Like so many energy drinks playing the dotcom game the founder of Go Fast energy drinks, Troy Widgery, stated in September that he’s now interested in selling his company, and said several companies are interested, though he wouldn’t identify them. Troy started off his company manufacturing sports accessories, like the Tube Stoe – essentially a rubber band that’s used to pack a parachute. Sales from Tube Stoe helped Widgery fund Go Fast Sports, which has since grown about 300 percent a year, he said.
Well, I guess it makes sense to sell out to the big boys, but I cant help but think that shows lack of support in your brand, and cowardice to keep surviving in this really tough market. As far as I read, Troy spent all his money into this drink, where he needs this to keep working to survive. As an entrepreneur it makes sense you get tired of the game and want to move on, but that will mean whatever makes this drink special is going to be completely lost.
“Because of our involvement with extreme sports, last year we saw the market potential for an energy drink and we wanted one that was better than the current drinks out there,” Widgery said. “A lot of energy drinks give you a kick that makes you sort of jittery and you drop off quickly. Ours is smoother and more sustained. Ours has the least amount of sugar.”
“We want to make the brand grow properly, and not just oversaturate the market,” he said, noting the target energy-drink consumers are young and discriminating – those who seek what’s on the fringe, not mainstream grocery products. “The brand has to maintain its soul,” Widgery said. “You have to appeal to the “go fast’ type of person.”
Well not sure what happened there, seeing as you can find this drink in about every gas station, supermarket and convenience store around Denver, the only person you will have to be is the ‘I wanna buy an energy drink that tastes really sour, but gets the job done’ type of person. I guess they got enough disctribution deals that they dont need to follow their own homegrown advice.
Taste:8
More than any drink, this one tastes strongly of grape seeds. You can taste the honey used to sweeten Go Fast, which I really appreciated, rather than copping to high fructose corn syrup. Be warned though, this one will not be easily dismissed like the Red Bull or monster clones. This is a very unique taste that you will either thing is fantastic, or just horrible. Not for soda drinkers or the occasional energy drinker, this one’s appeal is for those who need an energy boost both in their bloodstream and in their taste buds. Like licking a lemon – you will get your pucker on.
Buzz/Nutrition:8
Go Fast has 80 milligrams of caffeine per drink with only 30 calories. For not having a ton of caffeine, this drink still had a very powerful kick. The guarana gave it a nice mellow start, and the crash was very slow in coming. It has the full on energy drink mix, with too much B and Niacin, taurine, gineneg, ginko biloba, milk thistle and Insotol. The secret ingredient in here is the addition of Ribose, a simple 5-carbon sugar,, used to hasten energy recovery in muscles after an intense workout. This works like creatine in that it helps muscles get bigger and you can work more. It also can be used to help fight Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in clinical trials. However, most bodybuilding and athletic information list that for ribose to be effective, you should have 5-20 grams a day – and there is only 700mg in here, so you would need to consume over 7 cans a day just to get a good amount of it in you…
Packaging: 7
Overall a pretty can – no big missteps. No big wows here either. Nice that their contents are listed , though points off for not listing the amount of caffeine. And as hard as I looked, I did not see the big advantage to having special “Laser-Incised Beverage Tabs ” that they were supposed to have on their drinks. Yep – they were red – and even had a logo, but I don’t think that the tab really made much of a difference to my overall Go Fast drink experience.
Website:9 – http://www.gofastsports.com/
This website is one of the best energy sites I have ever seen. The sports commercials to the gear shop, this is the type of site that makes 95% of other sites run for their digital lives. You could tell that the manufacturers were completely involved with the creation and the update of their site, using it as a channel to communicate with fans and bring in new Go Fast lovers. Being a developer by trade, I don’t surf. Ever. I use the web, buying things or researching or developing new code. So the fact that this site sucked me in and I spent a whole 6 minutes playing in it something remarkable. The videos were entertaining enough, but this site is well packed with information, from the company to the drinks to the enthusiast clothing store. If you are to start an energy drink – this should be your template.