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

news.ycombinator.com

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

#131

Post by seizethecheese »

conductr wrote: post #130

> universal problem Slight inconvenience != problem. If this works out, I’m going into the catheter business because peeing is universal too. I do wish you best of luck and hope you find people who care enough to buy your product. This just sounds like an uphill battle to me Edit to add; I’m not a fan of the weight approach. This assumes a lot and can’t predict what I’ll need tomorrow. Also, it forces me to put thing…

Interesting opinion! I think that restocking is a universal problem. We're just very used to having to think about it.

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

#132

Post by seizethecheese »

duado wrote: post #129

Make this work for everything in my pantry and you have a customer. Order me a Whole Foods order that has the breadcrumbs, ketchup, and canned beans that I’m low on.

That's the long run plan. Looking forward to have you signed up in a few years!

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

#134

Post by seizethecheese »

tedmiston wrote: post #105
ham_sandwich wrote: post #96

I just heard about this on Patrick O’Shaughnessy podcast. As a coffee-fiend, I really should look into becoming a customer, and am also interested to see what offerings come next. Reminds me of a Whitehead quote that I like that can also serve as a heuristic to evaluate business ideas: “Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them” I love that…

Any chance you have a link to the podcast episode?

http://investorfieldguide.com/bottomless/

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

#136

Post by jackpirate »

noirbot wrote: post #49
seizethecheese wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! We're always wondering what the biggest restocking problems are for people. Your list are all products we're planning to address eventually. The real question is: what do we do next ?

The one other thing that could be a good restock is rice. A solid restock on quality rice is something that could be really valuable for folks who cook Asian food regularly, and it's something that people generally make on a pretty regular basis, but may not have a good local store that has quality options for.

Rice is dirt cheap and low margin. The sort of people who eat rice everyday are also the sort of people who buy a 40lbs bag that lasts for months because rice doesn't go bad. Also, my (stereotypical) impression of people who cook rice everyday is that they are not rich and willing to spend money of this type of luxury.

My guess is that rice is one of the last products that automatic restocking makes economic sense for.

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

#137

Post by ash663 »

Just got a subscription! Hope I receive the beans before I run out of my existing stock, or I'd have to make do with umm chai.

The 3 months free trial is great, but would you be adding a per-month option? I don't like to lock myself into one service for a year.

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

#139

Post by edmundsauto »

Super interesting, congratulations on launching! I think the HN perspective here ("Why can't they just add a packet of coffee powder?) is bog standard + a lot of people aren't your market.

The consumer side is interesting and has been addressed, but I think the more interesting component is you've essentially become an integrated sales partner for a really big industry. I've worked a lot in leadgen, and it turns out that most companies are pretty bad at optimizing for conversions. They pay a lot to keep the inbound requests going, but often they're not very good at handling the needs of a particular channel (especially when that channel has different expectations than their normal customer).

By actually making the sale, you turn coffee companies into a branded drop shipper. That's really really smart, IMO -- you've got the consumer at the purchase point, which is really the chokepoint for a lot of business.

Congrats again!

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