Interview with the people behind Mana energy Potion March 2008
This review with both of the Founders of Mana Energy Potion. They kind of did a tag team on answering these questions. Enjoy!
Question 1. Who are you and what is the name of your company and how many people work for your company?
e/szasz: The corporate name is Harcos, Inc. Harcos is a Hungarian word for “warrior”. The company is comprised of myself and biz partner .aaron. We brought Mana Energy Potions to market and recently hired an office manager to help out.
Question 2. How did you and come up with the idea for Mana? Surely there is some interesting story involved. Elaborate a bit more than your PR department would.
.aaron: There certainly is an interesting story. e/szasz and I were working on a particularly brutal robotics project outside of Chicago. We were pulling 16-20 hour days for weeks, and we became immune to every energy drink we could find. That’s when we discovered energy shots. They were far more effective, and didn’t require you to drink a ridiculous quantity of sugary syrup. As a result of the trip, we started saying we were “out of mana” and we needed “mana potion” right before we drank the energy shots. We realized that “mana potion” was a great name for an energy shot and began work on the drink.
Question 3. Who came up with the Mana package design and label?
e/szasz: The package is intended to look like a generic potion bottle that would be found in any number of fantasy video games. For two months, I looked for a bottle that matched this general shape and volume. The graphic design was done by .aaron and we collaborated heavily on the art direction. We even pulled feedback from my father who is an artist and then let my four-year-old daughter make the final decision between two different labels.
Question 4.Your bottles are all unique Are the bottles hand blown or machine made? Tell us a bit more about the bottle. Why go with glass and not plastic?
.aaron: They are machine made, but poorly, so they look hand made. We felt the glass was far more authentic in regards to the whole fantasy/potion look. Unfortunately, the hand made look led to some leaky bottles and problems in shipping. We have to hand-inspect every bottle before it goes out. We will soon be switching to a type of plastic that should look like high-quality glass.
Question 5. So what video games do you guys like to play. Mostly PC based games or do you venture into PS3 and Xbox 360? What types of games? FPS, RTS, MMORPG?
e/szasz: I’m considerably older than .aaron, so I actually have hundreds of arcade hours logged in on Donkey Kong and Robotron. We played a lot of WoW before this project got under way and quickly found that lots of video gaming and heavy work loads don’t blend well. Things have been so hectic that the gaming has to be kept to a minimum for now. I still indulge in some GHIII and Rock Band, but I count that as a musical extracurricular activity. I also do some occasional Wii-boxing with my daughter if I feel like breaking a sweat.
.aaron: I used to be a hardcore FPS PC gamer a la CounterStrike, TFC, etc., but I’ve recently warmed up to consoles a little. I also did the whole World of Warcraft thing. Recently, it’s been all work and no play, but Gears of War on 360 was great. Next in line are Team Fortress 2 (finally!), Mass Effect, and Shadow of the Colossus (can’t skip that one). I haven’t played an RTS since I tried the Star Wars one and was disappointed. The new Command and Conquer looks like it has potential though, and I was a big fan of C&C: Red Alert.
Question 6. Do you guys drink Mana very often? Do you prefer it straight up or mixed with something?
.aaron: We drink it more than we should. Mana is extremely powerful and easily eclipses coffee for me. Plus, it’s not loaded with fat like a latte, so I can eat a real hamburger and not a turkey burger for lunch. I like it straight up, but I’ve tried it on the ice and with club soda. Both were exceptional. If you mix it with club soda, it will sit on the bottom and look very, very cool.
Question 7. Do you plan on adding any other flavors or possibly a full size energy drink?
e/szasz: We have several super-secret follow ups in the works. We really feel like there is still room in the energy shot market to get noticed whereas the energy drink space has become incredibly saturated. There are so many out there that I bet you could find one just for women between 18 and 26 who are into garage sales and Twister.
Question 8. Why sugar free?
.aaron: Sugar makes you crash! No sugar makes it so Mana sets you down gently after it wears off.
Question 9. How did you decide on what flavor to go with and which energy ingredients to include.?
e/szasz: When you reduce the total volume of your drink to under a couple of ounces while trying to maintain the caffeine content of a 24oz version, the taste can be pretty rough. The unmasked taste of caffeine is incredibly bitter and one of the best ways to mask that without it becoming sickeningly sweet is by adding a sour flavor. A citrus-based flavor is the easiest way to achieve this. We had originally wanted a blue raspberry to go with the color of Mana, but it ended up tasting like cough medicine and we switched gears to something more lemony. The energy ingredients were chosen by spending many hours meeting with chemists and drinking dozens of renditions of the formula until we landed on what we found to be the most effective. It is a very tricky process since various ingredients effect everyone differently. When you add in the multitude of caffeine tolerances and body mass, the results are infinite. There are really no short cuts and a lot of old-fashioned trial and error involved.
.aaron: I have to add on this one—if anyone ever wondered how you develop a formula, it involves a lot of chemically-induced sleepless nights and shaking. Labs would send us their best shot at an energy formula. We would drink these random vials of foul-tasting liquid we’d get in the mail and it would either work or not. The worst was when one lab sent us a vial with 400mg of caffeine in it with a dash of horrible lemon flavoring and didn’t bother to mention the caffeine content. I drank half and felt absolutely horrible. Once we found a decent lab, then the real refining/development process could begin. Labs are like doctors, some are great, some are worthless.
Question 10. Ok tell me something about the Enzyme blend. This seems pretty unique amongst all the energy drinks and shots I have tried. I truly need to be educated on the effects of these enzymes.
.aaron: It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you :).
Question 11. Who is your products main competition? Energy drinks, Energyshots; Starbucks?
I would say that our strongest competition would be the drinks that also target our specific demo of gamers, geeks and the digital subculture. Right now, BAWLS sponsors tons of LAN parties and other gaming events. Even though they are also associated with BMX and paintball, I would consider them our strongest competitor. As far as effective energy shots are concerned, 5-Hour Energy has a very good product and incredible distribution.
Questions 12. Who is your target market besides gamers? Extreme sports? Night life? Office workers, shift workers, computer geeks, ballet dancers, Barbarians?
Gamers and geeks are who we’re after so far. That’s who we are, and that’s who we’re interested in. Eventually, we do plan to expand into night clubs, the general potion-liking populace, and of course curling.
Question 13. It seems Mana was all in the news online. Thinkgeek is sold out. Have you been surprised by all the attention you have gotten? Where you prepared?
e/szasz: Strangely enough, we predicted all of these results within our business plan. However, business plans are typically overoptimistic and generally wrong, so that’s where the surprise was. We have really only scratched the surface of our marketing plan and are itching to really dig into it.
Questions 14. Do you plan on selling other merchandise like Mana T-shirts,hats, mouse pads?
.aaron: Definitely. We like the logo and we like t-shirts. Coincidence? I think not. Also, we’re thinking some fun fantasy-oriented merchandise would be a good time too: Mana Energy Potion swords, axes, and either an Iron Maiden or a set of stocks.
Question 15. So coming from a tech geek background how was it getting into the whole new field of energy drinks? I am guessing you had no prior experience in the beverage field (getting hammered at a keg party in college does not count as experience in the beverage field either).
e/szasz: Although energy drinks have played a large role in many long nights out, I do have a bit of experience outside of consumption. In high school, I started working at the local health food store and became obsessed with the various supplements and functional drinks. I stayed in the industry for about seven years and eventually did supplement consulting for sports sciences in different health clubs. This was all prior to entering the technology field, so I have come back full-circle.
Question 16. Tell all the Energy drink junkies out there why they should use and support Mana. Give us your best sales pitch.
Mana Energy Potion is hands-down the most effective energy shot I’ve ever had. That’s a harder sell than you’d expect out from a company that prides itself on having a cool bottle shape, but it’s true. If I really need to stay awake, get work done, or go out and party, I’m not going to be sneaking any other energy shot. I’ll head straight for the Mana Energy Potion. You should also drink Mana because we’re not some big sociopathic mega corporation churning out me-too sugar water and insulting ad campaigns. We’re two geeks that actually have a passion for this stuff.
Also, the bottle is cool.
Make sure you read my review of Mana Energy Potion