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Who is your target? If people want good tasting coffee, like a connoisseur, one would like the option of selecting the type of bean, where it is sourced from, h
by truthexposer 10y ago
Who is your target? If people want good tasting coffee, like a connoisseur, one would like the option of selecting the type of bean, where it is sourced from, how it's roasted, how it's ground, how it's brewed etc. People even vehemently oppose and stand by brewing methods, which to an ordinary person who doesn't care about coffee, wouldn't care about.
And if someone is buying instant coffee anyways, I doubt they care about the taste, or have preferred methods of milk/cream and sugar that would make any drown out any nuanced/bad flavor of ANY coffee.
- pkulak 10y agoI wouldn't mind good instant for traveling. I used to use the Starbucks stuff, but they seem to have abandoned it. I've also taken my grinder and a bag of beans with me, which is... less than ideal.
- freese 10y agoYeah... I just can't be bothered by carrying those around anymore.
- freese 10y agoEven though I own pretty much every coffee brewing device I use Sudden at home every morning. It's just so much easier. It's never going to be better than a really well brewed coffee but it's just sooo easy and still really solid.
- wasd 10y agoI don't know how common it is but I bring an aeropress and hand grinder whenever I travel. It's a ton of work and sucks. I drink pour over everyday (dial in temp, grind, ratio, and draw time for every new coffee), make iced coffee during summer, and subscribe to a coffee service. In theory, this would work better. I have no idea if the addressable market is big enough but I certainly wouldn't mind trying it.
- jazzabeanie 10y agoI actually like to process of grinding and pressing. Bag space is the only downside, and the reason I don't take my aeropress and grinder with me when I travel.
- zloof 10y agoWould 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 https://www.suddencoffee.com/?trial=true We have a lot of customers who go through a similar experience. They use Sudden maybe 1-3 days a week when really busy and then pour over on others days when they have time. The pour over is still pretty enjoyable if you have the time.
- brusch64 10y agoI don't like your subscription model and I don't like how your positioning yourself in the market. It feels like the Nespresso (I think that's Keurig in the US with a similar model) of instant coffee. But I would like to test a couple of cups of your coffee with friends. I never drank a good instant coffee so I really wonder how a good instant coffee tastes.
- elxavit0 10y agoI'm not a fan of this model (yet) either. It's a big reason why I haven't cycle-"automated" other services I use. But if there's an on-demand sales model available, I'd love to try it out as well. I enjoy good coffee, but I also drink lots of bad coffee - I'd go broke on coffee alone otherwise.
- brusch64 10y agoI am the same.. as soon as something is a subscription model I am asking myself if I really want it. But a cup of great instant coffee could be awesome. Especially when you are camping or on music festivals. These were the only times I was using instant coffee. If their price point stays the same you won't save much on their model. From a price standpoint I don't know if there is something much cheaper than buying coffee beans and making your own coffee.
- RussianCow 10y agoI don't have any evidence to support this other than anecdotes, but I would bet there is a much larger group in the middle than you imply. Plenty of people (myself included) appreciate good coffee without being fanatical about it. If you can offer the same taste as pourover without the work, I think you can capture quite a significant portion of the market. But then again, I could be overestimating that based on my own biases.
- _eht 10y agoI'm in this portion of the market, and as such, I've subscribed to try it out.
- freese 10y agoThanks for giving us a try!
- Johnnybe 10y agoI'm also in this segment of the market. However, only when pressed for time, which is during the week. On the weekends I take my time and brew pour overs.
- freese 10y agoThis it the whole idea - we don't try to replace all your coffee rituals but rather help you drink great coffee when you otherwise wouldn't be able to.
- 2muchcoffeeman 10y agoI really love my coffee. I roast at home. But if I need to travel or whatever I will pick up the best instant I can find. If this is as good as they claim, I'd buy it.
- freese 10y agoHere's a short review by Oliver Strand, the coffee critic at NYTimes: https://nyti.ms/2mK8Frw https://nyti.ms/2mK8Frw
- DamnYuppie 10y agoI know lots of people who would pay for good instant coffee for a few weeks out of the year. I like to backpack and many people love their coffee and jump through hoops to get their fix in the backcountry. They would definitely be into good coffee that is portable and instant with just hot water.
- throwaway729 10y agoYes. You definitely need to market this to the backpacking crowd. They'll blow $100's on light, compact gear and then shove beans + grinder + aeropress on top... and then deal with the mess. Or at least, I will :) The subscription model isn't great in this respect. I travel up to a dozen times a year and backpack at least a couple weeks per year (in aggregate). So that's 3x2x12 (3 cups per day of travel for each work trip) + 3x14 (backpacking trips). And probably another dozen or three here or there for random stuff (full-day bike rides, long drives, run out of beans @ work, etc.) If I like Sudden, and especially if it's better than Starbucks drip served at airports, I'd use it for all of these things. But I'm not going to+ sign up for a subscription because the vast majority of the year I'm happy with my espresso machine at home and decent drip at work. It's not like hygiene products where I just need a steady drip. My demand for instant coffee is very bursty. I expect that's true of others as well. Maybe the logistics just don't work out without a subscription model, which is fine. And I certainly won't pretend to know what I'm talking about. But you're definitely losing one potential customer by forcing me to do a monthly subscription :) Also, something is confusing in your ordering page. How many servings of coffee do I get for $19? I feel like that'd be useful information to have somewhere on the order page. Is it 8 cups of instant grounds? Or enough instant groups for 8 "cups" of coffee? -- + well actually, I am to try it out. But I won't mess with starting/canceling the subscription in the future. If you gave me a way to schedule things though, that would convert me for sure, assuming I enjoy the coffee.
- zloof 10y agoIt 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 from travelers and backpackers - that makes it a lot harder to serve (it's hard to get in front of you right around when you'll need it). A big part of our mission is serving coffee for everyone's need - we have some people who use it camping, we have others who use it on the way to work. There is room for both.
- zloof 10y 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 them buy 2 x $5 latte drinks at a cafe. 100% of these people drink their coffee for the taste (although they have different taste preferences). The average person who goes to Blue Bottle daily actually doesn't know much about the beans, where it's sourced, etc. This is a big misconception that we uncovered last May. These people are Blue Bottle loyalists who love the brand, but they really just want a good cup of coffee that makes them feel good. They don't care what country it came from and they don't really know what light roast vs dark roast is. This is actually a HUGE market of people. The middle is much larger than the fringes. Btw, I've said this in other places on the thread - we completely love people who are super into coffee and I still think we make a good product for those really into it, but I just want to highlight the large number of people in the middle who we often forget to talk about.
- jeffdavis 10y agoMy anecdote: I think I'm in your market, too. Basically, enough people around me like good coffee that I'm spoiled. I'm not a big coffee drinker and not terribly picky, but I do have a taste for the good stuff.
- Qwertious 10y agoI'm probably in the target market too - I've never really gotten into coffee because it tasted like crap. Except, occasionally I get a coffee and it's actually not bitter for once, and I'm like "oh that's actually kind of nice". But frankly, I'm not willing to go out of my way to pay $3.50+ for it. That really adds up over time. If it were cheaper, I'd be all over it. Like, $1.50/cup, say. I mean, it still adds up over time, but by an order of magnitude less. Plus, it doesn't add up in terms of sugar like soda does. https://xkcd.com/1793/ https://xkcd.com/1793/ ...so, maybe I'm not in the target market just yet. Hopefully you'll get a decent economy of scale going. ^_^
- freese 10y agoThe cool thing with instant coffee is that the whole concept is something that just works much better at scale - sourcing, roasting, brewing etc. We have solid plans to bring the cost down while improving the quality as we scale. At some point we'll build our own mega factory.
- hkmurakami 10y agoI would love to have this when I'm on a flight! There might be some customer facing bigcos with a service component that might buy into this as a differentiator, especially in their premium cabins.
- odonnellryan 10y agoI like good coffee: I don't care where it comes from. I like how I'm making coffee right now and where I get my coffee from, but this seems interesting for stuff like camping, hiking, and so on. You can like good coffee and be interested in good instant coffee.
- freese 10y ago+1
- odonnellryan 10y agoBought 40, by the way, to give out. Will buy more if people love them. Won't replace my whole-bean subscriptions, but will be a great way to get a good cup of coffee away from my home, and a great gift for my dad who likes instant coffee. One suggestion: let us buy without a subscription, even if it costs 10-20 percent more. I don't want to subscribe to this service for the above reasons. :)
- miraj 10y ago+1 for the non-subscription request. I've told a few people about Sudden few weeks earlier, and the subscription only option is a bit downer. A pop-up store type experience in major coffee cities in N.America (including Canada pls.) would be a good way to get the word out about Sudden.
- freese 10y agoWe've been planning a pop up for a while now. First one will probably be in SF, then hopefully around the continent!