FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Barista Bot Opens Showroom and Studio in Midtown Oklahoma City

The new studio space in Make Ready, showcases AI-powered order-by-text technology in collaboration with TMRW Coffee

Oklahoma City, OK — [January 6, 2026] — Barista Bot, an AI-powered, text-based ordering and payment platform for coffee shops, has opened a new showroom and studio in partnership with TMRW Coffee at Make Ready in Midtown Oklahoma City’s Automobile Alley. The space serves as both a live demonstration environment and innovation studio, highlighting how conversational commerce can streamline café operations while enhancing the customer experience.

The Barista Bot showroom allows guests to experience firsthand how customers can order and pay for coffee simply by sending a text message. For coffee shops, Barista Bot automates ordering and payments so baristas can focus on crafting quality drinks and delivering focused craft service and hospitality.

“Coffee shops are busy, high-touch environments,” said founder Sam DuRegger. “Barista Bot removes friction from ordering so teams can spend more time on what matters—great drinks and great service.”

About Barista Bot

Barista Bot is an AI-powered, text-based ordering system built specifically for coffee shops. The platform integrates directly with point-of-sale systems, including Square, and runs alongside existing order-ahead workflows. By allowing customers to order and pay via text message, Barista Bot reduces line congestion, improves order accuracy, and helps cafés drive incremental revenue through faster, more convenient transactions.

Following a successful pilot launch supported by pre-seed financing from i2E and Plains Ventures, Espresso + Milk, LLC—the venture studio behind Barista Bot—is now seeking a strategic round of funding to expand the platform and onboard additional café partners.

Venture & Accelerator Support

Barista Bot is a 2024 alumni of the Bridge2 2024 cohort, with funding and support from:

• Plains Ventures, funded by the Oklahoma Seed Fund

• i2E, funded by Accelerate Oklahoma, a funding arm of OCAST and i2E

Key milestones include:

• August 2023: Completion of i2E’s E3 Micro-Accelerator

• January 2024: Completion of i2E’s inaugural Bridge2 Pre-Accelerator

• January 2026: Showroom & Studio opens in Make Ready, Midtown OKC

Founder Background

For more than a decade, Sam DuRegger has been building at the intersection of coffee and technology.

His career began at Alpha Dominche, where he served as Director of Business Development and Marketing for the company’s automated siphon brewer, named the Specialty Coffee Association’s 2012 Product of the Year. Under his leadership, Alpha Dominche placed brewers with Starbucks, Stumptown, Intelligentsia, Blue Bottle, La Colombe, and other industry leaders across the globe.

Later in 2012, DuRegger co-founded La Barba Coffee in Salt Lake City. What started as a small roasting project grew into four retail cafés, a wholesale program, and a bottling line before the company was successfully acquired in 2019.

After relocating to Oklahoma City, DuRegger launched Woodshed Tea in 2015. The business evolved from a wholesale tea company into a beloved neighborhood café in North Oklahoma City, known for its iced matcha lattes, bottled cold brews, and curated loose-leaf teas. The café closed in 2024, creating space to focus fully on technology-driven coffee innovation.

That exploration began in earnest in 2023 with Barista Bot, built on machine learning, conversational UX, and AI. Today, with the launch of the new showroom and the ecmmerce and roasting support of TMRW Coffee, DuRegger is returning to his roots in roasting and craft beverages—this time with a clear focus on what comes next.

About Espresso + Milk, LLC

Espresso + Milk, LLC is a coffee innovation studio that develops and houses coffee-centric brands and products at the intersection of craft and technology.

TMRW Coffee

A roasting and beverage company focused on single-origin coffees and signature blends, available online and through limited-release Drops powered by Barista Bot.

Barista Bot

An AI-powered platform that allows customers to order and pay for coffee via text message, helping cafés streamline operations and elevate service with the goal of increasing the frequency of visits by loyal customers.

Location:

Barista Bot Showroom & Studio

Make Ready — Midtown Oklahoma City (Automobile Alley)

219 NW 12th St
Suite 23
Oklahoma City, OK 73103

Website: baristabot.app

Two Revolutionary SMS Features, Two Different Experiences:

🤖 Barista Bot (Retail Ordering)

• Where: Order at your favorite coffee shop

• How: Text-based ordering via conversational UX or personalized emoji shortcuts (☕ = Americano & 🧢 = cappuccino)

• Purpose: Skip the line, order ahead, pick up in-store

• Integration: Seamlessly connects with Square Point-of-Sale systems

• Experience:
  

📦 TMRW Drops (Home Delivery)

• Where: Exclusive small-batch coffees delivered to your door

• How: Simple number responses to SMS notifications

• Purpose: Discover rare, limited-edition coffees from around the world

• Integration: Complete e-commerce flow with payment processing and shipping

• Experience: "New Ethiopia drop available! Text back 1, 2, or 3 for quantity."
  
  
  

The Evolution:

Barista Bot proved that customers love the simplicity of text-based ordering. No apps, no complicated interfaces - just natural conversation. TMRW Drops takes this proven concept and scales it for nationwide coffee discovery and delivery.

What Makes This Special:

Both features eliminate the friction of traditional ordering systems, but serve different moments in a coffee lover's journey:

• Barista Bot: Your daily coffee routine, made faster and fun!

• TMRW Drops: Your coffee discovery adventure, in your hands.

The Technology:

Both platforms leverage SMS infrastructure, but Drops adds the complexity of:

• Payment processing and customer management

• Inventory tracking for limited releases

• Shipping logistics and order fulfillment

• Customer account management

What's Next:

We're in production testing for TMRW Drops, building on the success of Barista Bot's retail integration. This represents the evolution from local convenience to nationwide coffee discovery.

Learn more about our SMS-based coffee revolution: https://baristabot.app

#CoffeeTech #Innovation #SMS #CoffeeOrdering #TMRWCoffee #BaristaBot #Drops #RetailTech #HomeDelivery

I’ve often used Personas, specifically short stories of the persona, to help onboard broader stakeholders to the new features and experiences on the product roadmap.

These cheesy little stories are packed with how users might interact with the application or features within the experience. Whereas a customer journey might be a bit more technical, with boxes and guides within swim lanes, these are approachable and, yes, even a bit whimsical, or “cringe,” as my kids might call them. Cringe or no cringe — it has to be memorable. The reader must walk away from the story knowing exactly when, where, and how they might use the technology.

I’ve chosen to write about three different personas:

1. Brian F. is a coffee shop owner looking for operational efficiencies.

2. Francis G. is a twenty-something who is looking for quick and personalized ordering to get her to the next thing.

3. Fred S. is a remote developer who has a full coffee bar at his house and utilizes Drops and Specials.

Check out their stories, and hopefully, you’ll see yourself in one of the personas, or you may even create your own story on how you might use Barista Bot to elevate your ordering experience.

Read Personas

Months can fly by before you even know it, you look up and realize, Whoa!?! It’s March and I haven’t posted since May of last year!! Aghast at yourself for the inattention given to this part of the project… that is updating people who are following along. So, with that admission, I wanted to give a small update on where we are in this startup journey.

New Substack — If you can’t tell I’ve reorganized my Substack to prioritize my writing with Begin the work, as I’ve jumped out of corporate with the launch of my consulting firm, Begin the work, LLC. I’ll use that space for writing on Entrepreneurship and Product Management, and this space for updates specific to Barista Bot.

Project Status: Being out of the Corporate life, I will have more time to devote to this project, which is a huge win. Over the past 9 months, in the margins of a demanding 9-5 job, I can attest to some progress, but not as far as I’d hoped to be. It’s during these messy middles, when things slow down, obstacles spring up, and the project gets bogged down, that I remind myself forward progress, no matter how slight is still forward progress—we are still building. Pixel by pixel, line by line, and page by page.

Recap & Funding Decision: With our initial funding from i2E’s Bridge2 program, we were able to build a functional proof of concept (POC), launch it in one coffee shop, and fix a handful of bugs so it can run with little to no maintenance or training (Machine Learning via Dialogue Flow by Google requires training upon any new variable being introduced).

This POC has been invaluable to our mission to make ordering more conversational and fun as our customers get to—Text their ☕️ order like they text a friend.

We’ve identified a handful of ways we can improve the application, both on the customer side of things and the coffee shop/barista side of receiving and making the order. The issues are surmountable, but also has us at a crossroads:

1. Should we optimize the current code base to improve the application to support one store (tmrw.coffee)? Or,

2. Should we pursue funding to raise a Seed Round and re-platform the code with optimizations and features to support many brands, locations, and customers.

After a lot of feet dragging, advice soliciting, and mentor bothering… I’m settled on option #2, and have begun seeking out potential partners to raise a $1MM Round of funding, which will transition our current convertible debt note from Plains Ventures of 2% of equity. By taking on a strategic partner, we will be able to achieve the next level of growth and deliver the first text-based ordering app to the Square POS’s Marketplace—This is the way.

If you are interested in a conversation — we are looking to partner with four individual investors, Angels, or funds at $250,000 a piece to help us close this round of financing.

Fast-casual Restaurant and Quick Service Restaurant (QSR) experience is a plus.

If you have a background in building and exiting a SaaS business, we’d love to have you a part of this investment round.

Interested? Email - sam@beginthework.com

Technical Update: In this season, we aren’t just sitting on our laurels waiting for Angels to fall from the sky and deliver us a bundle of cash. We are doing some things in the background, and by “we,” I mean ChatGPT and me.

Onboarding is about to get a full refresh! When we first launched the Marketing site (https://baristabot.app) and we utilized a very simple onboarding flow. Now, we are implimenting a full user admin section, to support our customers and mutiple locations that offer Barista Bot. Including signup flow, reset password, account dashboard, order history, store locations, and shortcut (Emoji) orders.

I’ve always been a poor man’s developer, first hacking WordPress sites to get the layout and features I needed, then leaning towards straight HTML/CSS websites that I can update and tweak on a moment’s notice. Recently, I’ve built two React websites with ChatGPT 4.0 as my copilot, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. ChatGPT having a copilot developer like ChatGPT allows me to build full-stack applications, including database functions, authentication, and security features. We are building this infrastructure on Google Firebase, utilizing many of the features within the Google Cloud ecosystem. I couldn’t be happier with the result! As we look to launch this new onboarding in the next 30 days, I’m pumped to give our current users access to their previous orders and an onboarding experience that is elegant and fun—matching the Barista Bot aesthetic and mood.

Thanks for continuing alog with us, as we build out more features and add more functionality to the Barista Bot platform.

Sam DuRegger
Founder, Espresso + Milk, LLC

In March and April, we put three events on our calendar to help us hone in our pitch to customers, while also gathering leads and sign-ups for Barista Bot at tmrw.coffee, the coffee shop in OKC that is running our pilot.

The first event was one of the events in Oklahoma that gets National attention and is a one-of-a-kind event — MidSouth Gravel, a Ultra-running and Gravel Bike race with an expo and live music festival each evening (as well as live music on the grandstand throughout the day).

Barista Bot was stationed by the Vandoit tours and across from Scotti Moody with Arkansas Graveler and Dr. Seth Wood, with Bike Magic, who I recognized immediately as two prominent stars of the documentary “Relentless Ride,” a film directed by one of my long-time friends, Brian Hill.

They were both gracious enough to join me in a picture, because I’m not above being a fanboy!

The next event we rolled up to was Blue Seven’s 21st birthday! Where we had a chance to give away t-shirts for those who signed up for Barista Bot at tmrw.coffee. This was a great event for us as Blue Seven draws hundreds of people to their birthday bash, with free giveaways, games, and food during the event. As tmrw.coffee is three doors down, we supplied coffee and cold brew to the occasion and had numerous sign-ups and introductions to what we are building.

Our last event of the season was Red Bud Bike Ride and 5k and 10k Road Race! We supplied brewed coffee on Saturday for the Bike Ride and then cold brew on Sunday for the running events. We had a great time handing out shirts and cold brew, explaining the product and how it works at tmrw.coffee.

We are thrilled to announce that we are about 75% done with the pilot, with hundreds of signups and over 300 orders!

While we are still in the process of mapping the full menu, we have several order flows polished and ready for testing. In the demos below, you’ll witness the future of ordering - with real-time responses from the Barista Bot and fulfillment messaging originating via progressing the order through the admin section of the Square POS.

This is just the beginning. Watch below or on our website!

Barista Bot Sign-Up and Ordering Process 🤖

Barista Bot Demo - Conversational Order! - Watch Video

Barista Bot Demo - Emoji Order! 🤗 - Watch Video

Barista Bot Demo - Multiple Drinks with Customizations - Watch Video

We will be at the MidSouth Gravel Expo on Friday March 15th! Come say hello and grab a cold brew coffee and a free Barista Bot t-shirt!

Why MidSouth Gravel?

1. Runners and Cyclists are what we would call an “sub-persona” within the target market of coffee. For many reasons, coffee shops and running/cycling groups and individuals have a connection to local coffee scene, whether it be a place to meet post ride, or a place to start a group run from. We are hoping to connect to coffee-lovers from other communities to get a lead on their favorite shop!

2. We wanted a soft-launch to test out some of our marketing material, tent, and strategy for the two Coffee Fest’s we are looking at attending in late summer. No better way to test than a local event, close by!

We’ll have decals, cold brew coffee from tmrw.coffee and t-shirts to giveaway upon sign-up until they are gone! As a bike enthusiast, I’m stoked about being apart of this multi-day event in Stillwater and couldn’t be more excited to soft-launch our partnership with tmrw.coffee in the process. Look for our booth and come say hello!

I found myself in a dilemma. Having a beautiful website design by Bradford Ulrich, without the budget to finish out the development.

This is where bootstrapping earns it’s stripes.

I spend the last two weeks, teaching myself React with the help of one of the best tutors out there — ChatGPT v4.0. Here is how it went:

After two weeks of back and forth, tweaks, edits, bug fixes and a bit of help from a friend (Thanks Walter!) on a pesky font problem, I launched the web app this past weekend, just in time for MidSouth Gravel.

Baristabot.app →

Here is a handful of takeaways utilizing Chat GPT in this way:

1. It helped very much that I have 10+ years of HTML & CSS experience. React is component-based, such as just a switch in how I think about folder structure and pages, which was the extent of my learning.

2. ChatGPT was good at seeing a picture and creating a foundation, but the nuance was all me; ChatGPT provided much of the baseline code. Was it helpful? It certainly saved me much time building out the foundation. Most of my time was spent making it responsive and ensuring the elements fit on the page as the design dictated.

3. ChatGPT was one of the best tutors I’ve had in a while… I’m not one to take courses; I want to learn by trial and error. In my learning style, it’s best to have an expert over my shoulder, patiently letting me fail so I can learn myself or get so stuck that I need another perspective to get me through. Using ChatGPT in this way was excellent for someone like me ;-)

4. I did a lot of my development in the margins of my day, over lunch break, in the wee hours of the morning, or after my kids went to bed. I never felt like I was keeping anyone waiting or holding anyone up. All the history was waiting for me when I logged back in to ChatGPT, searchable and scrollable. This will be a great way to learn new things—I’m pretty stoked for my kids.

5. A Con — My code is probably sloppy and unorganized. But I can come back to it and clean it up. I’m not worried about it; I’m not letting anyone else in… for now. Ha!

At this point in the project, it’s fine that I took the last few weeks working in code. I’m continuing with funding conversations, and have had multiple meetings over the last week working to find an avenue towards completing my seed round of funding. The website is the front door to our project, and finishing this piece was really important for the next season of work.

We are in building stage, where it’s good for everyone to be able to lend a hand and progress the project, yes, even me.

Sam DuRegger
Founder, Barista Bot
& Amateur React Developer (not for hire)

I think so.

When you build a brand story early in the process, your pro forma and sales strategy have a foundational story to build from — a why before the what and the how.

For your brand to make a mark, you must filter out the noise and focus on the attributes that make it unique.

Branding a project is an act of compromise. The trick is to compromise without regrets.

Without delving into how the sausage was made, I wanted to briefly highlight the high-level process we went through to get to our branding — Logo, Fonts, Colors, and Mark.

First, consideration was put into which designer to work with on this project. I have used Studio DeWalt for branding work, including tmrw.coffee and Begin the work over the past few years. Evan and Julie are incredible designers and brand constructors — their work speaks for itself. They are amazing!

But sometimes you have a designer in your peripheral that you want to do more work with. In this case, Bryan Couchman of Bryan Couchman Design had a portfolio of work that I kept going back to as visually opinionated in a way that aligned with what we were thinking for Barista Bot. I had just finished another project with Bryan, commissioning seven bags from his handmade line of bike bags — Steady Co., for a Lake Surf Co. pop-up shop inside Woodshed Coffee & Tea. His dedication to detail and craft made him a great candidate for this project, as we wanted to find personality in the crowded bot and AI-oriented branding space.

Working with Bryan was a blast; I appreciated his approach and thoughtfulness in the design process; he did not jump to sketches too soon but spent time with me to better understand the project, my values, and how I saw this brand living in the world. In the initial project discovery phase, we settled on four words to describe the brand:

• Approachable

• Agile

• Nimble

• Reliable

Bryan created a description based on our conversations. He did a phenomenal job editing my diatribes into short consumable “statements,” which elevated the words into the following brand attributes:

Approachable: With the negative associations made with “AI” and automation, it’s essential to communicate the non-invasive nature of the service provided by Barista Bot.

Agile: Technology should complement our lives, not control it. Barista Bot strategically adapts to users’ preferences, eliminating the users’ need to learn new behaviors or skills.

Nimble: Barista Bot’s success depends on its ability to be flexible and adapt quickly and efficiently to whatever task it has been given.

Reliable: Whether it’s a coffee order or registering a vehicle, users should feel confident in Barista Bot’s ability to efficiently and securely complete any task it is given.

As we completed the Brand Attributes, Bryan began his visual exploration process, which I’ll keep confidential. He was continually checking in and asking questions for clarity. I very much appreciated his process as he explored what could be.

At the milestone defined in the contract, Bryan delivered three visual directions for me to give my unfiltered responses. He also explained the direction with his opinions, which I greatly appreciate. Branding is a creative process that combines the views and vision of the founder with the vision and opinion of the creator. An excellent collaborative process needs unfiltered opinion to understand the context from which the opinion was derived — it takes confidence to state your opinion and no ego (on both sides) to find an appropriate compromise.

After some back and forth, we settled on the direction you see today; Bryan then delivered a full Brand Guidelinesdocument, snippets of which can be seen below:

When you embark on a branding journey, there is a lot of trust put into the process, knowing that your vision and the designer's interpretation must align to create a mark that has long-lasting potential. Time will tell with Barista Bot. Brand affinity is an ongoing relationship with the consumer, which includes product development, customer support, and market success. As well as the customer’s feelings toward the mark, end product, and support. Branding is a dance, and what we bring to the ballroom is confidence in our perspective and the attributes behind it.

Update: Currently, we are pursuing a trademark on the Barista Bot icon and have filed all the appropriate papers with the USPO.

From a branding perspective, it is beneficial to add a TM to all of your logos when you are pursuing a registered trademark (®), and you’ll see a TM beside our mark to designate this as an unregistered trademark while we wait for the filing to clear.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Sam DuRegger

Phone: 405-835-0676

Email: hi@baristabot.app

Website: https://baristabot.app

Revolutionizing Coffee Orders: Barista Bot Unveils Innovative Text-Based Ordering System at Bridge2’s Demo Day

Oklahoma City, 1/29/2024 - In a world where mobile applications clutter screens and ordering has become tedious, Barista Bot is a simple and convenient solution for coffee enthusiasts and café owners alike. With the launch of its groundbreaking text-based ordering system, Barista Bot aims to streamline the coffee ordering process and revolutionize customer experiences.

Sam DuRegger, the founder of Barista Bot, has made a career out of building mobile apps but sees an opportunity in an age of app fatigue, as most phones are bloated with rarely used apps. Reflecting on the cluttered screens and complexity of existing ordering apps, Barista Bot presents a seamless solution that integrates directly with messaging platforms, making ordering as easy as texting a friend.

"At Barista Bot, our mission is clear: to simplify the ordering experience while enhancing operational efficiency for coffee shops," said Sam. "We recognize the need for a solution that resonates with customers and café owners, and our text-based ordering system is conversational, convenient, and fun!"

Barista Bot's innovative features include emoji-based order recognition, personalized order history, and seamless integration with point-of-sale systems. During a six-month trial period at a local Oklahoma City coffee shop, Barista Bot outperformed traditional ordering apps by a staggering 35%, demonstrating its potential in the market.

"We've witnessed firsthand the positive impact Barista Bot can have on customers and café operations," Sam added. "By automating order collection and payment processing, Barista Bot empowers baristas to focus on crafting exceptional lattes and delivering quality service to every customer."

As Barista Bot prepares to expand its reach, the company secured pre-seed funding from the Oklahoma Seed Capital Fund and Accelerate Oklahoma Fund. It seeks a Seed Round to enhance its infrastructure and integrate with additional messaging platforms and point-of-sale systems.

"Founders like Sam DuRegger epitomize the ideal candidates for Bridge2, bringing not just visionary ideas but also a relentless commitment to simplifying and enhancing customer experiences.” Barista Bot's participation in i2E's inaugural cohort of Bridge2 has been instrumental in shaping its trajectory towards innovation and success. We're immensely grateful for Barista Bot's contribution to our program and excited to witness its continued growth and impact in revolutionizing the coffee industry and beyond," commented Shannon Carr, Communications Director of i2E, Inc.

"We're excited to embark on this journey and explore opportunities for growth and expansion," Sam remarked. "As we enter the seed funding round, we remain committed to delivering innovative solutions that redefine the future of ordering in the coffee industry and beyond."

To experience the simplicity of Barista Bot's text-based ordering system, interested parties in Oklahoma City are invited to join the pilot program by texting "hi" to 405-363-1989.

For more information about Barista Bot and its revolutionary ordering solutions, please visit https://baristabot.app.

About Barista Bot: Barista Bot is a product of Espresso+ Milk, LLC, a technology company dedicated to simplifying the ordering experience through innovative text-based solutions. By leveraging advanced natural language processing technology and conversational UX design, Barista Bot aims to transform how customers interact with their favorite coffee shops while enhancing operational efficiency for café owners.

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I've posted a bit about the Bridge2 Demo Day, and while I believe the event was recorded, we’ve not yet received a video of our presentation. So, I wanted to get a version of that presentation out there for others to view; think of this as a table read of the presentation at Bridge2 Demo Day. It has the same content but a different vibe, with no walk-up video and a live audience to feed off of. Ha!

Tonight is Demo Day! A celebratory event at the end of the 12-week Bridge2 program by i2E, where six founders have a chance to execute a five-minute pitch in front of potential investors and friends! I’m stoked to talk briefly about our solution for the ordering space.

Our ask tonight is twofold:

1. Join our pilot at Woodshed Coffee & Tea! We are excited for customers to help us pilot Barista Bot here in OKC. It’ll be a slow rollout to whoever signs up, so be patient as we ensure all the pieces are lined up for a great experience!

1. We are announcing our next funding round! Our platform needs to be expanded to service multiple brands and locations — Customer Admin, Shop Admin with Menu Management, and a promotion to the enterprise tier at Google Cloud to support scalable growth.

We are just getting started!

If you’re interested in a one-on-one conversation and demo of our platform, please email me at — hi@baristabot.app.

See the complete Pitch Deck & Downloadable PDF.

A quick note to wish everyone a Happy New Year!!

As we look back on 2023, It has been an excellent year for Barista Bot, as we’ve been behind the scenes working through the details that make a startup start-up.

There are lots of little wins that will pay big dividends in 2024.

This means there are many people to be thankful for over the past year — friends, family, and new acquaintances who gave us a spark when we needed it most.

In 2012, I did something I was scared of. I tried out for a part in Once Upon a Mattress (based on the book Princess and the Pea), a musical being put on by Union Street Players in Pella, Iowa. I was 32 years old, and not since “going up” in 8th grade had I ventured into the theatrical space where memorizing lines, movements, music, and dance was essential. Through graduate school and working with FCA, I honed my presentation skills to the point that I could write a loose outline, but I often strayed from this script and never delivered the same talk twice.

One thing I realized about community theatre is that they practice a lot. Like a lot, a lot. Repetition creates muscle memory in the brain, just like repetition on the court leads to muscle memory taking over in a game. We practiced so much that I became more comfortable delivering the line without thinking, just reacting to the cues. I was nervous each night before we performed, as the fear of “going up” was still in my mind. But to my surprise, I only missed one cue in three performances!

I successfully conquered my fear and had some fun in the process!

A few years later, while working at Sonic Drive-In, Rebecca Esposito and Ben Keenan came to our Oklahoma City headquarters to teach a week-long “Executive Communication” course. The leadership team asked a handful of Directors to join the class to enhance our public speaking skills. In the first assignment, I returned to my comfort of creating a loose outline, confident I could deliver a pretty good presentation with little prep. Rebecca called me out immediately after I finished — “You couldn’t repeat that if you tried.”

Ouch. She was correct; if I had delivered the presentation again, its structure, tone, and content would vastly differ.

Part of the issue is how my brain works; I think in visuals, that is, it is tough to read words aloud as my brain gets ahead of itself. I begin to picture the next slide and the next slide, inevitably losing my place and rhythm of delivery. I can’t slow down; once the brain train gets going, it’s hard to stop! Rebecca then asked some probing questions, and in my answer, I said something to the effect that “maybe I was nervous.” Rebecca quickly corrected me, “No, it’s not nerves; it’s adrenaline. Did you play sports?”

“Yes,” I answered, “I was a wide receiver at the University of Tulsa.” She smiled and replied, “OK, so your body has a memory; when you get in front of people, your adrenaline spikes to meet the performance demands of playing football, and this rush of adrenaline floods your brain and causes you to speed up. Again, it’s not nerves; you’re just too excited.”

“So, what do I do?” I replied.

“Before you present to an audience, stand up, and maybe even go to the back of the room and do some breathing exercises. Take five slow, deep breaths with long exhales. This will relax your autonomic nervous system and slow the effects of the adrenaline being released.”

She then asked me to take five breaths and try again. So, in front of the class, I took five deep breaths with slow exhales and repeated my presentation—this time with much less frenetic energy.

On a side note, she was good at correcting in real-time with the more confident class members so that when others presented, they would know what to expect; it was a Master Class in mastering a class.

Why do I share this story? Mainly, it is for myself. I’ve once again lapsed into thinking I don’t need to practice; I can get up there and wing it. Which is true; I could. But to get the best performance, my frenetic lizard brain needs repetition and direction. Lucky me, the last four weeks of Bridge2 are about polishing our five-minute pitch, five minutes to get an opportunity for a fifteen-minute presentation sometime in the future from those in attendance.

So, I’m doing what I know I need to do but hate doing… I’m practicing, taking critique, applying the feedback, tweaking slides, creating transitions, and honing the craft of telling a story.

My pitch deck is coming along, and you can track my current draft here; there will be tweaks and edits.

We are all working towards the culmination of the Bridge2 program, an exclusive Demo Day on January 24th at Sailor and The Dock here in OKC. If you’re interested, Register Here.

At some point in your career, you will have to present something to someone requiring a presentation deck —- physical, digital, or both. If you are a middle manager and Director level employee, presentations will be a large part of your job, and deck creation a significant portion of your day-to-day.

I’ve been building presentation decks since MBA school at The University of Oklahoma, and the only presentation I ever went through front-to-back was in my final capstone project. Since then, I can count the times I’ve gone front-to-back on a presentation. If you present in a roundtable setting (not in a teaching scenario), you must be adept at jumping around your presentation, as executives are distractible. Many are not used to sitting quietly for large amounts of time. An Executive’s time is valuable; they measure their impact by the decisions they make or the value they add. They are good at pushing people to get to the point and impatient if you meander down some trail they deem irrelevant. Don’t take it personally.

Here is the scenario I most consistently face when presenting to leadership:

[Slide 1]

Sam: Today, we will walk through the latest feature on our platform; we’ll go through the problem we are solving, the customer research, feature highlights, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators), and revenue expectation, and then demo the complete solution in context.

Executives: What KPIs do you expect to achieve before next month’s board meeting? Can you show me a pro forma of the costs and expected revenue for the next two years?

Sam: if you skip ahead in the paper presentation to page 14, you’ll see our expected KPIs. Our pro forma can be found in the Appendix on page 23.

[Slide 14]

The conversation continues for the next 30 minutes.

So, why prepare the presentation if the Executive wants to see the numbers?

Because the numbers are only one part of the solution, the numbers frame the rest of the presentation, and even if you don’t get to present all 25 slides, you’ll be able to navigate any question asked because of the time it took to prepare all 25 slides.

What I’ve learned in presenting to Executives in the last 15+ years of work seems to apply to Capital Raising… the numbers also get the Investor interested in the story you are trying to tell (in the business you are trying to fund).

But every Investor prefers a different story-telling format and

You won't please everyone in the room, so don’t allow all the noise and opinions to get under your skin. In a large audience pitch, you are trying to find one or two investors who speak the language of the opportunity.

In smaller-scale presentations, your pitch deck should be tailored to the room and those in it.

Currently, the Barista Bot pitch deck is up to 74 slides. It is frenetic, is too detailed, and has too many sections. On top of that, the appendix is bloated, and the transitions between ideas need to flow better. With our demo day in January and a dry run scheduled for next week, I’m not too worried, as the deck is precisely in the shape I need it to be — ready for a healthy edit.

In editing, I can cut the bloat, refine my points, and write a script for the 5-minute time limit for our Demo Day presentations on January 24th. I’m not going to please everyone, but hopefully, it will be enough to garner interest for a 15-minute pitch or future meeting with some of the VCs in the audience. No pressure.

The pitch deck is only one part of the story of your business, not a lead, but not a bit part. The pitch is an integral part of the supporting cast. Some will try to make it your lead, generally by those who have been sales-oriented rather than product-oriented in their career—different strokes for different folks. A sales-oriented Executive cares about closing the deal, while a product-oriented Executive cares more about customer use and adding iterative value.

So, how do I overcome my shortcomings in sales? I lean into my authentic self and write more transparently about the why! I tell stories about how our users can win with our products. It’s why I write on Substack — to ensure our story is being told in multiple formats. If the 5-minute pitch introduces the problem and why I’m the one to tackle it, the 15-minute presentation makes a case for what we need to continue building it (what needs funding). Then, this blog is a running journal entry unpacking when and how we are making the Barista Bot solution. All the elements are available to those interested: Who, What, When, and How.

So, this weekend, as I travel, I will also be locked into presentation edits and script writing because the story needs to be told; I’m the one to tell it.

Exploring startup value creation and intellectual property.

How does a startup create shareholder value? I would offer the following three ways as a start to the conversation:

1. Growth - Accounts

2. Growth - Revenue

3. Intellectual Property (IP)

While we’ve already talked about growth through innovation and market fit, we haven’t yet hit how a company might create value.

Here are my cliff notes on the differences between the types of IP.

Patents

• You can only patent something tangible; code is not a candidate.

• Patents are public and cost $$ for only 20 years.

Trademarks

• Add TM to any logo to protect usage during the application process.

• TM is free.

• ® is only for logos that have gone through the US Trademark process and received a Registered Trademark certificate.

• Registered Trademark - ® costs $.

Copyrights

• Copyright is owned by the one who rights it when writing it… Code, picture, words.

• The code can be copyrighted but can’t be changed (not a good use of time).

• Websites should be copyrighted; use the © sign with year in the footer.

• Pursuing © via US Copyright costs $ and is only suitable for art, books, and publications that can be copied and sold.

• It covers 70 years past the life of the person who created the copyright.

Trade Secrets

• The best option for code is to ensure development teams and design teams have NDA.

• The best option for recipes is a proper NDA with your employees.

• NDAs and Contract language are essential. Please be careful in collecting these things from employees and contractors.

We’ve begun pursuing a ® trademark on the word Barista Bot and the mark (shown below), and the journey has been enlightening on the Trademark process.

We haven’t hit any barriers on the mark, only the caveat that it is best to Trademark the mark in monochrome instead of any specific color. Using a color restricts your coverage while using monochrome allows for any color combination on the background — as the black mark is what is protected.

As we pursued trademarking Barista Bot, we found the combination of words to be descriptive; that is, we found “Barista” and “Bot” are general words describing specific things, and putting them together is not novel or unique enough to warrant a Trademark. With a quick search in Google, you’ll find a handful of Barista Bots doing mostly autonomous robot things. So, while we are pursuing the trademark for conversational text ordering, which differs from a robot barista making you coffee drinks… the blocker is the same: too descriptive.

So, we won’t pursue a trademark on our product, Barista Bot, but will seek one on our LLC name, Espresso + Milk, which seems novel and unique enough for consideration.

Next up is filing the trademark with USPTO and getting into the review queue, listing a 14-month timeframe from submission to potential registration.

Update: We are live and in “Pending” status.

https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=98323888&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch

When?

Let’s start with the most challenging question in a startup… when do I hire this person to do that job?

In corporate, my hiring philosophy has to be both budget-conscious and future-aware. If it is an admin/entry-level position, I’m waiting until the workload is so much that my top performers begin to be bogged down in an administrative quagmire, groping for some semblance of reprieve.

Suppose it is a seasonal project with a limited scope. In that case, I might find an outsourcing firm to provide staff augmentation for a given period (more expensive in the short run, but without an FTE salary to balloon my budget).

Suppose I have a significant strategic project and need someone to spearhead the vision to be the face of the program or lead the technology implementation. In that case, I’d better get them onboarded sooner rather than later so they can start building trust with the team, get a lay of the land related to the organization, and hit the ground running when the project begins.

Budget-conscious with administrative and contracting work, future-aware for strategic hires.

In a start-up, it seems murkier. Here are the reasons why the decision is opaque:

1. The budget is set by the money raised in the previous round.

2. The team is critical, but the pay may not be competitive to the market.

3. Knowledge needs to be in-house, but it may be cheaper to outsource.

   1. How do you transfer knowledge?

   2. How do you balance cost benefits?

1. Raising for the future

In a high-growth startup, you raise money for the future, not the present. So, your budget is based on the previous round, not the round you are growing now. So, you are limited by the present. Overhire, and you are rushed into rounds of financing that cover past decisions rather than future possibilities, which is a great way to dilute your ownership.

You want to raise capital in a position of “if this, then that,” not “because of this, I need that.”

2. Sell the upside, not the pay.

Let’s be honest: in this economy, there is risk in almost every industry. Stability is a rare selling point that comes with its own issues and political complexity (in my experience, tenured managers can create more territorial silos).

So, how are we recruiting? You’ve got to be thinking about psychographic compensation measures.

• Mission & Purpose: Are you communicating the mission in a way that would attract the passionate workforce you need to accomplish the aggressive timelines and goals?

• Role and Title: Does someone want a particular title, and would they reduce their salary to achieve that career milestone?

• Responsibilities: Does the job allow them to flex, learn, and grow in an area they want to expand into?

• Reporting Structure: Is it flatter? Want less hierarchy? Is the CEO’s door always open?

• Remote work: Hybrid, flex or fully remote? If you can operate remotely, you have access to a larger talent pool.

Finding the motive and applying these opportunities may give you the edge you need to land the talent you seek.

3. Knowledge is fertilizer

I’ve said this before, and it bears repeating. Knowledge is a fertilizer — it needs to be spread to be useful. Don’t outsource your knowledge creation for too long, as it will stunt the ownership and empowerment of the team you are trying to build.

Maintaining a ship you and your team didn’t spend blood, sweat, and tears building is more difficult and expensive. It requires extrinsic incentives, that is, you pay people to care.

Who?

This is easy — you hire the people who can do the job and aren’t a**holes. Hybrid and remote work opens up the door to not being stuck in demographic echo chambers and can help create diversity.

Word of advice — Nearshore is more accessible than off-shore. Stay within one or two hours of your executive team (Wes Coast is hard for East Coast and vice versa). Argentina and Brazil are great alternatives to India and Eastern Europe, as they have the exact pay expectations, and you experience the same rhythm of the day (not spinning up when the other team is winding down).

How?

Slowly and with intention.

A small team can be thrown off by one unruly hire. A small team can also be magnified by one strategic hire.

I’ve experienced this first-hand as a small business owner — sometimes, you are not the answer the team needs. It might come from someone else, and you might have to release the reigns to allow them to be who they are so the team can thrive.

Final Thoughts

As a startup, every round raised must provide shareholder value, every hire must provide shareholder value, and every deliverable must provide shareholder value. The value your team creates is what is leveraged in the next round of funding or opportunity to exit. Don’t hire over your skis.

Also, don’t hire your family.

Dream Year

In 2012, I was in a program led by Ben Arment to help creators progress an idea forward, even if just a little. He called it “Dream Year.” The 12-week program culminated in a booth at one of his events in Chicago, a website, a video, a book outline, and a manuscript. The project was titled “Outside Looking In,” which housed my collected essays and reflections while living in a tent for six months, commuting to work to join a small digital team building the Bible App.

I never published the book, but I got a few essays published out of the manuscript, which I consider a #win. Intrigued? See below for a short documentary on my experience with #tentlife.

One of Ben’s quotes that has stuck with me over the years is, “A great idea is a spreadsheet with skin on it.”

And this is a perfect introduction to the concept of “Unit Economics,” the subject of our fourth Bridge2 meeting.

Unit Economics

Unit economics is how you communicate your company's value in terms of costs associated with one production unit.

Which seems simple until you begin to unpack how you get to the costs of one production unit.

I think a spreadsheet becomes useful here, as napkin math can only take you so far. First, you must be able to define one unit of production, which takes its lead from your Revenue Model and Product Market Fit (discussed last week).

If you are a subscription product, like ours, we must think about a “unit” as one shop willing to pay for one month of service.

1 Unit = A monthly subscription by a shop that sells something.

And in this definition of a unit, we can begin to line out the costs associated with that unit.

Unit Cost = Cost to support one store with daily orders below 150.

Unpacking this… we’ll need to know the cost of one order (sub-unit) and find what one shop might cost with a maximum of 150 orders daily. Why 150? Well, it’s an assumption.

We can assume that a profitable coffee shop has around 150 orders a day, and if we take 25% of those orders via the barista bot, we have the number of orders (38) that have an associated cost.

Each order then has the following cost:

• capitalized development costs

• vendor costs

  • cost of SMS

  • cloud hosting

  • marketing automation

LTV and Unit Economics

Notice there are other costs not associated with the “Unit Cost,” like additional employee/contractor costs, marketing & advertising, equipment and office supplies, etc. This is because we are trying to find the customer's Lifetime Value (LTV) by navigating through the unit cost economics and NOT trying to solve profitability for the business (that will come later).

Make sense? Ok, let’s keep it rolling.

LTV, then, is the average revenue a customer will generate during their lifespan as a customer. This is where it gets pretty fuzzy from an ethics standpoint — your LTV needs to be profit-based, not revenue-based. Otherwise, you are overinflating your profitability, which can be hidden for a short while on your balance sheet but is easily identified and called out by the more astute VCs and investors.

Proper LTV reporting should consider the cost of delivering the service/product and not just the gross sales generated.

LTV = (Unit Price - Unit Cost) * Avg Lifespan

But wait, there’s more.

CAC and Unit Economics

Not only should LTV include Unit Costs, but it should also include the Cost of Acquiring Customers (CAC). So, we continue down the Unit Economics path and encounter another calculation that must be considered.

Do you see why this would be better presented as a spreadsheet?

CAC = Cost of Acquisition / Number of Customer Retained

In our case, one customer = one coffee shop, with a maximum of 150 daily orders. The cost of acquiring that customer can be deduced in another section of the spreadsheet by considering how you funnel customers to sign on the dotted line and purchase your product/service.

The cost of acquisition could come from the following:

• Advertisements where conversion can be tracked:

  • Facebook

  • Google

  • Pinterest

  • Apple App Store

  • Google Play Store

  • X.com

• Other landing pages, podcast discounts, and partnerships can be traced into the conversion funnel.

Cost of Acquisition does NOT consider word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing, billboard advertisements, magazine spreads, or other ways your brand receives eyeballs and recognition (organic traffic). It is the traceable and trackable conversion data that makes digital ads so damn useful when trying to build a business and convert sales.

Once we have our Cost of Acquisition, we need to understand our Retention Rate or the rate at which we retain users on our platform. Sometimes referred to as our attrition or the rate at which users leave the platform.

Retention Rate = Number of customers who sign up per month / Number of those customers who leave within X months.

Since we are focused on building a business, we aren’t going to get into Customer Retention Cost, as we are focused on getting customers and not yet super focused on retaining them.

In Summary

A great idea is a spreadsheet with skin on it. So, now it’s time for me to jump away from storytelling (the skin) and get into the foundational ideation built in Excel (the spreadsheet).

#gowin

So, what are we trying to accomplish in weeks two and three? Are we trying to hit home runs or progress along the diamond, one base at a time?

Sometimes, it feels like a bit of both.

Week 2

Week two brought a presentation on the 5-minute and 15-minute pitch. I’ve got loads of notes, and it still feels like an unsolvable problem. In five minutes, you’re just trying to get a handful of chances at a more focused 15-minute presentation/meeting. Five minutes for a 15-minute meeting.

Everyone has a different style and strategy for these 5-minute pitches; even the advisors disagree on the format, sequence, and which section is most important. The result is a realization that there is a formula, but it has dependencies.

1. Who is doing the pitch? Charisma and Expertise can go a long way.

2. Who is in the room? Knowing the audience can help you craft a tailored presentation.

3. What is the environment? Be ready for technology failures and non-traditional pitches.

You’ll have multiple slide decks that likely won’t ever be finished. Your assignment today is to build the deck to fit today’s audience and environment.

I’ve not yet settled on a sequence, but I’m getting closer.

Week 3

Week three had two different presenters, each focusing on a piece of the puzzle related to the Data Room deliverables and the pitch. We first worked through a section about Revenue Models, and how we might distinguish ourselves early in the presentation to align the audience to the context of the model. HOW ARE YOU INNOVATING?!?

This would be mainly for the 15-minute presentation — they took the meeting because of who you are, so it becomes less about you and more about how you will take your invention and commercialize it. The 15-minute pitch is about “framing your business as a job to be done.” You have to show how you will create and capture value. You create value in your product market fit and capture value in your revenue model fit.

I enjoyed both sections on Revenue and Product Models and had a page of notes on how I might tweak my presentation to get the most out of these sections (even having a one-slide-per-section offering and a 3-4 slide per section offering). Being flexible in your presentation depth is an important takeaway.

Key Takeaways

1. Find your fit!

2. KPIs are your friend

   1. Acquisition Cost

   2. Monthly Active Users

   3. Revenue per User

   4. Cost per user

3. If you have customer data, show the customer data!

Wins

1. Website: Personas

2. Trademark Application

   1. Mark

   2. Trade Name: Barista Bot

3. Financials: Quickbooks, Balance Sheet, and Profit & Loss

4. Project Brief & Customer Flow - Pilot

5. Project Brief & Wireframes in Figma - Landing Page & Customer Admin

6. Golden Thread Deliverable - I can’t wait to share this one; once we have our golden thread from set-up to payment, we’ll open up a way to test out Barista Bot with a one-item, multiple-variable order.

Oklahoma City, OK, 11-2-2023 -- Barista Bot has been selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Bridge2, a pre-accelerator program offered by i2E, Inc.

Barista Bot aims to simplify how we interact with everyday services, starting with our morning coffee. Through natural language processing, Barista Bot learns users' preferences through simple text conversations and assists them in ordering their favorite coffee drink. This revolutionary technology has potential applications beyond coffee and could change how we approach mundane tasks like registering cars or applying for civil services.

What sets Barista Bot apart is its approachable and non-invasive nature. In a world where "AI" and automation can often have negative connotations, Barista Bot focuses on enhancing and simplifying our lives.

"We are thrilled to be selected for the Bridge2 program and to have the opportunity to refine our technology and pitch through this pre-accelerator program," says Sam DuRegger, Founder of Barista Bot, "We believe that Barista Bot has the potential to revolutionize the way we interact with everyday services, and we are excited to take the next step in our journey with the support of i2E."

Learn More: baristabot.app
Email: hi@baristabot.com

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About Bridge2: Bridge2 is a pre-accelerator program offered by i2E, Inc. Bridge2 is an effective space to refine the tools for a successful Accelerator application or Seed Funding Presentation. This 8-week program begins with $50,000 in convertible debt funding to allow founders to focus on building the foundation of a successful high-growth company. Bridge2 is based in Oklahoma City, OK.

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Press Release 11-2-2023: Download Word Doc