zloof

6 ms·

1.
by zloof 6y ago
Really relate to this. I shut down my startup in April. On paper, we ran out of money. Behind the scenes, I finally paid the toll/ burnt out after 1-2 years of constant unexpected, unpredictable shocks. As a solo founder with investor
2.
Sudden Coffee (YC W17) Is Hiring a Community and Content Marketing Manager(jobs.lever.co)
1 points by zloof 9y ago
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by zloof 9y ago
We've pushed over that limit. The regulations really vary depending on what type of food, how big your operation is, etc. We brought in an expert to verify that everything we are doing is up to code. We are pretty rigorous about qualit
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by zloof 9y ago
You hit the nail on the head and this is what excites me the most about what we're doing! We are trying to carry a brand - and more importantly a set of values, intentions, feelings of positivity - without physical locations. We beli
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by zloof 9y ago
Can you elaborate on the earlier point above - what don't you like about the market positioning? (We aren't exactly going for Nespresso to Keurig, but really curious what rubs you the wrong way about that.) Definitely won't
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by zloof 9y ago
I wouldn't necessarily view it as something that replaces your French press or every coffee in your life. I'll bet that the majority of the time you make coffee at home, but a few times a week you spend $3-4 on coffee at a nice c
7.
by zloof 9y ago
We do have a cancel button as well! Sorry if I was unclear. The UX on our site isn't the greatest - we use a platform to handle subscriptions. However, you definitely DO NOT need to contact support to cancel. Some people just find
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by zloof 9y ago
Yup, I hear you. I've definitely talked to people on both sides of it - there are preferences either way. I think both can work. FYI, before our subscriptions renew - we notify customers a few days before, so they can increase, decr
9.
by zloof 9y ago
There definitely is a cancel button too! I just tell people they can email us as well because some people find that easier. We're just now building an in-house engineering team to make the process easier. If I had my way, you could ca
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by zloof 9y ago
Yeah that could definitely work. We're limited technically at the moment (e.g. can't really extend our platform to do things like that), but hiring a team to enable things like that. What would be really neat is if we learned exa
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by zloof 9y ago
It definitely does work well for backpacking and based on your amount of usage - sounds like something that could work well. Definitely have run some campaigns with a travel focus. However, the bursty demand you mentioned is what we hear
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by zloof 9y ago
Would love for you to try it - if you go here, you can do a 2-cup mini subscription as well: https://www.suddencoffee.com/?trial=true We have a lot of customers who go through a similar experience. They use Sudden maybe 1-
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by zloof 9y ago
Short answer - we're starting to experiment with trial options. This is a link to a 2-cup trial that converts to a sub: https://www.suddencoffee.com/?trial=true Longer answer - sort of but not that simple in our curre
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by zloof 9y ago
Well hopefully through this thread at least we've convinced you we aren't scammers :-) Seriously though, definitely something we are not about - would love to grab beers with anyone (in SF) who wants to learn more about our compan
15.
by zloof 9y ago
Co-founder here - I actually want to challenge that...for science. I've gone pretty deep on this. There are definitely sets of products for which people want to 'set it and forget it'. At a basic level - electricity. I&#x2
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by zloof 9y ago
The part re: colloids is a trade secret at this point, but definitely a real challenge. As far as we could find, there is no common solution for industrial scale espresso. If someone has one, please post it here. This was a personal obsessi
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by zloof 9y ago
Great response - appreciate the clarification and all makes sense. Yeah, those are all the real challenges we face. Marketing for us is a big one - as many people have pointed out about our website :-) I think it's our job as a busi
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by zloof 9y ago
So first off, taste is a subjective thing, but generally things that we classify as tasting good internally: - smooth/ juicy taste - naturally sweet without sugar - has a good fragrance Things that taste bad in coffee might be: - dries
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by zloof 9y ago
+1 for RussianCow's comment. Our target customer is the average person who goes to Philz, Blue Bottle, Stumptown as well as Starbucks. These people aren't really buying instant coffee - they spend $2-10 on coffee per day. Some of
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by zloof 9y ago
If you go to this secret link you can get a 2-cup trial that auto-converts to a subscription in 21 days. https://www.suddencoffee.com/?trial=true We are experimenting with ways to let people try it first - so more solutions
21.
by zloof 9y ago
Working on it. We do individual servings because they preserve freshness - that's the only reason we do it. It's hard for us to do compostable since we are still very small compared to your average consumer good, but we are 100% c
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by zloof 9y ago
We aren't going to beat out the best of the best cafes with trained baristas, but we will definitely beat out the average corner cafe (where people often spend $3-4 on a coffee).
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by zloof 9y ago
So I'd say look at it like a spectrum. In the cafe world there is - average/ not-so-great drip coffee --> Starbucks --> Speciality/ Third Wave Coffee. I don't know how VIA makes their product, but if you do a side-
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by zloof 9y ago
Short answer is - we're working on it :-) We hired an engineer and a head of marketing in the last 2 weeks. We are very aware internally that our site has a lot of errors and a lot of what you're seeing are tests we are running. W
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by zloof 9y ago
Happy to answer whatever questions we can disclose! Thanks for starting the thread. It's somewhere in the middle to be honest. We did not invent freeze dried coffee - it's been around for over a century. However, it is quite diff
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by zloof 9y ago
Co-founder here - love the idea of having trial packets some place that's easier to buy, like Amazon. Will think on that. We do want to make it a lot easier to try (see my comment above) - figuring out the best ways to do that.
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by zloof 9y ago
Looking into that. We haven't done it yet because we are worried the coffee will get stale. Individual servings ensure the coffee stays fresh - that's why we do it.
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by zloof 9y ago
Co-founder of Sudden here. This question comes up a lot. We have tried offering one-time purchases and it didn't work very well/ wasn't sustainable for us. 3 reasons we believe in a subscription model: 1) A big reason we sta
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by zloof 9y ago
Nothing prevents you from doing this and you are totally welcome to do it! You can email our support email as well and we'll cancel it for you. We'd obviously prefer that you stay on with a subscription, but are just happy to have
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by zloof 9y ago
Co-founder here - it's miles better than Via. Sometimes we include a packet of Via in our shipment so you can do a taste comparison (thinking about making this standard). You'll definitely notice the difference side by side.

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