[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...)

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/...)

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.

[jacquesm]

None of those start-ups have anywhere near the potential negative health impact that soylent has.

[buro9]

Makes me wonder how long they hold on to the sales pitch:

"Soylent is a simple and affordable nutritional drink that has everything the healthy body needs"

"Everything the healthy body needs"?

If I use it exclusively for a decade, will Soylent be liable for health issues arising from any potential nutritional issues?

I find the experiment interesting and don't wish to rain on the parade as I'd love to see some solution to nutrition in general (understand and communicating, figuring out a plan given height, age, sex, activity levels, dietary preferences, etc).

But I really hope the experiment stays out of the third/developing world until it's proven... if you're going to risk someone's health then at least let that be someone who has access to health care, clean water, other food, etc.

The worst thing they could do is to use the potential third world market as a sales pitch, experiment there, and then screw it up and leave people with a whole new set of problems and no recourse. Though, I guess that other industries do exactly that and treat it as an externalisation of the cost (oil industry practices, etc).

[jacquesm]

Because in this case there is a public service angle to making sure people make an informed decision?

If you make a new A/B testing tool or a spiffy way to choose colours for a website nobody is going to wonder what the long term health consequences might be.

[brudgers]

I'm not in the target demographic for products like Soylent. But someone in my social circle sells AdvoCare and others within that circle eat it up. Soylent is entering a market at least as accepted and established as the technologies mentioned in your comment.

Your logic can be applied in regard to the consequences of a whole host of technology ideas which involve personalizing user experience, providing relevant advertizing content or analyzing user behavior.

As a parent, I certainly wonder about the long-term consequences of online behavior, and expect they are of a far more irreversible nature.

[13b9f227ecf0]

Most people have lived very healthily on diets consisting 90%+ of various cereal or potato gruels. I just don't see how a high-tech powder really simplify things. You can almost live on mashed potatoes. That's barely more effort than buying and mixing this powder.