What-if certainty 3/5 debate potential 1/5

Zloof: Sudden Coffee Should Have Hired Chemical Engineer Two Years Earlier

Joshua Zloof · After the Pitch: Sudden Coffee · Mar 3, 2025 · at 27:52

Joshua Zloof, co-founder of Sudden Coffee, reflects on early strategic missteps and being too cautious with venture capital instead of investing in deep technical R&D.

0:00 / 0:13exact quote · 13.5s
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“You know, I think we should have you know, two years earlier, like, hired a chemical engineer and started researching this from the beginning, but we were trying to sort of play it safe and iterate a little bit more”

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More from Joshua Zloof

Assertion Not checkable as stated
Zloof: Sudden Coffee's subscriber count fell from 500 to 400
“So our peak was in or July, we had 500 subscribers. I think now we're closer to 400.”
Joshua Zloof Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 10:40 #10 Sudden Coffee
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Zloof: Sudden Coffee subscriber count dropped from 500 to around 400
“So our peak was in, ah, or July, we had 500 subscribers. I think now we're closer to 400.”
Joshua Zloof Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 9:52 After the Pitch: Sudden Coffee
Disclosure
Zloof: New process cuts Sudden Coffee price to $1.50 and triples margins
“So it'll be dollar 50 and it'll also allow us to triple our margin. You know, we've been setting, sitting at two 75 with a 20% margin. And one of our investors was like, there's no way you can build a brand with that. Like it need, you need to make it way chea…”
Joshua Zloof Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 26:46 After the Pitch: Sudden Coffee
Disclosure
Zloof: Sudden Coffee's vision is the world's largest virtual specialty cafe
“Long term, our real vision is to sort of build the world's largest specialty cafe using technology to sort of abstract all of the things you get from a cafe.”
Joshua Zloof Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 11:29 #10 Sudden Coffee
Disclosure
Zloof: Sudden Coffee raised $2.9M led by Charles River Ventures
“We raised 2.9 from Charles River Ventures as our lead, and then this is our second round, so we raised 500 K a year ago.”
Joshua Zloof Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 17:08 #10 Sudden Coffee
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Zloof: Sudden Coffee reached $100K in sales and $20K MRR
“So we've done about a hundred K since January. We're at 20 K recurring.”
Joshua Zloof Mar 3, 2025 ▶ 9:45 After the Pitch: Sudden Coffee
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