Supplement Company

[joefun86]

Hi, my Daily Quotes site is up and running now and not requiring much besides keeping my blogs updated and marketing. I will now be focusing on something else with my brother and friend now.

We're thinking of starting a custom supplement company. We are all gym rats, we love martial arts and are amateur fighters, so this is great for "sticking to what you know."

The idea is to have 2 different product lines. One would be our own line of supplements, protein powders, vitamins and a bunch of stuff you may or may not be familiar with. The second line is actually the exact same product, but custom labeled for private gyms and martial arts schools.

We are going to test at our current gym that we have good connections with. We want to offer the gym its own line of custom labeled supplements to sell to its members. We would then do this with other gyms in the area.

We already have a wholesaler where we can make our own custom supplement mixes, with blank containers. We would have to just label them.

We feel that taking on major supplement companies is stupid because we don't have the capital at all, but we feel we can find a niche in custom labeled products.

Thoughts, comments?

[ScottRobertson]

I'm assuming your main competitive point against the big guys is that you will offer your supplements at MUCH cheaper prices.. ? Otherwise I don't think people will really bother buying from you. When I buy my supplements from the big guys I know that a lot of money has gone into R&D and I also know that I can read customer testimonials on their effectiveness online (non-affiliated customers, obviously). People buying your product might be concerned with the quality of your supplements. Since you are a gym rat who uses supplements you obviously know that cheap, low quality supplements are a waste of money (and to some extent the time you spend training) and the higher quality, more expensive products tend to be worth the money...

If you have connections with certified nutritionists it would definitely help to have their quality testimonials on your page.

Are you only going to be selling the core supplements (whey, casein, vitamins, creatine, glutamine, taurine, etc) or will you also somehow find a way to sell the booster products (such as nitric oxide stuff)?

[joefun86]

Well Scott...actually yea, I'm big into nutrition and read journals and studies from time to time, most supps you buy are based around brand and endorsement by others, not price, at least for basic supps.

As an example, you can buy a couple different brands of ZMA. The thing is though that it's all made by the same company, but sold by different companies, it's all made by or made with permission from SNAC Labs, it has to be the same. The same is true for certain other supps. Whey protein is whey protein. You can get different flavors and have enzymes added, but you can't change what whey is. The same for creatine monohydrate. Pure creatine monohydrate is the same from any brand. It has to be, if its labeled pure creatine mono. Know what I mean?

But I understand that most people don't understand this or care. It's branding.

This will be a niche business. Our niche is to sell a custom product to a gym. So the gym I'm looking at is called XYZ Fitness. We have a few supplements that we bring to sample. If they like it, they can have it repackaged and sold as "XYZ Fitness - Whey Protein" & "XYZ Fitness - NOX"

Also, martial arts schools are a big part of the equation, mostly TMA (traditional martial arts) schools, such as karate, tae kwon do and jiujitsu. Once again, you could get "Master Johns Daily Vitamin" or something like that.

There are many franchised schools in NY where we could sell to the headquarters and have it distributed to their schools. A school I was at once did this and it worked very well with the customers, but not many schools do it. So we see a market for it.

We plan to keep it simple at first, vitamins and herbs for martial arts schools, pre/post workout powders and a whey protein for gyms.

We also are going to look into supplying the gyms juice/smoothie bar, selling them bulk protein for their shakes (it's not set up at all yet, so we can still get in).

[ScottRobertson]

I like what you have so far.

And yes, things such as creatine mono is just that, creatine mono. When I talked about quality I meant for things such as the products that are patented (or pending) or a protein with added nutrients rather than a generic protein. For example, the more expensive post-workout creatine products that are not simply creatine mono, but rather have the different patented formulas.

And yes, like you said, the sad fact is that it is an industry that is largely reliant on brands. BUT - some brands do have the right to hold that reputation because they offer value packed products.

All said, I really like the idea of vitamins and herbs being sold at dojo's.

Also, if you can sell the gym owners on your idea of supplying bulk protein for their juice bars, then any problem (if one exists) of quality concerns will be gone because customers trust gyms for the most part and believe that they will put quality supplements into their shakes.

Keep me updated with any progess, please.

[joefun86]

Yes, thats the idea, most people won't trust an independent supplement company that is offering the same creatine that another brand is, but they will trust their gym.

Thats also why we aren't going to get into too complex supplements right now too. Some brands really do outperform others in their research and performance, but like you said, thats the designer stuff that your everyday Joe doesn't use. We know our limits and wouldn't try to compete with that unless felt like losing money was a fun idea!

Thanks.

[rejoice]

promotional merchandise on a new scale... i like it!

[ScottRobertson]

Williell - I'm wondering why you did not include L-Glutamine in your list? If you do not consider it necessary, why not?

Also, although I'm not sure, but I think many of the quality isolate whey products also have a small percentage of hydrosolates in them.

I'm also curious about your creatine. I'm assuming that you are talking about monohydrate .. what do you think of kre-alkaline creatine and/or the different types of creatine in BSN's Cellmass?

Sorry if this seems like a thread hijack - but it is useful information for the OP's future market research.