Am I approaching development correctly? Would love some feedback!

[Zain Miah]

So I am essentially starting a supplement company that has ready made protein drinks and preworkouts ready to drink right off the shelf, It has a few value skews hence why im pursuing as i believe it has potential. I'll be focusing on the protein drinks first as the TAM is bigger than preworkouts for now. My one concern is that I'm not sure if I'm taking the correct approach about bringing it to reality so would love some advice on my current plan. Here it is:
1) Do some research about ingredients etc and start recipe development from home and see what I can make
2) Once recipe is made, bottle up and have some people from the gym to give me their thoughts on the taste etc
3) Hire a food scientist / recipe developers to touch up on the recipe and making sure it has all the nutritional information it claims to (as it can be lost at certain stages in the making), how it can be preserved so it doesnt go off quickly etc
4) If all goes well, have the bottles/cans purchased then hire a place to brand them and add on nutritional information, ingredients on etc
5) Start making them on a biggerscale and have them distributed to stores, gyms and market online via influencers (of course my priority however is a productocracy)

Now is this the wrong way to approach things? Some questions I have are:
1) Should i go straight to recipe developers and have them work on it with me or start at home myself?
2) Is buying the cans/bottles from china stupid since it can take long to get more stock? or should i find a place in the UK which could cost more (where im from)
3) Before I've started making the drinks on a bigger scale, how can i be know the approximate price to make each unit
4) Once the cans/bottles have been delivered, I am planning to have another party add all the information/printing on then another party to have them filled. Is there a way i can have less companies involved and everything can be done quicker?

I would love to hear any thoughts or advice you guys have to me on this venture and what you would do differently than me or what i could improve etc. Thanks everyone

 

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[Isaac Odongo]

So I am essentially starting a supplement company that has ready made protein drinks and preworkouts ready to drink right off the shelf, It has a few value skews hence why im pursuing as i believe it has potential. I'll be focusing on the protein drinks first as the TAM is bigger than preworkouts for now. My one concern is that I'm not sure if I'm taking the correct approach about bringing it to reality so would love some advice on my current plan. Here it is:
1) Do some research about ingredients etc and start recipe development from home and see what I can make
2) Once recipe is made, bottle up and have some people from the gym to give me their thoughts on the taste etc
3) Hire a food scientist / recipe developers to touch up on the recipe and making sure it has all the nutritional information it claims to (as it can be lost at certain stages in the making), how it can be preserved so it doesnt go off quickly etc
4) If all goes well, have the bottles/cans purchased then hire a place to brand them and add on nutritional information, ingredients on etc
5) Start making them on a biggerscale and have them distributed to stores, gyms and market online via influencers (of course my priority however is a productocracy)

Now is this the wrong way to approach things? Some questions I have are:
1) Should i go straight to recipe developers and have them work on it with me or start at home myself?
2) Is buying the cans/bottles from china stupid since it can take long to get more stock? or should i find a place in the UK which could cost more (where im from)
3) Before I've started making the drinks on a bigger scale, how can i be know the approximate price to make each unit
4) Once the cans/bottles have been delivered, I am planning to have another party add all the information/printing on then another party to have them filled. Is there a way i can have less companies involved and everything can be done quicker?

I would love to hear any thoughts or advice you guys have to me on this venture and what you would do differently than me or what i could improve etc. Thanks everyone

Thanks for doing something.

Just noticed your post is cluttered and filled with grammatical problems. It is atrocious to read it.

I recommend you learn how to write copy, that's copywriting. May just take you a few days to weeks.

That will help you improve your writing and you will need to write well in order to sell your product.

Also check out how Andy Black writes. You can search him on this forum.

All the best.

Others will tell you more.

 

[Johnny boy]

If preworkout drinks and protein shakes didn't already exist, and you went to the gym and had the idea of "hmm, if only there was a beverage I could consume before my workout that would give me energy, and then a drink afterwards full of protein that I could consume to help my muscles repair" then I would say that's a radical idea and you might be on to something.

But.....I can find 19 thousand different drinks. 5 thousand of them have 5 star reviews and testimonials. So many that if you told me to find the best one, I would be looking for months and never find it because they are all incredibly marketed.

"I can't find a pre-workout drink anywhere" says no one ever. They can go to a goddamn gas station and grab a bang or a red bull.

The largest number of failed companies or business ideas have to be from selling products in industries that don't need much improvement.

Do you see any problems with preworkout or protein shake products? I don't. I recommend focusing on the questions "what am I improving? Why would someone say "oh man, that's exactly what I needed" and buy it? What's so special?"

and @Isaac Odongo his post was just fine, totally legible and he doesn't need copywriting advice right now he needs business advice.

 

[Zain Miah]

If preworkout drinks and protein shakes didn't already exist, and you went to the gym and had the idea of "hmm, if only there was a beverage I could consume before my workout that would give me energy, and then a drink afterwards full of protein that I could consume to help my muscles repair" then I would say that's a radical idea and you might be on to something.

But.....I can find 19 thousand different drinks. 5 thousand of them have 5 star reviews and testimonials. So many that if you told me to find the best one, I would be looking for months and never find it because they are all incredibly marketed.

"I can't find a pre-workout drink anywhere" says no one ever. They can go to a goddamn gas station and grab a bang or a red bull.

The largest number of failed companies or business ideas have to be from selling products in industries that don't need much improvement.

Do you see any problems with preworkout or protein shake products? I don't.

I agree. In the millionaire fastlane MJ speaks about how even packaging can be a value skew and how he received vodka in a skull shaped bottle and even how there is vodka in colourful bottles.
Now my value skew would be making exotic, tropical looking sparkling protein drinks in plastic transparent cans to display the colour of the drink (which would be exotic colours). My thoughts are this build a premium idea behind the brand. Not only that but 0g of sugar and 20g per can.
Skewing value like this makes my drink make the consumer feel some positive connotations towards the drink and kinda gives summer vibes if you know what i mean. It means it differentiates from the typical "gorilla angry type stuff" on the market and opens more to the average gym goer or health enthusiast.
plus theres genuienly not much drinks im seeing that are sparkling protein drinks with 0g of sugar, no artificial colours and 20g of protein.

 

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[Johnny boy]

I agree. In the millionaire fastlane MJ speaks about how even packaging can be a value skew and how he received vodka in a skull shaped bottle and even how there is vodka in colourful bottles.
Now my value skew would be making exotic, tropical looking sparkling protein drinks in plastic transparent cans to display the colour of the drink (which would be exotic colours). My thoughts are this build a premium idea behind the brand. Not only that but 0g of sugar and 20g per can.
Skewing value like this makes my drink make the consumer feel some positive connotations towards the drink and kinda gives summer vibes if you know what i mean. It means it differentiates from the typical "gorilla angry type stuff" on the market and opens more to the average gym goer or health enthusiast.
plus theres genuienly not much drinks im seeing that are sparkling protein drinks with 0g of sugar, no artificial colours and 20g of protein.

Since your value skew is packaging and bottle appearance, you can test sales without having any drink. You could bottle up red bull mixed with Gatorade and see how people like the bottle and if you can get any sales. How do you do this as cheap and quick as possible. Money likes speed.

 

[Zain Miah]

Since your value skew is packaging and bottle appearance, you can test sales without having any drink. You could bottle up red bull mixed with Gatorade and see how people like the bottle and if you can get any sales. How do you do this as cheap and quick as possible. Money likes speed.

Interesting! I already know theres a drink on the market with a similar value skew however it does not have any protein in it rather its just for enjoyment. They already have a productocracy as i see a lot of people sharing their drink on instagram and tiktok. The website is chaibibi.com
Could I use that as "proof" the concept could work?
And in regards to mixing gatorade and redbull, firstly that wouldnt even taste nice and it has no protein in it I am assuming you're sugeesting i fill clear cans with exotic looking drinks and see how the market would respond if i told them it had 20g of protein, 0g of sugar etc?

 

[Isaac Odongo]

If preworkout drinks and protein shakes didn't already exist, and you went to the gym and had the idea of "hmm, if only there was a beverage I could consume before my workout that would give me energy, and then a drink afterwards full of protein that I could consume to help my muscles repair" then I would say that's a radical idea and you might be on to something.

But.....I can find 19 thousand different drinks. 5 thousand of them have 5 star reviews and testimonials. So many that if you told me to find the best one, I would be looking for months and never find it because they are all incredibly marketed.

"I can't find a pre-workout drink anywhere" says no one ever. They can go to a goddamn gas station and grab a bang or a red bull.

The largest number of failed companies or business ideas have to be from selling products in industries that don't need much improvement.



and @Isaac_Odongo his post was just fine, totally legible and he doesn't need copywriting advice right now he needs business advice.

and @Isaac Odongo his post was just fine, totally legible and he doesn't need copywriting advice right now he needs business advice.

Read through it again and think you are right about legibility. Great process too.

Believe what put me off was the paragraphs being quite bigger and crowded.

But read through it and it is legible.

 

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[Johnny boy]

Interesting! I already know theres a drink on the market with a similar value skew however it does not have any protein in it rather its just for enjoyment. They already have a productocracy as i see a lot of people sharing their drink on instagram and tiktok. The website is chaibibi.com
Could I use that as "proof" the concept could work?
And in regards to mixing gatorade and redbull, firstly that wouldnt even taste nice and it has no protein in it I am assuming you're sugeesting i fill clear cans with exotic looking drinks and see how the market would respond if i told them it had 20g of protein, 0g of sugar etc?

Then you better be as good at driving traffic. People will buy lots of things that happen to be in front of them, the question is how are you going to get in front of people to sell them your drink?...

 

[Zain Miah]

Then you better be as good at driving traffic. People will buy lots of things that happen to be in front of them, the question is how are you going to get in front of people to sell them your drink?...

I have a few ideas for distribution right now and some of them are quite unique

In general though do you think the product has some good value skews? Is my general plan okay to base the next few months on?

 

[Johnny boy]

I have a few ideas for distribution right now and some of them are quite unique

In general though do you think the product has some good value skews? Is my general plan okay to base the next few months on?

You can win at pretty much anything you pursue with everything you've got.

I would never think to go into that industry unless I was famous.

Maybe convince a celebrity to make their own brand and they'll promote it. There IS a lot of opportunity in monetizing talent.

 

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[Zain Miah]

You can win at pretty much anything you pursue with everything you've got.

I would never think to go into that industry unless I was famous.

Maybe convince a celebrity to make their own brand and they'll promote it. There IS a lot of opportunity in monetizing talent.

That would break the commandment of control - rather I can use celebrities as a form of marketing (which is one of my plans) and best of all I can use celebrities outside of fitness due to the value skew!

 

[Johnny boy]

That would break the commandment of control - rather I can use celebrities as a form of marketing (which is one of my plans) and best of all I can use celebrities outside of fitness due to the value skew!

I'm saying use them for marketing.

 

[heavy_industry]

Not a bad idea, but you will have to implement a massive value skew and product uniqueness, otherwise it will get lost within the other 10k generic brands of supplements.

Packaging shape, size, color and texture are good ones. Not having BS ingredients (sugar, certain sweeteners, soy, allergens) might also be a huge value skew for certain people.

You can have a lot of success with this, but don't expect to hit the mainstream. It's like trying to compete with Coca-Cola on the soft drinks market, it's just not going to happen.

Good luck.

Money likes speed.

Brilliant quote.

 

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[Zain Miah]

I'm saying use them for marketing.

I thought you meant make it look like they own the brand but if you mean they just market it then yeah!

 

[Johnny boy]

I thought you meant make it look like they own the brand but if you mean they just market it then yeah!

making it look like santa claus owns something doesn't violate any control.

You can be the person that runs the business side and you're the one with more control.

Be the company that approached Ryan Reynolds and said "dude, you're super famous, you need your own brand of alcohol" and he said "okay I'll do the funny commercials, let's make gin". I'm saying to do that. You can do it with multiple people.

It's worth 610 million.

But sure, you can have ten grand and say "I've got all the control, it's MY brand name on the bottles no one is buying"

Think bigger.

 

[Zain Miah]

making it look like santa claus owns something doesn't violate any control.

You can be the person that runs the business side and you're the one with more control.

Be the company that approached Ryan Reynolds and said "dude, you're super famous, you need your own brand of alcohol" and he said "okay I'll do the funny commercials, let's make gin". I'm saying to do that. You can do it with multiple people.

It's worth 610 million.

But sure, you can have ten grand and say "I've got all the control, it's MY brand name on the bottles no one is buying"

Think bigger.

I've considered this before but one concern I have is that if those people say something out of line or a crime they've done pops up out of no where the company can die and get cancelled. Theres pros and cons but for sure it is something I've been considering

 

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[Johnny boy]

I've considered this before but one concern I have is that if those people say something out of line or a crime they've done pops up out of no where the company can die and get cancelled. Theres pros and cons but for sure it is something I've been considering

I would be more concerned with how you have made ZERO F*cking dollars so far.

 

[Zain Miah]

I would be more concerned with how you have made ZERO F*cking dollars so far.

I get your point but the whole point is to start a CENTS based business for longevity and wealth not just a quick money grab that could die because of another person.

 

[Isaac Odongo]

I've considered this before but one concern I have is that if those people say something out of line or a crime they've done pops up out of no where the company can die and get cancelled. Theres pros and cons but for sure it is something I've been considering

When you've made profits and then the brand image is tarred by some stupid thing your celebrity face has done, you can just break up immediately.

You aren't the one who did it. You won't have to die because someone else is stupid or mean. You didn't know he was mean. You meant well. You learned they are mean. You broke up. You nurse yourself with those dollars and move.

You aren't mean. Unless you actually are. But the image was mean. So you broke.

 

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[Isaac Odongo]

Listen to Johnny boy.

Fact is there are chances even you may do something mean. You didn't plan for it. It just happened. You aren't infallible. Don't expect humans to be infallible.

Some brands have had celebrity faces for many years. They keep going. Those celebrities haven't gone dumb as you fear.

The truth, even in my country, Uganda, is, drinks are a highly saturated sphere. You can't beat the competition even to a few dollars without causing some noise. Beverage brands in my country use hot celebrities to brand themselves. That way they do something.