Hey guys, hope everyone is holding up well amid these rocky times.
I read fastlane millionaire back in 2012 and was immediately inspired by M.J. Demarco. I eventually made my way to the forums were I would try to recreate success across multiple different business ideas. Fast forward to 2020 after many successes as well as just as many failures I ended working as a Business Development manager for a IT consulting company.
This has led me to yet another business venture which I was able to bring to life fairly quickly from inception to getting it to market. The idea itself is just a unique approach to the relaxation drink market.
I have often struggled with getting to sleep and most nights resorted to herbal remedies and melatonin which always worked wonders. Unfortunately I was not a big fan of chewing chalky melatonin every night and dealing with the aftertaste. I then tried products on the market like DreamWater and NeuroSleep but I was not the biggest fan of the taste for either product. The emphasis of keeping the products low calorie effected the taste drastically in my opinion. This led me down a everlasting rabbit hole and developing a formula that actually had a good natural taste. I no intentions on bringing this to market. The spark that led to me bringing the product to market happened once a few close acquaintances tried it and kept asking me to make more. This led to Slumbaa Tea being born and taking on a path of its own! We recently launched online to put our formulation to the test.
I will outline some of the steps taken so far to bring Slumbaa Tea to market. Someone may be on a similiar journey and i hope this can help.
1. Formulation - Very tedious task that was moved along with a scientist found on upwork that specialized in supplement formulation. I had already completed the necessary research on key ingredients I would utilize as well as the amounts MG/ML (also very tedious).
2.Packaging - This is one of the toughest hurdles. Because of FDA oversight of dietary supplements with the Current Good Manufaturing Practices(cGMP). Alot of contract manufacture have very high MOQs just to run their line. You will have to do a ton of research to partner with one that meets your budget and product specification. They typically will handle all manufacuring and packaging as well as store your product for a specific amount of time.
3. Website Creation: I was able to leverage previous experience building websites using HTML, Photoshop, and illustrator. You can outsource this to a designer. A good rule of thumb is if you dont have the neccesary skillset, find someone that does within budget. Choosing a good platform will go a long way. We use Shopify.
4. Payment Gateway - This was a pain in the ***. Unfortunately if you are in the business of selling supplements you are classified as a *high risk* business and most payment getways will not work with you. We could not use Stripe which comes with Shopify. We chose to go with Authorize.net which I have used in the past.
5.Marketing - Another pain the ***. Again since we are classified as a dietary supplement there is some uphill battles to overcome. For example FB ads will not allow you to adverise your product. Instead we had to go with Google Ads and will be marketing in other was such as influencer marketing, content creation etc so the the journey countinues! Anyone interested in checking out the site it is www.slumbaa.com
Hope this helps someone on a similiar path.
Sorry for any misspellings or errors. Typed on my mobile device.
Rick
I read fastlane millionaire back in 2012 and was immediately inspired by M.J. Demarco. I eventually made my way to the forums were I would try to recreate success across multiple different business ideas. Fast forward to 2020 after many successes as well as just as many failures I ended working as a Business Development manager for a IT consulting company.
This has led me to yet another business venture which I was able to bring to life fairly quickly from inception to getting it to market. The idea itself is just a unique approach to the relaxation drink market.
I have often struggled with getting to sleep and most nights resorted to herbal remedies and melatonin which always worked wonders. Unfortunately I was not a big fan of chewing chalky melatonin every night and dealing with the aftertaste. I then tried products on the market like DreamWater and NeuroSleep but I was not the biggest fan of the taste for either product. The emphasis of keeping the products low calorie effected the taste drastically in my opinion. This led me down a everlasting rabbit hole and developing a formula that actually had a good natural taste. I no intentions on bringing this to market. The spark that led to me bringing the product to market happened once a few close acquaintances tried it and kept asking me to make more. This led to Slumbaa Tea being born and taking on a path of its own! We recently launched online to put our formulation to the test.
I will outline some of the steps taken so far to bring Slumbaa Tea to market. Someone may be on a similiar journey and i hope this can help.
1. Formulation - Very tedious task that was moved along with a scientist found on upwork that specialized in supplement formulation. I had already completed the necessary research on key ingredients I would utilize as well as the amounts MG/ML (also very tedious).
2.Packaging - This is one of the toughest hurdles. Because of FDA oversight of dietary supplements with the Current Good Manufaturing Practices(cGMP). Alot of contract manufacture have very high MOQs just to run their line. You will have to do a ton of research to partner with one that meets your budget and product specification. They typically will handle all manufacuring and packaging as well as store your product for a specific amount of time.
3. Website Creation: I was able to leverage previous experience building websites using HTML, Photoshop, and illustrator. You can outsource this to a designer. A good rule of thumb is if you dont have the neccesary skillset, find someone that does within budget. Choosing a good platform will go a long way. We use Shopify.
4. Payment Gateway - This was a pain in the ***. Unfortunately if you are in the business of selling supplements you are classified as a *high risk* business and most payment getways will not work with you. We could not use Stripe which comes with Shopify. We chose to go with Authorize.net which I have used in the past.
5.Marketing - Another pain the ***. Again since we are classified as a dietary supplement there is some uphill battles to overcome. For example FB ads will not allow you to adverise your product. Instead we had to go with Google Ads and will be marketing in other was such as influencer marketing, content creation etc so the the journey countinues! Anyone interested in checking out the site it is www.slumbaa.com
Hope this helps someone on a similiar path.
Sorry for any misspellings or errors. Typed on my mobile device.
Rick
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