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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

#231

Post by Grustaf »

kkarakk wrote: post #218
saberience wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The scale seems way too big and ugly to fit into my kitchen, never mind multiple of them.

coffee aficionados tend to have lots of random bulky objects in the kitchen anyways. coffee makers,coffee implements, temperature sensors etc etc it quickly becomes a hassle to stow it all away everytime so you end up chucking it all in one "space"

Coffee aficionados don't want to be restricted to buying from a single, web-based company. Unless this company stocks hundreds or thousands of varieties.

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

#232

Post by askvictor »

Nice idea and I would use it (if it were got coffee and available in Australia, which presumably it isn't), but my coffee beans live in the grinder (which in my case is integrated into the whole espresso machine).

Perhaps partner with grinder or machine manufacturers?

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

#234

Post by pard68 »

subpixel wrote: post #154
seizethecheese wrote: post #77

Earlier 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.

I getting my coffee. If I buy one too many bags I can tell the difference between coffee used week 0 and say week 3 or 4. My palette isn't the best so I can't really tell the difference but I can see it. There is much less CO2 in the older coffee. You see this in the smaller "bloom".

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

#235

Post by DebtDeflation »

Grustaf wrote: post #229

If this is serious, you are solving the wrong problem. You assume that you can mail order the coffee your clients want through an API, this is the hard part. It's not hard for people to know and signal that they want more coffee. But even worse, you limit coffee variety to a small fraction, most gourmet beans don't even have websites. But if we are assuming API-reachable mail ordering, here are some much simpler solu…

>An amazon button next to the grinder.

Amazon just announced, a little over a week ago, that they are killing the Dash buttons. As part of the announcement, they said they believe that the whole concept has outlived it's usefulness and has been replaced by voice ordering with virtual assistants ("Alexa, order coffee").

I think the real problem was that the idea of having a separate button for every product was untenable. The same issue faces OP's concept - are we really going to put a separate network-connected scale under every single consumable good in the house?

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

#237

Post by fgoldberg »

lianaherrera wrote: post #73
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?

It is a company which is still in Argentina and they ship. Let me find out the nme and will send it to you. Do you have an email address?

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

#239

Post by hyperpape »

benatkin wrote: post #202
hyperpape wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m a big coffee fan, but my routine leaves me buying whatever is fresh from Counter Culture at Whole Foods. I don’t make regular trips to a coffee shop, because it doesn’t fit my schedule. If many of those roasters are decent, this would give me more variety. And today I definitely end up running out of beans at inconvenient times. Price: I brew at home, and buy roughly two bags a month, typically $11-14/bag. So I’d…

It sounds like you're closer to being able to find a use for this than many, because you like to have the same brand of coffee. Some coffee lovers like me like variety, not just within a brand, but across brands.

It's not that I like to have the same roaster, it's that I typically only have access to one high quality roaster that's fresh. When I go to a coffeeshop that's downtown or another city, I often get different roasters. That's just not my routine.
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