

Morning Coffee - Get Starbucks Straight to Your House - michael_fine
http://yourmorningcoffee.herokuapp.com/

======
patio11
This seems like a curious choice of potential business when no US-based store
will deliver a $3.50 product on a regular basis despite having access to large
pools of labor at arbitrarily low costs, while if you're capable of typing in
"git push" to get that website up your presumed opportunity cost is rather
high. Consider carefully whether you are likely to have a competitive
advantage in delivery operations over an entire nation of savvy chains and
independent operators with high tolerance for jobs that suck. It strikes me as
unlikely.

If you really, really have a burning urge to do this, be ZeroCater for coffee
and sell any three startups on doing an office-wide coffee run every morning
for only 15% the cost of a new engineering hire. (P.S. Note how I do not
anchor costs around the price of coffee.)

~~~
glimcat
> P.S. Note how I do not anchor costs around the price of coffee.

Well, neither does Starbucks.

~~~
tptacek
Huh?

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topherjaynes
It's Sunday so I've had sometime to think about this and I'd say give it a
whirl, but set some goals/paramaters. I will only try this for x months or
loss x amount.

I'd get creative in how you can generate revenue too besides the
demand/customer few. Right now people in the comments are focusing on the
scale, well it's a hard product to arbitrage, but

1) Could you sell space on the cups for ads or other start ups? This might be
the one time QR codes could work!. A Well placed QR code on the cap??

2) If you try to cut your costs (ie the coffee) look into a starbucks gift
registered card, every x number of coffees you buy you get a free one. Also,
once you hit a certain threshold you can customize (add flavors) to cups of
coffee for free. Still charge the customer for it, but you get it for no
additional cost.

3) It doesn't have to be Starbucks. I'd try partnering with unique coffee
shops and try cutting a deal with them. They get people aware of their coffee
and grow their customer base.

4)Or just simply use this to meet people doing interesting things. Who doesn't
have time to get coffee in the morning--people who are doing things. Who can
offered to have someone delivery coffee to them? People who've made money
doing something.

Best of luck, interested to see what you do with this!

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arkitaip
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 would be brilliant_.

~~~
michael_fine
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?

~~~
arkitaip
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-1-racks-and-bags.html) [http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-
chapter-2-bike...](http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-
chapter-2-bike-trailers.html) [http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-
chapter-4-carg...](http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/bicycle-cargo-
chapter-4-cargo-bike-business-a-l.html)

~~~
Kluny
A good vehicle to use would be a T-truck, such as this:
[http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4045/5137002465_84fe8b3806_z.j...](http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4045/5137002465_84fe8b3806_z.jpg)

They get insanely high gas mileage.

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chadyj
Why Starbucks? Why not setup a barista in a street cart and make your own (and
you will also be mobile to handle different areas and sell to foot traffic)?
You can skip the Starbucks lines, increase your margin significantly, and work
on a better coffee product.

Premium coffee is selling for $6.50 and is turning into a luxury item. Source:
<http://www.good.is/post/the-end-of-cheap-coffee/> (fantastic article!)

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richbradshaw
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.

~~~
cdcarter
Strange, the criticisms I usually hear of Starbucks coffee is that their
roasts are too dark, giving incredibly (sometimes almost seemingly unnatural)
bold flavors without a lot of depth. I don't know a single person who'd
characterize even their lighter blends as "coffee flavoured milk."

That being said, you're probably well outside the target market for having
your coffee delivered to you. If you had time to make it yourself, you
certainly had time to grab a cup on the way to work.

~~~
derrida
Ask any Australian what Starbucks tastes like and they will say "Coffee
Flavoured Milk" or "Watery Shit", perhaps why Starbucks failed hard in
Australia.

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michael_fine
EDIT: After all the feedback, I realized I'm wrong. There is no sustainable
way of delivering all that coffee at 50 cents a day. So, we've decided to
change to $1.50 a day, and ramp up slower. We're starting in the D.C area, but
considering moving to the Bay area if demand is significantly creater. Thank
you for the help

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silentscope
You could:

1\. bundle your offer with a subscription to a newspaper. Possibly with a
large subscription purchase, you'd save enough money that your customers would
get a deal for coffee AND the paper while you up the revenue.

2\. add breakfast! smoothies? Breakfast burritos? Those take time, are usually
pretty healthy, and are highly portable.

3\. send them a morning playlist??? like a new jazz/downtempo CD of their
genre preference to get ready with while they wait? If I'm busy, which is what
I'm going to have to be to use your service, I probably don't spend a lot of
time getting new music.

4\. have really really good looking delivery people. Nothings gonna make
someone get ready faster and better in the morning than that. Hire college
sororities/intramural soccer teams?

5\. market yourself to startups that want their folks to come in before just
getting free lunch--like a jumpstarter for their day. Maybe they'd pay a bit
to see if you can get their engineers in by 9:30-10. 15-20 bucks for an extra
hour or two of work sounds like a stellar rate for a top flight hacker...

Honestly though man, I'd use this as a vehicle to learn about starting up and
not as the roadmap. Take all the gravity out of the situation. This should be
a fun experiment to learn how you and your team operates, how you adapt when
you're not getting traction, nothing more.

I respect the hustle, but this most likely will not work out. If I have time
to wait for you to deliver coffee, I have time to make myself some.

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kylemaxwell
If I want coffee at home, I make it at home.

If I want to get coffee someplace (and in my area, for better or worse
Starbucks is nearly the only option), then I'll go somewhere because I want to
see something besides the same four walls and my lovely family.

Paying coffeehouse prices plus a convenience fee just to sit at home and save
myself the few minutes it would take to make coffee seems like it will have a
very small target market, at best.

~~~
corin_
It's different for different people. Every day somebody from my office (it
varies who) will drive a mile and back to pick up a few cups of coffee from
Costa (a chain insanely similar to Starbucks, if you don't know it - started
in the UK, very, very big chain).

Some people pay the extra to drink it somewhere else, some pay for the
convenience of "I don't have to bother making it", and some pay because they
prefer it to what they make at home.

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TomGullen
$15 a month, seems very cheap, is it even possible to run this profitably? Who
delivers them? How are they paid?

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michael_fine
So, currently my cofounder and I will be delivering them, but probably will
ramp up hiring with increased volume. If we serve 300 people day one, $150
dollars is enough for the gas money and a little profit. But we're still
working on pricing, so if you have any ideas, we'd love to hear them.

~~~
Alex3917
Unless you're Santa Claus, delivering 300 orders of coffee in a day is flat
out impossible.

\- First, everyone is going to want them within a two or three hour time
period.

\- Second, you're going to have to go to Starbucks after every order or every
other order or else the coffee will get cold by the time it's delivered.

I think you can reasonably deliver 4 per hour, maybe 8 if you get really good
at clustering them together. So I think more than 25 per person per day is
going to be unreasonable, and realistically probably more like 15.

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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.

~~~
michael_fine
Yeah, demand delivery pricing is a good idea as well. I did coffee for a
couple reasons: one, because I love coffee. 2: Because aside from laundry,
it's the most universal.

~~~
corin_
Consider adding other "universal" things that can fit easily on top of coffee.

For example I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, and other than when I remember
to buy a carton ahead of time I generally end up going to a shop each day
specifically to buy them, they don't fit my general groceries timetable.

Somebody already suggested newspapers... maybe a few other easy-to-deliver
snacks/drinks (can of coke, crisps..)? I'm sure there's some more things that
X% of people are already buying once a day and would like to save hassle on.

The more you bring, the more the delivery charge looks good to the customer.
Let's say each day you brought me a coffee (at cost), a pack of fags (at cost)
and a can of coke (buy in bulk you could sell at retail cost and make some
money there), still charge $1.50 delivery fee, but suddenly you're saving me
three times as much hassle.

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maybird
Kozmo for Coffee?

For many people, part of the point of going to a coffee shop is the social
interaction and serendipitous encounters.

Good luck tho! :)

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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?

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philip1209
1\. You don't specify a locality

2\. You could scale this more easily with TaskRabbit.

3\. A flat monthly rate will run you into the ground. Example: I order 10
drinks every morning delivered to my office. Or, if you limit to one
drink/day, as head of this company I could buy a year of this for all of my
employees, then together they remember to order on a daily basis.

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corin_
Are you actually planning on buying from a shop and then delivering as
everybody assumes? If you are, have you considered:

There's a step between being a Starbucks customer and being a Starbucks shop.
See for example <http://www.starbucks.com/business/office-coffee>

I don't know how costs would improve/get worse, but I imagine it would at
least be operationally easier if you could brew on the road rather than
constantly having to go back to the shop, and dealing with drinks getting
cold.

Potentially I can imagine them selling you branded equipment (cups, tissues
etc.), coffee (just big bags) and the extras you might need (e.g. syrups),
then as long as you made it well, so as not to give them a bad name, they
could just leave you to it.

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bergerj
Think a little differently. This guy delivers bagels...
[http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/magazine/what-the-bagel-
ma...](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/06/magazine/what-the-bagel-man-
saw.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)

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benblodgett
I think this app would be most effective in suburbs and not city centers.
There are coffee shops everywhere (especially in NY) - it would actually waste
time to wait for coffee then it would to walk down the block.

~~~
georgemcbay
It doesn't work well in either place. It fails in the city for the reason you
mentioned and fails in the suburbs because people live too far away from each
other for them to attain any kind of useful economies of scale.

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EdwardTattsyrup
Every bubble needs a webvan.

~~~
watmough
Webvan split!

edit: source
[http://search.dilbert.com/search?w=webvan+split&x=0&...](http://search.dilbert.com/search?w=webvan+split&x=0&y=0)

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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...

~~~
chris_p
I assume they can order and deliver more than one coffee at the same time. By
using bags, delivery boxes or something.

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dclowd9901
I kept thinking the next step was a generalized, personalized, on-the-spot
concierge, but this app makes me think the best path to that is to go in
through some small service, like coffee, or laundry.

I like it.

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politician
Will the Google Car make these sorts of low-value home delivery businesses
viable?

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sunyata
Coffee? You're gonna go out for THAT?

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tobiasbischoff
wow, a business model that bets on the lazyness of american people! where can
i invest?

