What Can a Coffee Blending Nozzle Teach About Product Development?

[0:00] hey there and today we're going to talk

[0:02] about something from the project

[0:04] archives so we're going to talk about

[0:07] one of my first

[0:08] projects and since we just talked about

[0:10] provisional patents we'll bring that in

[0:12] too so the idea

[0:15] was how can you make coffee that comes

[0:19] out of a coffee decanter you know the

[0:21] style where you basically just pop it

[0:23] and pour it out into a cup how can you

[0:26] make that have more of a Crema on top

[0:28] like you get in an

[0:30] espresso and so I had a cooworker who

[0:33] was really into this I actually didn't

[0:34] even drink coffee at the time but ended

[0:37] up starting to drink it during this

[0:39] project and haven't stopped

[0:41] since

[0:43] and we had to come up with a a few

[0:46] different ideas basically how can

[0:48] you froth something and we had a few

[0:51] different methods so I'm going to bring

[0:52] up some photos here so the first

[0:57] method was to B basically

[1:03] use

[1:06] a Ultrasonic toothbrush and by putting

[1:09] it in there and frothing it up you ended

[1:11] up getting quite a bit of head on there

[1:13] which is pretty

[1:15] impressive um but at the time that was

[1:18] kind of a complicated method so we

[1:20] actually thought about something a

[1:22] little bit more tried and true which is

[1:25] can we

[1:26] put uh a blender attach on the end so

[1:31] let's look at what I had here

[1:35] for how do I

[1:41] rotate I don't know either

[1:45] way um here we

[1:50] go Ah that's it how do

[1:54] we add a blender attachment so we had a

[1:57] motor and basically had a coupler

[2:00] and then a tiny little

[2:02] blender wheel on there like you get you

[2:05] know on any frothing wand and then a

[2:09] little screen at the bottom to screen

[2:13] out the bubbles to make them all a

[2:15] similar size we found that if you didn't

[2:17] do that you ended up with all sorts of

[2:19] bubbles plus then the coffee came out

[2:21] too quickly so all in all we ended up

[2:24] creating this little guy which isn't too

[2:27] big it would fit right on the end of a

[2:29] cter and then you know could

[2:33] be lithium ion powered although that

[2:36] wasn't really much of a thing back then

[2:39] and overall just make your regular drip

[2:42] coffee taste substantially better and so

[2:45] you know here it was on the end of a

[2:47] decanter that we had and then you know

[2:50] depending on the speeds that you'd have

[2:52] it blending at it could make a pretty

[2:56] decent head on your coffee it also

[2:58] cooled your coffee down substant

[2:59] eventually made it easier to drink

[3:02] so it was a kind of unique thing this

[3:05] predated the

[3:08] um espresso that kind of

[3:12] Blended uh the Nespresso pot up I forgot

[3:15] what that was called but this was also

[3:18] back during the first defile days for

[3:21] patents and so we really wanted to make

[3:23] sure we had lab notebooks that were

[3:26] signed and dated so fine yep so these

[3:29] are all in a lab notebook signed

[3:33] dated and uh you know I would basically

[3:37] make sure that everything was um you

[3:40] know nice and tight in terms of Ip at

[3:43] that time but like I said in the

[3:45] provisional patent application so what's

[3:47] the rest of the story with this so this

[3:49] is where it gets into a more more fun

[3:52] sort of story here in terms of lessons

[3:54] learned so we we had this idea and so

[4:00] neither my friend nor I knew how to

[4:02] write up provisional patents and so we

[4:04] knew one person who was pretty good at

[4:06] IP at the time and did it for the

[4:08] company he worked for and so we paid him

[4:13] $3,000 and he wrote us up a provisional

[4:16] patent application we still had to give

[4:18] him all the

[4:19] drawings and a lot of the words for it

[4:24] and I I think we even had to file it

[4:28] ourselves and so I don't know what we

[4:30] really paid $3,000 for but we did and so

[4:33] then once we had our patent provisional

[4:35] Patent filed we uh thought great now

[4:39] let's go make some money and so we go to

[4:43] the uh us restaurant trade show and all

[4:47] the restaurant equipment is there and

[4:50] went and tried to basically talk with

[4:53] all these companies and see if they'd be

[4:54] interested in this turns out it wasn't

[4:56] really the right

[4:57] show um and also turned out the partner

[5:00] I was with wasn't as much of a sales guy

[5:03] the same as I'm not much of a sales guy

[5:06] and so between the two of us we

[5:09] basically ended up walking around the

[5:10] show and drinking a bunch of coffee and

[5:12] granted we spent another three grand

[5:14] going to the

[5:15] show

[5:17] and so overall this little project ended

[5:20] up going nowhere because of lack of

[5:23] sales experience and being able to sell

[5:25] the idea to the right

[5:27] company um if I to do this again what

[5:30] would I do differently well there's a

[5:32] lot more options now in terms of you

[5:35] could assuming there's something that

[5:37] you can patent and it doesn't infringe

[5:39] on anything I haven't done a search in

[5:40] ages on it but you could probably again

[5:45] put out a

[5:47] little uh decanter tip that's lithium

[5:50] ion powered or what I actually wanted to

[5:52] do if we look on this next

[5:54] page was I wanted to make a funnel if

[5:59] you you guys can see this where the

[6:02] motor's up top and you basically just

[6:04] pour your coffee through and it has some

[6:08] baffles perhaps and maybe a filter but

[6:12] you would stick it on top of your cup

[6:14] and you would just pour your coffee

[6:15] through and it would froth it up and

[6:17] make it you know a lot more fully bodied

[6:21] so either way that's the uh crem funnel

[6:26] from the uh startup Chuck archives and

[6:30] hope you liked

[6:33] it