Business Ideas

[turquine]

Xango reached a billion dollars in sales faster than any company in history except for EBay. If it didn't do something significant for lots of people, do you really think they would sell that much juice in 5 years on hype alone??

You bet they could. It's all about confirmation bias. People will look for things to support their beliefs and dismiss those things that are contrary. Why do you think astrology has been around for so long, even after it's been thoroughly debunked?

With any kind of nutritional product, you need to give it 60 to 90 days. You can't just say "it didn't work in a week so its just snake oil."
Their major partner when they started out is Wild Flavours - the company that makes such products as Sobe, Capri Sun, etc. Xango is the first MLM company they helped formulate/manufacture a product for. Do you think a company like that would get involved in snake oil? Look them up for yourselves.

You're confusing effectiveness with revenues. I'm sure the company is a lot more interested in how well it makes money rather than whether or not the product does what people say it does.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the product DOESN'T do what is claimed. I'm merely pointing out that correlation does not automatically indicate causation.

As for the company I'm in....they have patented, clinically proven products. Not even ignorant, cynical, narrow minded people can argue with a double blind study

Patented: This only means that they have a (new) process which is protected by patent law. Patents give no validation to the promised effectiveness of the product.

Clinically proven: Proven by who? At what clinic? What exactly was proven? Can I see the study data and decide for myself? Lots of things are "clinically proven," because that phrase has been hijacked by marketing and advertising firms decades ago.

I'm not ignorant nor narrow-minded. Cynical, yes, but only to a point. It's healthy to be skeptical, which is very different from being closed-minded.

 

[LittleAsianGuy]

I found this online reguading Xango with a invalid patent and that's why they are probably coming out with new products. The other article i found was the FDA warning Xango not to use so much hype when selling their products. I agree with ITB reguarding these snake oil salesmen. Do a tiny bit of research and dont be conned. Majority of their distributor force make next to nothing selling this snake oil.

XANGO PATENT INVALID IN U.S. PATENT OFFICE FINAL ACTION

SCOTTSDALE, AZ - MAY 16, 2005. The U.S. Patent Office issued its final written opinion rejecting all 81 claims in XanGo's Patent No 6,730,333. This action was taken despite multiple meetings with XanGo's in-house patent expert Steven Bean, it's outside patent law firm and the review of over thirty pages of memoranda and supporting affidavits filed by XanGo LLC, a Lehi, UT company. Specifically, a panel of three expert U.S. Patent Officers, consisting of the primary examiner, a supervisor patent examiner and a special program examiner, found that every one of XanGo's 81 claims were unpatentable. The Patent Office's rationale was concise - basically that there is nothing novel or patentable in adding several fruit juices together. The Patent Office also rejected XanGo's claim that they were the first to introduce mangosteen juice into the market, specifically concluding: "Thus, the rejection [of the entire patent] is proper. THIS ACTION IS FINAL." You may review the entirety of the rulings by going to the office government Patent Application Information Retrieval System at http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair. After this site comes up, enter application No. 90/007,178, and click on the image file wrapper tab, which will reveal an index of the document history. Afterwards, click on Reexam Final Rejection - 4/21/2005.

Oct. 4, 2006 -- The FDA has warned the makers of XanGo Juice to stop making health claims about the juice, voicing "serious concerns" about those claims.

But XanGo, which makes the juice from a tropical fruit called mangosteen, says it didn't produce the promotional materials containing those claims.

In a letter posted on the FDA's web site, the FDA gave XanGo Juice 15 days to tell the FDA how it has stopped or will stop those marketing claims.

The FDA's letter includes a long list of health claims the FDA says it found in nine brochures promoting the health benefits of mangosteen and mangosteen juice.

Those claims include prevention of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), bacterial infection, glaucoma, cataracts, and gum disease.

The FDA says the brochures also claim that the juice has "antitumor benefits" and is "anti-Parkinson, anti-Alzheimer, and other forms of dementia," and "antidepressant."

The FDA has strict rules about health claims that can be used in marketing products.

The claims allegedly made by XanGo Juice can only be made by drugs, and XanGo Juice isn't an approved drug, says the FDA.

 

[LittleAsianGuy]

Here's a actual copy from the fda. The U.S. Patent Office issued its final written opinion rejecting all 81 claims in XanGo's Patent No 6,730,333.

http://www.amquix.info/xango/xango_4-21-05_patent_rejection.pdf


By the way I've seen quite a few mlm companies who are closed down by the govt after reaching hundreds of millions in sales. I know many people who stay as a group who jump from one mlm opportunity to another in hopes of making it big. These companies are popping up faster than the govt being able to close them down.

Robert Fitzpatrick, president of Pyramid Scheme Alert, wrote “The Myth of Income Opportunity in Multi-level Marketing,” which basically confirmed my findings, except that he used company statistics without any attempt to debug the deceptions in their reporting. He found that even with company-supplied statistics, the average weekly income of seven MLM’s ranged from $1.68 to $16.57 per week. After subtracting “incentivized purchases” and operating expenses, it can be assumed that nearly all but a few of the TOPP’s would report a loss. His report can be found at - http://www.falseprofits.com/MythofMLMIncome.doc.pdf.

 

[PuntMeister]

I'm in the finance business. I have helped people buy and sell all or part of their businesses for years. The really big money in life is acquired by people who own and operate their own businesses.

Doctors and lawyers are like trades people in suits. They rarely become rich because they get addicted to their lifestyle. They have to belong to the "right" club and drive the "right" car and live in the "right" neighbourhood. They are up to their asses in debt and most live month to month. The ones who don't either branched out into other investments or were great savers.

The richest guy I ever knew was the most regular guy I ever met. Not flashy but by the time he passed, he had built over 1400 units of housing and owned a ton of raw land in Surrey and White Rock. He started out as a millworker and had a grade 8 education. My mentor and the father I wished I had. He was a risk taker but not a gambler and he never took his mind off making money.

Good advice. I don't look for the quick 'get lucky' hit. Building something of value tends to be the high way to high pay. Having the courage to really start a business, the wisdom and experience to make it successful, and the commitment to see it through the start-up and rough times is what separates the winners from the wanna-bees.