Ben Adams
New Contributor
Originally posted this in INSIDERS but reposting it so more ppl can see.
It's been almost a year since I read TMF and came up with the idea of starting a supplement company. I believe I started around March.
I have not been working on it full time (i'm a college student and worked over summer) and at first progressed very slowly as I spent months just researching the market, reading threads, reading books like Ca$hvertising, and coming up with ideas and tweaking formulas for my supplement.
I thought i'd give kind of a progress thread to summarize what i've done so far and whatnot. I can say without a doubt that doing this was one of the best decisions of my life i've learned so much about how to start a business and feel infinitely more knowledgeable than when I started. If I had to start all over again and form another business I could get to where I am now in probably 1/4 of the time.
The Vision:
I've always been passionate about optimizing health and hormones. I wrestled in high school and have had an immune disorder and concussions that forced me to be very conscious about my diet. I began experimenting with different supplements to help with lifting probably around 14 (pre workouts, creatine, dest boosters etc..). That moved onto supplements to help my general health and brain health (b12, l-theanine, nootropics, different herbs etc...). I would research supplements for fun and try a bunch to see which ones worked.
Having always known being a 9-5 wage slave wasn't for me, TMF was what finally kicked me into action. I begun brainstorming ideas, narrowed it down to two and I chose the supplement idea.
How my business stands out:
My idea was to fix something currently wrong with the supplement market and create a trustworthy brand. The problem was that supplement companies always seem to not care about the user, delivering them underdosed products made in China, possibly cut with fillers. After I became very knowledgable about supplements, I would almost always create my own stack as opposed to buying an overpriced, underdosed supplement from a major brand. So my vision was to create a supplement line with quality ingredients, full doses, and only use ingredients shown in scientific trials to be effective. I wanted to create a line used for multiple different things (ie: a mood supplement, a nootropic blend, sleep supp, multivitamin, t-booster etc..). These could then be bought in packages together, as well as monthly subscriptions. This is still my vision.
My process:
To start out, I had to choose which supplement to create first, I chose the mood-booster. I spent probably 2 months researching doses, using my own experience as a base of knowledge. I looked into different manufacturers, bought bulk powders of multiple different ingredients, and tested stacks on myself. After a while, I had narrowed down the ingredients and serving size to not compromise on quality or potency.
I knew I wanted to contract the manufacturer after I had already developed everything else, so I went to work on my website. I researched other companies to see their layout, looked through more threads on sales funnels, landing pages, etc.. Ordering a sample order was way too expensive from any manufacturer so I ordered more bulk ingredients, a mortar pestle, scale and capsules to create my own samples to give to my friends and myself.
I got their testimonials, continued to work on my website which was a landing page with an email sign up (I never got anyone sign up), I began writing a few blogposts, and I designed my label and logo. At some point pretty early on I registered for an LLC and purchased a barcode for my label.
I went through many periods where I would feel too scared to continue and not want to spend the $3000 on the first batch of bottles. I thought of every reason in the world about why it wouldn't work and no one would want to buy it. I spent $15 on a google adwords campaign to see my conversion rate in email sign ups, I recieved 0 email signups and this did not help my confidence.
I had been messaging a few forum members who run supp companies who said they thought my site looked good and I shouldn't worry so much, I need to just order the product then figure out how to sell it.
Bare in mind I was and still am 100% confident in the QUALITY of my product, I believe I have the best mood-booster on the market today, as well as the best bang for your buck. I know this as i've tried many mood-boosters to see how they compare, and how I see my friends and customers react to it in amazement of how well it works. A certain group of people mildly enjoy it and then there are a smaller percentage of people that are diehard fans, absolutely love it, i'm a diehard fan of it and I have probably used too many bottles of my own supply than i'd care to admit!
So with the encouragement of some forum members I pulled the trigger. It was a lot of back and forth emailing and getting documents signed and answering questions with the manufacturer. I told them I wanted to order it in sept/oct and it took until mid december to actually recieve the order. I was ecstatic with my label design and ready for some sales. After a lot of procrastinating for 3 weeks as I said I needed to optimize my website and learn how to ship my product (lol) I finally put it up for sale. I knew I wouldn't get any sales without traffic yet, so I begun messaging instagram accounts that had to do with things like yoga and meditation, offering a free bottle in exchange for a review. Only 2 people agreed to it, one ignored my messages after I sent it and the other enjoyed my supplement, but due to her also being a pilot, she said she could not endorse it because she was afraid she may get her license revoked if some of the ingredients may hurt her ability to operate machinery.
Back to square one I continued to update my instagram to try and gain followers organically. I also posted on some blogs trying a little guerilla marketing, I got one traditional sale like that and then I had an idea to begin accepting Nano (a feeless instant cryptocurrency that I had invested in and was active in the community). I got my friend to make a reddit post on behalf of me on the nano reddit and got around 10 sales through nano over the course of a week. I'd finally begun to taste some sales and gain motivation. This Nano sale is how I got my first taste of a positive market reaction from someone that wasn't my friend in real life. Only a week after sending a customer a bottle he emails me asking if he could buy 3 more for his friends and said he's "absolutely in love with this product". That validation was worth its weight in gold, especially considering he was only like my 5th customer that I didn't know irl.
I also had the idea of sending free bottles for youtubers in exchange for reviews. I was really confident in receiving good reviews as this product will sell itself once I get my marketing right, it seriously is that good. I emailed probably 50 youtubers, 12 agreed. This was in late february and out of the 12 I sent it to and sent follow-up emails to, only 2-3 have responded saying they're going to do the video or are working on it. I have a feeling i'll get at least one review from this guy who has 11k subscribers, but probably no others. This should happen soon based on what he said, and having a video review should be a huge bonus to prospective customers if I can advertise the vid on social media and my site.
The last 3 weeks i'd begun researching fb ad campaigns, and ran a few and have been in the process of optimizing them. My cpc has gone down from $1.80 to just under a dollar, although I only have gotten 2 conversions with $50 spent. This is a problem with my site so just the other day I moved most of my product info from the home/landing page to my product page, I may send people from the fb ad straight to my product page as well to increase conversions.
Additionally, a few weeks ago i took a whole day out to visit local businesses and pitch my product. I started with an organic supermarket that I thought was a single location but was actually a chain, so I gave the manager a bottle and she said she would try it and send it to hq if she liked it, but warned me they're going to want a big discount if i were to supply them. I next went to an actual family owned supermarket and the manager loved me and my product. She gave me the forms required to make a deal with them, but it required me have my liability insurance to cover them as well under my policy. I'm only under my manufacturers insurance right now, and extra liability insurance would cost $2k+. Since I only have around $400 in sales and am 3k+ in the hole from manufacturing cost and other expenses i'm not comfortably putting this much more money into it without consistent sales. Although as soon as I hit 2k in sales i'd have no problem using all of it for the liability insurance. I went to two smoke shops after that, the first one wasn't interested atm and the second one is a chain of 8 locations. The manager loved it and she bought a bottle off me on the spot for her personal use actually. I gave her another bottle for the business owner, she said she would contact him to see if they could supply it in all 8 stores. It's been a few weeks, I tried calling the other day and left a message so I may go in again soon to see where I stand.
Moving Forward:
I've learned a lot and taken a lot longer than I should have due to procrastination and fear to get where I am now. My marketing skills are definitely what's holding me back and I still 100% believe that with the amount of value my product provides for the price will allow it to sell itself once I hit a certain critical mass, so it's just a matter of conveying this information better.
I recently got an ig ad made on fiverr that looks really good for a giveaway I am planning on having for 10 bottles. Not sure if i want to wait until I have more sales for this though as it is kind of expensive in that I have to pay for rafflecopter, give away product and lose shipping money, spend money advertising etcc...
Ig influencer: Am still looking for a good ig influencer, may have to shell out the $100 for one of those services that puts me into contact with one
video content: hoping for this review to come in soon, I am also planning on videoing my friend reviewing it as well this weekend
fb ads: I'll continue to run the $5/day ad to see if my website changes I made yesterday will allow my ads to be profitable
Local sales channels: I plan on checking in with that smoke shop, and doing the deal with the supermarket once I get more revenue to buy the insurance. Additionally I am thinking of becoming a vendor at the farmer's market, i'd like to make some sort of pamphlet first though to have at my stand, and perhaps find out a way to give out a free samples (not sure if i could just legally put the pills in little bags and hand them out as they wouldn't have label info or warnings)
Other than that my vision is still having a whole line of supplements, I just need to make enough sales to invest in the production of more.
here's my site, any constructive criticism is welcome, home page still needs to be changed to be more about my brands mission vs my specific supp i'm selling
www.somavitasupplements.com
ig: SomaVita LLC (@somavita_supplements) • Instagram photos and videos
fb: SomaVita
Overall, this experience has been amazing and I can't believe i'm lucky enough to be in the position to create something like this by having free time outside of school and having enough money saved up to start it. Actually the month before I started I raised $1000 from watching garyvee's flip challenge, I spent a whole month flipping game consoles it was super fun. Everytime I take action and overcome an obstacle that has been in the back of my mind it feels like i'm a warrior conquering a monster, i'm slowly developing my soul and growing as a person. These mini victories come after slumps of laziness, stress and doubt. I'm pretty used to these by now so whenever I have those negative emotions I know that all I have to do is keep on working at it and i'll eventually figure something out. If i were to never sell another bottle again I would still be very grateful for this experience and attempt my next venture with vigor. I seriously hope this is not the case though and it will take a lot for me to give up on this venture, I am in love with it.
Side note: This past month I wrote an affirmation on my wall about providing value to the world and having confidence that my business and investments will make me millions. I feel somehow it has actually helped as i've been so productive this month.
Big thanks to MJ and this forum for being an invaluable resource of information, motivation and connections. I will try to update this thread on my progress if anyone is interested in at, as it'll probably help keep me accountable and procrastination is my worst weakness.
It's been almost a year since I read TMF and came up with the idea of starting a supplement company. I believe I started around March.
I have not been working on it full time (i'm a college student and worked over summer) and at first progressed very slowly as I spent months just researching the market, reading threads, reading books like Ca$hvertising, and coming up with ideas and tweaking formulas for my supplement.
I thought i'd give kind of a progress thread to summarize what i've done so far and whatnot. I can say without a doubt that doing this was one of the best decisions of my life i've learned so much about how to start a business and feel infinitely more knowledgeable than when I started. If I had to start all over again and form another business I could get to where I am now in probably 1/4 of the time.
The Vision:
I've always been passionate about optimizing health and hormones. I wrestled in high school and have had an immune disorder and concussions that forced me to be very conscious about my diet. I began experimenting with different supplements to help with lifting probably around 14 (pre workouts, creatine, dest boosters etc..). That moved onto supplements to help my general health and brain health (b12, l-theanine, nootropics, different herbs etc...). I would research supplements for fun and try a bunch to see which ones worked.
Having always known being a 9-5 wage slave wasn't for me, TMF was what finally kicked me into action. I begun brainstorming ideas, narrowed it down to two and I chose the supplement idea.
How my business stands out:
My idea was to fix something currently wrong with the supplement market and create a trustworthy brand. The problem was that supplement companies always seem to not care about the user, delivering them underdosed products made in China, possibly cut with fillers. After I became very knowledgable about supplements, I would almost always create my own stack as opposed to buying an overpriced, underdosed supplement from a major brand. So my vision was to create a supplement line with quality ingredients, full doses, and only use ingredients shown in scientific trials to be effective. I wanted to create a line used for multiple different things (ie: a mood supplement, a nootropic blend, sleep supp, multivitamin, t-booster etc..). These could then be bought in packages together, as well as monthly subscriptions. This is still my vision.
My process:
To start out, I had to choose which supplement to create first, I chose the mood-booster. I spent probably 2 months researching doses, using my own experience as a base of knowledge. I looked into different manufacturers, bought bulk powders of multiple different ingredients, and tested stacks on myself. After a while, I had narrowed down the ingredients and serving size to not compromise on quality or potency.
I knew I wanted to contract the manufacturer after I had already developed everything else, so I went to work on my website. I researched other companies to see their layout, looked through more threads on sales funnels, landing pages, etc.. Ordering a sample order was way too expensive from any manufacturer so I ordered more bulk ingredients, a mortar pestle, scale and capsules to create my own samples to give to my friends and myself.
I got their testimonials, continued to work on my website which was a landing page with an email sign up (I never got anyone sign up), I began writing a few blogposts, and I designed my label and logo. At some point pretty early on I registered for an LLC and purchased a barcode for my label.
I went through many periods where I would feel too scared to continue and not want to spend the $3000 on the first batch of bottles. I thought of every reason in the world about why it wouldn't work and no one would want to buy it. I spent $15 on a google adwords campaign to see my conversion rate in email sign ups, I recieved 0 email signups and this did not help my confidence.
I had been messaging a few forum members who run supp companies who said they thought my site looked good and I shouldn't worry so much, I need to just order the product then figure out how to sell it.
Bare in mind I was and still am 100% confident in the QUALITY of my product, I believe I have the best mood-booster on the market today, as well as the best bang for your buck. I know this as i've tried many mood-boosters to see how they compare, and how I see my friends and customers react to it in amazement of how well it works. A certain group of people mildly enjoy it and then there are a smaller percentage of people that are diehard fans, absolutely love it, i'm a diehard fan of it and I have probably used too many bottles of my own supply than i'd care to admit!
So with the encouragement of some forum members I pulled the trigger. It was a lot of back and forth emailing and getting documents signed and answering questions with the manufacturer. I told them I wanted to order it in sept/oct and it took until mid december to actually recieve the order. I was ecstatic with my label design and ready for some sales. After a lot of procrastinating for 3 weeks as I said I needed to optimize my website and learn how to ship my product (lol) I finally put it up for sale. I knew I wouldn't get any sales without traffic yet, so I begun messaging instagram accounts that had to do with things like yoga and meditation, offering a free bottle in exchange for a review. Only 2 people agreed to it, one ignored my messages after I sent it and the other enjoyed my supplement, but due to her also being a pilot, she said she could not endorse it because she was afraid she may get her license revoked if some of the ingredients may hurt her ability to operate machinery.
Back to square one I continued to update my instagram to try and gain followers organically. I also posted on some blogs trying a little guerilla marketing, I got one traditional sale like that and then I had an idea to begin accepting Nano (a feeless instant cryptocurrency that I had invested in and was active in the community). I got my friend to make a reddit post on behalf of me on the nano reddit and got around 10 sales through nano over the course of a week. I'd finally begun to taste some sales and gain motivation. This Nano sale is how I got my first taste of a positive market reaction from someone that wasn't my friend in real life. Only a week after sending a customer a bottle he emails me asking if he could buy 3 more for his friends and said he's "absolutely in love with this product". That validation was worth its weight in gold, especially considering he was only like my 5th customer that I didn't know irl.
I also had the idea of sending free bottles for youtubers in exchange for reviews. I was really confident in receiving good reviews as this product will sell itself once I get my marketing right, it seriously is that good. I emailed probably 50 youtubers, 12 agreed. This was in late february and out of the 12 I sent it to and sent follow-up emails to, only 2-3 have responded saying they're going to do the video or are working on it. I have a feeling i'll get at least one review from this guy who has 11k subscribers, but probably no others. This should happen soon based on what he said, and having a video review should be a huge bonus to prospective customers if I can advertise the vid on social media and my site.
The last 3 weeks i'd begun researching fb ad campaigns, and ran a few and have been in the process of optimizing them. My cpc has gone down from $1.80 to just under a dollar, although I only have gotten 2 conversions with $50 spent. This is a problem with my site so just the other day I moved most of my product info from the home/landing page to my product page, I may send people from the fb ad straight to my product page as well to increase conversions.
Additionally, a few weeks ago i took a whole day out to visit local businesses and pitch my product. I started with an organic supermarket that I thought was a single location but was actually a chain, so I gave the manager a bottle and she said she would try it and send it to hq if she liked it, but warned me they're going to want a big discount if i were to supply them. I next went to an actual family owned supermarket and the manager loved me and my product. She gave me the forms required to make a deal with them, but it required me have my liability insurance to cover them as well under my policy. I'm only under my manufacturers insurance right now, and extra liability insurance would cost $2k+. Since I only have around $400 in sales and am 3k+ in the hole from manufacturing cost and other expenses i'm not comfortably putting this much more money into it without consistent sales. Although as soon as I hit 2k in sales i'd have no problem using all of it for the liability insurance. I went to two smoke shops after that, the first one wasn't interested atm and the second one is a chain of 8 locations. The manager loved it and she bought a bottle off me on the spot for her personal use actually. I gave her another bottle for the business owner, she said she would contact him to see if they could supply it in all 8 stores. It's been a few weeks, I tried calling the other day and left a message so I may go in again soon to see where I stand.
Moving Forward:
I've learned a lot and taken a lot longer than I should have due to procrastination and fear to get where I am now. My marketing skills are definitely what's holding me back and I still 100% believe that with the amount of value my product provides for the price will allow it to sell itself once I hit a certain critical mass, so it's just a matter of conveying this information better.
I recently got an ig ad made on fiverr that looks really good for a giveaway I am planning on having for 10 bottles. Not sure if i want to wait until I have more sales for this though as it is kind of expensive in that I have to pay for rafflecopter, give away product and lose shipping money, spend money advertising etcc...
Ig influencer: Am still looking for a good ig influencer, may have to shell out the $100 for one of those services that puts me into contact with one
video content: hoping for this review to come in soon, I am also planning on videoing my friend reviewing it as well this weekend
fb ads: I'll continue to run the $5/day ad to see if my website changes I made yesterday will allow my ads to be profitable
Local sales channels: I plan on checking in with that smoke shop, and doing the deal with the supermarket once I get more revenue to buy the insurance. Additionally I am thinking of becoming a vendor at the farmer's market, i'd like to make some sort of pamphlet first though to have at my stand, and perhaps find out a way to give out a free samples (not sure if i could just legally put the pills in little bags and hand them out as they wouldn't have label info or warnings)
Other than that my vision is still having a whole line of supplements, I just need to make enough sales to invest in the production of more.
here's my site, any constructive criticism is welcome, home page still needs to be changed to be more about my brands mission vs my specific supp i'm selling
www.somavitasupplements.com
ig: SomaVita LLC (@somavita_supplements) • Instagram photos and videos
fb: SomaVita
Overall, this experience has been amazing and I can't believe i'm lucky enough to be in the position to create something like this by having free time outside of school and having enough money saved up to start it. Actually the month before I started I raised $1000 from watching garyvee's flip challenge, I spent a whole month flipping game consoles it was super fun. Everytime I take action and overcome an obstacle that has been in the back of my mind it feels like i'm a warrior conquering a monster, i'm slowly developing my soul and growing as a person. These mini victories come after slumps of laziness, stress and doubt. I'm pretty used to these by now so whenever I have those negative emotions I know that all I have to do is keep on working at it and i'll eventually figure something out. If i were to never sell another bottle again I would still be very grateful for this experience and attempt my next venture with vigor. I seriously hope this is not the case though and it will take a lot for me to give up on this venture, I am in love with it.
Side note: This past month I wrote an affirmation on my wall about providing value to the world and having confidence that my business and investments will make me millions. I feel somehow it has actually helped as i've been so productive this month.
Big thanks to MJ and this forum for being an invaluable resource of information, motivation and connections. I will try to update this thread on my progress if anyone is interested in at, as it'll probably help keep me accountable and procrastination is my worst weakness.
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