Core tips
At a time of global economic downturn, the explosion of the meal replacement market is staggering. In China, Internet celebrity brands such as WonderLab, ffit8, Smeal and other Internet celebrity brands have been born, which are popular with capital. Meal replacement was born from the space food of the 1960s, and a variety of meal replacement products began to emerge in the 90s, and the acceleration of the popularity of meal replacement was a program designer from Silicon Valley, Rob Rhinehart, who founded the meal replacement brand Soylent in just a few years has become the benchmark of the entire industry, and attracted many domestic start-ups to join the track.
Brand Introduction
Basic overview
Soylent was born in 2013 and takes its name from the 1973 American science fiction film Super Century Spy Murder. The film is set in 2022, under the food crisis caused by overpopulation and environmental pollution, Soylent Group mainly produces synthetic biscuits to maintain essential nutrients. Founder Rob Rhinehart early hope that Soylent can replace people's normal diet, but this vision invisibly ignores the mass consumer group, as the product continues to iterate, Soylent eventually changed its strategy and became a functional food brand that provides comprehensive nutrition for the human body and maintains the operation of the body, aiming to provide nutrition, fullness and convenience for the public.
Since its establishment, the brand has completed 5 financings. Most recently, in May 2017, a $50 million Series B funding round launched by Google's venture capital firm. Since then, Soylent's valuation has exceeded $1 billion, becoming a star startup on the food replacement track.
Introduction of the founder
Founder Rob Rhinehart is a software engineer who started his own business in Silicon Valley. In 2013, their start-up projects failed, and in order to save money, they ate fast food at convenience stores every day. Rob has long been extremely disgusted with unhealthy fast food, but his busy schedule does not allow him to cook. After much thought, Rob believes that the nutrients in food are key to keeping the body functioning properly. He made a list of healthy substances and bought more than 30 nutrients from the Internet, put them together, and the junior Soylent was born. Rob and his startup partners saw the huge opportunities hidden in the food industry and officially switched careers. However, at a time when Soylent entered a high-speed development, the company's top management began to change frequently. In December 2017, Rob Rhinehart resigned as CEO and was replaced by co-founder Bryan Crowley. In 2020, Demir Vangelov became the new CEO.
From top to bottom: Rob Rhinehart, Bryan Crowley, Demir Vangelov
Product introduction
As a unicorn in the meal replacement industry, Soylent is different from the domestic emerging brand "heavy marketing light product" model, the founder constantly modifies and improves the product and formula with the Help of Internet thinking. In 2014, the Soylent 1.0 powder version was officially launched, and a few months later, the Soylent 1.2 version was rapidly launched, and the raw materials were all vegetarian. In 2015, the liquid version of Soylent 2.0 was unveiled and gradually iterated to version 3.0. A year later, the brand launched the coffee drink Coffeesit, using the same content as Soylent. In 2017, in order to increase sales, the brand launched two ready-to-drink products, Simplen Nectar and Soylent Cacao. In 2019, Soylent expanded its category again, launching the ready-to-drink inter-dinner beverage Soylent Bridge and the solid nutrition bar Soylent Squared. The dominant liquid version of Soylent 2 contains proteins, vitamins, fats, carbohydrates, probiotics and other nutrients needed by the human body, and is animal-free, sustainable, and sells for between $3-5. In terms of product packaging, Soylent insists on taking the minimalist route to attract the attention of the geek community.
User portrait
Meal replacement products in the European and American markets are mainly aimed at fitness people and professionals who do not have time to enjoy food. Soylent is clearly targeting the latter, targeting a group of young, well-educated male engineers, including entrepreneurs, who are busy at work and often neglect nutritional intake in pursuit of their dreams. Soylent is designed for these consumers to help them get a full range of nutrients. However, The price of Soylent is generally lower than the normal level of catering, which also attracts a number of low-income users, including many female consumers.
Sales channels
Founder Rob Rhinehart started his own business in Silicon Valley, so the early brand has been word-of-mouth among programmers. After the launch of the primary version in 2014, Soylent established its own official website to sell products. In 2015, after the launch of the liquid bottle version, Soylent officially entered Amazon, which is also the brand's most important sales channel. In 2017, after Soylent completed financing, it began to fully layout offline channels. In less than two years, the brand has entered well-known supermarket channels including 7-Eleven, kroger, Target, Walmart, etc., which has further attracted younger consumer groups such as college students and gamers. In addition to the United States, Soylent has also entered the Canadian and British markets.
Brand marketing
Before the birth of Soylent, meal replacement products were mostly aimed at fitness people, and Soylent was undoubtedly an outlier. The founders used Internet thinking to constantly iterate on the product, from the initial simplicity to the later professionalism, just like software development. Not only that, but its recipes are all open source. Before the launch of the primary product, Rob Rhinehart, in order to verify the effect of Soylent, fed only On Soylent for a full 30 days and posted the results of the experiment to a blog, which aroused great attention and discussion. The founder's personal experience and product iterative thinking have a unique marketing effect invisibly. In 2014, The New Yorker wrote a feature story about Soylent, "The End of Food," which increased brand awareness.
Soylent prefers low-cost marketing methods, and attracts some users through crowdfunding and word-of-mouth recommendations in the early days. Thanks to Rob Rhinehart's entrepreneurial experience in Silicon Valley, the brand has built its own community, accumulating a large number of loyal consumers with the founder's strong operational capabilities.
Datapark summary
As competition in the meal replacement industry intensifies, it is becoming increasingly difficult for emerging brands to attract the attention of young consumers in a short period of time. The emergence of Soylent has brought a rare sense of freshness to the entire market, and it has shown people that no matter how the product tastes, the founder applies the Internet thinking to product research and development, which invisibly gives the brand interest and uniqueness. As a pioneering force in the field of meal replacement, Soylent has triggered the emulation of many emerging brands, such as feed, wakami, etc., but the nutritional needs, eating habits, and aesthetic preferences of consumers in various countries and regions are very different, and if it cannot be localized to form a unique advantage of the brand, it is difficult to become the second "Soylent".