Sounds like a fun weekend project to replicate this for a ton of other stuff and not require a service.
Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
151–160 of 262 posts
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#152I'm trying to understand if I'm your target audience, maybe you can help.
I make espresso at home and primarily enjoy premium roasters. By my spreadsheet logs I average ~39 espresso shots/mo, or ~2.1 bags/mo assuming an average of 18g shots. But that frequency can vary with things like travel, etc.
Really what I want is to be able to pick from a variety of my favorite beans across different roasters, and have them delivered in that narrow window right as I have ~72g of beans left in the bag (~4 shots worth), and a roast date that makes it so that just as I'm finishing the bag, I'm about a week past the roast date of the new bag.
I've avoided the subscriptions from roasters because I dislike the idea of ending up with bags I won't use before they go bad, or running short of beans and not having coffee on days when I'm waiting for a delivery. I also like the flexibility to mix things up and frequently changes the roasters and beans I buy.
Is this a fit for me?
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#153I have to confess, that I don't understand the business case, but I applaud your confidence to go after such an extremely niche area (I wouldn't call it a problem). However, if I convince myself to see the value here, I see the real product as the solution around using your scale to work on pantry restocking in general, not just with coffee. All the best!
As other commenters have noted, there's a broader business case to be made for a service that knows when you're running out of anything in the home or office.
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#154Few 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 run…
I think this is very clever and I wish you success but I do not buy the coffee “more than a week old is not fresh” line. Coffee is fermented - stored well it lasts a hell of a lot longer than two weeks.
We stock up on our family’s favorite coffee from Colombia three or four times a year, where relatives travel long distances to collect it for us from a non-exporting roaster.
Many months is a normal shelf life.
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#155Few 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 hopele…
As soon as I saw this I had the thought... This is really not about coffee
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#156I'm trying to understand if I'm your target audience, maybe you can help. I make espresso at home and primarily enjoy premium roasters. By my spreadsheet logs I average ~39 espresso shots/mo, or ~2.1 bags/mo assuming an average of 18g shots. But that frequency can vary with things like travel, etc. Really what I want is to be able to pick from a variety of my favorite beans across different roasters, and have them de…
As someone who ran a retail e-commerce operation for a decade I strongly advise against building a company to serve customers with such exacting requirements unless your unit economics are way better than you will see selling any variety of bean.
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 run…
I think this is very clever and I wish you success but I do not buy the coffee “more than a week old is not fresh” line. Coffee is fermented - stored well it lasts a hell of a lot longer than two weeks. We stock up on our family’s favorite coffee from Colombia three or four times a year, where relatives travel long distances to collect it for us from a non-exporting roaster. Many months is a normal shelf life.
This is counter to everything I've ever read on coffee freshness. Perhaps you are right! Do you have any links?
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#158I'm trying to understand if I'm your target audience, maybe you can help. I make espresso at home and primarily enjoy premium roasters. By my spreadsheet logs I average ~39 espresso shots/mo, or ~2.1 bags/mo assuming an average of 18g shots. But that frequency can vary with things like travel, etc. Really what I want is to be able to pick from a variety of my favorite beans across different roasters, and have them de…
Pretty close! We can't dial it in perfectly to run out when you have 4 shots worth, but you can tune how aggressive our algorithm is in re-ordering.
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting concept for seeding the system. We used to have something like that and dropped it because it wasn't too accurate. We do have a setting for turning off automatic re-ordering to handle vacations or unexpected bounties of coffee.
I like this idea, and good luck! Just wanted to give some input on this as I currently work on an ML project at Amazon. The more context possible from the user to define the space at the very beginning will increase accuracy exponentially (at the risk of a too much effort required for user onboarding). Finding that balance is important. Additionally, the user feedback is very important as well. incorporating a way to…
Thanks for the advice! I agree there's a tradeoff between asking the user too much and expecting the system to learn on it's own.
Re: Launch HN: Bottomless (YC W19) – Coffee Restocked with a Smart Scale
#160I'm trying to understand if I'm your target audience, maybe you can help. I make espresso at home and primarily enjoy premium roasters. By my spreadsheet logs I average ~39 espresso shots/mo, or ~2.1 bags/mo assuming an average of 18g shots. But that frequency can vary with things like travel, etc. Really what I want is to be able to pick from a variety of my favorite beans across different roasters, and have them de…
Pretty close! We can't dial it in perfectly to run out when you have 4 shots worth, but you can tune how aggressive our algorithm is in re-ordering.
Makes sense. That was just my ideal, obviously I can be flexible for convenience if it's close enough. Any insights into whether you'll be carrying other roasters? I'm a big fan of Verve, Chromatic, and a few others from the Bay Area.