Teen offers captivating content and wares

Daniel Severud displays products from his company Hypno Lifting. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Daniel Severud hopes his focus on fitness has a hypnotic effect on others to follow suit. The teen started his own brand to that end.

Hypno Lifting offers an apparel line and supplements. Daniel, 17, of North Dakota said fitness is his passion.

“It's a huge role in my life,” he said. “I go to the gym pretty much every day, so it's something that means a lot to me.”

Daniel said his fitness lifestyle and company is more than just about selling products. He explained why he wants to help others.

“For me, the people who lifted me up during the time I started lifting really changed my life,” Daniel said. “I really want others to feel that I am reliable in making people feel good about their journey.” 

He wanted his business name to have meaning.

“Hypno is short for hypnosis, and the main thing about lifting is to stay focused,” Daniel said. “It correlates in a way where if you're under hypnosis, you're focused and you can lock into a certain thing. I shortened hypnosis because it looks better and it's not a long name. It's an abbreviation pretty much. I thought hypnosis was a pretty cool name for me to go with.”

He said Hypno Lifting is unique among its ilk.

“Customer care really sets me apart,” Daniel said. “I try my best to make customers feel like they make a good decision buying from Hypno. Also, the monthly logo drop that I do is very rare to find in another lifting company that is a sole proprietorship.”

He unveils a new logo for apparel each month and plunges into an ice bath for every sale, which is posted online. 

“The reason why I do it is to make a customer feel special about ordering from my company and it puts the spotlight on them,” Daniel said. “I will always be grateful for my customers and the ice baths show my appreciation.”

He explained how an ice bath is a more thorough rejuvenation method than cold showers. 

“Ice baths fully submerge the body in cold water when a shower only gets a small portion at a time,” Daniel said. “Ice baths help mainly with muscle soreness and it helps with a faster recovery.”

He works out throughout the week.

“I go Monday through Saturday every week because I work on Sundays,” Daniel said. “I go about an hour-and-a-half a day. “Monday, back and biceps. Tuesday, shoulders and triceps. Wednesday, legs. Thursday, chest and back. Friday, shoulders and arms.”

An incoming senior, he’s on the high school football and track teams.

“I play wide receiver and outside linebacker,” Daniel said. “I throw javelin, discus, and, occasionally, shot put.”

He aims to increase strength and effectiveness on the sports field.

“More for strength,” Daniel said. “I'm in sports, so to lift for strength and more ability in my sport is good, too. That's what I mainly do.”

Daniel works out in his apparel.

He manages his time juggling school, sports, a job and a business.

“Once I am completed with one thing, I move on to the other,” Daniel said. “There is no rush or else I will become stressed and overwhelmed.”

He hopes Hypno Lifting becomes his main source of income down the road.

“I wanted to get to a point where it can support me fully,” Daniel said. “Right now, I'm in the learning stages of everything, so I'm still going through the motions and trying to find out what's right and what's wrong.”

Despite Daniel’s youth, he didn’t have much trepidation about starting a business.

“I've been in marketing classes since I was a freshman, so it's always intrigued me to advertise and market things,” he said. “To start my own business was bound to happen eventually.”

Daniel tried other types of businesses before settling on one tied to his passion.

“I've done several businesses in the past where they've gone under instantly, but that's part of learning,” he said. “I've tried drop shipping. That didn't work at all. It's what they advertise on social media is the 1 percent of people that actually succeed with that. There's things that made me nervous and things that have helped me really along the way. I wasn't entirely sure if I'd be able to run a business by myself, but it's worked so far. It's been fun. Because drop shipping, you go off of trends online, but sticking to fitness is what I really like to do.”

Daniel hopes to tap into the huge market for athletic apparel and supplements.

“For fitness, the market is 37 billion and it's growing, growing as time progresses,” he said. “It's a great thing to categorize yourself into because there's a huge market for it. There's a lot of people that enjoy it.”

Daniel always was athletic.

“First sport I played was football,” he said. “I was in eighth grade. Way back when I was really young, I was in tennis and baseball, but I quit those before middle school.”

Daniel offers supplements.

Daniel eventually added a new sport.

“I play football and I'm in track,” he said. “I'm better at track, but I like both equally pretty much. I throw in track, so it's strength all around.”

Before Daniel started high school, he decided to spend more time in the gym.

“It was before my freshman year,” Daniel said. “I got a random 3 a.m. motivation where I think I could start doing this. I bought pre-workout. I went in with one of my buddies and we started lifting together for a few months. It was great.”

He spends less free time in the gym during the season.

“I only work out about four days a week during the football season because there's three days where we lift in the week,” Daniel said.

He started the business, then tied in social media content.

“I started Hypno Lifting first,” Daniel said. “I started it early sophomore year, and then I gave up on it halfway through. I shut down August through January of 2023-2024. Then I restarted, bought the Shopify plan in January of 2024 and then started posting my fitness stuff and all that with it.”

Daniel wasn’t surprised he ended up with a business tied to fitness.

“I always have known it was going to be towards something I love and what I do in my daily life, so it being fitness wasn't surprising for me at all,” Daniel said.

Daniel, who sponsors athletes and teams, poses with track and field athlete Ben Strand.

He said having clothing advertising a brand is a boon.

“With any gym brand, there should be apparel,” Daniel said. “It markets itself. If you have your logo on it, people ask, and then you can tell them about it. It's a win-win.”

Hypno Lifting sponsors athletes.

“I've sponsored my track team, and then there's a lifter that's local who posts on Instagram,” Daniel said. “I gave him a few of my shirts and he's making a review on them, so that'll help me a lot.”

He said the first step in starting any business is creating a website.

“First, you want to find a platform where a website can be built,” Daniel said. “Shopify is the best, but it is a little spendy. If you want to go cheaper, I'd go with Square. You can build an online store on there. Shopify is the best for e-commerce and you just have to have the motivation and the mindset that you're your own boss and you're in charge of your destiny and you are going to be the reason why you fail or you succeed.”

He uses one vendor for the apparel.

“It's basically they get the order, they print, and then they send it to the person,” Daniel said. “It's easier for me since I'm busy the whole day pretty much.”

He employs the same method for the supplements.

“The company I use, they get the order, they print the label on it, and then they send it to the consumer,” Daniel said. “It's really nice for me.”

He plans to coordinate his continuing education to his business.

“I'm going to go to college for marketing,” Daniel said. “I'm hopefully going to be on a track team in college, too. So that'd be good.”

He would like to own his own gym someday.

“That's the ultimate dream,” Daniel said. “That's what I really want to do. With inflation and everything, gyms are going to be super expensive, but that's way further down the road. Eventually, I'd like to open my own gym facility and such.”

He also would like to become a fitness trainer down the road.

“That'd be fun,” Daniel said. “I feel like I'd have to do that eventually. If I open up a gym ever, that would be one of the things I do.”

He hopes his followers will be inspired.

“I just want them to feel motivated in themselves,” Daniel said. “The hard thing about starting lifting and starting the gym is having the motivation and keeping that motivation for a long time and being disciplined. I just hope that my content can spark something, something in people that they can have that discipline, have that motivation to be able to lift on a daily basis.”

He is sought out for advice.

“With editing videos and making graphics and being able to make logos, people have asked me for help on how to do that,” Daniel said. “I only use Canva with everything to make my logos. So it's easy, but it takes a lot of time, so people ask for help.”

He already is known for his content.

“There's been times where kids come up to me and they recognize me from my Instagram reels and they asked me about the brand,” Daniel said.

Daniel stands with track and field player Isaiah Gaye.

He focuses on videos rather than pics.

“Reels can get you a ton more views,” Daniel said. “You can pay for views on Instagram and it's very easy. People would rather see a video rather than just a picture, so I post mostly reels on my Instagram account. A few years ago, people would rather have watched YouTube videos that are 15 minutes long. But now that TikTok and Instagram are a thing, people have a shorter attention span. So you want to keep videos shorter.”

Upon becoming fitter, he found everyday chores less difficult.

“I definitely noticed that,” Daniel said. “I'm helping around the house with family stuff. It's easier to lift heavier things now. I'm the only child left in my house, so I'm usually the one who lifts things.”

As Daniel continued to work out, he discovered his performance on the field also improved.

“My athletic ability really improved,” Daniel said. “That really surprised me a lot. Putting the work in gives results, and that's really surprised me when I was younger starting out. It's awesome.”

He advised people to not procrastinate if they’re considering working out.

“Lifting definitely helps in the future, especially if you're consistent,” Daniel said. “Helps when you get older, especially. Start as early as you can. You don't want to start too young, risk of stunting your growth. If you're just starting out like 13 years old, you could start that earlier, even 12, but if you're really young, like 8, 9, 10, I'd do something mediocre, but not huge.”

He said even when kids are too young to start lifting, they can do the standard body weight exercises such as push-ups and pull-ups.

Daniel points to soccer player Logan Lambl wearing a Hypno Lifting hoodie.

Daniel developed discipline to not skip workouts and work on his business.

“There's days where I feel unmotivated to do anything, but that's where discipline comes in,” he said. “Starting off motivated is great because you get in that routine of posting and making videos and staying consistent, and then their motivation doesn't stay that long. Staying disciplined is really what helps me create and stay consistent with everything.”

Daniel suggested gym beginners get a partner.

“Definitely find a friend,” he said. “Starting off with lifting with a friend for me was great because we both were starting out and we both needed help on things, so we kind of helped each other in that way. You don't have to have the partner the whole time, but to start out, I'd have a friend for lifting.”

Daniel recommended budding entrepreneurs become educated.

“If you have any classes available that relate to business in any way, definitely take those,” he said. “Get the experience before you start. You don't want to start cold turkey and without any knowledge, so definitely start with classes.”

Daniel’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hypno.lifting/

Daniel’s website: https://hypnolift.com/