Newsletter #8: Building the Right Tools

 Products - 

Gift Cards - The image above outlines the logic for releasing gift cards. Why would someone want to buy our gift cards, and how would they make their lives better. We built a storyboard for them which you can follow along above. It's a little whimsical, and that's how you make them interesting.... 

Boss Buys- A promise was made to build a process for working with businesses to rekindle the joy that was taken by COVID. Gone are the short walks to the cafe to vent to a co-worker about a project; we don't make time to have a boss pay you back for covering for them in a meeting; no more marathon last mile sessions to bring a project back on track for a successful completion. What's most challenging is the loss of communication that comes from coffee breaks. Those moments were critical for the tribal support that goes beyond organizational communication. Our marketing team distilled a process to rekindle the morale boost that coffee + conversation offers. On the feature list are live tastings from the roasters and lessons from internationally renowned, award winning Baristas. 

Challenging assumptions:

We've always feared building something that coffee consumers, cafe owners, baristas, and roasters don't want or need, or are not willing to pay for. There are countless case studies of companies that plunged headfirst into the "if you build it - they will come" attitude with devastating outcomes.  November helped us double down on a proper customer discovery and validation phase for our current and future projects. Early results were positive, however they were deprioritized to focus on revenue generating products. 

New Teammate!

Here's a list of what our new Marketing Manager will be working on: 

1- Labels / packaging

2- Customer facing product pages

3- Website design and copy. 

4- Social media

5- Communications / press releases  

6- Operations and workflow design

Science:  Strike

We also were pleasantly surprised with the approval of our research grant. Collaborating with University of Ottawa, we are in a position to build protocols for genetic testing. Another lesson learned from the roaster community is that they could use a scientific hand to understand how much caffeine is in their beans. With great respect, there is care taken to report flavors, however only a general sense for how much caffeine is reported in each coffee. So, what? It means that we will have to test coffee for caffeine in the lab as a part of the product.

What’s next? 

1 - More customer validation for the new products. Go check them out at beveragegenetics.com! They’ll appear after you have your results.  

2- Online marketing?