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Coupa Cafe: Where Startups Meet, Work And Test Products

This article is more than 10 years old.

This story (in a very different form) appears in the Dec. 5, 2011 edition of Forbes magazine.

In early 2011, Qasar Younis started testing his customer service tool for restaurants called Talkbin. One of his early customers was Coupa Cafe, a favored meeting spot for entrepreneurs just off University Ave. near Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.

Jean Paul Coupal, the 26 year-old co-owner of Coupa, gave Younis feedback on the product, such as a feature that enables a manager to oversee multiple store locations--since Coupa has five in town. Y Combinator-backed Talkbin was acquired by  Google  in April 2011 just ten months after its founding. Coupa wasn't the only business to test the service, but it was an important early tester.

There are many people and institutions in Silicon Valley willing to help new startups, including incubators, universities, angels, venture capital firms and big tech companies. But local small businesses like Coupa that are willing to give new startups a shot are another important part of this ecosystem. Coupal has become a popular place for local entrepreneurs to test a product. Coupal estimates he's worked with more than 40 startups in total, including Five Stars CardMixtentReference.me, Bling Nation, Bump Technologies, RewardMeApp, CheckPlus, MizoonOurtisan.

Coupal particularly liked Talkbin, which was cofounded by Michael Ma and Sunny Dhillon. "I thought this one, of all the startups I've seen, this was the most useful idea," Coupal says. He's able to use Talkbin across his locations so that he knows what's happening quickly even if he's not there. "It's really practical. I'd much rather get a negative review so I know I can respond."

While startups pound the pavement and ask businesses all over the Bay Area--and elsewhere--to test new products, merchants that are within walking distance in Palo Alto, where many startups are based, are especially popular. Another popular small business is nearby Fraiche Yogurt. "Jean Paul, from when I first made contact with him, I could tell he was curious and wanted to learn," says Ricky Yean, cofounder of startup Crowdbooster, which also worked with Coupal early on. "It's a huge difference from everyone else." While building his company, Yean hit up Coupal, asking if he could develop Coupal's Twitter strategy. Yean used that data to build his Crowdbooster product, which helps companies manage their social media.

Tech entrepreneurs also work and meet venture capitalists at Coupa. The late Steve Jobs dropped in occasionally. Paul Graham and Marc Andreessen are also spotted. Having a product seen by someone important can help a startup early on. "VCs said, 'I saw Talkbin (at Coupa), can we talk?'" says Younis. Also, Coupal received text messages from VCs through Talkbin--not for customer service, but asking if he liked the product. Younis himself worked on his laptop at Coupa regularly before asking Coupal to use the product--and he still works there today. "Even now I was there for hours last night," Younis says. "As an entrepreneur your apartment is your office. It gets tiring."

The place has become so popular that finding a table isn't easy. "It's a great place to see and be seen," says Jules Maltz, venture capitalist at Institutional Venture Partners. "A table is so difficult to get there. But people still flock there. Whenever I meet an early stage company selling to restaurants or small businesses I always tell them the best place to demo it is Coupa because of all the VCs there."

Because of the benefits for startups, Coupal has become a popular guy. Over the summer, he received about 10 emails per day from different startups pitching ideas. So like many venture capitalists, he'll often meet startups through an introduction of someone he knows. He doesn't invest in or get paid from any companies he tests. He'll work with a company if he is impressed by the team, more so than the idea itself. That doesn't mean all the ideas he sees are great.  "I've seen a lot of horrible ideas getting money," Coupal says.

Coupal and his sister and mother opened the first cafe here just off University Ave. in Palo Alto, Calif. in 2004. They later opened another location in Beverly Hills and four locations on Stanford's campus. That has made Coupa more well-known among Stanford's students who go on to create tech startups.

The Coupal family intended to open a cafe focused on bringing their Venezuelan coffee and cuisine to the U.S. Coupal's father already had a coffee roasting business and the original Coupa Cafe in Venezuela. Coupal, who graduated with an Economics degree from Stanford University in 2007, didn't quite expect the Palo Alto cafe to become such a tech magnet. But he has encouraged it, adding a zippy 50 megabit WiFi network and encouraging people to camp out with their laptops. "Since the beginning we wanted it to be a place where you aren't kicked out," Coupal says. "At a restaurant, they bring you the check and you feel you have to leave. We didn't want that. We wanted people to feel at home."