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Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

yourmorningcoffee.herokuapp.com

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Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#21

Post by sbansal »

richbradshaw wrote: post #17
arkitaip wrote: post #4

I can't really see how this mvp can scale beyond a few dozen customers if manual delivery is going to be used (how many minutes do you have before the coffee gets cold? This sets all kinds of limitations on your business). $15 per customer/month isn't much if you're going to pay for (gas), salaries, etc. Unless, of course, this is Starbucks' MVP and they are figuring out the parameters of coffee delivery. Now that wo…

Excuse the dumb question, but what's MVP? Most Valuable Player?

It refers to Minimum viable product http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-...

Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#22

Post by richbradshaw »

sbansal wrote: post #21
richbradshaw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse the dumb question, but what's MVP? Most Valuable Player?

It refers to Minimum viable product http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/08/minimum-viable-...

You know, I knew I knew it! Thanks!

Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#24

Post by kaolinite »

I think the best way to go about this would be to approach businesses in a small area, maybe a couple of streets, rather than targeting an entire city and advertising it online. Create a few flyers and hand them out. That way you can delivery multiple coffees at once which will make your business a lot more efficient. Another thing, if someone gets a coffee delivered for them in an office, all their colleagues will want their coffee delivered too. Word of mouth should work quite well for this business but to be successful, you'll definitely need to target businesses. Oh and finally: why not allow business accounts that let them order numerous coffees at once?

Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#26

Post by michael_fine »

richbradshaw wrote: post #20

The nearest Starbucks to me is 44km away, which makes me think that if you were able to deliver, it would likely be cold. Also, I can't say that Starbucks coffee is nice - seems more like coffee flavoured milk than an actual drink. You can also make perfectly awesome coffee at home, for cheaper than your delivery cost, and you get to use your own cup. For that reason, I'm out. Nice looking iPhone app though.

Thank you for your feedback. I can understand why you don't want this, and it makes perfect sense for you. With a Starbucks 44km away, you wouldn't want a cold coffee, and we probably couldn't serve you. This is for people who are too busy to make coffee, and/or just want a nice cup of coffee without the hassle, every morning. I appreciate the feedback

Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#27

Post by arkitaip »

michael_fine wrote: post #6
arkitaip wrote: post #4

I can't really see how this mvp can scale beyond a few dozen customers if manual delivery is going to be used (how many minutes do you have before the coffee gets cold? This sets all kinds of limitations on your business). $15 per customer/month isn't much if you're going to pay for (gas), salaries, etc. Unless, of course, this is Starbucks' MVP and they are figuring out the parameters of coffee delivery. Now that wo…

You're right, this really is just introductory pricing for the MVP. We really need to work out what a sustainable pricing model is, but we decided that we should first work on the MVP. Do you have any suggestions?

This is a tricky problem. Will individuals think that getting Starbucks coffee delivered to the comfort of their home is worth the additional fee? Also, the product is fairly price sensitive and delivery has to be done on a tight schedule.

Some suggestions:

* target businesses. Your orders will be larger, evenly scheduled and the customers are less price sensitive. Expect tough competition, though, unless ...

* Broaden/specialize your product range. I assume you've chosen Starbucks because of the brand recognition. But what if you offered spectacular coffee from local coffee shops (assumption: Starbucks produces average coffee)? This could be one of your USPs: great coffee from local baristas delivered to the doorsteps of your customers.

* Transportation makes or breaks any type of delivery service. You need a form of transportation that's dirt cheap (no gas), small yet can carry many cups of coffee. I'm thinking a bike designed for cargo, maybe something like [1] ?

* Vacuum flasks may solve some of your issues. Why not carry around a couple of these and pour the coffee when you reach your destination? Naturally this would have some implications on branding and product range.

[1] http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-chapter-1-rack... http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-chapter-2-bike... http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-chapter-4-carg...

Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#28

Post by pclark »

It'd be interesting you did demand delivery pricing, so that pricing became more expensive at peak times (eg: 8AM) that way you can manage the effect of everyone wanting their drink at the same time.

You should start hyper local, one neighbourhood in San Francisco - SOMA? Hayes Valley? Mission? If you did it in a hyper local area you might just turn a profit at $1.50 delivery each.

I think this would also be hugely valuable to companies, such as being able to order all my teams starbucks drinks in one click.

I'm curious why coffee though? Most people do not appear to mind getting their coffee in the morning. Especially as it is so habitual. I hate laundry though! I hate taking my trash out. I hate not getting fresh bagels/fruit each morning.

Re: Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House

#29

Post by aes256 »

Even at $1.50 per coffee I'm struggling to see how this will be sustainable.

I would guesstimate you're looking at 20 minutes of labour at the very least for each coffee. That includes getting to and from Starbucks, ordering, having the coffee made, and completing the transaction by delivering it to the customer.

Each person involved might earn $4.50/hour before costs...

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