LET’S BE FWENDS ISSUE #2:

IN PRAISE OF AIRPLANE COFFEE

I tried to find an image concerning coffee that wasn’t totally obvious, but came up empty. So, instead, I show you how you feel when you had too much coffee on your flight and really need to go to the loo. I like coffee. I especially like shitty coffee. Seriously. I think having shitty coffee is an underappreciated experience. I’m not talking about extremely bitter, or burnt coffee. Or with a mouse in it. But just general, off the mill, average, shitty coffee. Not outright revolting, but also not the least good in any way. Think about Airplane Coffee. It’s not wrong per se, but it’s also not quite right. They got the point of coffee, somehow, but failed at everything else.

Pretty much like shitty first drafts. Since I heard first about it, I fell in love with the concept of just doing something. Put a landmark down somewhere in that big white wasteland of possibilities. It will sound awful, you will not get it right, but the general idea, the basic concept, will be ok. You can work from there. Of course, the whole point of shitty first drafts is that you then start improving on them, a step airlines seem to have missed in their coffee-making.

The economics of airline classes

Back to the issue of coffee and airlines. There might be a clue in this image why the coffee you get on a plane is so … mediocre:

„On average, two-thirds of an airlines revenue comes from passages in first, business, or premium economy class.“ - The Economics of Airline Classes on YouTube

Which is an interesting twist on the more standard version of creating premium editions of your product for branding, and a regular version to actually make money.

The case for better customer experience in sports software

Recently, I’ve done some research into how athletes use software to aid their training (focused on cycling), and the results are pretty interesting. Without using too much euphemisms, let’s just say that there’s quite an opportunity space for creating truly compelling customer experiences. You can read the summary here. The article also includes a link to the complete study.

Favorite image right now

I have no idea what this is or how it came to be, but it is incredible. That’s it from this edition of Let’s be Fwends. If you made it down here, please high-five yourself. And help yourself to a toast with coffee-spread if you feel exhausted. Because everything is better with coffee. ☕️