How I Started A Supplement Company After A Reddit Controversy
Hi - Turk Labs is a supplement company focused on novel compounds in the bodybuilding space. Our primary product is a turkesterone supplement called Turk™ - which focused on muscle building and body composition.
Turkesterone is part of a class of novel compounds called “ecdysteroids” that are not very well studied by mainstream fitness and we saw an opportunity to not just sell the product but educate the customers and fund research in the space as we’ve seen huge improvements in small studies and wanted to take this to the masses.
Ecdysteroids - while they have the word “steroid” in the name - are not actual steroids - but standard supplements with new research around them. The primary sister compounds (turkesterone and ecdysterone) are usually used by bodybuilders and lifters who want an edge without giving up their “natural” status in the sport.
Our product and brand have received raving reviews from both individual athletes and other third-party sites that rank us as the best of the best in class.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I’m always lurking around the edges of biohacking, lifting, and supplementation. When there was word leaking out about turkesterone as a compound - I started digging in and seeing there was a lot of potential.
You just need one product to hit. When starting out - you don’t need 12 things to launch.
However, there were also a lot of people just hawking “turkesterone products” - that eventually turned out to not even contain turkesterone in them! There was a whole Reddit controversy around this.
The opportunity in this case - seemed to not just sell a product, but also bring research and light to the space and help users know good from bad and know what they’re taking in their bodies.
The domain for turkesterone.com was available and we purchased it to see if we could get some traction in the Google results. As we did - we were able to source some of the best turkesterone on the planet - and more importantly provide third-party labs proving our product and showing a certificate of analysis on our product - something that no one else in the space does.
This helps show that we’re not just pushing placebo pills but that people are actually getting what they pay for and that we’re hopefully bringing transparency to the entire market.
Describe the process of launching the business.
We were looking at different supplements to possibly start and as I mentioned I started hearing whispers about turkesterone.
I found the domain was available and bought it and then decided to see if we could get it to rank in Google.
We worked on the domain and built out research guides on turkesterone and other compounds for 3-6 months before realizing we should probably source a product. That took another couple of months, but eventually, we brought it to market.
We built this store on Shopify to start. When we thought about selling a product - we put up a pre-order page. When we started selling products in the pre-order, that's when we thought we should start selling the products for real.
The Shopify store cost $29/month to start. When we put in a PO for our product - we had to put a 50% deposit down. We used personal savings to do this.
Once, we had it live - we mainly focused on doing the same - improving SEO and the domain has been very helpful in maintaining our position - as competitors have dropped off the map.
You’d be surprised at how little some things can cost if you’re focused on just getting into the trenches and doing the work yourself.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Subscription - we focus heavily on our subscribers and we try to encourage people to subscribe as they become more consistent with the product and see better results.
They subscribe to our monthly delivery. This way once we get one buyer - they get it automatically delivered every month.
Email - every time we email, we make money. We’re working on scheduling emails out for quarters at a time - so we can be sure to always have this schedule locked and loaded and not have to have any “dead air” time.
Amazon - we underestimated our growth capability here, but it seems that we can do some serious levels of business by focusing here.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We are doing fantastic. We just launched our Amazon-related store (amazon.com/turk) and are starting to ramp up there. Amazon scales faster for us (but we have more of a moat on our site and prefer owning our customers). However, we should be able to easily add to the business over time.
In our first month on Amazon, we matched our overall sales on Shopify - so we’re hopeful that we can continue this pace and even accelerate it.
We are looking at possibly expanding our footprint to other compounds including ones like rauwolscine, NMN, or deer antler velvet, but we haven’t decided on that yet.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
You just need one product to hit. When starting out - you don’t need 12 things to launch. Lots of supplement companies come out of the gate with vitamin C, D, zinc, and the whole lineup. However, there’s nothing differentiating about their product.
In our case - we just focused on one product - that was admittedly a tougher one to source from the start - but once we did - we saw how fast we got traction and were able to scale up and we sort of took off from there.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We primarily use Shopify. We’ve intentionally tried to keep things simple (only selling one product to start) and focus on quality and ease of use. We use recharge and the rebuy app on top of it. We use Klaviyo as well for simplicity, but it seems like there might be better tools out there for this.
We just discovered Finaloop for automated accounting which has been helpful.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
This might sound weird - it’s not a book - but I was influenced by Raising Cane’s business model. You can buy chicken there. A little chicken, a lot of chicken, or chicken in a sandwich.
That informed our product strategy - instead of trying to come out with every supplement in the world - we focused on a niche that’s difficult to do and focused on letting people buy a little of it, a lot of it, and being the best in the business at it.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Do one thing. Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate it and try to do as much as you can bootstrap. You’d be surprised at how little some things can cost if you’re focused on just getting into the trenches and doing the work yourself (and learning something) versus just trying to hire people (especially early on).
If you’re lean on a budget, waiting for the perfect unicorn to come along is oftentimes procrastination disguised as management.
Where can we go to learn more?
You can check us out at our primary site. Our expansion site at turklabs.cc is coming soon.
You can find our turkesterone before & after photos on our Instagram.
We’ll be moving into turkesterone research on our youtube channel here.
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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