

The Biggest Pivot in YC History - jgrahamc
http://blog.soylent.me/post/51007573199/the-biggest-pivot-in-yc-history

======
DanBC2
Soylent have some fierce competition.

Liquid feeding is not new. Many companies do it already.

Liquid feeding for developing world also isn't new. There are a number of
foods developed especially for that market.

Here are some of the competitor products:

(<http://ensure.com/>) Ensure

(<https://www.nutricia.co.uk/fortisip//>) Fortisip

(<http://www.complan.com/>) Complan

(<http://abbottnutrition.com/brands/abbott-brands>) Abbott Nutrition Brands

These are big companies. They have dieticians and nutritionists working for
them. They have established manufacturing channels sorted out. They supply a
known, quality product to a variety of sources. They have existing contracts
with big customers. They have expertise in selling to healthcare markets.

Note also the caution they use when describing their products - they don't
claim that these are suitable for anyone. They certainly don't suggest that
you stay on a liquid diet if you don't need it. They strongly suggest doctor's
supervision.

Soylent claim to be interested in the developing world markets. About 20% of
the world live on less than $1.25 per day.
(<http://povertydata.worldbank.org/poverty/home)>) And the main ingredient of
Soylent is water, supplied by the user. About one billion people don't have
access to clean drinking water.
([http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/index.htm...](http://www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/mdg1/en/index.html))

The World Food Program and UNICEF have some information.
(<https://www.wfp.org/nutrition/special-nutritional-products>) -- see how
cheap they're aiming for?

It's your body, and what you do with it is up to you. But Soylent are being
irresponsible by selling this product as "safe", for everyone, as "tested",
when it hasn't had any testing, and we don't know that it is safe, and we do
know that it is not safe for everyone.

And this is the company selling most of the ingredients for these various
nutri-stuffs
([http://www.dsm.com/en_US/foodandbeverages/public/home/pages/...](http://www.dsm.com/en_US/foodandbeverages/public/home/pages/ingredient-
vitamins.jsp))

Good Luck and everything, but I don't think they have any clue what they're
doing, or who the established competitors are.

(Using secondary account because I'd set noprocast a bit too long)

~~~
marknutter
Why doesn't anyone post stuff like this when other startups are trying to
disrupt well established industries?

~~~
DanBC2
To disrupt the industry Soylent need to know what that industry is.

So far I haven't seen any sign that they have any idea about what going on in
that domain.

There's a bunch of stuff about "Hey! What if food was a simple easy liquid?" -
well, fine, except that's been in existence for many years. There's some stuff
about "optimal health" - which is a bit scary when you have a bunch of people
with (as far as we can see) zero medical knowledge, zero dietary knowledge,
and zero nutritional knowledge. Apart from what they've got from Wikipedia.
And then there's the "Soylent will feed the world" - except we've been trying
to feed the world with similar products for years and there's still a problem.

For the world hunger stuff: Who are they selling to? Charities and NGOs? The
WFP and UNICEF? Will they just sell the raw product, or will they sell
distribution too? What makes them better than whoever the WFP / UNICFEC are
buying from?

This is why it doesn't feel disruptive. Most disruptive companies see what
other people are doing, and target the inefficiencies or target what people
want done differently.

Soylent claims to be different, but is the same as existing products (but with
much bolder claims and much less quality control).

Everything I've seen with Soylent so far feels very rushed, and not thought-
through. MVPs are fine for most things, but I'm pretty cautious about what I
live on.

Most YC startups are not going to cause you direct physical harm. Soylent
might. And I'd be fine with that if they had stuck to the original self-
experimental approach. But they're not. They saying, clearly, unambiguously,
that the product is tested and is safe and is safe for everyone.

~~~
marknutter
The founders of Uber were not experts in the public transportation space when
they started their company. The founders of AirBnB were not experts in the
hospitality industry wen they started their company. The founders of Hipmonk
were not experts in travel planning when they started their company. The
founders of Warby-Parker were not eyewear or vision experts when they started
their company. The founder of Oculus Rift wasn't an expert in VR and head-
mounted displays when he started his company. And so on..

~~~
ksherlock
Where is the disruption? My supermarket has half an aisle full of meal
replacement powders, drinks, and bars. HN (and soylent) seem to be unaware of
such a thing. Does Soylent bring anything new to the table other than
guerrilla marketing and willful ignorance of FDA regulations ("These
statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to
diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.")

~~~
pedalpete
The disruption I think is in the marketing and could be in the product itself.
The other 'meal replacements' aren't pitched as actually replacing a meal, or
at least I don't think we view them that way. They're viewed as 'good enough
if you can't get a meal', or 'helps me get to the next meal'. A true meal
replacement is a completely different marketing approach, and the product
'could' be significantly different. I don't know, but I'll do what I can to
support them so WE can all find out.

------
brandoncarl
A few points of warning to the creators of Soylent:

1\. Chewing is important. It helps trigger the brain to stimulate the
digestive process. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7568724.stm>

2\. "Meal time" appears to be an important social construct. For example, the
single strongest predictor of school achievement scores was the frequency and
duration of family meals.

[http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/73393...](http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/73393/j.1741-3737.2001.00295.x.pdf?sequence=1)

3\. Scientists are just now discovering the importance of bacteria in food
consumption. Bacteria can be difficult due to the need for some of them to be
refrigerated. NYT ran a great article recently on the problems with baby
formula (arguably an infant-stage competitor :)).

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-
the-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-
the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html)

4\. Finally, getting the right mix of nutrients can be fairly difficult. I was
surprised to find the "dark side of antioxidants". Thus far, in the studies
I've read, it has been extremely difficult to "beat" a "whole" foods diet.

[http://bigthink.com/devil-in-the-data/the-dark-side-of-
antio...](http://bigthink.com/devil-in-the-data/the-dark-side-of-antioxidants)

No kickbacks, but the best "drink" I've found in this arena so far has been
Xymogen's i5: <https://www.xymogen.com/products/product-detail.aspx?pid=78>. I
use it for reasons alluded to below in background.

Background: wife is a food and travel writer. Some major life hurdles have
required us to study and be extremely cognizant of what we eat.

~~~
marknutter
1\. So click your teeth together a few times while you drink Soylent. Or
better yet, chew some gum afterwards!

2\. Don't replace your family dinners with Soylent then. Just replace the
meals you typically eat alone. Problem solved.

3\. Don't replace _every_ meal with Soylent. Only the ones for which the
preparation is inconvenient for you. Again, problem solved.

4\. Getting the right mix of nutrients is difficult whether or not you're
drinking Soylent. I would argue most, if not all people are deficient in one
nutrient or another. Adding Soylent to your diet would probably ensure (no pun
intended) that you'd get more nutrients than you do now, not less.

------
JDGM
It is not clear to me from the article their relationship with YC. It begins
"YC accepted our original idea, to build affordable wireless networks for
developing countries, for the summer 2012 batch", before explaining how that
didn't work out and they moved to "working on a handful of projects. Sometimes
collectively, sometimes independently".

Then the article begins on Soylent and, aside from a few appearances from Paul
Graham, YC isn't mentioned again ( _literally_ , I even used the find function
to check I hadn't read too quickly and missed a crucial paragraph).

From when "YC accepted our original idea" has everything these guys have done
been under a kind of YC umbrella? Did they break away then re-establish with
YC when Soylent started taking off? I have no idea how any of this works.
Could someone fill in what is between the lines here please?

On another note, I've enjoyed the passion and controversy of the Soylent
topics on here and avoided commenting because someone has always said what I
was going to - except they've said it hours ago and four people have made good
rebuttals, and four more have made rebuttals to each _those_ , and so on, to
the point where I just want to drink it all in rather than join the noise.
However, this part seems a new one on me:

"Rob would simply go to the pitcher, shake it once, and pour a delicious meal
for himself"

Delicious? I was under the impression Soylent was either fairly tasteless or
mildly unpleasant-tasting. Is it really delicious? In what way? Why? How?

~~~
marknutter
> Delicious? I was under the impression Soylent was either fairly tasteless or
> mildly unpleasant-tasting. Is it really delicious? In what way? Why? How?

It has quite a bit of sugar. Just go back and read the many articles that have
been written by both the founders and the press.

~~~
JDGM
Thanks.

I've just done a google and the only person I can find describing Soylent as
'delicious' in the first few hits is Rob himself, who even says "I'm not
trying to make something delicious; there are already a lot of delicious
things" - that's defending Soylent's taste in this Gawker article
[http://gawker.com/we-drank-soylent-the-weird-food-of-the-
fut...](http://gawker.com/we-drank-soylent-the-weird-food-of-the-
future-510293401). The piece contains the following:

"Soylent tastes like the homemade nontoxic Play-Doh you made, and sometimes
ate, as a kid. Slightly sweet and earthy with a strong yeasty aftertaste."

"It tasted like when you're baking and you taste the ingredients even if
there's not sugar or vanilla in there, you just have a compulsion to taste wet
food."

"My mouth tastes hot and like old cheese."

"It tasted like someone wrung out a dishtowel into a glass."

As a health food Soylent had my curiosity. As a 'delicious' food it has my
attention. However, that attention appears to have been misallocated.

~~~
marknutter
Haha, well, at least it's not completely undrinkable :)

------
jacquesm
Food is more than just nutrition, food is a way to share time with friends and
family, to connect. To actually chew your food is good, not a waste of time,
it also slows you down to the point where you appreciate the taste of it and
the work that went into making it. You mess with such mechanisms at your
peril.

Eating is not about 'efficiency' unless you're an astronaut or a person doing
a round-the-world flight in some exotic aircraft.

I'm sure that in a world where people are all about getting the most out of
their day and shaving off a few minutes by reading on their mobiles whilst in
the toilet a thing like this might be popular. But I'd rather sit down with my
family and/or a bunch of people and share a meal rather than to fuel up.

~~~
mike_esspe
Do you share every meal with friends? How do you arrange the invitations?

It seems, that soylent is for time, when you eat in solitude, and for me it's
the majority of my dinners.

~~~
jacquesm
I eat _every_ meal with at least one other person, and usually with at least
three and if I were to be alone and thought about eating as 'fuelling up for
the next round' I'd slow down and take out my phone to invite someone to have
dinner with me.

Friends are _always_ welcome to eat at our house, and to stay if they want to.
Plenty of HN'ers have already found out that that is not idle talk.

~~~
marknutter
So Soylent isn't for you. Why even bother criticizing it? It'd be like a BMW
owner criticizing a Kia owner for choosing an inferior driving experience.
There are people out there who don't have the luxury of eating every single
meal with a friend and for whom food isn't such a religious experience.
There's clearly a market need for a quick, nutritious meal.

~~~
jacquesm
Let me quote you some of the soylent texts:

"Soylent - Free Your Body"

"Share it with your friends and family -- they like getting good nutrients
too, we promise!"

"Soylent frees you from the time and money spent shopping, cooking and
cleaning, puts you in excellent health"

A bunch of unsourced (anonymous) 'early adopters' raving about the product.

This is wrong at so many levels that a bit of skepticism to counter it is a
good thing.

Disrupting eating, what could possibly go wrong?

Soylent is definitely arguing that people should switch wholesale to their
diet, and that's a move that would require a lot of hoops to be jumped through
before any kind of claims hinting in that direction could be made.

It's nothing to do with BMW vs KIA, it's everything to do with taking
significant risks with other peoples' health.

~~~
marknutter
If they truly are recommending people replace _every_ meal - and I've not
heard them explicitly say that - then I myself have misgivings. But that
doesn't ruin the entire idea for me. I personally wouldn't replace every
single meal and think there's a definite benefit to having access to a quick,
nutritious meal when you need it. I doubt very many people outside of the
founder himself will actually go on an all Soylent diet, so why bother
attacking that premise?

------
adlpz
There has been a lot of criticism around here about this Soylent thing, and
it's understandable: it's dangerous to trust your health to some guys without
any medical or nutritional background.

But I am really happy to hear they are getting YC support and funding, now
they will be able to develop it further with good input from specialists. This
could become something really big.

~~~
ig1
Do you have a professional nutritionist who designs every meal for you, or do
you rely upon restaurants and self-made foods ?

With any diet there's risks, assuming it's not missing any major dietary
component it's unlikely to be any unhealthier than your average fast-food
diet.

~~~
adlpz
Well, no. As during any week I eat from several different restaurants, grocery
stores and supermarkets, with a large variety of products and cooking styles,
it is _largely_ more unlikely that I'm missing any important part of my
nutrition.

Soylent is a single product, from a single supplier, with a single ingredient
list, _for every meal, everyday_.

~~~
dpcx
Why does everyone seem to think that Soylent is "for every meal, everyday"?
Rob has stated several times that he still eats out with friends occasionally.
Soylent is just his way of getting through food preparation ad nauseam.

Also, it doesn't have a single ingredient list. It's been stated several times
that the measurements would be modified according to each individual that
would use Soylent.

~~~
DanBC2
> Why does everyone seem to think that Soylent is "for every meal, everyday"?

Because they're selling it as that. Perhaps Soylent could consider reading
these threads and improving their website information?

>Also, it doesn't have a single ingredient list. It's been stated several
times that the measurements would be modified according to each individual
that would use Soylent.

This version of the product comes, I think, in just two forms, Male and
Female. Ingredients are crucial. (Perhaps a legal requirement? I don't know
about the US market.) Certainly a list of ingredients for the base product is
possible.

It'll be interesting to see how Soylent do the tailoring to each individual.
It'll be interesting to see what information they use to do that modification.

------
DoubleMalt
While I appreciate the efficiency of this, I will happily stay a relic of the
olden days, when we ate food not only for being able to hack the next day, but
also took pleasure out of every meal.

I am happy to spend a considerable part of my budget to procure groceries that
have been grown in a sustainable way and meat from animals that were not
industrially produced.

I am also happy to spend considerable time preparing these ingredients into
Dishes that are not only nutritious but also a good enjoyment for all senses.

For people that otherwise get their food from budget Walmart microwave dishes
or McDonalds and the likes, Soylent might be a good alternative. It is
probably easy to add all kinds of spices to create the illusion of variation
that is very important for most human taste buds.

~~~
arkitaip
I share your worries but "I will happily stay a relic of the olden days, when
we ate food not only for being able to hack the next day" has never really
been true. It's only very recently -- say last 100 years -- that people in the
West have been able to eat for pleasure on a more massive scale instead of
eating so you don't starve or get enough energy to work. Things like meat or
variety in diet were mostly reserved for the upper classes.

Lots of people on the planet are still going hungry or even starving and for
those people Soylent - provided it's actually cheaper and proven to be safe -
could mean having access to regular nutritious meals for the first time in
their lives.

~~~
buro9
Epicurus might disagree with your assertion that the pleasure of eating is
only a recent thing or the fare only of the rich.

Although he's much misunderstood upon the layman as meaning luxurious foods
and pleasures, it's understood he really meant to enjoy basic foods (usually
grown in the communal garden) amongst friends.

Soylent would be great for many reasons; third world, developing world, a trip
to Mars. But I also share the thought that food is a pleasure and I won't want
to give that up.

~~~
KC8ZKF
For Epicurus, pleasure was the absence of discomfort. The pleasure of eating,
for example, came from the fact that he was no longer hungry. His feasts were
famously simple. Vegetables and cheese.

Epicurus, if he were alive today, might be an early adopter of _Soylent_.

~~~
buro9
I think that is a stretch, but he's not here for us to ask.

------
brudgers
As I type this I am eating, for breakfast, a sausage biscuit. I am unlikely to
switch to Soylent. Now that you know my opinion, should I pretend to believe I
have made you smarter? Maybe we can pretend to have made each other smarter
together by expressing the same opinion.

Who gives a fuck if I am in the target market segment? The important lessons
of Soylent are applicable beyond the specifics. They scratched their own itch,
they're shipping, they're gaining the traction needed to build a clear brand,
and above all the founders were not so in love with the contents of their own
heads that they failed to recognize failure nor seize opportunity.

Sure it's not a product that contains interesting ideas expressed as computer
code. Ain't the point. What matters is not the operands but the implementation
of the operands.

Good luck to the Soylent team. Maybe you will convince me to be a customer,
but no hard feelings if you forego wooing me.

------
pedalpete
Aside from the nutritional benefits, I'm sure you guys have looked at the
environmental benefits of soylent as well. I'd love to try the product (but
I'm in Australia).

I don't know about the biggest pivot, but I'd say it could be the biggest
disruptive business, possibly ever.

I've always envisioned a future where you'd eat a meal as a special social
occasion, otherwise, get your nutrition from something like soylent (though I
imagined a pill).

~~~
arkitaip
That sounds like a dystopia to me.

EDIT: I have to concede that while the Soylent team's lack of health/nutrition
expertise is worrying, the promise of their business is so important on a
global scale that they deserve to get funded and further research their ideas.
Very rarely do you see a startup operate in this space, even more rare one
that could end up fighting world hunger.

~~~
pedalpete
Though I agree it's a dystopia for some (I'm working on a cooking start-up, I
love to cook), it also is a saviour to many, and possibly to the environment.

I was thinking earlier today that if they are just capable of getting people
to use soylent twice a day for a hurried breakfast before work, and for many
(like me) who work through their lunchtime, that would have not only a massive
market.

The thing is, how much of this is just the right marketing. Meal replacement
drinks have been around forever, and though the name says it all, we don't
believe that the product is actually a replacement for our meals, rather it's
an occasional helper to get us to the next meal.

------
zalew
so, let me get this straight: the backers bought a powder substance from a
random guy on the internet, consumed it for a week, excitingly report less
sleep, more energy, better mood, and come back asking for more...

------
mherdeg
If I remember right, another successful company which pivoted away from
building wireless networks in developing countries was Meraki.

Poor developing countries. I hope they get their ubiquitous wireless soon.
(Alternately, I wonder what this project will pivot into:
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-
bac...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1776324009/brck-your-backup-
generator-for-the-internet) ).

------
marknutter
It seems I'm late to the thread but I want everyone to realize that you don't
need to drink Soylent or any other meal replacement solution for _every meal_.
Attacking the idea of meal replacement on that assumption is attacking the
straw man. The founder of Soylent only replaced every single meal of his to
test out the product, not as a recommendation for how it should be used.

If you enjoy preparing every meal you eat, or eating social for every meal,
Soylent isn't for you so save the specious criticisms. If you do, however, get
annoyed by having to prepare certain meals and wish you could just get the
food into your belly immediately without the work on occasion, then Soylent or
some other meal replacement drink is a great solution.

It's not going to kill you, or mess up your health, or do any of the many
terrible things people have been warning about in every thread having to do
with Soylent. It's going to perhaps save you some time and give you a few
essential nutrients you may not have been getting otherwise. That's it.

~~~
DanBC2
> It's not going to kill you, or mess up your health

How do you know?

~~~
marknutter
Give me a break. People have gone on crazier diets for a lot longer than this
guy has and not died. Steve Jobs famously went on an all fruit diet for years
and did not die as a result. There are people out there who literally eat
nothing but McDonalds for breakfast lunch and dinner and it takes _decades_
for them to die. We are more resilient than you're giving us credit for.

~~~
DanBC2
So you don't know? Yet you're happy for them to sell it as safe for everyone,
as providing optimal nutrition, as bring people to perfect health, as being
tested, when we don't know if any of that is true? (And we know the tested
part is a lie).

~~~
marknutter
This is ridiculous reasoning. Do you think every new food product that hits
the market is tested for years beforehand to make sure it doesn't kill
anybody? Soylent is just food, not some new medicine.

~~~
DanBC2
Soylent is being sold as a complete food. We've seen a couple of mistakes
during the testing process. The ingredients list is not easy to find, and the
sources of those ingredients are not available, so we cannot check if it is a
complete food or not.

Soylent is being sold as something that you can eat for every meal. You can
argue that most people aren't going to do that, but that's how Soylent are
selling it.

Soylent claim, unambiguously, that it is safe for everyone. People with
Crohn's disease sometimes need to eat a liquid feed. Is Soylent safe for them?
Because Soylent claim that it is safe for them, and that it'll provide them
with optimum nutrition and bring them to good health.

~~~
marknutter
> Soylent is being sold as something that you can eat for every meal. You can
> argue that most people aren't going to do that, but that's how Soylent are
> selling it.

I agree with you that they should not be selling it in that way.

~~~
DanBC2
I apologise if I've been too harsh on Soylent. I have, previously, been
strongly against Soylent. I'm against some of the techniques they're using to
sell it now.

But I'm trying to be more a "critical friend" rather than just "negative". I
realise that I don't yet have the right balance.

~~~
marknutter
No worries, you do make some valid points.

------
weisser
It was Warren Zevon who shortly before his untimely death from cancer said,
"Enjoy every sandwich."

Only one aspect of our eating habits should be the nutritional value.
Enjoyment of your food and the people you eat with are also very important.

Very interesting post - I know many people will eat this product right up.

------
bradfa
So what's to come of the white space networking work?

At $70 BOM cost, it failed, but at $15 BOM cost it might succeed. Why not put
the work into the public domain and let someone else do good with it?

------
logicallee
Why doesn't soylent just pivot to being a giant blender as a service company.
Then you can just select what you want to eat: like a three-course meal,
everything from soup to desert. Then they just blend all that up just-in-time
and ship it out to you as one disgusting mush.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
A mechanical pre-digestor at-a-distance service. Interesting.

------
buro9
Nutrition... I wonder what the core data looks like for what you need to
consume, and how agreed upon it is.

I've always read differing and greatly conflicting views on what a person
should have as intake, obviously because it's very subjective and so many
factors are being balanced (who's saying it, why, motives, height, age,
activity levels, etc).

The greatest part of this experiment that interests me is less about providing
the product and more to do with determining the exact mix for someone.

------
avian
Does anyone have a link to any article about their previous white space radio
effort? I'm interested in learning more about their failure in that field and
what were the hurdles he is referring to.

I can't seem to find them on the YC summer 2012 list and their new nutrition
thing is all that comes up in my web searches.

------
Ecio78
Previously on HN (same blog post):
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5746287>

Their big "campaign" <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5745707>

------
coopdog
Soylent is a much better name for a nutritious food drink, it's almost like
they meant it from the beginning

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Sp-VFBbjpE>

------
waterlesscloud
Is this really being flagged?

Come on, HN.

------
gms
Does Soylent take care of fibre intake?

~~~
DanBC2
Yes, it has some grams of fibre. I'm not sure what form the fibre is in, or
how much. It's on their website somewhere.

------
alok-g
How is this a pivot? This is closing of the old shop and opening a completely
new one.

