One Year of Queal
It was the 4th of July 2014, late afternoon and you could smell the bbq’s starting up. But we weren’t interested in roasting dead animals. No, we were about to embark on the first tasting of Queal v0.1. After a few months of research, consultation and 100+ scientific articles we were ready to try the first iteration of Queal. Onno was the first to try Awesome Apple Pie, I (Floris) got the premier with Cool Chocolate. We were pleasantly surprised, it actually tasted quite well. We’ve been hooked ever since.
In the very beginning, it was just Onno and I. We researched powdered foods, ordered the first ingredients and rented an office. We had no idea if this could be a real company, but our worst case scenario went something like this, Onno: “Then we just have to drink the remaining Queal ourselves“, me “That doesn’t sound so bad“. And so we suited up. A friend of mine has a very big office space and we rented two parts of it. One for the office, one for the clean-room.
What followed were some months of mixing, many podcasts and awesome first customers. At first, we had no more than 3 orders per day, but the people that ordered were some of the greatest customers we’ve had. They gave us honest feedback and quickly made us progress from Queal 1.0 to Queal 2.1 (currently we have Queal 4.0). On our side, we kept up with demand by increasing our hours mixing. For anyone who is familiar, I listened to the whole Hardcore History by Dan Carlin podcast, plus the whole archive of Tim Ferriss and Freakonomics.
What kept us going wasn’t big profits (we invested everything back into the company), no it was two other things. The first is the freedom to do what we wanted. Most of the days we would come in at 8, but if you wanted to go out to visit a museum or had a long night of drinking, I could just come in later. The second is the impact we can have on the lives of our customers.
I know that for many people it’s just a quick meal that is very convenient. And that’s, of course, a good thing, I prefer it if you eat Queal over a €4 sandwich with too much fat, or god forbid something from MacDonald or Burger King. But what really fires me up is the customers that tell us about how they can spend more time with their family, have lost weight or have become more productive.
That’s what fuels us here at Queal HQ, and our goal is to spread this message further across the world. For now, we’ve set our targets on making sure that every household in the European Union has the possibility of having a quick and top-quality nutritional option available.
For me, Queal started as an upgraded whey shake, something to help you a little in the struggle we call life. But now over the course of the last year, it has become an integral part of my life. Almost every morning I make time to read a book (sipping a Queal) and during my work day, I find myself being more productive than ever before. On to the next year of Queal!
Thank you!
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