kayhi

Great point that there are new lab and volume discounts. Our data is showing that you should always be negotiating and that pricing is still independent of volume. We've seen cases of companies with 1/10th the spend of others getting better prices by product and overall.

This line from the article made me smile...

"Besides, there’s often no need for aggressive negotiation tactics; most suppliers will accommodate reasonable requests to secure the business of a newly hired faculty member, notes Lisa Witte, president of Fisher Scientific, a lab-supply company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

Of course a person in sales is going to tell you not to negotiate aggressively with them.

A major problem is that it is time consuming for researchers to comparison shop and contact sales reps. We built Lab Spend (https://labspend.com) which has a pricing search engine for supplies and chemicals to give people an idea if their quote is fair.

"On Amazon, a $100 roll of paraffin film sells for around $25." Seems reasonable

Price Distribution: https://imgur.com/a/YobZnm2

List Price: $71.27 USD

"Can$20,000 ultra-low-temperature freezer" depends on model, but likely overpaid

Price Distribution: https://imgur.com/a/jZer27n

List Price: $20,663.90 USD

What information are you trying to find?

We're a distributor to many start ups and biotech companies and it's so refreshing to hear this area being taken on!

Barracuda is right near 100 million

Correct, they are paying essentially 0% interest in exchange for the policy risk.

My interest is that the policy risk according to Berkshire actions is less than 4% debt they could likely attain (or better). In other words - they are recommending investors not to use leverage, but in a sense they do use it against policy risk.

The trade off between debt and policy risk is interesting as both greatly increase returns by leverage.

I’ve been torn about his comments of not using leverage to buy stocks. Berkshire uses insurance float which has risk. I guess they feel that this risk is small and supported by the 400 billion reserved to pay out.

Is attaining debt at a 4% rate mortgage riskier than utilizing their float?

I guess they didn't want to include Alaska.

Controlling for purity should not be a major problem and should be a baseline for being in the food business. Lifestyle (diet, sleep, stress, alcohol consumption, disease, genetics, etc.) will far outweigh the variable of supplement purity.

I hope you find more studies, but the variables such as those mentioned above will make it very difficult to determine causation.

Thanks, but these references are reporting demographic and biochemical indicators. They do not state that people with a normal diet need supplementation.

Summary reference:

"The Nutrition Report has limitations. First, it does not cover information beyond biochemical indicators, such as dietary intake, supplement usage, hematologic measurements, and anthropometric body measurements, which are generally used together with the biomarker information to comprehensively assess nutritional status."

"forfeit insight into the association between variables unique to each individual biomarker"

Perhaps a car’s main benefit is the utility to make money in that it can transport you to work, sales, meetings.

It’s funny in life that a person who may not be able to that type raise again doesn’t need to do one (ie. has enough money to never work again)

Can you link me to the reference that states people should use supplements who have a normal diet?

My point was that athletes are using their bodies in the extreme do not require supplements.

Discovering new findings with me is usually fine, but am nervous when it involves my health.

Supplements feel like one small step above homeopathy

I've interacted with hundreds of elite level athletes who are always looking for an edge. These athletes do not depend on supplements and many avoid them. I would expect these athletes to be on the cutting edge and results to trickle over to 'normal' people. If these athletes who are more in-tune with their bodies than most are avoiding supplements than am not seeing a lot of upside for the average person. If you are deficient or have a medical condition then sure, but the focus should be on healthy eating. Supplements are not going make up for eating poorly and likely just results in expensive urine or placebo effect for most people.

It's hard to debate since everyone is using anecdotal evidence.

My concern is the price of getting the product at the store verse instacart delivering it.

If you can get a discount directly from the store, great! You are providing value to them.

Never used Instacart, but your link to show transparency, doesn't actually state what the mark up is.. 2%, 10%, 25%, order minimum or there's fee..

Transparency to me, would mean I place order and know how much it will cost, instacart mark up, service fees and if a tip is included.

They are trying increase the optimal years let’s say 20-40 years now to 20-100 years.

Loving this thread, email in profile if you need help saving on supplies and chemicals. I’m assuming you have already had the fun of trying to get reasonable pricing and quotes from major distributors.

I thought it has been: https://www.wired.com/2017/03/hack-brief-slack-bug-everyones...

Think of all the time savings of putting dishes away that’s what keeps me excited.

I’ve thought about getting like 5 and replacing all cabinets. A lower end dishwasher is about the same as a custom cabinet $150-$300).

I sometimes wonder with problems like these that the underlying solution is controlling the global population.

eBay is decent for used equipment some glassware, but would not recommend it for chemicals.

Awesome! We've been supporting start up bio companies by offering them a fair pricing on equipment, supplies and chemicals. I think we've sold to every YC bio company except Ginkgo (doh!).

There's a huge problem in non-transparent pricing for products. For those outside the industry it's like buying used cars, dealing with sales reps and everything is a quote. Researchers are at a huge informational disadvantage when it comes pricing.

Example, acetone which is a commonly used solvent:

https://i.imgur.com/QyJ1Tj5.png

https://i.imgur.com/mJyfFfX.png

$900 vs. $300

Another example, IPTG:

https://i.imgur.com/tvnVAqO.png

We commonly see 3-5x differences and up to 10x for the exact same item. This makes a huge difference when you're in the range of 500k to 1 mil from YC Bio.

First YC company to go public. Congrats everyone!

Any tips on what is worth tweaking?

Feels like companies is starting it's not a problem or known for a period of time, how are you coming up with approx. 6 months?

Smart not to upgrade

How long has this been happening?

I upgraded from iPhone 4 to the 6S due to the declining performance.

The problem is creating many hurdles to purchase.

For example, a contract gives the scientific distributor the right to match a price [1]. Scientists need to make this request through their procurement office or to a sales rep. which takes a couple of days and additional paperwork to complete. These extra steps create enough friction that researchers will often by through contracted providers despite them being more expensive.

[1] examples: https://procurement.fsu.edu/vendors/VWR https://www.dfa.cornell.edu/procurement/news/improved-prefer...