The Fingo

Blog from the founders of the social B2B commerce platform, thefingo.com

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Us giving out free coffee and wafels at the Launch Hackathon

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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.

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Why is it called The Fingo?

What's in a name? Well, for one thing, purpose. A name should have meaning and intentionality. We could have easily called our company Floopio, and trust me, some of us really wanted to, but in the end, we had to come up with something that makes sense. So what does 'The Fingo' mean?

A lot of people ask us about the origins of our name. "How did you get the name, The Fingo?" is a question we hear time and time again. In fact, nearly every time we tell someone the name of our company, they ask this same question. Why wouldn't they? The Fingo is a straight-up weird name.

The answer is actually a lot simpler than most people think. Our goal is to help businesses build new relationships and simplify the tedious details that distract them from improving their products and providing quality experiences.

With that, we came up with the name 'Fingo'. We want our users to FINISH on the website and GO to their customers. We don't want them to waste their time on things that are not essential to their companies. It's basic math: FINish + GO = FINGO.

So, that explains why we chose the word 'FINGO', but why is it preceded by the word 'THE'? The answer is an absolutely dazzling mix of entrepreneurial oppurtunism and inspirational brilliance: the URL for fingo.com was taken, so there!

There's a good lesson in there about how not all decisions we make can be intentional, or proactive, some of them have to be reactive. Sometimes, you just have to go with the flow instead of define the contours.

And now…onto the logo.

Our logo has gone through quite a lot of transformations alongside us. From the very beginning, we wanted the logo to be a metaphor for a self-contained ecosystem. We imagined how jungles work: there is a lot of competition, but their is also a lot of symbiotic cooperation. Each element in a jungle exists because, through evolution, it found the right balance between self-sustenance and contribution. We want The Fingo to be a healthy and vibrant ecosystem, with a plethora of unique elements that collectively serve to enhance the whole system. Here's what we came up with in the end:

The logo beside the text that resembles a star is an abstraction from the Flower of Life, which is a form of sacred geometry created from equally-spaced interconnected circles. We see it as a seed, an origin from which everything emerges. Before a company chooses a logo image on The Fingo, their default image is this seed.

So that's how we got our name and our logo. Neither of them came from pure inspiration, but rather over time, through countless iterations and re-evalutations. For your entertainment, here is all of our logos before we landed on the final design, enjoy it:

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On July 20 2013, the founders of The Fingo brought free premium coffee to Hatch Today, a co-working space in San Francisco. The spirited conversations and good vibes that ensued were direct results of the fine coffee provided by One Ninety Seven Roasters.

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"It's so good…Once it hits your lips…It's so good" - Will Ferrell

     You know you have marketed something well when the audience is outright moved by your message. It's so obvious when people are moved too, because usually they're doing exactly that; moving. They move because they are intrigued or excited. They move because something gave them momentum. Last Tuesday, we got the whole place moving.

     It all started when Hatch Today, a co-working space in San Francisco, asked about our coffee selection and local roasters in the area. Since it is our job to bring together the best roasters and take the pain out of buying coffee in bulk, we figured we could come spice up their offices by bringing along one of our newest roasters, Eric from One Ninety Seven.

     We set up a special spot near the kitchen, and before long, people throughout the workspace flocked to the coffee. It wasn't just the aroma or the caffeine that lured them to the kitchen though, it was the energy, the people, and the conversations. It became a modest, yet spontaneous networking event at work, and it all started with some great new coffee.

     After Eric shared the origin story of the beans, and how they got their exquisite taste, it was a no-brainer to have One Ninety Seven's coffee powering the office on a regular basis.

     We had a great time bringing everyone together, and we appreciate Dan and Eric's help making it all happen. If you would like us to come visit your organization with coffee from roasters on thefingo.com, send us a message at [email protected].

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What if Pandora's box was full of coffee?

     Nobody likes to be bored, it just kind of happens when there isn't anything enjoyable to experience. We all have an innate desire to be blown away by new things.

For our first major marketing project, we knew we had to think outside of the box to show people something they hadn't seen before.  First, we collected sample coffee beans from several roasters that use our website.

Then, we designed a delightful out-of-box-experience for potential buyers.

      Lastly, we delivered the boxes full of premium coffee beans, marketing materials, and wafels (yes, wafels) to a handful of lucky startups in the Bay area. Some of these include: Getaround, Palantir, SendHub, Khan Academy, Google (not quite a startup, but definitely coffee drinkers), and Science Exchange. 

     Needless to say, the people who received the boxes were enthused, enough so to tweet about us! The reviews we got back were really quite amazing.  At the end though, we measured ourselves by how much the buyers enjoyed the coffee and how much extra business we could bring to the roasters on our website.

      Justin and I were in charge with sending the right message. We decided that when the recipient first saw the box, our logo would grab their attention and prompt them to wonder what is inside.

      Simplicity = beauty. As the recipient reached under to open the box, he couldn't help but get drawn in by the allure of the coffees and the stimulating imagery.

      We sifted through our rolodex and got to delivering the boxes. Just showing the meticulously packaged coffee was not quite enough though.  We had to show how our recipients could easily obtain the coffee in the future by using our website. We designed and attached a one-page with a call-to-action to the inside of every box cover.

      We would like to especially thank Voyage Coffee , Coffee Del Rey, Rip Van Wafels, Tico Roasters, OneNinetySeven, and Waterfront Roasters for the delicious samples. Feel free to buy some of their coffee at their storefronts on our website, thefingo.com. If you would like to be included in our next campaign as a buyer or seller, email us at [email protected].

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In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.

Thomas Jefferson

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What is the next big thing?

I dream of amazing ways we can improve coffee, as well as other agricultural products. There is a great commercial done by Cisco that asks, “What is the next big thing?” Check out the commercial here.

“What if the next big thing isn't a thing at all? 
It's lots of things, all waking up -- becoming part of the global phenomenon we call the Internet of Everything.”

We started Thefingo with the belief that through technology, we can help connect businesses by giving them a canvas on which to build new relationships and strengthen old ones. We can use technology to start solving some of the biggest problems, like Coffee Rust.

We can flesh out coffee’s identity. We can make it easier for people to discover the professionals they want to engage with. Lastly, we can find meaning from all the data.

Today on Thefingo, we allow businesses to discover each other, connect, and transact.  Tommorrow, well that’s up to you. Join today and move coffee forward, advance the community, and most of all, put a smile on your customers’ faces.

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What is The Fingo?

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History of Coffee and Technology

   The public’s reaction to the discovery of coffee was typical to that of bold new inventions, coffee was misunderstood and met with skepticism. The early adopters realized that there were overwhelming benefits from drinking this mysterious cherry. For thousands of years coffee has connected the world both globally and locally, through expansive trade and by bringing together communities at local cafes. It is truly a miracle crop that requires constant care, attention, and love throughout all phases of the process from ‘seed to cup’.

    Coffee has advanced exponentially over time by improved brewing methods, advanced farming techniques, and upgraded espresso equipment. However, compared to other revolutionary inventions such as the computer, coffee production and methodology has not progressed at a fast pace. Moore’s Law, which has held true for the last 30 years, states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles around every ‘18 months’. Today, smartphones have more computing power than all of Nasa in 1969, and our desktops just a couple years back. This kind of progress is nothing short of breathtaking, but how are we harnessing this miraculous technology boom to push coffee forward?