timgriffin77

Remote North America ... trying to manage time zones really, so anywhere within those areas!

Craftwork | Computer Vision Engineer + Full Stack Engineer | Charlotte, NC | Full-Time | Onsite + Remote

Craftwork (https://craftwork.com) is building a tech-enabled home services startup, and we just raised a $3.5M seed round led by Lachy Groom.

We're actively hiring for a Computer Vision Engineer and a Full Stack Engineer - learn more at https://angel.co/company/craftwork-homes

So much for free speech, this is the definition of policing information - can’t believe this is what will actually bring Twitter to its knees.

Glad to hear it - feel free to shoot me a note with any questions - tpg (at) cloosiv dot com

Ah, sorry about that. Yeah there are quite a few stats maintained on the ssca.org website. Harvard also maintains statistics about coffee consumption, and Huffington Post did a big expose on it, as well. There's also a lot of good information from the National Restaurant Association, Statista, Mordor Intelligence and Mintel.

Certainly a low barrier of entry, but there are two things we keep in mind -

1) we don't think this is a winner take all market 2) but if it were, the strongest network will win

At this stage, it's about building the largest network as quickly as possible.

2 years ago I would have agreed with you, and to a point I still do - it seems like it would be simple to just walk in with cash and walk out with a coffee. But, it's undeniable how willing customers are to avoid friction, especially when they haven't had any caffeine yet.

Also, Starbucks is on pace to process over 15% of their annual revenue through their mobile app this year, it's by far the most popular payments app in the U.S. and shows no signs of slowing down.

Good questions all around! What's surprising is that the 220M figure only accounts for daily purchases. Americans actually drink over 400M cups of coffee every day. A cup is definitely an odd metric to measure by, it's just the simplest term to define a coffee or espresso-based drink.

To clarify, this is measuring the U.S.-only, the global market is obviously much larger. I know it may seem high, but it's a lot easier to put into perspective that the average American over 18 years old drinks 2 cups of coffee per day.

In terms of competition, because coffee is just now warming up to the concept of pick-up, and the majority of the order-ahead market is delivery-focused, we are at an advantage for optimizing that pick up experience and gaining traction from there. We partner with shops that offer every mobile ordering service, we partner with others that only want one - it'll certainly be something we keep an eye on as we grow.

Really great insight! Caviar is a good example of how a hybrid approach can work, especially to your point that most people don't recognize that Square owns it. Perhaps branding played into the decision, but they shut it down just after acquiring Caviar, which makes sense.

We'd love to work with Gregory's! Feel free to tell them about Cloosiv and send a referral through.

Spot on - adding new shops is our primary focus right now, if you have a shop you go to a lot, telling them about Cloosiv would help a ton.

Thank you, appreciate it!

Sorry about that, I didn't do a great job of clarifying. What I meant to say is that we haven't encountered that type of pushback nearly as much as we anticipated. Owners tend to understand the concept and most are interested in improving their competitive advantage. The primary concerns we face are around fulfillment and customer expectation, but we'll likely continue to run into more shops that are simply uninterested in this sales channel.

I think that's a great idea. Not surprising, but our highest volume tends to be at locations in or directly around large corporate offices. That and hospitals.

We'll definitely look into this, I appreciate the suggestion!

Completely agree with a lot of your points, we run into coffee shops every day that are hesitant to offer something like this. That said, resigning themselves to the fact that a chain exists is a surefire way to go out of business. Most of the shops we speak with are actively looking for ways to maintain the quality you've noted, while simultaneously attracting more customers.

In terms of scale, we're asked about fragmentation a lot. Chains like Starbucks and Dunkin' will never use Cloosiv, but there's no reason to believe that as our network grows, that we can't support large regional chains (Joe Muggs, Dollop) and even national chains (Caribou, La Colombe, etc.).

For now, we're hyper-focused on building out that network, by adding any interested shop as quickly as possible. That may appear fragmented across the country, but as we increase our speed we'll be able hit a critical mass quickly.

I fully expect it, but our goal is for that not to matter by the time they do. Both of those co.'s recently announced features that directly compete with other startups: 1) Ubereats announced an order ahead and dine in option, the exact same feature that Allset built as a foundation 2) Doordash announced a group order feature, the exact same feature that Ritual built as a foundation

It's only a matter of time until they attempt to carve into another aspect of food ordering, but we're confident that if we stay focused on supporting our target market (coffee) and building the best possible product for that industry, it won't be a concern.

Hey - very cool!

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.

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, 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.

When we started I thought the same thing, but quickly came back to earth when the data highlighted just how much coffee people drink in other places (think diners, bakeries, cafes, etc.). In fact, McDonalds is the #1 global chain for coffee sales, because if there's one thing that people love more than coffee - it's cheap coffee!

Same! I couldn't believe it either.

If you're interested, look into Luckin' Coffee too - their rise to power is remarkable.

Definitely important, thanks for asking. We haven't solved for this yet, a couple ideas weren't well received by owners. I think when we roll out a user profile option, we can start introducing some sort of tagging system to associate a number of different solutions for things like student/military discounts and reusable cups (i.e. pay on the app, get the drink when you arrive.

Another option that will roll out soon will be issuing a card that can be used in digital wallets like Apple/Google Pay. One of the best ways the delivery apps (DoorDash, Postmates, etc.) gained traction was not having to ask permission to list places like Starbucks on their app. They could get traction at a location and use it win sales with big brands. By releasing a card payment option, we'll be able to effectively do the same thing.

Good question. Most of the shops we work with use a POS system on a tablet like an iPad, so they just use the Cloosiv Merchant app to field orders. If they don't have a tablet or phone we offer them a tablet they can use while they're accepting Cloosiv. In the future, it's our goal to complete integrations with the major POS providers so any shop can use the app.

Yep - they tried to build it twice I think. We were worried about that when we started, because we knew a partnership with them would be helpful. After working with them for a while now, I think it's clear they still believe in the opportunity.

In terms of why it didn't work out, I think there are two factors to consider:

1) it wasn't their flagship product 2) they had a capped market of support. In essence, they could only build a network of locations within their existing ecosystem, and despite that being large, it wouldn't be big enough to win the space.

I think a 3rd party is most likely to succeed here, because we can facilitate integrations with all of the POS providers, and build a really big network that way.

Thank you - the startup community in N.C. is small, but that also means it's supportive!

Thank you - and we definitely have a web app on the roadmap (ChowNow does this well).

We were able to solve the varying menus relatively quickly, because after building hundreds of them we realized how similar they were - just random variations of names, sizes, prices, etc. We built out a core menu with built-in descriptions for common items, and we just modify those based on what shops want.

In terms of incumbents, to be honest we haven't spent much time worrying about this. If they build something to compete, so be it. The only thing in our control is how we build the product and network at this point, so we're staying focused on that!

Sorry about the mixup, I had mistakenly changed the link the app was redirecting to, but it should be fixed now. Regardless, you can submit referrals here (https://www.cloosiv.com/invite-a-brand)

Completely agree - definitely a feature, we're building (Bird as a great UX for this, if you haven't seen it).

Also familiar with CUPS, subscription plans were/are such a gamble for shops, but I can see why it was tempting to try. I think they're still operating in some capacity, but they definitely have a limited consumer presence.

Thanks! It's not super obvious (working on a redesign), but you can tap on the "explore" button from the homepage to take a look at the app without creating an account.

Really good point, scaling around existing tech has been a focus for us since day one. Of the 300+ shops that have committed to using Cloosiv, 90% of them are on Square. This makes the upfront work easier, because they can just run our merchant app in the background of their iPad.

As we scale, it'll be important for us to integrate directly into software like Square (which we're currently working on, we're partnered with them), so shops can just install the Cloosiv app from their terminal and have orders and reporting flow through the existing software in place.

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 people (customers, random strangers, etc.), and it's clear that they'd go to their local shop more often if this were an option. It doesn't mean that they'll use Cloosiv for every visit, but if we can be there when they don't have a lot of time, that's a win for the coffee shop and the customer.

Really great suggestion, definitely something we could do in the future. We just rolled that service fee out this week, so we're watching it closely. Right now, we offer 5 free purchases regardless of how the user pays, but something that's already clear is that we'll need to remove it from the stored balance reload.

As we add payment options like ACH, PayPal, etc. we'll have more wiggle room to adjust the fee based on the final payment method, and establishing a running total like you suggest could increase that variability even more.