13 ms·
YC Backs Portable Coffee Stand Called Wheelys (YC S15) to Take on Starbucks
- farnsworth 11y agoCool, it's not just a portable coffee stand, it's a company that sells cheap portable coffee stand franchises and (appears to) make franchising really easy - http://www.wheelyscafe.com http://www.wheelyscafe.com I want to know whether there are any in Seattle. It would be nice if there was a map of active Wheelys on their website.
- kenrikm 11y agoMy question is this, once someone buys the franchise what prevents them from just using their own cheaper coffee? If they have not figured that part out then they will need to soon.
- hayksaakian 11y agosame logic as any franchise, right?
- hkmurakami 11y agoFrom article: >If buyers operate under the Wheelys brand, they need to ascribe to the product line, which is all fair-trade and organic. This is a typical franchisee arrangement to ensure quality uniformity across the franchise [1]. Not following this would be a breach of contract with potentially grave consequences. [1] This can seriously hamper a franchisee's ability to make profit / be creative, as is the case for Family Mart convenience store franchisees in Japan.
- DrScump 11y agoPlus, the franchisor can penalize the franchisee, or revoke the franchise outright. Years ago, I overheard a conversation in a Baskin Robbins in which the owner complained about getting dinged for using his own chopped walnuts.
- kenrikm 11y agoWhile that sounds very good on paper, in reality it's going to be an issue unless they have a good way of keeping track of the sales of the franchises. If you buy into McDonalds you have Millions of dollars on the line and performance metrics to keep up with and thus it's easier for the parent company to keep you in line. If you're only investing $3000, it's easy enough to just mix in 50% beans from other/cheaper sources and claim your selling 50% less then you are. This is a solvable problem but to think the agreement they sign will be enough is naive.
- DrScump 11y agoMcDonald's was way ahead of everybody in this element of franchising strategy. Almost everything is McDonald's branded and must be purchased from Martin-Brower, their wholly owned distribution arm. (This is back in 1980, but back then the only food elements not McD-branded were the mustard, produce, eggs, and milk... and even those items had to be purchased from and delivered by Martin-Brower).
- hkmurakami 11y agoMaybe minimums for monthly ingredient purchase by the franchisee? I believe this is not uncommon.
- ElComradio 11y agoThey will send a repo person (possibly a trans pansexual) to bike away with your franchise!
- erichurkman 11y agoYou can still make a lot of money selling picks and shovels.
- vinceguidry 11y agoSelling picks and shovels is only viable for the small entrant if there's an actual gold rush.
- jonnathanson 11y agoI assume they can infer from order volume and replenishment, mapped against cashflow and supposed inventory turns, whether someone is selling their approved products. From there, they can audit franchisees with unusual patterns. Example: My revenues are strong, yet my orders from Wheelys are suspiciously low relative to what sort of inventory you'd expect me to be turning. Red flag.
- gruez 11y agosolution: under-report your revenue as well! bonus: you pay less royalties
- oldmanjay 11y agoYou seem to feel very strongly that businesses should optimize for pathological cases. Most people are not thieves.
- task_queue 11y agoPeople will optimize to cut costs and not consider themselves thieves, but savvy business owners.
- jonnathanson 11y agoSure, but now our hypothetical system-gamer is dipping a pinkie toe into the muddy waters of tax fraud. He has to wonder if taking on that kind of risk is worth getting slightly better margins on sales from a coffee cart.
- antonius 11y agoBesides their newly released app, what's proprietary about this business? What would stop a big coffee company from replicating this at a cheaper cost?
- gargarplex 11y agoBig companies really can't innovate. Its just the law of nature, in order to grow by 10%+ Y/Y they can't serve new markets (they just don't grow quickly enough). So in exchange they buy the successful startups and pay a premium.
- kriro 11y agoThat's way too broad a statement and I don't agree with using "innovate" to mean "hockey stick". While I generally agree that it's harder for big companies to innovate I think the key is to segregate the company into smaller units (Gladwell's "magic number 150"). There's plenty of innovation from huge companies that don't depend on takeovers. Bell Labs is probably the most common example.
- gargarplex 11y agoI will agree that innovate does not mean hockey stick, and I appreciate the clarification; I meant to convey "disruptively innovate" and that happens extremely rarely as a native occurrence in bigcos. I also agree about the "segregate the company" idea; for example Amazon silos its innovation units into separate companies with separate campuses to compensate for the natural organizational dynamic. But I do not know about the history of Bell Labs (except its prestigious accomplishments) and what enabled it to be so effective. Perhaps there is a telling history book?
- shostack 11y agoYeah, I had the same question. Starbucks will likely watch to see if this is successful, and if they are will either acquire them or release their own version with MANY more advantages on their side. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing folks try to compete against entrenched businesses, but there isn't really any sort of major proprietary "moat" here.
- scottm30 11y agoTypo on the front page... "Order the new Wheelys 3. Before it's to late".
- glibgil 11y agoThe campaign page is full of typos. Just read it in an ambiguous European accent and it will all make sense.
- tomasmazetti 11y agoSwedish people are not famous for spelling (or for anything else).
- foobarian 11y agoI played with a lot of Swedes on a MUD, and of all the content creators they were the only ones able to spell correctly.
- DrScump 11y agoHis point may have been that there are some really obvious, ugly typos, especially in the BIG RED BANNER segments (which can only be fixed by redoing the imaged).
- idlewords 11y ago"The Wheelys 1.0 is 100% powered by the sun, natural butane gas and your own body- making it's not only CO2 neutral, but carbon footprint negative" What's the source of the butane? I can't seem to find more info on their site.
- Plough_Jogger 11y agoThe sun, albeit indirectly.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoBy that logic a Hummer is carbon neutral.
- pd1 11y agoThen anything that doesn't use fusion/fission to make carbon is carbon neutral.
- sarwechshar 11y agoI'm very excited about this aspect and their focus on being CO2 neutral. I'm not entirely convinced yet and would be interested to know the energy source split (particularly more about how they use the NBG). Also allowing people to charge their phones is a given really but that's got to be super fast charging otherwise it could get awkward... XD
- infinotize 11y agoAlso, what about the carbon output for the cart, equipment, and consumables?
- oliv__ 11y agoThis is great but are you allowed to just set up shop anywhere you want in a city like that?
- aturek 11y agoMy wife ran a food cart for ~18 months in Seattle. There are a lot of regulations around where you can set up food carts/trucks; most people end up renting spots (for ~$100/day near Amazon) or buying a license for a specific street spot from the city for ~$1100/year.
- devbug 11y agoCan you sublet?
- MariaDeLaCroix 11y agoyes
- eonw 11y agoi hate to be a pessimist, but i really dont see this going far, for a plethora of reasons... but for their sake, ill hope i am wrong. grow your own coffee beans on the cart? yea right, that cart will grow enough beans in a whole year to make a days worth of coffee, if you are lucky. too many, new-agey buzz words for me in that article, along with a LOT of misleading info... building out a small cafe doesnt even cost 100k, let alone 800. and starbucks doesnt pay minimum wage, they offer college assistance and health care. so your own cart doesnt really compare straight across for an hourly wage comparison to be fair.
- liquidise 11y agoThe coffee plants are not a source of beans, but a source of customers. I don't know about you, but that strikes me as one of the most intriguing marketing plays I've seen surrounding coffee.
- artursapek 11y agoExactly, it's all for show. It appeals to people. It's the same reason I grow a Jalapeño plant in my apartment window in Brooklyn, when I could get Jalapeños at any store for less money and less effort.
- eonw 11y agoi guess i fail to realize how a coffee plant on a cart will attract customers... frankly, IMO, keeping a tropical plant alive in a glass box on a cart will be a lot more work then worth. they take 3-5 years before producing and grow to 6 feet in height or more. but as i said in my original post, good luck to them.
- kevin_thibedeau 11y agoI wouldn't be surprised if there are dwarf species that aren't used commercially. Or they could just use young plants and toss them out when they get too big or sickly.
- Stratoscope 11y ago
- fahim305 11y agoWhile it is sexy to brand this (especially for media) as a 'threat' or 'will take on' Starbucks, that should not be the focus and it should instead be about delivering maximum value to its customers, which are likely going to be different customers than Starbucks customers. Starbucks customers go there for the customer experience, not for the coffee - there is better and cheaper coffee elsewhere, even McDonalds (literally). I hope they are laser focused on their demographic and who their customer is rather than try to be the universal solution to coffee. A challenge will be how do you deliver the same exciting experience on a coffee stand without having the focus becoming operations and churning out coffee as quickly as possible. Most people can probably grab coffee at work for free if they wanted to but they choose to go to coffee shops for the "cool factor", and to feel like they are taking a break from their normal routine. If the person(s) running the stand need to be super friendly, engaging, fun, etc. if this is going to really take off, and experience shows us that is no leap of faith as you operationalize and expand locations so quickly.
- tomasmazetti 11y agoRent and costs has spiralled in the big cities, meaning that a customer that sits half a day with a laptop costs Starbucks money. Starbucks profit is in Take Away. Every customer at Wheelys is a take away customer.
- marincounty 11y agoIf Starbucks is smart they will let people sit there all day! The only reason I drink Starbuck's overpriced bitter coffee is because they have been kind to Anyone who walks through their door. They have allowed anyone(including the homeles) to use their restrooms. Although I think that's starting to change? Watch it Starbucks--some of us notice those Managers who take their job too seriously, like its their bathroom. I go to Starbucks because of the welcoming environment--period. I don't like anything they serve. I could go to the coffee shop across the street(the Coffee Something), but I remember the time they asked my friend to leave. (He looked homeless, but was worth a few million dollars.) I will never forget that day, "You get outa here, you don't spend money!" He was actually one of their better customers, but this particular day, the owner was filling in for a employee. He never went back. My friend easily spent $4/ day, and he was there 4-5 days a week. RIP--RBB.
- callmeed 11y agoI really like this and I'm interested in buying one and having someone run it here in my area. What I'm not clear on are the coffee/food costs and margins. The FAQ says you can make $250-600/day. I assume that's gross. It doesn't say what it costs to order the beans, etc. Hopefully the costs are exploitative. Does anyone know what standard margins for coffee/casual food is?
- Mandatum 11y agoCoffee margins for cafe's are about 20-25x, keep in mind without daily grinding you'll be losing most of your pre-ground product within a 48 hours of unsealing. Casual food is usually marked up at 4-5x. (Managed supply/sourcing/pricing for a chain)
- eurosmoove 11y agoFrom the article: "Mazetti estimates that in a decently trafficked location in a dense city, a Wheelys coffee shop might do $400 in revenue per day and keep about $200 after the cost of goods."
- itbeho 11y agoProbably need to factor weather in to any projections of annual income.
- mason55 11y agoYes I came here looking for discussion on that. A good store does $200 a day after COGS? Say 8 hours/day and you're looking at $25/hour, which I guess is pretty far above minimum wage, but is someone for whom $25/hour is an upgrade in a place to spend the $3k to buy in? And if you're operating in a slower area you're not that far from making minimum wage. If I wanted to operate a fleet of them I don't see how I come out ahead after salary, overhead (increased loss from the minimum wage employee) and taxes. Even at $175/day your looking at $21/hour income after COGS, pay someone $12/hour plus taxes and overhead and you're profiting maybe $3/hour/bike. I guess once you get to 30 or so you're starting to make real money. But at that point you have to wonder about saturation of the good spots.
- tomasmazetti 11y agoHi, my name is Tomas Mazetti. I'm one of the founders of Wheelys. I also like the outdoors, though not unreasonable so. I am from Sweden, home of the swedes.
- kriro 11y agoHow does the "live in SV for a while -> demo day" model work for a company like this? Are you doing this like most regular YC companies? Does it involve conquering the SV market or maybe working on the corresponding app or are you actually back in Sweden?
- MariaDeLaCroix 11y agoAnd my name is Maria De La Croix, the other founder of Wheelys. As seen in the video..
- tomasmazetti 11y agoOh, was that you? I thought it was some hired hipster!
- jtwebman 11y agoGreat idea! I'll have to add this to my possible retirement plans.
- tomasmazetti 11y agoYou are warmly welcome!
- bbcbasic 11y agoI'll assume this is an AMA then :-) So how easy is it to ride one of those bikes? Do you have to be particularly strong, and what if you have say 50km to ride in a day to visit all the consuming destinations? I think this could be popular in Australia. We hate Starbucks - it flopped in Australia and there are only a handful of them open in tourist hotspots. Aussies tend to be snobby about coffee and know the name and children's names of their barista. You may do well in AU if the coffee is top-notch. Although the market size is quite small here compared to the US of course.
- pyrocat 11y agoSo... it's a coffee cart? Everything old is new again. edit: bonus video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c59xce_nW5w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c59xce_nW5w
- DrScump 11y ago"Most cities in the world allow for non-stationary selling. That means as long as you keep moving you won't be needing a permit." Hardly. Many cities (essentially every city in the Bay Area, for example) either outright ban peddling on public property or thoroughfares or requires a license for it.
- cma 11y agoMost vs. many. You can't say "many cities I'm familiar with have policy X therefore most cities everywhere have policy X".
- TheHippo 11y ago"Most cities in the world" and "every city in the Bay Area" are two total different things. It baffles me sometimes that to many readers of Hacker News are so US centric.
- milesskorpen 11y agoHe followed that with "for example." The Bay Area is one of the largest metros in the US, it's not an awful example. And he also said "many cities," not "most." I think you took snippets to present this in the worst way possible. Be charitable.
- runamok 11y agoYeah. This gentleman (http://zoomcaffe.com/ http://zoomcaffe.com/) lasted at the Mountain View Caltrain station for a few weeks before he got kicked out (so I heard). It was very welcome. I actually found a reddit thread about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/1wcg6f/caltrain_trying_to_shut_down_coffee_truck_business/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/1wcg6f/caltrain_tr... .
- bmir-alum-007 11y agoI worked at Stanford in the dept which supported housing and dining. Concessions agreements and relationships have to be engaged and signed before setting up shop in an area, regardless of whether someone believes it to be "public." In this instance, it would have meant engaging smctd. [0] It seems like they don't have any sort of formal concessions process or outreach, which is business-unfriendly (uphill battle). Otherwise, the relationship will be adversarial / nonexistent and the business will be finished unless it can legally skirt on a technicality (by moving just far enough out of the muni authority's jurisdiction). There are certain municipalities / area which need certain types of permission... CalTrain land is not technically under the local city's jurisdiction... They like other U.S. transportation authorities have their own police and own rules, like Stanford (ZIP code 94305) and some other universities too. 0. http://www.smctd.com/ http://www.smctd.com/
- jcr 11y agokevin, as YC design guru, do you think a large sign on the top would be wise? I was thinking of something like a two sided /\ sign on top would increase the amount of signage, and increase the height of the signage. A large sign on top that reads "COFFEE" or similar and can be read from a block away might be advantageous. And if need be, it could fold __ flat when not in use (or when local signage laws prohibit it).
- rorykoehler 11y agoThe only reason I ever set foot in Starbucks is for wifi and a seat to work from.
- kylnew 11y agoGiven some of the pessimism in comments about this idea, a certain XKCD comes to mind - https://xkcd.com/1497/ https://xkcd.com/1497/ I'd be really interested to see one of these in Toronto
- shoo 11y agoAs someone fortunate enough to be living in a major Australian city, I am perplexed by Starbucks [1]. It didn't catch on here as we already had something better. One of my favourite cafes is run out of a re-purposed electrical closet in the CBD, with a few nearby tables. They have good coffee. You don't need much space. Wheelys seems like a pretty reasonable idea. Good stuff! [1] http://munchies.vice.com/articles/this-is-why-australians-hate-starbucks http://munchies.vice.com/articles/this-is-why-australians-ha...
- dubcanada 11y agoI keep looking at it debating all the issues I see with this product. But then I keep wanting to buy one... Hrmmmmmmmmmm
- reilly3000 11y agoPortland will devour Wheelys.
- adamio 11y agoHow many Starbucks customers buy just coffee? This is shown to be a hit in European cities, where just based on a guess espresso and coffee is more popular. The majority of Starbucks customers are probably buying mixed specialty drinks. Watching a Sbux barista make just a few drink, they probably go through a gallon jug of milk in minutes at peak times. How much fresh chilled milk can this cart hold? Not saying there's no market, but taking on Sbux seems a bit mis-targeted.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- volaski 11y agoSomething similar to what you say now was said by people when Starbucks was just beginning. "The majority of Americans just drink Folgers and don't care about arabica coffee"
- adamio 11y agoI guess I'm wondering what this offers Starbucks customers that Starbucks does not or cannot, which will steal marketshare? The advantage to a franchisee is obvious, but not so much for Starbucks customers
- defen 11y agoBetter coffee that is less expensive?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hyperbovine 11y agoCoffee that tastes good. Starbucks coffee is just horrendous. I assume they are so successful because they mostly sell glorified milkshakes these dayd. If you don't believe me type "third wave coffee" into yelp and go do a flavor comparison.
- aet 11y ago28 seconds to start a Wheelys? It takes longer than that to make a pour over coffee...
- finkin1 11y agoIs there a map of that shows where all of the Wheelys are in real-time? I'd love to see one in Boulder!
- MariaDeLaCroix 11y agoComing soon!
- bootload 11y ago"More importantly, Wheelys is about pour-over coffee rather than the Italian-styled coffee drinks like lattes and cappuccinos that many popular U.S. chains now use. “If you like the taste of coffee beans, pour over tastes way better,”" Lots of effort in sales but what about the end product, coffee? In my home town, Melbourne, where the locals are raised on expresso, Starbucks was run out of town. [0] Wheely appears to be a trojan brand for expanding other products as well as coffee at the expense of existing franchises in fixed locations. An Uber for fast food products. [0] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-07/32188 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-08-07/32188, http://munchies.vice.com/articles/this-is-why-australians-hate-starbucks http://munchies.vice.com/articles/this-is-why-australians-ha...
- sarwechshar 11y agoT would. E interesting if, for a premium, they allow people to take the Wheelys cart and apply their own branding to it. Which could kick off a whole wave of independent coffee businesses a la Etsy but for coffee and purely offline. I'm not sure if this is the case currently, and it seems you're right. They want to push their own brand and eventually consolidate the different types of food cart businesses (hot dogs, pretzels are too easy but perhaps they steal some ideas from food trucks too).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- fphhotchips 11y agoAs a Melbournian, you should know better than to call Espresso "expresso". Also, and unfortunately in my opinion, Starbucks survives in Melbourne. I think it lives because it stays open longer than most places, giving those who enjoy a late night coffee somewhere to go.
- bootload 11y ago"expresso" yeah good point, I'm thinking Espresso but somehow that black granular in a tin comes out. Do you really think "Starbucks" is making a go of it in Melb? There are a lot of places open late in the city. When in SEA I do pop into Starbucks because they have a place I can sit while I cool down. Maybe you are onto something.
- dsuth 11y agoThis appears to be offering a fundamentally different experience from Starbucks, whose business model, as I understand it, is to offer a bunch of weird, vaguely coffee-related drinks, but more importantly, space to sit down and drink them. With Wifi. There are several variations of these running around Australian cities, however they still don't compete directly with cafes, as they provide a different service.
- vinceguidry 11y ago> space to sit down and drink them. Nope, pretty sure it's coffee. I spend a lot of time at my local coffee shop. Been going there ten years now, know the owners pretty well. I see way, way more people come in, get their coffee, and leave, then I ever see sitting down with their drinks to enjoy the ambiance. Having a bunch of regulars does add character to the place, but the volume of business they do directly likely doesn't even make a dent on the top line. On the other hand, I've seen plenty of intown coffee shops with maybe three tables do brisk business. The real problem with the business model is, unless you can figure out how to give each of these stands a big enough parking lot where you can serve an area larger than your customers can walk to, you're stuck in downtown. Office parks big enough to have their own cafe generally already do, they're unlikely to take you rolling in to compete with them lightly. It's a niche market, which is probably why nobody's tried a franchise model already.
- dingaling 11y ago> Nope, pretty sure it's coffee. The stated goal of Starbucks is to provide the 'third space': He had a vision to bring the Italian coffeehouse tradition back to the United States. A place for conversation and a sense of community. A third place between work and home. The coffee is a mechanism for achieving that ( by making money ). I don't use Starbucks because I don't like their coffee, but I understand what they're doing.
- lmm 11y agoMore and more people are spending more of their lives downtown. It's a growing market.
- 11y ago
- defen 11y agoI don't understand how a pour-over coffee cart is going to scale (scale in the sense of one cart serving many customers quickly). It takes 2.5 - 4 minutes to make a pour over coffee, assuming the water is already boiled and the coffee is ground; and there is a limit, just based on physical space, to how many you can have going simultaneously in one cart, right? The Philz truck in San Francisco seems to handle this alright, but they have 3 people making the coffee and 1 person taking payments, and they're charging 4+ dollars per cup for a known/cult brand.
- kenko 11y agoTheir truck is also much bigger than those carts, meaning they can store a lot more coffee (and water, for that matter).
- morsch 11y agoJust make a bigger batch of pourover when there's a line? If anything it should be faster than the typical espresso style that requires a fixed minimum of 60s of attention per cup.
- 7Figures2Commas 11y agoIn the United States, franchising is regulated by the FTC and state agencies. Wheelys makes multiple references to "franchise fees" on its Indiegogo page but I did a search in California, which requires registration, and could not find any franchise disclosure document associated with this company.
- rajeemcariazo 11y agoI think this will not make a big impact in developing countries like ours because carts are common.
- triangleman 11y agoIs anyone else here immediately turned off the moment a company mentions "carbon neutral"? I'm willing to look past it as a standard marketing slogan, like "natural", "fair trade", etc., but it stands out as a particularly unfortunate bit of language in almost all cases.
- anigbrowl 11y agoNot me. I see it as a plus, not so much on saving the planet as a positive for the balance sheet. Carbon* is an externality, I would prefer to deal with/invest in a business that accounts for externalities instead of just producing them and hoping to evade the bill.
- hueving 11y agoBut in this case, like many others, they are just lying by excluding the carbon from the manufacturing of all of their equipment, their heating source, the transportation of their ingredients, etc.
- ytdht 11y agoNext will be the Airbnb for coffees... and meals, perhaps.
- philliphaydon 11y agoThe bit about Tomas Mazetti in this article... Paints this entire thing negatively for me.
- prawn 11y agoCould easily rebrand and repurpose this at times to work at events or serve a different product category - popcorn for outdoor cinemas, alcohol for private functions like weddings, cordials/lemonades, corn on the cob, etc. Use magnetic or stick-on signage when required. Have portable seating to lay out nearby. Friend of mine bought an old caravan for under $1k and was selling homemade lemonade at street events for a while. Was making hundreds each night, then renting the caravan out for private functions on weekends. Someone entrepreneurial could buy a few of these and set some keen uni kids to work running them for profit share.
- zxcvvcxz 11y ago> Then, he met his co-founder Maria De La Croix, through a feminist organization. As part of that movement, they protested the average pay gap between women and men by burning the extra wages he hypothetically earned because he was a man. Wait what? Hasn't this common misconception been debunked, or at least to be shown to be very insignificant when controlling for obvious variables? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/01/28/fact-checking-the-2014-state-of-the-union-address/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2014/01/... http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20Final%20Report.pdf http://www.consad.com/content/reports/Gender%20Wage%20Gap%20... http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-the-earnings-of-women-and-men-one-year-after-college-graduation.pdf http://www.aauw.org/files/2013/02/graduating-to-a-pay-gap-th... http://www.ne.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.99257.1346412310!/menu/standard/file/anna_sandberg.pdf http://www.ne.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.99257.1346412310!/menu/sta... https://www.med.upenn.edu/gastro/documents/WhogoestothebargainingtableTheinfluenceofgenderandframingontheinitiationofnegotiation..pdf https://www.med.upenn.edu/gastro/documents/Whogoestothebarga... http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/02/24/childless-women-in-their-twenties-out-earn-men-so/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/02/24/childless-wo...
- joelrunyon 11y agoThat's not nearly as good of a talking point.
- PIC 11y agoBased on this piece of information alone, I am going to predict that the founders will fail.
- chaostheory 11y agoI disagree. The founders seem insane. imo it's a trait that tends to do well with the chaos and adversity of startups. It's not for normal people (at least in the beginning)
- ossreality 11y agoYou're a coward. Posting on a throwaway because you know it's a shitty thing to say. You're a loser.
- vonklaus 11y agoMan, part of me thinks this is a terrible idea for a host of reasons but the founders seem really brand-centric and financially savvy. I wish them the best of luck, it is clear success is possible, maybe even likely, but the magnitude is an open question.
- michaelpinto 11y agoI'll go a step further: This smells like a bubble! If you're in a dense urban center like NYC there are already countless coffee stands that already do this (most have doughnuts and a wide range of pastries). But it's a really hard business to be parked in the street. Also that sort of business can't really work in suburbia unless you use the ice cream truck model, which is also very tough. And unlike a food truck you won't do well in bad weather (do you want to drive on of these in the winter in Maine or the summer in Texas?). The idea that this competes with Starbucks also misses the point that people go to Starbucks for a seat and to recharge their phone more maybe even more so than the coffee. Of course this can be a successful business, but you're dead on about magnitude.
- darkstar999 11y agoWhat do you mean by "bubble" in this context?
- michaelpinto 11y agoThe funding of junk. It's not the same as the dot.com era in that era was so much about public companies. But maybe it's more of an angel investment bubble? There just seems to be a great deal of money being pumped into low quality. But you tell me: Do you see this company as game changer that can scale to be something more?
- skatenerd 11y agoI think it's funny that there are portable coffee stands all over parts of Southeast Asia. I wonder if most people realize that the "innovation" involved has to do with franchising and finances, rather than the fact that it's a cart that sells coffee.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoAny time someone says something has zero carbon footprint I know instantly they're full of it. No carbon was burnt in the fabrication of your brand new aluminum coffee cart? Ok.
- argumentum 11y agoChill out .. there is nothing made by man that has a "zero-carbon footprint". Even if you don't burn fossil fuels, merely by breathing you release co2. This is a techcrunch PR launch, and you know what they meant.
- eru 11y agoWhy? Just add an enough of an activity that has negative carbon footprint, and---voila---zero carbon footprint.
- rpedroso 11y agoCarbon neutrality does not mean that atmospheric CO2 is not released at any point, but rather, that any release of carbon is offset in some way. Offsets might include planting trees, purchasing carbon credits, etc.
- sjtgraham 11y agoThe carbon footprint of manufacture could be offset with carbon credits.
- ericfrederich 11y ago$30 Aeropress is all anyone should need
- eru 11y agoThey are going to make pour over, not espresso style coffee.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dpflan 11y agoThere is a distinct disadvantage for not being able to function during almost all seasons and weather conditions. YC also backs the bike startups ViaCycle and Vanhawks, and Wheelys represents the use of bicycles in business. In a future with safe autonomous cars, does that make it safer for a bike culture to really take off? And YC can be at the center of a drastic shift to the next evolutional step of the bicycle.
- hibala 11y agoIt's really so nice to see this kind of business. Kudos to the whole team. I personally feel that you can't take on starbucks, as starbucks is not juz about coffee, but also an place to sit, meet with people along with coffee. So wheelys got to do something about that, at least couple of seat for customers to sit down and have a sip.
- esaym 11y agoMan this is sweet, totally thought about buying one. I'd run my own roasted coffee through it though.
- prapam2 11y agoThis seems like the Tea stalls in India but better designed.
- raverbashing 11y agoStarbucks is not popular because of the coffee Starbucks is popular because of other factors. For example, not shooshing students that go there to use their wifi (which is usually good) Maybe the corporate aspect of it even improves this aspect. Nobody will give a f if I'm there (as opposed to a mom and pop shop) Also the "you know what to expect" factor of chain places also plays a huge part. And as McD is probably beginning to notice, if I go there a couple of times and I have a bad experience, I'm not ever coming back.
- hukep 11y agoIt is a great idea for the take away customers. I'd love to see if the society and market will accept this system. The world changes everyday. Don't worry to create something new.
- mywacaday 11y agoReminds me of this guy who calls to my office building every day. The van does a few locations each day, http://mrcotton.com/ http://mrcotton.com/. He has a few vans on the road, allowed him to pack in his banking job.
- Vecrios 11y agoI love the idea. I see it become a huge success in highly populated cities (e.g. New York).
- thenomad 11y ago"a mobile greenhouse where you can grow your own coffee beans" I'd be fascinated to learn more about the tech behind this. Last time I looked into growing your own coffee, the summary was "don't".
- benkuykendall 11y agoIt doesn't seem at all practical. Given a maximum yield of 30000 lbs/(acre*year) [1], and with an area of < 16 square feet, we get < 1 pound of coffee a year. Maybe you could grow something else. Flowers, strawberries, herbs? [1] http://www.britannica.com/plant/coffee-plant-genus http://www.britannica.com/plant/coffee-plant-genus
- darkstar999 11y agoThey say it grows 100g of coffee. A pour over coffee uses ~15g. You do the math. It's a gimmick.
- erikb 11y agoTaking on Starbucks would mean having nice seats and free wifi. Starbucks is not a coffee company. Coffee is just how they get you inside and start spending money. Or maybe that's different in LA. In Germany there are many shops where you can take a coffee to go with about the same quality as Starbucks but 20-40% cheaper. People only buy Starbucks if they plan to sit in a Starbucks. Never the less, I think Wheelys can take on Coffee2Go companies without problems.
- hyperpallium 11y agoMost YC startups do something new, enabled by new technology - typically the internet. Does this startup rely on some technological development that meant it wasn't posible before? eg in making the whole thing small enough; "pour over" coffee (whatever that is); eff/cheapness of solar panels etc? NB not necessarily a selling point itself, but something that enables one.
- Shivetya 11y agoTwo hundred a day for a well traffic area does not look like much profit, let alone that appears to be before taxes, fees, and other such expenses. This is for a business that would be very dependent of location but also weather. Have these been used inside of enclosed shopping centers/malls? Is the kiosk size cost many of those charge worthwhile to a business such as this? How about at airports? How are small setups like this treated by cities with regards how some do not seem to care for food trucks?
- a_lifters_life 11y agoI really like the concept actually. Its almost like what food trucks have done to some brick/mortar companies. I dont think this will take on starbucks, but appeal to a millenial userbase.
- Keverw 11y agoWatched the video... Why do they have a guy screaming in the middle of the video. So annoying and unprofessional, and I'm listening with headphones. But anyways, seems like an interesting idea and concept. But looks like no free Wi-Fi or a place to sit, which I know some people love that about Starbucks.
- netcan 11y agoMazetti has a background in quirky projects. He and his team once illegally flew into Belarussian airspace and dropped several hundred teddybears carrying pro-democracy messages out of a plane Woah! This is a pretty hardcore version of #4 here: http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html