24 May 2025
Health & Fitness

Thinking about creating a protein bar for people when bulking

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.


Your are here

The idea of creating a protein bar for bulking places you in a crowded market, signified by the 'Swamp' category, where many solutions exist but few truly stand out. With 3 similar products identified, there's moderate confidence in this assessment, but also an indication of existing competition. The average number of comments on these products is low, suggesting limited engagement and potential challenges in capturing market attention. Considering the existing landscape of protein bars, it's vital to critically assess why current offerings haven't fully satisfied the target audience, and what truly novel aspect you can bring to this category. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different that addresses unmet needs, you may find it difficult to gain traction and profitability.

Recommendations

  1. Deeply research existing protein bars and identify unmet needs for the bulking demographic. Conduct surveys, analyze customer reviews, and pinpoint specific taste preferences, nutritional requirements, or convenience factors that current products fail to address. One user pointed out that similar products were missing good vegan protein bars. Focus on finding a niche that will help the product to stand out.
  2. Instead of directly competing, consider building tools or resources for existing protein bar providers. For example, a platform that ranks and filters protein bars based on specific bulking needs, ingredients, or macronutrient ratios. This can establish you as a trusted authority in the field.
  3. Given the challenges in the saturated protein bar market, explore adjacent problems within the fitness and nutrition space. Are there other supplement formats, meal planning tools, or educational resources that could better serve the bulking community? Consider focusing on the adjacent problem. For instance, if users can't find affiliate links disclosure then that should be disclosed.
  4. Develop a unique selling proposition (USP) that clearly differentiates your protein bar from existing options. This could be a novel ingredient combination, a revolutionary manufacturing process, a focus on sustainable sourcing, or a specific health benefit tailored for bulking. Your USP should be something that competitors can't easily replicate.
  5. Focus on a narrower and underserved segment within the 'bulking' demographic. Perhaps vegan bodybuilders, individuals with specific dietary restrictions (e.g., gluten-free), or those seeking organic and natural options. This strategy allows you to tailor your product and marketing efforts, increasing relevance and appeal.
  6. Before investing heavily, conduct thorough market testing with prototypes. Get feedback on taste, texture, ingredients, and packaging from your target audience. Use this data to refine your product and ensure it meets their needs and preferences. One user commented that the product tastes like chalk so avoid this common problem.

Questions

  1. What specific, measurable advantages does your protein bar offer compared to existing options in terms of muscle growth, recovery, and overall bulking performance? How will you validate these claims?
  2. What innovative distribution channels or partnerships can you leverage to reach your target audience effectively, bypassing the crowded retail shelves and online marketplaces?
  3. How can you build a strong brand and community around your protein bar, fostering loyalty and advocacy among your target audience?

Your are here

The idea of creating a protein bar for bulking places you in a crowded market, signified by the 'Swamp' category, where many solutions exist but few truly stand out. With 3 similar products identified, there's moderate confidence in this assessment, but also an indication of existing competition. The average number of comments on these products is low, suggesting limited engagement and potential challenges in capturing market attention. Considering the existing landscape of protein bars, it's vital to critically assess why current offerings haven't fully satisfied the target audience, and what truly novel aspect you can bring to this category. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different that addresses unmet needs, you may find it difficult to gain traction and profitability.

Recommendations

  1. Deeply research existing protein bars and identify unmet needs for the bulking demographic. Conduct surveys, analyze customer reviews, and pinpoint specific taste preferences, nutritional requirements, or convenience factors that current products fail to address. One user pointed out that similar products were missing good vegan protein bars. Focus on finding a niche that will help the product to stand out.
  2. Instead of directly competing, consider building tools or resources for existing protein bar providers. For example, a platform that ranks and filters protein bars based on specific bulking needs, ingredients, or macronutrient ratios. This can establish you as a trusted authority in the field.
  3. Given the challenges in the saturated protein bar market, explore adjacent problems within the fitness and nutrition space. Are there other supplement formats, meal planning tools, or educational resources that could better serve the bulking community? Consider focusing on the adjacent problem. For instance, if users can't find affiliate links disclosure then that should be disclosed.
  4. Develop a unique selling proposition (USP) that clearly differentiates your protein bar from existing options. This could be a novel ingredient combination, a revolutionary manufacturing process, a focus on sustainable sourcing, or a specific health benefit tailored for bulking. Your USP should be something that competitors can't easily replicate.
  5. Focus on a narrower and underserved segment within the 'bulking' demographic. Perhaps vegan bodybuilders, individuals with specific dietary restrictions (e.g., gluten-free), or those seeking organic and natural options. This strategy allows you to tailor your product and marketing efforts, increasing relevance and appeal.
  6. Before investing heavily, conduct thorough market testing with prototypes. Get feedback on taste, texture, ingredients, and packaging from your target audience. Use this data to refine your product and ensure it meets their needs and preferences. One user commented that the product tastes like chalk so avoid this common problem.

Questions

  1. What specific, measurable advantages does your protein bar offer compared to existing options in terms of muscle growth, recovery, and overall bulking performance? How will you validate these claims?
  2. What innovative distribution channels or partnerships can you leverage to reach your target audience effectively, bypassing the crowded retail shelves and online marketplaces?
  3. How can you build a strong brand and community around your protein bar, fostering loyalty and advocacy among your target audience?

  • Confidence: Medium
    • Number of similar products: 3
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 1
  • Net use signal: -20.0%
    • Positive use signal: 0.0%
    • Negative use signal: 20.0%
  • Net buy signal: -20.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 20.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Energy and Protein Bar Ranking

Not sure if this entirely fits here, but I made BarsPro for my own benefit and wanted to share in case it's valuable to others.Energy and protein bars have been a huge part of my diet for years (for better or worse). As much as I love food, sometimes it's just easier, faster, and healthier to eat an energy bar.Unfortunately many brands make bars full of sugar/fat/sodium/questionable ingredients, or don't provide enough protein/fiber/nutrition. One of the most frustrating experiences is staring at a wall of hundreds of bars and having to read through the nutrition facts one-by-one to find something edible.I manually compiled a list of 700+ bars, their nutrition facts, and ingredients - all to make it easy to quickly find good bars.Let me know what you think! Hopefully this will be valuable for some.P.S. None of the content is sponsored (and never will be). This is purely a passion project.

Users congratulated and thanked the creator, inquired about building tools, and noted that many good vegan protein bars were not included in the list.

The list is missing good vegan protein bars.


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Relevance

Project to Sort/Filter Protein Bars

05 Aug 2023 Food & Drink

After showing my sideproject https://ff.bitlet.org/ (NYC restaurant menu search) to a friend, we decided to narrow down the scope and build something similar for protein bars that can be monetized with affiliate links.We always found ourselves looking at macros when buying protein bars, and that was not easy to sort/filter on online shipping website.Looking for feedback, thank you!

Users expressed dissatisfaction with the taste, describing it as 'chocolate flavored chalk.' Additionally, there was a question raised about the disclosure of affiliate links.

The product has been criticized for not listing the taste, with one user describing it as 'chocolate flavored chalk.' Additionally, there is a lack of affiliate link disclosure, which has been pointed out as a significant issue.


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