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Rosa Labs

rosalabs.com

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Re: Rosa Labs

#21

Post by quinnchr »

KevinEldon wrote: post #15
princess3000 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

So you're saying it's the early adopters who hold the responsibility for ensuring the product is safe? They should possibly risk their lives so they can give reviews to future potential customers so that they can make an informed decision on the safety of the product?

Since Soylent falls under the food category we don't get the benefit of the FDA testing it's safety for us, unlike cars which have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to set standards for safety testing. So really the only safety information you can glean is the track record/capabilities of those making Soylent, and without a nutritional scientist on board, that seems like a dubious idea.

Re: Rosa Labs

#22

Post by cwilson »

sjtgraham wrote: post #9
freehunter wrote: post #6

Well, that title change certainly made this post useless. The original was "Soylent is now Rosa Labs", which is a very informative title. The new title of "Rosa Labs" is infinitely more likely to get passed over or misunderstood (as well as making the comments hard to understand without visiting the site).

Don't worry too much about it. FWIW Whenever I see an item on the front page with a contextless title my first thought is that an administrator has changed it. Back on topic, I'm glad they changed the name. Soylent always seemed like a funny joke they outgrew faster than they anticipated!

According to their website, this is just the name of the parent company that makes Soylent.

"Rosa Labs strives to create innovative nutritional products. Our first product is Soylent."

Doesn't seem like they are ditching the Soylent name for that particular product (I wonder what else they are working on?). For the record, I still like the name quite a bit. I've never understood why a reference to a sci-fi book got under anyones skin (pun not intended).

Re: Rosa Labs

#23

Post by KevinEldon »

quinnchr wrote: post #21
KevinEldon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

So you're saying it's the early adopters who hold the responsibility for ensuring the product is safe? They should possibly risk their lives so they can give reviews to future potential customers so that they can make an informed decision on the safety of the product? Since Soylent falls under the food category we don't get the benefit of the FDA testing it's safety for us, unlike cars which have the National Highway…

If you're interested in Soylent then buy some. Try it for a meal or three. Read a few reviews of other people who have tried it. If it works for you maybe try it a few more meals... take care of yourself. If you're concerned about the safety of the product then don't buy it.

Bottom line, as a consumer, manage your own risk vs. reward. This is a product you can buy cheaply and experiment with to find out if it's right for your needs.

Re: Rosa Labs

#24

Post by fallinghawks »

cwilson wrote: post #22
sjtgraham wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry too much about it. FWIW Whenever I see an item on the front page with a contextless title my first thought is that an administrator has changed it. Back on topic, I'm glad they changed the name. Soylent always seemed like a funny joke they outgrew faster than they anticipated!

According to their website, this is just the name of the parent company that makes Soylent. "Rosa Labs strives to create innovative nutritional products. Our first product is Soylent." Doesn't seem like they are ditching the Soylent name for that particular product (I wonder what else they are working on?). For the record, I still like the name quite a bit. I've never understood why a reference to a sci-fi book got u…

> I've never understood why a reference to a sci-fi book got under anyones skin

Because some people apparently can't make the distinction between a movie and reality. O_o

Personally I thought it was a funny, tongue-in-cheek name.

Re: Rosa Labs

#25

Post by quinnchr »

KevinEldon wrote: post #23
quinnchr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying it's the early adopters who hold the responsibility for ensuring the product is safe? They should possibly risk their lives so they can give reviews to future potential customers so that they can make an informed decision on the safety of the product? Since Soylent falls under the food category we don't get the benefit of the FDA testing it's safety for us, unlike cars which have the National Highway…

If you're interested in Soylent then buy some. Try it for a meal or three. Read a few reviews of other people who have tried it. If it works for you maybe try it a few more meals... take care of yourself. If you're concerned about the safety of the product then don't buy it. Bottom line, as a consumer, manage your own risk vs. reward. This is a product you can buy cheaply and experiment with to find out if it's right…

You're still saying it's the early adopters responsibility to determine the safety of the product, which seems fairly ludicrous to me...

Re: Rosa Labs

#26

Post by christiangenco »

Especially after the admin name change, PLEASE move the soylent picture from last to first in the carousel. It took me a good 20 seconds to figure out what this was.

Here was my stream of consciousness: saw "welcome to Rosa Labs", jumped to the bottom and saw YCombinator, saw tweet about soylent, is this a soylent competitor? A non-related nutrition startup that keeps getting asked about soylent? A company independently reviewing soylent? Back to HN comments -> top post from freehunter about the admin name change -> oh! back to the website, read "Our first product is Soylent." in tiny text.

Re: Rosa Labs

#27

Post by chadwickthebold »

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.

Good point. Startups can get away with using stock photography to show the use cases for their product, but it does seem a little questionable to have stock photos for a science-based company like this to use stock photos of a space that probably isn't theirs, and a 'guy-looking-into-microscope' that probably doesn't work there.

Re: Rosa Labs

#28

Post by chadwickthebold »

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…

Good point. We can argue all day about whether startups like Airbnb should be regulated, but it seems pretty clear to me that the government has a public health interest in regulating a pile of powder and its associated health claims.

Re: Rosa Labs

#29

Post by web007 »

Dystopian wrote: post #17
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 ea…

The end-product doesn't technically exist yet - it's still in "development" according to their most recent blog post.

http://blog.soylent.me/post/65760097009/as-mentioned-in-the-...

Re: Rosa Labs

#30

Post by KevinEldon »

quinnchr wrote: post #25
KevinEldon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're interested in Soylent then buy some. Try it for a meal or three. Read a few reviews of other people who have tried it. If it works for you maybe try it a few more meals... take care of yourself. If you're concerned about the safety of the product then don't buy it. Bottom line, as a consumer, manage your own risk vs. reward. This is a product you can buy cheaply and experiment with to find out if it's right…

You're still saying it's the early adopters responsibility to determine the safety of the product, which seems fairly ludicrous to me...

Soylent has been consumed safely and is sourced from known safe ingredients. Early adopters validate the use cases for a product. They are willing to take risks to receive some benefit.
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