I often feel as though the actual time taken to setup a toolchain is overlooked, and can lead to frustrating conversations, particularly when there are delays even after setup caused by toolchain-related issues.
I put together a 10-15 min read, breaking down hardware toolchains with some advice on decision-making that business/commercial managers can use to hopefully make everyone's lives easier regardless of technical background.
Any feedback on here is welcome, I'm currently writing posts like this on a regular basis and thought this one could be useful to share.
Hey everyone, I'm building a startup that does exclusively decaf coffee and wondered if you guys could share your thoughts on a few things?
To be clear, this post is not intended to promoting anything - rather it's to be really open about what I am trying to build and wanting to know what this community thinks of it!
My Journey into Decaf
At the start of the year, I decided that as much as I enjoyed a coffee in the afternoon, my sleep was taking a hit, and a friend of mine mentioned he was having a decaf filter coffee in the afternoon as he still got the health benefits of coffee, such as polyphenols.
I had never considered decaf as an option, and as a vegan working in an office without oat milk, I wasn't able to have a nice tea (I'm a Brit by the way). After doing some research into decaffeination processes, seeing how natural and healthy it was, my mind was a bit blown, all while halving my daily caffeine intake, and experiencing my sleep improve massively. On the weekends, I'll have a decaf French press coffee in the morning, and sometimes have a decaf espresso in the evenings after dinner - by having decaf, I have found new, better ways to enjoy coffee!
Some of my colleagues have now introduced more and more decaf into their day, and I've realised that there isn't a sole-decaf coffee company, that provides information and options that cater for everyone.
My Motivation
This is why I'm trying to build a coffee company that focuses on decaf - I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, or introduce a new health trend, I want to provide simply one or two decaf options, for example a medium tone (for filter, French press) and a darker tone (for espressos).
The intention of the company would be to be to sell these as either whole beans, or ground initially, then in parallel to provide community spaces like offices with good decaf options, before looking at lesser addressed coffee options (Turkish/Greek style pot coffees).
Where We're at Now
We currently have looked at a bunch of suppliers, and have found one really interested in, we have a website built for our waiting list, and are building our official post-launch one now, which will have options to buy. Our online store is planned to be launched in the next 2 months.
We're also speaking to workspaces (in the UK for now, as we're based here), to see if they would want any of our products and/or coffee machines.
My Question
My question to you all is, would you ever look into something like this? What kind of products do you currently go for? What motivates you specifically to buy a product in particular, is it a taste you enjoy? Knowing it's chemical free?
Feel free to tell me we're wasting our time too, as this is not something we are doing for money. For context, I'm an electronics engineer who's worked at 3 startups, so my motivations for projects are to build things I like, in a way I'd enjoy consuming them and providing value if I can!
This isn't for promotion, but our waiting list is here for anyone interested (we will launch under a different name!).
Hoen Coffee is building a startup that focuses on coffee decaffeinated using the Colombian sugar-cane process. This process is quite common place for decaf, however it has been said that the taste of decaf from this process is preferred amongst the decaf community.
The startup aims to provide value to an under-served community of coffee drinkers, and also provide an alternative option for people who consume too much coffee.
I think an interesting exercise which may or may not be relevant to you is to decouple what you want to be really good at with what you are interested in. I find it a common scenario where people want to get into different fields either because of the perks of the hobby/career or they want to see themselves as good at it.
An interesting exercise is to take breaks from certain areas (probably more feasible with hobbies than with career), journal regularly and think wider than you're used to. If everything you have tried career wise is in software (for example) why not pick up a book about psychology, philosophy, languages, hardware etc.
It's also worth considering that every scenario will have some form of stress attached, one of the questions to ask is what types of stress are you willing to work through to gain from.
Again this advice may or may not be relevant to you, all the best with your journey on it!
I put together a 10-15 min read, breaking down hardware toolchains with some advice on decision-making that business/commercial managers can use to hopefully make everyone's lives easier regardless of technical background.
Any feedback on here is welcome, I'm currently writing posts like this on a regular basis and thought this one could be useful to share.