Here’s the truth: Business ideas rarely begin with a Google Search, deep research or a carefully mapped plan. Sometimes it is just what ‘feels right’. It is purpose and creativity from which direction flows. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t conduct thorough research and show forethought every step of the way. But ask an entrepreneur, and they will tell you: the idea is one thing, and finding the market gap is mostly about understanding the industry and what it is lacking, rather than crunching numbers and showing industry reports. That is what Jake Axelrod, Founder and Creative Director of METALAB, can attest to.
“If I’m being completely honest, I didn’t sit down with a spreadsheet and identify a perfectly mapped-out market gap. It was much more personal than that,” he admits. “I love the industry, I train, I care about nutrition. I cared about what I put into my body, but I didn’t feel like I belonged in the culture around it. The branding felt aggressive. Hyper-masculine. Loud. It didn’t resonate with who I was, or with the kind of life my wife and I were building at home.
He shares that protein felt like it belonged in a gym locker, not in a home… “At the same time, I’ve always been creatively wired. I needed an outlet to express that, and I saw this industry I loved as a canvas. I wanted to build something that reflected how I experienced wellness: aesthetic, thoughtful, premium, and inclusive. So, the ‘opportunity’ started as a personal need.
I wanted products I was proud to have in my home. Products my wife felt comfortable using. Something that didn’t feel intimidating or niche, but still uncompromising about quality.
To him, his thinking was simple: If he feels this way, there must be thousands of other people who do too. METALAB was built for those people, the ones who felt slightly outside of traditional fitness culture but still cared about wellness, health and quality. “It was about reinventing the category in a way that made them feel at home in it. The commercial opportunity revealed itself later. But the emotional one came first.”
Product Development Needs Creativity
“Product development almost always starts with either a personal need or a conversation with our community,” Axelrod emphasises. “Sometimes it’s something I want in my own home. Sometimes it’s consistent feedback from customers. But it always begins with a real-life use case, not a trend report. But also – we have fun!”
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Axelrod honestly shares the approach he takes to developing individual products. “When it comes to formulation, we take what I’d call a top-down approach. We don’t begin with, ‘What can we make at this price point?’ We begin with, ‘What would the best possible version of this look like?’ Because the moment you let cost define the vision too early, you limit creativity. And creativity needs freedom. That doesn’t mean we ignore commercial reality, but we refuse to let price be the starting point. We prioritise ingredient quality, functionality, taste and integrity first, and then engineer responsibly from there.”
Axelrod believes that philosophy is part of why their products sit at a premium price. “We’re not trying to compete on the cheapest. We’re trying to deliver something our community feels confident and proud to invest in, knowing the value is inside the tub, not just on the outside.
“At the same time, creativity without rigour is dangerous. We work with an internal lab and manufacturing team operating in certified facilities with stringent quality control processes. Every raw ingredient has a fully traceable supply chain. Our suppliers conduct their own testing, and we then conduct further third-party testing on final products to verify that what we claim on the label is exactly what’s inside.”
The brand shows its integrity in this transparency as well as its ethical approach to ingredients. “We also prioritise ethical sourcing, ensuring our protein sources are free from hormones and unnecessary antibiotics, and that animal welfare standards are upheld. Integrity in formulation means nothing if it isn’t matched by integrity in sourcing.”
“When someone pays a premium, the experience should feel elevated from the moment it arrives. At the end of the day, our goal is simple: Make the product so good, in taste, formulation, compliance, design and experience, that it doesn’t need heavy marketing to convince people. If it genuinely delivers, trust does the rest.”
Good Product Design is Art
He shares that once formulation is in motion, the creative direction comes alive. This is how the team at METALAB creates art.
“For me, product is storytelling. Every launch carries emotional context. The art direction runs parallel with R&D, not after it. All of our illustrations are hand-drawn. Every visual element is original. Nothing is pulled from stock libraries or AI.” He elaborates on the attention to detail that makes a product a unique piece of art. “We obsess over the details most brands overlook:
Custom moulded scoops, unique lid colours, textured label finishes, custom seals, premium delivery boxes… Every touchpoint is intentional.”
Axelrod doesn’t just see the products and formulations as art pieces, but the entirety of business is and artform. “For me, business as a whole is art. Your business, whether it’s products or services, is ultimately a form of self-expression. You are creating something and putting it into the world. That takes vulnerability. It takes conviction and It takes taste.”
He shares that METALAB has always been hiscanvas. It’s where he expresses how he sees wellness, aesthetics, performance and family life intersecting. “Developing a product is art – I don’t say this lightly; the entire process is creative authorship.
“But like any art form, it has an audience. Not everyone will love the same painting in a gallery. And not every product is meant for everyone. The responsibility of the creator is to deeply understand who they are creating for.”
As Axelrod explains his reasoning that even business is an artform, he becomes lyrical. “That’s where art meets discipline. Our self-expression isn’t random. It’s curated for a very specific community, people who care about quality, design, and emotional connection as much as functionality. The packaging becomes the first brushstroke. The flavour profile becomes the emotional tone. The ingredient sourcing becomes the integrity behind the piece. And most importantly, it’s not just my expression. The team plays a huge role. I believe creativity should exist across departments, from R&D to lab technicians to designers. When people are given space to contribute creatively within a clear vision, the product carries a different kind of energy. It feels intentional. It feels unified.
“That alignment, between vision, team, customer and execution, is what turns a ‘product’ into something that feels crafted rather than manufactured. At the end of the day, we’re not just selling protein. We’re creating something that represents who we are and inviting our community to see themselves in it. And that is the essence of art.”
Branding is Hard, But Building Trust is Harder
There are many things that Axelrod’s entrepreneurial journey taught him. One of these is exceptional brand building.
“If I had to summarise brand building in one word, it would be: trust. At its core, that’s all a brand really is. And trust cannot be built quickly. It isn’t built through intensity. It’s built through consistency, over time, especially when no one is watching.”
One of the biggest lessons he has learned came during moments when he felt that his back was against the wall. “Supply chain issues. Ingredient shortages. Cash flow pressure. Situations where it would have been very easy to compromise and use a lower-grade supplier temporarily just to keep stock on shelves. We chose not to.”
They chose to rather be out of stock than dilute the integrity of what they had promised customers and worked so hard on. “In the short term, that hurts. But in the long term, that discipline compounds. Brand building is long-term thinking in a short-term world.
Another lesson was around discounting. “Since inception, we’ve never run public sales. Our products are expensive to make because of the quality standards we hold. If we constantly devalue them through heavy promotions, we subconsciously signal that we don’t fully stand behind our pricing,” he says. “Instead, we reward loyalty through community benefits, not desperation marketing. That stance requires conviction. Especially when competitors are discounting aggressively.
“I’ve also learned that in almost every industry today, you’re not inventing something entirely new. You’re entering a competitive space where many brands already exist. So the real question becomes: Why should you exist? If the answer isn’t deeply personal and clear, it becomes very difficult to sustain the journey. Building a brand is one of the hardest things you can do. It demands patience, emotional resilience, and a very strong sense of identity. For us, that identity has always been rooted in integrity, creativity and long-term thinking. And I’ve realised that if you protect those consistently, even when it’s uncomfortable, any brand eventually earns its place.”
The Cost of Starting a Business
Most entrepreneurs know: Starting a business costs more than funding. Axelrod experienced this multiple times before METALAB grew into what it is today. “Before METALAB, I had two businesses that didn’t work. One in fashion. One in supplements. The second one took my last savings. When that failed, I was essentially starting from scratch financially and emotionally.”
Yet, he poured all his energy into building the brand and the products he believed would resonate with others. “When I began building METALAB, there was no funding, no investors and no safety net. To fund it, I was personal training from 5:00 to 10:00. Then, from 10:00 until around 15:00 or 16:00, I worked on building the brand. From 16:00 to 19:00, I trained clients again. Then I’d work on the business at night.”
That was his routine for more than three years.” For the first three and a half years after launch, I didn’t pay myself a salary. Every cent went back into the business, into inventory, into staff, into systems, into maintaining clean supplier accounts. I wanted our reputation in the market to be strong. If you’re bootstrapping, your name is currency. Bootstrapping forces discipline in a way funding never can.
He shares that when you don’t have excess capital, you learn:
- How to negotiate properly
- How to manage cash flow tightly
- How to prioritise what truly matters
- How to delay ego-driven decisions
One of the biggest practical lessons he learned, however, was about supplier terms. “Cash-on-delivery can suffocate a young business. So I negotiated relentlessly, pushing for 30, 60, even 90-day terms where possible. That breathing room allows you to sell stock before paying for it, which keeps cash circulating instead of being trapped. I also became very intentional about the allocation of capital. When you’re bootstrapping, you cannot afford to do everything at once. You must identify the few levers that actually move the business forward, usually product quality, customer trust, and cash flow, and focus on them. I’m actually a strong advocate for bootstrapping, especially early on. I’ve seen founders raise capital before they’ve learned how to manage it.
“Funding can accelerate growth, but it doesn’t teach discipline. Scarcity does. Bootstrapping taught me resilience. It taught me patience. It taught me to front-load effort and delay gratification. And most importantly, it taught me that if you’re not fully committed, especially in the early days, it’s very difficult to build something meaningful.”
Intentionally Focusing on the Future
Axelrod didn’t start METALAB thinking about scaling. “I was thinking about expression. About building something that felt better, safer and more intentional within an industry I loved. So to see how deeply the brand has resonated has been incredibly humbling.”
In his own words, what’s next is about responsibility for the brand. “We’ve built strong partnerships locally, particularly with Checkers, and we see a huge opportunity to reshape what the high-protein and wellness category looks and feels like in South Africa. There are some exciting projects in the pipeline aimed at elevating the consumer experience and bringing innovation that hasn’t traditionally existed in this market.”
They want to raise the standard. “There are incredible products available internationally, and historically, South Africa hasn’t always had access to that same level of innovation. We’re working hard to bridge that gap to bring global-level thinking, formulation and design into our local market.
“At the same time, we’re expanding across categories. We don’t see ourselves as just a protein brand. We see ourselves as a modern nutrition and lifestyle brand, with opportunities to enter new spaces within the broader food and consumer landscape while staying true to our core values.”
He hints that international expansion is also firmly in their plans. “After benchmarking global markets and brands, we genuinely believe that South Africa can produce world-class products. There’s no reason we can’t compete and win on a global stage. We’re excited about the opportunity to represent South African innovation internationally and show what’s possible when creativity and integrity meet.”
Axelrod reiterates that through all of it, the focus remains the same: Deepen their relationship with their community, protect the quality, and keep innovating. “If, years from now, we can say we played a meaningful role in reshaping this industry into something more positive, transparent and inspiring, that would be success,” he concludes.
