came the raise:
The goal of the round: stay aggressive in what Eric sees as a rapidly expanding space.
The oral pouch category is projected to be a $25B+ market by 2030, with nicotine pouches leading the early wave. Ultra is betting the next wave will be functional pouches — focus, calm, energy, and recovery, without nicotine or high-dose caffeine.
“We’re not just a step-down from nicotine. We’re trying to build products that are useful and undeniably good for you.”
One stat jumped out:
~30% of Ultra customers have never used nicotine products at all.
That’s a big signal.
Ultra isn’t just a harm-reduction tool for people quitting vaping or pouches. It’s pulling in new consumers who:
That’s the brand’s positioning in a sentence:
Not another stimulant. Not another supplement.
A performance pouch.
Eric uses 4–5 pouches per day, with two core use cases:
Eric used to be heavy into full-stack “optimizer” culture — Whoop, trackers, and everything that came with it. These days he keeps it simple and leans on just a few things.
Daily Performance Stack
Leadership & Operating Philosophy
Inspiration
“He’s a pure cognitive machine. It’s you vs you — and he’s mastered that game.”
The Playbook Take:
Ultra isn’t trying to be a louder, crazier energy product. It’s a format shift — from drinks and powders to pouches — built around clean focus, shorter half-lives, and rituals that match how high performers actually live. As someone who was also hooked on ZYN's, I'm all in on Ultra, plus it's not only helping you focus, it falls into the better-for-you category.
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