From spreadsheet to product

I pull espresso every morning. I have a Gaggia Classic and a Rancilio Rocky, and for a while I was tracking every shot in a Google Sheet. Dose, yield, time, grind setting, and a notes column where I'd write things like “sour, too fast” or “better but still thin.”

The spreadsheet got long. I had rows and rows of data and I still couldn't answer the one question I actually cared about: what should I change on my next shot?

The problem with logging

A spreadsheet records what happened. It doesn't interpret it. I could see that one shot was sour and the next was bitter, but the spreadsheet couldn't tell me I was probably overshooting my adjustments. That kind of insight requires knowing what equipment I'm using, understanding extraction basics, and recognizing patterns across multiple shots. A spreadsheet doesn't do any of that.

What I wanted the app to do

The idea was simple. The app should know my machine and grinder, and when I tell it my shot tasted sour and thin, it should tell me specifically what to change. Not “try adjusting your grind” but “go 2 clicks finer on the Rocky, keep dose at 18g, target 36g out in 28 to 32 seconds.”

That meant the app needed equipment profiles. During onboarding, you set up your machine and grinder, and every recommendation from that point is calibrated to your specific setup. A Gaggia Classic needs different advice than a Breville Barista Express.

What I got wrong

The first version of the onboarding asked too many questions. Machine, grinder, basket type, water hardness. Most home baristas don't know their water hardness. I should have started with just machine and grinder and collected the rest over time.

I also overcomplicated the dashboard early on. I wanted to show every metric I could think of. It looked impressive and was completely overwhelming. I ended up stripping it back to just your current bag, your last shot, and whether you're dialed in. That's what you actually need when you walk up to your machine in the morning.

The takeaway

Every product I've worked on started as a workaround for something. The spreadsheet was a workaround for not having the right tool. The first version of the app was a workaround for not yet understanding what I actually needed from it. Each version got better by removing things, not adding them.