Unmanned Cafe received a lot of financing, and we talked to its founder.

When it comes to coffee and the Internet, you may immediately think of start-up coffee such as 3W and garage.

It's more than that. There is also another category that does not take up space to make coffee on the Internet-coffee vending machines.

Over the past two years, Internet brands such as Zero Bar and Coffee Wharf have repeatedly received financing and outperformed themselves in the coffee industry. Why does capital not like the 70 billion coffee market, but prefer them that look "niche"?

To this end, Jiamen chatted with Wang Wei, the founder of the Coffee Wharf, in Shanghai.

Author: sister Zhang (Wechat: olcattang), from Shanghai

Wang Wei, founder of coffee wharf

Vending machine + coffee = market excitement?

The concept of vending machine is not new.

Plug money, click, produce, take things, change, has long been a set of habitual actions for many people to facilitate consumption.

At first sight of the vending machine at the coffee wharf, Sister Brown was at peace. About 2 meters tall, covers an area of less than 1 inch, blue and white, there is a kind of quiet down-to-earth feeling, in terms of appearance is not cool-except for that really big enough touch screen.

Coffee wharf second generation vending machine

Scan the QR code of the corresponding drink to pay, and you can also play games on the screen while waiting; take the drink and get the cup lid and cover in the appropriate position.

Pick up the cup according to the instructions

The price range of the product is 15 yuan, and Sister Brown has tried lattes and new wild cherry teas. The production time is about 50s-1min, and the whole process is relatively smooth.

Wang Wei, founder of Coffee Wharf, once engaged in import and export trade, has his own thinking about entering the coffee field this time-the market has a good flashpoint, can reach a scale through three or five years of operation, and can be related to the new media Internet.

"I don't come from the Internet. I don't like the mode of spending money to buy customers." Speaking of the Internet, the high cost of getting customers and the actually unsatisfactory user experience make him feel that the O2O model is not feasible in the coffee industry.

In the process of inspecting coffee ingredients in Germany, he found that there were a large number of coin-operated vending machines. To observe, a dozen people would often queue up within half an hour of several machines.

"the only flaw is that I don't know which machine has sold out, and I don't know who bought what."

On the contrary, this makes Wang Wei feel excited. In China, the acceptance of mobile payment is relatively high, and it is possible to connect vending machines with the Internet along this line of thinking.

Soon, the attitude of the capital side confirmed his idea, and the Coffee Terminal announced in June that it would raise 15 million yuan, becoming another Internet coffee brand to receive financing.

What are the advantages of minority players who play the "Internet" card?

1. Machinery: independent research and development, building technical barriers

According to Wang Wei's ideal picture, the machine, as the heart of the whole thing, must be an aggregator.

It is not only a large and intelligent version of the fully automatic coffee machine, but also takes into account a series of functions such as payment, material output and feedback to managers.

"it's not easy to come up with such a thing." Wang Wei said that he had stumbled earlier.

Due to the high order requirements and long cycle of foreign suppliers, the first batch of 55 machines in the coffee terminal chose a domestic supplier with suitable conditions.

After the product was put on the market, the trouble came. 10 maintenance personnel were too busy to run every day.

The coffee tastes good and the machine is old and bad. Under the fast-paced consumption, users can not get good feedback when they are fresh, which will lead to heavy losses for brand building.

Learn from the bitter experience, in March this year, Wang Wei began a bold decision to approve part of the funds and do it himself.

Intelligent brewers and bean grinders are customized in Germany to develop their own keyless management, ice-making and other core technologies. "We have applied for 11 patents." Wang Wei told Sister Fang.

At present, the latest model available on the market is the 2.4 version of the Coffee Terminal, which has been assembled and tested by purchasing suppliers, and can be used with self-designed and manufactured control chip software.

Build barriers that are difficult for others to overcome and improve their technological competitiveness

During the alternating period between first-generation products and second-generation products, an obvious change is that of the 40 second-generation products currently in operation, one maintenance personnel is not at full capacity.

Wang Wei said confidently that with the change in the general direction of machine research and development, the coffee terminal will be difficult to catch up with within 2 years.

2. Cost: 1, 0 clerk, easy to move

At a time when cafes are generally unprofitable, more and more practitioners are starting to pay attention to turf efficiency-learning from dairy tea shops to reduce their operating area and even explore ready-to-use micro-cafes.

The small size that has already appeared is to dismantle and build cafes.

The vending machine has achieved the extreme in the operating area, not only reducing the rent, but also reducing the labor cost through industrialization and intelligence.

At the same time, easy to move, upfront investment is not an one-shot sale, giving a higher fault tolerance rate of location.

Wang Wei said that at the beginning of the operation of the coffee terminal, there was no so-called strategy on the location, and the random placement of the sites finally boiled down to one point-- go to places where young people gather, and focus on entrepreneurial parks and Internet enterprises.

Relatively speaking, as a supplement to the consumption scene, it is less difficult for coffee vending machines to enter these places.

3. Replication: rapid expansion of brand potential

In the business model, the coffee terminal adopts the partnership system-the joining partners can purchase machines and raw materials to operate.

For the coffee terminal itself, this is a low-cost, rapid expansion, but also a risky move: join the model of frequent incidents, failures abound, the image of the brand can be fatal.

The key lies in profit and control.

On the one hand, the coffee terminal does not charge franchise fees, keeping the profits earned through equipment and raw materials to a very low level, allowing profits to go out as much as possible.

At the same time, Wang Wei is very careful about the selection of partners: finding suitable location resources locally; operating full-time; and remotely controlling the operation of the machine through the machine.

Partner is the key to the rapid and stable replication of the model.

He thought clearly, "We belong to the early stage, and if we want to do the mass of the brand, we need to manage it better."

According to Wang Wei, the coffee terminal has signed contracts for more than 200 vending machines in half a year. Will continue to promote with partners in Wuxi, Hangzhou, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Suzhou and other cities.

4. Data: creating future imagination space

According to the coffee wharf, the market share of vending machines is very large. Take Shanghai as an example, even according to the high standard of excellent operating conditions, it takes 5000, 000, 000 units to become saturated.

Wang Wei is more concerned about the follow-up-through the Wechat or APP entrance, every customer has accumulated data in every order placed on each machine, and the coffee terminal will control the added value brought by big data's secondary development.

Using data to portray consumers, from the perspective of accurate marketing and the realization of platform, provides more imagination space in the future.

Challenge: coffee or space, what on earth do consumers need?

The coffee terminal has built its own system in terms of equipment and operation, but it still faces a lot of challenges.

1. How to improve the brand potential energy under heavy assets?

First of all, in the field of coffee consumption and enterprises linked to the Internet, is self-research and manufacture too heavy?

Not long ago, Coffee Wharf announced that it had received 15 million Angel Round financing. Wang Wei does not deny that some venture capital firms in communication are worried about the "overweight" of the project.

The cost of the coffee machine itself is relatively high, and the cost of that 42-inch intelligent touch screen alone is about 7000 yuan. Under heavy assets, how can we not only ensure the user experience, but also quickly deploy points to enhance the potential of the brand?

For the coffee wharf, which has a large investment in R & D and involves more aspects, this is no small test.

2. How many units can there be in the minority consumer market?

The second is the consumer environment, the vending machine certainly provides a "passing by for a drink" consumption scene, but at the same time means giving up the space experience, which is more suitable for consumers who simply need coffee.

For the domestic coffee consumption market, which is not yet a rigid demand, spending an afternoon in a cafe to enjoy the environment, listen to music and chat, "consumption space" may be a more mainstream demand.

Scene + socializing is the direct reason why most people choose to go to the cafe.

How big will the market be for just one cup of coffee?

This makes people worry that once they enter the second-and third-tier cities, consumption may not be so optimistic.

3. This market is no longer a blue sea!

The brand "Coffee Zero Bar," which also makes coffee vending machines, received 30 million yuan A round financing from Western Capital as early as last year, and its placement strategy is mainly in office buildings that have no coffee shops and are mainly medium-and low-grade.

Brands that can survive in an area with five or six machines are also trying to get a piece of the market segment.

Wang Wei said frankly that what he is worried about is that the market scuffle will damage consumers' experience of vending machines and the lag in the speed of channel expansion-once there are similar projects, it will be very difficult to re-enter.

With a fresh experience to promote the popular consumption of coffee, the coffee terminal has made its own exploration. Will coffee vending machines be a good way to open up the mass market?