If there’s one thing I hate, it’s a stale blog. Embarrassingly, this poor blog hasn’t seen much love lately, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy. Here are a few highlights about how we spent our summer. 4-input Data Bridge Jeez…we’ve been talking about this for so long even I’m getting a bit sick of it. However, I’m extremely happy that this little guy is now available! We rushed to get the hardware ready in time for SCAA in Read more…
What’s been going on with RoastLog since the SCAA show in Houston last month? Well, we are on track to launch our much anticipated inventory management system. Ryan has been leading the charge, feverishly interviewing a dedicated group of beta testers to finalize the look and feel of the system we will finally be introducing in the coming weeks. We’re really excited to present an inventory system that has been developed specifically for the needs of coffee roasters. Green coffee Read more…
Several folks have asked us how this year’s SCAA convention went for us at RoastLog. After answering that question several times, here is how I think it went for us: Last year in Anaheim we arrived at the conference with zero customers and basically said, “RoastLog is open for business!” People loved our vision, but there was still a tone we felt which like…”Who are you guys and what happens to my data if you close up shop next year?” Read more…
It’s the eve of the 2011 Specialty Coffee exposition in Houston. We’re out in force for the show. This time, in addition to Brian, Ryan and I, we have roped our pal Linsey in to help us at the booth over the weekend. At last year’s show in Anaheim we were too busy to engage with all of the people who wanted to stop by and learn about RoastLog. I can’t tell you how many times I heard someone say Read more…
In the land of software start-ups, there’s a concept coined and espoused by Steve Blank called Customer Development. The book which describes this in detail is pretty dense, but once you understand the key concepts, it seems pretty obvious and intuitive. Still, I learned more than a couple of things when I read Blank’s book, The Four Steps to the Epiphany. With all of the work that we’ve been doing on our inventory system, I thought it would be interesting Read more…
As most people reading this blog know, the coffee roasting community is pretty small. After working in the industry for awhile, roasters often end up making contacts with other roasters who work for different companies. Talking with industry colleagues is a great way to learn more about roasting, trade stories and ask advice. Since roasters talk, companies like RoastLog benefit from a kind of informal word of mouth marketing. Because of this, I find myself believing that most roasters already Read more…
This is part two in a three-part series of posts on the need for a good data acquisition and analysis tool for people in the coffee business Read part one. Part two is about pricing. I don’t know the best way to price coffee, but I’d like to provide a tool that would be of use in helping price things just exactly as you want to, minimizing guesswork. I know of coffee roasters who Do Not Know what their margin Read more…
A couple of months ago Brian, Ryan and scrapped our regular weekly meeting agenda and focused on a recap the past year instead. We talked about the highs of starting a new company, launching a new product and winning the SCAA best new product award. We talked about the lows of lack of sleep due to late nights coding, annoying electrical interference issues and challenges of making sales while holding down day jobs. We also acknowledged the fact that we Read more…
This update is a bit late to all of our existing customers. We’ve been plugging away diligently here at RoastLog on a few new (and major) things, but have also made some updates to our existing software. Here is the latest and greatest: RoastLogger The current version is now 0.9.8, and all users should download and install this free upgrade. Windows: http://downloads.roastlog.com/RoastLoggerSetup-0.9.8.exe Mac: http://downloads.roastlog.com/RoastLogger-0.9.8.dmg These new builds address a few annoyances and bugs: New feature: added a temperature offset. You’ll find Read more…
One thing that our system doesn’t do very well, or at all, is deal with blends. Your inventory consists of “beans” which you can name as you wish and have a country of origin. In the case of a blend, right now we simply give you the liberty to name it as such and set the country of origin to “N/A”. However, this is all going to change drastically very soon. Readers of this blog or folks who keep with Read more…