Let's have coffee.
coffee.tgriff3.com
coffee.tgriff3.com
I've done quite a bit of cold-emailing to reach new mentors and new clients.
One of the things I started doing a couple years ago was to offer buying someone I was cold-emailing a "virtual cup of coffee". I even played with using that in the subject of the email.
I'd say: I'm working on a new product and I wanted to see if it would be handy for them. If they have a chance to talk on the phone or Skype, I'll send over a gift certificate to Starbucks so they could get their favorite drink before the meeting.
Those emails got some nice hit rates in responses and meetings. And you can very easily buy a $5 gift cert. online from Starbucks and email it.
But how easy is it to tie into twitter and a payment system? That'd be the cost.
Starbucks can distribute such costs (which may not be fixed, but certainly won't grow linearly) across a larger number of stores than your local brewhouse can.
(Or is that easier to do than I think?)
I forgot to add the 3rd benefit to the brewery is that I would assume, in general, when people stop in, they don't come alone, and they don't just have one beer and leave. Once they're in the door, they tend to spend more money.
Manipulation: gift + nothing meaningful to share
Kind gesture: gift + something really meaningful to network about
One could characterize it as "manipulation," which has a negative connotation, but it could also be conceptualized as dealing with a person who brings something to the table—that is, who understands that your time / effort is presumably valuable, and that they shouldn't expect something for nothing. Trying to pay outright would be overly expensive and too intrusive, but a small thing like coffee demonstrates that the person wants to differentiate themselves from most people, and that they have something at stake.
People treat "free" as very different than "not free," which Dan Ariely describes in Predictably Irrational, and people treat exchanges in a special way, as Lewis Hyde describes in The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World.
The advantage over Skype with this use case is that you don't need to add them as a contact (especially if it turns out to be someone you decide you don't want to stay in contact with).
Disclaimer: I work for vLine.
After 10 minutes it had reached 15%. What happens at 100%?
Edit: Ah. It finally got moving. It was coffee pouring. As the background. I guess if I didn't have my browser set so I have to approve plugins and it wasn't being HN'd to slowness so it started right up, that would have been kind of cool. As you were then.
In Firefox 26 (Linux x64), a cup of coffee briefly flashes up in the background then disappears. I was confused by the "footage from Beachfront B-Roll" notice at the bottom of the page.
I'd still like the ability to approve/disapprove a site that's about to play a 115meg video file as a background!
(The video _was_ pretty cool, though.)
Is the effect really worth the risk of poor UX? Seems a nice background image would be effective enough.
(I also realize this is nitpicky, but still worth mentioning. Maybe the OP didn't realize some would have a poor UX.)
It's definitely intended as a "background" - not supposed to detract from the site if it doesn't work.
It does make me wonder though... what does the "typical" startup person do to network in SF? It seems like a lot of people locate there (and accept the high cost of living) in order to cross-pollinate ideas and meet other cool people.
But how do you find those people? Are there popular hangouts or events? If so, how do the organizers stop them from sliding into the usual pool of desperate wannabe's pestering the popular people [pretend I insert a dating anecdote here]
My guess is that you hit up hackathons, [linux|ruby|whatever] User Groups, or meetup groups for whatever interests you (with the hope that you'll find others with the same vienn overlaps as you with one of the circles being "tehnology|startup|programming|business")
* How much advance notice do you need tg3? There's a good chance I'll be passing through SFO tomorrow (Wed Nov 6) or maybe Thu. I'd love to reciprocate coffees with you if you are located within reasonable distance to the airport (I'll need a cab or transit) and it fits your schedule. :) Will post to your form when I finalize my plans.
On top of that, you have various things people engage in to meet other people (dinners, stuff like LetsLunch, etc...). The problem isn't really meeting people, its actually avoiding wasting time and going out too much that leads to non-quality eventful meetings.
PS - I'm 24. Only 7 years to go!
If you're company is < 10 people, you're not a CTO or CEO. Putting it down as your title only makes sense in the bay area. Outside of the bubble, it looks ridiculous.
Even _if_ CTO is "technically" your title, it comes across as pompus and immature. Have some humility. A better description is tech founder, tech lead, principal engineer, lead developer, etc.
Mmmm...coffee.
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|`-.._____..-'|
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| |/ /
| / / -Felix Lee-
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`-.._____..-'[0]: https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/blob/master/READM...
*actually, it looks like you've been compromised. There are spam links all over your home page.
Great to see someone made a website like this, I'll give it a try.
Nice thing about an in-person meeting is that it feels (to me) like a lot less effort than typing a bunch of stuff out. But feel free to ask me any questions.
The contrast of the font-color/bg-color however is really bad.
I think just putting an @ symbol between the two boxs would pretty much answer most of these questions.
It's interesting though to see that something I think is quite clear isn't clear and could be improved to someone else. Shows how important testing this kind of thing is (although maybe not in the case of a small site like this).
I'd also suggest Gen Mai Cha as something which is common enough to be in supermarkets or coffehouses but which is a bit different too due to the toasted rice flavor. If you end up in Starbucks, last I went there was a berry-hibiscus "cooler" or something which was decent as well.
My internal data nerd is dying for a follow-up post with a breakdown: * How many site hits? * How many of those turned into actual coffees? * How many of those actually showed up? (as opposed to being no-shows)
Jokes aside, it is a much more positive experience when you meet someone one on one, outside of some meetup event networking shuffle.
I am going to be in SF in January (not for YC, haha) so I will contact your for an American coffee in a few months.
Where in Italy, if I may? Fellow transplanted milanese here.
[I'm always amazed by the number of Italians I find every time I visit SF]
If you just opened up 'the coffee door' semi-persistently, I'm sure you'd meet a lot of people.
Disclosure: It's my startup.
Disclosure: It's my startup :)
I'm thinking about doing something along these lines in college. I'd like to meet more cool people, so maybe I'll set up a table with a sign offering free coffee.
Friend at work tells of a friend of hers meeting a date. The lady picked the bar in New St Station in Birmingham UK. At least 30 police within seconds of there always, and saturation CCTV, has to be the safest meet up place going.