Was there ever a start to begin with!?
Not sure when I exactly ”came up with the idea” nor do I know when I really started working on my project,… but does it really matter right?!
Before actually starting anything, I went around in numerous circles asking myself questions like:
- Do I built it myself (tried webflow.com, bubble.io, https://www.codingforentrepreneurs.com, did a Codecademy (bootstrap mainly) course but didn’t finish and more but I don’t recall)
- Do I hire someone on Upwork?
- In the end I shared my idea with a more technical colleague and now where the two of us.
But to be honest, I think I just wanted to be an entrepreneur but I didn’t had an idea to start working on. I guess that’s also the reason why I started several courses and didn’t really finish.
In that period of trying out courses/software I was getting more and more interested into coffee, specifically coffee beans and the question “How do I make a great cup of coffee”… I mean who doesn’t I would argue ;)
How it started (I guess)
So I signed up for a barista workshop in my neighborhood, bought a book about coffee beans and was starting to emerge myself into coffee beans. Not long after I found a handful of specialty coffee roasters which I bought beans from, and answered for myself that initial questions “How do I make a great cup of coffee”.
That was the moment I was like, okay let’s see if I use this as my idea. I am convinced that quality products with a story attached to them make compelling offerings so let’s give this a try.
I still remember telling one of my friends about the workshop, the quality coffee I found and the intention I had to start a project. That was a real milestone for me personally because she basically said “Can you get me a box of the coffees you buy every month?” … And voila, see there I had my first (friend) customer who was willing to pay me every month to ship her quality coffee.
Beanzz.coffee was born, I built it with Bootstrap in combination with Google forms for sign up…. Not very long after I showed this to that colleague
We’re currently finishing the core of our subscription management web app. Building on top of Django and Oscar, and will probably use tailwind for the front-end. Sendgrid for email and Whatsapp for customer support. Replacing everything that lives on beans.coffee today.
I currently have 8 customers monthly who are getting coffee beans that I carefully select, all friends/family so still yet to see how it will go with unknown folks.
I’m thinking about a limited release to gradually onboard more customers and stay in control a bit.
