← The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
The Foundr Podcast with Nathan Chan
633: We Built a $42M Business by Reinventing Coffee | Purity Coffee
00:50:57
Amber and Andrew Salisbury turned a marriage argument about coffee into an eight-figure health food empire. After Andrew couldn't find a single coffee brand that prioritized health over marketing, the husband-and-wife founders spent two years in research and development with leading coffee scientists to create Purity Coffee—the first specialty-grade coffee engineered specifically for maximum health benefits.
Loading summary
Transcript87 lines
- [00:02]
A
Hey, founder fam. I want to talk to you about something super exciting. We're officially partnered with Omnisend, the email marketing and SMS platform built specifically for e commerce founders. We've been recommending Omnisend to founder students for a while now because it just works. Whether you're launching your first store or you're scaling to seven figures, it really helps you automate your marketing and get real results. Did you know on average, OMNISEND customers make $68 for every $1 they spend, which is an insanely good return. And because you're part of the founder community, you get 50% off your first three months with the code. Founder50. Just head to omnisend.com founder without the e to get started. All right, now let's jump back into the show. What if the biggest fight of your marriage accidentally sparked an eight figure health revolution and proves that 164 million Americans have been drinking coffee? Completely wrong. Well, today's guests are Andrew and Amber Selleck Salisbury, the power couple behind Purity Coffee. And after a heated argument where Amber really challenged Andrew to bring her the science on why she should quit coffee, he discovered something super shocking. Leading coffee researchers couldn't name a single brand that maximizes coffee's proven health benefits. So they spent two years creating one. And in this episode, you're going to learn why they invested two years of R D before selling a single bag. The lab results revealing what really in America's top 59 coffee brands. How they built 50% margins by designing the product first and pricing second. And why Andrew believes focusing on being the best in the world at one thing matters more than anything in business is a real masterclass on building a product first brand with your life partner and proof that the best business start when you refuse to compromise on what you believe in. I know you're gonna love this. Let's jump
- [02:04]
B
hear the stories, learn the proven methods and accelerate your growth and future through entrepreneurship. Welcome to the founder podcast with Nathan Chan.
- [02:18]
A
So tell me, like, how did you start this incredible brand, Purity Coffee?
- [02:22]
C
Well, it's sort of an interesting story. I mean, I can start give you my version that my wife Amber was experiencing some health problems and she was drinking a lot of coffee. And so, you know, she, like a lot of people catching caffeine is a way of sort of like motivating people to get up and, and do the things they have to do during the day. And I was trying to persuade her as an tea drinker not to drink as much coffee. And so there was a Little bit of resistance there and a lot of resistance. And so basically, she sort of challenged me, which is that, you know, if you're serious about me giving up coffee, you need to provide evidence that coffee is bad for me or good for me or whatever. And so I was lucky enough to take out two professors from the Institute of Coffee. Stu studied in Vanderbilt, and they gave me the long shopping list of all the health benefits of coffee, which for me was a big surprise. But then they explained to me about the health benefits come from the chlorogenic acids, the antioxidants in coffee. So the next question was, okay, great. Where do I buy a coffee for Amber that would fit all this category, all these sort of like the. The. The. The focus on health. And they couldn't show me one brand. They could give me a shopping list of all the health benefits of coffee and what created those health benefits, but they couldn't give me one. Making every decision based on health. And that's sort of when the sort of light bulb, aha. Moments went off for me that I felt like, you know, 164 million Americans get up every morning and drink a cup of coffee. Either this was true or not true. So if it was true, then they were ignoring the health benefits of coffee, and no one company was focusing on that. And so that's how we started two months or two months, two years of research and development with Dr. Professor Adriana Ferrar in the University of Brazil.
- [04:10]
B
So I'll give you the romantic version now. So here's my husband Andrew, tea drinker. And at the time I was working, and honestly, I was drinking a bad coffee. At that time, no one was talking about organic coffee. And so it wasn't a great coffee, but I was drinking a lot. And one night we got in the biggest fight of our life. And it was around my coffee. And he was convinced, maybe you're drinking too much. And I said, if you can bring me the science, I'm a reasonable woman. I'll think about giving up my coffee. And so it was. It's just really funny that. That what has turned into our life's work all started with this little argument. We're very strong personalities. And he was like, I'll bring you the science. And I'm like, I'll read it, you know, And. And that's what happened. That's really. That was the beginning of. Of the journey for us. And it's still to this day, every morning, he brings me the science because we're constantly learning, right? And. And the Other thing that Andrew probably wouldn't tell you is he really wanted to find a coffee that he loves me, I'm his girl. He wanted to find something that would be good for me. And then we started discovering how good coffee is for the human body. He was, I remember this day so clearly. He was like, look, Amber, what the world knows about coffee and what science knows, there's such a huge gap. We've got to do something about this.
- [05:45]
A
So what's interesting about you guys is you didn't just, you know, go and start a coffee brand. You've, you've really gone deep into the science where you source your product, making sure that, you know, all of the ingredients are fully controlled, all these different things. A lot of coffee brands that come into the space, a lot of it is marketing and less science. Right. A lot of it is brand and less, you know, yes, the taste of the product. But you guys are going a layer level, a layer deeper around the scientific components. So I'm curious how, like, what did the, what did the launch look like? How did you get your first amount of sales? Can you tell us how much did you invest to bring this brand to life? How many trips did you do overseas? Because I know you guys, you know, you have specialty grade beans and all sorts of crazy stuff going on. Talk us through that.
- [06:43]
C
Yeah. And it took us about two years before we actually launched with our first bag of coffee. And so two years in research and development. So I started working with Professor Adriana Ferrar at the University of Brazil, is one of the leading experts of coffee and health in the world. And we looked at everything. So initially it was a two month project. It then went to 18 months. And we were basically saying, if you were to make every decision based on health, what would you do differently? If you didn't care about taste and you didn't care about cost? And that's the way we did sort of the thought experiments. We wanted to look at what would happen if you focus just on health. And so there was a number of sort of things, especially for your listeners, in terms of starting a business. One thing is we could actually do something in terms of improving the quality of coffee for health. But would it taste good? Would people buy coffee based on health? Would they repeat buying coffee based on health, and would they pay a premium for coffee based on health? So there's a lot of unknowns even if we could actually impact the quality of coffee based on Health. So 18 months, two years research and development, getting our first bag of coffee, then we launched a friends and family and then we started getting feedback and that sort of thing. So that was the start of the business. We wanted to work on the fundamentals before we started doing anything on the marketing side.
- [07:57]
B
Yeah, of course, we didn't really know would people buy coffee based on health? It was still a bit of an unknown.
- [08:05]
A
So take me back to like, how did you know when you were onto something that moment?
- [08:10]
C
I think the biggest thing for us is that we, that one of the first things we did is we lab tested 59 different coffee brands all around the US for the, for the ones that are sort of like the main coffee brands, they represented about 80% of the market. And we were measuring things like the absence of bad stuff stuff and the presence of good stuff. So the absence of bad stuff would be mold, mycotoxins, heavy metals. Presence of good stuff would be the antioxidants, the chlorogenic acids in coffee. And we scored number one out of all of the top brands that we tested. So at that point we go, okay, this is enough validation to prove that what we tried to do, because we didn't really know whether what we were going to do was going to have an impact on the coffee. We could make every decision based on health and we didn't know if you could actually show up in lab results in terms of improving the benefit of coffee. So for us, that was a big sort of aha moment of saying, okay, what we do translates to a better quality coffee. Now we needed to test it with the audience.
- [09:10]
A
Yeah, so that's, that's something that's really interesting to me because so many people, they have a product idea, but you guys have gone a much deeper layer and making sure that your coffee, in argument's sake, is the most superior product in the market for these particular reasons. Talk me through, like the numbers though. Like if somebody wanted, wanted to go through these lab tests, like you did, like, how much would something like that cost? How did you work that out?
- [09:38]
C
I mean, lab testing was there was various plateaus of the business and the first plateau was the validation plateau was what could we actually prove that what we were doing resulted in a better quality cup of coffee with the compounds that we cared about. So the absence of bad stuff is very easy. It's very easy to buy organic coffee, very easy to test for mycotoxins, heavy metals, that sort of thing. That's very cheap. What's expensive to do is to understand whether the health benefits which come from the chlorogenic acids, you can actually result in a better coffee. So in other words, lab testing that coffee. And that was probably over $150,000 worth of testing in the initial stage. And so that was a deep breath. I mean, that was definitely like, okay, because there was a possibility at the end of this. And you say, okay, this didn't work. I mean, this was an experiment and it didn't. Didn't work. And we couldn't actually, what we did didn't translate to more of the beneficial compounds inside of coffee. So that was a stage first plateau.
- [10:38]
B
We also didn't know what it would taste like because we weren't. We weren't building this for taste. We were building it for health. It was a beautiful surprise when it was delicious, you know, which makes sense. But that was also a piece of it.
- [10:54]
C
Yeah.
- [10:55]
B
Are people gonna buy this again? Right? Is it delicious?
- [10:58]
C
Yeah.
- [10:58]
A
And it's. It's such a good name. Purity Coffee. It. It fits exactly what you guys are doing so well. So took you a couple of years. Talk me through. You said you launched your friends and family, but eventually launched a public. Talk me through. That first sale. Did you guys get into retail or did you do direct to consumer? Like, how did you. How did you build up the following wait list, all of that good stuff?
- [11:26]
C
It was all direct to consumer. So initially, it was only about four years ago that we started going on Amazon. About 65% of our business is on our site. The rest is on Amazon. There's a little bit in terms of retail space, we probably own about 200 doors, but we're in those sort of locations where they prioritize food as medicine so we could be in the air ones of this world and that sort of thing, the very organic groceries. But what we wanted to do is we didn't feel like you would be able to walk by 50 coffees in Publix, for example, and then you would say, okay, I'm going to pick the coffee that's twice as expensive as any other coffee. So we wanted to be able to tell the story of all the things that we did. And the best way to do that and to get feedback from our customers was to do it online. So that's really the reason why we didn't go straight into grocery. And we've really not intended to go into grocery because the more difficult, sort of like the more difficult challenge is to unlock direct to consumer and is allowing us to get more insights and better messaging for our customer.
- [12:27]
A
Yeah. And the thing is, right, oftentimes usually what happens is if you go direct to consumer first. Once you've got traction, that's when retailers knock on your door and they want to work with you because you've got traction and people are going to come into the stores so they know the product's going to sell.
- [12:45]
C
Absolutely. And that's one of the sort of like unintended consequences of this business is that, you know the number of testimonials we have, we have like now I think the Latest is about 59,000 testimonials or 4.9 star rating, which means we've built up a body of business which retail would value to have because they're already buying coffee from us.
- [13:07]
A
Talk me through first run, first production run, packaging. How did all that come together?
- [13:15]
C
It was definitely a lot of moving parts. I mean I think as you know very well and you've had your own sort of e commerce business, you know exactly how complicated it is. It's a little bit like plate spinning. There's a lot of things that have to happen at the same time in order for you to produce one product that you would stand behind. So for us we got some really interesting partners and this is true all the way through the success of Purity is we've managed to get really interesting people very high up in the industry to care about what we're doing because they think that what we're doing is worthy and that it's worth their time and their energy. And so we've got. Ildi Revi is our head of coffee. She's probably one of the best coffee scientists in the world in terms of like coffee and health. She's written a book on, on, on coffee and health and all about the difference between specialty grade and regular coffee coffee, circular health coffee. So, so a lot was actually aligning our interests with people like toll roasters with packaging companies and making sure that we're all growing in the same direction. And I think a lot of this benefit came from the fact they wanted us to succeed so it allowed us to keep start without investing huge amounts of money.
- [14:25]
A
So when it came to I guess finding the beans, how did you work that out?
- [14:32]
C
Well, this re. Yeah, I mean it's, you can sort of, it's very interesting in the sense that the, the, the, the amount of antioxidants in the beans vary from crop to crop, harvest to harvest and country to country. And the only way that you could figure out if it's high in antioxidants is to lab test for that particular compound that you care about. So in other words, your very first Step before any other coffee company is we have to lab test the green coffee, make sure it's high in antioxidants and then design a roast curve to maintain the antioxidants through the roast so that we don't lose a lot of the antioxidants and the anti inflammation in the coffee. So it's an extra step. A lot of our business is a. A lot of extra steps that we have to do that other coffee companies don't.
- [15:20]
A
Yeah, because you guys are looking for arabica beans and you get them from Ethiopia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Indonesia, Colombia, utilizing regenerative farming. So yeah, this is not your standard stuff.
- [15:36]
C
And I think that's one of the sort of interesting things that we remember when we bought, we bought it, invested on our first farm in Colombia, Monte Benito. And that's because a lot of the farmers weren't motivated to grow coffee based on health. Health. And to maximize the positive compounds in coffee, they were motivated to grow coffee based on taste. And because of that, we invested in our first farm in Colombia and we started experimenting on a soil level to show how you impact the soil and it impacts the effect of the coffee. So I mean we were doing a lot of things that other coffee companies don't have to do.
- [16:10]
A
Yeah. So in many ways you guys are effectively control the supply chain now. You have your own, you know, in house manufacturing all the way. You've got the full through line. So talk me through, I guess the growth of the business. You know, we were talking about this offline. I thought it was 4 times inc. 5000. It's now 6. 6 times inc 5000. You guys are growing super fast. Run rate, you're on track. You said run rate is 43 million this year. So great business, I assume really healthy margins, especially if you, you're, you know, you're producing all of your beans yourself. You know, you don't have a middle person or I don't know if you. Maybe you do have other supplies. But either way the business is growing really, really well. What do you. What would you put that down to and what would you say to our community when it comes to growing a really fast, exceptional brand in the e commerce space? Obviously we started with the product. We can see, you know, you guys clearly have something special. It's unique in the marketplace. But what are some things that you guys have done strategically or that you could share that is, that could be really helpful?
- [17:22]
C
I think you can talk to some of the other things, but I mean, I think in terms of testimonials that was one of these big sort of aha moments for us that I didn't actually know was going to translate to word of mouth and sales. So right in the beginning we decided to publish all our testimonials. And so we still do the good, the bad and the ugly. They're all on our sites. And so that was one of these things where I think it cemented sort of credibility with the product because we were very transparent. We wanted to share with our customers that this was just a brand new endeavor and that we were going to make mistakes, but we're going to be honest about those mistakes. And so we felt like we were aligning interest with our customer, that we were on the road together sort of thing. And I think that was probably one of the biggest things is leaning into the testimonials. The customer sort of like excitement about the product and the fact that they would notice a difference. Difference because ultimately if they drink the coffee and it tastes exactly the same or feels exactly the same in their body, they're not going to necessarily buy it again. And they're certainly not going to pay two times what the market would normally pay for all the things that we do. It's because they recognize that actually the coffee makes them feel better. There's no jitters, there's no sort of like nervous stomach, better clarity, that sort of thing. So we didn't know that was going to happen. We didn't know whether it was going to be almost like fish oil. Like in other words, you could take a fish oil brand and you don't know if it's good or if it's bad. You just know that you're sort of like getting a good quality fish oil. We didn't know if coffee was going to be that same sort of, that same sort of like impact. Like it meaning, like people weren't going to notice the difference. And because they did notice the difference, that was a great sort of like moment for us.
- [19:04]
B
And we celebrated. Like we, we read these testimonials every day. It's part of our nightly ritual. You know, we read them since the beginning. We have been reading them and, and when you can watch someone's delight in having not been able to drink coffee in 10 years and all of a sudden my body can drink coffee. Right? It's that kind of thing. It's just exciting. We celebrate. We celebrated with them all along the journey. I remember early on we got this great testimonial for this guy. It was like it took 10 minutes to read. I Mean, it was this long, right. And at the end he said, this coffee makes me feel like a God.
- [19:46]
C
Wish we could find the light.
- [19:48]
B
Yeah, I know, I know that was like really early days, but, but we, and still to this day, you know, there's thousands of them. Right. We don't get to all of them, but really staying in touch with what is important to our customers, what they're loving, what they're not loving, what they need more of, and celebrating those wins.
- [20:05]
A
Yeah. So Facebook ads, paid advertising, strong channel for you guys?
- [20:09]
C
Yeah, the strongest channel by far though is word of mouth. I mean, it's, it by far because, I mean, it's just the retention that we get from the, from our customers. They buy, they taste the coffee, the word of mouth, and they want to share that. So while we do Facebook and Instagram and all the other things, all the other channels, the biggest sort of driver of growth has been word of mouth and that people love a coffee. Yeah.
- [20:32]
A
And yes, it starts with the product. It starts with the products. You know, you can do your liquid death marketing kind of crap crazy, but really at the end of the day, it starts with the product. Ends with the product. And that's what's going to be the real kind of pull towards people wanting to buy and driving sales and paid advertising, all these other things, it's just kind of fuel to the fire because
- [20:55]
C
I think a lot of people sort of like work around the edges and they, they concentrate on retention, they concentrate on cost of acquisition and this sort of thing, but they don't concentrate enough on their, their basic product and making sure that it's something where people want to buy it again and again. And so in other words, if you work on the fundamen of the product first, I think it, it results in, in, in good management.
- [21:16]
A
Yep, I agree. So talk me through, I guess, how you guys have worked together as a couple. How has that been? You know, I, I, I have interviewed over the years quite a few couples. And how do you separate from relationship? Personal? Like, is it all encompassing? Like, talk me through how you guys navigate that. And did you guys envision that you'd start a business together?
- [21:49]
B
Yeah. Wow. We love this question. We get it a lot. I think early on it was such a passion for both of us. And, and one thing, that the relationship has always been very, very important. And we knew that going into business together, you know, it can be, it can be a little bit dicey. Right. You're with each other 24, 7. We have, we both have big personalities and we have ideas about how things should be done, but early on, we. We knew to take care of that relationship. I even became certified in imago therapy, you know, and that's a relationship skill set. And I'm like, we may need this. Right. We also have a beautiful imago therapist that's on staff. Right. For. For us and for our. For our employees, for the company. Because navigating life, you know, I think everyone needs a little support and needs a little help. We also have some. Some rules around when do we stop the day? When do we start the day? We love what we're doing so much. We would literally talk about coffee until, like, 24 7. Right, baby? And so we. We have put in place some rules around how do we navigate this part. When. When do we take time. Time off, which is not a lot. Right.
- [23:04]
A
Can you share some of those rules?
- [23:06]
C
I was just saying it helps. I think that we have a shared sort of vision and a shared sense of values. And so we may have different behaviors about achieving the outcome, but the outcome is still the same. So in other words, we have a sort of North Star that's very much aligned. And I think probably some of the things that we do that I think would work is that we. We've. That. That time. Time gap has got smaller and smaller. I would say that we. We. We're conscious about first thing in the morning. We try not to talk about business. We do sort of, like, Amber will talk about the. The. The ritual with sacral cups, and also about, you know, what we try to do to sort of, like, set up our day in the right way. But we have a hard stop at the end of the day, and we typically do. There's. There's a. Dan Sullivan has a great book called the Gap and the Gain. And that's the idea about. Instead of, like, as an entrepreneur, you're always looking forward and you're always saying, what's the next thing? But instead, if you turn around and you look at how far you've come, you appreciate all the direction that you've.
- [24:05]
A
All.
- [24:05]
C
All the movement you've made. So instead of looking out to the future and saying, we still have to do this, we still have to do this, we turn around and we sort of recognize how far we've come in these various areas. And that gives us, you know, gratitude, I guess.
- [24:18]
B
Yeah. We recap the day, and we're like, okay, that this was a great day, or maybe it wasn't. Like, wherever we were, this day is finished. And now let's play you know, the day is, the day is done, let's have dinner, let's, you know, enjoy each other. And we're, I think the other piece is I have so much respect for him. Right. And, and, and I know he does for me as well. We have very different skill sets and I think honoring what the other one does well and always keeping that in mind. Mind has been really helpful for us.
- [24:52]
A
Yeah, that's really special.
- [24:54]
B
He made me a coffee man. To produce this beautiful coffee that we have. So, so there's just a lot of love there. There's so much love. And, and we, you know, they're hard times too. Right. And that's. You navigate through that. Always remembering and that of the respect and the love and the united vision. We're very united in the impact that we want to make in the world. And we're also really conscious of everything that we do. You know, there is that future generation. Right. Like we have a girl, she's 18. Everything we do in this day, it's going to matter to her life and her kids. So how do we want to show up? Who do we want to be? This is always a constant question with us.
- [25:41]
A
Yeah. So I'm curious, talk to me about sacred cups and your ritual and when, when did you introduce this concept and how, how has that impacted the growth of the brand and. Yeah, because you've now got this parent.
- [25:57]
B
Yeah, sure, sure. I'll, I'll talk about the, the first part. Sacred cups is, is an extension of purity. And a really great way to think about it is if Andrew Salisbury were a coffee, he would be purity coffee. Right. It's science based. It's very driven, it's performance, it's enhancement. It's the coffee your doctor drinks. Right. And if I were a coffee, I would be sacred Peps coffee. It is, it's based in ritual, it's, it's very grounded. It's in the marketing. The branding is a little bit mystical. Right.
- [26:37]
C
And it's very heartfelt and indigenous. And the focus is on coffee that typically wouldn't actually get to the consumer normally because we can go to indigenous tribes and women owned farms and small locations where typically the problem we're solving for is those farms give the coffee to a sort of like a third party who then sort of like treats it as commodity coffee and you never get to taste it. So because we have a direct relationship with, with the farmer, we can bring coffee but wouldn't normally get tasted by the consumers.
- [27:07]
B
So these are rare and unique coffees that most People would never taste. Sometimes they're having to come out of the jungle on the back of a horse. Right. Like, that's how unique and rare these coffees are. And we really love the way that our farmers. Well, they treat the earth, how they treat the animals, the birds, the environment that's around them. Yeah, yeah. It's been really fun to play with. We have these two brands that are very different. Right. And we're navigating, you know, how do they interplay some crossover in audience. But also a whole new audience is coming to Sacred Cups and finding purity through sacred and vice versa. But we're having so much fun with it.
- [27:51]
A
Yeah, I find that really interesting because that's a different part of a journey that is uncommon. Right. Because. Because they're both separate brands now, and you're very different, but in the same category. And I'm curious, has that grown them both? Do you cross promote. Talk me through that component?
- [28:14]
C
Sure, I think so. I think, you know, it's early days. Yeah. Liquid cups. And so we've seen a lot of growth initially, and it's a new audience, and I think it's solving a different problem. I think, you know what, what we're doing with Purity is all about making every decision based on health. And what we're doing with Sacred Cups is sort of like the 80% is purity. It's a purity coffee, purity standards, that sort of thing. And the last 20% is the fact that we're solving a different problem. So we're trying to bring coffee to the consumers that is a very high level that typically they wouldn't get to taste in indigenous tribes and sort of women owned farms. So I think it solves a different problem.
- [28:53]
B
Problem.
- [28:55]
C
Both of the brands solve an environmental problem, a focus on the quality of the earth that the coffee is grown in. But I think it allows us to go in a specific direction. And I think we're still playing around with it, but it's very much like a ying and yang. It's the idea that, you know, there is inside of one brand, one umbrella, there is two very distinct brands that solve different problems.
- [29:17]
A
And can you guys tell me about the ritual?
- [29:19]
B
Sure. Well, the original ritual in the beginning was Andrew bringing me the science. Right. So, I mean, I held true to that. And every morning, and it was exciting for us because he would say, oh, my God, babe, look at this.
- [29:35]
A
Look at.
- [29:35]
B
Look at coffee and Alzheimer's. I lost my dad to Alzheimer's, so that was very important to me early on. And he would bring me the science. And then just naturally, that became our routine. He would make the coffee, we would talk about the science, and then we would talk about what. Whatever was happening in our life. We would talk about the business, we'd talk about our daughter, and we would just have this really beautiful moment of connection. And that's when that was. That was when Sacred Cups was born. Initially, I. I said, honey, there are 164 million Americans drinking coffee every morning. We also have to share them, how to have an intentional moment. Right. And he would just say, babe, let me get the healthy coffee done first. And then we can, you know, we could tap into that and, and eventually, you know, in April, we did launch Sacred Cups. And we are teaching people, number one, you have to have a healthy coffee. You know, it. If, if your nervous system would be disrupted if the coffee wasn't pure. Right. But once you have that coffee inside of you, you can do. You can take a moment to reflect on the past. It's very specific. We look at the past, we look at our journey, and we honor it. Where have we come from? I think it's so important for entrepreneurs because Andrew said before, we're always flying forward so quickly. It's really healthy to look back and go, wow, look. Look at where we've come from. This is extraordinary.
- [31:03]
C
Recognizing that.
- [31:04]
B
Yeah, and recognizing and giving signs. Some. Some honor to that. And then we pull in the present moment. We call the time on our phone. Just like this time with you is really special, right? It's the first time we're on your podcast. Like, I don't even know it's what time it is in Australia, but it's. It's 3:54 right now. And, and this moment is precious. This is for entrepreneurs, I think also we're so often in the future that. To anchor in the moment and enjoy the crazy times. Right. In the early moments of a business, there's so many things that we want to push past, but. But these will never be again, these early moments. And then the final piece is we remember forward the future. What do we want to see? We speak as if it is already done. And we, We. We. We do every day like that. Like, we've already talked about this call, Nathan, and we. It went really well. It was beautiful. We love you. We loved your dad, Kevin. We had fun. We gave some value to. To your. Hopefully. We gave some, you know, some tidbits to people that are starting out. And that has been the ritual that we do daily. And that is a really important part to, to our Life and to our business, to our family.
- [32:20]
A
Yeah, I think that's really special. And Amber, I know you used to work for Tony Robbins.
- [32:26]
B
Yes.
- [32:27]
A
And yeah, I'm. I've interviewed him two times actually. And, and I, I love some of the stuff that he talks about around. The secret to living is giving and also the power of your story. And if you. You want to change your future, you change your story. I really, I really love a lot of the stuff he puts out there. A lot of his content, his thoughts around mindset and future casting and all these different things. So I felt of a small amount of like, just a small bit around like everything you were talking about with your ritual. I think it's really important. And I'm big into personal development, self growth, and I think it's really important as a founder, as an entrepreneur. It goes hand in hand, like. And I remember one of the things that Tony taught me when I interviewed him was that the speed in which your business grows is the speed in your own personal growth, and it's a reflection of your own personal growth. So I'm all about having a ritual, having something that you do daily to take stock, to reflect, even as a form of somewhat meditation. I think it's really special and important.
- [33:49]
C
Yeah, absolutely.
- [33:50]
B
Yeah, yeah. We love Tony. He was very instrumental in our relationship and a lot of love for Tony and Sage both, for sure.
- [33:59]
A
So talk me through scaling challenges because the business has grown super fast. You guys talked about, you know, there are challenges. What have some of those been?
- [34:12]
C
So the sort of the preface, which I think is really interesting, I only discovered this like two weeks ago. Our logo is the Fibonacci sequence. So you can actually sort of see in that sort of Fibonacci sequence. And that's obviously a mathematical formula. And we have grown by the Fibonacci sequence since we started. So that means if you take the two previous years, add them together, that becomes the goal of the next year. So if, you know. And so literally for eight years, we have grown about 50% a year, compounding as we've grown. And so, you know, I feel like we haven't. Even though the growth has been fast, we haven't pushed the growth. We've tried to naturally sort of like allow the business to grow. And we haven't got too far ahead of our skis sort of thing in the sense that we've already been growing in a way that we think is consistent because there's a lot of plate spinning, there's a lot of parts to this where, you know, we need the farmers. We had to. We couldn't buy coffee to reach our criteria. We had to encourage farmers to farm in a way that was good for the environment and also good for the compounds that we cared about. So there's a road that we had to get them on. And so we were encouraging farmers to get on that road, and we knew at the end of that road that we would buy all of their coffee. So that was the first thing is like scaling couldn't be 100%, 10x or whatever every year, because we had to, at the same time, build up our supply chain at the same time that we had our demand from our customers. So there was a few unknowns. Like, I mean, I would think, like, Covid was a big one. We were with a thing called Pocket purity. And pocket purity was our coffee in a tea bag. And so it was allowing people to travel and they could dunk this coffee in a tea bag and get a great sort of quality cup of coffee. And then Covid hit, and we thought, okay, we would be completely tone deaf to be sort of like launching with something for people who were traveling when obviously nobody was traveling. So we ended up donating about $50,000 of coffee to the front lines and to all the people, the nurse nurses and the doctors who were working on that. So there's a lot of unexpected sort of hiccups in the business, but I think consistently we've. We've been able to grow. And, you know, it's. You know, even through those surprises, what's
- [36:29]
A
been the toughest challenge to date?
- [36:32]
C
I mean, there's. There's a few. I mean, honestly, that I would say recent, in recent times, last year, with the tariffs, we buy a lot of Brazil. The fact that there was a 50% tariff that was put on coffee meant that we would have to pay $200,000 extra per container that we never even factored into the price. So we had an agreement with the farmers to buy their coffee. We would have to pay a tariff of, let's say, $200,000 on getting that coffee to the U.S. and then we couldn't pass that on to our customers. So it was just like a. We obviously wanted to honor the contracts with our farmers, which was what we did. But at the same time, luckily, they reversed the tar tariffs on Brazilian coffee. And so we didn't have to deal with that problem. But a lot of people were canceling contracts with Brazil, and we weren't. We were. We basically showed that when. When it was volatile, we would Stand by our farmers.
- [37:26]
A
Yeah, that's, that was a, that was a crazy time navigating all of that stuff and. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was rocky there. I know, I know exactly what you're talking about because we, you know, support a lot of our community. We have a, you know, membership and, and coaching program, all sorts of things. And we really support our community through these, those changes because. Yeah, it was, it was looking really rocky there.
- [37:52]
C
Yeah, it was unexpected. I mean, we couldn't, you know, I often look at sort of anti fragility and the idea of black swans or one of the black swans that could come into your business that would sort of like disrupt your business in a massive level. This was never a black swan. We expected, I mean, the coffee prices would go up 50% and we would have to absorb those costs. That was completely unexpected and unplanned for.
- [38:15]
A
Yeah. So talk to me about pricing, actually, because the organic coffee market is growing, but it comes with higher prices. How do you communicate your unique value proposition? And you guys, you have a premium price point. Talk us through that.
- [38:33]
C
Yeah, yeah. I think the important thing is that. So one thing is communication. The other thing is when people take the products and they drink the product, they can notice a difference. And so, you know, we do a lot of things that normal coffee companies don't have to do. So not only do we buy, you know, buying organic coffee that's tested for mold and mycotoxins and heavy metal, that's very easy. That's sort of the low bar. Everyone should do that. It's a, it's a. As a minimum, you shouldn't be, you know, every coffee should be tested for mold and mycotoxins and heavy metals. Metals. And it should be rejected if they have any of those. What is complicated, what adds layers of expense to our sort of supply chain is the fact that we test for chlorogenic acids. We source for coffee that's high in chlorogenic acid. We design a roast curve. And so ultimately, if people don't value what we do, they wouldn't pay a premium for it. So it's not just, it's the fact that people recognize that what we do is worthwhile for them in terms of. They feel that it has a real impact. And so I think ultimately that's probably the biggest thing thing.
- [39:36]
A
And when it comes to pricing, do you have a strategy there? Like, you know, a lot of people use. You know, this is what I'm thinking. What way is the wind going? Competitor here, competitor there. We, maybe we'll do something in a bit. Like, do you have. Can you talk us through, like, how you've. You've. Yeah.
- [39:56]
C
Our North Star has always been less about pricing and more about the things that we want to do. So we do the things that we want to do that we think are going to impact, impact the health benefits of coffee. And then we translate that to the final price, in other words, because we have to do more, we have to charge more for the coffee. And so it's not really sort of in. It's not pricing where we say, okay, we want a 50% margin or whatever the margin is. It's more about. These are the sort of things that we have to do to be consistent with who we say we are and our brand and that sort of thing. So it's driven a lot by our costs and not by what the market would bear, because we honestly believe that, that the market will pay for really good quality coffee. If you think about how much money people pay on supplements and how much money they pay on doctor's visits, I mean, you know, you pay now or you pay later. I think the quality of. Makes a huge difference on your health and longevity and in particular coffee. I mean, so in other words, we're not driven by a price point, we're driven by all the things that we do that we think are important. Yeah.
- [41:02]
A
And look, the longevity market, that is massive. Like, that is really like a booming market where more than ever people are health conscious. You know, I've got my whoop on. I've interviewed the founder of our ring. I tried the O ring. I didn't really resonate with me. I found the tracking wasn't as good, but, yeah, there you go, you know, eight sleep. I've got all my supplements. I've, I've, you know, I just signed up to this thing called Everlab. You probably don't know, but it's a big thing here in Australia where they track and biomarkers and all these different things. So, yeah, it's definitely a rising tide. And I agree with you more than ever, people are health conscious and they want to really kind of optimize for performance, but not only performance, but longevity and health. So I'm curious as well, how margin. From your experience, where should founders be looking for? North of. Or don't go below. What, like, how would you like when you're thinking around building a business like yours in a space like yours?
- [42:11]
C
I think the eventual price of a product has to be driven by your cost because there needs to be enough Money at the end. I mean, in other words, there needs to be a profitable business, because then otherwise you start making decisions which are poor decisions because you don't have enough margin to do it. So, I mean, I think that 50% margin is a good margin to shoot for the gross margin of 50%, because that allows us to do the sort of things that we want to do on a farm level and also on a roasting level that typically coffee companies wouldn't do if they charge less for their coffee. So we're more driven by the fact that we want to do certain things and a certain margin allows us to do those things. So we, I know it's a little bit backwards, but our focus is less about margin and more about the things that we want to do, and then making sure that we've got a healthy level of margin to continue in business and keep on doing it and innovate as well. Because we put a lot of money back into the farms using things like biochar, bio digesters. We do a lot of experimentation. We do things that other coffee companies don't do because we want to invest back into the supply chain. Jody?
- [43:21]
A
Yeah, and I respect that. Like the best brands, the best companies, they keep developing their products, they keep making their products better and better and better. You guys, you know, you guys been doing this for a while now, eight years. What version would you be up to with, you know, your products? Right. Version 15, version 10. Like, like, you know, you just keep getting it better and better and better.
- [43:41]
C
We're constantly learning. And this is what I, everyone believes in, the company is we, we're the first rung on the ladder. We're just beginning where people are starting to recognize the health benefits of coffee and they're starting to sort of thin slice it to say it's not the absence of bad stuff that creates the health benefits, it's the presence of good stuff. And there's thousands of compounds that are created and destroyed in the roasting of coffee, and we can dial up various compounds. And so what I think is an opportunity which is so interesting is there's certain compounds in coffee that are great for liver health health, other compounds that are great for prevention of type 2 diabetes. And the idea of, like, looking at those products, looking at those compounds, and then maximizing those compounds for particular health outcomes is very interesting.
- [44:25]
A
Yeah, I can, I can hear your passion in the way you describe the science. It's really inspiring. So we have to work towards wrapping up. It's, it's been an incredible interview you, you guys are a true testament of a power couple, but then also complimenting your strengths and doubling down on just building a great product because product always wins. So, last question I have. If you could share with our community just one piece of actionable advice. You know, early mid stage founders that have a brand looking to grow their brand that are listening to this right now, what would it be?
- [45:04]
C
Do you want to go or line?
- [45:06]
B
You go first, Monago.
- [45:08]
C
So I think this is going to sound a little bit sort of glib, but it's not meant to be glib, but it's focus on the underlying products like people say. Like, focus on the thing that you think is really going to move the needle. In other words, what can you be the best in the world at? What can you do in terms of actually improving the quality of the product and put most of your energy in that rather than, let's say, selling a product? All of that stuff is important, but if you get the first thing wrong, nothing else matters. And there's nothing worse than sort of like setting your business up with a product which is marginal. And I think it's important that you solve a large problem. And so one of the reasons why we've gravitated to coffee is because, you know, 164 million Americans drink coffee. They don't understand that it could be a health food. And no one was making any decisions based on health alone. So that was a huge market gap, a huge opportunity that we felt like we could actually, you know, we could actually solve, we could actually help with. So I would say, like, the fundamental thing is just concentrate on your product first. Get that right. Make sure that it fixes the problem, which is meaningful.
- [46:13]
B
Beautiful, baby. I would say make sure that you have daily rituals that are focusing you on honoring the journey, honoring the path. Path. Being an entrepreneur is, is a, is a beautiful hero's journey, but it has all the twists and turns. If you're not stopping to really honor your path and where you've been and the people that have helped you get there. You know, every week, Andrew and I pull people from our past as early as elementary school or a favorite teacher or there are people that help us along the way, continue to dip back into the past and honor them, call them them, you know, keep those connections alive and, and, and surround yourself with people that believe in what you're doing. You know, put yourself in an environment where there are people that are championing you.
- [47:08]
C
Yeah, but the bigger the vision, I mean, I think, you know, the bigger the vision, you have as a, as a, as a company, the more you attract people who want to help you with that vision. If you have a small vision, you can attract people who just want to make money. And. But if you have a big vision, a big goal, people come out of the woodwork. I mean, it's amazing the sort of resources that we've managed to garner and to get, because the vision is a
- [47:33]
B
big one for sure. And have fun and have humor. Humor is so important in this journey. You know, you gotta laugh a lot. We laugh at ourselves all the time. We're just, we're, you know, that, that place of. Keep making sure that joy is there there. We could work for seven, right? But gotta have some fun, too. Gotta have some play along the way.
- [47:56]
A
Yeah, I agree. Well, guys, thank you so much for your time. Congratulations on all of your success thus far. I look forward to continuing watching the journey, supporting the journey. You guys are welcome back anytime. But thank you again.
- [48:08]
C
Fantastic. Thanks for having us on.
- [48:09]
A
Hey, founder fam. Thank you so much for tuning in today and if you enjoyed this episode episode, Please take the time to leave us a review and let us know what you think. This podcast is 100% free. We work so hard to go out and find the most successful founders and entrepreneurs all around the globe. So your feedback helps us grow, improve, and even bring on more incredible guests and insights. So if you have a second, please take a moment and leave us a review. It really means a lot, a lot to me and the founder team. It makes so much of a difference. Thank you again for listening and I'll catch you on the next episode.