Posted on 8 Comments

June 2022 Update

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to give you a heads up about a couple things, in case they affect you! :O

First of all, we’re shutting down our dairy-based, ketogenic companion brand Actualize, and we wanted to give you a chance to stock up before we close it all down for good!

From now until the end of June, you can get all Actualize packs for just $1/packet – our lowest price yet – while supplies last. :) Use coupon code: KETOKINDNESS

At the end of June, shop’s closed! :o Any leftover inventory will be donated to (citizen) science at r/SaturatedFat(The nutrition nerd community there deserves a break after suffering through all my silly memes lately!) ;p

In case you’re wondering, we just didn’t get enough traction to keep up with increasing costs and minimum order quantities for outsourced manufacturing, and after consistently losing money month after month on Actualize this year, decided to focus our resources on the products that have maintained a strong following: Super Body FuelThanks to you all! :)

For those of you who have tried Actualize in the past, I do have some experimental samples of an improved version that will now (most likely) never see the light of day. :/ So if you want to try them and offer your feedback, I’d be happy to send you some with your next Super Body Fuel order – just reply to this email and let me know! ;D

We also still have some free samples of the current Actualize available for anyone who wants it in their SBF shipment this month – let us know. ;)

So, Super Body Fuel. That’s why you all are here, anyway! :d

Last month I mentioned that things have gotten a little rough for the business, losing money for the first time, this year. Not an emergency – the past month has been a bit better – but definitely a thing.

The responses we got actually surprised me – literally every customer who replied said they may not want to pay more, but they wouldn’t mind if prices went up a little bit to account for rising costs – honestly it’s been surprising that we hadn’t already done so. Oh, okay. :o Y’all give me hope for humanity, thank you. <3

Well, I really don’t want to raise prices if I can possibly avoid it, so here’s what I’ve come up with. After bringing all our cost calculations up to date, and fiddling with the numbers to see how to get that bottom line consistently above zero, I found a couple things we can do…

Shipping costs have consistently been going up over time, and while that affects everything, the place where we lose the most money per order is on international shipping. To start with, I’m bumping up the Canadian shipping base cost from $20 to $30, and the base cost for other countries from $30 to $40. Honestly, it probably won’t make a huge difference since we still offer that (very silly) flat international shipping rate on orders of $100 or more, but it’s a start. And I probably should have done it a long time ago. :p

Secondly, that 20% subscription discount is where we’re starting to lose the most money overall. Back when we first increased the discount from 10% to 20% the idea was to make up the difference in increased volume, but… turns out it doesn’t really work that way long-term. That was fine as long as costs were low enough to still break even, but these days? No longer the case.

So, we’re bringing subscriptions back to 10% off, or $45 per bag instead of $40. Fortunately for you all, the subscription plugin on our website doesn’t automatically update existing subscriptions when the price is changed, so all of you who already have subscriptions are grandfathered in at the cheaper price. (For now!) ;p

Obviously, that doesn’t really help us break even, so the plan is for someone (me, unless Rhodel wants to do it) to manually adjust all the active subscriptions to the new price at the end of this month. As far as the (thousands of) additional paused subscriptions in the system, I’ll probably just cancel them at that point, and you all can start a new subscription when you are ready for more. :d

In other words, enjoy the next couple weeks of blissfully low prices on your existing subscriptions, because at the end of June, your favorite fuel is going to take a timid step toward (partly) correcting for inflation! >:o I mean, unless you manage to convince me otherwise between now and then. Feel free to let me know what you think. :3

(Alternatively, we could instead try leaving subscription prices low at $40 and raising one-off purchase prices from $50 to $55 or $60, effectively subsidizing the subscriptions. But that might feel a bit arbitrary and unfair. You tell me!)

The other thing is that Dan, our stalwart manufacturing lead and passionate vegan advocate, will soon be migrating south with his enormous plant-powered puppy to resume his Waldorf teaching career. Rather than hire a replacement, in order to save money I will be taking his place for the next few months, measuring and mixing powders like the good old days. No one else on the team is eager to “seize the means of production” in this particular way, so it’s my chance to show I still got it and crank out batches like a boss. B)

Honestly, I’m looking forward to listening to a ton of podcasts, annoying Arrow with the latest updates on my biohacking experiments, and personally putting our work-life balance policies to the test. ;) And don’t worry, we’ve got some exciting updates in the pipeline with this long-awaited rebrand, so the story is far from over. It’s just about to get interesting. :)

Thanks for sticking with us. You make this all possible! :D

Alex Cho Snyder (axcho)

8 thoughts on “June 2022 Update

  1. Hey, Axcho. In a short summary, I remember one of your games (the love letter to be exact) and thought I would play it again. Still warms my heart! I wanted to see what happened to you and, it lead me here. I just want to know what you have been doing for all these years really.

    1. Aww, thanks Mike! :D I’ve mostly just been doing this business since then – it’s been taking a long time to get to a stable point where I can afford to make games again. :p

      If you want, feel free to reach out by email here and we can talk more! :)

  2. How are the changes going?

    I would be fine with a reasonable increase in cost to keep this going. It’s been a life-saver… literally.

    Are orders taking longer to ship because of these issues? or is there anything new to worry about.

    1. Orders are taking longer to ship because of being temporarily understaffed. I was sick for a week that overlapped with Dan leaving, Rhodel was away for a couple days this week, and I’ve been working long hours trying to get back up to speed with manufacturing. Things should be stabilizing over the next week or so, barring any unforeseen catastrophes in the near future. :d

  3. I understand the need to raise prices, but I wonder if getting people to order even more bulk might help?

    I order Huel hot meals and I think their pricing system works really well for creating the incentive to order a higher quantity less often. I have a two month subscription rather than a one month subscription there.

    If you used that system, people would be incentivized to order more at a time and people that don’t order as much will have to pay a bit more, so the bulk customers are also subsidized a bit by the non-bulk customers

    1. Unfortunately it doesn’t help us if people order more in bulk, as we make everything daily in relatively small batches – it just makes things harder for us and slows down orders for other customers.

      The problem is, the costs have just risen above the lowest price in some cases – ordering larger amounts doesn’t solve that problem. :/

  4. As a long term user of the fuels I would be happy with whatever decision is made to keep the business going. I don’t want to lose access to these cheap and healthy foods!

    Also, I am curious of your opinion on socialism since you mention seizing the means of production :)

    1. Thanks Spencer, I appreciate your support and trust in us! :D

      And haha, I am wary of distilling my perspective on subjects as complex and nuanced (and contentious) as “ideal political and social organization” in an internet comment, so all I can say is that I read the books Sacred Economics and Reinventing Organizations during the first year or two of starting this business and they’ve been very influential in shaping my thoughts about what is possible and desirable in this realm. :) Also both are available as a “pay what you want” electronic download, and I highly recommend reading them!

      Oh, the book Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus* has also been very influential in my thinking and aspirations – which I read a few years later. I recommend that one too. :]

      * I definitely do not recommend anyone actually throw rocks at buses (or other vehicles, much less people) whether they are Google buses or otherwise, just to be clear. ;p It’s just a silly book title that has little to do with the actual content of the book, rivaled only by Perfect Health Diet (another influential book for me, on the nutrition side) in the sadly off-putting first impression it provokes in the minds of many prospective readers.

Leave a Reply to Josh Nunley Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.