jacktribe

Jared Isaacman responds to this: https://x.com/rookisaacman/status/1845173768722792500

The max volume doesn't help with songs that are far, far louder than others. I have this issue in our coffee shop, where a song that was playing at a normal volume on my AirPods, is extremely loud on Sonos. We flag it and take it off the playlist.

Side note: Sonos is atrocious when it comes to functionality and reliability, and it has only gotten worse recently. I can't discourage people enough from purchasing their product.

The angle of descent is of about 3 degrees, that's far less than the angle at which the aircraft is taking off. Thus the rear facing passengers would be facing down quite steeply on takeoff, and thus likely to vomit the airport lounge food they just had :)

It's not that simple. Something like this hurts the brand.

48v is a pretty big leap forward that I bet other automakers will replicate. So is assembling the interior (seats, console, etc.) onto the battery and lifting it into the vehicle. Also, the rigid wire harness that can be snapped in by robotic arms. The list goes on. I recommend watching some of the teardown videos.

The pedals are manufactured (and likely assembled with the pad) by a supplier in Canada, according to https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/nhtsa-off...

There's still a physical button for the wipers. On the Cybertruck it's on the steering wheel. When you press it to wipe (generally used for spray-washing the windshield), the entire menu pops up where you can choose the speed, frequency, etc.

I'm surprised, to me it always looks & feels very different than most other Western cities, in part due to low-rise buildings and almost exclusively independently operated restaurants and shops.

Most other large European cities allowed for high rises and chain coffee shops & restaurants, to the point where they've started to become indistinguishable from one another.

Rivian really is tapping into a market that's underserved by Tesla with their new lineup, and into an outdoorsy trend that is going to last for decades at least.

I've rented the R1T and R1S through several roadtrips last summer and even though I ended up getting the Cybertruck, had it not be in product yet, I would definitely have purchased the R1T. Rivian is building a lifestyle brand, and an ecosystem of products for adventurers. I'm very excited to see the R3 in person, and ended up preordering an R2 after the event.

It also helps that RJ Scaringe is a very likable guy. My bet is that Rivian becomes one of the top 5 automakers in the world.

Self driving will largely make this topic irrelevant soon, however in the meantime, their time would be better spent developing a measurement of intuitiveness for touchscreens.

With a few exceptions that they've since corrected, in a Tesla operating most functions comes naturally, it's similar to using an iPhone. Even the lack of gear shifter in the Cybertruck isn't throwing me off (though they did put an additional touch control for it by the rear view mirror).

He went through detox 65 times.

This is a forward thinking strategy for a camera maker. Instead of trying to fight the iPhone, they realized that this is a segment of the market they wouldn't capture regardless of the form factor they would adopt for Blackmagic cameras.

We have 4 Blackmagic cameras at xTribe studios and they are great, but when Gen-Z podcasters come in, they'll often just put an iPhone and a Rode shotgun mic on a SmallRig cage.

I fly a lot, and have noticed a very strong smell of fuel several times on various aircraft, while still at the gate just before taxiing to the runway. It always baffles me that passengers don't overreact to it, because it can be very pungent and will cause a mild headache.

I've always wondered how toxic this is. Apparently it's caused by wind blowing jet fuel fumes into the air conditioning intake so it's indeed fumes that make it into the cabin for a few minutes.

As someone who is more interested in building the product than marketing it, I found the following recent reads helpful in achieving a balance:

1. Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore - making your product work for the masses

2. The Cold Start Problem by Andrew Chen - achieving escape velocity, getting viral referral traffic

3. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss - it might seem a bit gimmicky but negotiation always comes off gimmicky

Motivational stories:

4. The Almanack Of Naval Ravikant by Eric Jorgenson

5. The Founders by Jimmy Soni

6. The Upstarts by Brad Stone

7. Hatching Twitter by Nick Bilton

8. That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph

9. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's by Ray Kroc

Can't skip:

10. Zero To One by Peter Thiel

Is there a term for someone that is libertarian inclined, but does believe in a minimal level of government regulation and intervention? A "Lite-Libertarian" of sorts.

The feedback option would be shown on the customer’s phone the next time they open the app, in regards to their previous visit.

If the customer ordered via the POS, it will be shown on the next visit, if they sign in with their phone number (which is used to save your order history for easy reordering).

Oops that’s indeed an error on our part. The medium has 2 shots, the large has 3 shots, so there should be a slight price difference. Will correct in the AM. Thanks!

We have 2 recurring customers that are vision impaired (there’s an apartment building for people with disabilities nearby). We help place their orders, as we would with any customer that needs help using the iPads for other reasons.

Vision impaired people require the same help reading the menu at any other coffee shop, so it’s not any different. In fact it might make it easier on them because they don’t feel like they’re holding up the line. If one of us guides them through the menu on one iPad, other customers can still use the other iPads to order.

On a related note, I did notice that our visually impaired customers have a phone app that I believe scans and reads the text from the screen out to them. Perhaps we should have our own text to speech option in some future version.

Profit sharing only works if you stick around long enough.

In the service industry, and especially amongst young people, it's common to pick up a job like this for a few months and make some money, then move on to something else. And that's okay, not everyone wants to make a career out of making coffee. It's still a good formative experience to have, while earning some money, and there's no reason why you shouldn't do it right and get rewarded for it.

But profit sharing won't work for someone that is around for a summer. For instance that person could benefit from any upswing caused by previous employees, but if they don't add a positive contribution to the customer experience themselves, they won't be around for the long-term impact. And if you don't give them an incentive at all for the first few months, then you're back to square one. Or even worse: they could negatively impact the profit sharing of employees that have been around for the long run.

Ultimately, money is a motivator and pretending like it's not does not make tipping go away. The problem with tipping as I see it, is that it masquerades the real cost of doing business.

Awakening Coffee in Inglewood

Roughly half of the customers do head out as soon as the order is ready, especially in the morning.

We print stickers regardless of to-stay or to-go because it helps us keep track of fulfilled items, and you can easily pass a sticker to a colleague if you need help with an order.

While profit sharing may work as an incentive for shift managers or store managers, in the absence of tips most baristas will expect some other immediate bonus pay, preferably based on a measurable metric that doesn't depend on factors beyond the barista's control, such as cost of goods sold, supply chain constraints, rent hikes, recessions, etc.

If you occasionally ask the customer in-app "how was your service today?" with a simple thumbs up/down option, and you associate the order's rating with the barista behind the counter, you can get a good metric on their interaction with customers. You'd probably want to use the median and not the mean in order to remove any outliers.

If you do, I'll probably make your coffee tomorrow :)

Yep. Didn't want to share it because it's embarrassing how taped together that page is, but I had to put something up in an afternoon, because in the absence of a website people were taking photos of the menu on the iPads to take home.

We're waiting on some decals for the front door that say just that.

It's very interesting observing people use the app in person, as opposed to privately on their phone where you have no idea how they interact with it.

For instance the Stripe Terminal reader is immediately to the right of the iPad POS, but a good number of people don't know where to tap the card. I need to design an arrow on the checkout screen for that because I've seen many people tapping the card to the iPad screen. I think Square got them used to that.

I know what you mean. When the cashier at Whole Foods asks you, it does feel somewhat petty to say no. I think there was a South Park episode on that.

But if the POS asks you, it doesn't feel as personal to turn down the option to donate, don't you think?

Anyway, not married to the idea, but I think there are some people that enjoy the endorphins that result from contributing to a charitable cause (especially when discretionary spending, like on a latte).

We only did it because the pandemic travel restrictions completely wiped off our previous (Bay Area-based) startup in just a few weeks, so I can see it happening.

We've had a few customers that have shown real interest in the POS system because they are small business owners too, and split their time between the register and everything else they have to do behind the counter.

I've started coding it only 5 days before opening, and it's paired with a kitchen app that shows & prints the orders, recipes, etc. They're both very raw and I'm working on v2 right now.

Definitely a space worth exploring. I understand the needs of bartenders, baristas, etc. a lot better now that I'm behind the counter.

Will do.

If anyone is in the LA area and wants to check it out, it's Awakening Coffee in Inglewood. I'm there most days since we've just opened and there are many things to be sorted out. Come say hi.