Soylent Brown
Will probably taste like it looks.
Food-as-drink startup Soylent has created a new substance called “Coffiest”. It's Soylent's usual story: why bother preparing food when you can just drink glop that has all the nutrients you need? Coffiest adds coffee to the mix, so that those who like to start the day with a jolt can get it in a bottle that also contains 20 …
Jesus, funding of $ 22.3 million in four rounds!. So, will the investors really be out of pocket? Or will they able to offset the loss against tax.
No wonder Trump is popular in large parts of America if this shit™ counts as innovation.
How is this company still going? Either they mugged some VCs or California has more members of the solutionist cult than is healthy.
How they're still going is by being profitable, and actually selling goods that people want to buy.
But in SV terms, just $22M in investment is a failure. A company has to be grossly unprofitable and lacking any kind of business plan to make the $billion unicorn club.
How they're still going is by being profitable, and actually selling goods that people want to buy.
ooh, a member of the cult chimes in. If they're profitable, and I've yet to any indication that this is the case, then they don't need funding.
Let's face it: this is just another Herbal Life.
If they're profitable, and I've yet to any indication that this is the case
A simple Google search is all it takes. How about a Business Insider article about the $20M they got last year:
"Soylent is currently profitable, so it will use its additional fund to invest in long-term research and development."
they don't need funding.
Have you never heard of a business taking on a loan or additional investors, so that they can grow their business more quickly than profits alone allow?
Let's face it: this is just another Herbal Life.
In terms of product, maybe. In terms of business, Soylent is certainly no multi-level marketing scheme.
"Coffiest" is a product in the dystopic novel The Space Merchants by Pohl and Kornbluth. It's addictive, but the cost is just low enough that you decide not to pay to be cured of the addiction.
This leads to interesting speculation:
1. Are Soylent aware of this and are taking the piss (given their dystopic fiction inspired name, surely yes.)
2. Can they trademark this name, given that it is a similar product in a book which has been in print for over 50 years?
Edit - The Space Merchants must be one of the most prophetic books ever written. If you haven't already done so, read it.
The German title is
"Eine Handvoll Venus und ehrbare Kaufleute"
(A fistful of Venus and honorable merchants)
which made me laugh.
On a tangent, HAVE YOU BOUGHT YOUR FECKLE FREEZER YET? You know who owns an Ajax Freezer? Fairies own Ajax Freezers! You know who owns a Triplecold Freezer? Commies own Triplecold Freezers! Every freezer but a brand-new Feckle Freezer stinks! I'm warning you! Get out and buy a Feckle Freezer right away! Hurry up! Hurry for Feckle! Hurry for Feckle! Hurry, hurry, hurry, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle, Feckle...
Found the quote...
"...here's what makes this campaign great in my estimation - each sample of Coffiest contains three milligrams of a simple alkaloid. Nothing harmful. But definitely habit-forming. After ten weeks the customer is hooked for life. It would cost him at least five thousand dollars for a cure, so it's simpler for him to go right on drinking Coffiest - three cups with every meal and a pot beside his bed at night, just as it says on the jar."
Quotation from "The Space Merchants" by Frederik Pohl with C M Kornbluth, pub 1952
Have the blockheads at Soylent read this?
Are they indeed incorporating a suitable addictive alkaloid?
If not, why not? They are required to maximise stockholder value, are they not?
(pant) (pant)
The same novel allegedly coined the word "soyaburger", and "Chicken Little" was vat-grown meat.
Yum!
Well, it's the same with the name "Soylent". They will just have to pay the author or the author's estate to license the name. While this might be expensive, it may be the least of their worries.
I've just been doing numbers and they need an army of believers to buy this crap in order keep going. $ 60 per solutionist fool per month including to cover development, manufacturing and shipping doesn't leave much to actually pay anyone.