 I was having so many troubles with manufacturing because the coffee was really stable and condensed milk was really stable but if you put them together it was like this huge mass and I really wanted a clean product. And so when I was traveling to Vietnam, I saw this format on the desk of our supplier and they were using it for a Japan client because it's a really popular format in Japan. And so I was like that would solve so many of my problems I could create a separate creamer packet. This would be such a wonderful expression of Vietnamese coffee that doesn't exist today. It was a backup idea that I was like I'll just use that for e-commerce but the core line will still be the ready to drink but the ready to drink test run completely failed the week before fancy food. So I was like I guess this is gonna be what we have at the booth instead. This is Startup Storefront, the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth. In case you weren't aware, National Coffee Day is coming up on October 1st and what better way to celebrate than with a conversation about the roasted beverage that jump-starts America every morning. Today's guest is Debbie Way-Mullen, founder of Copper Cow Coffee. The first phase of Debbie's path took her all over the world, working for the World Bank. But even though she enjoyed the work, she knew she was destined to set out on her own. Her first venture wasn't the runaway success story she had hoped it would be, so she pivoted. And then she had to pivot again when her next idea missed a mark as well. The product we know as Copper Cow Coffee was only ever intended to be a backup plan. But the success it's had only serves to reinforce the phrase, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Debbie's story is a masterclass in how flexibility and paying attention to market signals can lead to huge returns. So listen in as we cover everything from why her family's experience in the food industry made her avoided at all costs, why her deal with Robert Herchevek fell through, and how she hired someone from Craigslist to design a logo, and accidentally came away with a name for her company. Now, back to the episode. Welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking to Debbie, the founder of Copper Cow Coffee. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. Please tell everyone a little bit about what Copper Cow Coffee is. Well, Copper Cow Coffee is the first premium Vietnamese coffee company in the US. So we source from sustainable farms and create our signature pourover kits. So it has everything you need with these individual single-serve pourovers that are prefilled with coffee, and then you can make a pourover anywhere with no equipment. And then we also make our single-serve sweet and condensed milk creamers, which are very tasty and a wonderful addition to the experience. What made you wanna first start the company where you just obsessed with coffee? Were you in Vietnam? What was the thing where you were like, this has to become something that we can market here in the United States? It's interesting because like to get to this company, it was probably a bit of a progression of things. I'd say that my whole life being Vietnamese American, I've just, I always thought that there was some really exciting opportunity in a business sense to be able to kind of mainstream the flavors that I grew up with as soon as I began to realize that people were unfamiliar with them. But it's also, I grew up kind of conflicted because my mom came here as a refugee and a lot of her brothers and sisters did go into the food business. My uncle had a hot dog stand, and their uncle had a restaurant and just saw how hard it was. And I think that there was always this like sentiment of like getting into food is just the hardest life. And so I never really thought of it as a real option when I was younger. And instead, also just having this motivation of, one thing I've always known about my career since I was 16 when the first time I went to Vietnam was that I wanted to do something around creating opportunities there in that country that were more equitable. And so just seeing that my mom always talked about how hard it was growing up there and how much she didn't have opportunities. And not until I went, did I really see kind of like the extent of it. So I thought that, you know, becoming an economist and working for places like the World Bank would be the way that I could do that. And so- Is that what you did? You worked for the World Bank? Yeah, so I went to Berkeley and MIT and studied all the right things and got- My cousin worked for the World Bank. She was stationed in Congo. Oh, really? Yeah. They get paid tax for it, believe it or not. You do. I do not- It really helped fund the start of Copper Cow Coffee, actually. Yeah, it's a big perk. Savings, yeah. How old were you the first time you went to Vietnam? I was 16. Okay. And it's been crazy to see the progression of the country, actually. And so I think that there's also this like opportunity with coffee that kind of came about because of that. So, you know, Vietnam's actually the second largest coffee producer in the world. Behind who? Behind Columbia. Okay. And so it was just really interesting to learn that because I always knew that Vietnam had this like very robust coffee culture. Vietnamese coffee was something that I'd always ordered at a restaurant and I would say things like as I came of age in the Bay Area with like blue bottle and fills and all these things, you know, coming about, I was like, I wish that there was a version of this of Vietnamese coffee, you know. Did you grow up there in the Bay Area? I did. Okay, right on. That's amazing. So I've been to Vietnam. And I used to live in San Francisco. Oh, nice. The story's just getting better. Yeah. No, when I was in Vietnam, it was probably three years ago and yeah, it was amazing. I mean, there was a real coffee culture. Obviously we were like right in the heart of it all downtown but it was like, there was a lot going on. There was amazing cocktail bars. I was like super surprised and the food was amazing. Like I'd go to these restaurants and I wouldn't know how to read anything on the menu but we just ordered stuff and it was like the best food ever. I mean, super healthy also. And just like the flavors, super fresh. Yeah, it was amazing. And that's what's been really interesting to see in the last 10 years is Vietnam emerges a middle-income country. When I remember when I started to really think about this business idea, I went to Vietnam and told my mom that there were cars and she literally didn't believe me. She's like, it was just bicycles when I went when I was 16. And mopeds and stuff. Yeah, it was just like you'd see a taxi once in a while. I mean, mopeds were even like pretty infrequent. And I was telling her, I was like, there are stoplights. She was like, no, I don't believe you. She literally was like, you're making things up. And so it's been really incredible to even go back with my mom and have her see how it's changed so much. And so with that rise of a middle-income country is a rise of a middle class of disposable income. And when you have a coffee culture, now Vietnamese people are like, well, where does my coffee come from? What does this taste like? How is it brewed? And I think that there's just this great emergence of a supply of premium beans that was just kind of beginning to come to fruition domestically. And so the time really worked out well for me to be like, okay, well, this would be a great time to introduce that and connect that to the world's largest specialty coffee market, which is the US. And did you have to find a farm or did you, like what was like the first step in, I guess, approaching someone to probably partnering with a farmer, I would imagine, but I don't know. Yeah, no, I mean, so what I basically did was I just reached out to anybody that I knew from my previous work. Does anybody know anybody who works in coffee? And I talked to people who had a restaurant that had a nice coffee menu. I talked to literally and asked them, where do you get your coffee? How does that work? Cause I hadn't really worked in the food and beverage space before, this was all totally new to me. And so it was just like a rabbit hole of hundreds of conversations honestly that ended up, I probably just sampled about like 40 different farms before I was able to finally work with actually the co-op that we still work with today that have grown cause they kind of were doing this, wanting to do the same thing with their supply that we wanted to do, but domestically in Vietnam. So we're kind of their US partner, which has been incredible. So what was the one thing that stood out from them? Like just the shared vision for what, like you said, they wanted to do the same thing in Vietnam, what you wanted to do in the States. Was that like what set that farm apart from the other 40 that you visited? It was this like insane commitment to actually talking about how the coffee was made. I felt like there was everybody else. It's, it felt more commodity driven being like, oh, well, whatever taste you want, we can make, you know? It felt a little bit, it just didn't, it didn't seem like none of the coffee would be as premium as I wanted it to be, which means it has to score an 80 or above. And basically- On what score? There's like this coffee kind of grade scale from zero to 100. Okay. And so to be 80 or above means there's a, there's a requisite amount of like smoothness and flavor notes that you're gonna get. And there's like a group of people that like panelists or somebody. It is so insane. Like I still struggle to really be able to totally grade it blindly, but if you get people who are professional like roasters and tasters, they can be blindfolded in separate rooms and they will all be within a few points of each other. It is actually incredible. That makes sense. I mean, it's like that with wine. Yeah, it's, it's so similar to wine. I tell people all the time, like it sounds snobby, but if you grew up drinking Coke and I gave you a Pepsi, you would like be like, what is this? This is garbage. And it's just like, that's how, that's how quickly your taste buds can, can change and you can pick up on things pretty. So like, yeah, I get it. That makes sense. The more you know about coffee, the less, you know, that's like definitely the way it's felt for them. Yeah, it's philosophical. The guys in the front do that. They do blind. So farm cup in the front. They'll do the blind tastings every, I want to say every month. They're part of like some monthly group. Nice. And so they get a bag. It has no name on it. And then they taste it. They guess where it's from. They describe it. And then they get their answers. Like the following week. Yeah, you'd be surprised at how people can be very, very spot on with it, you know. That makes sense. So you mentioned that, you know, you partially funded Copper Cow through working at the World Bank and not having any taxable income. It's a perk. It is a very big perk of the World Bank. What I wanted to ask is, was it, you know, as simple as you were working at World Bank one day, quit your job, went full-time into Copper Cow, or was there some overlap there in between where, you know, you were still having your day job and then kind of building up Copper Cow on the side? Very good question. Definitely in parallel for a while. So not a lot of work-life balance, I guess you could say for a while. Because I actually started off first with a cooking line because I was really obsessed with like mainstreaming Vietnamese flavors. And it was something that was a good experience for me to kind of do part-time on the side. I was renting commercial kitchen space, you know, in the evenings and weekends, literally selling it door-to-door to like different retailers. I think within about a year, I got into a lot of retailers. Like, and this was about eight years ago. And so I'm still full-time at the World Bank. I learned about like, how are you allowed to make something and actually legally sell it? Like, what do stores expect it to pay? How are they gonna mark it up? How do you get the product to stores? Like all these things were, it was a great learning experience for me to have while I was still full-time at the World Bank. And I think that I did have this idea of like, okay, every month I'm gonna sell more until one day it's in every home of America. Like I think I was very naive about the amount of capital that it would require. And so I think that's what it started off as I kind of had these savings from my previous career that was theoretically supposed to go to maybe like a down payment for a house. And so you're like, okay, let me put like $10,000 into this and just see what happens, you know? And then you're like, okay, let me put another $15,000 in until you're like, okay, now I'm beginning to see that curve of going into profitability where your profits exceed your overhead is just a lot longer than I thought it was. And that's when I started to look into both raising capital and also thinking about actually quitting my job. And that's actually when I decided to move into the coffee space. That's when I kind of realized that the cooking line showed a lot of promise in terms of people enjoying the brand and the premise and that I understood like the unit economics I needed for it to work, but I needed a bigger market. And that was when I kind of began to explore the Vietnamese coffee industry and just got, I just got so excited. And I was always really into coffee and my father drank pour over literally every day of my whole life growing up. So when it started to get big, it was a very exciting thing to think about, you know, making it easier for people. What was the food line? What was it? Was it like pre-packaged food? Like what was the concept? Oh my God, it was so esoteric. It was like meant for like me, essentially. That's another lesson about starting a company is like, don't make the product for yourself. Make it for a bigger market. It was, so in my family, we bottle things all the time and just to make things a little bit easier and give them to each other. And so there's this type of oil that we used to, that we cook with from the French influence, you deep fry shallots in oil. And then the oil afterwards just makes everything taste amazing. So it was infused oils and vinegars so that you could replace your oils and vinegars at home and everything would taste kind of like that fresh Vietnamese taste. What were you working at the World Bank? So I worked on loans to governments that would be focused on supply chain projects, mostly on transit development so that we're all focused on alleviating poverty. So mostly connecting rural areas or economic zones so that people would have more opportunities. Where were you stationed? I was in DC and at one point I was in Bangkok and then I was also, but I spent a lot of time in Delhi as well. Okay. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. I like that. A different life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, my cousin, she was in Canada for a little while and then Congo, Germany for a bit. Seems like a great organization to work for if you want to see the world. Or be stationed. It's also like really amazing work, you know? They do a lot of very like honorable work, I would imagine. Yeah. That's how I describe it. It's an impossible job though, you know? It's really hard. It's really hard. You connect to the real problems of the world. Yeah. And then it's hard to have accountability and there's a lot of things that are hard about it. And for me, it just, it was a really hard match culturally. Like these big bureaucratic places, I think that I know people who I got to, had the privilege of working with who are brilliant and they can thrive and really move folders. But for me, I was like, I want to move faster. I felt like it was incredibly agist honestly. It was a really hard thing. Was being like in my 20s and working there, you know, people were like telling me to take notes and I'm like, I have the same level as all these other people, but just because of the way I looked, people would just have a lot of it. They're pretty, it's just an old organization, you know? It was pretty hard for me. That's what drives you a lot of entrepreneurship in general. Yeah. That type of, they're like, oh wow, I can't grow at the pace I want, so I need to leave this thing. Which makes sense, we're all, we'll all survive and thrive in our own climates and so we just have to find them. Let's go back to the coffee thing. So at this point, you pivoted from food to coffee and at that moment you had already left or you were leaving your position at the World Bank? So as soon as I fundraised friends and family money. How much did you raise? I raised 400,000. Okay, friends, family, just coffee. And some in a couple of angels, yeah. Basically I like hit up anybody that I knew. Like I was getting like $10,000 checks from coworkers that I was like, hey, I'm gonna do this. They were like, sure. It was really awesome, the kind of support and I think it was such a great entrepreneur experience of just like, you just gotta ask and you're gonna be surprised by who says yes and who says no, you know? I think it was a really good experience. Okay, so then you raised and then what'd you do? And then I quit and then finally was able to like 100% dive in and it was really exciting. We launched a few months later at the fancy food show. So it was interesting though, because when I fundraised I was actually trying to make a ready to drink version of the product. What year was this? This was 2016. Okay, so at that time, I mean, that's not a bad idea. I mean, at the time it's like the hottest area, right? But one thing that was so great about having that oil and vinegar line was I knew how hard it was to ship a heavy liquid product. And it was, even though it was a small market, at least I had a good margin because like people are willing to pay quite a bit for a bottle of oil or vinegar. But I was like, so if I want it to be a $3. Yeah, there's your shipping. I was like, how do you actually, don't you just lose money every time you sell it until you sell at like 20 million in revenue maybe? And I was a first time entrepreneur. I think the idea of raising that kind of money was pretty daunting. And I was having so many troubles with manufacturing because the coffee was really stable and condensed milk was really stable. But if you put them together, it was like this huge mass and I really wanted a clean product. And so when I was traveling to Vietnam and concurrently trying to source, like finding this source of coffee, having these hundreds of conversations with people to find the right beans, I saw this format on the desk of our supplier and they were using it for a Japan client because it's a really popular format in Japan. And so I was like, that would solve so many of my problems. I could create a separate creamer packet. This would be such a wonderful expression of Vietnamese coffee that doesn't exist today. It was a backup idea that I was like, I'll just use that for e-commerce but the core line will still be the ready to drink but the ready to drink test run completely failed the week before fancy food. So I was like, I guess this is gonna be what we have at the booth instead. I love the story. Yeah, I love, I mean, that's the reality of how it goes. Yeah, it is. I remember Starbucks was launching there, so instant coffee in general has a really bad, like people think it's cheap. So if you go to Starbucks or if you go to here as an example, instant coffee is like, it's below you. And so when Starbucks was rebranding, they were trying to figure out a way, what's the right marketing message to make their instant coffee? And so they realized that they had so much cache with the Starbucks name that they would just put Starbucks in front of it. And so it became like Starbucks to go and it was just the packets. Yeah. And that's how they solved the marketing problem. They told it for like three bucks, I think. But it's something everyone struggles with. The instant coffee is for some reason just not, people don't like it. Yeah. And they don't wanna spend that much money on it when they buy it. Well, conjures up images of like fast food. You know, if you are given a McDonald's burger versus something that you would get at a fine restaurant, it's easy to see where that comparison can get messed up in people's minds. Yeah. So then how'd the show go? The show is great. We got chosen as the innovation of the show. Wow. So we were one of the top five. So they choose five innovations of like the 1500 products there. And why was it? It was because it was like a package they'd never seen before. It was a pour over that you do at home. Yeah, they were just like, this is so different and innovative and the quality is so great. Cause of this format, the fact that you can like have everything ready and it still tastes like, you know, a barista made it for you. I feel like we should do it now. Yeah. Yeah. It's now a good time. Yeah, let's do it. And while we're doing this, I'm gonna make you multitask. Can you just explain, so I'm unfamiliar with fancy foods. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. In general or? In general. Like any fancy food? Oh no, there is a, one of the biggest trade shows that they have in the food and beverage world for people who are trying to get into grocery stores is called the fancy food show. So it's where you go and have like premiums. It's a rotating trade show, going to multi different cities. They have one on the East Coast, one on the West Coast every year. And so it's a place where you get to meet, you know, thousands of buyers. So it's where we got into our first, you know, thousand doors. God, that's such a great little shortcut. Like rather than, you know, going to a thousand different stores individually. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's so interesting now because when I talk to people who are starting companies, I tell them a lot about that's how we started. But I think I wonder how, what they're going to be like from now on because buyers in the interim have had to find other ways to do it. So are they going to still go and rely on them? Cause even with just the prevalence of like the internet beginning to be incorporated into your food and beverage buying, like I've seen like less and less business like coming to the shows, you know, relative to like 2016, 2017, right? As you're pouring this, do you give people directions on the pour also? Oh, I should. So with a pour over, you kind of want to wet the ground. So you saw I put just a little bit in there so that it got a little bit wet so that it does a nice bloom. You'll notice that like everything kind of puffs up and that's how you're going to get, if you just wait 20 seconds before starting to fill it up, you're going to get a much fuller expression. But if you don't do that, which like a lot of our customers know it still tastes good, but since I'm making it for you, I'm going to make it right. This is so cool. If you want to drink it like Vietnamese style, I would have just, I would do like one, two pours. So it's like, you get this like crazy shot. Yeah. And if you want, it even tastes kind of more like an espresso if you just wanted to add like the rest with milk, but you know, the typical customer will like, you know, fill it up until the top and then add the sweetened condensed milk because Americans love like a 12 ounce, like 16 ounce like sip on all day kind of hot coffee. Yeah. And that's it. That goes in the trash. Looks like it's all paper, totally sustainable. Well, so we're working on a fully compostable version of it right now. So right now it does have to go in the trash, from a business perspective, why are you doing that? Is that important to you? Or is that something that you just? It's incredibly important to us. You know, that's something that, that is like top of mind that the whole team is. It's incredibly important to you. And where's the hangup on creating a 100% disposable or compostable package? Like what part of it are you having trouble with? So the problem really comes with like the seams of, you can tell that some things are like kind of, almost like in a way like glued together or adhered. And having that be compostable is pretty challenging. And what's hard is that for the past like three years, our supplier has been saying like, since we started the company being like, oh, we're months away from having a compostable version of this. And so we've always assumed, like kind of took it for granted. It actually coming to market. So we're looking into other avenues that we can self fund that innovation as well because we, they did finally come. COVID was a huge hangup for delaying it, but they came, gave us the prototype and it just, it kept falling apart on our big American mugs. And, you know, obviously that's not something that we can have. So now we're just trying to come out with our own version of that. And so that's something that we're pretty focused on right now. I would imagine it could be like some origami. Like there's like a, you know what I mean? Exactly. That's the thing is that we're finally just like, we just got to think of like bringing some industrial designers and this, you know, figure out how to do this. Cause I think what's interesting is- You could definitely do that. So I was at MIT one time there was a talk on origami and its implications around like crystals and how basically it solves like very high level math problems at some point. And they were basically saying like, oh look, you can use origami or at least the philosophy of it for woodworking, for housing. And it's all like nothing, there's no glue. Yeah. You know, it's just like complex crystal structures essentially. Yeah. That's the thing is you look at a tea bag that are compostable and you're like, so why can't this be, you know? And so I think that we know that there's something, I mean it was what the reason why we signed up, I signed up with this was cause they said that it was in the product roadmap, but sometimes it's you- It's hard. I know Brooke's dealing with this too, because yeah, the milk comes frozen and so it's like, how do you make that compostable the whole thing? Yeah, exactly. And so it's super challenging and ultimately expensive for the first iterations. Exactly, exactly. So who's gonna do the investment for the category? Cause you know, I think what's interesting is even the decision about, do you patent it? You know? Cause if- I think you should. But you also wanna make it affordable so that like other people aren't just creating more trash and contributing to the space. So I think it's, you go back and forth about kind of what the mission is and why people work for you, you know? When you first came out, how much was it? Is it the same price now? Was it, has your price changed? It's actually always been the same price. We just like barely had a new margin in the beginning, you know, cause you're just like making like a thousand units at a time and stuff, you know? So how much is it for a pack of how many? Six? So this one is a five pack. This is what you'll find in Whole Foods. So you've got a five pack of coffee that comes also with five creamers. Oh, nice. And so that is $10. That's super cheap. That's good to hear. Are you gonna raise your prices? Are you considering it? Well, so it's been $15 to start and then it's just that grocery stores take a smaller margin, you know? And we're going national with Whole Foods next month and so we're able to like get a good deal with a better markup. That's amazing. Yeah. Congratulations. We're very excited. Yeah. Where did your first round of capital take you? Like how far did it take you? Oh man, a day? No, I'm just kidding. That's how it feels. I think this is the thing. I mean, it goes quick. People don't realize that. And you're also subject to the market on a lot of things. Packaging, iterations of that, marketing, iterations of that. It goes very quickly. Yeah. And I think that the thing that is exciting and hard is that like with these companies, cause it's just impossible for you to be profitable in the first year. So then if things go better than you planned, it just means that you're running out of money faster. So I did have to, you know, you're just like, you know how I said, I needed like money for 18 months. It's actually only lasting me nine months. You know, and so I did go back to the well and just raised from the exact same angels cause everything happened so fast within the first year. And so we ended up, so it ended up being about 900,000 from all of them in that first year. And did you set a valuation? So this is the question we get a lot from entrepreneurs that are just starting all the time. And the question is like, how do I value my company? And I tell them like, look, it's an art and a science. At the end of the day, you have to know your market. Like if you're tech, then you have to go for probably a higher valuation than like, let's say a clothing company, right? But when I say that people don't believe me, like, oh, I think it's worth 10 million. And I'm like, you don't have any revenue. How can it be possibly worth 10 million? You have nothing. And people think I'm being like a bad guy. And I'm like, no, like this is a real thing. Like what, and so it's always like a, what did you, what did you end up? Like, was it like a sales projection? And you were like, I'm gonna make it that. Yeah, so I had a sales projection and then I like tripped and then I tripled it. I remember that was like, that was like the thing that I did. It's literally the best thing to do. Oh, but at the same time, like, actually it was like probably too low because we ended up making way more, we ended up making way more than, cause I think I was like, there's also like an art to projections, you know? Cause you want to show how ambitious you are, but you also want to deliver. And I think that that's something that's really impossible to do in the first few years of a company. Cause like, if you said you were going to make two million from nothing, but you made 1.5, is that like a failure? You know, like you like aim to do that. I think that there is an art to that too, that was really hard. And for me, you know, I came from not the startup world and not any, so I was just like the most realistic, like lowest possible knew that I would make revenue. And now I'm like, no you should actually do something a little bit more ambitious. So probably could have did a disservice to myself, but you know. But your investors are happy, I'm sure. And they're friends and family. So it's like just super fun, honestly. It's not like, you know, somebody who's like, who I'm beholden to that's like, that I don't get along with it's people that are just so excited to be on the ride with me, you know, that have been so supportive, you know. It's the same thing I tell people though, it's the first year revenue times three. That's it. I'm like, that's your number. Yeah. And they're like, what if I don't hit it? I'm like, well, what if you exceeded? Exactly what it, yeah. I mean, luckily we exceeded it. You'll never know until you're there. So yeah, just set a number and raise some money. Yeah. We'll be back to the episode right after this message. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Chibani. Chibani's mission is making better food for more people and they brought that mission to non-dairy by crafting the ultimate oat milk for food service. Chibani Oat Barista Edition. It's plant-based, gluten-free, non-GMO and vegan friendly. Their formula was crafted for superior performance and versatility. Whether adding to black coffee or creating the perfect microphone, Chibani Oat Barista Edition will satisfy your cafe needs and delight your customers. Now, back to the episode. And then you were on Shark Tank at some point. We were just really recently, actually, a few months ago. So by the time you had gotten to Shark Tank, how much total had you raised? Was it still at the 900,000 or had it been? No, no, we had raised a seed round of funding with VCs. So we had raised an additional 2 million at that point. Because when you went on Shark Tank, I believe you asked 600,000 for 4% originally, is that correct? Okay. And then you ended up getting a deal with Robert at the end of it and he cut that evaluation in half and went to 600 for 8%. In my research in what happens, because we know from having other people on this show from Shark Tank, deals can often completely fall apart after the show. Things can happen where both parties are just gonna have to walk away amicably. Can you talk about that, where you're at right now? Because I couldn't find whether the deal had actually closed after the show or not. Right, the deal did not close. Because the thing is is that you tape and then they want to do their diligence for so long. Because it's like they want to know whether you're gonna air. It just ended up not the timing didn't work out because we were ready shortly after that because we just kept growing well before the airing. I would imagine what the Whole Foods deal, which you probably knew of when you went on. No, because the Whole Foods deal, I taped this in August 2020. Okay, okay. Because it was almost a year before it aired. So much happened. So this August 2020 that we, or it was like end of July was so early. And then the next few months we just grew so much that I was like I need to go raise around and they were not willing to budge and we hadn't moved at all on the negotiations and I was like, I'm not going to like anchor myself to this valuation when like we were so much larger than that. It's a good story. I mean, this is a reality. Here you are having to raise capital and you have a deal on some different terms than you're about to raise. And they're typical models. They want to kind of really make sure that you're gonna air. I think is something that's a huge part of whether they're gonna go through with it. And you don't know until a few weeks before whether your episode airs. So I remember we had just taken it out of the forecast because we had kind of had like a little shark tank bump and we were like, because I think it was, there was only a few weeks left of the season. So I was like, it's time for us to, they're like, you're gonna be on the season finale. So we were like, okay, so we actually will air after all. So it's been, that was a wonderful like nice to have for sure. So you did have time then to prepare for the inevitable shark tank bump, right? Yeah. After the airing. And what did you see in that? Was it sizable? Was it more than you expected? Less than you expected? It was a little more than we expected. I think also what was interesting for us is that we sell predominantly on our own website, but I think that what was really interesting to see was that we saw like a really big bump on Amazon because Amazon's like typically like 10% of our e-commerce revenue. And I think it was just, it just shows you that it's like that kind of purchaser who's like literally buying as the segment is running, you know, it's like that kind of person. And that's like someone who's just gonna like sign onto Amazon and just like also just maybe signifying like how Amazon is just becoming like a bigger and bigger place. Did you have, did you who had given Amazon a tremendous amount of product? Or did you always? As much as they would let us, you know, I think what's really hard is it's always been a challenging, I'm sure like a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to really challenging route for us operationally because especially post COVID, there's so many maximums on inventory. And so then if you sell out, you're just again penalized being like, well, your last, you know, three months of sales weren't great. We're like, well, that's because you didn't give us. You maxed us out, yeah. So it's a really hard chicken and egg to get that going when like it's not the core business cause like we have so many great loyal customers who come to our website that we're, we just tend to be more focused on, but I think that like that shark tank kind of effect where it's like something where someone's like very impulsively like just like I want to try the thing that I'm, that's in front of me right now. It's an important opportunity that we're, we're always, every year I feel like we say the same thing, we reevaluate Amazon. We're like, well, I don't know, it's a lot bigger than it was last year. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. It's a pain to manage though. It's a total pain and you just don't, that Excel sheet is so awful. It's really, it's been, it's a love hate. Well, it's good. I'm glad to hear about the bump worked out well. Yeah, yeah. Did you ever meet Robert in person? He's here in LA. Did you guys ever connect? No, oh my God. All these people also have like armies of people who deal with these deals. So no, I didn't, but I mean, I obviously got to meet him when we taped and I think I was like really surprised by how much it was such a real pitch. Even though of course it's like a lot of people kind of yelling at you because they're all celebrities who want sound bites. It's not like a more civilized pitch if you're normally pitching to five people, but really like dug into everything and they're all real deal investors for sure. And did you want, did you have like a favorite before you walked in? You never know who's gonna be there. I want Lori. Like did you have a favorite? It's interesting too, cause like I back channeled a lot of like references for people who had taken deals and stuff. And you know, I think that like, even my experience pitching too, I just, I can't have more respect for Lori, even going into it and also coming out of it. So I think I did kind of was excited about her, but she was like, this isn't the kind of coffee I drink. So it was kind of sad. What kind of coffee does she drink? She's like, I drink the weakest coffee. She's like, I basically drink like, like I've used like a teaspoon of coffee to make like 20 ounces of actual coffee. And so this is a very strong coffee. And so she was like. It's delicious by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna add some of the cream in it. Yeah, it's interesting that so like, you know, Lori, Lori backed out, but you were on QVC around the same time. Yeah, it ended up airing it like the exact same time. Yeah. How did that go for you? And have you been on since or was it just like a? Just that one time, it's funny cause like I always was skeptical about QVC because our customer is like a 25 to 35 year old woman. Like that is like the person who buys like the majority of our product. And it's just an older demographic that's on QVC or home shopping network. And it's just so interesting, like from whether you look at our sales data or from so many times of serving coffee to mass audiences, like as you approach 40, like after 40, your coffee habits like much more solidify relatively. And they're just people who like, you're gonna get people saying like this kid, there's no way this can be better than the French press I've been drinking every day for the past 20 years, you know? Versus like a 25 year old that's just like so excited by something different. And so I think that that's just something, it wasn't that same effect that we were kind of like holding calling. And they're like calling, right? They're like used to, like the consumer there is used to picking up the phone. Yeah, it's not the most internet savvy customer. It's just, it's gonna be a relatively older customer. And so like the companies that I know who have done really well on there definitely serve an older demo. So it didn't end up being kind of like the partner that we were looking for still a wonderful, very admirable operation over there. It was great to work with them, but just not, didn't reach our target demographic. Social scientists have long said that our tastes solidify and get harder to change as we get older across the board. Totally. And so it's interesting that your own data backs that up in a way with the 25 to 35 year old woman being like the biggest market and demographic for your coffee. I'm curious if there are, in what you've seen different areas of the country that maybe outperform what you thought or do less than what you thought? That's such a good question because something that's so interesting about specialty coffee is that it's very regional. Like LA, we got like Groundworks, Bay Area, it's Blue Bottle, Chicago, it's Intelligence. It's like everybody, like these coffee companies just over index so much because their main mode of discovery or marketing is our cafes. And that's like typically how a roaster is able to really get an audience. And so if they go into CPG, they always over index regionally. And so that's something that's so unique about being like a digitally native coffee company is, and also I think the fact that we do serve the coffee with creamer and that it's a sweetened creamer. Cause I think that the brand itself, like sometimes people, especially investors wonder if it over indexes on the coast, which a lot of like high-end brands do. But per capita, we're like incredibly over index. Like Indiana is like an incredible state for us. Like it's so interesting how well we do and it's also not as totally urban related. So again, like per capita, of course our biggest markets are California, Texas and New York, but that's just kind of more because there's more people there. But I think that people all over the country follow great cafes and have maybe like one or two really great coffee shops in their town. But they want to try other things. And I think that this is such a great way to be able to experience that in your home, you know? Do you ever think about like a real, a retail strategy? Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, it would be so fun. It's such a dream to be able to do that. I think we got really close to opening up one in LA, like to do a pop-up for about six months and it ended up falling through. And I remember this, this was like the year before the pandemic and I felt like really sad about it, but also felt like it was a huge lesson in understanding that this is such a different business than a CPG business. It's a complete, like trying to make my staff who are good at like creating digital ads and working with suppliers and doing all these things and working with retailers. It's like a completely different skill set than like hiring 20 people to come in and build out something. And I think it was just a huge lesson. And even though I think it all serves the brand in a very elegant way, operationally it's so different. So I was like, okay, maybe this is more of a five-year plan that we do something like this. And that I think it'll be such a wonderful extension of the brand, but it's a real investment for the business, even though one thing that's great about cafes is that they are actually, if you get them to work, incredibly great businesses. Like they're very profitable. They're, you know, it's a wonderful thing to get into, but COVID made us feel like we lucked out by that not happening, honestly. Yeah, I think you're right. I think like the way I look at it, there's this like headline now, it's called like Clicks and Bricks. And so the whole concept of you have your D to C play, all online, all digital, those are all your clicks, but there has to be, so less so now, but some sort of like pop-up brick-and-mortar concept where people can meet you, where like you can meet the customer where they are. And I think it's really interesting for brands, and I think it's so smart. I don't, you know, I think these pop-up, the pop-up concept is something that you can make amazing. You can invite influencers too. You can invite your loyal fans to maybe celebrities, investors, whoever might be there. And it's just a way to connect with them in a different way without signing like a five-year lease, and then having to figure out how to deal with that operationally. And I think that it would be just the most powerful and exciting vehicle for product innovation and testing. Yeah, 100%. Because the way that we even came out with our first, because we built the company to about a million revenue with just like the five pack of just classic coffee. There were no flavors, it was just one skew. And we were really struggling with like average order value when you only have one product. So we're like, we have to come out with another product for e-commerce to work. And the way that we chose it was that we were having all these pop-ups at offices, because at the time we were selling a lot into offices for them to have like of Vietnamese coffee Friday, like delivery every week. And we would do these pop-up activations for them. And so we'd have a pour-over bar, and then we would have these flavors. People love that. Yeah, exactly. And it was so fun. Oh yeah, we were in San Francisco at the time, and it was like, all these, we would just have like some lavender, mocha, rose petals, peppermint, and be like, you can just put it into your pour-over, and then it'll naturally infuse into it. And people were so excited. Yeah, people were so excited, had so much fun, except for the only thing was, is like, as the barista, I was like, you're putting too much in. Don't, it's gonna taste bad. Or you're not putting enough in. And I think that I was like, we should just manufacture it with the exact amount that there should be. And then it got, it was from those pop-ups that we were able to discover that. And you know, now, I mean, let alone retail, even e-commerce, retail, that's like years to be able to get a new product and see if it works. But e-commerce, it's still like, we have to make thousands of it, see if people like it, wait for product reviews to come in. And not only that, but like, you only get to hear from the noisy customers. It's nice to be able to talk with somebody and see what they find exciting about it. And so I look forward to being able to have pop-ups some day soon. What brought you down to LA? My sister and my brother-in-law live down here. So my sister moved here and they're entrepreneurs and they were the ones who like really pushed me into considering doing this. And one of the carrots was, you can just stay with us while you launch it. You know, this is back when I'm like still just like using that world bank money, you know? I came down here and lived with them for the first year of the business. And it's such a great place to launch a company. Oh my gosh, it's like such great talent and you're near manufacturing. I think that there's, especially for when you're trying to build a brand. I mean, like right before we were just like, you know, working on our brand toolkit. And I'm like, I'm just gonna go to like the arse district for a while before I work on this. Cause I just want to like feel inspired before, you know, it's such a great place to be. It's totally true. When you think about building a brand, what are some of the things that you move in the direction of? Like what's the strategy for your brand building? That's a great question. Especially right now, like as your company, you're kind of at that point. Yeah. Kind of the most important piece for you. Totally. I mean, that's the asset you're building at the end of the day, right? You know, when I think about the great coffee companies, it's like a great supply chain and a great brand, you know? And so for me right now, cause cash is so tight, it's like, I think I built the whole beginning of the brand by just really focusing on like an aesthetic and a feeling and quality of product and a great customer experience. And that was kind of all we could afford. And then having just raised the series A, I think it's like so exciting to be able to- Congratulations. Thank you. How big was that round? 8.5 million. And so I think investing in like below that skin deep, like it's not just like a great tasting, beautiful coffee brand, like how do we really bubble up like all of the great things that we do that people don't see day to day, whether that's the way that we work in our like supply chain or the way we treat employees or kind of what we stand for and like this origin of like what makes Vietnamese coffee so great. And I think that there's also like really digging into kind of the lifestyle. And you know, like I said about like this is kind of like, it's a sweet coffee typically and it's something that's kind of like a treat. And so like really building into that experience of it's not, maybe it's not your first cup of coffee because like you're just kind of like half awake and you're just like turning on a pot or you're opening up a cold brew from the fridge. But this is like your coffee break, you know? And I think that that's like how do we kind of build that brand and this like reward and this like wonderful kind of experience that is copper cow that's like kind of more than just another can of coffee or another bag of coffee. One cool thing I've seen brands do and maybe yours in terms of like sustainability is like you'll just partner with a nonprofit that suits them and then you'll create content around that partnership. And so an easy example is like, let's say October is the month of coffee, national coffee days October 1st. And so then for that month all sales percentage of them go to like this sustainable nonprofit but you're creating content around that whole story. Totally. And then you're just pushing it out and then people are supporting something bigger but now your brand is associated with not sustainability on paper but like legitimate here's how much we donated. It's just interesting for me to see like the lanes brands pick to move in. It's one of those decisions that once you make it you can't undo it and it has replication. It carries on. You're signing up for being held to a higher standard and all your decisions put into that. And I think that's what's exciting is that I think like internally we have really stuck to that. And then so how do we make sure that like we now do an outward facing storytelling around that? Why Copper Cow? Yeah, I was gonna ask what's the significance of the name and how you settled on that. First of all, I love it. I love like. The logo is amazing. I always judge brands logos. Thank you. And Nick would tell you if he hated it too. Oh my gosh. Well, let me tell you about it's I wish I had a better story, but I was like. Oh no. Oh, maybe we should. No, no, no. It's not a bad story. I think it's a nice thing to demystify starting a company maybe. I in general have trouble naming things. It's like one of the things that I think I've never gotten better at after starting the company. But I knew exactly how I wanted the company to look and feel. And I knew that we, one of the big differentiators is that we be selling creamer with our coffee and like no other specialty coffee company does that. And so I was like, you know, and I actually always had like this really big inspiration from cowgirl creameries. Like they had this the silhouette of a cow that was like really elegant. And I'm like, we should have this really modern cow that's made in the company will have like lots of geometric shapes. It'll feel really modern and clean. And the cow will be made out of geometric shapes. So I hired a Craigslist designer for $300 to make this logo that you see here today. That's amazing. You won the Craigslist logo. What a great investment. I mean, like I had to sift through a lot of portfolios to find her, she's incredible. And then I was like, and I knew that I wanted it to really stand out on a shelf. Cause at the time I'm still thinking like, yes, we're going to do econ, but like, how do I make it so that someone will walk by and pick it up? And I was like, I want there to be copper foil on the box and copper will be like the main, like this is going to be this copper cow that's just going to like kind of blindside you on the shelf. And so I described this to her and she came up with these concepts. And just as a placeholder, she put copper cow coffee cause I was like, that was the only like real limitations. I was like, it's going to be this copper cow logo. Perfect. That's a great story. Accidental alliteration is phenomenal. Yeah, exactly. Then I was like, I don't know, it's like symmetrical. I was like, I don't know, it's like, it's like, yeah. And so it's a, the hard case sound is always good. That's amazing. Lucked out and haven't had to redo it. And now obviously I'm just looking at this. Yeah, the creamer comes with it, but you could easily partner with other brands to do oat milk or almond milk. Exactly. We're excited to look into doing partnerships. For the vegan community. So it's funny, I don't know if you know this or not, but in Peru, this is how they drink coffee also. Yes, yes, in Latin America. That's where I'm from. And so I grew up with my grandfather doing this, basically like the condensed milk in the coffee. And then we would dip bread in it. Oh yeah. I need it with bread. So it sounds very similar. Yeah, we would eat croissants. Typically like a croissant in Vietnam is served at the side of condensed milk and you just like dip it in, pre-deck it in. Magical. Yeah. When I was in Vietnam, I would always get almond milk latte and they'd bring me like these little cookies. Bro. Amazing. Are you saying we need to start bringing that into the States more? I'm just saying, maybe they come with cookies next. I think a Copper Cow Cookie would be a wonderful thing to have down the line. Copper Cow Coffee, Copper Cow Cookie. Copper Cow Cookware. Just keep going. Going back to it. Exactly. To go back to it, so you just raised some money. And so what is on, what are the deliverables now? Like what are the things you're working on now as it relates to growth? And so Whole Foods is awesome. That sounds like obviously that's going to carry. I'm super excited about Whole Foods. They're an incredible partner. It's funny, I remember I was talking to the buyer and I told her when I was first starting this company, my elevator pitch was it's a Vietnamese coffee that would be nice enough to be sold in Whole Foods. Oh, wow. It literally was. Yeah, I'm sorry, I think it's a pretty great moment. You manifested that. Yeah, and it's like it's so, like I said, Coffee's so regional, we're going to be one of, it looks like six companies that are nationally distributed that are coffee companies in Whole Foods. And I think they really recognize the innovation and the opportunity. I think investing in the brand, like we talked about, like how do we make that really come to life? I think partnerships is a huge part of that. But then I think that something that we haven't done before is that the website's always been really transactional and we're moving into a space of like, how does the website and the experience of buying online become part of the product? Because I think that what's so exciting about this format is we come out with a new flavor every month. What's the way that we can have the people really participate much more closely? It's like a community. Yeah. Like building, maybe texting. Exactly. If you set up a text buying. Yes. I think that there's like, and just like the way that you can kind of. You can see that. The other thing is that until literally a week ago, you could only buy the coffee with the creamer. So now we have it completely modular on the website. So. So this is right? Oh no. That's the coffee with the creamer. Okay. So now we have these packs where it's just the coffee and then just the creamer. So then. For the people who maybe prefer it with or without. Yeah, exactly. That's great data for you too. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's amazing. I can't wait to see what people do with their boxes. I'll just tell you like if it were me, I would just buy this. Yeah. I mean, honestly it's like I drink, I don't drink this, I drink both, but I don't drink them in the same proportion, right? So then like I, so I think it's really nice for some people to customize. So the fact that like we haven't had that available until now is something that we're really excited about and investing in like, you know, the data analytics to understand what people want. I know obviously getting coffee in general is getting more difficult with climate change and all these things. Have there been any challenges with your partnership, the co-op you're working with? So it's interesting about like Vietnam is actually relatively shielded from a lot of the climate change issues that today we're facing in Africa and South America because it's mostly around water access and Vietnam being tropical. It just, we don't have like the same problems with water access today. So that's not something that's a problem today. Other climate change things I'm sure will continue as like temperatures rise and whatnot for crops. But I think it's just more being like really trying to be like pulling the supply chain to where we want it to be. Cause right now it's like, yes, we have chemical free processing of the beans. We've got, we're paying farmers twice market rates and instilling all these like levels of quality that weren't there before, but we want to be the first organic certified Vietnamese coffee brand. And that's just going to take some time and effort. And you know, it's the education for them understanding like why that there is a customer for that. Cause it's not quite there domestically. There's just a lot of work that is hard to do when a country's on like hardcore lockdown, which is what's happening in Vietnam right now. Tell everyone where they can find you and support your amazing company that you built. CopperCowCoffee.com, yeah. Best logo store I've ever heard of. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. And it's amazing. Like it looks great. I just like love that people still call him. Did you hire her full time? So we hired her. That's a no. Did you give her equity? No, because she's just somebody who is like, she's like a living like designer. You know what I mean? She's like immediately started it. Shortly after has been able to kind of have her own freelance and she charges at a couple zeros now to what I did. And she's incredibly successful and couldn't like love giving her more work that way. That's great. So at CopperCowCoffee, it's the Instagram. Yep. Look out for National Coffee Day. That's exciting stuff. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me. Pleasure.