Well Made
Mike Lackman, Trade Coffee: Creating a Customer Journey – Well Made E103
December 18, 2019 · RSS · Apple Podcasts
Trade Coffee ships customers coffee based on their tastes, straight from roasters. It's a subscription, but CEO Mike Lackman says that part is a necessary evil. Some subscriptions help you discover new products while others help you replenish the products you already love. Trade does a bit of both.
Mike comes from an operational background and this episode is a deep dive into how Trade approaches each component of their supply chain. From the roaster dashboard to their new compostable mailers, every step has been optimized to create a more sustainable journey that keeps customers coming back.
“The fact that you can imagine how you would do it better doesn't mean it's what you should be spending your time on right now.”
On this episode, Mike emphasizes Trade's focus on the home brewer and breaks down exactly who the Trade customer is (1:00). Managing customers' subscriptions is a careful balance between catering to their tastes while also introducing them to new roasters. It requires some serious logistics wizardry. Mike breaks the strategy into three chunks: data science, roasters, and packaging (8:43). He takes us behind the scenes of the Ro Dashboard for their roasters and hints at one other industry that could benefit from this model (17:08).
Much of this episode focuses on the complexity of understanding customer tastes and habits. Mike and Stephan dig into the pros and cons of various strategies behind replenishment, automation, voice assistance, lead time, and inventory (20:48). Mike takes us back in time to his roles at McMaster-Carr and Pet Flow (38:25). He shares why he subscribes to servant leadership and why Trade joined Launch (50:58). Finally, Mike and Stephan end on sustainability and Trade's switch to compostable bags. (59:42).
Also mentioned on this episode:
You can find this and all future episodes on iTunes, Google Play, and here on the Lumi blog. This episode was edited by Evan Goodchild.
