It started with one espresso.
How KeroIQ began with a flight delay in Italy, and ended with software for the operator everyone else built around.
The airport
In 2000 I took my first trip to Europe. Before that, I honestly wasn't a coffee drinker.
I got stuck on a flight delay in an airport in Italy, and I had my first real espresso right there. It blew me away. The flavor, the texture, all of it. I spent the next two weeks having espresso every single day.
By the time I flew home, I was in love.
The 25 years
Then I spent twenty-five years trying to make that shot at home. I got good at it on prosumer equipment, but I had a full-time job, so it stayed a passion and never became the thing I did for a living.
Along the way I made a lot of friends in the coffee business. People who opened their own shops. People who roasted. I picked up a real understanding of how a coffee shop actually works, and how it gets run, from the people running them.
The decision
Years later I retired. My daughters were getting to the age to head off to school, and I finally had the time. So I decided to do the thing I'd been thinking about for a long time. I was going to open my own coffee cart.
The wall
That's when I ran into the roadblocks. And the one that stopped me cold was the one I didn't see coming.
There was no operating system. No program that actually helped the solo cart operator, or the mom-and-pop, or the small independent shop. Everything was built for big operations. If you were one person trying to start something of your own, the software world had nothing for you.
Everything was built for big operations.
The build
So I set out to build the thing that should have already existed.
Something made for the solo operator and the small shop. Not a scaled-down copy of software built for a chain, but a tool designed from the first day for the person doing all of it themselves. Something to help them run the business, stay on top of it, and get a real shot at the thing they're building toward.
So I built the thing that should have already existed.
The bridge to you
I'm not a software company that decided coffee looked like a good market. I'm someone who fell for a shot of espresso in an airport, spent twenty-five years around this business, and hit the same wall you might be standing in front of right now.
KeroIQ is what I built so that wall isn't there for you.
—Todd, founder of KeroIQ
Built for the operator everyone else left out.
If that's you, let me show you what it looks like for your shop.