When someone asks to get coffee these days, it’s usually not about the coffee. Though delicious, coffee is usually secondary to the person you share it with, to the ideas exchanged and the resources shared. Technically a Coffee has become one of the largest monthly meetups in the Greenville startup community because it connects entrepreneurs and experts to brain-share over a casual cup of joe.
This month’s gathering drew a wide crowd – despite the early hour (8 a.m.) – and sparked the usual animated conversations after four startup presentations.
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Greenville Coffee Roasters
If you can subscribe to monthly razor blades and nail polish, why not coffee? Greenville entrepreneurs Josh Tucker and Keith Shields launched Greenville Coffee Roasters 
this year to do just that. The pair plans to sell locally roasted coffee beans through their monthly subscription service, starting at $16.50 a bag per month. Tucker and Shields work together as another Greenville startup – an application development firm called Designli.co – and hit upon the idea for coffee subscriptions after Tucker took up home coffee roasting as a hobby.
DealsOnTheGoGo
When it comes to business advertising, the “carpet bomb” method is expensive and (mostly) ineffective for most small businesses, according to entrepreneur Chase Michaels. His solution is 
DealsOnTheGoGo, a platform that lets business owners find potential customers nearby, target them directly with advertising and promotion campaigns and see – in real time – the return on investment for marketing dollars. The platform combines geofencing technology and data analytics, says Michaels, who plans to launch the iOS and Android product in Greenville, Charleston and Myrtle Beach in the coming weeks. Michaels also noted that he’s looking for a CFO.
VOICE
Greenville entrepreneur and developer Ryan DeMattia returned to Technically a Coffee to talk about his startup and technology VOICE, first launched as a 
hyperlocal, geography-based iPhone and Android application that creates micro social networks based on the user’s location. DeMattia shared fundraising success – nearly $200,000 in three months – along with some unexpected international uses. During the Syrian conflict last year, for example, people used the technology as a mini news source, he said. Today, however, DeMattia has pivoted from the original application to selling the technology itself.
Harpett
One of Greenville’s newest startups, Harpett is a college study platform that provides practice problems, videos of 
problems being solved, lecture videos, practice tests and access to open textbooks. Creator and founder Chase DeHan currently works as an assistant professor in economics at the University of South Carolina Upstate, but plans to start working more seriously on Harpett during the summer. The idea, he told the group, is to “study with superior technology” to increase study efficiency for time-constrained (sometimes lazy) students.
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Learn more and sign up for the next event at technicallyacoffee.com.
