Developing a Health Supplement Business - Progress Thread

[JustinBoshans]

I have the notes, but I found the video online so you can just watch it. It's about 40 minutes long but worth it from what you'll learn.

 

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[JustinBoshans]

I forgot to post the link. Session 6 2 Anik Singal 5 Steps to Generating Online Leads and Sales through Pay Per Click - YouTube

 

[1step]

I made my sales goal this month, woohoo

It seems like I am constantly working, I dont have another job so I do this full time which for me turns out to be 80+ hours a week. Im going on vacation next week and am somewhat dreading it as I have no idea how I will get everything done and it seems like it may cause more stress . Trying to carve out a niche in a highly competitive industry is tough, margins can also be thin selling through amazon.

Its not easy, if you think it is, good luck to you.

The Future

I don't know how this thread will progress or if it will progress. Sure I can keep updating this with my monthly goals but it is a bit boring and not extremely helpful. So maybe I will re-evaluate things to determine a new road for this thread or maybe I will just update less regularly. I am also concerned about the abundance of thievery and copying that seems to be plaguing the forum right now, this is always on my mind when thinking about what I cover.

Did You Message Me?

Sorry if you have messaged me and I have been short with you. I get way more messages than I would have ever expected asking for help or how I did something, most of these messages seem to be from action fakers. If I have been short with you I am just trying to weed out the fakers and time wasters. As you progress I'd love to keep hearing from you and help anyway I can. If I didn't respond at all I probably missed your message.

"Mastermind Group"

It seems the vast majority (only?) people that are still following this thread are people that are starting or thinking about starting a supplement company. I wouldn't mind forming a small mastermind group with some of you that are currently going through the same process. I am no expert so this isn't training, this would be maybe 5 or so of us who have recently started supplement companies (or similar) sharing experiences and learning from each other. maybe skype chats every couple of weeks or once a month. PM or email me if you also might be interested in something like this. Probably would have to limit this to action takers as well, you have a company, placed an order, or you are selling product in some form.

 

[HD_edacity]

hey 1step I don't think you mentioned this, i was wondering how you designed your label? Was it just a default one made by the manufacturer that included the barcode and all the disclaimers and stuff?

 

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[1step]

hey 1step I don't think you mentioned this, i was wondering how you designed your label? Was it just a default one made by the manufacturer that included the barcode and all the disclaimers and stuff?

I created it using photoshop. The manufacturer will give you what needs to be included on the label as far as disclaimers and ingredients. To meet regulations you have to include certain things and mention that the FDA hasnt evaluated your claims.

As far as the creative and what not, most manufacturers seem to have a creative team that can design the label for $150.00 or so.

BTW this is all for the US market, I see you are from Canada so just wanted to clarify I dont know how this might change

 

[Bushi23]

1step,

The "mastermind" group sounds like a fantastic idea . I'd love to be a part of that if it gets enough interest. I'm about to place my first order - I wish I could start out small like you did but this is a somewhat new ingredient and the only manufacturer that seems trustworthy to me, has a very high MOQ. It looks like I'll be spending around 10k just to get started. And that's before I have a lawyer check out my claims, etc. I wish I could test this market out more first, but I have a good feeling about the product niche. Also planning heavily on word of mouth and marketing via offline tactics, which really can't be done without product.

I'd love to chat with you , eskil and others who are starting to do this and learn from each other. Great job so far, inspiring thread.

 

[Eskil]

The "mastermind" group sounds like a fantastic idea . I'd love to be a part of that if it gets enough interest. I'm about to place my first order - I wish I could start out small like you did but this is a somewhat new ingredient and the only manufacturer that seems trustworthy to me, has a very high MOQ. It looks like I'll be spending around 10k just to get started. And that's before I have a lawyer check out my claims, etc. I wish I could test this market out more first, but I have a good feeling about the product niche. Also planning heavily on word of mouth and marketing via offline tactics, which really can't be done without product.

I'd love to chat with you , eskil and others who are starting to do this and learn from each other. Great job so far, inspiring thread.

The group has been created. Check your pm.

 

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[1step]

Bushi, Looks like eskil has taken care of this for us. look forward to seeing you there.

 

[Talisman]

Damn, makes me want to start a supplement biz up just to join the group!

 

[HD_edacity]

Thanks for the info 1step, I started looking up tutorials on youtube for illustrator and it doesn't seem to be too hard but being in Canada really does change things. I have the ingredients i want and the amounts ( I had already been using them but from different bottles and figured hey why not put everything into one ), The biggest hurdle seems to be the serious regulations that Canada has on supplements, there are entire approval processes and you have to have a NPN number before you can even market :bgh:

 

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[1step]

The biggest hurdle seems to be the serious regulations that Canada has on supplements, there are entire approval processes and you have to have a NPN number before you can even market

wow, that really sucks. High barriers to entry are both good and bad. Keep fighting!

 

[barbarian]

great Project

so you developed your own supplement label?

when are you going to créate your own website? where do your current and usual clients come from?(your niche)

 

[1step]

Its been 2 months since my last update!

Sales
Sales progress is good, so far I am still ontrack to meet my sales goals for the year. I have missed one sales goal for 1 month but made up for that short coming in another month so I am on pace with my goals still.

My goals this month are steep, I will really need to work and sell to meet these goals.

Virtual Assistants
I now have 3 full time virtual assistants. One is a content writer, very good English skills and seems very responsible. One keeps track of my many social media accounts, she also has very good written english skills. Both of these VA's are from the Philippines. I ended up firing one VA that was from India, she was very unreliable and so I felt I had to cut ties with her. My third VA is from Morocco and he is also working on content creation. I am actually just starting him so I dont know a ton about his work habits.

All my VA's started around $2.00 an hour.

MY Product Line
I now have three products listed for sale. My main product brings in the majority of my sales. My secondary product is growing and will soon overtake my original product in sales (this is my plan anyways). My last product is just a side product, I didnt create it to create a ton of revenue just as a supplement product to my others.

Expansion:
I plan to start a fourth product very soon and possibly a fifth soon after. I am currently extremely busy so Im not sure how I will launch the two products but I might give it a go. I hope to hire a full time local employee in the near future which will hopefully relieve some of the pressure thats mounting All of the mentioned products will likely be in similar niches. By the end of the year I would like to be in a new niche as well so thats the ultimate goal. Right now I will develop this "niche" and cross sell products to up my revenue.

Website
I have created my own website and I am now fully able to take sales from that site. I just recently completed this and so far havent recieved any sales from the site. I plan to start promoting it and driving traffic to my landing page soon. Driving sales through this site will be a great way to up my revenue to meet my sales goals for the month. I plan to drive free traffic using various methods including my social media accounts mentioned before. I also have some other ideas in my mind but I am no expert as this sort of thing so it will be very much trial and error to find something that works.

Mastermind Group
The mastermind group that was mentioned in a previous post has been created and we now have about 10 participants. Most of us are just starting companies but we do have a range of experiences. We meet weekly and it is very valuable to talk to others in a similar situation with very different experiences. I know I had learned a ton and I am sure others have had similar experiences. As the group develops I think it will become even more valuable as kinks are worked out, we become more organized, successful and membership is finalized.

I would strongly recommend joining a group in your niche thats similar to this. Even if its just an entrepreneurship group that would probably be ok. But if you can find a group (or create one) in your niche all the better. Its amazing how it started with just a few of us and snow balled to the point where we have a "waiting list" of people we would like to add in the future.

Conclusion
Starting out my goals were always to be here at this point in time but I would be lying if I were to say I knew I would make it. My goals were intentionally high and I honestly didnt believe I could make them. I figured I would try harder to reach the goals and always fall just short. Which was fine with me, but what has happened has been unbelieveable.

Thinking back to last year at this time and seeing where I am now is really wild. Im glad I took the opporunity I had to quit my shit job and do this. I have learned a ton about myself as well as business. This forum has provided a ton of growth for my personally and professionally. I am very much a proponet of taking action and doing but what you can learn from other successful entrepreneurs is extremely valuable and it is well worth the time investment to read threads on this forum as well as watch interviews of successful people. At times it can seem like there is tons of information you have to watch or read now but dont let that slow you down from getting started. its amazing once you get started creating a business and focus some of this information you previously would have thought you HAD to know all of a sudden can be pushed aside and you focus your time on acquiring the really important. So get started and MAKE PROGRESS

I believe eskil has now overtaken me as the most popular supplement progress thread so I have some work to do. Check it out, theres always a link below in the "similar threads" section. He provides a lot of value and you can likely learn more from him then me (probably why its more popular ).

Thats all for me, if you read all this reward yourself with a treat!

 

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[Eskil]

I believe eskil has now overtaken me as the most popular supplement progress thread so I have some work to do. Check it out, theres always a link below in the "similar threads" section. He provides a lot of value and you can likely learn more from him then me (probably why its more popular ).

Lol, well. Thank you for the kind words but you're doing and learning as much as I am in this process.

Folks, this guy really deserves some more Speed+
I talk with 1step almost daily on Skype, and what he has accomplished - and his consistent action-taking - is worth taking note of.

Also I agree about our mastermind group being extremely valuable for this.

 

[1step]

"Tough times don't last, tough people do"

Go get it guys, make your own luck

 

[1step]

Ive spent a lot of time recently working on my website sales page and integrating Ultracart.

My prior site was through bigcommerce and it ended badly when they decided to just delete the entire site.. They said sorry "you can rebuild it" lol no thanks.

So I decided to go through Ultracart, its a bit more complicated than bigcommerce but has a lot of cool features and is very customizable. You can add 1 click upsells, downsells, different payment gateways, affiliates and a ton more. How much you pay is based on how many products you have listed for sale or sales volume ($). Its pretty reasonable in my opinion and I can recommend it.

My next move is to start with media buying, I have been reading and learning a ton. I think I am ready to throw some money into media buying and see what happens. Its a pretty big next step but seems vital to my future success to start controlling more of my sales process.


There are lots of variables in Media Buying so its a bit scary but with lots of testing I think I can make it profitable.

 

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[1step]

So, I reached a pretty big milestone within the last week or 2. I have now officially been working for myself for an entire year.

13 Months ago I was working 40 hours a week as a construction project manager at a small company sweeping floors. I decided it was now or never, I needed to quit the job and give my full attention to my own business. I had $2k or so saved up and have minimal expenses so I knew I had a little time before I would be out of money. At the time I was finishing up a SaaS website that I had worked quite a while on. After working on that project for the first 2 or so months I realized it was going to be a failure so I killed it.

My next move was to do this supplement business so I jumped on it, did some research and quickly bought my first order.

I didnt have time to dilly-dally around, I needed to get started and move fast before I ran out of money. So I just did it, got started, placed the order and kept moving.

You can see how the rest unfolded throughout the thread.

The main takeaway is to just START, once the pressure mounted and I had to make money I made it happen.

You can spend years doing research, reading forums and worrying about random corporate tax loopholes... You'll never start, theres always more to learn. You don't need to know everything right now, get started, tackle problems as they come and be nimble.

As an entrepreneur you're just a problem solver, every day theres a new problem or issue, learn as you go, solve the problems quickly as they come up and move on..

Thats what I've learned in the last year.

I look forward to the next year, I have some big goals for the next 6 months, should be a lot of fun

 

[Phillipbro]

I was always afraid of taking the supplement and drug route, because of all the different drug and supplement regulation acts.

How did you find a provider for your supplement also have you developed it yourself? Thanks a ton

Sent from my SGH-T999V using Tapatalk 2

 

[1step]

I was always afraid of taking the supplement and drug route, because of all the different drug and supplement regulation acts.

Yeah somewhere in this thread another person mentioned that in Canada it is a bit tougher to go this route. I personally dont know anything about the regulations in Canada but it certainly sounds like a barrier to entry.

You can find providers that will either sell stock formulas to you that you can put your own label on or create your own product based on a formulation you come up with. You can find providers for either route easily on google. Due diligence is certainly important, Ive had my issues with a couple different suppliers but its all a learning process.

Theres certainly opportunity on the supply side of supplement sales, in my opinion.

 

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[DeletedUser2]

Yeah somewhere in this thread another person mentioned that in Canada it is a bit tougher to go this route. I personally dont know anything about the regulations in Canada but it certainly sounds like a barrier to entry.

we sell in canada.
not that hard.
have a group that will

1. do all the paperwork for you.
2. have a contract manufacture that already has private label stuff approved in canada. you just put your label on it


pm me for details

Z

 

[Eskil]

Very well said, 1step. NOTHING beats just taking action. All the books and forums in the world can never replace taking action.

You've made some good progress for sure!

 

[Phillipbro]

Anyone have experience in the hair loss niche? It looks like a good market to tackle. Highly competitive but you could definitely get a nice slice of the pie. Its the type of product where you can easily create a customer relationship and have repeat consumers

 

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[nausbot]

Read this whole thread, am very interested in starting something myself!!!

I'm leaning towards a protein powder, anyone doing something like that? Obviously it will be more than simply protein but other super ingredients. Just formulating some thoughts and ideas.... want to get to 200MPH ASAP!!!

 

[nausbot]

Leaning away from protein at the moment... found a Canadian private label manufacturer and hope that within the week I can have some samples made up... my target market is creative minded people... I think I have a plan and I'm excited!!

 

[nausbot]

Quick Q for those who are already creating pills...

I'm just going over the numbers, the per pill gram weight is 7.3225... does that sound like a giant pill? Should I consider a powder? (I have 6 ingredients I'd like to combine, with daily amounts divided by twice daily pill consumption... or am I off on my calculations? Or should I up the per serving amount of # of pills?)

 

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[Eskil]

Quick Q for those who are already creating pills...

I'm just going over the numbers, the per pill gram weight is 7.3225... does that sound like a giant pill? Should I consider a powder? (I have 6 ingredients I'd like to combine, with daily amounts divided by twice daily pill consumption... or am I off on my calculations? Or should I up the per serving amount of # of pills?)

Yes that does sound like a giant pill. 7.3 grams would equal to a bottle that weighs 15.5 ounces (assuming the typical 60 ct. capsules per bottle). My capsules weigh about 0.47 grams, with most of the ingredients in mg or mcg quantities.

Use a spreadsheet to help you with calculations if you're not doing this already. That's how I started out with my own formula. I initially had more ingredients that I wanted in too, but decided to cut some out because it would mean people whould either have to take 4-6 pills at a time - or swallow giant horse pills.

But if powder or liquid is an option for your product, I would consider that.

 

[Phillipbro]

I've been greatly misinformed about the supplement niche. I have always thought the barrier to entry was much greater (FDA, regulation approval etc).

I feel the supplement market is massive and still growing. I can name a handful of my close friends who spend $65+ on supplements a month (including myself). It's become a trend to "lift"

 

[1step]

I'm just going over the numbers, the per pill gram weight is 7.3225..

Sounds huge, perhaps you calculated wrong

My capsules weigh about 0.47 grams, with most of the ingredients in mg or mcg quantities.

Yes, most normal sized pills would weight about this much. It depends on the size of the capsule you use but it seems a rang in weight from 500mg to 750mg is about right. 7.3 grams = 73000mg so youd likely be swallowing a baseball at that point lol

It's become a trend to "lift"

"Do you even lift"

 

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[nausbot]

Yes that does sound like a giant pill. 7.3 grams would equal to a bottle that weighs 15.5 ounces (assuming the typical 60 ct. capsules per bottle). My capsules weigh about 0.47 grams, with most of the ingredients in mg or mcg quantities.

Use a spreadsheet to help you with calculations if you're not doing this already. That's how I started out with my own formula. I initially had more ingredients that I wanted in too, but decided to cut some out because it would mean people whould either have to take 4-6 pills at a time - or swallow giant horse pills.

But if powder or liquid is an option for your product, I would consider that.

Sounds huge, perhaps you calculated wrong



Yes, most normal sized pills would weight about this much. It depends on the size of the capsule you use but it seems a rang in weight from 500mg to 750mg is about right. 7.3 grams = 73000mg so youd likely be swallowing a baseball at that point lol

Thanks to you both!

I took daily recommended amounts of my ingredients and divided into two servings. May be a little aggressive in quantity of ingredients? One ingredient is recommended at 10 grams a day. The others are in the mg and mcg ranges. Perhaps I need to re-evaluate it's inclusion. Sigh.

 

[1step]

One ingredient is recommended at 10 grams a day.

What is it? Is it included in any other capsules on the market?