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“ I am a lifelong coffee lover.” It’s a declaration

that the Founder and CEO of Fellow Jake
Miller needn’t make. His affection and re-
spect for the stimulant is imbued in the
beautiful specialty coffee ware he makes for lovers of
pour over and drip home brews.
The San Francisco based design outfit has been
charming caffeine fans with their stylish and functional
domestic pieces. In fact, Miller came up with the idea
for Fellow through a university class project. He was
undergoing his MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of
Business and the coffee lover chose to make a ‘twist’ on
the French press for an assignment. He said he proto-
typed the product, debuted it on Kickstarter in 2013,
and raised close to US$200,000. With this success, Mill-
er launched Fellow, which he describes as “a start-up
company aiming to help coffee experts and amateurs
alike brew ridiculously good coffee at home.”
Miller achieves this with Fellow through function-
al design — an approach to making his coffee ware work
so elegantly for their intended purpose, it infuses our
daily lives with pleasurable convenience. But more than
making things that execute a specific task well, func-
tional design, at least in the worlds of fashion and home
wares, tends to also value aesthetics.
“I am passionate about designing beautifully func-
tional products for brewing beginners and world coffee
champions alike,” Miller said.
Master of Messaging “Fellow’s brand, not any one product, is our great- Don’t design, just to
est strength. Each new product launch has become
With such an eagle eye focus on aesthetic and easier to market because more and more customers know design. Set out to solve
functional design, you could be forgiven for assuming Fellow and have an overwhelmingly positive experience.”
Miller is professionally trained in the field. His profes- Miller remains very hands on with his company. a problem. Then, solve
sional background though is marketing. “I’m still intimately involved with designing new prod-
Before Fellow, Miller was the brand manager of ucts, working with our designers, engineers, and manu- that problem in the most
Caribou Coffee, one of the world’s largest coffee chains facturing partners,” Miller said. “Making is in my DNA.” elegant way imaginable.
with franchise cafes across the United States and Middle
East. It even has a few coffeehouses in Asia Pacific’s Specialty Coffee for All
Indonesia. To give you an idea of the scale of Caribou,
it has close to 300 storefronts in Miller’s midwest US Something else Miller is actively trying to make is
home state of Minnesota alone. an inclusive coffee culture. “Fellow is constantly trying
It may not seem a smooth transition to go from an to introduce more people to specialty coffee through
international chain that serves espressos in hundreds, if approachable design. Unfortunately, specialty coffee and
not thousands, of cafes around the globe, to a design tea culture can be both overwhelming and intimidating,”
company that creates niche products for lovers of pour he said.
over and drip home brews. But Miller nevertheless took According to him, they are trying to break down
key learnings with him. “My experience in marketing those barriers so anyone on the planet can say, “Hey, I
helped me understand the importance of building a think I can do this myself at home!” He continued: “I
strong brand that is differentiated and has a reason to want to make sure we continue to help everyone find
exist in the minds of the customer,” he said. the fun in the craft of brewing.”

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