How Terra Kaffe Pre-Sold 10,000 Espresso Machines With No Reviews

<p>How do you grow a DTC brand without a big brand awareness budget? Terra Kaffe founder Sahand Dilmaghani pre-sold 10,000 espresso machines from a single page with no reviews, and word of mouth has been the top reason customers buy every month for five years.</p><p><br></p><p>On the DTC Podcast, Sahand tells Eric Dyck how he left investment banking to bootstrap a super automatic espresso machine, what he cut to get it shipped with $2.5 million already spent, and why Terra Kaffe now puts its money into community and performance marketing instead of brand awareness. Terra Kaffe has 70,000 machines in homes today.</p><p><br></p><p>Get the DTC Newsletter: <a href="https://directtoconsumer.co" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferer">https://directtoconsumer.co</a></p><p><br></p><p>WHAT YOU WILL SOLVE</p><p>You sell a high-ticket product and cannot seed it to a thousand creators a month. Sahand built word of mouth by calling customers himself, and it now drives well over a third of Terra Kaffe&#39;s orders.</p><p>Your brand awareness budget is too small to register. Why $15K to $20K a month will never make you a household name, and when to hold that money for one campaign big enough to count.</p><p>Your best video flopped on Meta. A $30K shoot that never converted on Instagram or Facebook became one of Terra Kaffe&#39;s strongest performers on CTV.</p><p>Your investors want proof of demand before the product is finished. One pre-order page, a teaser campaign, an email to the subscriber list and a booth at a New York coffee festival produced 10,000 orders.</p><p>Your product is over budget and behind schedule. The features Terra Kaffe cut in a do-or-die meeting to ship in six months, and which ones came back later as a fast follow.</p><p>Your outside partner has spent double to go half the distance. How Sahand replaced his engineering firm mid-build while it still held most of the product knowledge.</p><p>You cannot afford tooling or a production deposit. The trade he made with his manufacturer on the first machine&#39;s design rights, and what it cost him later.</p><p><br></p><p>ABOUT SAHAND</p><p>Sahand Dilmaghani is the founder and CEO of Terra Kaffe, the Brooklyn-based maker of super automatic espresso machines, including the TK-02 and the Demi. Before Terra Kaffe he worked in investment banking and at an electric vehicle startup. https://www.terrakaffe.com</p><p>Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/terrakaffe</p><p><br></p><p>STAY CONNECTED</p><p>DTC Newsl