BLOG & NEWS

We’re currently going through the process of changing manufacturers, tweaking formulations, and bringing out new products. We wanted to give everybody an inside look on that process, but thought it would be worthwhile to first share the story of how we made Tier 1, the challenges we faced bringing it to market, and shed some light on an industry that’s pretty secretive.

Everyone has a right to their own opinion so while we strongly disagreed with the comments, we didn’t think too much of it. Value is subjective, but when we discuss our product and provide value propositions we deal in objectivity. You can see our ingredient price breakdowns versus what is currently offered on the market on all our products.

Years ago, before we started working to become more informed on nutrition and supplements, we relied pretty heavily on what others were saying and how many “stars” the product had on whatever website was selling it.

Our goal with these comparisons is to not only provide a quality/effectiveness comparison between two products, but also to help people learn what to look for when looking at supplement labels. After a while you should be able to pick up a sports supplement and make a pretty quick decision on if it’s something you want to take or not.

One of the things that we didn’t fully comprehend early on is how much shipping and logistics impact a business’s bottom line. Right now we charge five dollars a tub shipping via Priority mail…and we typically take a loss on shipping. We’re working with UPS/FedEx/USPS to negotiate lower rates based upon our current and future volume. We like Priority mail because it gets stuff to the West Coast in two days but we’d like to offer cheaper options or even free shipping eventually.

One of the best parts of what we do is getting to meet and talk to our customers, supporters, and like-minded people. As a result we get lots of inquiries, feedback, and recommendations from people genuinely interested in seeing us grow. Among all the positive feedback it seems like some questions/recommendations come up over and over so we figured we’d address them here.

The past two weeks have been a blur. After a relentless search we've moved into our new space. One of the reasons many businesses fail is due to excessive overhead, so we tried to keep it as simple as possible. A place to put desks and chairs; conditioned storage; bathroom; let’s roll. A lot of companies get the posh office space in the heart of the city right off the bat only to close down months later due to the unanticipated costs that rack up. That wasn't going to be us.

Drug dealers are astute businesspeople…….They know their product is so good they’re willing to give a little away for free upfront…..Don’t be afraid to give away your product – as long as you’ve got something to sell. Be confident in what you’re offering. You should know that people will come back for more.

What an intense first week. Waking up excited and *barely* going to bed nervous has been the norm. The culmination of almost two years worth of blood, sweat, and well….sweat… with the official launch of Citadel Nutrition on May 14th, 2012. It wasn’t with too much fanfare as we quietly posted our Tier 1 / Jack3d comparison on one of the smaller training and nutrition forums we frequent and spent considerable time answering questions (why no Citrulline? Why not Arginine? Why don’t I just mix this myself? Why no DMAA?) It was rewarding to see that regardless of what people kept telling us initially there appears to be a market for a product without a cluster of ingredients.