Developing a Health Supplement Business - Progress Thread

[nausbot]

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

Its available although not widely. Its considered a superfood and I was planning to include it for energy benefits. Maybe I'll save it for another idea.

 

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[Mbc]

Its available although not widely. Its considered a superfood and I was planning to include it for energy benefits. Maybe I'll save it for another idea.

You can just put a small amount in to advertise for that superfood no?
Not like most people will know if it's the daily recommended dose or not. How many people check to see a supplement has enough omega-3 (example)? It's likely just saying "contains omega-3 etc." is enough.
People love these superfoods, acai berries and all that shit.

 

[SerpKing]

You can just put a small amount in to advertise for that superfood no?
Not like most people will know if it's the daily recommended dose or not. How many people check to see a supplement has enough omega-3 (example)? It's likely just saying "contains omega-3 etc." is enough.
People love these superfoods, acai berries and all that shit.

Why do that? Why not invest slightly more in a generously dosed product that will actually provide some benefit? This is what's wrong with the supplement industry. Under-cutting ingredients so you can under-cut competitors.

 

[Mbc]

Why do that? Why not invest slightly more in a generously dosed product that will actually provide some benefit? This is what's wrong with the supplement industry. Under-cutting ingredients so you can under-cut competitors.

Because it's not practical to consume a 10g pill?
Nothing to do with undercutting or saving money, there are physical limits on how much of something you can put in a pill or daily serving of powder/liquid.
I read you need to eat 28 cloves of garlic to get the full health benefits, obviously no one is going to eat that much garlic but does that mean it's useless to eat a reasonable amount?

If the daily recommended dose of x supplement is 5g, does that mean you should have either 0g or 5g?
And if you fit 0.1g of x into your supplement why would you not advertise something that is still beneficial?

 

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[SerpKing]

Because it's not practical to consume a 10g pill?
Nothing to do with undercutting or saving money, there are physical limits on how much of something you can put in a pill or daily serving of powder/liquid.
I read you need to eat 28 cloves of garlic to get the full health benefits, obviously no one is going to eat that much garlic but does that mean it's useless to eat a reasonable amount?

If the daily recommended dose of x supplement is 5g, does that mean you should have either 0g or 5g?
And if you fit 0.1g of x into your supplement why would you not advertise something that is still beneficial?

Obviously if the effective dose is 10g, powder is the route to take.

Is it okay to advertise 0.1g as being effective? Your call - lots do it, but that's one of the downfalls of the industry IMO. Stuff like that is what gives the industry a "scammy" reputation.

Take Creatine Monohydrate for example. It's well documented that 3-5g is the effective dosage required per day to reap the benefits. Why make an under-dosed capsuled product and advertise it as being beneficial (When it isn't)? Why not just make a powdered product?

Anyway that's just my 0.2c on it.

 

[Mbc]

Obviously if the effective dose is 10g, powder is the route to take.

Is it okay to advertise 0.1g as being effective? Your call - lots do it, but that's one of the downfalls of the industry IMO. Stuff like that is what gives the industry a "scammy" reputation.

Take Creatine Monohydrate for example. It's well documented that 3-5g is the effective dosage required per day to reap the benefits. Why make an under-dosed capsuled product and advertise it as being beneficial (When it isn't)? Why not just make a powdered product?

Anyway that's just my 0.2c on it.

It's wrong to lie so yes in that case saying 0.1g is an effective dose is wrong.
But 10% daily dose of Vit C is beneficial, is there anything wrong with saying "contains Vitamin C"?
And if someone feels better because their pill contains x amount of some superfood is that wrong?
I suspect a lot of supplements have a placebo effect also.

Just saying it's not so black and white, it depends on the supplement and how he chooses advertises it.

 

[Gymjunkie]

It's wrong to lie so yes in that case saying 0.1g is an effective dose is wrong.
But 10% daily dose of Vit C is beneficial, is there anything wrong with saying "contains Vitamin C"?
And if someone feels better because their pill contains x amount of some superfood is that wrong?
I suspect a lot of supplements have a placebo effect also.

Just saying it's not so black and white, it depends on the supplement and how he chooses advertises it.

Question is if you would buy that supplement yourself? If not, you're suggesting bad option..

 

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[Mbc]

Question is if you would buy that supplement yourself? If not, you're suggesting bad option..

Honestly I don't take any supplements. I'm not a big fan and think they're unnecessary if you have a healthy diet/lifestyle, and if you don't then they are a poor man's substitute.
Good point though, made me think if it makes sense for me to sell something I'm not sold on myself.

I still think that if you and your competitor have the same formula except you have an added 5% of vit C for example it could beneficial financially and value wise for the client.


PS: nice website, I really like your covers. I'm writing a fiction novel and would definitely be interested.

 

[Vigilante]

Be careful. And, get product liability insurance.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/23544063/weight-loss-supplement-linked-to-liver-failure

 

[Gymjunkie]

Honestly I don't take any supplements. I'm not a big fan and think they're unnecessary if you have a healthy diet/lifestyle, and if you don't then they are a poor man's substitute.
Good point though, made me think if it makes sense for me to sell something I'm not sold on myself.

I still think that if you and your competitor have the same formula except you have an added 5% of vit C for example it could beneficial financially and value wise for the client.


PS: nice website, I really like your covers. I'm writing a fiction novel and would definitely be interested.

Well, that's the thing. If you have doubts then you probably wouldn't buy it.

Thank you! don't want to hijack the thread tho. Pm me if you ever need any help with cover question etc

 

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[wreckingball]

Great thread!

like i said on Eskil's thread, i have been planning for a while to get into the supplement industry, but I have a few entry barriers, that i need to overcome. Nothing serious I hope. This and also his thread are great motivators! Keep up the good work!

 

[CommonCents]

I'm seeing some MLMers promote 24hr dermal patches you put on daily. I guess for vitamins or something. Are the patches a superior way of transmitting various nutritional supplements? Might be something to jump on for an edge on the whole industry.

 

[1step]

I'm seeing some MLMers promote 24hr dermal patches you put on daily. I guess for vitamins or something. Are the patches a superior way of transmitting various nutritional supplements? Might be something to jump on for an edge on the whole industry.

I dont know but logically it doesn't make sense to me that it would be superior, its an interesting point and maybe something to look at.

like i said on Eskil's thread, i have been planning for a while to get into the supplement industry, but I have a few entry barriers, that i need to overcome. Nothing serious I hope. This and also his thread are great motivators! Keep up the good work!

Cool, thanks. hope youve got started by now

 

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[1step]

Its been two months since my last progress update, I cant say I am too happy with my progress from the last couple months.

Working on buying banners through sitescout to collect leads. So far I haven't been able to get it to work like I was expecting, I had seen case studies of high conversion rates but so far I havent been able to replicate it. I signed up for leadpages.net which is a cool site to quickly build squeeze pages (and other types) its a nice tool but not overly customizeable if you are someone like me who likes things to be perfect, but its a good way to test and quickly get something launched. You can also rank their various pages (templates) based on best conversion rates (across all their users) so thats a neat aspect of the site. .

I have a lot to learn with the whole media buying thing. Its been about a month of testing various things just looking to gain a bit more headroom and get things to start working better. Not sure what the issue is but its at the top of my list to get this figured out, i just may not have the budget to do it quickly.

 

[jpa0827]

What is the general opinion of everyone about working to establish a blog before promoting a supplement? Is it necessary or can I just jump in and start trying to sell my private label supplements on amazon or wherever?

 

[benhebert]

All of you are trying to launch a supplement without actually doing the research or understanding the market. Go to the customers first and see what they want and how you can offer it. You're not going to enter a competitive market, ramp up some adwords campaigns and expect to cash in big.

People are immune to advertising and paid ANYTHING is just a touch. You might have to touch a consumer 4-6 before they buy and you might not make money until the 2nd or 3rd purchase!

Focus on content generation and getting in places where your market is. Also make something awesome.

 

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[1step]

Necessary? No.

Helpful? Probably.

Despite what may be popular opinion you cant just throw anything up on an Amazon and make a killing. With that being said why cant you buy the product now and start the blog now? By the time you get the product the blog could be doing good and help get some early sales.

 

[1milclub]

Hi 1step,

Just finished this great thread. Haven't seen any update since a long, (would be great to see one). Hope things are great.

Best,

 

[1step]

Haven't seen any update since a long

Wow, you're right it has been 4 months since my last update. Sometimes as things progress it seems like theres not a ton to write about that would be interesting but then I look back to October of last year and think wow things have changed.

Update:

I went to Beer and Pancakes this year. Meeting people from the forum and putting faces to names and getting to meet so many like-minded people was pretty inspiring. Everyone presented on a topic and there were many helpful ones but the one that has impacted my business the most so far so one about funnels. Don't believe I can reveal a ton of information about it but I completely changing my funnel.

The new funnel has me really excited and I am putting the pieces in place now to implement a high converting way to capture leads from paid traffic. I am also in talks with manufacturers in China to import a new product that will be great for my funnel.

Up to this point the vast majority of my sales have been through amazon. Amazon is what I really know and I have done pretty well with it. Amazon has a ton of potential and can easily scale to 5 figures a month in revenue (for me - this depends on your product offerings obviously). But there are tons of obstacles to amazon as well. With paid traffic you can more or less rely on X sales per day with X dollars spent, with amazon you cant really do that. There is also the control you give up, in theory amazon could shut you down at any minute which probably shouldn't be a huge worry but I don't want to build a long term strategy on amazon alone.

So for those reasons the remainder of this year I will be developing paid traffic methods for my business. So, right now Im planning the funnel and ordering the products. After I get all this figured out I will start to test and optimize. Later in the year I want to add 2 more products to my offering to maximize my revenues. If all goes to plan by years end I will have 2 products manufactured in China and 4 products manufactured in the States.

In February of last year I had set a pretty lofty year goal for myself. I ended up falling short of it as the year just ended within the last few weeks. Sooner than later it will happen..

Mastermind:

In previous posts I mentioned a skype mastermind, that went very well for about 9 months and then it got very slow and died off for a bit. We are in the process of bringing it back to life. Ive learned a lot from the group both from the knowledge shared and how to run a mastermind group. I think the best piece of advice I can give is to create a structured group with a schedule to follow to stay on task. I would also recommend a set of easy to follow rules that stipulate when to kick a member from the group (inactivity, etc).

Just recently started putting the pieces together for an ecommerce mastermind group. This one wont be limited to supplement companies which I think will be good for me as well as the group. Everyone in the group I met at BnP which goes to show the power of meetups like that one. The members have a broad set of backgrounds and I think it will be a great chance to learn from everyone as I move more towards paid traffic.

So yeah, everything's going well with me, thanks for asking for the update.

If people have questions I will chime in but I don't currently envision having super detailed updates all the time. Maybe as interesting things happen I will post updates but for now it just seems like "same ole shit just a different day"

 

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[1milclub]

Maybe as interesting things happen I will post updates

That would be perfect. Appreciate your time for the details.

 

[SYK]

Hey 1Step, a new arrival on The Fastlane Forum. Yours was the first thread I've read in full - thanks for the knowledge and inspiration!

I'm working on a business in the supplement field. I'm based in Australia but have designs to market it worldwide.

Do you ship products outside the US? If so, how do you deal with the different regulations that exist in overseas markets?

 

[1step]

Do you ship products outside the US? If so, how do you deal with the different regulations that exist in overseas markets?

Oops, I am sorry I missed your post. I don't ship to any countries outside the United States. Hope your supplement is doing well, it's been 2 months since you posted so I hope you have launched and everything. Sorry for missing the post, can't believe its been at least 2 months since I've been here.

 

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[SYK]

Oops, I am sorry I missed your post. I don't ship to any countries outside the United States. Hope your supplement is doing well, it's been 2 months since you posted so I hope you have launched and everything. Sorry for missing the post, can't believe its been at least 2 months since I've been here.

No problem - plenty going on in your world obviously! To be honest I'd forgotten I'd written it! Thanks for the support, it's amazing how far things have come for me in two months.

I'm working on liability insurance at the moment because mine are custom products. Do you have an insurer you use? Hopefully I don't have to wait another two months for an answer this time around

 

[youngtrep]

No problem - plenty going on in your world obviously! To be honest I'd forgotten I'd written it! Thanks for the support, it's amazing how far things have come for me in two months.

I'm working on liability insurance at the moment because mine are custom products. Do you have an insurer you use? Hopefully I don't have to wait another two months for an answer this time around

Find a manufacturer that will include you on their policy. Many will do this for custom formulations. It will be prohibitively expensive to get your own insurance when just starting out.

 

[SYK]

Find a manufacturer that will include you on their policy. Many will do this for custom formulations. It will be prohibitively expensive to get your own insurance when just starting out.

Thanks for the response. This has been the plan from the outset but has alluded me. Still hoping to go down this direction but interested in getting an understanding on standalone liability insurance. Which I suspect will be exorbitant.

 

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[1step]

I'm working on liability insurance at the moment because mine are custom products. Do you have an insurer you use?

Find a manufacturer that will include you on their policy.

Yes I am still just under my manufacturers insurance.

 

[axiom]

Just been re-reading this thread because I am getting started on my own supp company. Incredible stuff, this should be gold.

Its been awhile since you updated; has anything big happened in the last eight months or so? Ever meet that big goal?

 

[1step]

has anything big happened in the last eight months or so?

Thanks for bumping this, can't believe its almost been a year. I'll write up something longer a bit later but in short, the biggest news is I no longer sell supplements.

 

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[theag]

Thanks for bumping this, can't believe its almost been a year. I'll write up something longer a bit later but in short, the biggest news is I no longer sell supplements.

Related to your 2015 resolution you posted?

 

[1step]

has anything big happened in the last eight months or so?

My supplements were run of the mill products that anyone can buy from pretty much any private label company. When I got started selling on Amazon they were relatively competitive but nothing like they are today.

This was over two years ago and a lot has changed since then including a popular amazon coaching course telling everyone and their mom to sell supplements. The popular private label supplement niches have become a lot more competitive since then, specifically over the last year.

Over the last year the game stopped being “try and sell your product and market your brand” and became “sabotage the competitors.” There are tons of shady people selling on amazon (especially in supplements) and competition is fierce even more so in the most popular categories.

With all that being said over the last 9 months I stopped investing time into the business, after that, my sales ranks slowly dropped and eventually the new guys rose to the top and I was left with a few sales a day from long time customers and maybe long tail KWs.

The Future of these Supplements:
I currently have a few bottles left at amazon but have pulled a ton off the site recently and will pull the rest within the coming week. I am going to send all my stock overseas and sell what I have remaining in another market… Or attempt to. Honestly it’s just a test with a friend to see how this smaller growing market performs. I am pretty excited about this – more excited than I have been with this company in awhile. It won’t have a huge impact now, but in the future it could impact my other business significantly. I will spend no time doing this, all I will do is list the products and see what happens.

I know you and others here have started or are starting supplement companies. Maybe some of what I share below can help you with your planning, vision, and strategy.


Mistake:
The way I set up the supplement company was not with a long-term focus. My original goal was to use the supplements to make money to fund another venture (that has long since died). Unfortunately when I had success selling these I let it go to my head and thought that I could parlay that into more of a long term play with my own website and a straight sell offer. In my opinion this was a bad strategy for a variety of reason but one in particular is my product did not lend its self to long-term success.
Lesson: For this product I should have stuck to the original plan, use amazon as a traffic source to get sales and reinvest in other plays with a chance at long-term success.

The best thing… to come out of this venture is that I learned how to sell on Amazon, this can translate to any niche and has served me well in my new business. This is by far the best thing to come out of this venture. I spent a ton of time on Amazon especially early on and I picked up a ton of neat tricks.

The best thing… I did on this journey was get started and get going in the right direction quickly. I went from idea to being sold out of my first order in a few short weeks and kept going from there. I am glad I didn’t spend a ton of time planning and just got started, tried different things and kept moving.

If I could do it all over I would still start the supplement company but I would follow the original plan and use money from it to fund other ventures.


BTW I don’t hate supplements, and am not trying to scare anyone off of it. My strategy wasn't one for long-term success but I still think supplements with a custom formula can be a good option long-term. I have an idea for another supplement, I might try it in the future.

As @theag wrote above, I wrote a little about this company and moving away from it in another thread. https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/2015-resolution-provide-more-value.57285/