I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science – now I sell coffee online | Hacker News Reader

I have a Ph.D. in Computer Science – now I sell coffee online

blog.moustachecoffeeclub.com

17 pointsreillyse18 comments

Open articleView on HN

Am I the only one who was really excited until it turned out he was selling coffee?

I was excited to read it until I read your comment and found out he was talking about coffee.

I thought I was going to read an article about the founder of Silk Road..

Yea that or just some dude selling K2 out of his basement would have been fine by me

Promotional article with no content and a link bait title. Carry on.

Perhaps I did write a great protocol for communicating among nodes in a network, how would I go about marketing that and selling it to somebody?

It makes much more sense to work in the opposite direction: start with an idea for a product and use your specialized knowledge in the implementation details.

On a related note: I think it's a mistake to do compsci R&D in a startup. If you run into a problem that can't be easily solved by today's common algorithms, data structures, and protocols, it makes more sense to "weaponize" an existing PhD thesis than to build something from scratch.

After all, startup rule #1 is "Make something people want." People want products. They don't care about the underlying technology.

Right, so I guess that's the point I'm making. People want coffee. Large companies want computer science R&D.

Hmm, I was intrigued by this service until I read the following on the main page: "Just Say no to Dark Roasts. Roasting cheap beans to a dark smoky stage masks the bad flavors in the beans...Anything else would be sacrilegious!"

You just made a mortal enemy! :)

In all seriousness, it doesn't seem like it would hurt to expand the offerings to darker roasts.

So, my preference for lighter roasts is related to the fact that we only offer single-origin beans. Basically you can nuke any bean into taste oblivion (much like starbucks do). The opposite of this is roasting as light as possible and letting the subtleties of the bean shine through. You can only do this though with really good quality green beans. So to answer your question in another way, plenty of people are burning the crap out of cheap beans, we are differentiating by not doing that and focusing on lighter roasts.

I don't like Starbucks' beans but for two exceptions: their "reserve" single-origin line (http://www.starbucks.com/coffee/reserve), and their espresso roast. I'm actually surprised I haven't found a better espresso roast...Lavazza, Illy, surprisingly nothing else measures up. Their reserve line is also dark roasted (or nuked to taste oblivion, depending on your viewpoint :P), but those are generally still my favorite for the French press or Aeropress or Clover machine. I've tried plenty of lighter-roasted single-origin beans from a local roaster in my town who has the same opinion as you. I always give them a fair shake, but it's just not my thing.

I guess my point is, you may be turning away paying customers based on personal preference. My local roaster also thinks dark roasting is sacrilege, but does it nonetheless because ~half of his customers prefer it.

For espresso roasts have you tried the Dapper from Handsome Coffee? Probably my favorite espresso at the moment. Regarding the dark roasts, a large part of my service is the curation angle. I'm promising people that I will find them a great coffee. I really only have my taste buds to rely on for the curation, so I'll end up recommending coffees that I like.

I haven't tried Dapper, thanks for the recommendation. Just ordered a pack. My espresso machine's getting back from repair tomorrow after several months on the DL...can't wait.

OK, I get your angle. If you do ever get into some darker roasts though, let me know...e-mail's in my profile.

It's me or more and more upvoted articles here try to sell you something ?

I did notice that too.

I think it's happening more as HN readers recognize the (personal) benefits of having something hit the front page.

bah, disliking other human beings never stopped misanthropic professors getting stuff done!

Collaborating with other humans is a requirement to do anything big/significant. There are billions/millions/thousands in your planet/country/city block, go find one or two who you can just about stand and do the worthwhile thing you want to.

Or stop moaning about doing boring things on your blog and continue making a living selling coffee, your call.

</personality clash>

I never said I disliked other humans, just that I dislike working for other people. Two very different things.

'for' rather than 'with' - you got me, that's a difference. Carry on! :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com