Not just a muse but a Real Product: PRO OATS

[maxcascone]

Hi everyone!

After what seemed like forever, our product is actually in existence and available for order online - Pro Oats (http://pro-oats.com)!

Pro Oats (http://pro-oats.com) is Organic Instant Oatmeal with lots of All-Natural and Organic Dried Fruit, and Whey Protein Isolate for 18g protein per serving! It's delicious, and super-healthy!

Please take a look at pro-oats.com (http://pro-oats.com) and let me know what you think!

I'm still amazed that we actually made this happen, and we can hold it in our hands. The next step is to get into people's hands and onto shelves!

Thanks in advance for checking out the site,
Max and Monika
http://pro-oats.com

[auralight]

First, I want to say that your site is awesome!!! :D

When I first came across the name of the product I was like " not sure about the name", but when I saw the site and packaging it kinda fit somehow.

The packaging definately has that sort of upbeat and modern feel to it that works with the name Pro Oats.

One thing though: Whey protein is not vegan. It's a milk based product http://www.wheyoflife.org/faq.cfm#1. So you may want to change that in your Benefits section of the site.


Auralight :)

[officer_dibble]

Nice work. A few minor comments about the site.

It is lively, well designed and the copy great.

Search - Not sure you need it on a site this small.

Contact details - I'd feel more reassured if there was a phone number & mail address.

Is it just the oats and fruits which are organic? How about the whey? If this is organic too - then I'd feature this as a benefit.

I don't know if you want to feature more of the story behind pro-oats - are either of you body builders?

Testimonials?

[liam75005]

Really great ! congrats !

Did you outsource manufacturing, or are you doing all the bags in your kitchen ?

[winvest]

Nice site. one suggestion though. It would be nice if there was some type of indicator for which bags of oats a customer has added to the cart before they click "view cart" maybe the "add to cart" button could be highlighted when they click it.

[maxcascone]

Hi Everyone, thanks for your responses - I wasn't getting notified that there were any responses, so my apologies for not writing back sooner!

I appreciate all of your suggestions. To answer some of your questions:
1 - so far, we've made one batch of about 100 by ourselves in a shared-use kitchen. I had to get business insurance and take/pass a sanitation certification class to use it, but it was the only way to do this legit. We're looking to outsource, I found a place that will do 5K units for about 60cents/unit, but we're not anywhere near that volume - yet.

2 - I'm not a bodybuilder professionally, but I consider myself an avid weightlifter/bodybuilder - I lift 4 days a week on average, I take it very seriously.

3 - Thanks for the positive comments about the site design. We did it ourselves, including the store. My girlfriend and partner Monika did most of the web work, and also did all of the graphic and logo design for Pro Oats - she happens to be available for freelance design if anyone is interested: go to http://grafikidea.com to contact her.

4 - Regarding cart design, we're somewhat limited by what Paypal Cart can do, but it is all we need right now and we don't see a point in paying for a more sophisticated cart since we only have four items now.

5- We got a number of comments about whey not being vegan so I took out any reference to veganism.

6 - Not sure about having personal contacts on the site. We're trying to keep it professional and not have our personal info on the site, or even our story. We went back-and-forth on that, and decided to keep our personal stuff out of it. Has anyone had any different experiences?

Thanks for all your support!

Max:)

[DaveinHackensack]

One thought: depends on who you think your main clientele will be, but the whey may be a turnoff to some. The idea of adding protein to oatmeal makes a lot of sense, but some vegan-types prefer other forms of protein (e.g., rice protein powder, which you could easily add instead). Bodybuilding types will probably be happy with the whey.

One suggestion: if you want to solicit feedback from vegans on this, try posting something on The Post Punk Kitchen forums (http://theppk.com/).

[jadedragon]

I'd also suggest putting some sort of contact info. Also, add something on your contact page about dealer inquiries. An effective story about you and the inspiration for the product will do wonders for your sales. People want to connect with people's stories.

[JGresh]

Just wanted to say that I think you've done a really nice job with this. My only comment is that I think the table where you compare your product with the competition is one of the most compelling pages, but it's buried under a link on the benefits page. Even I almost didn't click on it! Any way to make that a tab up top instead a buried link?

Thanks for sharing with us! And good luck - looks very promising. I know I'd love to hear updates on how this works out.

Jen

[Mfree]

Hey,

Good job!

My comments:
- you may want to justify 'organic'. Certified organic by whom? USDA? Orher certifiers?
As a health food consumer I always check who is the certifier, is a logo there and who are they certified by. I think you may or may not be asked that and maybe customers won't care.

- Info on the company. I would want to know who you are and that you know well what you are selling. Might be a bias here cause I'm a food technologist and way into health food ;) , the site looks visualy great and totally rocks with whey nutritional addition, however there are many 'organic' products that not so organic...
Some kind of credentials or testimonials or a certificate or similar could add in value and marketing in my opinion.

But overal, a great niche!

:) M

[luiscongdon@msn.com]

If you add a vegan alternative you will attract more people (or so I think). I am 95% vegetarian, but allergic to dairy--so practically vegan).

Maybe you could market this to health food stores. Whole foods, pcc, or give some for free to body builders to get them eating it. Then have them submit some testimonials.

Try out sites like: vegacommunity.com, and google vegetarian bodybuilders Steve Holt

Great job! Good luck!

[Monkiii]

Generally from what I've seen, organics usually attracts a more natural health crowd, where body-builders and whey supplements tend to be more "whatever it takes to get the result". Maybe this is just niching it down, but I do wonder how much overlap there is between the two groups.

[Cameron B]

Generally from what I've seen, organics usually attracts a more natural health crowd, where body-builders and whey supplements tend to be more "whatever it takes to get the result". Maybe this is just niching it down, but I do wonder how much overlap there is between the two groups.

Could be a valid point. Alternative I see is market to both groups separately with slightly different landing pages.

[maxcascone]

Thanks again for all of your replies. We've been talking about tweaking the site slightly, to make the comparison chart easier to find, mostly. I'm working up copy for an "about us / where is it made?" page, but we're not agreeing on it completely ("we" being me and my girlfriend/partner Monika). For what it's worth, we're making Pro Oats by hand at a local shared-use FDA-certified kitchen called Kitchen Chicago (http://kitchenchicago.com).

We're considering making sugar-free and fruit-free versions of Pro Oats, due to some common requests. On the other hand, we like the selection where it is, so any new items will be slowly added.

The "Organic" labeling is tricky. We use organic ingredients but we are not certified organic. That's a big, cumbersome process and is not economically feasible for us yet. We'll worry about it when we're big enough to deal with it.

It's amazing to actually have created a real, viable product that complete strangers are buying. Orders are trickling in! "Trickling" being the objective word here, we are nowhere near the type of volume needed to really make a real income. We're still on the first batch of 100 bags, although we're lining things up to make the next batch, which will be 200. So it hasn't exactly taken off immediately, but it's certainly not a failure, either.


For those of you who dig the site's design, it was all done by Monika. She happens to be available for freelance design, you can visit her site at grafikidea.com (http://grafikidea.com). She's more into the actual graphic design of things, like logos, corporate identities, print material etc, but as you can see did a great job on Pro Oats.com.