Step On Up, the Price is Right
We were thrilled when Launch asked TheFingo to caffeinate their hackathon last weekend at the Metreon Center. After chatting with Luke Lightning a few times over some cocktails, we jumped at the opportunity to brew coffee for the 1000+ hackers who vied for the million dollar investment. The event made sense for us because brewing free coffee is our best marketing.
We had three main Goals for three days of supplying everyone with coffee at the event.
1. Introduce ourselves and our roasters to potential customers
2. Generate buzz on social media
3. Obtain warm leads
Here’s how we did it:
One Ninety Seven Coffee Roasters came through in the clutch to power Friday night throughout Saturday afternoon. When he needed a break, our good friend Tim Watts stepped in as the substitute Barista Master, and he did an incredible job. For those more inclined to cold coffee, Flux Coffee hooked up a Kegerator filled with cold brew throughout the first two days.
On Sunday, Tico Roasters finished the event strong with their special Oktoberfest brew.
And of course, there’s no better way to compliment your coffee than with a sinfully delicious wafel cookie crafted by Rip Van Wafels. Rip himself joined us, making sure to neatly place a wafel on every cup we could fit on the table.
We ran out of cream, which is why you see the whipped cream. It is a hackathon, after all.
Here’s the breakdown of how we approached each day of the hackathon.
The first day was about introducing our suppliers and their caffeinated treats, as well as ourselves as “the coffee guys”. People were excited for the hackathon to kick off, but many still didn’t know what they wanted to put their energy in. By mid-day saturday, many hackers still didn’t know what to work on, but we were on the terrace helping them bounce around some ideas to help fuel their creative juices over some top-quality java.
Saturday’s focus centered around social media. One Ninety Seven Roasters and Flux Coffee continued to caffeinate the hackers as we instigated a little contest of our own. Our good friends Val, Dianna, and Josh came to help out and lead the social media campaign. They brought a vase filled with coffee beans and asked the hackers to tweet their estimates of how many beans were inside. Some just threw out wild guesses, but many of the hackers conceived of some really clever measuring frameworks that were indicative of their unconventional problem-solving mindsets. Amazingly, the right guess was within 15 beans of the exact number. Congratulations Sudhir Navalapakam for estimating with such calculated precision. We wouldn’t be surprised if he got a Google offer the next day.
Sunday Funday started with Tico Roasters arriving at six in the morning to start brewing the coffee while Rip rained the wafels. We wanted to make sure we kept in contact with everyone who liked the coffee enough to want more, so we brought a simple signup pad that asked them to write their name, company, and email address. We ended up with two pages full of potential leads.
Our marketing formula for the hackathon was simple: Introduce, Entertain, Sustain.
Special thanks to Luke, Emily, Jade, Simon, Jason D., Brandice, Kristan, Gina, and of course Jason for having us at the event. We know you worked super hard and it showed!
Extra Special thanks to our friends Tim, Josh, Val, Diana for providing the fun and helping us share our message.
And of course, thanks to Ankur, Anky, and Adam for holding down the fort and tweeting from afar.