Caffeine Spray, Brought to You by Peter Thiel’s College Dropout Challenge | Hacker News Reader

Caffeine Spray, Brought to You by Peter Thiel’s College Dropout Challenge

businessweek.com

Homeopathic, indeed. http://www.unboundmedicine.com/harrietlane/ub/citation/15135... states about 2 microgram/cm^2/h absorption of caffeine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine gives about 100 milligram per cup of coffee.

Assuming 100 cm^2 exposure area, you would need a milligram per cm^2 for a "cup of coffee equivalent". That's 500 hours ("three weeks")

And that is assuming that this spray is equivalent to whatever van de Sandt er al used to get caffeine on the skin (I would guess they applied way more than a spray would apply)

On the other hand, high pressure spraying (better called jet injection; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jet_injector) might work. I think that would require FDA approval, though.

Everyone that buys this is going to spray it in their mouths. This has nothing to do with skin absorption and everything to do with getting around the FDA.

the taste is pretty bad and lingers for a while - why not just get pills?

Yes. No way they're going to spray it in their mouths, caffeine is horribly bitter. Assuming it absorbs well through the skin, this is advantageous as a delivery system because it won't go through first-pass metabolism by the liver and kidneys as anything absorbed by the gut does. Theoretically, this means that a much lower dose is necessary.

You can also just buy pure caffeine powder and mix it with your favorite drink, or buy capsules seperately and make your own pills. Probably much more cost-effective.

And yes, from personal experience, I can attest to the fact that pure caffeine has an extremely bitter taste.

(Which begs the question, does it taste bitter because it is after all a neurotoxin and we have evolved to find those lacking in taste?)

I'll keep drinking coffee and tea to get my own caffeine fix, but I'd buy this spray to kill bugs.

You're assuming there's nothing in the spray besides caffeine. Any number of other ingredients could affect the rate of absorption.

For me, it's really easy to dismiss the product as snakeoil when I hear something like Homeopathic energy being used to promote the product.

You pretty much have to embrace the Homeopathic community in order to stay off the radar of the FDA.

"Nothing to see here, just more snake oil!"

He calls it “homeopathic energy” and says they’ve invested around $50,000 in it so far.

Maybe it's time he gives back the $100,000 and enrolls back in college. For anyone unfamiliar why it's such a red flag that someone voluntarily associates themselves with homepathy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy

Homeopathy is a system of alternative medicine originated in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann, based on his doctrine of similia similibus curentur ("like cures like"), according to which a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people. It is widely considered a pseudoscience.

The remedies are prepared by repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, followed by forceful striking on an elastic body, called succussion.[7] Each dilution followed by succussion is said to increase the remedy's potency. Dilution usually continues well past the point where none of the original substance remains.

Basically, if you have a cold:

1. Start with a poison that causes cold symptoms

2. Dilute it with water

3. Repeat diluting it with water until the most sensitive scientific instruments can no longer detect the original substance

4. The water then has an "imprint" or "spirit" of the original substance which will cure the cold

He's a businessman, not the head of a charity. In 2007, the homeopathic industry did $3.7 billion in sales. It is probably higher now.

On the other hand, if this thing works, it surely does so by placebo, but due to the harmful effects of actual caffeine usage, placebo might actually be a major benefit to the consumer.

$3.7 billion in sales is not a lot when you are talking about an industry or market.

Now if you spread the $3.7 billion over the different product options, one option alone is probably not going to bring in a whole bunch of revenue. Afterall, it isn't $3.7 billion for Caffeine sprays only...

If you give them 1/1000 of the total market, that is only $3.7 million in revenue for a company. That isn't what most would consider high potential.

[His] father, who has a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry and owns his own lab in China, helped develop it.

I love the irony. Peter Thiel was trying to make a point with his "College Dropout Challenge", but this product was really developed by someone with a graduate-level education.

It's an inspiring message though;

    Anyone can drop out of school, find a partner,
    and start a business.

I suppose with context it reads a bit differently though;

    Anyone can drop out of Harvard, take a expedition to
    Antarctica, meet a venture capitalist on the boat,
    and use your dad's PhD-level chemistry knowledge and
    infrastructure to start a business selling snake oil to
    gullible people.

>The big idea is to make caffeine palatable to people who get the jitters from coffee and energy drinks. Four sprays, the recommended dose, has less caffeine than a cup of coffee, Yu says.

I guess they've never heard of tea?

Tea isn't everyone's cup of .... nevermind

It sounds like the main benefits from the spray as opposed to coffee / tea are: 1) Cost 2) Convenience.

The spray will cost about $0.38 per dose.

The competition isn't coffee or tea but caffeine pills, which are cheaper and about as convenient. It looks like you can get 120 100 mg pills on Amazon for $5, or $0.04 per dose. I don't see the benefit of a spray as opposed to pills.

It looks like you can get 120 100 mg pills on Amazon for $5, or $0.04 per dose. I don't see the benefit of a spray as opposed to pills.

You have a good point, but 100 mg is a good dose of caffeine for people that are sensitive to it. They would find themselves cutting the pills down for lesser doses. The 100 mg caffeine pills I bought on Amazon are very tiny and would be very difficult to cut without a specialized device.

The specialized device for cutting pills costs about $3 and is available at every single pharmacy on earth. They are generally designed to be used by the elderly and infirm.

How small of a pill can they accurately cut? The caffeine pills I got off Amazon are about the size of 2 pinheads and are kind of soft. I don't think they would be easy but I've never used a pill cutter.

Some of them are designed for such small pills, those might run a few more dollars. I worked in an inpatient pharmacy for awhile and we regularly cut tiny pills.

They are fairly ingenious for how simple they are, basically you put the pill in a V-shaped compartment so it would settle down to the base of the V. Flip the lid over and a razor blade would apply even pressure and split any size pill perfectly in half.

Some were more amenable than others to the splitting, while some would explode into a chalky mess, but I think that had more to do with the filler than the ingredients, which gives the opportunity to shop around.

> "The world's toughest problems aren't going to solve themselves!"

What problem does this solve? Sleep deprivation for people who don't drink soda, tea or coffee?

Seriously. All I could think is,this is one of the world's toughest problems?

I get the spirit behind the idea of giving kids money to tinker, but this creates what's equivalent to a programmer who has only learned from stackoverflow and w3schools. There is a lot missing that's still part of the standard college curriculum, and the worlds problems will most likely need just as much theory as practical understanding.

Maybe this isn't because the kids were given freedom from school.

Maybe it's because the person funding them came from Stanford.

Is this criticism not the basis of the article itself?

This is sure to be successful. The Indiegogo campaign already went over its limit, with 41 days left to go. Kudo's to young Ben Yu.

I can't help but be reminded of the Caffeine Patch scene from Meet the Robinsons, though.

Mr. Willerstein: Dr. Krunklehorn, I know you're very busy at Inventco Labs. And we're just so happy to have you as a judge.

Lucille Krunklehorn: It's my pleasure, Mr. Willerstein. Hey, you never know, one of your students may invent the next integrated circuit, or microprocessor, or integrated circuit. Oh wait, I said that already. Well, I just don't get out of the lab very much. Is that a bowtie? I like bowties. I haven't slept in eight days!

Mr. Willerstein: Uh, well then, can I get you a cot or something?

Lucille Krunklehorn: Nope, I have the caffeine patch. It's my invention. Each patch is the equivalent of 12 cups of coffee. You can stay up for days with no side effects. AHHH!!! Sorry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UR4DzHo5hz8

This is interesting because it's an end-run around the FDA's current regulations on caffeine intake. Reminds me of when Five-hour Energy claimed they weren't an energy drink but an energy "shot" and shouldn't be held to the same regulations.

It's completely uninteresting because it's an end-run around the FDA's regulations on caffeine. Let's just brainstorm all the ways to ingest caffeine, eliminate the ones the FDA has explicit regulatory power over, then target what remains. Unsurprisingly, the FDA will start to take notice if you're obviously trying to sidestep them, and then they'll legislate you out of existence.

Frankly this is really disappointing to me, it seems like Thiel is supporting people who support his libertarian views more than actual visionaries. There are lots of people who would be well served by this program, and this guy doesn't really fit the bill in my opinion. It may as well be the 'Peter Thiel drop out of school to create trouble for regulatory agencies I don't agree with' scholarship.

I don't agree with your opinion, but I love your last line.

This seems like a waste of potential. The kid needs to go back to college and make something great.

The "How it Works" page looks very clip-art-y to me: http://sprayable.co/pages/how-it-works/

Reinforces the homeopathic points I suppose.

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