u/kudosmady

Every job I've had is in marketing, but when it comes to marketing my own product, I absolutely hate creating content, I don't know what it is but suddenly I'm the ignorant ceo that refuses to see the point in paying influencers and creating "founder-led content", the thing is I understand that it's for the long game, it builds credibility, etc etc but my rat brain wants to see effort reward effort reward effort reward, there doesn't seem to be any immediate, even small reward in creating content, my business is making decent money, of which none has come from creating content on my personal page so it's very hard to keep at it, and don't get me started on hiring agencies to do this for you, that feels like a headache with extra steps, I'll still do it, I just needed a second to rant about it, very rarely I complain this much, I've never been the person to live my life with my phone ready to film it so it's very hard

I'm from India and we all know how evil Herbalife is, but nothing they do is outright illegal enough to get them banned unfortunately

obviously their horrible predatory marketing, I had put up a stall at a WeWork for my product, which is in the same category as Herbalife and a man came up and told me his story about how he was unemployed, they showed him all sorts of dreams of making big money, pushed him into spending a lot on buying the products that he was never able to sell, he apparently almost lost his house because of that

the liver doctor on instagram has always spoken against them, published papers on the irreversible health damages it causes, they sued him, there's lawyers fighting his cases for him

even if you ignore all this, they're just not a solid product, a classic Indian meal is 400-600+ calories, Herbalife was 90 calories, if you replace a meal w a snack, obviously you'll lose weight, you could eat a fkn samosa instead of a meal everyday and still lose weight probably but doesn't mean it's good for you

I'll never forget that elite indian athletes like virat kohli and mary kom were advertising this garbage when they themselves were probably eating hyper regulated diets, I understand doing things for a paycheck but at what cost?

The worst part is that after seeing the demand it has in india, horlicks and other companies have also come out with similarly shitty products

I have a neighbour who's addicted to their brainwashing and won't stop buying it when she already has a bunch of health issues, it's crazy how pervasive this company has been in our country

I own a d2c brand and a month before the launch, my manufacturer asked me when I'll be sending the barcode for the packaging. I was confused because I thought that was something that would come from the manufacturer. Apparently, there's only one legit authority that issues barcodes in India called GS1 and for 1-100 barcodes, it's 48,000 rupees.

I always made this joke that running a business is like shawarma shop math on day 1, I'll buy chicken for 500 rupees, the roti for 250 rupees, 10k for rent and by day 30, with just 6-7 customers everyday buying 120 rupees shawarma, I'll recoup my investment. Like it's that naive. Then the reality is by day 30, you realise you'll need 50 other things that cost 3x all the money you have. This barcode was one thing I didn't account for, I met about 20 d2c founders before launching, no one gave me a heads up about this lol. I felt silly for not knowing, like I hadn't done my research.

Luckily, my third-party logistics company had the barcoding service for a couple rupees per unit. But they "own" barcode, so if I want to get listed on quick comm, Amazon etc, I'll still have to shell out for that barcode down the line. I've heard that having an MSME license will make me eligible to get 80% of that money refunded so that's good I guess, yet to try.

Before someone comes at me with the "too much protein" allegations, I'm an active person who's on a bulk right now, I do strength training 3x a week, run 2 days a week, atleast 4-5 km, walk 10k steps a day.

Here's what I eat:

Breakfast: 100g dry soya chunks + 80g of whatever carb source and tempered veg is cooked that day (rice/chapati)

Easily my least favorite meal in the day, just because of the sheer volume, the things you have to do for gains

Protein: 50g

Lunch: Tempeh/Tofu (42g)

Usually Hello Tempayy, or Tofu Guys

Dinner: At this point, I eat pretty early in the day and don't have an appetite for a voluminous plate again, so I have a shake. Usually Soma Meal Shake (40g protein 21g fiber) or two scoops of Cosmix if I don't have the appetite or skipped a protein bar.

Snacks: Barebells protein bar (15g) or Voll (20g)

Happy to take savoury snacks recs!

I own a d2c brand and a month before the launch, my manufacturer asked me when I'll be sending the barcode for the packaging. I was confused because I thought that was something that would come from the manufacturer. Apparently, there's only one legit authority that issues barcodes in India called GS1 and for 1-100 barcodes, it's 48,000 rupees.

I always made this joke that running a business is like shawarma shop math on day 1, I'll buy chicken for 500 rupees, the roti for 250 rupees, 10k for rent and by day 30, with just 6-7 customers everyday buying 120 rupees shawarma, I'll recoup my investment. Like it's that naive. Then the reality is by day 30, you realise you'll need 50 other things that cost 3x all the money you have. This barcode was one thing I didn't account for, I met about 20 d2c founders before launching, no one gave me a heads up about this lol. I felt silly for not knowing, like I hadn't done my research.

Luckily, my third-party logistics company had the barcoding service for a couple rupees per unit. But they "own" barcode, so if I want to get listed on quick comm, Amazon etc, I'll still have to shell out for that barcode down the line. I've heard that having an MSME license will make me eligible to get 80% of that money refunded so that's good I guess, yet to try.

Edit: it costs about 15k every year for renewal