Starting a cafe empire and why should you start to roast your own coffee - with Sandra and Joey from Pink Owl, California

In December, we held the Roasting Lab PRO Course, where future coffee entrepreneurs study efficient ways of roasting, developing products, packaging and branding, understanding sales channels, not to mention having an awesome time exchanging ideas and meeting like-minded people from all over the world. I run this course every 3 months; it is limited to 6 students, and the next one is coming up in March.

One of my favorite parts of the course is our guests, who come to share their coffee business experience and are willing to reveal their trade secrets. In the last course, we were joined by Joey and Sandra from Pink Owl Coffee. As I have mentioned before, I am one lucky guy! The students asked really useful questions, Sandra and Joey's energy was intoxicating, and all I had to do was record it. I hope that some of that energy will rub off on you too. 

In this episode we discuss:

- How to start a café serving specialty coffee;

- What marketing tools you should use;

- How to go about branding your cup, merch, etc.;

- Why Joey and Sandra ultimately decided to roast their own coffee;

- Mistakes they made and you can avoid;

- The types and number of products a café should offer, and how Sandra finds the best deals and quality for their offering;

- How Joey chooses the equipment for the café and whether used coffee gear is a good idea;

- A few ideas on how to finance a coffee shop, drawing on Joey's experience as a finance guy.

There is much more wisdom in this podcast and yes, it is almost 2 hours long. I believe that the shared know-how and value is incredible, so I decided to keep it as is.

 

ENJOY!