Rob Rhinehart’s Crowdhoster campaign for Soylent launched with a goal of $100,000. Less than three weeks later the campaign is poised to cross a half a million dollars in contributions, and that feat includes a nice perk for backers of the campaign: a stainless steel shaker bottle.
The campaign has been aided by enormous social media exposure and some impressive press. Gawker’s resident pot-stirrer Adrian Chen produced a lengthy op-ed after Rhinehart visited the Gawker Media offices. The LA Times also covered the campaign, and Forbes staffer Caleb Melby wrote of becoming a convert after a realization on the fourth day of a week-long Soylent experiment…
Earlier in the week I rued having to drink the yeast-y tasting, beige slurry that nearly gagged me on first consumption. On Day 2, I was irritable and my jaw, for lack of masticating, pained me. Commercials for Pizza Hut, Popeye’s Chicken and Quiznos filled me with shameful, desirous fantasies. I begrudged my roommates with their savory stir-fry and generous helpings of pasta — and dealt with it by locking myself away in my room, playing chess on the internet, listening to music, waiting for the dinner hour to be over. At night, I crept into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and stared. The smell of fried chicken wafted into my bedroom window and I prayed for a respite from these worldly temptations.
Then, on Thursday morning, I opened the fridge, grabbed a chilled pitcher of water, poured it over a cocktail shaker half-filled with Soylent, added imitation vanilla, stirred (with a fork, to break up clumps easier) and drank. I prepared and consumed breakfast in under two minutes. And for the first time, I enjoyed my Soylent meal. I think its the vanilla, but it could be that my body has come to understand that it is Soylent or nothing.
To date nearly 4,000 people have claimed their share of Soylent’s first major production run. Funding velocity has fallen off quite a bit since the campaign raised over $100,000 in the first few hours after launching, but it’s still a nice seed fund for what will presumably be Rhinehart’s new full-time operation. The team gets the added benefit of not having to pay a percentage to a crowdfunding platform in the form of fees, a benefit that comes with the choice of using Crowdtilt’s Crowdhoster as their platform of choice.
A week of Soylent can be preordered for $65.
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