Jack Schrupp always had a hard time digesting protein powder, so he decided to make his own.After years of refining his recipe, he launched Drink Wholesome as a side hustle in 2020.After overcoming several business challenges, he quit his teaching job to run the company full-time.When former collegiate athlete Jack Schrupp couldn't find a protein powder that suited his stomach, he decided to take matters into his own hands.He bought a spice grinder and a small blender, loaded up on ingredients such as oats and eggs at the co-op market a mile from campus, and became a bit of a "mad scientist" in his dorm room. "I would make a powdery mess and, oftentimes, it was on top of a mini fridge like in a bedroom, not even in the kitchen," the 29-year-old Williams College alum told Business Insider.The taste "left a lot to be desired," recalled Schrupp, "but it didn't upset my stomach, and that's what mattered most to me."He graduated in 2018, took a teaching position at a boarding school in New England, and moved onto a different campus, his protein powder equipment and ingredients in tow."I lived in the dorm and I didn't have a whole lot of privacy as in, my life spilled over into the lives of my students and vice versa, so they knew what I was up to, and they were very interested. At some point in time, we had a little tasting, if you will," he said. "And that was honestly very helpful feedback because they are brutally honest."Schrupp continued tinkering with his recipe, testing variations with honey, date sugar, and maple sugar.Partnering with a local bakery and spending $20,000 on his first round of inventorySchrupp figured that other people with sensitive stomachs might be interested in his product. After years of experimentation and recipe refinement, he decided to test his hunch and launch a protein powder company called Drink Wholesome in early 2020.The first thing he did was cold call manufacturers and ask if they could make his product in bulk. He connected with a small, local granola company that did contract manufacturing for other local businesses, and they agreed to make his first batch in two flavors: mocha and peanut butter coconut."In hindsight, those are ridiculous flavors to launch with because, today, 80% of my sales are for vanilla and chocolate," said Schrupp. "But mocha and peanut butter were my favorite flavors. That's just what I liked the best and so that's what I started with." Schrupp graduated from Williams College in 2018. Courtesy of Jack Schrupp His startup costs amounted to about $20,000, which he pulled from his savings."I didn't make very much money teaching, so it was a very significant investment for me," said Schrupp, who had a loose sales plan of pitching his product to local grocery stores and setting up booths at local sporting events.Selling online was never on his radar, nor did he want it to be until the Covid-19 pandemic forced his hand.Overcoming the 2020 pandemic 'curveball' and the 2021 bird flu outbreakSchrupp received his first round of inventory in February 2020, weeks before the COVID-19 outbreak shut much of the world and his sales strategy down."The pandemic really threw a curveball my way," he said. Two months into lockdown, "I really had not sold many bags at all, and I was genuinely convinced that I was just going to have to throw it all out and move on with my life."What initially appeared to be a setback turned into an advantage: His inability to meet with customers in person forced him to turn to online sales. He started selling on WooCommerce and Amazon, and while his initial customers were all friends and family, strangers eventually started finding his product. As of 2025, 99% of his sales come from those two platforms.As a small-business owner who's never sought capital from investors, he's grown to appreciate e-commerce, even though it's not his ideal way of finding and interacting with customers."It allows you to reach an incredibly large number of people with a small, finite amount of resources," said Schrupp. "E-commerce is incredible. What I will say, though, is it's not very rewarding. It's faceless."His faceless customers kept returning, though, eventually wiping out his initial inventory. He ordered a second round this time he made vanilla and chocolate flavors in the summer of 2020. The next year, another unexpected event nearly put him out of business."In 2021, there was a massive, unprecedented bird flu outbreak that, almost overnight, drove the price of egg products up in some cases 500%," said Schrupp. "Because I was only selling egg white-based protein powders, my profitable business essentially became unprofitable overnight."It forced another pivot: He launched a vegan, chickpea-based protein powder that he no longer makes, but it introduced the idea of diversifying his product line. He now makes an almond-based vegan powder and a collagen-based powder."Through the challenges, we've adapted, we've iterated, and ultimately come out better, more resilient, more flexible," said Schrupp.Leaving education to run Drink Wholesome full-timeSchrupp never imagined his life as a full-time entrepreneur running his own business."I had this plan to teach for a while and then become an administrator and possibly even head of a school. That was a dream of mine," he said.After three and a half years of juggling teaching and coaching with a growing business that was starting to feel more like a full-time job than a side hustle, Schrupp had to decide between the two career paths."I was doing too much, and I felt like I wasn't doing anything well or, as well as I could have and that was discouraging," he said. "I felt like I was just spread too thin. My life was very rich and rewarding, but I wasn't sleeping enough. I was very stressed." Schrupp's sister, Tessa, joined Drink Wholesome in 2023. Courtesy of Jack Schrupp In 2023, at the end of the school year, he quit to run Drink Wholesome full-time.The decision wasn't challenging from a personal finance standpoint."I'd spent five years teaching at boarding schools with free housing. I didn't earn a lot of money, but because I didn't have to pay for housing, which is a huge cost, and I lived pretty modestly, I'd saved money and did certainly have a safety net," he said.Plus, he could always go back to teaching if he needed to.Based on the trajectory of his company, which did seven figures in online sales in 2024 according to screenshots of his sales dashboards viewed by BI, he won't need to return to a teaching career anytime soon but he might want to."Running your own business is isolating and, especially if it's a hard journey, which it often is, you feel like you are doing it alone with no one to turn to for help or advice," said Schrupp, who works remotely from his home in Hanover and has one employee: his sister, who is based on the West Coast. "So I wouldn't say that entrepreneurship is like a hack or should be the ultimate goal for everyone. You should definitely, if you're ever considering it, take into account the loneliness that comes along with being an entrepreneur."There are perks, of course he says he's earning more money as a business owner and remote work allows him to travel much more than his teaching career did but he's figuring out if the money and flexibility are worth it."It's not so much that I'm lonely, but I'm professionally lonely. That's certainly the case, and I'm OK with it for now," said Schrupp. "But I don't know if I would want to do this for the rest of my life."

Is a thousand video games in year even possible? (SJBright / Alamy Stock Photo)A reader explains how and why he attempted to play a thousand different video games last year, with a goal of at least 83 a month.Gamers come in various types. Those who wants to play just the blockbusters and those who play multiplayer titles repeatedly to get really good at them. Hardcore gamers can inch their way through super hard games or try run after run in roguelikes. And many others stick to casual titles or buy popular sequels like EA Sports FC and the latest Call Of Duty.I am what you might call an outlier though. I like to play as many titles as I can. This means I rarely play very long or super hard games all the way through. But I do think it reasonable to give a game a chance, even if its not a genre I tend to like. I also prefer to buy physical games. When I started keeping a list in 2013, I had 322 physical games.I first wrote to GameCentral about my backlog in January 2016, when it stood at 450. And by August 2017, despite selling off some of the games, the backlog had ballooned to 763. Years have passed, and many titles played. But with a job that includes selling games and an ongoing Game Pass subscription, the list is going up rather than down. In fact, a year ago I had 1,481 games on my list. So I decided to set myself a challenge play a thousand different games in 2024.I soon realised that if there were no rules it could be an easy target to reach simply by playing free browser games for a few seconds each. I wanted this to be more about just getting my numbers up to meet a target, so I set myself some ground rules.Firstly, every game has to be finished with that is played to a point I dont want to play it anymore. That could be completed, but it could also be abandoned for being too slow, too boring or too difficult. Or maybe just not being my thing. I also decided to not include browser games or mobile phone games. No illegal emulation was allowed, nor Antstream, which with 1,300 games available would make things too easy.Playing 10 games every three days for an entire year would not be easy. I went through my games and made a list of how many I had on each format. I had collected a number of free titles from Epic Games, but with no dedicated graphics card quite a few would not be playable.I had a couple of compilations of Atari 2600 games. With the Xbox 360 store closing in July, and the vast majority of games having a demo, this would be a good source. But demos would not count if I wanted to keep playing when they ended. I didnt want to only play short games, so I also included longer titles I had wanted to play for a while. Deadpool for licensing reasons this is now a very rare game (Activision)My list was 1,282 games spread across 31 categories. Some of these would be different formats, but others would be variations e.g. Xbox 360 standard disc games, Kinect games, and downloadable games. So it seemed do-able on paper but what about reality?The obvious first issue is work. I run my own business, so that takes up a considerable amount of time. And theres the not small issue of moving in with my girlfriend, with all the associated packing and unpacking. Add to that volunteer work, seemingly endless chores, and on top of that hobbies including playing football, partner dance classes, drumming in a samba band, and regular pub quizzes would there be enough time?Doing the maths, I needed a little over 83 games a month. But as the challenge started on 1st January, I still had my Game Pass subscription. Having got 14 months from codes I used 13 months earlier I had already played all the games on there that were easy to finish with. So, I would be playing the titles I do like for longer, especially as I wasnt planning on coming back to Game Pass any time soon. And with that months jobs including my tax return, and starting to pack for moving day, I managed barely a third of my target at 32 games.So, there would be plenty of work to do to catch up.To be continued but before I go, heres some comments on a selection of games I played early in the year.Gotham Knights (Xbox Series S)While by no means terrible, this Batman-less game didnt hold together very well. In fact, I had more fun riding around Gotham on my bike and admiring the sights than the missions, which frequently killed the pacing with overlong story scenes.SonSon (arcade)This arcade game from the eighties is the free title with Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium and isnt exceptional. But by adding a rewind feature a game that was super frustrating in its original incarnation can be completed with some patience in just over an hour.Agent A: A Puzzle In Disguise (Xbox One)My girlfriend Emma plays mainly mobile games but also PC titles like Age Of Empires. So, it was fun to team up with her and play this escape room type game. Both of us found solutions the other had missed as we completed the game. Its often in sales at a little over a pound, so well worth getting for that price.Deadpool (Xbox One)It was totally the wrong time to sell this as the cinema release of Deadpool & Wolverine made the game shoot up in price soon afterwards. And it felt very much like an HD remaster of a mediocre PlayStation 2 tie-in. Deadpools monologues are still amusing though.Langrisser 2 (PlayStation 4)This remake of an old Mega Drive game overcomes one of the role-playing game genres common failings by having pacy battles. But I get a weird sort of claustrophobia when playing turn-based games, where I hate it if my character cant move when enemies attack and I just have to accept getting hit.Tetris (Mega Drive)The Mega Drive release of Tetris was cancelled when Sega realised that the people they bought the rights from didnt actually have them. The game now appears on the Mega Drive Mini console, which adds some additional modes.Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes (Wii)There are so many Dynasty Warriors games and spin-offs released that there isnt much space for clones. This one from Capcom has plenty of fighters on screen but predictably doesnt attempt anything new.Lost Lands 9: Stories Of The First Brotherhood (Xbox One)Hidden object puzzle adventures are pretty common, pretty similar, and pretty boring. This one is much like the others.More TrendingSenj No kami 2, aka Mercs (Arcade)I was a big fan of Mercs on the Mega Drive back in the 90s. Although it had great graphics at the time the arcade game was better, and this is my first play of that version. I plumped for the Japanese version and even remembered some of the boss tactics as I completed it.By reader Jean-Paul Satire Senj No kami 2, aka Mercs, aka the sequel to Commando (Capcom)The readers features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.You can submit your own 500 to 600-word reader feature at any time, which if used will be published in the next appropriate weekend slot. Just contact us at gamecentral@metro.co.uk or use our Submit Stuff page and you wont need to send an email.GameCentralSign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Your information will be used in line with our Privacy Policy

Project Files: https://www.patreon.com/posts/121249055 .In the first episode of the PCG series, we worked on a attice generation system withing a generated grid using procedural generation. Today, we are going to use the same system and instead of using a grid, we are going to sample points from a custom volume and generate a lattice. // ! https://www.patreon.com/codelikeme Patrons will have access to project files of all the stuff I do in the channel and other extra benefitsJoin this channel to get access to perks:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClb6Jh9EBV7a_Nm52Ipll_Q/join Like my facebook page for more content : https://www.facebook.com/gamedevelopersclub/ Follow me on twitter : https://twitter.com/CodeLikeMe2 Follow me on reddit : https://www.reddit.com/user/codelikeme #CodeLikeMe #unrealengine #ue4 #indiegamedev

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Tails of Iron 2: Whiskers of Winter is the sequel to the soulslike indie game about a Rat and his kingdom at war. This time, players control Arlo as he battles the Dark Wings threatening his home. With challenging combat and rich world-building, the game expands on its predecessor with new characters, side quests, and dangers.

Mini-games can be found throughout Miraland in Infinity Nikki. These entertainments are primarily platforming, but there are also other kinds, like catching items that are falling from the sky, or puzzle-solving games like the Whim Tangram in Infinity Nikki.

For Companion hero Iris (Heretics Sophie Thatcher), the movie begins as a fairy-tale romance by way of rolling fruit: She and Josh (Jack Quaid) lock eyes in a grocery store produce aisle. He tries to be smooth, but fumbles and knocks over an entire display of oranges. They laugh together, and the rest is history; love at first sight. Its the start of something beautiful at least, until its not. Companion is about the point where things change in their relationship, a moment Thatcher tells Polygon she was setting up in her performance without even realizing it.[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Companions plot setup, and the first major twist of many.]In the broader story of Companion, the grocery store scene is pure fiction; Iris is a romance robot Josh has bought, and this meet-cute is one of a handful of standard fabricated introductions her manufacturers let clients choose from so their artificial partners can remember how they met.The reveal that Iris is a robot wont come until later, amid a cavalcade of violence that makes up Companions main plot. There are plenty of clues baked into the narrative: the way we see her wake up from a nap, cued by Joshs command. His nickname for her, Beep Boop. The knowing, sometimes revolted glances of his close friends. But if youre paying attention, you might notice Iris very distinctive walk a sort of mechanical glide. Even in her grocery store fantasy, where shes visualizing herself as human, she moves a little too smoothly to seem natural. According to Thatcher, this was not actually intended, though.I was just focused on my posture and walking slowly, but everyone was commenting on my walk seeming strange or off, Thatcher told Polygon ahead of the films premiere. She gets why her movement looks like that, though: Though she never went for any specific android walk, she did focus all on posture, which certainly translates to her staccato movement. Even within the trailer, theres that scene where Im opening the door and Im running out. I notice my posture and everything just feels off and strange but I think thats also just a part of me, Thatcher laughs.What she did focus on when building the character with Companion writer-director Drew Hancock was Iris natural charm, and how that would come out in telling ways like finding the eerie smoothness of her voice.I think theres a warmth and familiarity to her voice, Thatcher said. It calms Josh, in a sense. Its a little bit more quiet, its very feminine.For Thatcher, thats the best way to track Iris journey through Companion. My voice gets lower within the film as she turns up her intelligence. And that was interesting to play with, how the voice very slightly changes and she has maybe more rasp, or just a little bit more personality, Thatcher said. It becomes lower [when] she suddenly has control, and then in that monologue she has to Josh, where shes finally standing up for herself. Shes finally found her voice in every sense.The performance was rewarding for Thatcher, who (as the grocery store gliding might suggest) felt in tune with Iris journey on an intuitive level. Much of her transformation was from practical effects Thatcher wore contacts, changed her own voice, and had a real interactive display to slide around settings on during filming.But it helped that she also felt Iris burden of being so focused on Joshs needs. The experience helped her better understand some of her own experiences.Just playing into that femininity was interesting in the beginning, and made me feel restrained in ways as a woman too, Thatcher said. And I think that was the most empowering part of it all, because I find that a lot of the projects I do are strangely about control.It says a lot about the times were living in right now. She lacks control. Theres so many expectations thrown on you as a woman, but right now, specifically, as a woman [] its like you dont have control over your body. You dont have a say. But then she finally finds that.Companion is in theaters now.

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The b-roll showcases the shooting of plane bodies on motion bases against an LED wall for the film. The post Watch this virtual production b-roll for Flight Risk appeared first on befores & afters.