Elevator Pitch: Brotein Club

Elevator Pitch is a regular feature on Lifehacker where we profile startups and new companies and pick their brains for entrepreneurial advice. This week, we’re talking with Brendon Low from Brotein Club .

In 128 words or less, explain your business idea.

Brotein Club offers monthly subscriptions for whey protein. We send our members high quality whey protein straight to their doors every month so they can focus on training hard and getting results. The concept was born out of the frustration of running out of protein and then having to buy huge bags or tubs in order to keep the costs down. We offer affordable protein and send it to you automatically so you’ll never run out or have to lug around huge tubs again.

What strategies are you using to grow and finance your idea?

We are planning to completely bootstrap Brotein Club and grow it with social media, word of mouth, content marketing and virality. Brotein Club is a business that is all about its members and the community built around the brand. We leverage our members by using clever referral and social media campaigns in order to aggressively grow.

What’s the biggest challenge facing your business?

We operate Brotein Club in a very data-driven manner. We understand what people are doing on our site and are constantly tweaking and optimising. Most ecommerce business owners spend a lot of time working on making sure their online store looks amazing and operates smoothly. This is important, but the difference between a good ecommerce business and a great one is their ability to collect data, process it and act upon it.

The protein industry is an aggressive market with a few large brands that dominate. They have large advertising budgets, big sponsorship deals and economies of scale. The biggest challenge is being able to enter this highly competitive market with a compelling product and story. We are working on both of these areas and are rapidly building a business that is more than just selling protein.

How do you differentiate your business from your competitors?

We’re not just selling protein, we’re focusing on building a community. We sell convenience and the experience of having whey protein arrive at your door automatically without you having to think about it. As members of Brotein Club, people also receive special deals from our partners and access to exclusive content.

We focus on the community, building up membership and the feeling of belonging to something bigger than yourself. This breeds loyalty and commitment to our brand.

What one phone, tablet or PC application could you not live without?

Google Apps is a great suite of tools that allow us to collaboratively work on the business even when we aren’t together. We manage our email, documents and chat through Google apps. We also use Trello in order to manage tasks and keep track of the status of projects and what different people are working on.

What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever received?

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.” – Steve Martin, comedian
“Don’t worry about failure, you only have to be right once” – Drew Houston, Dropbox

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