$4, in which participants can set up a temporary restaurant, Ambronite sold drinks that functioned as a healthy meal replacement. After selling out in six hours, they decided to turn it into a business.
The company is $4 to build a customer base and sell its product around the world. At the time of this writing, it's just shy of totaling $100,000 in pre-orders, nearly double its $50,000 target goal. Ten Ambronite "meals" cost $89 and there is a day and a half of fundraising to go if you're interested in getting on board.
Ambronite co-founder Mikko Ikola caught up with us over Skype to fill us in on the company.
"We started out to develop the product for ourselves. All of us were busy and didn't want to resort to unhealthy eating," he told us. "Our team members come from different background. For Arno [Paula], he is a triathlete and has been interested in nutrition from that angle. Simo [Suoheimo], on the other hand, originally comes from above the Arctic Circle where many nutrition-dense ingredients grow, like berries and seabuckthorn, and knows quite a bit about them. For me, it was $4. I started to pay attention to my eating as I realized how much better it makes feel."
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Where $4 is synthetic and affordable, Ambronite is organic and premium. It is made out of real food products in powdered form, and the ingredient list is $4. However, Soylent is about half the price of Ambronite, or a little over $4 per meal.
"We think that the social experience of sharing dinner with your friends is not worth replacing. Instead, the busy moments when you rush through your business day, there's definitely a place for Ambronite," said Ikola.
He recommends mixing your Ambronite with banana, avocado, or apple juice for some sweetness. I tried a few servings over the weekend without any additives and was pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to mix and by its taste - I was expecting something overpowering and "healthy"-tasting, but Ambronite by itself is bland in a good way. I look forward to experimenting with some additives this week.
Ikola says Ambronite is about both time-saving and nutrition: "Ambronite is about convenience but very importantly also about healthiness. We've dug out the best ingredients nature has to offer. That perspective is very important to our team, as we developed the drink initially for ourselves."
What about the origin of the name? Ikola explains that it comes from "$4, the nectar of the gods in Greek mythology. You might acquire immortality by enjoying it ;-)"