Energy shots are a red ocean, dood.
But it also never fails that once they have heard what we have and what we’ll do with it, their dull expressions turn to excitement as they ask, “How can I get some?” Lemme explain:
I had read several articles of the exploding trend of illegal “focus” prescription drugs like Adderral on college campuses. Many polls estimate as high as one out of every four students nation-wide have taken these drugs on the black market, as a study aide to keep them awake while providing long bursts of laser-like focus. It has become such an epidemic that some students are complaining that they are lacking a competitive edge by staying on the right side of the law and choosing not to take what many are calling the “study drug.”
With so many resorting to taking drugs, it became clear that energy shots and drinks were just not cutting it when it comes to the harsh competition of a college campus. Students need more than caffeine for alertness.
After explaining the problem to my friend Danny Mason, we decided to build the solution. I’m certainly lucky he did, because it was precisely his background in university research that provided the breakthrough that GungHo needed. Before joining GungHo, Danny ran a private equity group that specialized in bringing inventions from colleges to market. Shortly after we started working on the GungHo formula, Danny heard of research from the Brain Institute along with Harvard University on one of our key ingredients and it’s cognitive benefits on human brain function. After years of clinical research, they had found that it can increase focus and concentration. But that’s not all, they also found it can increase your memory storage and recall—and over time, it could even increase your brain’s capacity to focus, concentrate, and memorize things. We started to get excited as we read the research, realizing this was the differentiating cognitive edge we were looking for.
The next challenge was to avoid the typical “rush” and crash. Many complained of the “jitters” from energy drinks/shots and even from illegal use of prescription drugs, which is actually a distraction. We were excited to go to work delivering increased focus, concentration, and memory without the side effects. We got ten times more excited as we tried our final formula for the first time, because it worked well. Excuse me… Not just well… extremely well! The alertness and concentration that comes from GungHo is smooth. We both experienced no distracting jitters, rush, and ultimately, no crash. We shared early samples with friends, colleagues, and most importantly, students. The response was overwhelmingly positive as more and more people experienced the same thing we found—GungHo kicks ass (or as we like to say, it has Ninja-like focus).
We’ve been working through a lot of ups and downs to finally get GungHo to market. We’d like to thank our team, investors, advisors, and everyone else along the way that have helped make this a reality. Now that GungHo is available, we aim to change the world one Ninja at a time. “Ninja hate crash, Ninja like focus.”
Don’t Tell Me What I Can or Can’t Do
When I was eight years old, I scored a goal through the goalies legs in my very first debut on the soccer field. I was hooked.
Over the years I played in community leagues, all-star teams, select teams and clubs, and eventually high school. A decade of competitive soccer and I could count on one hand the goals that I had scored in a game, including that very first one through the keeper’s legs. As I pondered that fact on the way to an indoor soccer game, I realized something that shocked me. I believed that I couldn’t score. I loved the sport of soccer and continued to play, all the while believing that I wasn’t the finisher. So I tried a simple experiment. I showed up to the game that night with a new belief—that I CAN score. …And guess what? I scored four goals in one game. By simply changing the belief that I had about myself, I was able to produce drastic changes in my results.
How often have you sold yourself short, simply because you told yourself that you can’t do something? You may be shocked to find out as plainly as I did, the limits that you have are all self-induced.
The tidal wave of “friendly” spam
As social media becomes a larger facet of our everyday lives, the signal is beginning to drown in unprecedented amounts of noise. Now I get notified when a friend of mine confirms a friend on Facebook. Or that a business associate just ate a peanut butter sandwich on Twitter. None of which I care about. What is spam other than a message sent to me that I don’t want to receive?
In that sense, social media is nothing more than a way to get spammed by your friends. Over. And over. And over. It’s only a matter of time before we start to ignore the signal along with all that noise.
That’s where Simler can help. Because your home-stream consists of messages from your friends on topics you have said you’re interested in, spam is a thing of the past. If my friend insists on posting every day about Twilight, they won’t clutter my feed unless I have added the topic myself (called a “tag”). Problem solved—I couldn’t care any less about Twilight. But I do love the TV show “Modern Family.” So when my friend Danny says something about it, I can easily participate in the conversation without wading through friendly spam in order to do it. Problem solved.
LaunchUp was a lot of fun
Last night I attended a local event called “LaunchUp.” A forum for tech entrepreneurs to present their ideas to a group of other tech lovers. Each presenter has seven minutes to present their idea, and seven minutes to field questions from the audience. The energy in the room of about 75 people was palpable. There wasn’t an open seat in the house, and by the end the temperature in the room matched the intensity of the presenters’ passions.
I feel like I was born again being immersed in a common bond with so many other people—which is exactly what Simler strives to do online. We all have things that we’re passionate about. Now we have a much easier way to talk to the other people both locally, and around the globe that are passionate about the same thing. It’s easy, and a lot of fun. If you’re in the greater Salt Lake area, you should come to LaunchUp #6 on March 10th, where yours truly will be presenting a little idea called Simler. :)
About me
This is the digital persona of Ryan Goodwin—A man convinced that simplicity is the only way to change the world.
