I recently read a blog entry from one of my favorite authors – Seth Godin. I’ve read all of Seth’s books, attended a some of his lectures, and even had some one-on-one time with him at a small event for authors in NYC – so I like to listen to his ideas and apply them to my writing and my businesses whenever I can.
Recently, he posted briefly about “Less for Less” and the relationship between the price you pay and the value you get from a product or service. It made me realize that what we’re doing at Wicked Fast Sports Nutrition is exactly the right balance for our endurance athlete customers.
At Wicked Fast, we carry only three products (but we have several interesting endurance products under development):
Intense Defense (the only endurance-specific multivitamin that detoxifies and enhances both fat loss and lean gain).
Energ-Ease (for pre-exercise endurance & stamina, avoidance of overtraining, and enhancement of mental & physical performance)
Recover-Ease (the only research-proven post-exercise recovery enhancement capsule)
Our products sell for $40-$50 for a full 30-day supply.
None of our products require a “loading phase” like other endurance products – and all of our products have been used in research studies and in the heat of competition at the recommended dose (not double or triple dosage so they get some results).
I don’t want to bash specific brands of endurance supplements, because I know a lot of the folks who work at those companies. They’re good people – we see each other at the same races and on the same trails. Unfortunately, the economics of the nutrition industry mean that they have to create a low-cost product (which often means low-potency) and advertise/sponsor like crazy (which often translates into high cost).
The combination of low potency formulas and high cost advertising is exactly what frustrated me about developing products within traditional nutrition channels – and what led my wife (Julie) and I to start Wicked Fast back in 2001.
Yikes! – We’ve been in business for a dozen years – and for that entire time, we’ve been creating and researching HIGH-potency endurance products and selling them with as LOW-cost as possible (directly to coaches and athletes via our website and at events around the country).
Let me give you a few examples.
Our Intense Defense formula is roughly comparable to a super-potent multivitamin sold by a network marketing company – but Intense Defense also includes ingredients to support detox pathways and enhance fat/lean metabolism. That other product sells for $149 (to support marketing and commissions), while Intense Defense sells for $50.
Our Energ-Ease formula for endurance/stamina is a non-stimulant approach to helping you train harder and compete at a higher level. It helps your body to use oxygen more efficiently (cordyceps/rhodiola), balance cortisol/testosterone ratio (eurycoma), and maintain mental sharpness in the late stages of your workout or race (eleuthero/ashwagandha/huzhang). People who use Energ-Ease tell us that it gives them an “extra gear” – especially at the end of their workout when they would normally start to fade. There are other cordyceps/rhodiola products from a company that advertises in all the cycling/triathlon magazines – but it costs more than double to get the same potency of oxygen enhancers (all that money, and without any ingredients for cortisol/testosterone balance or for mental sharpness – maybe not a great deal).
Our Recover-Ease formula for post-exercise recovery enhancement is our flagship product – the one that started it all 12 years ago. I formulated Recover-Ease because there were no good recovery capsules on the market (and there still aren’t, except Recover-Ease). There are certainly no shortage of “Recover-This” and “Recover-That” products on the market – but you’ll only buy them once because they’re God-awful blends of low-quality whey and cornstarch (maltodextrin) that will make you Heave. There ARE some decent recovery FOODS (such as chocolate milk) to help supply the protein and carbs for refueling your muscles – but Recover-Ease supports a different part of your recovery process (your immune system). After exercise, your immune system cells use the nutrients in Recover-Ease as a fuel source to help them super-charge their repair of tissue damage (lungs, muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage, etc) – so you bounce back to your next workout faster and more completely. No more heavy legs or nagging pains or stiffness. We still drink our chocolate milk, but always with our Recover-Ease (especially now that we’re in our mid-40s and have more post-race aches than we used to)…
That’s what we offer – a better multivitamin (that does more) – a better endurance supplement (that does more) – and a better recovery supplement (that does more) – and we offer all of them at a much better price than anything you can find elsewhere. We’re endurance athletes too – I’ve done 15 Iron-distance triathlons (#16 coming at the end of this month) and more than a dozen ultramarathons – so we’re right there with you (we also support hundreds of races around the country). We feel very strongly that high-quality endurance nutrition can be delivered to committed athletes at a reasonable price. That’s why we sell direct (to you or to your coach) and why you won’t find us on the traditional retail shelf.
Thanks for the last dozen years! We’re looking forward to helping you go Wicked Fast for the next dozen!
Shawn Talbott, PhD (CEO – Chief Endurance Officer & Formulator/Guinea Pig) – also CSO at MonaVie where I get to develop some of the most amazing general-health products to help everyone feel better (including athletes).
Julie Talbott (COO – Chief Operations Officer & Head Bottle Washer)
