The archive · Consumer Apps · Product decision · 2015
Wheelys' bike-cafe bet: 150 carts in 20 countries by its YC-backed Wheelys 3 launch
Wheelys sells $2,999 solar-powered bike cafes; by July 2015 about 150 carts had reached 20 countries and Y Combinator backed the relaunch.
Wheelys
What the business is
Wheelys sells a $2,999 portable, solar-powered coffee stand built into a bicycle — burners, running water and a sales app included — and buyers who run it under the Wheelys brand follow its fair-trade organic menu and keep 90 percent of revenue.
How it started
Swedish founders Tomas Mazetti, Maria De La Croix and Per Cromwell started Wheelys as an experiment in how environmentally friendly a business could be — powered by the sun and the operator's own body, with a zero-carbon-footprint claim — and chose coffee because it carries one of the highest markups of any everyday consumable. By July 2015 the earlier cart versions had sold or taken pre-orders for about 150 units to about 20 countries including Jordan, Singapore, Chile and Taiwan, at one or two sales per day.
What happened
On 2015-07-23, with Y Combinator backing the company, Wheelys launched Wheelys 3 on Indiegogo: a cart with an integrated sales app and a bike 50 percent bigger, plus an upscale version with two Android pads and a mobile greenhouse for growing coffee beans. Operators under the brand had to use the fair-trade organic product line — a menu of about 30 items including 10 coffees — while keeping room for local adaptation such as Turkish coffee in Jordan. Mazetti told TechCrunch that a decently trafficked dense-city spot might gross $400 a day and keep about $200 after the cost of goods, and that America's 28,000 Starbucks locations left room for several more brands. The same-day HN discussion, 224 points and 235 comments, mostly challenged the model: licensing and street regulations, franchise control over cheaper coffee, the carbon accounting, and how easily a big chain could copy the format.
No ending yet — it is still running.
Background
Wheelys is a European startup that sells a complete cafe built on a bicycle: for $2,999 a buyer gets a portable stand with three burners, running water and an electric engine, powered by the sun and the operator's own body. Co-founders Tomas Mazetti, Maria De La Croix and Per Cromwell started it as an experiment in how environmentally friendly a business could be, chose coffee because it carries one of the highest markups of any everyday consumable, and by July 2015 had sold or taken pre-orders for about 150 carts across about 20 countries including Jordan, Singapore, Chile and Taiwan.
The model sold ownership rather than jobs: operators who ran the stand under the Wheelys brand followed a fair-trade organic menu of about 30 items and kept 90 percent of revenue, with room for local tastes such as Turkish coffee in Jordan. Wheelys' claim was that removing commercial rent let a cart operator keep far more than a near-minimum-wage chain employee, and that a decently trafficked dense-city spot might gross about $400 a day and net about $200 after the cost of goods.
On 2015-07-23, with Y Combinator backing the company, Wheelys launched Wheelys 3 on Indiegogo with an integrated sales app, a 50-percent-larger bike, and an upscale version with Android pads and a mobile greenhouse. TechCrunch's same-day profile and the 224-point, 235-comment HN discussion turned the debate onto the weak spots — food-cart licensing and where operators may legally set up, how Wheelys prevents franchisees from buying cheaper coffee, its carbon accounting, and whether a chain could simply copy the format once it proved itself.
What has to be true
- Wheelys sold the whole cafe for $2,999, so buyers skipped commercial rent and build-out, the two costs that define a coffee chain.
- Keeping 90 percent of revenue made the pitch an ownership story versus near-minimum-wage barista work at a chain.
- Coffee was chosen deliberately because it carries one of the highest markups of any everyday consumable, amplifying the no-rent advantage.
- YC backing plus an Indiegogo relaunch gave the cart business press and a same-day HN debate that tested its franchise model in public.
What can be applied
Remove the cost that defines an industry's business model — rent — and the ownership question changes; whether the advantage holds turns on regulation and how easy the format is to copy.
Aftermath
As of 2015-07-23 Wheelys was live: roughly 150 carts had been sold or pre-ordered to about 20 countries including Jordan, Singapore, Chile and Taiwan, and the company was launching Wheelys 3 on Indiegogo with an integrated sales app and an upscale greenhouse version. Y Combinator was backing the company per TechCrunch; operators who used the brand kept 90 percent of revenue and had to follow the fair-trade organic menu, and Mazetti projected about $400 gross and $200 net per day at a dense-city spot. The sources end at the launch; later milestones are not covered here.
Sources
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