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TaaS: Tea as a Service - We've launched a monthly tea subscription service

19 points by fadys ↗ HN
My friend and I are launching teapeat.com. Please let me know what you think.

We've used Stripe for the recurring payments and it's made things a lot easier than past attempts with other gateway APIs.

We'll be A/B testing different copy, images, and buttons, so expect a blog post soon with those results.

22 comments

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md1515
This is a pretty neat idea. I am not sure if something similar exists (the model is becoming popular, but with tea I do not know).

From a technical standpoint I do not have a whole lot to say. The site is straight-forward easy to share via social media and is pleasant.

In terms of the business model, I worry about a few things. Targeting tea drinkers is fine and even going so far as to targeting organic lovers is good/profitable too. You limit yourself (in my opinion) with the amount of tea. Not everyone who likes tea will like it every single day. Typically this would be fine, but the amount is reflected in the price which is, in my opinion, kind of high. Determine if your margins are too high here because the cost might put some people off. Just my two cents...good luck with it.

fadys
Margins vary from tea to tea and are generally slim. There are some teas that I expect to lose money on and others that have slim margins. I'm assuming that marketing the service as less than a dollar a day will go a long way in giving the "affordable" signal.

Since all tea is shipped on the same day and bought in bulk, I'll have to rely on volume to make it a profitable business.

With respect to the amount of tea, I, as a tea drinker, drink multiple cups of tea per day. I figured one cup per day for subscribers would be the ideal way to go.

md1515
Okay, well in that case let us both hope there are more people like you than me! :)
fadys
I hope so too.

I know there are passionate people for all types of products. I think it was bemmu (an HNer) who started Candy Japan, a subscription service for Japanese candy, of all things. I'd think tea would have a larger market :)

Thanks for your well-wishes.

jonnycowboy
Are you putting 70 or 80 cents of tea leaves in each cup of tea? I would never recommend a combination of "some teas that I expect to lose money on" and "I'll have to rely on volume to make it a profitable business". Once your service expands, you'll probably allow members to prefer one kind of tea over another and once they 'Like' the good (expensive) stuff, you're cooked.
simon
British guy here ... you don't even want to think how much tea I get through in a day! I live in the USofA and amaze many of my American co-workers with my volume of tea consumed. (Indian co-workers don't even blink, being partial to a nice cup of tea themselves. :-)
AznHisoka
Is there a way to get more than 1 type of tea in 1 month? Say a sampler of 3-6 types of teas?
fadys
I'm thinking of giving the option of a monthly sampler of 4 teas (1 per week). I'd have to charge a little more for that because of the extra packaging and other associated costs. It is on my list, however.

I also want to create a "gift" option to make it easy for users to give yearly subscriptions as gifts.

Any other ideas?

pchew
Unless you plan on solely targeting entry level tea drinkers, you really need to provide more information about your tea. Give a preview of what you plan to ship for the next few months, the tea, the region it's from, when it was picked, etc. For all I know you're going to send me a box of Tazo loose leaf every month.
fadys
Yeah, I think you're right. I'll add a page listing the types of tea likely to be sent (with a description of each, as you've suggested).
pchew
Sounds good. Sorry if that came off as harsh, I meant to expand on the 'you really need to' because there are similar services being offered by established tea retailers that do include all of that information, and such information is important to most tea-junkies. Even though I think it's clear that your service is aiming for a more frugal, less picky market than most of those, it's definitely better not to alienate them.
fadys
I wouldn't say that I am targeting a frugal, less picky market. I think those buyers just get a box of tea from their grocery store every week.

I plan on sending teas like the organic Long Jing Dragonwell tea. Depending on the number of subscribers that month, I'll likely take a loss on many of those teas since the tea and associated shipping costs may exceed the $24 monthly price.

I have to reach a certain threshold of monthly subscribers (with a fixed churn) to reach profitability.

jonnycowboy
Check out graze.com, very similar service in the UK (though with healthy snacks instead of tea). They deliver weekly and manage to get cheaper postage by declaring themselves as a 'magazine'. For graze, you say which snacks (tea types/sources in your case) you like and which you don't like. Then they deliver a new one on your 'like' list every week. Every week it's 4 different snacks that are mailed to you.
TheDahv
This is pretty awesome. I really like the site as well; the layout and information is all pretty clear. I really like that the subscription form tells you in clear terms when you will be charged and when your tea will ship.

I think my wife and I are going to try it out. What is the coupon thing about?

fadys
Thanks. We tried really hard to make sure that the site was clear and that any questions were answered before subscribing.

I included the coupon field because it's an option within Stripe. I just wanted to be thorough from the gate. I may issue coupon codes in the future for various events.

If I do, you'd be able to use one and it'll adjust your subscription price moving forward (there's a field in the billing section of the user dashboard that would allow you enter it in).

lewisflude
I love tea, but I'm in the UK. Stripe is a cool service, bro.

Hope the A/B testing goes well and everything.

:)

latch
Suggestion:

1-

The site doesn't seem to mention anything, but you should consider posting brewing instructions on the website for each tea you send out as well as in the package. Different teas are supposed to be brewed differently. Some long, some short, some in hot water, some in warm water. So with each package you could include the tea name (I assume you do already), with a link, teapeat.com/instructions/<teaname>.

2-

I'd put more focus on the "enough to brew a cup every day for the entire month". I think that makes the service, but it was buried. I'd stick it on the homepage, on the main image.

dfc
Peets has a similar service for tea. How do you expect to distinguish yourself?
helen842000
I think it's a really good idea that craft coffee lets you order a tasting box.

Maybe that would be something that would give you a higher margin and show users the quality of your service?

Also I think if you subscribe to teapeat it would be great to get access to some associated content.

Either a little video, podcast showing how to brew it, details about it. That would build a great community that keeps coming back to the site which would result in better upselling opportunities.

Currently you get people to sign up and the only time they might come back is to cancel!

Build a community of tea lovers & hold onto them!