App clips help, but remember what works

There’s a sticker on the back of every bag of VENDUM Coffee. Scan the QR code when the bag runs out and you’ve reordered with Apple Pay in two taps. No app to install, no account, no password.

It’s an App Clip: a small slice of the Vendum Coffee app that downloads instantly and disappears afterwards. It works at the market stall too, for anyone who’d rather tap than queue.

It’s the most technically interesting thing I’ve built for the business. What it actually does is catch someone at the exact moment they notice the bag is empty, before that thought turns into a note on a shopping list nobody ever looks at again.

It doesn’t win a single new customer, though. It only makes life easier for the people the markets and the leaflets already brought in.

Running a young business means constantly deciding where the hours go. AI has been genuinely useful for the infrastructure: the app itself, automations in Make, the plumbing I’d otherwise be doing by hand.

But the things that actually bring people to VENDUM Coffee are stubbornly analogue. Standing behind a table at Woolwich Producers Market and Plumstead Make Merry. Talking to people locally. Getting to know the cafes and independents nearby. Printing cards and posting them through letterboxes on a Friday afternoon.

When a business is new, marketing and sales are better done face to face.

So, the thing I keep relearning: don’t get bogged down in what you can do. Work out what actually works, and do more of that.