I understand Rob Rhinehart just playing around, some initial self-experimentation, that kinda thing. There's no reason to get the experts from the get-go. But when he got serious and made started his crowdfunding, and hired a bunch of marketers and finance people, a customer relations guy and only one scientist that isn't even a food scientist, you wonder -- is he really serious about the nutrition thing? His team might as well have been hand-picked for a social-networking startup.
Not saying that it's impossible for people outside the relevant field can't make breakthroughs, but to assume that such a result were a much more than improbable possibility, such that you didn't even need to hire one guy with the relevant credentials? That's chutzpah.
Good luck with the 300k. Hopefully they hire a few food scientists/nutritionists.
> YC accepted our original idea, to build affordable wireless networks for developing countries, for the summer 2012 batch. We spent the entire summer prototyping our technology and looking for a customer. By demo day, we had a white space radio with a Bill of Materials (BOM) of $70 operating around Silicon Valley. We didn’t have customers and were facing an intimidating set of regulatory hurdles. We spoke with some of the valley’s top VC’s but failed to raise. Instead of pushing for investment that wasn’t there, we went back to focusing on acquiring customers and finishing our product as soon as possible. We never found a customer.
It is irresponsible for them to launch a product, with massive publicity, and claim the product is safe for everyone (diabetics? pregnant women? People with Crohn's? Anorexics?) and to claim there is much evidence to support safety.
Wow, I never knew that (not much of a start-up guy myself, admittedly).
This is really interesting (from their blog):
"By the start of 2013, we were working on a handful of projects. Sometimes collectively, sometimes independently. One day, Rob said, “There must be a more efficient way to eat.” He researched the human nutritional needs and was frustrated to find that nutrition is not quite a hard science right now. Regardless, he identified the essential ingredients the body needs to thrive and, a few days later, began constructing his alternative diet using supplements purchased on Amazon. Pleased with initial testing, he committed to his newly invented diet for 30 days."
So, despite food science lacking foundations and rigour (in the most neutral way) right now, he still figured out (well, almost, just needed a month of testing and we're good to go!) an unsolved question, without any formal training, in a few days.
In the context of their previous failure it just makes me even more inclined to wonder what they're really planning -- their noble goals seem smell much more like marketing bullshit now.
Not saying that it's impossible for people outside the relevant field can't make breakthroughs, but to assume that such a result were a much more than improbable possibility, such that you didn't even need to hire one guy with the relevant credentials? That's chutzpah.
Good luck with the 300k. Hopefully they hire a few food scientists/nutritionists.