Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV • Hacker News Board

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#341

Post by refurb » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #256

giaour wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of Soylent has repeatedly pushed his product as a solution for world hunger, unhealthy diets in the first world, and poor time management. I think critiquing the product on those terms is fair.

Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out,…

and then realized I was just eating chemicals

You do realize that everything you eat is chemicals, right?

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#342

Post by brentm » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

tonydiv wrote: post #49

It amazes me that VCs find this type of business interesting because it's not defensible in many of the ways a software company is. I am also not sure why the company wants to raise this much money -- they need to continue growing like crazy (outside of tech regions where engineers who are unwilling to cook live) or go bust. Nonetheless, the drink is ok. I tried it for a few months. Instead of avoiding cooking, I hav…

> It amazes me that VCs find this type of business interesting

There are a lot of companies out there that aren't run of the mill tech companies but are still able to massage their way into that category (another example is We Work). There is so much money chasing outsized returns that companies/founder with a good plan, strong team, large enough addressable market and the right network are close enough for many VCs.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#343

Post by axlprose » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:53 PM UTC

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #261

axlprose wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the meal replacement (or "MRP") is extremely well established. Just walk into any nutrition store like GNC or VitaminShoppe and they'll likely have a whole section devoted to MRPs right next to the protein shakes/bars. And as for specific products... - https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/vega/one.html - https://www.bodybuilding.com/store/garden-of-life/raw-organi... - https://www.iherb.com/pr/Madre-Labs-Zenbu-Shake-Me…

Skimming the ingredients and descriptions for those, they seem to be intended as protein powder mixes for bodybuilders, not general meal replacements.

Yes, because like I said: marketing. "Protein Shakes" are a bigger/more popular niche than "Meal Replacements", so naturally a lot of products are gonna double dip and try to claim belonging to both categories. But that's irrelevant because what matters is the actual nutritional composition of these products.

Soylent has 20g of protein per serving, and most of the products listed above are also in that 15-30g of protein range and share most of the same micronutrients, so functionally they're about equivalent. The only real differences between all these products are marketing, price, taste, "recommended" serving sizes, and small tweaks in nutrient ratios. Other than that, they're all pretty interchangeable.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#344

Post by hammock » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:54 PM UTC

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #256

giaour wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The founder of Soylent has repeatedly pushed his product as a solution for world hunger, unhealthy diets in the first world, and poor time management. I think critiquing the product on those terms is fair.

Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out,…

>"eat what your grand-grand parents ate"

Not possible, unfortunately. Meat and vegetables are so totally different now. For example meats are raised on GM corn and antibiotics, altering their balance of omega 3's, impact on gut health, and other things. While today's vegetables are massively decremented in micronutrients- and may have less arsenic-based pesticide residue than your greatgrandparents', but more of other pesticides.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#345

Post by hammock » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #341

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out,…

and then realized I was just eating chemicals You do realize that everything you eat is chemicals, right?

I hate this argument. Usually people are talking about synthetic or non-naturally occurring compounds ancillary to the reason for eating the food.

In other words, are you eating processed cheese for the protein, or for the potassium sorbate? Only one of these is a "chemical" is the vernacular.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#346

Post by brentm » Thu, May 04, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

mks40 wrote: post #32

A question to Soylent customers: Do you use it as the occasional convenient meal replacement or how far do you go into replacing all real food? I suspect there is both, but what I am getting at is how much Soylent's long-term success depends on people seeing eating as a nuisance that should be optimized away versus something that should be savoured and enjoyed. To me this is in the context of the larger question of p…

It's great for breakfast but I could not see myself living off of it only. I think the idea that subsisting only on Soylent is something a lot of people do is overblown. That idea is just a great media angle for Soylent because it seems crazy and it would be crazy for most people.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#347

Post by dreammakr » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

Long-time lurker, first time commenter. I've seen several people mention that there have not been meal replacement products like Soylent ever. The nutritional profile reminds me of EAS Myoplex + additional vitamins. Myoplex has been around since the mid 90s and was always marketed as a meal replacement. Learned about it from a bodybuilder website when trying to gain weight and easily "eat" extra meals. They have never marketed in the way Soylent has but it serves the same purpose. I took it to replace at least one meal a day for about two years. Blood work during that time period was normal and it worked well imo. Nothing against Soylent but the product is not a new concept.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#348

Post by Questron » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:03 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #302

mbesto wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the parent's comment: > I think many people approach Soylent as a way to solve some of their problems, but people should realize it won't be and can't be. I'm not sure the parent's tone indicated that they were "mad" at Soylent and honestly your response to it is fairly insensitive. > Meal replacement shakes have been around for, what, 2+ decades now? Reading the copy on the Soylent website suggests that it save…

> If meal replacement shakes have been around, then what is Soylent's value proposition and what makes it different? Marketing. Initially based around the idea of replacing all food with it (which even the founder stopped doing during his initial trial). It's tapping into a lot of sentiments around food as a "problem" or "nuisance", where a lot of the other shakes on the market have gone for the health and fitness an…

It's: "Look! I'm busy! I'm important! I eat special food!"

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#349

Post by metamet » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

hammock wrote: post #344

deeth_starr_v wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, while the intentions of Soylent are probably sincere, when I first heard about it my response was "nope nope nope". My parents were hippies and we grew/raised most of our food when I was a kid. But my grandparents had embraced the new space-age diet: margarine in place of butter, tang instead of orange juice, kraft instead of cheese, etc. I thought it tasted awful compared to real food. As we have found out,…

>"eat what your grand-grand parents ate" Not possible, unfortunately. Meat and vegetables are so totally different now. For example meats are raised on GM corn and antibiotics, altering their balance of omega 3's, impact on gut health, and other things. While today's vegetables are massively decremented in micronutrients- and may have less arsenic-based pesticide residue than your greatgrandparents', but more of othe…

They still exist. Eat locally from farmers. All my beef is grass fed (which have higher omega 3's), for example.

And if you can't because of where you live, there's a good chance neither could your grandparents had if they lived there as well.

Re: Soylent Closes $50M Series B Round Led by GV

#350

Post by sbierwagen » Thu, May 04, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #331

johnfn wrote: post #5

Soylent gets a lot of hate (I'm looking forward to skipping out on this thread before the inevitable negative comments from people who assume that Soylent consumers will eat nothing but Soylent for the rest of their lives), but to me, it's solved a large problem in my life: what to eat when I'm hungry but I don't have enough time to prepare a full meal. It can happen every now and then when I'm rushing around, and so…

There's Calorie Mate Balanced Food Block from Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company in Tokyo.[1] It's like Soylent, but in solid form, without the pretension. Popular with Japanese salarymen who eat lunch at their desks. It's such a cliche in Japan that it appears in Metal Gear Solid. Nijiya Markets, the California chain, stocks it. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Calorie-Mate-Balanced-Chocolate-Ounce...

The bay area version is called Mealsquares: http://www.mealsquares.com/

Whole foods, in bar form. Pretty good when warmed up (think banana bread, but slightly gritty, from all the fiber) but not exactly recreational when cold. Short shelf life.