A King’s Diary, Chapter One
Hey everyone! It’s been a few months now since we slingshot ourselves into the scene, I thought I’d provide a little insight into our journey so far, if you’re interested, not here to push any product, I might mention a few to cover some points in our journey but I won’t be linking to them, this isn’t about that, we just want to connect to our audience.
Since popping up out of the blue a little less than 3 months ago, we’ve amassed quite a decent following (all of you) and we’re so grateful. We’ve made some bold claims about the quality we aim to deliver, and I’m happy to tell you that there has been no DOA’s, and not one person has asked for a refund at all, even with our money back guarantee.
Here’s some points:
Launched our website with big claims and even bigger goals. Our website has been improving almost daily, from infographics, to styling, to product images and the content itself is becoming more engaging (not all product images are updated yet, but they’re coming). We’re delivering on our promises.
We’re now at 13 total products and we’re looking into smaller bottles for more affordable options.
We started with the typical 4 core live-food products (pods, rots, zoo, phyto).
Then added some derivatives of those products such as our Ultramix (which is actually a really impactful feed for a lot of zooplankton, can promise you that)
And our Phyto Concentrate which hasn’t been in stock for a while now to be honest as the process to concentrate it is very demanding on the resource, and we’re just focusing on fulfilling other orders that contain it.
Then finally we added Dino Destroy (it’s simply a diatom solution that outcompetes most variations of dinoflagellates),
Added some starter packs (ie packs containing both pods and phyto, rotifers and phyto, or phtyo and it’s F/2 fertiliser) and as well as some more strains that are difficult to come by reliably.
If you’re wondering why tetra and isochrysis are more expensive, it’s because we don’t keep many cultures of it ourself, and it’s competitively priced already
Orders are few and far between for these strains, I believe they’re typically only sought after by very passionate hobbyists, or specialists
Tetra is delicate, in comparison to the far more hardy Nannochloropsis, theoretically a bubble hitting a cell at the right angle and speed could kill it.
Isochrysis (which is the T-Isochrysis Galbana strain) is far more fussy, if it’s environment isn’t perfect it literally just dies within hours, but it’s value in this industry comes from the fact it has high DHA nutritional value that many other microalgaes don’t have.
Reached over 400 likes & follows on Facebook, people who are genuinely interested in aquaculture and zooplankton, one of our videos on nauplii hatching from a copepods urosome reached over 100 likes!
We’ve drawn our monthly competition twice, announcing our winners on Facebook, you can enter this by signing up to our newsletter. This has helped us find people who are genuinely interested in our products, and each month, we get to show one lucky person what makes our products great, for free.
One of our awesome customers @gabreefs spent a heap of time on making a promo video for us purely out of kindness (completely unsponsored, gab actually paid for the items in his video). We offered gab a freebie pack to say thanks whenever he’s ready for it (his tank is amazing, would be awesome if you checked his instagram out and even gave him a follow to help us thank him)
We created our very own promo video after that, even as an absolute rookie video editor (me…), it came up alright we think, won’t be long until I’m making special effects scenes for Marvel.
Klarna has helped a few customers out now by splitting their payments into 4, really good to see that’s being used.
I think people are starting to get that we’re working hard to position ourselves as not only the most reliable live food supplier within Australia, but also moving to represent ourselves as the supportive and educational entity within this niche industry.
We’ve set our store up on eBay with all of our products, some people may feel safer purchasing through there and we want to give them that option, despite the greater fees.
The reception we have received has been motivating, and has been pumping gas in the fuel tank of whats to come, the amount of products we offer are going to literally multiply over the coming weeks and months, no spoilers though and we hope you will keep an eye out for the good things to come.
There is a bit of noise as we’ve struck a few chords (some people don’t want us to exist, can you believe it?) but we’re ignoring that and powering through hoping they go back to minding their own business because it’s not going to stop us :)
Over the coming months you’re going to see
Significantly more products, honestly our label order was absolutely insane.
Awesome website improvements as we continue to move towards being supportive and educational.
Some awesome deals, we try not to do too many discounts because your value for money will always be well rewarded.
Probably another crack at improving my video editing skills.
Better product images (we’ve got a very talented gentlemen who’s going to make them look absolutely awesome for us, just waiting on our revamped labels)
Live foods is just the beginning, the support we receive from your purchases as well as having multiple people in the team investing into this business helps us cover expenses we would otherwise have not been able to by ourselves and to grow in the direction we want to be in, we have not paid ourselves a single cent and have been reinvesting over and over… some seriously amazing stuff is coming.
If you got to the end of this blog by reading all of that, we’re very happy to have you and hope you stick around to see where we go from here.
All the best
King out.
