John initially bought expensive, high-end espresso gear, including an E61 Rocket and a La Marzocco GS3, but consistently struggled to make good coffee at home. He realized that traditional machines made espresso incredibly difficult because they lacked real-time feedback and suffered from wild, unmeasured temperature variations. This inspired him to find a way to measure variables so that home baristas could actually manage their extractions.
Seeking a tech-focused solution, John backed a computer-driven coffee machine on Kickstarter. When that project crashed and burned, he stepped in to see if he could help. In an effort to do right by the community, he originally promised the burned investors that he would honor their investment and deliver a functional machine to them for under $1,000.
John hired espresso engineering consultants in Seattle, including someone who had worked on the La Marzocco GS3, to evaluate the failed Kickstarter project's technology. Both the consultants and his own engineers advised him that the original project had gone down a path that would never work, meaning he would be much better off scrapping the designs and starting entirely from scratch.
John initially wanted a small, inexpensive pressure-profiling machine, but his lead inventor, Ray, quickly realized that neither of them knew enough about what the ultimate coffee requirements would be. To circumvent this, Ray decided to design a highly flexible machine that could simulate absolutely any profile. To pull this off within a reasonable budget, they shifted away from traditional boilers and instead utilized less expensive, advanced technologies like laboratory pumps and heat-on-demand systems.
The final machine was the result of a highly collaborative, open-source three-year evolution. John and Ray heavily incorporated feedback from early beta testers, industry experts like Matt Perger, and passionate online communities on platforms like Home-Barista and Coffee Snobs to refine every single detail, all the way down to the design of the drip tray.
Although the initial goal was to deliver a machine under $1,000, the advanced parts alone eventually cost more than that target budget. Decent Espresso actually lost money when they first launched the machine at $2,000, and they continued to lose money even when selling it at $2,500. It was only when the retail price reached $3,000 that the company finally began making a profit on the machine.