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Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

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Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#291

Post by zloof »

username223 wrote: post #276
zloof wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Co-founder here - I actually want to challenge that...for science. I've gone pretty deep on this. There are definitely sets of products for which people want to 'set it and forget it'. At a basic level - electricity. I'd love to never think about my electricity bill ever. I do not want to explicitly pay for my electricity bill. Automated payment on electricity is amazing! There are also many products in my life that…

Thanks for the thorough reply. I have a very different perspective. I religiously avoid auto-billing. For basic necessities like electricity and gas, I like to know how much I'm paying, and to be able to dispute the charges before I pay in case there's a mistake (this occasionally happens). For luxuries, the periodic reminder that I'm paying $x for something prompts me to reassess whether they are worth it to me, wit…

Yup, I hear you. I've definitely talked to people on both sides of it - there are preferences either way. I think both can work. FYI, before our subscriptions renew - we notify customers a few days before, so they can increase, decrease, or cancel the order. We do want to proactively alert you before it renews rather than hide it from the user. It should be very clear to you what's happening (thats our goal at least). Our platform for subscriptions doesn't let us force you to hit accept before billing - that would be hard to implement.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#292

Post by zloof »

darkst4r wrote: post #150
zloof wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing prevents you from doing this and you are totally welcome to do it! You can email our support email as well and we'll cancel it for you. We'd obviously prefer that you stay on with a subscription, but are just happy to have more people give us a try.

I would also not sign up for a subscription service that does not let me cancel without contacting customer service. It's a dark pattern that too many subscription services adopt. The only reason for this is to make it more difficult to cancel. I was about to visit your site and try it out (depending on price), then I read that comment. If your willing to make it hard for me to cancel to try and squeeze in an extra b…

We do have a cancel button as well! Sorry if I was unclear. The UX on our site isn't the greatest - we use a platform to handle subscriptions. However, you definitely DO NOT need to contact support to cancel. Some people just find it easier to hit reply and say 'cancel'. FYI, we also proactively notify customers 3-4 days before a subscription renews. We want to make it as obvious as possible and give you the option to make adjustments. Transparency is critical for it to work.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#293

Post by jeffdavis »

zloof wrote: post #205
truthexposer wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is your target? If people want good tasting coffee, like a connoisseur, one would like the option of selecting the type of bean, where it is sourced from, how it's roasted, how it's ground, how it's brewed etc. People even vehemently oppose and stand by brewing methods, which to an ordinary person who doesn't care about coffee, wouldn't care about. And if someone is buying instant coffee anyways, I doubt they car…

+1 for RussianCow's comment. Our target customer is the average person who goes to Philz, Blue Bottle, Stumptown as well as Starbucks. These people aren't really buying instant coffee - they spend $2-10 on coffee per day. Some of them buy 2 x $5 latte drinks at a cafe. 100% of these people drink their coffee for the taste (although they have different taste preferences). The average person who goes to Blue Bottle dai…

My anecdote:

I think I'm in your market, too. Basically, enough people around me like good coffee that I'm spoiled. I'm not a big coffee drinker and not terribly picky, but I do have a taste for the good stuff.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#294

Post by Baeocystin »

freese wrote: post #129
bigtunacan wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keurig is several orders of magnitude better than instant and can be bought for as low as 50 cents a cup. At Sudden's 8 cups for $19 it is CHEAPER for me to buy a quality pour over at the local cafe where they charge $2.25 a cup. Also this appears to be targeting "coffee snobs"; most of that crowd isn't interested in instant coffee.

We started by targeting "coffee snobs" but we're now realizing that they indeed are not the best segment for us. We're shifting our focus toward more everyday coffee drinkers who are still interested in great coffee. Edit: Definitely makes sense for you to go to your corner coffee shop. However, Sudden offers you an option to drink kick-ass coffee when you don't have access to any other option

I'd love to give you guys a shot. (pun only partially intended) I love coffee, and sometimes the convenience of instant would be great. I am disappointed with Starbuck's attempt.

//

Honest feedback, I hope you take it in the spirit it is given: Is there really no way to just order a sampler from you, without 'you will be automatically subscribed unless you cancel?' I straight up refuse to do subscriptions. The entire 'but you can cancel at any time!' model makes me think of low-quality, as-seen-on-TV crap, and is a strong negative in terms of my brand perception. Let your product stand on its own merit. If it's good, customers will come back. Like I said, if you posted a link where I could buy a one-time-only, no other actions required on my part sampler, I would buy it immediately. As it is, the 'your sampler becomes a sub unless you cancel' is just Another Thing to Deal With, and I already have enough of those. So do most other people.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#295

Post by prewett »

zloof wrote: post #44
ryduh wrote: post #2

Hi Kalle, I love my daily pour over, so I might not be your target market, but I'd definitely be interested in purchasing a few coffees without a subscription. Have you thought about offering that?

Co-founder of Sudden here. This question comes up a lot. We have tried offering one-time purchases and it didn't work very well/ wasn't sustainable for us. 3 reasons we believe in a subscription model: 1) A big reason we started this company together was our shared belief in making customers feel good through hospitality. It's more than just the coffee itself. We want to build a better experience - if you are a Sudde…

Why not focus on subscription but have a one-time option that just quietly sits there and people that are looking for it will find it? Charge the $5/cup, and that will make the subscription an obvious choice for anyone that is going to drink the product regularly.

I'm definitely one of those that pretty much refuses to have anything to do with monthly payments, plus I'm not a huge coffee fan. So I'm never going to get a subscription. But I do like a good coffee every now and then, and I'm curious, so I might try a one-time order.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#296

Post by brusch64 »

zloof wrote: post #257
wasd wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how common it is but I bring an aeropress and hand grinder whenever I travel. It's a ton of work and sucks. I drink pour over everyday (dial in temp, grind, ratio, and draw time for every new coffee), make iced coffee during summer, and subscribe to a coffee service. In theory, this would work better. I have no idea if the addressable market is big enough but I certainly wouldn't mind trying it.

Would love for you to try it - if you go here, you can do a 2-cup mini subscription as well: https://www.suddencoffee.com/?trial=true We have a lot of customers who go through a similar experience. They use Sudden maybe 1-3 days a week when really busy and then pour over on others days when they have time. The pour over is still pretty enjoyable if you have the time.

I don't like your subscription model and I don't like how your positioning yourself in the market. It feels like the Nespresso (I think that's Keurig in the US with a similar model) of instant coffee.

But I would like to test a couple of cups of your coffee with friends. I never drank a good instant coffee so I really wonder how a good instant coffee tastes.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#297

Post by grogenaut »

While I've had fun going down the freeze dried prepper hole a few times for trying to make gluten free camping food... If you're considering doing this yourself, just buy a good super automatic coffee machine. Such as a Jura Ena. Good ones can be had on craigslist. They're prosumer type machines so you can fix them as well. They make amazing coffee, so good you'll burn yourself out on it if you're not careful. They cost about $350 used and $1k new. Both prices are totally worth it, esp when compared to trashing a kuerig machine every few years and the prices you're paying for k cups. And you get fresh.

That is for home consumption. Travel? this might be cool. My camping gear has a aeropress in it.

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#298

Post by kriro »

alaskamiller wrote: post #22

I work in the coffee industry and saw Sudden pop up last year so was interested in the technique and hacked it out. Freeze dried coffee is already what Folgers does and sell you. This is the more artisanal version of that since the big brands have big factories that can pump out plenty of instant coffee grounds. So this is a ramped up volume play on existing techniques perfected by the doomsday preppers. Youtube sear…

You seem like you know what you're talking about. I know pretty much nothing about freeze drying. 600$ to 1k$ actually seems reasonable enough for my personal production. Would I need anything else? My mental model of the process is...grind (I think it needs a different grind than pourover), put into the magic freezer machine, wait and have instant coffee to take to work :P

What's yield/power consumption etc. (for such a lower end consumer version). Anything else I should be aware of?

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#299

Post by yomly »

freese wrote: post #118
yomly wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah ok, with you now! Are you guys mainly a hardware company then? Anything cool going on software-wise for you guys?

Yeah, mainly hardware now. We just hired our first dev (and are still looking for a VP Eng!) and have some software stuff coming up. First we're working on making the ordering process better and building tools for our subscribers. Here's the job posting in case you're interested: https://jobs.lever.co/suddencoffee

Ok cool, thanks for sharing!

A big part of artisanal coffee is that it uses high quality water (usually magnesium enriched after filtering via reverse osmosis iirc) - is there anything you can do to control for this / shitty water at the customer side?

If you're brewing with Mg-water then, most of it will be left behind when freeze drying, of course, but water used to rehydrate the coffee will be a big one...

Re: Launch HN: Sudden Coffee (YC W17) – Instant coffee that doesn't suck

#300

Post by jaggederest »

stagbeetle wrote: post #287
tps5 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it's a toxic substance honestly, tires the adrenals and heart out Do you have any evidence for this or is it a hmm-I-better-not-vaccinate-my-children-because-I-think-it-will-give-them-autism type statement?

I tried looking for anything that would concur with his point, but all the sources Google Scholar gave me were very untrustworthy. I did, however, find this neat little article on the "myth" of adrenal fatigue, from Crossfit.[0] There's a part that says caffeine overuse can trigger general fatigue (or adrenal fatigue as refereed to the alternative medicine crowd). http://library.crossfit.com/free/pdf/CFJ_2015_07_Adre…

I like examine.com, they have a reasonable summary. It looks like there's not much strong evidence on any claim. The ones shown seem positive. https://examine.com/supplements/coffee/
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