My Idea Made $200K on Kickstarter, Now a 9-Figure Business

Key Takeaways

Miller launched Fellow, a company helping customers refine their coffee-brewing experience at home, in 2013.
Miller’s Kickstarter campaign was successful, but bringing the product to market proved more costly than expected.
Still, the founder continued to grow his business, forging retail partnerships and opening two brick-and-mortar locations.

This as-told-to story is based on a conversation with Stanford Business School graduate and Fellow founder Jake Miller. Fellow launched a Kickstarter campaign in 2013 for its first product, the Duo Coffee Steeper, and has since grown into a nine-figure company dedicated to providing customers with the products, guidance and coffee to level up their home-brewing routines. Fellow has two stores located in San Francisco and Los Angeles. The piece has been edited for length and clarity.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Fellow. Founder Jake Miller.

I think entrepreneurs are born to be entrepreneurs — it just has to be in you. There needs to be this internal drive to wake up every day and work on something that’s probably not going to work. Coming out of undergrad, I had that drive, so I moved fast into an industry that I knew a little about: home remodeling and construction. I had early success, but a year and a half into that job, I actually remember just sitting down on a roof by myself on a Saturday morning thinking, What am I doing?

I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but construction wasn’t the right fit. So I took a job as a brand marketing manager at Caribou Coffee to learn for a few years, reset and figure out where my real passion is. It was around 2008, and I was excited about the retail coffee experience — the third place that Howard Schultz talked about. I loved thinking that through and providing a great daily experience for our guests. I also got to work closely with the roast masters and travel to visit coffee farms, meet producers and go to processing mills.

This was before specialty coffee was cool, but I saw this early wave and passion for specialty coffee driven by these incredible small roasters in the U.S. People were buying these great coffees and brewing them at home. But there was a gap between that passion and the tools available for the home brewer to use. I saw the opportunity, but with a full-time job, it’s hard to take the leap to quit and start a company. That’s why I decided to attend graduate school. I moved to California to attend Stanford Business School, which gave me two years to really figure out what I wanted to do.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Fellow

We did almost $200,000 in that 60-day Kickstarter campaign, so that was a strong demand signal.

For the first year and a half, we explored a number of different ideas, but in my last semester, I started working on Fellow and the first product that we launched — the Duo Coffee Steeper. I designed the first product at Stanford, then put that product on Kickstarter shortly after I graduated and just said, Hey, if this gets funded, I’m starting this company.

We did almost $200,000 in that 60-day Kickstarter campaign, so that was a strong demand signal. It took me 18 months and probably $300,000 to actually deliver the product, so we were underwater from the start. I underestimated the unit cost and time to deliver. The product ultimately made great coffee, but I also learned there were too many parts, and it was difficult to clean. The takeaway was that it had to make great coffee and be magical, easy to use.

I decided to build on the momentum from the Kickstarter campaign and tried to raise more money to grow the business. I ended up being turned down by 73 venture capitalists, probably because I was talking to tech-focused investors in Silicon Valley, funds that wouldn’t have invested in a coffee hardware company.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Fellow

Fortunately, through my networking, I met a man named Jerry Mix, a former product entrepreneur himself. I pitched him on the idea at a Starbucks, ironically. At the end of the meeting, he goes, “I like what you’re doing. I see the vision. I’ll write you the first check.” It was a $250,000 check to help build out my vision for Fellow’s larger portfolio.

How do we build this brand and gain exposure for this product without a big budget?

The Duo did okay at launch, but shortly after, we released the Staag Kettle, which really put us on the map. Because we didn’t have a lot of money at the time, the go-to-market question was, How do we build this brand and gain exposure for this product without a big budget? We weren’t a major direct-to-consumer brand that could spend a bunch on advertising.

So we did three things. First, we said retail distribution from day one is really important — and this was before an omnichannel approach was a given. So in year one, we landed retail partnerships with Williams Sonoma and Crate & Barrel. We wanted our products on shelves, even if it was a really low-margin transaction.

Second, we wanted to get the best cafes in the world to use this product; we quickly got hundreds of cafes to use the Staag Kettle to brew pour-over coffee. Each cafe is bringing in 400-600 people a day: They’re coming in, seeing the product, asking about it.

Third, we sponsored brewer championship competitors. There are national and world brewer and barista competitions, and we just got all of these competitors our products at no cost so they could use them in competition. We have a long list of world champions who have used Fellow products to win these championships.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Fellow

Then, about eight years ago, we opened our first store. We’d outgrown our tiny office above a brewery and needed more space, so we found a retail store on Valencia Street in San Francisco. It was 2,500 square feet, 1,200 in back and 1,300 in front for the retail store. We built it out as an experience center. People can come in, brew coffee, get support from a brew expert. We bring in speakers, do events and training classes. We worked in the back, so we’d also take shifts at the cash register. I believe deeply in getting close to the customer. Every day, employees have meaningful conversations with Fellow customers.

The store also provides a great opportunity for customer feedback. When we started the business, most of our products were just black, so we needed to figure out what the other colors should be. One day, I literally spray-painted a black kettle white, then put it in the store and told the retail team to tell me how many people in a day and week brought the white kettle up to the cash register. They bring it up, and they’ll say, “Sorry, we’re sold out,” or “It’s not available.” And there was enough interest in that white spray-painted kettle that white became our second major color.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Fellow

Espresso will be our focus in 2026; we want to make home espresso magical.

If you look back to the pitch deck I used 13 years ago, with the forthcoming launch of the espresso machine and the associated espresso accessories next year, we’ve now completed most of that roadmap. Espresso will be our focus in 2026; we want to make home espresso magical. The espresso machine is in pre-sales now and is the most complicated product we’ve designed by a factor of five. We designed the machine from the ground up in-house in San Francisco. The process has taken a team of 20, two years of work and $6 million in research and development. So it’s been hard, but that’s what will make the launch so special.

Based on my journey with Fellow so far, I’d tell any young entrepreneur looking to start their own business to begin with a true passion and belief in what you’re building — then validate that with your customer.

You have to believe in your heart that there is a product-market fit, that what you want to bring to life should exist and is solving a real problem. That’s what will help you push through the inevitable rejections, saying, The world needs this. I don’t care how many nos I get. I don’t care if I get laughed at. I’m going to keep going.

And it’s in that order: First comes belief, which gives you the confidence to get that “yes.”

Key Takeaways

Miller launched Fellow, a company helping customers refine their coffee-brewing experience at home, in 2013.
Miller’s Kickstarter campaign was successful, but bringing the product to market proved more costly than expected.
Still, the founder continued to grow his business, forging retail partnerships and opening two brick-and-mortar locations.

Image Credit: Courtesy of Fellow. Founder Jake Miller.

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My Idea Made $200K on Kickstarter, Now a 9-Figure Business

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