Isn’t the Cold Plunge Trend Over?

We are back with another startup review. In this video, Matt reviews an Indiegogo campaign for an accessory for cold plunge tubs. However, it seems like the hype of cold plunges is over. Is this product late to market or does Matt think this is a great product idea? 

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In this series, we look at new products on the market and see if they are worth investing in. Think along the lines of Shark Tank, but with no real money involved just for fun. 

Video Transcript: 

Product Promo Video:

We are Clearwater, and we have created the world’s first thermoelectric ice bath. The Snowcap is the solution to all your ice bath problems. A beautifully aesthetic, cost-effective, and highly functional lid that sits atop your ice bath and cools it to your desired temperature. The Snowcap is controlled by an app that lets you set the temperature and time. It cools to 35 degrees Fahrenheit and heats up to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. It doesn’t have any bulky hoses or noisy generators. Is thermoelectric, so it’s better for the environment. Snowcap filtrates the water, so no need to change it every two days. And bonus, it produces ice on demand. 

Matt’s Review:

This is obviously just a play to capitalize on the craze of ice baths, which seems to me like it may be already peaked. I know some people that had regular ice bath trips planned in 2022, 23, and by now they’re kind of over it and not doing it anymore. So maybe this seems a little late to market, but maybe there’s still a lot of people on the ice bath trend. I would think the big determinant of how successful this thing is going to be is just what it’s going to cost. I mean, gyms and sports clubs and you know maybe physical therapy offices can probably afford more. But for home use, you know it costs 10 bucks to buy a couple of bags of ice and throw it in the bathtub and make an ice bath at home. So how many times are you going to do an ice bath to where you’re going to want this system? Something that actually takes up all the space and you plug in and does fancy stuff but you know is that worth a thousand bucks to you compared to ten bucks worth of ice? I don’t know. So there’s probably a market for it. It’s probably relatively small and they hopefully can jump on it quickly before the rest of the interest in ice baths fade. Or a new study comes out that says actually jumping in freezing cold water isn’t good for you, which wouldn’t surprise me because that’s the kind of thing that they go back and forth with all the time. One study says it’s the best thing ever and then the next study says it’s actually pretty bad for you. And who knows what the truth is, probably somewhere in the middle like with everything. It’s an interesting product, and I’m sure they’ll find some success. They’ve already raised a ton of money. It seems like they have some pretty good backers. So it all comes down to how many they can sell, what the price point is, and what their margin is on those. And I suspect they will not sell a million of them. The margin won’t be that high per unit. And at the end of it, although it looked like kind of a cool project and then attracted some high-level people, it doesn’t actually end up making all that much. That’ll be my guess.