Post

I just launched a half caff coffee brand in under a week. Why? I like to have 4-5 cups of coffee a day. I like the ritual, and I don't like having to switch to tea.

But after the third cup things start getting weird, and if I have a coffee past about 2pm it affects my sleep. So I got to thinking, what if I could get a premium coffee hit without the full whack of caffeine? So a few months ago I started mixing half caff and half decaf. In a big bowl.

It worked! And for a while (until I fessed up) my wife didn't even notice I'd swapped the beans in the coffee machine.

But the mixing bowl technique wasn't going to work long term, and as I mentioned this to others I'd hear their stories of similar hacks. So began a journey of developing my own blend. A couple of months of very stop start - and ultimately no - progress.

The only problem was I had no name, no website, no brand, no packaging. No clue. Cue a monster sprint to pull together a coffee subscription business in 6 days to beat Christmas delivery. Here’s how it went. Weekend: started working on brand, look and feel. Worked with supplier on coffee.

Monday: Confirmed coffee order, signed up for Shopify, settled on name and brand (not perfect but time wasn’t on my side) Tuesday: picked a theme for the website. Designed packaging and sent to print. Wednesday: Tested website, set up subscriptions

Today: Coffee, packaging and other printed stuff arrived. Tasted (a lot), took (bad) pictures, asked Nano Banana for better ones. Website live.