Question 1. Who are you and what is the name of your company.
Xfuel is a brand of energy shot made by About Me Labs, LLC out of Livingston, NJ. The 3 main characters are Howie Panes, Greg Perri and myself Joe Gere. Howie has run a fitness center (HowFit) in NJ for 18 years and has had many pro athletes including 2 heavyweights champs!!! Greg has a graphic arts/printing firm called Digital Retouching & Production and me, well I’m the multi-tasker, I’ve started, owned, ran & sold all kinds of companies from trucking to software to fashion and everything in between.
Question 2. How many people work for your company?
As you know we are new and very small the total company is Howie, Greg, my sons Alex & Austin, Howie’s son Nick and myself at this point in time.
Question 3. Who came up with the idea for Xfuel energy shot originally? What’s the story behind it?
The concept solely belongs to my son Alex Gere. This is a long story but Howie and I were part of a n investment group to make a sports energy shot, a truly unique product in the market and with Howie’s background training top athletes came up with the secret parts of the formula. That group came apart late last fall, I blame it on the fact that we didn’t run it but were just part of it – anyway we(Howie & I) were very depressed about this and said “We want no part of the beverage business, that’s it - over!”
Fast forward 3 months to New Years Eve 2008 to my sons 14th birthday (yes, born on the 31st) and a New Years Eve party where Alex (who is top ranked in Guitar Hero) defeats 32 kids in a row before the rest just gave up. On the way home that night Alex says “Dad you should do a drink just for Gamers!” as my wife and I saw so many kids sneaking in RB’s and 5hr’s, etc. Typical father response to an absurd statement, “Yea sure, and what do we call it?”, he responds, “Xfuel”. That was technically Jan 1st of 2009 and by Jan 11th we filed trademarks and Alex together with my brother-in-law Greg started with the graphics, colors, etc and Xfuel was born!!!
That all there is to it and it’s been a whirlwind since the 11th of Jan, 2009 no master whiz bang 50 page plan this time. The first time we read the master plan, listened to all the experts who they brought onboard and it still went no where!!!!
Question 4. How was the flavors chosen?
This was simple and I told this just yesterday to the Senior VP at one of the largest shot manufactures in the US, who is also in NJ and it goes like this – Howie and I could not be farther apart on the taste so we did the smart thing. We got a group of 14-20 year olds from the neighborhood and had them taste what had to be 30 shots and they all said they tasted terrible and listened to what they wanted it to taste like. After 8 batches we had the Xfuel flavor which starts out sweet and turns a little tart but with no bitter after taste and it doesn’t repeat on you which so many of them do!!!
Xfuel has been called watermelon, kiwi, strawberry, etc and even chocolate!!! But it’s not designed to taste like something else; its Xfuel flavored not Grapefuel or Orangefuel.
Question 5. How did you decide which ingredients to put in X Fuel. Have the ingredients changed over time and if so why?
The ingredients came mostly from the sport shot that we were going to do minus certain athletic supplements. Yes, the initial ingredients did change before we started production but only 1 time. The main reason for the change is I have some stomach problems and almost every energy drink leaves me with an uneasy feeling. Our initial blend which was much cheaper to produce made my stomach upset within 3-5 minutes after drinking it. I was not happy with that and drew the line and said “I need to be able to drink this, if we expect young adults & late teens to consume Xfuel we can’t have a product that can upset someone’s stomach.” So it costs us more now but at least I can drink! Yes, in a short time we have done allot and that’s because we believe in what we are doing, it’s not just a product it an Attitude, Attitude + Energy = Xfuel!
Question 6. Do you plan on releasing other flavors or maybe a full size drink?
I don’t expect that we will release other flavors as then we are just another grape or berry shot. What I do expect is that we will release an athletic version of Xfuel similar to our original sports drink because Xfuel is not just for virtual gamers it can give you the energy and focus you need to perform in any sport, baseball, football, track etc, etc and we feel putting those little extras back in the bottle will help with muscle fatigue & recovery even more. I would also expect us to release a few more products that are engineered toward specific markets as well.
A full size drink – maybe, but for today we have all we can handle doing shots and just getting our distribution channels up and running – after that there could be lots of things!
Question 7. Some companies target extreme athletes, Students, Party crowd, etc... Who is your target market?
This is good question and I’ll give you and answer I will probably regret later. The product was designed to help gamers and by gamers we mean video gamers in particular. Now expand that to who are video gamers? Almost every High School / College student who does anything from liberal arts studies to the quarterback of the football team plays video games to the housewife who plays on-line slots or poker!!! Watch almost any show on MTV from skateboarders at home to customizing a Range Rover and you’ll see video games of some sort in every one of them!
So, our target market is probably more diverse than of the other ones that the big brands focus one – we have our work cut out for us!
Question 8. Who is your products main competition? Energy drinks, Energy shots, energy pills. The big boys like RB or Monster?
Most definitely the other energy shot companies and both Monster and RB have launched shots into the market within the last couple months. Xfuel has a long steep hill to climb and it won’t be easy. I believe the fact that we do not have the money that the majors have makes us find more creative ways to do things. I can’t tell you how many people come up to us and call us and ask which of the big drink companies is behind us? We’ve done much more with much less than any of the big boys because we have to, we can’t throw millions at something and hope it sticks, we make believers of our customers and they help us spread the word.
Question 9. What are your feelings on the current controversy concerning mixing energy drinks and alcohol?
I have to pass on this question, but will say this - people need to do things in moderation, you can abuse almost anything to the point of it hurting yourself or worse yet someone else.
Question 10. Who designed your bottle and Label? Why was this design chosen?
The design concept was my 14 yr old son Alex and along with Greg (his uncle) it was refined to what we have today. The bottle was simple we wanted a larger diameter opening so you don’t have to suck it out a tiny hole like the 50 other shots that are out there.
Why the design we have, because we made sheets of different graphics 30 in all and had teenage / early 20’s focus groups (OK, neighbor kids) go through all the different elements until we narrowed it down to some basic things that evoked energized emotions in people Lightning bolts, the word Fuel, a big X, the color black with bright colors against it, so on and so on.
I’ll sound a little anti-establishment here but you don’t need a PHD to see what younger people like or feel, if you just open your eyes and ears and let them tell you what they want and listen to them you can’t go wrong. When you get to be 46 yrs old like I am you tend to over analyze things, when I was 20 years old I just did it, the more people said no the more I did it – whatever it was!!!
Our bottle reflects that younger attitude.
Question 11: Where is X Fuel distributed and do you plan on expanding.
Again we are less than 120 days old from concept to today April 30, 2009. We are available via the web and in select NJ stores on a trial basis and next week our first distributor sets out to place Xfuel in his over 1,100 stores in NJ alone. We hope to reach an agreement in the next couple weeks for limited distribution into NY, CT and eastern PA. After that, we’ll take it one state at time as we can find distributors who have the Xfuel Attitude.
Question 12: Are you selling your shots internationally?
Not at this time but would if the right someone wanted to distribute for us.
Question 13. Do you drink X Fuel on a regular basis yourself?
Yes, I probably drink 3-4 bottles a week mainly as I try to stay up and write responses to interviews like this (LOL)
Question 14: Do you feel web presence is important for an energy drink company?
In today’s world you need a good web presence, we are re-working our site now to include sections for all our gamers that we sponsor, our wrestlers, skateboarders and hopefully allot more things as we go forward.
Question 15. Tell all Energy drink junkies out there why they should use and support X Fuel. Give us your best sales pitch.
Best sales pitch???? This is a story for all you gamers out there and it might hurt some of you but you are who you are and we as parents have to live with that.
Xfuel is about you, I was one of those 99% of the parents out there who still today are embarrassed to tell other parents that my kids play video games and they play them well, in fact better the well they’re great at it!
I wanted my Alex to be the quarterback or the pitcher but it wasn’t in the cards for him, he was not going to be the star of any sports team just like 99% of the other kids won’t be either! The worse he played on the field and the more he played those stupid games the more disappointed / angry I became. It wasn’t until Xbox live that really understood the value of these games and that my son could excel at things that well are probably more important than throwing a baseball. My son gets on a game system and talks to complete strangers, in fact in games like Halo or Gears of War he bosses people around that are on his team – how could my son show signs of leadership abilities??? How is he able to work with people who are as diverse as you can get – in fact some barely speak English, they are from around the world!!! As I sat back week after week watching all this I realized, he was maybe better able to deal with things in his working career as it will be a truly more global economy than the guy throwing the baseball. I’m not saying just play video games but this company and Xfuel is about people like you – we sponsor over 100 gamers today that play in tournaments all over.
So, back to my sales pitch, Xfuel won’t change the genes you got from your parents so if you can’t throw a 100 mph fast ball now, taking Xfuel won’t change that but it will give you more energy, stamina and focus to do the things that your good at doing not the things your parents want you to do!
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