While it won’t literally transform you into a guitar-wielding musical prophet, Buck’s new mobile coffee service is hoping to make you feel that way.
Buck, a Seattle-based mobile payments company, today introduced Coffee Like A Rock Star, a service that enables people to order and pay for coffee from their mobile phone, then walk up and get their coffee.
Buck CEO and co-founder Andy Kleitsch is a lead singer for two local rock bands and said the name of this new venture “felt right.”
“If I can’t be a real rock star, then I may as well get my coffee like one,” he said.
Using either a desktop or mobile device, customers can sign up at www.CoffeeLikeARockStar.com to find local coffee shops and place their order. A text message is sent to a barista who makes the drink immediately. When completed, the drink waits on a counter with the customer’s cell phone number on the cup.
Buck, formerly known as Billing Revolution, charges $0.35 per transaction and pays out the coffee shops at the end of every month. Other than that, there are no other costs, hardware or websites required. A few local coffee shops in Burien, including the Burien Press and The Bean, will start using the service today.
Kleitsch said that they went with text messaging because printers, tablets, Facebook notifications and others were “not as easy or natural as the text message.”
This strategy is unique because there are no other competitors that allow the mobile user to both order coffee and pay for it at the same time. Starbucks lets people pay via mobile, but not order; companies like Zinglenow enable users to order, but not pay.
“Coffee Like A Rock Star is the only solution that removes all waiting,” said Kleitsch, a former manager of the AT&T Wireless mMode portal and the founder of WeddingChannel.com.
Coffee Like a Rock Star is a “natural extension” for Buck as a company, says Kleitsch. Buck, which we featured in our Startup Spotlight last year, is in its sixth year and serves several hundred merchants by powering their mobile shopping experiences. The company currently employs ten people and has plans to announce several other products in the coming months.
Previously on GeekWire: This coffee machine tries to figure out your age, gender
