51–60 of 101 posts
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> Starbucks is the largest chain, but they only process 2.5% of those daily sales. Seriously shocking.
Same! I couldn't believe it either. If you're interested, look into Luckin' Coffee too - their rise to power is remarkable.
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Same! I couldn't believe it either. If you're interested, look into Luckin' Coffee too - their rise to power is remarkable.
I'm surprised they are so small. They feel like they are everywhere and doing a ton of volume. I always assumed they had 10%+ of global market share of coffee sales.
1) Your service is currently unusable for me because there are only two shops in SF both located in the Mission. As a general rule of thumb I have no interest traveling >= .25mi for coffee.
2) My average monthly spend is ~$150 of primarily take-out coffee split equally between SBux, Pete's, and other.
3) I'll never wait in a moderate or long line (>= 3 people)
4) I usually choose convenience over quality, for example I prefer Pete's coffee but the Starbuck's mobile app AND in-store pick-up process is so streamlined i'll often choose starbuck's (Pete's is catching up).
5) I'm increasingly using Postmates to pick-up coffee + breakfast at local places but not many storefronts list coffee on their mobile menu (even if they sell it).
6) I and many of my peers are trying to cut back on Coffee in lieu of lightly caffeinated teas and other drinks
7) I've yet to find a compelling rewards program that doesn't feel like a shitty mobile game on any of the ordering apps, they all seem to give extremely marginal benefits that masquerade as something significant and not worth my time - looking at you Starbucks app.
8) Though it looks a little raw your app sign-up process was really fluid
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I'm really interested in following the biz-dev process behind a small start-up (that doesn't take on egregious funding) doing the raw canvassing needed to hit critical mass adoption of store fronts. If you can share, what is your methodology to reaching out to mom and pop's at scale?
I appreciate the thorough write-up. Here are a few notes from a potential power user: 1) Your service is currently unusable for me because there are only two shops in SF both located in the Mission. As a general rule of thumb I have no interest traveling >= .25mi for coffee. 2) My average monthly spend is ~$150 of primarily take-out coffee split equally between SBux, Pete's, and other. 3) I'll never wait in a moderat…
In terms of biz-dev I'm happy to share, because it's been the definition of doing something that doesn't scale, but it's worked to this point. When we were getting started, our team + family and friends split up the task of pinning independent coffee shops on Google Maps, by using keyword searches like "local coffee," "espresso," etc. From there, we'd profile these locations by documenting their phone number and then searching the web for an e-mail address and (preferably) an owners name.
Once we had those email address, we'd setup sales campaigns to anywhere we had an e-mail address to - we still do this today.
In terms of our approach at scale, we're hyper-focused on partnerships and reputation. 1) partnering with company's like Square, Odeko and a number of roasters has allowed us to find customers in existing channels, avoiding the need to deploy a massive sales team (that requires egregious funding) to knock on doors 2) reputation is everything in coffee, and the more customers we add, the more referrals we get from existing locations.
Because we support a single vertical, having a few customers that love our product and are willing to voice that praise has gone a long way - our goal is to continue facilitating that level of enthusiasm, in order to grow.
This is exactly Ritual's (Toronto, Canada) schtick. Order ahead, start walking. Food will be ready when you arrive. There's no reason why you need to stick to coffee. I use Ritual to order from my favourite restaurant in the middle of a tourist attraction. The tourists wait 30+ minutes, and I can stroll up to the counter and grab my lunch and skip the line. Ritual even tracks your location with GPS (if opt-in) and de…
Oh hey, I'm an engineer in Charlotte! Have you guys talked to Amelie's yet?
We've made several attempts to work with them, but it hasn't panned out. Feel free to give them a nudge, and you should try out the app at any of the other shops in the area, it's our most dense region in terms of locations.
I appreciate the thorough write-up. Here are a few notes from a potential power user: 1) Your service is currently unusable for me because there are only two shops in SF both located in the Mission. As a general rule of thumb I have no interest traveling >= .25mi for coffee. 2) My average monthly spend is ~$150 of primarily take-out coffee split equally between SBux, Pete's, and other. 3) I'll never wait in a moderat…
Really appreciate this level of detail, all of this is really helpful. In terms of biz-dev I'm happy to share, because it's been the definition of doing something that doesn't scale, but it's worked to this point. When we were getting started, our team + family and friends split up the task of pinning independent coffee shops on Google Maps, by using keyword searches like "local coffee," "espresso," etc. From there,…
I know many a coffeeshop owner whose immediate response to being pitched this would be "Starbucks already exists".
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I appreciate this, I really do. But that is a problem that could be solved by just adding more Starbucks and Dunkins, who already have their own platform. I travel a lot. And one of the unsung features of the Starbucks app, is that the density of stores and the app means I'm never more than 15 minutes away from a consistent coffee experience. I also did exactly what you were doing back in 2012ish. We even had an app.…
I completely agree on density, it's the foundation of our pitch really - the more shops that are available on Cloosiv, the better the experience. It's exactly why Starbucks and Dunkin' have such high adoption on their apps. I also like your example about the hand crafted experience, and I agree - in a lot of ways that's desired from the customers that seek out local shops. That said, we've interviewed hundreds of peo…
https://foodtruckempire.com/coffee/fail-rates/
These are the #1 and #2 reasons given in the survey that coffee shops fail out of a survey of 232 former coffee shop owners:
Unprepared for business ownership – 128 responses
No Distinct Brand / Experience – 94 responses
With GrubHub, your customer has no personal experience anymore with your store, employees, or brand. Instead, you get a GrubHub employee (hopefully not too grubby) and trust that your customer experience / brand is handled by the delivery person -- something which is completely out of your control.
So one way to think of this is that the independent coffee shop market is a scourge to investment opportunities and you should pivot off coffee shops ASAP.
Another way to think of this is that the independent coffee market is the right market, but the ordering ahead app is not the solution they need. They need strong branding.