@tkrunning modafinil is a prescription pharmaceutical. SPRINT would indeed be the closest comp from our line up. I'm not qualified to give medical guidance, but anecdotally, folks have emailed us being happy switching from modafinil or adderall to SPRINT because it's a lot less harsh of a chemical cocktail. for example, adderall is a proprietary salt of amphetamines. literally, it's prescription speed.

@vbarnett323 @tkrunning also one thing to not overlook, nootropics especially one's classified as GRAS have low side effect profiles and nootropic effects for some actually increase when taken chronically. This is certainly not the case with prescription-only pharmaceuticals.

@geoffreywoo thanks for your response! I might have to give Sprint a try next time I swing by the states. Also, Modafinil isn't a prescription drug in all countries, I've purchased it over the counter in the past. And not that I've tried Adderall, but I don't think you can compare that to Modafinil.

@tkrunning @vbarnett323 would love to hear your general feedback and experience on Modafinil vs Sprint or Adderall or any other comparisons you may feel relevant! Cheers.

@geoffreywoo I am a @nootrobox customer, supporter, and a proponent of nootropics but I think it's important to not demonize prescription medicines or advocate switching from them to nootropics without context. I assume you are not making the argument here that someone taking adderrall for a medical condition should switch to SPRINT. Are you? @tkrunning

@brianmwang One specific thing that's inspiring about fitness is how much people track their performance. At a baseline level, people like to track their weight or BMI. Beyond that, people like to keep notebooks or phone apps, keeping scrupulous details about their workouts, diets, and supplements, optimizing to get every bit faster, stronger, more powerful, etc. When it comes to cognition tracking and optimization, the nootropics and greater biohacking and quantified self movements are just hitting the tip of the iceberg right now of what's possible.

@moxon thanks for the kind words. i remember answering your customer tickets :)

@nivo0o0 thanks for the kind words Niv! We're excited to work with @cdixon and @a16z to build a truly iconic nootropics and biohacking company here. When we say that we bring Silicon Valley aesthetics to biohacking, what does that mean exactly? It means constant, continuous iteration - a notion that hasn't reached nootropics and the broader supplements / CPG / foods industries. We understand that the fundamental data and research behind nootropics, cognitive modulation, and broader biohacking is constantly evolving and improving. Thus, our products and formulations are continuously updated to integrate the latest science and research. A little about the products themselves - RISE is your daily nootropic, SPRINT is your short-term focus boost, YAWN is for optimizing sleep, and GO CUBES (which is on pre-order) is the SPRINT stack in 'chewable coffee' form factor. We're already on our 2nd versions of both RISE and SPRINT and are collating community feedback and the latest research to update YAWN and GO CUBES. The @nootrobox team and I will be around this Hunt for the day, so drop us a line and kick our tires :)

@_jacksmith @cdixon is a boss.

@writerpollock awesome :) good to hear!

@karangoel it'll ship on Monday and get to you before the end of the week :) Maximum FDA recommendations for caffeine is 600mg and there's 100mg of caffeine per SPRINT capsule.

@geoffreywoo Cool. Do you also mind explaining how SPRINT is different (and/or better) than http://www.powdercity.com/produc...?

@karangoel L-theanine + caffeine is great base and we think the additional components makes it even better. Methylated B12 (as opposed to cyanocobalamin), B6, Inositol (as an anti-anxiolytic), and glucuronolactone all in tandem for a focus boost.

@geoffreywoo are you guys planning to introduce any sublingual nootropics anytime soon?

@geoffreywoo Also would you be willing to release tests to show there is no heavy metal contamination of herbal based nootropics you are supplying. Many of the herbal supplements out there in the nootropics categories have blown up on forums about heavy metal contamination. I believe the limit for California is 10 PPM. Mostly concerned with Bacopa as it has been released recently that there is a heavy accumulation of heavy metal contamination in harvested Bacopa.

@drewlawrence Absolutely, there's a lot of noise with anecdotal and sample size n=1 evidence in this space. I'm also a skeptic by nature, but we're here and working hard for a reason. There's tremendously promising results from gold-standard RCT's that are published on legitimate peer-reviewed journals. The new funding will help accelerate our own R&D and clinical trials. We understand that the fundamental data and research behind nootropics, cognitive modulation, and broader biohacking is constantly evolving and improving. Thus, our products and formulations are continuously updated to integrate the latest science and research. Also check out our Biohacker Guide - https://nootrobox.com/biohacker-.... @rchenmit and Sumeet Sharma who're both MD/PhD candidates on the team are writing scientific consensus notes on what cognition actually is, what the aspects are, and the ways to modulate them. Peer-reviewed articles are cited. We've played around a little bit with various sample programs. Honestly though, a typical user path is to try a bottle of SPRINT or YAWN, and then grow into other stacks. We'll look into how we can sensibly get more of our product into more people's hands.

@geoffreywoo Thanks for the reply. I'll give it a go and promise that I'll provide some candid feedback. :-)

@ourielohayon check out our biohacker guide https://nootrobox.com/biohacker-... and our discussion on nootropics https://nootrobox.com/biohacker-...

@geoffreywoo in short?

@ourielohayon well, each nootropic has its own profile. If you have any specific compound that you want to learn more about, I can answer. Everything Nootrobox carries is an acceptable dietary component or classified as "generally regarded as safe" by FDA. For example, over-consumption of caffeine leads to over-excitation. In general, we keep our active dosages much, much below levels that are concerning.

@ourielohayon yes, they're awesome. i don't think i've had a cup of coffee in weeks now that we have prototype GO CUBES in the office :) can't wait to get them to you.

@edwardlando No RISE is fine to take with coffee and/or multivitamins. You should use SPRINT in lieu of coffee though.

@lehrjulian Absolutely, there's a lot of noise with anecdotal and sample size n=1 evidence in this space. I'm also a skeptic by nature, but we're here for a reason. There's tremendously promising results from gold-standard RCT's that are published on legitimate peer-reviewed journals. The new funding will help accelerate our own R&D and clinical trials. a16z invests in technologists, and we understand that the fundamental data and research behind nootropics, cognitive modulation, and broader biohacking is constantly evolving and improving. Thus, our products and formulations are continuously updated to integrate the latest science and research. We're laser-focused on product innovation and the science behind it from not just the consumable product but all ancillary biohacking tools of which software is key. In a nutshell, I think we're bringing Silicon Valley aesthetics to the wild west of nootropics and biohacking, very much like how Lyft/Uber did so for taxi commissions and AirBnb did for couch surfing. On a broader trend level, I think biohacking is going to be huge. I recently wrote an op-ed describing the parallels of biohacking with the early homebrew computer clubs of the 70's & 80's - http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/19... Nootropics and biohacking intersects a lot of regulatory regimes. We currently are fully regulated under the dietary supplements and food products regime. We're actually vocal advocates for "smarter" regulation as the space continues to grow and evolve - http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/22... Check out our Biohacking Guide - https://nootrobox.com/biohacker-.... @rchenmit and Sumeet Sharma who're both MD/PhD candidates on the team are writing scientific consensus notes on what cognition actually is, what the aspects are, and the ways to modulate them. Peer-reviewed articles are cited.

@geoffreywoo @lehrjulian The science/research behind nootropics is still lacking. Read this for an honest look at the science - https://www.sciencebasedmedicine...

@mattkgibson @lehrjulian thanks for sharing the post. The author makes decent points, but I believe he paints with overly broad strokes and with an overly pessimistic tone. Yes, people have made exaggerated claims. Yes, people may over-extrapolate results in aging or sick people to healthy adults. And of course, healthy diet, exercise, and sleep are definitely some of the easiest, low-hanging fruit to pick to gain performance. But behind all the noise exists legit, sensible, and reasonable results, and that's where we choose to focus our time and energy on. I'd encourage you to look at the research behind a couple compounds we use like https://nootrobox.com/biohacker-... and https://nootrobox.com/biohacker-.... I think the notion of enhancing our cognition is a worthy goal to work towards. And lastly, in terms of regulation, we've thought a lot about how regulation should evolve as enhancement - as differentiated from therapeutics - becomes more and more mainstream. Read our thoughts on Techcrunch here - http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/22...

@geoffreywoo @lehrjulian While I think the goal itself is worthy to work towards, I think you should do better at separating good science from poor science when you cite evidence for your claims. For example you have decided to cite the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine at least 3 times, that particular science journal is probably the least reputable journal (which should be obvious by its name) out there. Another example is the fact that caffeine is used alongside Theanine in most of the papers/articles you cite for "The Effect of Theanine on Attention" - which means that realistically it is caffeine (a stimulant) that is doing the heavy lifting, not theanine.

@mattkgibson @lehrjulian No, it's not just measuring caffeine. The L-theanine + caffeine stack performs superior to placebo AND caffeine control groups. We fully stand behind our products and our model to be driven by the compounds that have the best science behind them and that can be legally sold for human consumption without prescription and with low side effect profiles. And for picking out journals, you're really stretching here. We've cited dozens of studies including ones in Biological Psychology and other great journals. We're very comfortable with the data that we're basing our products on, and we're keen on generating more basic science. Appreciate the thoughtful questions though. It keeps us sharp.

@_holt We've heard the feedback and customer service is very important for us. We ramped up customer service and started using Intercom. Now we have a chat widget that we respond to during (startup mode) business hours, and our average response time has decreased significantly. We're also making significant changes to our site which will make ordering and managing subscriptions much clearer and easier.

@benigeri Hit it with all you have and outsource the overload if you need to, but Nilan Peiris of @TransferWise had a great talk about Product=People and the slide deck is online.

@vbarnett323 @_holt thanks for the tip! I'll check it out tonight. :)

@benigeri My pleasure! @TransferWise is an @a16z co too, @cdixon can put you in touch with Nilan. 👍 Enjoy the moment, keep your head down & just work your butts off👊. Grow, then open an office here in Tampa😉

@luisanavia I think Nootrobox has a long way to go. I am not seeing any real value yet vs. other established nootropic providers. They aren't bringing anything new to the table. I highly doubt any devote bio-hackers will buy this product other than to just trial it out. The thing I would like to see is having common nootropic stacks combined into a single pill or 2. Also it's important to source these nootropics from credible providers as many of the "natural" and "herbal" nootropics have high heavy metal contamination. This has adverse effects and is difficult for the average users to test and find credible suppliers.

@arintoker @luisanavia look at my above comment for our bacopa CoA showing very low metal traces. this is something we care about a lot.