Gethin, a strength athlete himself, is another of the entrepreneurs who have spun out of longtime retailing leader bodybuilding.com. Gethin was an editor at the online company, which has a model of providing reams of content on nutrition, training modalities and so forth to go with the many brands it offers for sale. He spoke about his experiences in the industry at the Sports Nutrition Summit 2020 put on by NutraIngredients-USA earlier this month in San Diego.
Reviewing supplements led to founding of brand
Among Gethin’s duties was to sample supplement brands and write reviews for the site. He said be became uncomfortable with the number of products that didn’t seem to meet spec, and with the implied pressure to tread lightly around these issues in the reviews.
“I started to have a lot of these supplements tested. Some were good, some were bad. So I started to purchase a lot of the raw ingredients and make my own supplements, but of course that’s not convenient and it isn’t logical for a lot of other people to do that,” he said.
Gethin said he founded Kaged Muscle to address the issues he saw in the marketplace. His formulas use a significant number of branded ingredients, such as CarnoSyn beta alanine and patented form of creatine HCI.
Commitment to efficacious dosages
Gethin said we was drawn to the science backing those ingredients. But to really use branded ingredients effectively, he said a brand has to commit to using them in the amounts that corresponds to what was studied. That implies a significant financial commitment.
“It was very important for me that they are in their efficacious dosages so people can have the effects that are exactly stated on the label,” he said.
Gethin said being solely online to start helped make it financially possible to pursue this strategy. While going through brick and mortar outlets can get a product in front of a lot of consumers who are not shopping online, it can be costly. Even with the more streamline online approach, Gethin said he and his partners had to resign themselves to working on smaller margins.
“It’s a lot of time and a lot of expense. But it provides me and my business partners with purpose,” he said.
Sports Nutrition Summit USA 2021
Join us next year to learn about the latest research from leading scientists, market analysts and come face-to-face with market leaders in San Diego. Delegates were able to benefit from various valuable networking opportunities, which allowed them to walk away not only with a whole wealth of knowledge, but armed with new connections to help build their business.
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