He’s Not Just Selling Coffee, He’s Selling Time

Ted Lisitsyn didn’t launch Manna Coffee because he wanted to sell espresso. He launched it because he wanted to give people more control over their lives.

He just didn’t know that at first.

Manna began with a frustrating moment—one that’s all too familiar for laid-off tech workers. Ted and his co-founder had just lost their jobs at large companies. They met up in New York, grabbed three cups of coffee, and realized they’d just spent almost $30 on something that used to be affordable.

It wasn’t just the price. It was the system behind it.

“We started thinking: why does coffee cost this much?” Ted says. “Why is there no affordable, high-quality option that’s easy to access?”

They didn’t want to open another café. They wanted to build something that scaled. Something efficient. Something better. So they got to work on Manna—a smart coffee kiosk that serves real Italian espresso drinks at a fraction of the price.

But that’s just where the story starts.

Ted had always been a builder. Back in Russia, he was a founding team member at one of the country’s largest grocery delivery startups. He helped launch Instamart (yes, modeled on Instacart), where he built out the first marketing team, the first ad platform, and the first partnerships with CPG brands.

It wasn’t glamorous.

“It was like being a mini-CEO of five or six divisions,” he says. “I learned every part of the business.”

But he wanted more. More autonomy. More impact. And—eventually—more freedom.

So after moving to the U.S., Ted took roles at big companies like Google, but kept getting pulled into the startup world. He worked with founders. Helped new companies break into the U.S. market. Built product strategies. Ran go-to-market plans.

Still, he couldn’t launch anything of his own—not yet.

“I was waiting on my green card,” Ted says. “It was like I had all these ideas and nowhere to go with them.”

But then it all clicked. He got his paperwork. Got laid off. Met a co-founder. Found a coffee industry veteran with real kiosk experience. Everything aligned.

“That’s why we named it Manna,” Ted says. “It felt like something falling from the sky. Everything just came together at once.”

They launched their first location in a low-traffic part of Brooklyn—not exactly a dream spot, but it gave them a place to test everything. Pricing. Recipes. Marketing. Design. Over the course of a year, they changed 90% of what they started with.

They didn’t just build a kiosk. They built trust.

“We knew people were skeptical about coffee vending machines,” Ted says. “So we made the machine visible—real Italian espresso. No powders. Nothing hidden.”

Today, Manna isn’t a hardware company. It’s a platform—for customers and entrepreneurs.

The model is simple: Manna builds the kiosks, places them in high-traffic locations, and partners with individuals who want to run their own mini business. They call it “business in a box”—and for a growing number of operators, it’s working.

“We’re not just selling a machine,” Ted says. “We’re selling the chance to build something of your own—on your own terms.”

It’s deeply personal. Especially for immigrants and first-generation entrepreneurs. Some kiosk owners are buying their first asset. Others are supplementing income for their families. And many are just trying to reclaim their time.

“If you own 20 kiosks, you don’t need to work anymore,” Ted says. “It’s five hours a week. It’s a system.”

And that’s what motivates him now.

Manna is in 24 locations today, with more than 50 coming by June. They’re live in MTA stations, hospitals, airports, and small businesses. They’ve raised funding, launched a crowdfunding campaign, and built out a small team that runs on “two pizzas and AI.”

But the real goal isn’t just expansion. It’s ownership.

“We want to build a network of 5,000 kiosks,” Ted says. “But more than that—we want to help hundreds of people find freedom. We want to give them time back.”

Because that’s the thing people always regret. Not spending enough time with family. Not traveling. Not starting the side project. Not enjoying life while they were chasing income.

Ted’s trying to change that—with a kiosk, a cappuccino, and a radically different approach to entrepreneurship.

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