Two Guys One Cup

Obviously when you devote 15 hours a day to a self-funded venture, you're going to have to skimp a little. Over the course of three years, I think we've gotten very, very good at the whole bootstrapping thing. I'm writing this post because of our latest hilarious episode of being extremely 'cost effective'.

We work on our startup at Starbucks everyday. Our strict weekday regiment consists of:

-Meeting at Starbucks at 7AM
-Leaving to eat lunch at 1PM
-Going to another Starbucks at 2PM
-Exercise at 7PM
-Eat at 8PM
-Finish up at another Starbucks at 8:30PM

I know what you people are saying. "Three visits to Starbucks??!?? That's a lot of drinks! Instead of paying Starbucks all that money, why don't you just rent out an apartment and code there?" No no, young grasshopper. Here we take advantage of a slight Starbucks loophole and spend about $2 per person per day.

Starbucks has a very generous refill policy on iced teas and iced coffees. It's only $0.50 per refill, so in the morning, ONE of us buys a $2.10 venti iced tea and we SHARE the drink. I drink from the cup, Daishin drinks from the straw. We take turns buying refills. When it's time to leave, we take the usually empty cup with us and save it for the next location.

Of course, you must have very little shame when doing this. We work at Starbucks so often that most of the employees know us, and sometimes they automatically give us two straws when we order. It's kind of hilarious and sad at the same time, but hey, extreme bootstrapping is a hard skill to master.

I'm writing this post today because of an incident that happened at Starbucks 10 minutes ago. My ears are finely tuned to hearing the word 'Free', so at the peak of Starbucks rush hour, I hear these magical words from Stephanie, one of the baristas, "Anyone want a free venti Frappaccino?". I immediately tell Daishin to run over to the bar and grab it. Like Barry Sanders in his prime, Daishin jukes and weaves past the slower, more sensible patrons and proudly asks the barista, "Did I hear something about a Frappaccino?" In another embarrassing moment, the barista laughs and says, "Yeah, I thought you would hear that. Go ahead and take it".

I think all the customers were still in shock at the speed and shamelessness of claiming the drink, but whatever. We were able to score the Starbucks gold standard, the $4.30 Venti Frappaccino, for free. And it will allow us to extend our bootstrapping by another day. Thanks Starbucks!