Tippets by Taps - Issue #124
This week I offer a consolidated set of my advice, tips, and resources for people wondering how and what they should negotiate for in their startup job offer. We also look at Panera’s new subscription coffee program, Amex misleading customers, a coronavirus explainer, national peanut butter day and more. Enjoy!
You got the startup job offer! Now what?
I’ve been working in the startup ecosystem for the last decade, both as an investor and operator. I am often asked for advice about finding the right startup to join and then negotiating a startup job offer. Here is a consolidated set of my advice, tips, and resources for people wondering how and what they should negotiate for in their job offer.
Panera Bread's new coffee subscription program offers unlimited coffee for $8.99 a month
Subscriptions have come to in store restaurants. Now for just $9/month, you can get unlimited Panera coffee, the first nationwide restaurant to offer a coffee subscription. If you subscribe to Panera coffee you can get one cup of hot drip coffee, hot tea or iced coffee every two hours, unlimited (you can sign up here or at in-store kiosks starting on March 2nd).
It’s a fascinating strategy and one that makes a lot of sense when you consider what it means for their business because, guess what: when customers buy coffee, they also buy food.
Panera tested its program at 150 locations in four markets – Nashville, Tennessee; Raleigh, North Carolina; and Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio – over three months.
[Panera CEO Niren] Chaudhary said they saw a 200% increase in the frequency of visits and a 70% increase in consumers buying food with the coffee. In the test, Panera saw a 90% to 95% renewal rate.
I expect to see a lot of companies begin to test this model going forward. Driving consumer loyalty through high margin, low effort products like coffee (note: the subscription does not include espresso drinks like lattes and cappuccinos which require more cost and labor) and cross selling other high margin products is an obvious strategy if you can nail it. The struggle will be convincing teams internally to give up short term revenues for long term value.
AmEx Staff Misled Small-Business Owners to Boost Card Sign-Ups
Amex lost it’s Costco partnership a few years ago leading to an over 6% drop in the stock price in a single day. Since then, wuestionable sales tactics cropped up at AmEx offices in a push to retain cardholders after Costco ended a long-running partnership. Salespeople misrepresented rewards and fees, checked credit reports without consent and, in some cases, issued cards that weren’t sought, current and former employees said.
Elad Blog: Coronavirus (COVID-19) PSA for Startups
A solid explainer of the Coronavirus and some advice for startups on ways to handle it.
Jif is rolling out a limited-edition peanut butter to settle the debate over the pronunciation of 'GIF' once and for all
Kudos to whomever at Jif who came up with this idea. The internet has long been divided over whether “GIF” is pronounced with a hard or soft “g” sound. Jif peanut butter is now saying it’s a hard “g.”
The GIF — or graphics interchange format, a file label for short animated clips — quickly became a staple of the internet after it was created in 1987. Over the course of more than three decades, GIFs have proliferated across social-media feeds, serving as their own type of internet lingo.
But all the while debate raged: Is GIF pronounced with a hard or soft “g” sound?
Now, Jif is taking matters into its own hands. The peanut-butter brand owned by J.M. Smuckers Co. is stoking the embers of the 30-year-old controversy with a tongue-in-cheek campaign intended to settle the pronunciation debate.
In advance of National Peanut Butter Lovers Day, March 1, the company is teaming up with GIPHY to sell limited-edition containers of peanut butter that swap out the classic Jif label with “Gif” and replace “7 g of protein” with “hard g pronunciation.”
Quote I’m thinking about: “Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” - Mary Oliver