The Multiply Blog

While venture capital, strategic partnerships and generally good business sense have all helped keep Multiply going so far, there's a little something else, an unsung hero of sorts, that has certainly helped.

Coffee! While most of us like it — though others get their caffeine fixes from tea, soda or (gasp) not at all — its role in keeping our eyes open and fingers tapping keyboards should not be understated.

We've been through our share of nearby locations of multinational coffee chains and in-house coffee makers over the years at Multiply, and while each dutifully delivered acceptable doses of caffeine, none have been without their drawbacks.

Initially, we were using a commercial-grade coffee maker. There were no complaints then, but brewing an entire pot at once had obvious disadvantages: different people like their coffee at different times of the day, and leftover coffee would either get cold if the machine were turned off, or burn if left on, not to mention develop a decidedly unappealing layer of film at the top if left to sit for long enough.

Fortunately, there are a wealth of single-cup makers on the market, but the first one we bought... kind of sucked. It made coffee from pods, which, in theory is a nice and convenient way to make a single cup, but most of us found the coffee it made to not be all that great. We suffered with it for a while until recently when it, mercifully, broke.

We recently replaced it with the hybrid-type model pictured above, which brews single cups from either grinds or pods. The pod people get to use the pods, and the people with taste get to use their choice of ground beans. :-)

And everyone, regardless of their choice, gets to push cool buttons that light up with a futuristic blue glow... which, um, also let you set options for how you like your coffee.

Everyone is reportedly now happy with their caffeine fix, if not a bit jumpy... though not unproductively so.