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Bruce Hathaway, The Coffee Lamp · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:25
  We're good to go and make sure that we are all lined up.
• 0:29
  Oh yeah, we're good. How are we good?
• 0:32
  And then I'm going to move my water bottle so we look
• 0:35
  professional. There we go.
• 0:36
  Kind of. What's your first name again?
• 0:39
  My name is Ryan. Ryan, I'm Bruce.
• 0:41
  Nice to meet you Bruce. Welcome to our show that you
• 0:44
  Feed People podcast. You've been drawing a lot of
• 0:47
  attention because of this code, and if I overheard correctly,
• 0:51
  this code inspired you to start a business.
• 0:54
  Absolutely. What on earth is it?
• 0:56
  And you know, explain it, introduce yourself.
• 1:00
  Thank. You my name is Bruce Hathaway.
• 1:02
  I'm the founder of The Coffee Land and I have spent my entire
• 1:06
  career in the decorative lighting business.
• 1:09
  And as I was winding down my normal job, I worked.
• 1:14
  The last company I worked with was out of Brazil.
• 1:17
  So you know, when you go online and you go way down a rabbit
• 1:20
  hole, you don't even know how you got there.
• 1:22
  I found a jacket like this, which is a traditional jacket,
• 1:27
  but then covered with burlap, covered in Brazilian coffee
• 1:31
  bags. So I bought 1.
• 1:34
  I wore it to a trade show. I wore it to High Point, NC,
• 1:37
  where there are a lot of interior designers.
• 1:39
  And I think I spent that four days talking more about my
• 1:43
  jacket than I did about lighting.
• 1:46
  So I went home after that show and started thinking, is there
• 1:48
  anybody doing what I do, repurposing these coffee bags?
• 1:53
  And there wasn't anyone. So I talked to some local coffee
• 1:57
  shops and roasters and they provided me some bags and I just
• 2:01
  started creating some pieces. Yeah, there's never a shortage
• 2:04
  of burlap bags. Absolutely there, you know, they
• 2:06
  either you're going in the landfill, they're going in the
• 2:08
  garden or someone's making a tote or a satchel out of them,
• 2:11
  right. So but no one was doing this.
• 2:14
  So I started making a few pieces I and still in that process of
• 2:19
  thinking, do I want to turn this into a full-fledged business or
• 2:23
  is it just going to be something fun to do?
• 2:25
  Right. So the reason I'm here at Coffee
• 2:27
  Fest was I've wanted to take a deep dive into the coffee
• 2:30
  industry. I love coffee, I love great
• 2:33
  lighting. So I'm trying to figure out how
• 2:34
  to tie those two things together and I'm having just such an
• 2:37
  amazing time. I love the energy of the people
• 2:40
  within the industry and seeing how that local culture of coffee
• 2:45
  shops is really starting to surface and kind of bury the
• 2:49
  some of the national brands or just the vibe that they create.
• 2:52
  And I'm happy and having fun with it.
• 2:54
  It's a lot of fun. That's awesome.
• 2:56
  So you have some lamps. I want to make sure we see
• 2:58
  these. Yeah, these are a little bit
• 3:00
  smaller than what I normally do. And most of my the lamps that I
• 3:03
  do are plug in lamps, although they're all fairly small.
• 3:06
  These are the little portable ones which you'll see in
• 3:08
  restaurants and things like this.
• 3:10
  So this is portable, rechargeable.
• 3:12
  So part of the process is finding the the cool pieces of
• 3:15
  burlap, making sure that it fits a base, and then crafting my
• 3:21
  business model. Now to decide if I want them all
• 3:23
  to be 1 off because this is a discarded lamp piece, or do I
• 3:28
  want to create just a constant base that I can use with
• 3:33
  different designs on the shades. So this is one-of-a-kind.
• 3:37
  This one is using some of the letters Bourbon Specialty Coffee
• 3:41
  Company. Again, with a little portable
• 3:43
  lamp with a beautiful ceramic base, I could do this, could buy
• 3:47
  many of these, but then have a different shade on each one.
• 3:51
  Then I put a wood base on it, labeled it and branded it on the
• 3:54
  bottom. So these are the only ones I
• 3:56
  could bring to the show. But most of the ones that I do
• 3:58
  are a little bit larger, but they're not full size table
• 4:02
  lamps because everybody in their home, whether it's the corner of
• 4:05
  the kitchen, a bookshelf, some of them dark corner, has room
• 4:09
  for a little lamp. It's 12 to 16 inches tall.
• 4:12
  Sure. So that's the Nix that I have
• 4:14
  found and exploring it and just absorbing the the coffee culture
• 4:18
  for a couple of days. Did you have?
• 4:21
  Did you? I'm assuming you assembled this
• 4:23
  yourself? Did you have any kind of hands
• 4:25
  on experience like that? You said you came from lighting,
• 4:27
  but I'm guessing you weren't assembling.
• 4:29
  I was on the sales side, yeah. So I have.
• 4:32
  Runs. I couldn't tell.
• 4:34
  You never guess, right? So I was director of sales for
• 4:38
  all of North America for a couple of different companies,
• 4:41
  one that was based here in the US for 12 or 14 years out of
• 4:44
  Vermont, and I currently live in Vermont.
• 4:47
  And then I worked for a Brazilian lighting company for
• 4:49
  about 5 years. So I've always been on the sales
• 4:51
  side, but I've always had a creative desire and always I
• 4:57
  have to keep my hands busy. And so I created this small
• 5:00
  studio in the basement of my home and I'm producing these one
• 5:03
  at a time. Very cool.
• 5:06
  Can people buy them yet or are you still just exploring?
• 5:09
  Not yet, but very soon. So I have everything locked
• 5:12
  down. I have the Coffee lamp.com
• 5:14
  reserved, which is not active yet.
• 5:18
  And I'm trying to find that balance between do I want to go
• 5:21
  direct to consumer, B to C or B to B?
• 5:23
  And that's part of why I'm here. So in the meantime, I would
• 5:26
  encourage people to just follow me on Instagram, the Coffee
• 5:29
  lamp, and you can kind of see some of the new creations and
• 5:33
  see where I take the business. There's nothing that I
• 5:35
  appreciate more than a bar or restaurant with.
• 5:38
  Good lighting. It's one of our biggest pet
• 5:41
  peeves when we walk into a place that seems great and we're.
• 5:44
  Overblown with. You know, lighting.
• 5:46
  So I think there's a great opportunity there and and I wish
• 5:49
  you the best of. Luck.
• 5:50
  Thank you. One of my favorite stories, as I
• 5:52
  would through my career, was people would come to me and say,
• 5:56
  oh, you have to go to this great new restaurant or this great
• 5:58
  bar. And the first thing I would
• 6:00
  think is you may not have noticed it, but I guarantee the
• 6:03
  lighting was great. Yeah.
• 6:04
  And so I would, I'd go back to them.
• 6:05
  Let's say we're at a party or something.
• 6:07
  And I would say, you know, that restaurant I, you said I need to
• 6:09
  go to, I bet the lighting was great.
• 6:13
  Imagine that same place, but that it looks like your doctor's
• 6:16
  office and people are, you can literally see the light go on in
• 6:19
  their eyes because they realize it.
• 6:20
  And so that unintended pun definitely intended.
• 6:23
  So carrying that forward and that passion for really great
• 6:27
  lighting is it's just part of my DNA and I'm having fun with it.
• 6:32
  I think they're clapping for you on the side of the spot.
• 6:35
  Cheers. Thanks man.
• 6:36
  Thank you for being here. We appreciate.
• 6:37
  It I appreciate you guys. Thanks a lot.
• 7:32
  And there's always that moment of like when you realize that
• 7:34
  you're like, there's no way no one's doing this.
• 7:35
  I know that was exactly what it is, you realize.
• 7:38
  Oh, should I do this? Because when I when I went.