Hacker News Reader

Comment by md1515 | Hacker News Reader

This is a pretty neat idea. I am not sure if something similar exists (the model is becoming popular, but with tea I do not know).

From a technical standpoint I do not have a whole lot to say. The site is straight-forward easy to share via social media and is pleasant.

In terms of the business model, I worry about a few things. Targeting tea drinkers is fine and even going so far as to targeting organic lovers is good/profitable too. You limit yourself (in my opinion) with the amount of tea. Not everyone who likes tea will like it every single day. Typically this would be fine, but the amount is reflected in the price which is, in my opinion, kind of high. Determine if your margins are too high here because the cost might put some people off. Just my two cents...good luck with it.

View on HN

British guy here ... you don't even want to think how much tea I get through in a day! I live in the USofA and amaze many of my American co-workers with my volume of tea consumed. (Indian co-workers don't even blink, being partial to a nice cup of tea themselves. :-)

Margins vary from tea to tea and are generally slim. There are some teas that I expect to lose money on and others that have slim margins. I'm assuming that marketing the service as less than a dollar a day will go a long way in giving the "affordable" signal.

Since all tea is shipped on the same day and bought in bulk, I'll have to rely on volume to make it a profitable business.

With respect to the amount of tea, I, as a tea drinker, drink multiple cups of tea per day. I figured one cup per day for subscribers would be the ideal way to go.

Okay, well in that case let us both hope there are more people like you than me! :)

I hope so too.

I know there are passionate people for all types of products. I think it was bemmu (an HNer) who started Candy Japan, a subscription service for Japanese candy, of all things. I'd think tea would have a larger market :)

Thanks for your well-wishes.

Are you putting 70 or 80 cents of tea leaves in each cup of tea? I would never recommend a combination of "some teas that I expect to lose money on" and "I'll have to rely on volume to make it a profitable business". Once your service expands, you'll probably allow members to prefer one kind of tea over another and once they 'Like' the good (expensive) stuff, you're cooked.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com