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Rosa Labs

rosalabs.com

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Re: Rosa Labs

#11

Post by KevinEldon »

jluxenberg wrote: post #2

And they still haven't added anyone with nutritional science credentials to their team: http://www.rosalabs.com/team/

I think your point is that this is marketed as a "nutritional" product and yet no member of the team has a credentialed background in nutritional science so the marketing claims may be dubious.

If that's what you mean I think "so what?". Don't buy it. The marketing claims, like so many marketing claims, may be wrong. If the product does not help people then people will stop buying it or it will be like any number of other bogus "nutritional" products that survive on marketing and placebo effect alone.

Being skeptical of a product based on the team that created is valid, but doesn't mean the product isn't valuable. The product should stand on its own. I think that is the nature of a start-up, you create something get it into the hands of customers and experiment. Soylent just happens to use food ingredients instead of node.js.

Re: Rosa Labs

#12

Post by princess3000 »

KevinEldon wrote: post #11
jluxenberg wrote: post #2

And they still haven't added anyone with nutritional science credentials to their team: http://www.rosalabs.com/team/

I think your point is that this is marketed as a "nutritional" product and yet no member of the team has a credentialed background in nutritional science so the marketing claims may be dubious. If that's what you mean I think "so what?". Don't buy it. The marketing claims, like so many marketing claims, may be wrong. If the product does not help people then people will stop buying it or it will be like any number of…

You'd probably expect a car company with the motto "Engineering future cars" to have at least one mechanical engineer on their payroll. Expecting a company whose tagline is "Engineering future foods" to have at least one person with a background in nutrition isn't unreasonable.

Ship it and then iterate works when your product is software, not so much when it's marketed as the only food the human body needs to ingest for long periods of time. If node.js breaks then maybe some websites go down. If Soylent breaks then people could die (though hopefully they'd stop taking it before that point).

Re: Rosa Labs

#13

Post by KevinEldon »

tghw wrote: post #10

Does anyone else find it disingenuous that their homepage has the words "Welcome to Rosa Labs" backed by a stock photo of what must be a much larger lab? I doubt their "labs" look anything like that.

No, it's not a problem for me.

Re: Rosa Labs

#14

Post by bestest »

kunai wrote: post #4

Is it just me, or is it suddenly the cool thing to slap "labs" on the back of a company's name to make it sound more professional? They've turned away from an interesting name that describes and differentiates themselves into a bland and boring "Rosa Labs." Hmmm. Soylent, vs Rosa Labs. I damn well know which one I'd pick.

I think "research facility" sounds way cooler. as in "black mesa research facility".

Re: Rosa Labs

#15

Post by KevinEldon »

princess3000 wrote: post #12
KevinEldon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your point is that this is marketed as a "nutritional" product and yet no member of the team has a credentialed background in nutritional science so the marketing claims may be dubious. If that's what you mean I think "so what?". Don't buy it. The marketing claims, like so many marketing claims, may be wrong. If the product does not help people then people will stop buying it or it will be like any number of…

You'd probably expect a car company with the motto "Engineering future cars" to have at least one mechanical engineer on their payroll. Expecting a company whose tagline is "Engineering future foods" to have at least one person with a background in nutrition isn't unreasonable. Ship it and then iterate works when your product is software, not so much when it's marketed as the only food the human body needs to ingest…

I don't really care about who car companies employ; I do care about the performance of the car I buy. If the car is unproven I don't buy it. If the car is proven to be defective or unsafe I don't buy it.

Soylent is not a car. The first buy is bordering on an impulse buy. If it doesn't work for someone then they're likely to stop using it. If you're skeptical about it then don't buy it... wait for the reviews, wait for the early adopters to give some feedback.

Marketing is mostly bullshit... Soylent is mostly marketing right now. If the marketing bothers you then you're probably not an early adopter so just hang back and tell the early adopters how stupid they were in a year.

Re: Rosa Labs

#17

Post by Dystopian »

jluxenberg wrote: post #2

And they still haven't added anyone with nutritional science credentials to their team: http://www.rosalabs.com/team/

It's not so much just "adding" that person to their team so much.

In the medical community, there's very much the idea of keeping your credibility stable. You don't want to be the Chief Medical Officer of a product that has as much hype as Soylent, and then have it turn out to be fluff, or be horrendous for the human body.

Remember, Soylent isn't just being tested - they're already making pre-sales and shipping in early '14. While there's been a lot of talk and debate about the product, there's been a relatively small amount of actual medical studies on how their formula effects our body's chemistry. As a doctor there's also the risk of breaking your own ethics and being the "Dr. who endorses Soylent".

Soylent as a product is incredibly young. Promising, but young. While I'm sure there're a number of MDs working on contract with their team, I'm also sure it'll be a little while before there's a real reputable MD or firm that'll be slapping their name on the product.

From a technical viewpoint, it's kind of like banking your entire career and credibility on a young company that has a lot of technical debt.

Re: Rosa Labs

#18

Post by WalterSear »

jluxenberg wrote: post #2

And they still haven't added anyone with nutritional science credentials to their team: http://www.rosalabs.com/team/

His first recipe missed out a number of micronutrients that while not necessarily fatal in the mid to short term, wouldn't be that much fun to go without. IIRC, Creatine, Tyrosine, Beta-Alanine, and a number of others.

Re: Rosa Labs

#19

Post by nationcrafting »

kcovia wrote: post #5

'Soylent' will forever be associated with 'Soylent Green is people' in my mind.

The way I see it, marketing wise, that's an absolutely great thing. After all, some of the big claims for Soylent are very people-oriented indeed.

Soylent aims to be very cheap indeed.

The net effect, in the affluent countries, will be that we beat junkfood companies at their own game, by providing a fully nutritious diet for less than a dollar a day.

The net effect, in the third world, will be to significantly reduce famine, by turning full nutrition into a staple powder that can be distributed without waste or decomposition to millions of poor people.

So, "Soylent is people", to me, couldn't be a better strapline. It's right up there with "Just do it".

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