Member Info for Leapfroggy

Yes I have had shares I dearly wished I had sold and overall I have still to make a profit over the past five years. I tend to sell down shares that drop by more than 15% and that has helped as so much on Aim is about momentum.
Buying Opti is a bit unusual as paradoxically I now have much more exposure to SBTX through the Opti holding but I feel that there is more prospects there given the low valuation and a better management team.

I just don’t feel happy given the radio silence with SBTX and had presumed by now that we would be given reassuring sales figures. I hope for everyone’s sale Croda turns out OK, at least Stuart’s not responsible for marketing it!

I wouldn’t agree with that as I sold around £12k worth at around the price. I suspect like many others I’m buying OPTI and selling SBTX amongst other shares that fell heavily. Over the past month this has been a very successful strategy as otherwise I would have been sitting on very substantial losses especially as SBTX continues to fall.

Many thanks for the considered response.

And the competitor ‘ Clearbiome’ costs £58pm, has no study to back it up and is recommended for a 14week period to achieve results.

A Google search ‘psoriasis treatments’ brings up 56 products, Axisbiotix is not one of them. The product isn’t offered on Amazon, though another probiotic brand offers 8 products. Stuart’s marketing strategy in his last interview seems to be ‘it works’.
The first stage of marketing is awareness of the product!

I agree. It doesn’t take an expert to work out that you can easily and cost effectively try out a Google ads campaign for a short time to see how many people link to the web site and purchases. Pretty basic stuff!

HSBC sent a letter to me today

On Trust Pilot. He rejects retail sales, yet OPTI are making very good margins and selling in 160 countries. For me they are a ‘one trick pony’ and I remain hopeful that Sederma will save the day

SA hasn’t provided any information to make an assessment of whether they can make a profit from Axisbiotix. It’s all ‘smoke and mirrors’. He must have know the monthly sales but chose not to reveal them, instead talking of an increase in sales and 69% retention. Sales must be very low. He keeps on talking about being careful with shareholders money but the cash burn means he hasn’t got a lot of time left. The US looks like a non starter; who would have expected that Americans wouldn’t buy on the back of Brit’s recommendations! 8 reviews to date

Good to see the focus on higher margin sales. One big issue is that the web site is distinctly down market and years behind competitors such as Hugo Boss. The menswear is particularly bad with ill fitting clothes, poor photography, boring layout and models you are more likely to see in an old store catalogue.
It’s also very clunky in that the drop down menus showing sizes and availability are ‘painful’ to read.

Indeed bought 220,000 earlier but no takers for my 90,000 buy!

I agree, just bought another 2000 shares

ITX, OPTI and SBTX share similar histories to more established innovators like Google.The SP rocketed during the ‘Peak of expectations’, fell dramatically in the ‘Trough of disillusionment’ and have hit bottom. However with proven ‘market breaking’ technology, IP and ready customers, we can expect a major SP improvement in the ‘Slope of enlightenment’. I don’t think that having constituents in products that are say 35% more expensive will make any difference as the total price to the consumer is likely to be no more than 10%.
I hadn’t thought much about the marketing proposition for our products until now. But constituents that reduce carbon emissions (not made from oil) and phosphate free constituents that reduce water and environmental pollution are for most wealthy westerners worth paying more!
A full description of the cycle can be found on the Optibiotix web site

I would think not because it is still ‘passing off’
The principle underlying the tort of passing off is that “A man is not to sell his own goods under the pretence that they are the goods of another man” (Perry v Truefitt (1842)).

The Roehampton study is timely and will ensure that the Health Canada LDlpl accreditation is sorted giving credibility to ‘being scientifically proven’. Based on the existing strategy we will pick up a number of awards for ‘best new product’. I would expect a relatively quick world wide roll out (amazing to be even able to say that!) especially given that we have contracts with large chemist chains. I would expect that we will have better partners ( with bigger marketing budgets) than for the weight management products.
No doubt some of the weight management contractors will not meet their targets but finding replacements shouldn’t be difficult.
I don’t think here has been any value ascribed to sweetbiotix. The 2020 agreement says that there will be six figure payments at 12 monthly intervals. Be very interesting to see if there was a 2021 payment due as this would indicate a launch (and another payment). If there was surely SOH would have said so? This in itself would be enough to add another 15p to the sp as the deal is for a world wide licence.

True but topped up with another 22,000 shares at 42. Momentum is building with a push through to 50+ next week. LPDL is a major ‘medical’ asset which will be worth much more than the weight management products where the royalties are lower as we are often substituting existing ingredients and have lots of cheap competitors.

Not surprised with the fall given an awful RNS. No clarity of why market conditions meant some sales areas fell off a cliff and others improved. All well and good to say 2022 will meet market expectations but no explanation of how this will be achieved except for a lot of marketing waffle.
I would say ‘Market expectations’ are pretty miserable unless the company can provide some hard figures backed by analysis.

With looking at the article at Cosmeticsdesign-europe.com. The article by Kacey Cullinery on food supplements reflect a panel discussion at Probiotics 2020.

In summary
The microbiome provides the best example of where the future could lie.
The challenge is for the food supplement sector to tap into the knowledge of the large beauty companies.
Food supplements have a strong future in the beauty world as they can make improvements which are not possible with beauty products- these products can be pictured on the same shelves in the same shops as beauty products.

We have a ‘first mover advantage’ and a world class partnership with Croda/Sederma to bring our product to the market using existing beauty organisations. They will be anxious to develop and market a range of products targeted at specific market segments. Each one will be designed to augment their current range. Stuart should be given the credit for almost single handedly playing an absolute ‘blinder’. The advantage of this approach is that we can avoid the long drawn out process of having to market to individual customers, the innovators first, followed by first adopters etc.

Unfortunately this is just the process with axisbiotics and it takes time. I am noticing more support for our product and approach on the PA website. Interestingly the Dictators comments are receiving overwhelming ‘thumbs down’
What concerns me is a lack of any marketing strategy or spend (beyond targeted adverts and half price offers) to ensure the adoption of the product more widely from the ‘innovator’ group that are willing to take a chance on the product. I know we are employing a marketing assistant but I can’t see this post at a modest salary, driving forward a marketing strategy. There are plenty of great products and services that never became profitable or even adopted.

True, ‘The Dictator’ doesn’t even have Psoriasis!

Reading the thread on AxisBiotix was painful! A couple of people who have had good results, one no results. Every positive comment is immediately virulently opposed by the aptly named ‘The Dictator’ and a few supporters who demand a clinical trial and accuse the positive commentators as being ‘company plants.’ Given the toxic nature of the ‘discussion’ you would need to be a brave and thick skinned person to extol the product.
This has resulted in a toxic discussion board with a outspoken view by some that the company has hijacked the site.