Noah, David and Adam Belanich of Joyride host a coffee tasting at the New York-based technology and design company Barrel. (Photo: joyridecoffeedistributors.com)

It was a chilly February morning when a young man with shaggy blonde hair sauntered into BuzzFeed’s new Flatiron office, quaint brown bags with small colored labels tucked under his arm. The zombiefied techies, engrossed in determining “The 25 Faces Fans Make Right Before Being Hit With a Foul Ball” initially took little notice of the visitor, but soon the whispers began. “Wasn’t that boy here last month?” “Is that…the coffee guy?!” Whispers gave way to a standing ovation as the surprised coffee delivery boy, otherwise known as Noah Belanich from Joyride Coffee, slowly made his way to the break room, Stumptown blends in hand.

Joyride first rolled down New York’s streets in 2010, the brainchild of brothers Adam and David Belanich and their friend Lev Brie. Since its founding, Joyride has started delivering Stumptown, Blue Bottle and Dallis Brothers blends to more than 70 caffeine-starved offices around the city, around 70 percent of which are in the tech or computer industries. These caffeine-crazed techies, who include the employees at Twitter, Tumblr and Gilt, will pay anywhere from $12.75 to over $25 a pound (with no delivery fee for orders over $50) for Joyride’s services. “The tech industry really loves coffee,” as Adam put it. “They get in a little bit later than other businesses, but you get emails from them at like two in the morning.” Between the bizarre hours and mid-afternoon meetings, the industry has become “fundamentally linked to coffee,” he said.

A customer-submitted photo of Joyride's pour over coffee. (Photo: Facebook)

Tech’s affair with coffee can be as romantic as Jack and Rose, but at times as volatile as Sid and Nancy. Many techies meet with investors or colleagues at coffee shops, convenient for a mid-day pick-me-up over which to close a friendly deal. At the same time, the coffee shop meeting has become a tired trope. Naval Ravikant, cofounder of AngelList, bought idontdocoffee.com because he was so tired of coffee shop meetings, he told the New York Times. (He redirected the domain to a Quora thread on manners and etiquette: “How do you politely turn down someone who wants to ‘grab coffee sometime’?”)

But coffee shop fatigue doesn’t mean techies are tired of coffee—far from it. Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts and K-Cups have fallen out of favor. In fact, techies’ palates are more refined than ever. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what drives the tech industry into the arms of designer coffee blenders, aside from the national trend toward the artisanal and slow-brewed. But BuzzFeed has “an unusual number of coffee snobs,” admitted Scott Lamb, BuzzFeed’s managing editor. Boxee co-founder Idan Cohen didn’t hesitate before rattling off two local cafes his employees prefer: Cafe Grumpy and Ports Coffee. Nina Paige, the officer manager at Behance, imported her coffee sensibilities from her hometown of Seattle and converted the rest of the staff.

But how to grab a brew without running into your least favorite investor or, worse, a chatty wantrepreneur? Enter Joyride.

At Gilt’s offices, a couple of engineers dissatisfied with the “overall coffee culture” hired Joyride, said Gregory Mazurek, a front-end engineer for Gilt Groupe who roasts coffee in his apartment and penned a scathing rant against poorly-made iced coffee for Gilt Taste’s website. “It began to essentially raise the bar for coffee, and it was a bar that could not be reversed,” he said.

Mr. Brie on a Joyride delivery. (Photo: Facebook)

Their techie clients may be particular about their morning coffee, but the Belanich brothers have an equally sophisticated taste for the gourmet. Adam’s love of city street food even tops his addiction to NPR and skiing. Noah, who joined the company in 2011 around the same time as Mr. Brie left, cultivated strong taste buds when backpacking through Thailand. While attending school in Los Angeles, he would drive an hour to eat authentic pad thai at Krua Thai in West Hollywood. He can also name his favorite soup-dumpling and Szechuan restaurants off the top of his head. David, a former political philosophy major, prefers thinking about politics with a single-malt scotch.

The boys understand the difficult lives of overworked tech nerds. Adam is a former “Special Instructor” at Dartmouth College, and David was pursuing a Ph.D. at Yale before dropping out to run the business. “Nobody’s really doing it the way we are,” Adam said. “They’re roasters who happen to deliver their coffees. We’re more focused on doing coffee distribution. It requires a certain level of understanding of how things actually work in an office setting.”

Mom was also fairly good-natured about the whole quit-school-to-sell-coffee-out-of-a-rainbow-truck affair. “My mother is kind of confused as to why I’m not a lawyer and David isn’t a professor, but she is pretty supportive, all things considered,” Adam said.

In 2010, Joyride’s founders, leaving behind cushy futures in law and academia, packed their caffeine-infused fro-yo and trendy, hipster brown lunch bag-esque coffee bags into a rainbow FedEx truck, tweeting their location to loyal followers. However, realizing that the real opportunity lay in deliveries, the brothers sold their truck in 2011 to become to go-to coffee distributor for startup offices that value their perks.

The brothers deliver bags of whole beans to offices with their own espresso or grinding machines, or deliver bags of ground coffee beans to offices where employees then make the coffee themselves. Joyride stops short of providing clients with a bow-tied barista, but the company leases Fetco or Bunn brewers to around two-thirds of its clients. The brothers also host coffee tastings (Stumptown’s Hair Bender has proven to be the favorite) and the occasional milk frothing class. In a recent job listing, Joyride client Birchbox made sure to note “great coffee” as a reason to work there.

Prior to Joyride’s applauded appearance in BuzzFeed’s offices, the trend-setting startup underwent a “brief nightmare period,” Mr. Lamb said. Employees were forced to drink coffee from “robots,” straining the sanity of many workers and encouraging others to leave passive-aggressive notes for whoever dared to drink the last cup of pre-ground coffee delivered fresh from Staples.com. “Those were very dark days for us,” he said.

Gavon Laessig, an avid coffee drinker and BuzzFeed's News Editor, takes his first sip in the morning. (Courtesy: Ashley McCollum)

The Belanich brothers reached out to BuzzFeed, offering to do a taste test at the office. Not long after the employees first tried Joyride’s Stumptown and Blue Bottle blends, the three brothers started delivering to their office regularly. “It is a joy because every morning we come in and there are these two huge canisters filled with really delicious coffee,” Mr. Lamb said.

Occasionally, Adam said, he will walk into an office and glimpse a few techies standing around the coffee maker “literally watching it brew.”

After winning the loyalty of New York’s finest tech nerds, Joyride catered F.ounders, a lively event that brings together the brains behind New York tech startups. “That was insane,” Adam said, noting that the roughly 225 people in attendance drank over 1,300 cups of coffee. That is “maybe four or five times as much coffee as you would expect a normal person of that size to drink,” he said.

Notwithstanding the techies’ occasionally overzealous love for coffee, Adam said he really enjoys working with these companies.

“It’s very invigorating – to be around these people who are doing what they think is really cool,” he said. He even stays up-to-date on his clients’ latest funding rounds. Joyride recently posted an article supporting its client Boxee in its battle with the FCC, calling it a “real life David and Goliath story.”

The love is mutual. “In some ways, we both support each other, because they’re excited about what we’re doing, and we’re excited about what they’re doing,” Boxee cofounder Idan Cohen said.

Mr. Patterson via @jetsetdrew

Today, Jetsetter, the luxury vacation deals site (think flash sales on villas in St. Vincent or a pied-à-terre in Paris) announced the appointment of its first-ever chief marketing officer, Barry Herstein. A former CMO at PayPal, American Express, and the Financial Times Group, most recently Mr. Herstein was responsible for revitalizing Snapfish, the photo sharing and printing service, after a decline in revenue growth.

(Ex-Snapfishers seemed to be everywhere these days. Former Snapfish CEO Ben Nelson recently set his sights on reimagining an Ivy League experience at half the cost.)

Betabeat chatted with Jetsetter CEO Drew Patterson about the need for a CMO, Jetsetter's role within the Gilt Groupe family, and those pesky tech blogs.

Over email, Mr. Patterson said that hiring a CMO was crucial because "investing in marketing to get the Jetsetter brand to a larger audience," is the next stage in the company's development. Jetsetter already has 2.2 million members since launching in the fall of 2009. Although 95 percent of travelers return to to Jetsetter after their trip, they have booked just over 500,000 nights.

Jetsetter also seems to be heading in the same direction as parent company Gilt Groupe by offering more full-price vacations--over the steep sales that may have initially lured you in. (Vendors, naturally, prefer not selling at a discount.) "I am most excited about the growth in Jetsetter’s full-price retail collection, which is contributing over 35% of revenue each month," said Mr. Patterson, noting the 800 hotels and resorts in Jetsetter's full-price retail collection.

Don't let the "deals," part fool you. Things can get pretty pricey, if you let it. The highest purchase on Jetsetter so far has been a $217,000 for renting Caribbean home for two weeks over Christmas. The highest price for a flash sale item, on the other hand, was a number of $42,560 packages for a cruise to the North Pole. Mr. Patterson also noted that the second highest flash purchase was a trip to Antarctica for $23,375. "Apparently the poles are both expensive and popular!" he said.

As for its relationship with Gilt, Mr. Patterson said setting Jetsetter up as a separate company has enabled them to offer a more tailored service. "Travel is a massive category, with different purchase behavior and product needs from fashion," he said. "The product and technology teams spend every day thinking about how we can improve the experience of booking travel and going on the road."

The companies still collaborate. "Gilt has been a big part of Jetsetter’s history and success, incubating the company with seed capital and introducing Jetsetter to passionate Gilt shoppers," Mr. Patterson, said, pointing to a number of cross-category initiatives. "For example, Jetsetter destination weddings and honeymoons will be presented alongside Gilt’s wedding apparel and product in an upcoming wedding sale later this week."

During the recent layoffs at Gilt Groupe, sources posited that there may have been too much overlap between Gilt City, an "adventures" and local lifestyles vertical and Jetsetter. When asked why Jetsetter has grown while Gilt City has been forced to close in six markets and layoff top staffers, Mr. Patterson said. "We’ve got a great relationship and work closely with the folks at Gilt City (and I happen to be a passionate consumer of their restaurant deals). My guess is that any chatter about overlap was just an attempt to drive PVs by gossipy tech blogs (which I also read passionately)."

Well, much of that gossip turned out to be true. Regardless, thank you kindly for the passionate pageviews?! We'll take it!

As Jetsetter scales, Mr. Patterson said the next challenge will be around execution. "It’s hard to keep the same level of service and focus as the enterprise expands. My goal is that we maintain the same attention to detail and service level for our millionth customer as we had for our first."

In a statement, the company said, "We don't foresee additional layoffs at this time."

Betabeat heard word Friday that part of the restructuring would involved shutting down certain markets for Gilt City, the company's location-based deals service that offers discounts on luxury events and experiences. In the statement, Gilt Groupe confirmed that it will be closing its offices in six secondary cities "effective immediately," namely San Diego, Houston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Dallas, and Atlanta. "We have not been as successful in smaller markets and the resources they require take away from growing our core business," the company said.

Prior to this move, Gilt City operated in thirteen markets, so this represents a significant reduction. Going forward, Gilt Groupe said it will be "servicing those smaller markets through a centralized sales force."

The company maintains, however, that in larger cities, Gilt City, which competes with other deals sites from Groupon to LivingSocial to Jetsetter (another Gilt property) has a market edge. "Regarding Gilt City, that business has developed a clear market position and terrific offerings in our core cities, with NY, LA, SF, Chicago, Boston, DC and Miami all showing growth over the last year. "

On Friday, sources also told Betabeat that several high-level staff members from Gilt City were let go, including the division's president, chief revenue officer, and senior director of sales. In the statement, Gilt Groupe confirmed that Nate Richardson, Gilt City's president, will soon be leaving be the company, although the company says it was of his own accord:

"This restructuring has accelerated some changes that were percolating on the management level. Nate Richardson has expressed his desire to return to the start up world, a place where he thrives.  He'll continue to stay on through a transition phase before moving on.  Nate was initially brought to Gilt to build and launch Gilt Man which has gone on to become one of Gilt's marquis businesses.  He then launched and expanded Gilt City which has grown significantly under his entrepreneurial direction."

Betabeat was the first to report impending layoffs at Gilt Groupe. At the time, sources said John Auerbach, head of the mens site Park & Bond, had been let go. Mr. Ryan responded via AllThingsD that Mr. Auerbach was "still working there as of now." However, today, he tells the site that Mr. Auerbach is indeed also leaving because he is, "better suited for running start-ups."

The past few months have been a period of reckoning for flash sales sector. After laying off nearly half its staff, BuyWithMe, another daily deals site, was acquired by Gilt City along with 20 to 25 of its 190 employees. Earlier this month, Mr. Ryan told AllThingsD that after Gilt City was fully integrated with BuyWithMe, they probably wouldn't need as many employees.  Like both BuyWithMe and Lot18, Gilt Groupe, which expects an IPO as soon as Q4 2012, raised significant venture capital before laying off employees. In May, Gilt Groupe raised a $138 million series E from Goldman Sachs, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and others, at a rumored $1 billion valuation.

We will be updating this story as we learn more. Please email tips@betabeat.com.

Tipsters have written into Betabeat that some of those layoffs are currently underway. "People leaving. Sadness. Super uncomfortable work environment," said one source who wanted to remain anonymous, adding, "General atmosphere is terrifying."

Gilt Groupe raised a $138 million series E round just last May and, in addition to launching new verticals, acquired BuyWithMe last October. Prior to the acquisition, BuyWithMe made its own layoffs, letting go of nearly half the staff in order to make the company more attractive to buyers. As Mr. Ryan indicated, some of the 20 to 25 BuyWithMe staffers that came over to Gilt as part of the deal may be among those let go as "they probably don’t need that many going forward now that the integration has been completed," paraphrased AllThingsD.

Another vertical that Mr. Ryan indicated might experience cuts is Gilt Taste. Since reporting the layoffs at Gilt Groupe, a number of other players in the luxury good and daily deals space have let go of staffers, including RueLaLa, which cut 60 staffers, and Lot18, a Gilt Taste competitor.

Betabeat will updating the story as we learn more. If you have any information about the layoffs or restructuring, please email: tips@betabeat.com.

UPDATE: Gilt Groupe has not returned requests for clarification or comment, but responded via AllThingsD this morning.

CEO Kevin Ryan told the blog: “We are not closing down any businesses. We are not closing down Gilt Taste, and we aren’t merging Gilt City and Jetsetter.” Mr. Ryan also said, “In its fifth month of business, Park & Bond did more revenue than any other business in its fifth month,” although he did not say by what metric. He added that President John Auerbach is still employed at the company for now. But, he noted, there was a chance some of its top 15 executives may leave. (Chief Marketing Officer David Zucker left the company in July and Chief Product Officer Stefan Pepe left the company in June.)

Mr. Ryan did, however, tell AllThingsD that Gilt expects to "selectively trim" staff by about 50 over the next couple months, but claimed that by the end of March the number of employees would be larger than it is now. Gilt Groupe, he said, is on track for an IPO, possibly at the end of the fourth quarter, but mostly likely in 2013.

As for Gilt Taste, Mr. Ryan claimed that the site would need fewer staffers despite "doing great."

Business Insider, where Mr. Ryan is chairman, has also confirmed impending layoffs of 50 to 60 people within the next week or so. According to Business Insider's source, five to six percent of the company will let go across various departments in order to get cash-flow break-even by the second quarter of 2012.

Here is our original post:

Since Friday Betabeat has been hearing rumors about impending layoffs at Gilt Groupe. Late Tuesday night, a second source familiar with the company told us that the layoffs would happen on Wednesday and might be as high as 170 employees. We have reached out to Gilt Groupe for confirmation and will update the post as soon as we hear back.

The accounts vary, but both sources also point to restructuring within the company. One source said Gilt Taste, which hired former Gourmet editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl as editorial director last May, is expected to function at half its current workforce, with the remaining staffers funneled into other open positions in the company. Another source speculated that Gilt Taste was likely to be shut down.

Betabeat also heard that Gilt City and Jetsetter, which overlap in the high-end travel market, will merge. In October, Gilt City, which has a partnership deal with Google offers, acquired the daily deals site BuyWithMe, which itself suffered from big layoffs in the crowded deals space.

In some cases, the rumored layoffs may have already begun. A source said that a president at one of the Gilt Groupe verticals had been recently let go. Based on the description of a longtime executive who helped launch Gilt Man and other details, sources pointed to Park & Bond president John Auerbach.

Former employees say Park & Bond, which launched a partnership with GQ in August, hasn't been moving merchandise and that, aside from Gilt Women, revenues are not what the company had hoped for in its dizzying attempt to chase growth by spinning off new verticals outside of its core business.

“We plow through 100 ideas a week," Rob Deeming, Kevin Ryan's chief-of-staff said in October, adding, "At any one time I’m trying to manage a list of 10 to 15 businesses we’re thinking about going into." In November, just before announcing its expansion into 90 new countries, Gilt Groupe revealed that it was hiring a worker a day.

One explanation for operational adjustments within company might be an attempt to trim the fat before Gilt Groupe's much-speculated-about IPO. In May, the company picked up $138 million from Goldman Sachs, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and others, along with a rumored $1 billion valuation.

The mood among certain verticals is tense as employees worry about their future with a company. Among developers, Gilt was always known as an exacting environment. Now, a source said, "Everybody in there is looking for new jobs." Last month, Lot18 poached  Andrew Koch, formerly VP of marketing at Gilt, as its VP of product. The feeling is that layoffs "are just a question of when or where."

We will continue to update the story as it develops, so please reach us by email with any information: tips@betabeat.com.

Mr. Deeming, via Crunchbase

What's life like for Rob Deeming, Kevin Ryan's "chief of staff" at Gilt Groupe? In a word: busy. The 33-year-old's job centers around what seems like Gilt's primary objective these days: launching new verticals as its core discount business matures and e-commerce competitors multiply.

In an interview with Mr. Deeming, a Brit with a Harvard MBA, The Street reports that the majority of Gilt growth comes from "a dizzying array" of new full-priced verticals, such as Jetsetter, Gilt Taste, and Park & Bond, which are expected to rake in $100 million combined within the next fiscal year. Gilt City, meanwhile, will account for 10 percent of overall revenue.

Dizzying seems like the right word to describe the pace. Mr. Deeming told the Street, "Now we plow through 100 ideas a week," adding:

"At any one time I'm trying to manage a list of 10 to 15 businesses we're thinking about going into and then I'll put together two or three that might be the most interesting," he said. "I'll take that to the board, review them and then we'll decide what to move forward with so we can put together a team."

But don't worry, it's not like they've totally gone off the vertical deep end:

"Growing fast is always a concern but not growing fast is a concern too," CEO Kevin Ryan said. "There are lots of things we haven't done -- we haven't expanded into 20 countries and we're not in 100 different categories."

E-commerce is just like Hollywood, isn't it? Everyone loves the bankability of a fresh new vertical, but they all mature someday, folks.

Fitocracy goes mobile.

FITOCRACY MOBILE. "After what seems like an eternity, we've finally released the very first version of our mobile web app. That's right, you can now log your workouts on the go if you have an iPhone or an Android phone!"

INCUBATE ME. Blueprint Health recently closed its fund and opened for applications.  "The program will be launching on Jan 9, 2012 with an application deadline of November 13."

FACE ME. Facebook is hiring in New York. Via Inside Startups, the company is seeking a "Strategic Partner Development, Media" with "high levels of creativity and strategic thinking, extensive experience in the media industry, eight-or-more years experience, including 5 years of related partner or partner facing experience, a proven track record of initiating and successfully driving new business opportunities, exceptional communication and presentation skills."

NEW MUSIC. Exfm is about to release its next major version, due out this afternoon. Look for a "push play music experiences available at ex.fm, new extensions for Firefox and Safari, plus a completely revamped one for Chrome" as well as a new embeddable site player for music blogs.

NEW GILT CITY. "Gilt City is excited to announce that we have acquired Joe Bastianich and Jeff Zalaznick’s upscale private dining booking engine, DinePrivate.com. Gilt City’s acquisition of DinePrivate.com will allow members access to over 90 of New York’s top private dining accommodations in restaurants such as Del Posto, Bluefin, Megu, Marc Forgione and Da Silvano."

USERS. "ONE MILLION. That’s how many subscribers have signed up for FanBridge’s Social Digest in just 24 hours. I wanted to reach out again with this update, as it means that Social Digest has established itself as a new, viable revenue channel for FanBridge, especially since they control 4 advertising and partner inventories in the digests, and are now opening the doors, at scale, for advertisers looking to get in."

BINDING. "DIRECTV and GetGlue have partnered together to create a first for the TV industry: people can now share what they are watching with their friends, right through their TV screen. Additionally, GetGlue’s enhanced iPhone app now automatically detects and pairs with DIRECTV customers’ set-top boxes, allowing one-tap check-ins.  The integration enables DIRECTV and GetGlue customers in the U.S. to use their remote control to check-in to their favorite TV show, view the feed of their friends’ check-ins and easily change channels to see the shows their friends are watching, automatically detect what they’re watching on DIRECTV with their iPhone, check-in on GetGlue via DIRECTV’s iPad app."

HOPSTOP GETS A PATENT. The New York-based startup is going to need a patent arsenal to compete with its big cousin Google. "The United States Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company a patent for its popular location-based service that provides door-to-door mass transit and walking directions. The patent touches on major trends in mobile applications and local navigation."

F&*$ YOU, PAY ME. New Jersey baby startup Takeoff Video is taking off. "We’re turning Takeoff into a paid product," the company writes on the eve of the close of its free beta. "This will allow us to continue our service, feed our families, and ensure Takeoff is the best it can be for years to come. We’ve got great plans in the near future including custom skinning (aka white labeling), native mobile apps, public sharing, editing program integration, and much more!"

NYU STARTUP WEEK. Started Monday. You can still catch "How to Get a Job at a Startup" with Union Square Ventures and others, and "Designers as Entrepreneurs" with Khoi Vinh.

Tickets for the 6,000-sq. ft. estate, complete with 45-foot pool, gym, and spa, are already on sale, including a pool party catered by Nobu, a fashion event with men's designer Bonobos and yoga lessons with Russel Simmons. A portion of sales will go to the East Hampton Food Pantry. In a press release, Nathan Richardson, president of Gilt City, described it as taking the "the popular pop-up concept to a new level of luxury."

The exact location of the scenic manse isn't given until after you've made a purchase, but good luck keeping out the hoi polloi once it's released. For Gilt Groupe's sake, we hope this goes off better than that time it tried to sell Volkswagen Jettas online.

Avi Marko runs the Brooklyn based KidsSocks.com. His first deal, reports the WSJ, was with Mamapedia brought an big traffic boost, 600 customers, but with half the revenue going back to Mamapedia, Marko didn't make a dime.

Another special, through DealPulp.com, got 700 buyers, but ended up costing Mr. Marko $5000 in shipping fees because he missed the fine print.

"We used to just do a deal with everyone that approached us," Dani Zoldan, principal of New York comedy club Stand Up NY, told the WSJ. "We've become more sophisticated on how to structure the deal."

By partnering with the relatively new Gilt City, Stand Up NY was able to keep 70% of the proceeds, way better than the 50/50 split offered by giants like Groupon.

How soon before a competitive marketplace emerges where owners can bid on different kinds of deals?