When Less Became Way More

For the prior 12months we didn’t have a reliable channel to sell in and I felt it threatening our very existence. We planned for a lean startup but I never predicted it starving.

Then last week we left off with the challenge of getting back in stock after the one and only Jennifer Garner showed us the love we so desperately needed. Now that we had cash in the bank for the first real time, we had to reinvest in inventory because we were wiped out in two days.

Back then Juliano and I were on the manufacturing line because we didn’t have luxuries like funds or other options. But like most things in hindsight, it was a critical experience.

There’s no better person to handle food than a pro like Juliano. He cracked the whip anytime something was off, like Marco or Gordon. But the real benefit of being hands-on was how close it put us to potential improvements.

At launch, I thought a serving size should be one berry, 1:1. But selling out gave us feedback fast. Repeat customers were only using one piece (half a berry) instead of two. It gave them 15 to 20 minutes of flavor change instead of 30 to 40 and stretched the supply.

That’s when it hit me. Right as we were filling our 60-serving jars I blurted out, "This small jar isn’t small enough!" If we dropped one gram and went from eight to seven, we could stretch the batch, lower the price from $60 to $50 and offer better value per jar. Now we could actually point to our mission and say we were making the highest quality miracle berries more affordable and more available.

Boy, did I think I had the answer for the small jar. Hank was the man with the plan. But next week I’ll tell you how Juliano actually stumbled into the biggest improvement that jar has ever seen.

Now for part 22 of my miracle berry flavor experiments…

Every time something falls out of favor in wellness, something else seems to break through. Juicing was losing ground to smoothies and I was blending just for fiber. But then the Medical Medium happened and suddenly celery juice was everywhere. Who was I to resist? I added it to the shopping list and started prepping the kitchen.

I always clean before I drink and since it was just celery, I had time to rinse the Breville while the berry coated my tongue for 30 seconds.

Holy cow. I expected bitterness but it was like refreshing water with a hint of celery. I wanted it a little sweeter so I squeezed in half a lemon. That’s all it took. It tasted like I’d dumped sugar into it. Like a lot of sugar. Except there were no added sugars, no alcohol sugars, no calories. Just pure deliciousness.

If you want to try it, look for the hidden alphanumeric discount code hiding in plain sight in this blog. It’s worth 20 percent off and it expires in 48 hours. Look closely at the text. Did you spot a word that’s formatted oddly? Enter it exactly as shown!

– Hank