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Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

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Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#71

Post by michaelmu »

lianaherrera wrote: post #65
michaelmu wrote: post #54

Great idea and so many options as a business going forward! Just randomly was listening to you on Invest Like the Best today. I have an Airbnb listing that this service would be great for. Looking forward to hearing how your business evolves and grows in the future!

We were wondering whether this would be a good service for Airbnb listings, do you offer coffee for your guests? Anytime I've been into Airbnbs, my biggest complain is the bad coffee!

We do offer coffee but I agree, it's difficult to balance quality with maintainability (low-cost, minimal supplies, easy cleanup etc). We currently just use pre-ground drip coffee but I'm thinking about getting a grinder plus bottomless for the beans. I don't even drink coffee so I find myself checking reddit for reviews on grinders/coffee etc...

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#72

Post by J253 »

Love the idea. I assume the prediction about when to reorder is more sophisticated than just coffee_weight < X, so how well does it deal with highly variable coffee usage? For example, randomly throughout the week my wife wants coffee as well so I’ll make a double batch...but there’s no rhyme or reason to her coffee cravings.

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#73

Post by lianaherrera »

fgoldberg wrote: post #45

Have you thought about offering Matcha and Mate? I have been ordering "Mate Powder" (I call it that way) to prepare Mate at home and cakes as well. Taste really good and would love to use your service if you include them :)

Hi, yes, we have thought about doing so. What company do you buy it from?

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#74

Post by 3into10power5 »

sna1l wrote: post #68
alphagrep12345 wrote: post #60

Few of questions 1. People always make weekend grocery trips. Why can't they just add a packet of coffee powder? Why do they have to use you? 2. Amazon just discontinued their dash buttons. There should be a strong reason for it. Do you know what it is? How are you planning to avoid it? 3. The issue with diapers and toilet papers is huge. They take up a lot of volume and have very little weight. Does the scale approa…

Another question is what is stopping Amazon/Instacart/etc from copying this model? Presumably Amazon Go shops have this capability and it could be modified to suit end consumers in their homes?

This question gets asked for every company. The way it works is that Amazon and Instacart. may copy. But walmart and target will be slow to respond. At some point, Amazon will be ahead in the game and Walmart is in a hurry to bring something similar to buy. Then they will acquire Bottomless

Another way, even if Amazon introduces it, they have to make $x billion from it to be viable. If Bottomless makes $100M per year from this funtionality, they are a good business. Meanwhile they can also rake up a few patents thus making forcing Amazon to pay some fees

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#75

Post by i_phish_cats »

This kind of idea is why I'm not going to let my kids major in computer science (at least not just CS). The brains behind this startup could be doing something at least superficially useful, but apparently all they know are the technical 'solutions', and know nothing about real-world problems.

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#76

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

alphagrep12345 wrote: post #60

Few of questions 1. People always make weekend grocery trips. Why can't they just add a packet of coffee powder? Why do they have to use you? 2. Amazon just discontinued their dash buttons. There should be a strong reason for it. Do you know what it is? How are you planning to avoid it? 3. The issue with diapers and toilet papers is huge. They take up a lot of volume and have very little weight. Does the scale approa…

I'll answer some of your questions:

1. You asked about "adding a packet of coffee powder". If you're asking about coffee "powder" (i.e. either preground or instant), then you are not the target market. For coffee aficionados, there is a very short window of peak freshness, about 1-2 weeks post roast. This model works great for these coffee folks who care about this freshness. Note supermarket coffee is usually hopelessly stale by the time it is sold. 2. While the physical dash buttons may have been discontinued, the virtual ones (through your phone, the web, Alexa, etc.) are still heavily in use. My guess if they discontinued them is that they figured they can get just as much play from the virtual ones, especially through all the "smart home" devices they are pushing.

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#77

Post by seizethecheese »

alphagrep12345 wrote: post #60

Few of questions 1. People always make weekend grocery trips. Why can't they just add a packet of coffee powder? Why do they have to use you? 2. Amazon just discontinued their dash buttons. There should be a strong reason for it. Do you know what it is? How are you planning to avoid it? 3. The issue with diapers and toilet papers is huge. They take up a lot of volume and have very little weight. Does the scale approa…

Thanks for the questions.

1. I always forget to get one or two things when I go to the store. This removes having to remember coffee stock levels. Also, the coffee in the store isn't fresh because the distribution chain is too long. We ship straight from roaster to customer, so the coffee is really fresh.

2. Dash doesn't work because it's a new habit and people have to remember to find and press the button before running out. We're a Dash button that automatically presses itself and is fully passive.

3. For toilet paper and diapers it may not be a scale but some other sort of passive monitoring system. We definitely plan to address these eventually.

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#78

Post by schappim »

Michael and Liana I love what you are doing and the intersection of electronics hardware and e-commerce.

Some background: Hi I’m Marcus. I’ve previously started an IoT company and have just made & patented some WebUSB Shipping Scales and a seperate WebUSB Label Printer (primarily for e-commerce. E.g. creating shipping consignment labels directly from Shopify and other platforms).

We made our own hardware to automate our electronics components e-commerce business and now are looking to share it with others.

Whilst my company sells sensors including the load cells found in scales, we found it way easier to go to China and mod an existing scale, really just switching out the electronics for our own.

I’m wondering what path you took with regards to the electronics. Are the insides a mash of Sparkfun and Adafruit parts?

How did you came to the decision that 3D printing was worth it even for an MVP?

Just out of interest, what wifi module are you using ? I’m guessing an ESPXXXX?

We skipped wifi because our solution had to be idiot proof. Think the difficulty in making a process that would enable your grand parent connect the scale to wifi... I’ve been there, and it still somewhat sucks with cheap wifi modules.

Have you considered HomeKit?

I wonder at what point other technologies like cellular would make sense.

Sorry for all the questions!

Written on a phone. Excuse the typos.

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#79

Post by seizethecheese »

J253 wrote: post #72

Love the idea. I assume the prediction about when to reorder is more sophisticated than just coffee_weight < X, so how well does it deal with highly variable coffee usage? For example, randomly throughout the week my wife wants coffee as well so I’ll make a double batch...but there’s no rhyme or reason to her coffee cravings.

Yes, it takes your history into account, so it will learn of this variability over time.

Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale

#80

Post by noirbot »

lampenrad wrote: post #61
noirbot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be open to believing that and I definitely don't want to mess them up too much, but at this point, their brand has done so much shady stuff over the years that it's really hard to trust them any more, especially when there's so many good options that don't have assaulters and potentially complicit owners in the mix.

>I definitely don't want to mess them up too much You‘re actively trying to get other people to boycott them, which would eventually put them out of business. It‘s the first time I’ve heard about them and I don‘t care one way or the other but be honest. There‘s no „openness to believing“ the „potentially complicit“ here, your post is a complete contradiction.

More of, I'd like to see more than them privately telling other companies that they've dealt with the issues. I'm open to someone showing me something that's more definitive than "We promise we did things", given that they've previously promised to do things and then not done them.

Their website doesn't seem to say anything about their ownership more than "locally owned", and at this point, they've burned a lot of their credibility when it comes to doing the right thing. If they've actually gotten rid of folks and they're a employee-owned company now, then I have no problems with buying from them and supporting folks.

I'm mostly just admitting that I haven't heard anything definitive either way in the last few months, and since the company doesn't seem to be making it easy to tell if they've changed things, it's likely that folks in the coffee community still think poorly of them.

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