Mike Tecku final appeared on this podcast in 2019. He spoke as an knowledgeable Amazon vendor in our “Constructing an Ecommerce Enterprise” sequence. He’s again, having offered these Amazon shops, retired, and skilled boredom.
His newest enterprise is Momentum, a maker of premium dietary shakes, which he describes as “the Rolex of dietary supplements.”
He and I not too long ago mentioned his journey — promoting his firms, setting priorities, launching Momentum, and extra.
The complete audio of our dialog is embedded under. The transcript is edited for readability and size.
Eric Bandholz: Why begin a dietary shake firm?
Mike Tecku: I offered my Amazon firms in 2019 and did properly sufficient to start out a enterprise fund and spend money on some stuff. I retired, purchased land within the nation, and shortly received bored. I spent the following two years figuring myself out and researching longevity.
I got here up with this product primarily based on the premium variations of the dietary supplements I used to be taking. I linked straight with the producers. I put every part into one shake to make it simple. I needed to make the Rolex of dietary supplements and make it tremendous easy and superior. I named the corporate Momentum.
Bandholz: It’s a crowded market, dietary supplements.
Tecku: There’s a distinction between being efficient, true, and sincere versus stylish. There’s an enormous debate between plant-based and whey protein — which is best and whether or not so as to add superfoods. A superfood is something a marketer desires to name tremendous. I name it pixie mud when firms add hint quantities of one thing to make it sound wholesome. I needed no advertising and marketing fluff, solely the most effective elements.
We went with this unbelievable grass-fed whey protein from Eire. It’s 5 instances dearer than another protein. Eire is the one place that may develop that grass year-round. And it’s the one place you may certify that one thing is really grass-fed. It makes for a premium product.
Some people like protein from peas, the vegetable, but it surely incorporates heavy metals and pesticides and 30% fewer important amino acids. I wasn’t keen to compromise simply because it was fashionable.
Not utilizing synthetic flavors is insanely costly. Each bag we’ve got has about $2 value of chocolate in it. We spend extra on chocolate than most opponents spend on their total product. So a 30-day provide of a Tremendous Greens drink may cost $2 to $3 to make. A month-to-month provide of ours prices us $60. My philosophy is it’s a lot simpler to compete on the high of a market as a result of few are keen to do it.
The problem is promoting a bag for $75 if it prices $60 to make. How can we pay for advertisements? I imagine the product will likely be so good we received’t need to spend as a lot on advertising and marketing due to phrase of mouth. We received’t have as a lot churn. In principle, people will keep subscribers longer.
I’m not excited by something that may’t scale. Momentum may very simply do $100 million a 12 months. To get to that stage, I would like about 60,000 subscribers. That’s 60,000 gross sales over 5 years — 12,000 a 12 months. That’s doable with an awesome product and the fitting worth and message. I don’t wish to do something with a ceiling on it.
Bandholz: Are you promoting on Amazon?
Tecku: No, however we’ll finally. Customers are very worth delicate on Amazon, which requires training. As soon as people acknowledge the model Momentum and look to purchase it on Amazon, we’ll have it on the market there. However for now, I’ll concentrate on issues like this podcast to assist shoppers perceive what it’s about.
Bandholz: I would hesitate to pay $75 per bag.
Tecku: It’s my job to speak that when you have been to purchase all these elements individually, it’d be about $400 a month. And that by eradicating the intermediary on 20 elements, I can cost $75 a bag. And the margins aren’t truly that nice for me. So it’ll take some training.
Diet is tough. I constructed Momentum Shake across the idea that almost all people are poor of their diets. Our our bodies decline as we age. Momentum replaces the issues we lose over time.
Now we have no secret drugs or medication. It’s simply the issues that our our bodies want daily. People don’t wish to take a gazillion drugs.
Bandholz: The place can listeners discover you?
Tecku: They’ll purchase our product at MomentumShake.com. I’m on LinkedIn and e-mail at mike@momentumshake.com. I like mentoring, by the way in which.
