What if "doing good" in business isn't a checkbox, but seven different relationships you're already part of, whether you realize it or not?

About This Episode

David didn't set out to become a coffee guy. He started as a business coach who got pulled into La Terza Coffee because his friend, a coffee expert with zero interest in the business side, needed help running the company he'd built. What David found was a business already wired for impact, built on relationships with coffee producers around the world and questions most companies never ask, like what actually counts as a living wage versus fair trade.

That question became an obsession. David started digging into what "good" really means for a business, and the answer turned out to be messier than he expected. A trip to a coffee farm in Honduras, watching a woman sort coffee cherries with what he can only describe as joy, gave him the framework he'd been missing: treat people the way you want to be treated. Not as a slogan, but as a lens for every relationship a business touches.

From that single idea, David built out what he calls the Seven Seeds, covering the supply chain, your team, your customers, your community, your competitors, the environment, and yourself. In this conversation, he walks through where each seed came from, why the team culture seed might be the one with the deepest impact, and why self care is often the hardest and most overlooked piece of the whole puzzle. It sets the stage for part two, where David turns the lens around and asks what it means to be a conscious consumer.

Episode in a glance

00:56 How David ended up running La Terza Coffee

05:34 Fair trade vs. living wage

12:06 Introducing the Seven Seeds framework

19:30 Advice for social entrepreneurs just getting started

23:22 Teaser: the next book on conscious consumerism

About David Gaines

David Gaines is the founder and chief visionary of La Terza Coffee, a Cincinnati-based artisan roastery built on direct relationships with coffee producers around the world. A longtime social entrepreneur and former chair of the Social Enterprise Alliance, David is also a conscious business coach and the author of Radical Business: The Roots of Your Work and How It Can Change the World. He's currently finishing his second book, Why We Buy and Why It Matters, exploring how consumer choices can drive real change.

→ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daviddgaines/

→ Website: https://www.davidgaines.com

→ La Terza Coffee: https://laterzacoffee.com/