Today we’d like to introduce you to Tristan Cooper.
Tristan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The idea of VendiBean was inspired when I was studying late for finals at UT Austin and realized there were no high-quality coffee options available for the productive individual on-the-go. At the end of the night I called my sister to catch up and tell her about the idea / problem I had. My sister, Teal, was studying abroad in Italy, at the time so it was not that weird to call her at 3 AM. After I told her about my night, a light bulb went off between the two of us. In Italy, she was exposed to espresso vending machines that were popular on her campus. This led her to strongly believe in my idea and she had a vision for the concept, as well. Together we decided to join forces to fill a gap in an industry we passionately felt was lacking.
We began to learn as much as possible about the vending industry along with the coffee industry. We knew nothing. The only thing we knew is that we both really loved coffee. We reached out to multiple vending machine manufacturers to pick their brains. My sister even applied to be a route driver who restocks and cleans the machines for Canteen. It did not work out that way because they assigned her on the sales team, instead. My sister and I put all of our money together for our first machine from an American manufacturer. My sister is older than me by two years so we decided to start operations out of the city she lives in, San Diego. From idea to our first machine, it took us about 8 months to turn our idea into fruition. During these 8 months, we were working on our branding, establishing a trademark, LLC, a health permit, finding a commissary, learning how to deal with customs and much more. We placed our first machine at a local apartment complex at SDSU called BLVD 63.
Our first prototype ended up being a disaster. The machine was low quality with many technical malfunctions. We ended up pulling the machine after 6 months.
Instead of viewing this is a failure we viewed it as a huge learning experience. We learned an immense amount about how vending machines work and made a very beneficial relationship with the contractor, James, who installed our first machine and now delivers and installs all of our machines while continuing to teach us about the industry.
We continued our research to find the perfect vending machine to fit our concept.
We received funding and placed an order for our second prototype, a European, sleek, bean to cup espresso machine that creates the most delicious tasting espresso.
We worked with local craft coffee roasters in San Diego early on who taught us all about coffee along with helping us perfect the espresso grind and recipes in our machines.
My sister and I have taught ourselves how to completely take apart and put together the entire machine as we are the only technicians who are able to service the machines in our regions. We just hired our first employee to help out with weekly restocking and cleaning, prior to which we were doing every weekend. We now have 20 machines in San Diego, soon to be 30, while working on placing 18 in Austin, Texas.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been far from a smooth road. Initially trying to place our first batch of machines was extremely difficult. I had zero experience in sales so I had to figure out what stuck and what didn’t. It was a lot of rejection. I heard 200 no’s before our first yes. Finding locations is still one of our biggest challenges. Technology can be very frustrating and unpredictable at times. There have been countless technological breakdowns onsite where I did not know what to do and the only solution was to figure it out on my own with the help of WhatsApp from the manufacturer overseas. We encounter new struggles all the time and have definitely improved at how to handle them when they arise.
Please tell us about VendiBean.
Our mission is to bring communities together through better coffee. VendiBean is an automated bean-to- cup espresso machine that features the best craft coffee roasters in your city. We emphasize on not compromising quality for convenience. Our prices range from $2.20 to $2.90 so we are more affordable than your average coffee shop. We offer 12 different menu items including coconut milk as a non-dairy alternative. VendiBean is a friendly and interactive experience as we encourage customers to finish the sentence “coffee because” on the cup and tag us along with their location. We cross-promote with all of our locations in our coffee communities and do free coffee events as well with $.50 cent coffee days to generate excitement. VendiBean is revolutionizing the outdated and watered down coffee vending machines.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Nothing. We are both very happy with all of our decisions so far. We obviously wish that we found our current manufacturer initially, but we learned a lot for that mistake.
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