sendbottles Sign Up Information

Hey there,

Thanks for signing up for Bottle! How are things going so far? Feel free to book a free training here or take a peak at our FAQ for getting your site up and running.

Bottle is the best way for businesses to sell to their customers on a recurring basis. We make it easy for your customers to order, remind them to order with automated text reminders, and provide backend tools so you can keep your cool while running your business.

Thanks!

Andy, Will and the Bottle Team

P.S. Over the next few days we'll be sending you 3 more emails with information to help you get up and running.

Hey there,

Still thinking about setting up a Bottle account? Here are all the steps needed to get going:

Step 1: Setup your products

• Head over to the tab Products and Checkout in your dashboard.
• The first step is inputting your menu, you'll want to add your products and any categories for your products during this stage. Below are some articles for helping with setting up your menu.
• Add A New Product / How To Add Products To A Specific Plan

Step 2: Setup your plans

• You can setup your plans under the Subscriptions Tab.
• Plans are how your customers place orders in Bottle. You can an example customer here, here and here to see how ordering works on Bottle. Below are some articles to get you started with setting up your plans.
• Set Up A Subscription or A La Carte Plan / Adding a Cutoff Time / Editing a cutoff time's reminder notifications / Explanation of Different Autofill Options

Step 3: Configure "products and checkout"

• After you've setup your products and plans you'll want to add delivery locations and your tax rate, if applicable. You can optionally setup marketing programs and dietary options. You can do this under the Products and Checkout tab.
• Setup and Manage Delivery Options, Adding automatic fulfillment reminders, Create A Gift Card, Creating a Loyalty Program, Creating a Referral Program, How To Add Dietary Preferences

Step 4: Configure your settings

• Under the Settings tab, you can add your logo, put up away hours, create a voicemail, and customize the way your Bottle page looks by adding a banner image and setting up your default brand colors.
• These are two good articles. Customize Your Bottle Account and Redesign Frequently Asked Questions

Step 5: Test your site.

• Now you're ready to test your site! Go to sendbottles.com/gkfit to place a few test orders and see how things look.

Step 6: Enter in your bank account info once you're ready to take orders

• Go to the integrations tab. Click "Manage Your Payout Account" and enter in your bank details (which it looks like you've already done).

Step 7: Import Contacts and Products

• It's easy to import contacts and products to Bottle.
• You can learn more about imports here.

Step 8: Connect Bottle and your main website

• Once you're ready to start taking orders you will want to connect your main site to your Bottle site (sendbottles.com/[yourhandle]).

Step 9: Launch!

• Once you're ready to launch we suggest emailing our team so we can help you with setting up messages to your contacts and answer any outstanding questions.

The Bottle Team

What our clients say about Bottle:

As a business owner, I know first hand that if we're doing things right, rarely do people take the time to reach out and tell us anymore. So I just want to thank you guys for being awesome!

The team always responds to our inquiries in less than a day, sometimes during off hours. We really appreciate that.

Your service is always reliable and consistent - we've had no hangups since we started working with you. We've noticed that you're always looking for ways to improve the product - keep it up!

Our team does not take it for granted. Thank you and keep up the great work.

- Ben and Danny's

I want you all to know that you are the best tech team I have ever worked with. I have worked for Fortune 100 and 500 companies during my career and you all far

exceed the quality of response and customer service !!!!! (Take tomorrow off!)

- Nala's Kitchen

We were previously using Woocommerce which didnt come close to meeting all of our needs. It was extremely tedious and the majority of what needed to be done was being preformed manually. We've been working with a company called Bottle for the last few months to switch to a new platform and it just launched last week. It is infinitely better than before and I cannot even begin to tell you how much easier it has made all of our processes for us, and more importantly, for our clients.

- Paleo to Go

From my side of things Bottle is great. Really easy to show people how to use and working in the back end has been great. Normally Friday is a pretty busy day for me and today I have had a lot less to do. That is a huge plus. Thank you for putting in such great work on this.

- Food Therapy

I wanted to just say Thank You from myself today. Your company has changed so much for the better here and we are so grateful for your amazing system and dedication to helping us. When I am in Atlanta next, drinks on me! I really appreciate you guys.

- Simon Hall Meal Prep

Hope you are both doing great! We are so pleased with Bottle, and it’s definitely helped our business.

- Fit Meals RX

I have absolutely loved using Bottle it was such a relief after compiling all my orders and invoicing by myself for so long. Any issues I had were my own failure to educate myself on how to operate all the different features of bottle. You provided all the educational materials and have always been helpful with any questions I had!

- Love In Thyme

Hey there,

Hopefully you've add a chance to poke around in Bottle and begin testing things out. We want to help you get your Bottle account up and running in no time. So here are a few tips for getting started with Bottle:

1. Add your products
2. Create your plans
3. Customize your account
4. Send a message

Got questions? Feel free to book a free training and we'll help you get up and running in no time.

- Will, Andy and the Bottle Team

Can you believe 2020 is almost over? All that time spent at home really flew by. So much has happened over the course of the year, from the trials and tribulations that many of your businesses have endured and overcome to the exciting product advancements we've been working on at Bottle. We're looking forward to 2021 with an optimistic view, and we're thrilled to bring all of you along for the ride.

January is a big month for lots of Bottle clients as consumers hunker down to tackle their health-minded goals with the help of meal plans, local produce, and more. As you gear up for the busy season, know that we're only a text or email away. We're wishing you all a relaxing and rejuvenating holiday season and a happy new year.

On the Blog

1. Chelsea's primer on the micro habits you can practice that contribute to a healthier world and life (great for New Year's resolutions!)
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2. A deep dive into the growing market for homemade food, powered by technology
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3. Membership Series: how Patreon capitalizes on memberships to power and monetize the creator-fan relationship
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4. The case for bringing delivery in house: Andy's guide to hiring and managing delivery drivers?

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?Bottle Updates

We've hired a few contractors to help us build out Bottle 2.0, and we're excited to welcome Andre, Alicja, and Matt to the team.

As a reminder, our updated messenger interface will be fully integrated with customer profiles so that you can easily pull up past orders and membership levels. Bottle 2.0 will also have more analytics, easier store and automation management, and the ability to search for orders.

Great Books

William H Seward's Travels Around the World - this is a lightly edited journal published in 1873 about when Seward left Washington after being Secretary of State and traveled to the west coast, Japan, China, Indonesia, India, Egypt, Europe, and back to America. He describes Canada as an "inevitable state of the U.S." and encounters Asia for the first time. Reading journals like his makes me want to travel across the Atlantic and Pacific by boat and look up at the stars. It's amazing how much knowledge of the sky everyone used to have, and how fast a 14-day train trip across the continent felt! -Will, Co-Founder

I'm currently reading The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. This book has been a longtime favorite of mine and this might be the 10th time I've read it. It's a tale of time, music, travel, and so much more-romantic with a mix of sci-fi and many amazing cultural references. (For the record: if you've seen the movie, it doesn't even come close to comparing to the book.) -Chelsea, Customer Success

I'm really digging Ottolenghi's new vegetarian cookbook, Flavor. So far we've made the spicy mushroom lasagna and the pointed cabbage with nam prik, and both were killer. -Emily, Content

This summer I read Dharma Bums. It's a classic Kerouac novel that follows a few beatniks as they travel through the US and chase Zen. Nice read that definitely made me thirst for wanderlust in Covid times. -Andy, Co-Founder

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Interesting Reads

• ?DoorDash IPO bets that the pandemic has accelerated change [TechCrunch]
• ?Atlanta Baker Says Her Premium Pies Are Worth Every Penny [Thrillist]
• ?"The Egg" by Andy Weir, Will's favorite short story online [Galactanet]

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?What We're Listening To

• ?"Americans in Paris" - This American Life resurfaced some of their favorite shows for their 25th anniversary, including this gem from 2000. It's a funny and insightful episode that features David Sedaris, and quelled my intense desire to move to Europe, at least for a bit.
• ?Kasey Musgraves!
• ?Tim Ferriss' interview with Guy Raz - Guy is the host of the business show How I Built This. He also recently authored a book with the same title. This is a great listen for anyone building a business or interested in building a business.

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Where We're Working From

• Still in Kailua, HI! -Chelsea
• Kingston, NY -Emily
• Tewksbury, MA -Dave
• ATL! Enjoying a quiet holiday season here and still waiting for our second child to arrive. T-3 days! -Andy
• Chicago -Will

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Got recommendations or feedback? Drop us a line at team@sendbottles.com.

Hi All,

We wanted to let you know that Bottle is currently experiencing site issues. We are working on the issue and hope to have the site back to normal shortly. We will email with progress updates as we have them.

Thanks,

The Bottle Team

Fall always feels like a fresh start, even in the midst of an ongoing global pandemic. At Bottle, we've been hard at work building new features to keep driving towards our mission of building up the local food system. Although COVID-19 has caused many challenges for small businesses, we see a silver lining in the ways in which people are reconnecting with their immediate communities, creating a path for local makers to shine.

This is our first monthly newsletter, where we'll include recommendations for great reads and listens, product updates, and fresh content from the Bottle blog. Please don't hesitate to reach out with any feedback or suggestions! We hope that it's useful, and would love to hear from you about what's been on your mind.

Content Survey

We put together a short survey to get a sense of what types of content would be interesting or helpful for Bottle clients-from case studies to business advice. It shouldn't take you more than 5 minutes.

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On the Blog

1. ?How Local Meel's Flexible Produce Subscriptions Are Building Up Nashville's Local Food System?
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2. ?How Planted Table Doubled Their Revenue with Simplified Ordering and Top-Notch Customer Service?
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3. ?Founder Stories: Haluk Ural of Human Food RVA is All About Community?
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4. ?How to Build an Audience and Nail Your Communication Strategy?

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?Bottle Updates

We're thrilled to announce that an all-new version of Bottle will be launching in 2021. Bottle 2.0 is being rethought from the ground up and will be completely updated. We're especially excited about a new ordering experience and the introduction of Memberships at checkout. Here's a sneak peek of the new screens*:

*Don't worry, these changes will be opt-in! Please reach out if you'd like to schedule a call to hear more about Bottle 2.0.

It's an exciting time at Bottle. Last month, we added our fourth full-time team member, Dave LeBlanc. Dave and Andy have known each other for years, volunteering at Experience Camps. Dave has joined the team to help with sales and customer support.

Great Books

?Nourishing Wisdom: A Mind-Body Approach to Nutrition and Well?
?"I started my first trimester of graduate school this month. I'm in a Nutrition and Integrative Health program, all online of course. This is one of my required reading books but it's turned out to be so good that I can't put it down! It's given me a new perspective on what is 'healthy.'" -Chelsea, Customer Success

?The Power Broker?
?"A fascinating story of Robert Moses who was one of the most influential politicians of all time (in New York specifically) even though he was never actually elected for office. He shaped modern-day NYC as we know it. The book's main theme outside of being a Moses biography is the 'fall' of New York from 1930-1970. Highly recommend this book." -Dave, Sales

?The Splendid and the Vile?
?"Thrilling account of Churchill during his first year in office as he handled Hitler and the Blitz. Churchill's enthusiasm and energy jumps off the page." -Andy, Co-Founder

?An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace?
?Equal parts philosophical non-fiction and cookbook, with An Everlasting Meal Tamar Adler makes a beautiful case for how to weave cooking and life into a sustainable, rewarding, and connective practice. -Emily, Content

?Benjamin Franklin ?
This book, written by Carl Van Doren, won the Pulitzer Price in 1939. When Franklin was born outside Boston, only 8,000 people lived in the city. New York and Philadelphia were even smaller. It took him seven days to travel from Boston to Philadelphia for the first time when he was 18 years old. It's interesting to learn about how Franklin and America both found their ways. -Will, Co-Founder
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Interesting Reads

• ?To Manage Wildfire, California Looks To What Tribes Have Known All Along [NPR]
• ?Riverside's Newly Legal Home Restaurants Look to Revolutionize California's Food Scene [Eater LA]
• ?Where the Produce Includes Pepperoni: The Pizza Farm [NYTimes]
• ?Is This America's Most Sustainable Community? [Smart Cities Dive]
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What We're Listening To

• ?Take Away Only - a pandemic-born podcast series from food journalist Howie Kahn about how the restaurant industry is adapting to the current moment
• Tom Brady dives into his process for success, talking about progress over perfection and showing up every day on the Dax Shepard podcast
• An eclectic and entertaining (old) episode of The Tim Ferriss Show starring Jamie Foxx, who mentions that he's working on a Tyson biopic set to start production at the end of 2020
• ?Study Music 2020 - a great Spotify playlist to work to

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Got recommendations or feedback? Drop us a line at team@sendbottles.com.

Over the past week, we have seen increased spam filtering from the wireless carriers, which has led to an uptick in undelivered SMS sent from Bottle.

In this email, we want to outline the steps that Bottle takes to improve deliverability and what we are doing to address the new spam filtering being implemented by the wireless carriers. Most importantly, we highlight steps you can take to improve message deliverability to your customers.

Why are messages flagged as spam by the wireless carriers?

The use of SMS for marketing has increased significantly in the past two years. The carriers continually update their security algorithms to detect for spam. When the carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint etc.) believe a message is spam they will filter the message and not deliver it. The carriers don''t provide guidance on what constitutes a spam message, which creates limited transparency for messaging services like Bottle and our provider, Twilio.

What Bottle Does To Improve Deliverability

1. Space out automated longcode (your local phone number) messages by 8 seconds.
2. When a message is marked Undelivered, we automatically provision a new phone number and attempt to resend the message.
3. We recently acquired a Shortcode (86788) for you to use to send automated messages. The carriers allow "marketing" and automated messages without filtering over shortcode. Learn more about our shortcode here.
4. We are consistently in touch with Twilio, the underlying SMS provider for Bottle, to ensure we are following industry standard best practices to ensure deliverability.

Important Steps To Improve SMS Deliverability

1. We suggest that all clients switch to short codes for reminder messages. Bottle owns a short code (86788) that''s available for you to send marketing and reminder messages to your customers. To switch to shortcode, please reply to this email and our team will make the switch.
2. For clients that opt to not switch to short codes for reminder messages, we suggest creating a custom domain for texted ordering links. You can see full instructions for creating a custom domain here.

Hi All,

We wanted to let you know that Bottle is now fully operational. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please feel free to reach out if you experience any issues going forward.

Thanks,

The Bottle Team

Something we've been thinking about recently is how the flexible subscription model powered by Bottle functions like a membership. When a customer opts in to receive text reminders, they're essentially signing up to be a member of your meal plan company, local farm, etc. And from that point on, you can communicate with them directly and experiment with benefits however you see fit. This framing doesn't change the way that Bottle works, but we think it helps contextualize the unique relationship Bottle clients have (and can build upon) with their customer base.
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'Tis the Season

With the holiday season fast approaching, we wanted to make sure you're well-versed in creating holiday menus using Bottle. Here's our detailed article on how to implement specific ordering deadlines, offer special menu items each week, and take time off.
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You can also use Bottle for catering and setting up a VIP program or texting club. Read the 9 Miles East case study below for an example of the latter, and don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions about how to take advantage of these features.

On the Blog

1. A teardown on coffee membership programs, from big brands like Starbucks and Dunkin' to local coffee shops
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2. Ever wondered why Bottle was founded? Here's the story behind how Andy met Will and Bottle was built?
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3. From key assumptions to custom tech, Andy dives into what he learned testing, starting, and launching a food delivery and meal prep business (prior to founding Bottle)
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4. How 9 Miles East, a farm and multi-channel food operation in upstate New York, uses Bottle for pre-ordering, SMS marketing, and a VIP membership club?

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?Bottle Updates
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We launched a completely refreshed website with new copy, more information on features, and fleshed out FAQs to better reflect why we built Bottle and our commitment to helping local food and beverage brands grow.

Coming soon...

As part of Bottle 2.0, our new messenger and dashboard will be fully integrated with customer profiles so that you can easily pull up past orders and membership levels. We are also adding more analytics, easier store and automation management, and the ability to search for orders. Get excited!

Great Books

?Provence, 1970?
?"Provence, 1970 tells the story of a pivotal moment in culinary history-moving away from Europe and towards America-ushered in by M.F.K. Fisher (the book is rooted in her journals and written by her grandson), James Beard, and Julia Child, amongst others. It's essentially a prequel to the stateside farm-to-table movement." -Emily, Content

?The Secrets We Kept?
?"I'm currently reading this novel by Lara Prescott. It's a book set in Cold War times following the true stories of different women in both the Soviet Union and as spies in the US. It's a really incredible read so far." -Chelsea, Customer Success

?Eye of The World?
?The first book in a monstrous fourteen book series, this is an epic fantasy novel that is often regarded as one of the best examples of "world building" ever created in the fantasy genre. The plot reads like a blend of The Hobbit, Game of Thrones, and Name of The Wind. The story follows a group of villagers escaping their normal life as evil forces suddenly begin tracking them. Great book that certainly exposes my nerdy love of fantasy/sci-fi. -Andy, Co-Founder
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Interesting Reads

• Dig into the numbers and Nate Silver's analysis about possible election outcomes [FiveThirtyEight]
• ?A New Wave of Vegan Restaurants Highlights a Hunger for Change During the Pandemic [Eater NY]
• ?2 Broke Artists Started a Bakery at Home. It's a Pandemic Hit. [NYTimes]

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?What We're Listening To

• ?Plant ProofT - inspirational stories and plant-based lifestyle tips from nutritionist Simon Hill
• ?The Bill Burr podcast - this guy is HILARIOUS. He is a Boston sports fan, comedian, and drummer, and his bi-weekly podcast provides some levity to these times we're living in
• ?Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey - kind of what you'd expect: lots of fun stories, a bit over the top on the self-help parables, but a fun listen nonetheless

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Where We're Working From

• Kailua, HI -Chelsea
• Brooklyn, NY -Emily
• Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Queens -Dave
• Atlanta, patiently awaiting (every day counts) for our second child to arrive in December -Andy
• Park City, UT -Will

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Got recommendations or feedback? Drop us a line at team@sendbottles.com.

On Friday, the CARES Act was signed into law. It includes $2 trillion of relief, including $350 billion specifically directed to small businesses.

We've begun compiling a list of articles and helpful resources to make sense of the CARES Act.

You can find those resources on our blog.

For those considering applying for a loan you may want to take a few key actions to be prepared. It is estimated that loan applications may open this week or next.

Key actions to be prepared for loan assistance (source):

1. Gather payroll records for the past 12 months. Your payroll costs will serve as the basis for the maximum loan amount (i.e., 250% of these costs). The application likely will require documentation to justify the loan amount and to satisfy the other items that need to be verified. As a reminder, these costs include not only salaries and wages, but also expenses for paid leave, health care, and other benefits.

1. Reach out to lenders. All SBA-certified lenders will be authorized to make PPP loans. In addition, it is expected that the Treasury Department will authorize nearly all FDIC-insured lenders to participate in the program. While banks may not have a lot of answers at the moment, it may be helpful to contact your bank to (i) confirm that they are SBA-certified and are participating in the PPP, and (ii) learn whether there are any initial steps that could be taken to expedite the process (such as providing ownership information or related documentation to satisfy "know your customer" or other requirements). In fact, businesses may want to reach out to a few different lenders so that they have options to choose from, since lenders likely will have different processing times and requirements.

As always, please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. If you have a helpful resource not listed on the blog, please send it our way!

We hope you are staying safe and healthy.

All the best,

Andy and Will

Our team at Bottle wanted to let you know that we are thinking of all of our vendors as we sift through COVID-19 and its effects together.

Quite a few of you have already sent notes out to your customers. For those of you who have not, we think openly communicating with your customers is a very smart strategy. For those of you that have, we'd encourage you to continue to support your community with updates and constant communication throughout the next few weeks as we navigate COVID-19.

We've compiled a quick list of resources and ideas for communicating with customers. Some thoughts on important messages to convey in all of your communications:

1. Provide Reassurance: We think it's a great idea to reassure your customers of the health and safety measures that your team is taking. Telling them about your production facilities, as well as stating out the strict food safety (and human safety) guidelines you are following in your facilities is a great place to start.
2. Implement a no-contact delivery option: We suggest implementing a no-contact delivery option if possible. This means leaving deliveries on front porch steps and trying to provide safe, limited contact in-store pick-ups. This will help to protect both your customers as well as your employees.

We've seen a few great examples of newsletters that explain the above while keeping a calm tone toward your customers. Below are a few examples we recommend as resources for crafting a note to your own customers:

• Door Dash
• Sakara Life (national meal prep company)
• Local Meel (Bottle vendor)
• Planted Table (Bottle vendor)

• CDC
• Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resources
• List of Trusted Resources

Lastly, please ask any employees who feel even remotely sick to stay home. You have probably heard that social distancing is essential to combating the quick and unpredictable spread of this virus. We understand kitchens are not able to work remotely, but if you can work from home even 50% of the time, we highly recommend this.

Please let us know if we can be a resource to you as we all navigate the uncertainty of COVID-19.