I think you'd need to spend more than 50% of the year living in NV to not have to pay CA taxes so you might be stuck paying CA income taxes on it anyway.
Actually I think it's more like less than 50% of the year in CA. I'm not sure about US state laws, but most international laws have such that people can completely avoid income taxes if they bounce around enough countries.
I love our 2017 Outback w/ EyeSight. Luckily, we haven't had to test the auto braking system at high speeds but the lane assist and assisted cruise control are wonderful.
Not a suburu but my passat engaged emergency breaking once. It's was kinda spooky to go for the break and realize its already depressed. Definitely prevented an accident. I was paying attention too, but someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why, there wasn't anything in the road...
In some areas that maneuver is a strategy to collect an insurance payout. If the car had many passengers (who would all get soft tissue injuries) this might have been a "swoop and squat."
> someone jumped into my lane and slammed their breaks on for who knows why
Insurance fraud, possibly. Depending on jurisdiction if you rear-end someone you could automatically be 100% at fault (assuming the fraud is not discovered/proven)
Interesting, that's really useful. But, assuming I have MagTek connected via USB to the computer, how does this code "listen" for the swipe? It looks like it can handle parsing the data just fine, but my question is how to get the data from the swipe into the javascript for parsing
The MagTek reader acts as a USB HID (aka a keyboard). When the cursor focus is put on a text field and you swipe a card, the MagTek device acts as if someone typed each character into the field. Then the javascript detects that and parses it out
Hi Kalle, I love my daily pour over, so I might not be your target market, but I'd definitely be interested in purchasing a few coffees without a subscription. Have you thought about offering that?
What prevents you from subscribing and then unsubscribing just afterwards?
(I don't know, maybe the webpage does, but there's no mention of minimum times anywhere and recurringcheckout has let me unsubscribe without problems in the past)
You have to call the New York Times to cancel your digital subscription. Why would I trust that some online coffee merchant I've never heard of isn't up to the same tricks?
Nothing prevents you from doing this and you are totally welcome to do it! You can email our support email as well and we'll cancel it for you. We'd obviously prefer that you stay on with a subscription, but are just happy to have more people give us a try.
I would also not sign up for a subscription service that does not let me cancel without contacting customer service. It's a dark pattern that too many subscription services adopt. The only reason for this is to make it more difficult to cancel. I was about to visit your site and try it out (depending on price), then I read that comment. If your willing to make it hard for me to cancel to try and squeeze in an extra buck then what else are you willing to do. I feel like it's shady and makes me not trust your company.
We do have a cancel button as well! Sorry if I was unclear. The UX on our site isn't the greatest - we use a platform to handle subscriptions. However, you definitely DO NOT need to contact support to cancel. Some people just find it easier to hit reply and say 'cancel'. FYI, we also proactively notify customers 3-4 days before a subscription renews. We want to make it as obvious as possible and give you the option to make adjustments. Transparency is critical for it to work.
Looking into that. We haven't done it yet because we are worried the coffee will get stale. Individual servings ensure the coffee stays fresh - that's why we do it.
Co-founder of Sudden here. This question comes up a lot. We have tried offering one-time purchases and it didn't work very well/ wasn't sustainable for us. 3 reasons we believe in a subscription model:
1) A big reason we started this company together was our shared belief in making customers feel good through hospitality. It's more than just the coffee itself. We want to build a better experience - if you are a Sudden subscriber, the experience should evolve over time, you'll learn more about coffee, try new things, have fun with it. To us, this wasn't about making something to have once a year on a road trip, but a way that we could connect with customers and create a larger community. A subscription is the best way for us to build a lasting experience at our current size.
2) For a lot of folks out there, it is super easy & convenient and they wouldn't have it any other way. They like that Sudden Coffee just arrives and they don't have to think about it. It's something they can add into their life.
3) Subscriptions mean we can offer the same product at a much cheaper price. We can spend a lot less time & money making ads or sending emails to remind you to buy again. This is the reality of what most CPG companies do - think about how often you see a toothpaste ad for a toothpaste you already own, even if you love it. We pass the savings directly on to customers. We ran the numbers, to offer the same coffee without a subscription, we'd have to charge $4-5/cup.
To clarify 2 things:
A) You definitely can still be in the target market for us. Our most popular subscription is 8/cups a month. This is meant to ADD-TO not REPLACE your existing coffee ritual. We find Sudden works best as your 'second-cup' of the day (at least as you try it out). We have plenty of customers who make a daily pour over and then use Sudden in the afternoon.
B) We recognize that giving people a way to TRY before subscribing is a big gap in our service and we are actively experimenting with the best ways to do that. It may come in the form of referrals from other customers or special sales. We just brought on someone last week to think through the experience and were brainstorming about it this morning.
Why not focus on subscription but have a one-time option that just quietly sits there and people that are looking for it will find it? Charge the $5/cup, and that will make the subscription an obvious choice for anyone that is going to drink the product regularly.
I'm definitely one of those that pretty much refuses to have anything to do with monthly payments, plus I'm not a huge coffee fan. So I'm never going to get a subscription. But I do like a good coffee every now and then, and I'm curious, so I might try a one-time order.
I will likely never be a subscriber, since I don't like coffee. I'd love to have a good instant option to offer to guests without having to own a coffeemaker that I'll never use otherwise, have to store, etc.
A subscription also doesn't allow for any fluctuation in demand. If you're having a bunch of people over and want to offer them great coffee, how do you do that without depriving yourself for the rest of the month?
Good point. It's a work in progress, and we're exploring what's the best model. You can always order me by emailing us. We just saw that having a one-off model completely cannibalized our new subscriptions.
Email me if you want to order a one-off and I can hook you up ;)
Wouldn't that indicate that you are missing out on a significant portion of your market? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what 'completely cannibalized'means but, personally, I'd probably follow the money; because that's where your market seems to be. Subscriptions can be good, especially if your product is sticky, but why ignore the demand for single orders?
Perhaps having packs of 10/25/50 is a viable road. After all, what's so different about sending out kits monthly to a subscriber vs sending one out to someone who purchased a month supply as a test?
Regarding your Keurig comment. I really hated the amount of plastic waste going into landfills so I bought one of those plastic reusable cups. I wasn't impressed with the output or the work needed. I recently found Presidents Choice (large Canadian brand) has K cups for $0.50 a piece. They are compostable and made of spent coffee beans and other plant based material. If you are in Canada, go to your nearest superstore to test it out.
Costco carries San Francisco Bay coffee, which replaces the bottom 3/4 of the plastic K-cup with some kind of cloth filter. They claim it's less waste.
Make it available S&S only on Amazon. People are a lot more comfortable setting up subscriptions through Amazon, and Amazon allows you to skip a month, bring forward, cancel, etc.
It's also one of the first things to turn off a new consumer thinking about taking a chance on an unknown brand.
You're fighting the reputation of generations of scammers who promised "cancel any time" and either weasel-worded the small print or just outright ignored cancellation requests to charge as much as possible to recurring bills.
Automatic recurring billing is a "dark pattern" from back before anyone made up that term. The only reason it makes more money than one-time purchase or an honest subscription (where customers have to explicitly pay to resubscribe every month or year) is that people will forget or get frustrated when it's time to cancel. Do you want to run that sort of business?
"Fun" fact: I bought a used car, only to discover that it apparently has free XM radio. I would not be surprised if someone unsuspecting person's card is being charged for it every month.
Co-founder here - I actually want to challenge that...for science. I've gone pretty deep on this.
There are definitely sets of products for which people want to 'set it and forget it'. At a basic level - electricity. I'd love to never think about my electricity bill ever. I do not want to explicitly pay for my electricity bill. Automated payment on electricity is amazing!
There are also many products in my life that I truly love and would use a lot more, but I am too lazy to buy or order them. I love LaCroix sparkling water. I would have no problem if it showed up at my house for $20 a month. However, because I'm lazy I never actually buy any - instead I get Coke at the corner store - worse for me.
Our goal with Sudden Coffee is to make it really really easy to get something you like. We are definitely not trying to pull wool over anyones eyes - we try to be as transparent as possible with this. We will never give you the run around if you need to cancel - that's just not who we are.
Closer to our hearts - a subscription allows us to actually make it an 'experience' instead of just cups of coffee. We can educate you about coffee, send you new recipes, guide you through coffee tastings - over a longer period of time. When we talk to customers at cafes - those extra moments of delight make the experience memorable - not just a cup of coffee.
That said, Kalle is also right. A subscription ultimately means we can spend less money & time on marketing, more money where it counts - on coffee, and give it to you at a lower price. I mentioned this in an earlier thread - for us to deliver the same coffee without subscriptions, we'd have to charge $4-5 per cup. However, I can also tell you that we have many happy subscribers who love that it's a subscription - it's not something that feels forced, but rather something that makes life easier.
Would really love for you to give us a try! Promise you will not be met with resistance if you need to cancel!
I have a very different perspective. I religiously avoid auto-billing. For basic necessities like electricity and gas, I like to know how much I'm paying, and to be able to dispute the charges before I pay in case there's a mistake (this occasionally happens).
For luxuries, the periodic reminder that I'm paying $x for something prompts me to reassess whether they are worth it to me, with a default answer of "no." That may be bad for your business, but it's good for my cost of living. Since I'm not in a position to hire a servant to look after my day-to-day financial interests, good defaults matter.
Yup, I hear you. I've definitely talked to people on both sides of it - there are preferences either way. I think both can work. FYI, before our subscriptions renew - we notify customers a few days before, so they can increase, decrease, or cancel the order. We do want to proactively alert you before it renews rather than hide it from the user. It should be very clear to you what's happening (thats our goal at least). Our platform for subscriptions doesn't let us force you to hit accept before billing - that would be hard to implement.
I'm just a lowly project manager, but my understanding from the tech wizards around here and those I work with is this:
It is possible, using the advanced technology available today, to make on your website a button which allows a subscribed user to independently cancel a subscription that was made online.
Through this technology, one no longer has to compose a pleading e-mail to customer service. No need to take on faith the co-founder's confusing promise that they want to make it easy for you to cancel while they simultaneously withhold a "cancel" button, with no stated plans to add one.
I mean, look, if you really don't intend to make a serious amount of dough off of people being too forgetful or busy to unsubscribe from a subscription they no longer want... what's the harm?
There definitely is a cancel button too! I just tell people they can email us as well because some people find that easier.
We're just now building an in-house engineering team to make the process easier. If I had my way, you could cancel, pause, adjust timing, etc with a couple clicks. I am stating our plans to do these things :-)
If I wanted to start a scammy business running on recurring subscription I wouldn't have gone into all the trouble of developing new instant coffee ;)
Obviously, we want to build a product that we and our subscribers love and choose to keep subscribing. Right now we have a lot of them.
The biggest thing with the subscription is clear CAC vs. LTV. With our current model this equation works and we can profitably acquire new customers. This allows us to grow, make the product better and bring the cost down.
Isn't this just restating what I wrote in VC-speak?
> The biggest thing with the subscription is clear [Customer Acquisition Cost] vs. [Long Term Value].
i.e. "recurring billing results in more people failing to cancel, because they either forget or are deterred by our 'customer retention program.'"
> With our current model this equation works and we can profitably acquire new customers.
i.e. "we wouldn't be able to profit and grow without doing this."
It seems like you genuinely care about good coffee, but what's the desired end-state? If it's "great instant coffee at $1/cup with no auto-billing," that makes sense. If it involves negative option billing, it's shameful.
No, it's not what you said. Your explanation misses the segment of customers that want the product every month but wouldn't exert a manual effort over and over again when it could be automated. Hence an increased LTV per customer with no change to the CAC. This doesn't really have anything to do with Sudden but rather subscription business economics. Automatic billing is not inherently bad; it's largely positive and convenient.
Also remember this company is not random — there's a ton of diligence involved with getting into YC as well as with VCs which they are backed.
Well hopefully through this thread at least we've convinced you we aren't scammers :-)
Seriously though, definitely something we are not about - would love to grab beers with anyone (in SF) who wants to learn more about our company/values text us/me (650) 823-4287.
I disagree. If the price point is right, I am a big fan of subscriptions.
A great example of this is: meundies (oohhhhhhhh ba doop boop boop). Fresh undies come every month for like $15/mo. I've had it going for a couple of years (I think), and it's slowly replaced all of my other (terrible) boxer briefs.
D'oh. Seems there's no way to edit the link. Might resubmit.
Update: HN doesn't let us edit or submit too fast but I did a bit of hackedy hack and the link with "ww." works now. Thanks for the heads up!
Did you sign an agreement saying that the code you have written is owned by the LLC? By your statement that you haven't signed anything my thought is no. Which means you still own the code & the IP.
Coming at it from a different angle, what claim do the other owners have on your code? You own all code you write unless you do it under a work-for-hire agreement or have assigned ownership under an agreement like this one: https://www.upcounsel.com/intellectual-property-assignment-a...
