it was just a spontaneous idea, i wasn't really serious then. but at the time it contained basically the best that was available. i wouldn't use beta-Alanine These days for example and different forms of carnitine etc.
i made 5 samples some time ago with 19 grams of actives and sent them to a few Forum members in Germany. all said it was the best they tried. cost me about 8 euros to make per sample...
i guess a Company could get it much cheaper though. i am just unsure how many People will pay for th best rather than something that still works but is a lot cheaper. i know some would pay 3 Dollars per serving but i think most wouldn't and it's why i think companies make products that are not as good as they could be. which is sad because People spend 3 Dollars here and there on the most useless crap including Cups of coffee etc.
so what we end up with is a product that costs 50% of ist retail Price in raws so consumers buy it, while other companies probably only invest 10%. probably a lot goes into Marketing too. i just know by now that many raws aren't as expensive as claimed, so i don't understand why so many companies still underdose. really using 3 grams of lc-fumarate isn't that much more expensive than 1 gramm of lclt. but i guess every penny Counts...
Other stuff goes into products such as labels, bottles, lids, dissicants, excipeients, blending (which is an art in itself because you have to get like 50,000 servings of a run to all be within 5% of any other random serving), then there are fixed cost such as the lab people, work in progress, raws storage. So for instance, a product may have $8 in raw, but cost a company $13 to make, then they have to add their markup, plus every distributor and retailer wants everything shipped to them for free, and it could cost like $2-$4 to ship one container of a preworkout (to a store ordering like 3 bottles) (which is why all this micro dosing came about, it saves money on shipping, packaging, etc.)
Also I've seen companies shave .10 off the cost of a product, bc if they have heavy distribution, .10 on 10k units a month is 1k a month saved.
Also marketing on some products cost more than the product. Some big mags charge 5k a page. Most of the cost is based on what quality of product you want as an end result. You can have Isuzu build your car, or Ferrari. If you home brew 10 servings of a product, send it to a lab for testing, pay people to bottle it in bulk, palatalize it, pay FedEx to ship it, etc etc it adds up.