When business owners seek outside funding, they usually turn to banks or investors. Derek Taylor and Drew Coffman took a different route — they pitched their idea to Nouns DAO, an online digital currency community that funds creative real-world projects proposed by its members.
Coffman, a former coffee shop owner, had joined several online digital currency communities during the pandemic. This is where he met Taylor, who owned a coffee shop in Los Angeles and was exploring many of the same ideas. The two started collaborating, and saw an opportunity to combine their shared backgrounds in hospitality with their interest in digital currency.
“The cafe is the original social network,” Taylor said. “That is where people find love, new ideas, a recommendation for a show or for a restaurant.”
They also wanted the coffee shop to be a place where trying something new, like paying with bitcoin, would feel natural — where customers could buy a coffee and pay with bitcoin as easily as they would with any other payment method.
Turning that vision into reality meant giving customers a fast, familiar checkout experience while keeping day-to-day operations simple for staff. Square helped make that possible.
Building a coffee shop designed for connection
When Taylor and Coffman set out to build Noun Coffee + Wine, they wanted to create a place where people would slow down and stay awhile.
Their vision was rooted in years of experience working in hospitality.
“We say that we’re in the moments industry,” Taylor explained. “And we love playing with new ideas, new technologies, and the sensory element of coffee or food or wine.”
For Coffman, that meant pushing back against a growing trend in the coffee industry.
“A lot of coffee shops right now are moving more towards a get in and get out model where it’s all about to go,” he said. “There’s not really comfortable seating. It just is intended for it to do as much volume as possible. And we kind of rejected that.”
Instead, the founders looked back to the spaces they loved growing up.
“I grew up in the ’90s and all of my favorite experiences were bookstores that had leather couches and coffee shops that you were supposed to sit around in for a long time,” Coffman said. “And so that’s the space we built.”
As more of life moves online, Coffman believes those physical spaces have become even more important.
“Both of us see the value in brick and mortar,” he said. “The world is getting more and more digital … and yet you need places in this world that you can go and celebrate each other and meet different people.”
Accepting bitcoin payments with Square
Years before opening Noun Coffee + Wine, Taylor had experimented with bringing bitcoin into another business. At the time, the technology wasn’t ready for the customer experience he imagined.
“In 2014, we were trying to accept bitcoin and … people were waiting 15 minutes for the block to confirm. People didn’t know how to approach that. It was super confusing,” he said.
The technology has improved significantly since then. But when Taylor and Coffman began planning Noun Coffee + Wine, they wanted a point-of-sale system that would make paying with bitcoin feel as simple and familiar as paying with a card. So they chose Square.
Square allows business owners to enable bitcoin payments alongside their existing payment methods. Customers scan a QR code to confirm payment, and the transaction is completed in seconds.
“But now at the POS, to literally scan and immediately pay — it’s incredible,” said Taylor.
Square Bitcoin also enables businesses to use Bitcoin Conversions to automatically convert bitcoin sales to dollars or retain a percentage in bitcoin, all while managing those transactions from the same Square Dashboard. Noun keeps a portion of its bitcoin sales as part of its long-term strategy.
“We have turned [Square Bitcoin Conversions] on for our business since last fall and it’s enabled us to save a significant amount of money in bitcoin that’s helpful for our company to expand,” Taylor said. “We found a percentage that’s comfortable for us and that’s been very helpful for us to save in Bitcoin over time.”
Whether customers pay with a card or bitcoin, every transaction fits into the café’s existing workflow.
Making bitcoin part of the customer experience
For Taylor and Coffman, the coffee shop became a way to introduce people to digital currency through everyday experiences.
“Innovation can be scary. And using technology for the first time can be scary,” Coffman said. “But it becomes normalized much quicker when you have those physical experiences or you see a friendly face that makes the experience feel less intimidating.”
That philosophy shapes the experience at Noun Coffee + Wine. Customers who are curious about paying with bitcoin can ask questions, watch someone else use it, or try it themselves while buying a coffee. For many, it’s their first chance to experience digital currency in an everyday setting rather than reading about it online. “The more complex these types of things are when they already feel a little scary or foreign to people, the worse of an experience it’s going to be,” Coffman said.
“You only get so many opportunities before people write it off and say, ‘I actually just want to do the normal thing. I just want to give you my card and swipe it or insert it or whatever else it might be.’ And so for Square to make these bitcoin payments so easy I think is really, really critical.”
Growing community through everyday transactions
Accepting bitcoin has done more than give customers another way to pay. It’s also introduced Noun Coffee + Wine to people who might never have discovered the café otherwise.
“It’s brought out the bitcoin diehards that want to make a pilgrimage and go spend it,” Coffman said.
Through the Cash App Bitcoin Map, customers can discover nearby businesses that accept bitcoin, a feature Taylor says he now uses whenever he visits a new city.
“It is fun to connect with a new customer that we might not know or we might not normally be on their radar,” Taylor said. “We’ve met some really incredible people through it. It’s bridged some new gaps and connected some worlds that we didn’t even anticipate connecting with. It’s been really special.”
The impact extends beyond new customers. Inside the café, people gather for events, conversations, and shared experiences, exactly what Taylor and Coffman hoped to create when they first imagined the business. According to Natalia Irilano, the kitchen manager, Noun Coffee + Wine has a 60% guest retention rate.
For business owners deciding whether to accept bitcoin, Taylor’s advice is that the technology is only part of the story. What also matters is building a place where people actually want to spend time.
Looking ahead
As bitcoin becomes more familiar, the team is already thinking about what comes next.
“What does it look like in a world where people are more familiar with crypto, where people are paying with bitcoin? What other types of innovations can be stacked on top of that? I think we always want to be at that cutting edge because we’re both really excited about what possibilities are there,” Coffman said.
Whatever those future innovations look like, the founders’ goal remains the same: help more people feel comfortable trying something new while creating spaces that bring communities together.
“Micro, just want to see more people using bitcoin as money. Macro, just making a great impact on a neighborhood and more neighborhoods around the world,” Taylor said.
