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Gotta get the consumer over the believability hump. The folks that care about their Microbiome will probably have tried some sort of probiotic previously. Why

by nivals 12y ago

Gotta get the consumer over the believability hump. The folks that care about their Microbiome will probably have tried some sort of probiotic previously. Why is this any better than what they can get from Jarrow, New Chapter, etc. from their Whole Foods or vitamin shop? Is it the formula that's more potent with the 115 different species of bacteria? Does this formula actually replace the bad stuff that could be in there currently? The n Billion bacteria in a traditional probiotic is not much compared to the Trillions of bacteria already there, do you have some sort of combination of Navy Seal bacteria hunting down the baddies? Is your product special because of the delivery mechanism that gets it to the right place in the gut? There's a lot of talk about Fecal Microbiota Transplantation (FMT). If you can save people from having to go that route that's a genuine selling point. Can this product help people who have specific problems like SIBO? Ulcerative Colitis? You're in the right spot, just need to understand the health conscious consumer a bit more because you're competing with a lot of info out there about gut health. Start by answering those questions and you'll be on the road to getting some early adopters.

bjterry 12y ago
I am a novice when it comes to biology, but even in my research I had become suspicious about the fact that most probiotics have so few varieties, and that they were predominantly of the "wrong" families as compared with what the research showed. Much of the research that has been done has been on the importance of increased bacteroidetes vs. firmicutes, the two most prevalent families of bacteria in the digestive tract. But almost all of the probiotics on the market don't contain any bacteroidetes. Most have lactobacillus (which is technically a firmicutes, but considered a "good firmicutes" I guess, and is used to make yoghurt) or bifidobacterium (like Align) which is in a completely separate family (Actinobacteria). When I saw this product on a mailing list a couple days ago, I purchased it because it was exactly what I had been looking for. So I think this has potential for informed early adopters. There are some people that can read articles on the Internet from google searches and realize that they aren't getting the whole picture because they are obviously from the low-quality content-farmed stuff that google ranks highly on health search results, and I think this is appealing to them (us). Now, it's yet to be seen whether it's a winning move to provide clear, logical information grounded in science vs. tooting the bullshit horn that we see in naturalistic health circles. I definitely agree that they could have more marketable messaging, but I would expect that they'll be able to develop better marketing presence by gradually accumulating pagerank, becoming well-known in serious health circles, and maybe some affiliate marketing and the like. But all that takes time and this is right out of the gate. Their core value proposition is much better than competing companies, in my opinion.
dlss 12y ago
Hi, David (a co-founder) here. Thank you tremendously for this feedback :) We don't want to go the prescription route, so we stuck with general claims. I'll see what I can do to be more specific. We can absolutely answer some of these!

by nivals 12y ago

bjterry 12y ago

I am a novice when it comes to biology, but even in my research I had become suspicious about the fact that most probiotics have so few varieties, and that they were predominantly of the "wrong" families as compared with what the research showed. Much of the research that has been done has been on the importance of increased bacteroidetes vs. firmicutes, the two most prevalent families of bacteria in the digestive tract. But almost all of the probiotics on the market don't contain any bacteroidetes. Most have lactobacillus (which is technically a firmicutes, but considered a "good firmicutes" I guess, and is used to make yoghurt) or bifidobacterium (like Align) which is in a completely separate family (Actinobacteria). When I saw this product on a mailing list a couple days ago, I purchased it because it was exactly what I had been looking for. So I think this has potential for informed early adopters. There are some people that can read articles on the Internet from google searches and realize that they aren't getting the whole picture because they are obviously from the low-quality content-farmed stuff that google ranks highly on health search results, and I think this is appealing to them (us). Now, it's yet to be seen whether it's a winning move to provide clear, logical information grounded in science vs. tooting the bullshit horn that we see in naturalistic health circles. I definitely agree that they could have more marketable messaging, but I would expect that they'll be able to develop better marketing presence by gradually accumulating pagerank, becoming well-known in serious health circles, and maybe some affiliate marketing and the like. But all that takes time and this is right out of the gate. Their core value proposition is much better than competing companies, in my opinion.

dlss 12y ago

Hi, David (a co-founder) here. Thank you tremendously for this feedback :) We don't want to go the prescription route, so we stuck with general claims. I'll see what I can do to be more specific. We can absolutely answer some of these!