Show HN: i Want to Change how People buy Health Supplements

Now, for instance you can sort by specific types of ingredient – eg. It frustrates me and I think the way that people buy supplements is wrong. And they don’t know any better because there are incentive structures that keep them in the dark. There seem to be more negative comments here — so a positive one: Congratulations on getting this out! This is a ton of effort and I really appreciate the work going into this. Sourcing is absolutely an issue for supplements, and doing the homework on it is very hard. I see it referenced I guess but don’t have too much reference point from the demo what that looks like. That by far seems to be the most valuable bitset of information, I personally believe.Regardless, much appreciated at doing this hard work! I am sure there are many unrecognized hours that went into this, don’t let a critical comments section get you down early, especially after what seems to be many many hours of work!

Agreed.Kudos to OP for getting this out!One piece of advice. Please show what you’ve built to non-technical online communities that really care about this stuff. I think you’ll find way more positive attention from older groups on Facebook, Reddit, and specialty supplement/patient/disease/exercise forums.- WARNING -Outside of FOSS, developer tools or “look what I made for my portfolio” projects, I really don’t know why people post affiliate or micro-SaaS things to HN.Unless you already have some momentum, I would be extremely wary of posting “one man” ideas to HN. And mostly useful feedback on things I have considered but needed some direction on where to put my energy. I take a lot of supplements and here are the things I want to know:- Which supplements have a specific ingredient- If they have the ingredient how much is in each capsule or pill- The price per unit quantity of the ingredient- Often I am looking for one specific compound, so I want to find only supplements that don’t have any other compounds, or at least know exactly what other compounds are in their formula (without looking at each one individually)- For supplements that are extracts, I want to know if they are standardized, what they are standardized to, and the % of that compound in the product.- If there is a Certificate of Analysis (and what it says and a link to it would be great)- If they are organic- Country of origin- If they are tested for heavy metals- If the company has ever been found to have products that don’t contain what they state, or are unsafe in another way, and how recently and how often- If the products are freshness dated, and how long a shelf life is claimed- Where to get them at the lowest price, including shippingWhat I don’t want is what Google does: I don’t want to see other similar sounding compounds when searching for a specific one.Also, are you planning to charge for access to this?

Not sure if people will pay for it on a subscription basis. I wouldn’t, because I only sometimes look for something new. They’re supposed to do all this homework so that the individual consumer doesn’t have to, because they couldn’t possibly hope to. Regulators never tell you the cost per ingredient, or most of those other things.If regulators take over the supplement market it will be gone, everything will get 10x or 100x more expensive, and all that will be left is prescriptions. If you are you looking for more information regarding Leading wholesale Coenzyme Q10 Manufacturer look at our web site. No thanks.Also, this information is not disclosed for drugs either. Will likely make entire database for dosing information. Lab testing, UPC Code/ Enterprise side data paywalled. If you are going to paywall the data that would actually be useful for people who want to buy supplements, that’s pretty useless, and doesn’t seem congruent with your goal of “changing how people buy health supplements”. Can you elaborate more on what frustrates you about how supplements are bought, the misleading labeling, the lack of regulation, and the incentive structures designed to keep people in the dark?

I ask because I consume and browse a lot of supplements and have never come across (or have never noticed) most of the above on any supplements I’ve ever considered.Also, adding my two cents on things I care about when buying supplements:- does this contain as much as it says it does? Comparing the above is a huge time sink because the information is either hard to find or unknown or speculative. Yes! Actually, bioavailability was one of the first things that I wanted to track as there are studies w/ bioavailability data but they are often conflicting – having said that is solved by giving a generic range x%-y%. Another thing which makes bioavailability difficult is competition inhibition by other supplements, e.g. zinc and copper. There are also genetic changes between individuals that make it hard to track; e.g. impaired folate metabolism due to MTHFR C677T gene. And then there’s the “does any of that really matter with respect to any metrics I care about” question, because presumably people are supplementing with some goal in mind beyond changing levels of minerals in their blood.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding your post, but are you saying you’ve never come across mislabeling in the supplements you personally take? How would you know if you’re not getting them independently tested? Independent labs exist that perform testing. I typically use LabDoor. The supplements aren’t perfect by any means, so I suppose there is some “mislabeling”, and maybe the supplements that are tested aren’t representative of what’s shipped to consumers. So, it’s about as accurate as anything else that’s sold to consumers with a nutrition facts label, in my opinion. Also their selection is very limited and testing methods opaque. I want to populate the table with one click access to CoA’s and product testing. This is a super interesting question. If you don’t know, and it’s difficult to find out, isn’t your market going to be limited by the rate of consumer education? Then they enter your “do they want to buy your product” funnel.