Soylent is a technology company. It's not just positioning. They are iterating towards finding an exponentially better way to do transactional eating using technology. That's the definition of a tech company.
Well, any product is technology in that sense. But this particular technology, meal-replacement shakes, is already reasonably well established. What seems new to me is that Soylent is pitching itself to people who either don't know about or have failed to become interested in the existing products, which seems like a marketing innovation more than a tech innovation. They don't seem to be differentiating on technical quality or iteration. If you read their campaign, for example, it is entirely positioned against regular food, as if they have just invented the full-meal-replacement shake, and does not mention anything about technical innovation over existing competitors: https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body
It's possible they also have technical innovation over any existing meal-replacement shake, but they are being very quiet about it if so.
The existing products have really terrible marketing. They sell them in pharmacies and generally broadcast a message of "for supplementation or diseased/senile people only".
Kudos to Soylent for trying to normalize liquid diets.
That's it. I had to read this far before I realized that's exactly what their core is: "trying to normalize liquid diets" (as in make them normal, acceptable, approachable, I think?). There's nothing natural (as in biologically normal, desirable or standard) about a liquid diet, so that's going to be an uphill battle.
I have some kind of psychological problem where I chew 5x more than normal people. This causes me to fill up on very small quantities of food and it's very difficult to hit 2000 calories a day without eating a lot of small meals or taking liquid supplements. So, at least for me, a liquid diet would be highly desirable.
As for biologically normal, it all turns into a liquid sludge in your stomach, doesn't it? Past that point I don't see how your digestive system can tell the difference as long as the composition of the sludge is similar enough.
Well, any product is technology in that sense. But this particular technology, meal-replacement shakes, is already reasonably well established. What seems new to me is that Soylent is pitching itself to people who either don't know about or have failed to become interested in the existing products, which seems like a marketing innovation more than a tech innovation. They don't seem to be differentiating on technical quality or iteration. If you read their campaign, for example, it is entirely positioned against regular food, as if they have just invented the full-meal-replacement shake, and does not mention anything about technical innovation over existing competitors: https://campaign.soylent.me/soylent-free-your-body
It's possible they also have technical innovation over any existing meal-replacement shake, but they are being very quiet about it if so.