Muuse: The Dark Side of Coffee

The dark side of coffee isn’t the roast. It’s the trash. Enter Muuse, the reusable coffee cup company that’s using technology to create a system of sustainable caffeination. Every year in the United States over 58 Billion single use coffee cups are thrown into landfills- that’s the entire footprint of of New York’s central park covered in coffee cups, stacked 100 feet high. To tackle the single use catastrophe Muuse has crafted an elegant reusable thermos and partnered with local coffee shops to afford the user the sophistication of a superior coffee cup with the convenience of not needing to worry about washing it in between uses. The aficionado brings their cup back to the store and swaps it out for a fresh one each time, getting a little discount in the process. In this episode we dig into the problem at hand, their intricate business model that leverages network effects to grow on a viral loop, and dig into how their COO Lizzie Horvitz got into the coffee game in the first place. Bottoms up!