AnyCafé offers new twist on coffee on the goDate: 11/10/2016 SPRINGFIELD – The first snow of 2015 started flying in October and Logan Carlson was preparing to head to class at Western New England University.
He packed his backpack and tossed in a water bottle before heading out. By the time he made his way to his classroom, the bottle was colder than it was when he started the trip.
“Everyone else in class had their coffee from [Dunkin’ Donuts] and I thought, ‘Man, it would be really cool if I could make a cup of coffee with this bottle of water,’” he said.
That was the very beginning of a 13-month journey for the student startup AnyCafé, which has developed the Travel Brewer, a coffee mug that actually brews coffee for you on the go.
“Basically you just open up the lid, pop in a K-Cup, pour in some water, close the lid and push the button and it will make coffee right there,” said Carlson, now the CEO of the company, which comprises five engineers and a business major.
Upon returning from his class that snowy day, Carlson pitched his idea to his roommate, who said in theory it could be done. They began laying the groundwork for the design, even taking a hacksaw to a coffee machine in an attempt to put the concept into action.
Later, that idea was brought to Western New England’s 3 Day Startup Program, a 72-hour learning-by-doing workshop through which Carlson explained the idea was pitched with the intention of building a team. Shortly after, AnyCafé sought out Accelerator programs to help get out of the gate. After initially being turned down, AnyCafé eventually gained a spot with Valley Venture Mentors after another applicant had dropped out. It was in that program that the company found its first significant success.
“We took that spot and went from not even supposed to be there to one of the top 12 teams and finalist for the Accelerator,” Carlson said.
Their prize was $6,000 and a $1,000 grant.
“That gave us the clout to start getting prototypes ready outside of the really low resolution ones we had done originally,” Carlson noted.
With seed money in hand, the AnyCafé team got to work, first creating a product that could plug into a wall socket and produce a cup of coffee in between two to six minutes. From there, they had to figure out how to transfer the concept into a more portable, battery-powered form. The development was not always pretty, but that’s part of the process, according to Carlson.
“Theory is great, but when it comes down to you have to be a maker. You have to pull things apart and put things together and glue things together that aren’t supposed to be glued together and see what works,” he said. “We finished fleshing out that prototype over the summer and got it to the point where you can get a really good cup of coffee in eight to 10 minutes.”
AnyCafé also won Entrepreneurial Spirit Awards through the Harold Grinspoon Foundation and raised some capital through the Springfield Venture Fund, which was founded by MassMutual to offer seed money to local startups and help boost economic growth in the city, to help fund the project.
Now the AnyCafé Travel Brewer is ready for sale. Made of sleek high-density polyethylene plastic available in black, cornflower blue, racing green, Seville orange, cardinal red and tyrian purple, it contains a detachable rechargeable battery with a 12-volt charging cable. Including the battery, the unit stands 10 ½ inches tall, is just a little more than three inches wide and weighs approximately 1 ½ pounds.
“It’s still kind of surreal that we have a finished product,” Carlson laughed. “I mean, 13 months ago, this was a drawing on a napkin.”
The Travel Brewer is specifically designed, he explained, for "the doers" – those who are always on the go.
AnyCafé is now accepting orders through a Kickstarter campaign, which runs through Dec. 13. “Ultra-early bird” backers can currently receive a Travel Brewer for $49. Carlson said the company is confident that delivery of the first set of orders in August.
“We have to allot for all of the manufacturing things. For example, we run into the Chinese New Year, so we have to account for all of the electronic components that are going to be delayed,” he said. “We tried to incorporate all of the different delays that could come up so that we gave everybody a solid timeline and could say we know we will have this product by this date … We want to be open and honest and transparent with all of our customers and investors.”
The manufacturer's suggested retail price is $79, but Carlson said through the Kickstarter, Travel Brewer units would not be sold for higher than $75.
For more information on the AnyCafé Travel Brewer, visit http://anycafecoffee.com. To pre-order, visit www.kickstarter.com/projects/anycafe/the-anycafe-travel-brewer-the-travel-mug-that-brew.
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