Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Fabian Ferrada, Apis Coffee

Transcript

Fabian Ferrada, Apis Coffee · Coffee People Podcast

0:00
Hello, welcome to the Coffee People podcast.
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Just wanted to let you know that if you go to rostar.com and you
0:07
use the code bundled up, you'll get 10% off for the rest of
0:10
March because it's freaking cold out.
0:14
And here in Southern California, it's wet and cold.
0:17
So code bundled up 10% off rostar.com.
0:22
Can't go wrong. Hey everyone, thanks for showing
0:27
up for another episode of the Coffee People podcast.
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I'm your host, Ryan Walt. Before we get started, if you're
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Thank you for the support and now on to the show.
1:03
I'd be drinking coffee too but I'm past my daily limit already.
1:08
My daily, I usually cut out coffee around noon, and it's
1:13
noon, but it's cold out, as you can see.
1:15
Like, got my sweater on, got my hat on.
1:18
Yeah. You know, Southern California,
1:20
We, we can't handle the brutal winter.
1:23
I think it's negative. It says -14 C, whatever that is
1:26
in Fahrenheit. I'm in Castle Rock, Co.
1:29
Well, we'll get into that. Let me let me jump into this
1:32
little read in here where I say hello to everybody.
1:36
Welcome to the Coffee People podcast.
1:38
I'm your host, Ryan Wolt. The show is presented by our
1:41
friends at Rostar Coffee Packaging based out of Wausau,
1:44
WI. You can find them on
1:46
mine@rostar.com. The Coffee People podcast is
1:50
part of our Roast West Coast network.
1:53
You can go to roastwestcoast.com to find recaps of this show, our
1:57
Coffee Smarter podcast, all the other coffee stuff that we're
1:59
putting out. And if you haven't poured
2:01
yourself a cup of coffee on a cold day, now is the time.
2:05
We're about to get started. Our guest today is Fabian
2:09
Ferrata. Did I pronounce that right?
2:10
I forgot to ask. Yeah.
2:13
You can find him and his coffee company, APIs Coffee, online at
2:17
apiscoffee.com and of course, we're going to have links to
2:20
that and their social media and all the fun stuff in our show
2:22
notes and in our newsletter. Fabian, welcome to the Coffee
2:26
People podcast. Thank you so much.
2:29
It's a pleasure to be here. Hello to everyone.
2:32
Everyone is saying hello back, I'm sure wherever they're
2:35
sitting and enjoying their coffee.
2:36
Today we were connected by Nick Schmidt at Rostar Coffee
2:40
Packaging, who I literally just talked to like an hour ago.
2:43
And he said you got to, you got to talk to Fabian and learn more
2:46
about him. I did a very brief cursory
2:50
overview. I'm not familiar with APIs.
2:53
Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing in
2:57
Castle Rock, just to get started, and then maybe we'll
2:59
wrap around how you got there. Yeah, absolutely.
3:01
So I'm based out of Castle Rock, Co, born and raised here in
3:06
Colorado, but spent a lot of time traveling for just personal
3:09
and work related items. So with APIs, my goal was to
3:14
provide single origin specialty roasted coffee to the local
3:19
people here. We have some roasters that are
3:22
north of me in Denver and then some in Colorado Springs, but
3:26
there's a big gap there. I was going and driving an hour
3:30
to go get coffee and my wife said you need to maybe look at
3:34
roasting. And me being me, I said all
3:36
right, I'm going to go look at it.
3:37
And then I got a commercial roaster from Mill City, which is
3:41
1, and here we are. Well, you being you who who are
3:45
you? You have do you have a first
3:46
memory of how you got started in being interested in coffee is
3:50
something more than just it's something I do in the morning
3:53
and I move on with my day. Yeah, so my family's from Chile.
3:57
I'm first generation here in the States.
4:00
Coffee's a big part of the culture there, but it's more
4:02
social than anything else. So my earliest memory is when I
4:07
was, I think 5 or 6 growing up, my mom always having a cup of
4:12
coffee in the afternoon. So in Chile they have Onsis is
4:15
what it's called. It's like a tea time, but that's
4:17
where you have an opportunity to have just an afternoon snack, a
4:20
little coffee. And that's my earliest memory.
4:23
Do you? Where in Chile is your family
4:25
from? So on my mom's side, they're
4:27
from Santiago, Valparaiso, and then on my dad's side they're
4:31
all from Santiago as well. So do you ever get a chance to
4:34
head down there? Yeah, yeah, it's been a while.
4:38
There was a lot of time in my youth that I spent down there.
4:41
I grew up playing soccer. So my first kind of long stint
4:45
there was right after high school.
4:47
I moved down to to Chile to play soccer semi professionally for.
4:50
Oh cool. Yeah, big club team.
4:52
They're called La Universidad de Chile.
4:54
So I spent two years there and then after that I came back, got
4:58
my degree, then went back to try to start a business that didn't
5:02
work out and came back. And then from there I got hired
5:06
on by a company based out of Durango, Co.
5:12
I went to school in Durango as well, and then from there they
5:15
were hiring for an international position that I was able to step
5:18
into. So lots of different
5:20
interactions with Chilly back and forth.
5:23
Durango There's a beautiful the Colorado Trail leaves out of
5:26
Durango. And if you want a if you're
5:31
somebody who likes to ride a bike or hike or get outside, a
5:35
great place to visit. Also a great place to like
5:37
remind yourself that there are people out there who do like the
5:41
entire trail. And I know for myself, after
5:45
like an hour, I was like, Oh my God, like at elevation like this
5:48
is intense coming from from zero sea level.
5:53
I think that's you mentioned your your was your mom or your
5:56
grandmother drinking in the afternoon?
5:58
Yeah, yeah. My mom primarily.
6:00
My grandmother, too. She came to the United States
6:04
after my grandpa died. And then it was always a family
6:06
thing, you know, Me and my brother, my mom and my grandma,
6:10
they were always drinking a little bit of coffee in the
6:12
afternoon and having a little snack, so.
6:15
First of all, good on them for drinking coffee in the
6:18
afternoon. I feel like that's a grandmother
6:21
thing. I feel like grandmothers,
6:22
especially from a certain generation, could have a coffee
6:24
and a cigarette at any time. And it was just, yeah, it's sort
6:28
of how they stayed fueled to to manage with chaos below.
6:34
So you mentioned you had another career.
6:36
You work in, I believe software engineering or software.
6:39
Yeah, in some capacity. You have this hobby, you're
6:44
passionate. You're getting passionate about
6:45
coffee, you're driving to taste it.
6:48
And you and you said you bought a roaster.
6:49
How did you find the roaster? What made you decide to do it?
6:52
And at that point, were you thinking further down the road
6:55
that maybe I'm going to sell this or subsidized this thing
6:59
that I'm getting into? Yeah.
7:00
So for me specifically, before I, I really got into coffee to
7:05
the extent that I am now, I, I made a trip to Australia.
7:11
At the time I was working in the Middle East and I, I met my wife
7:15
there on one of my rotations. So I was travelling like 80% of
7:18
the time and then that 20% I'd either come back to the states
7:21
or meet my wife somewhere. So on this occasion, we, we met
7:24
in Australia, we met with my really good friend Pedro.
7:28
He's a coffee consultant down there, a master barista,
7:31
roaster, all the fun things. And we didn't have any clue.
7:35
We met him in Chile. He was just a good friend and
7:37
when we went to visit him, he introduced us to the specialty
7:41
coffee world. That's that's part of the
7:42
culture in Melbourne. So that was the initial kind of
7:46
touch point for me. And then from there, when I came
7:50
back from that trip, I got kind of obsessed with brewing and
7:53
specifically espresso based drinks.
7:54
So I, I leaned on him heavily at the beginning there and then
7:58
from there had my journey through brewing.
8:01
And then it was about a year ago now.
8:05
My, my wife was, you know, I was always complaining like that.
8:08
I got to drive, I got to do this and I'm getting coffee and it's
8:11
good and it's this blah, blah, blah.
8:12
And then she said, you just need to stop complaining and start
8:15
roasting yourself. And I was like, you're right, I
8:18
should. That's like me asking my wife,
8:22
how would you feel if I went and travel with my cousin, like as
8:25
I'm buying the plane tickets waiting for her to say yes or
8:28
no. How did you find Mill City?
8:32
Why did you choose a Mill City roaster for your first foray
8:35
into that world? I mean, that's kind of a big
8:37
step right away. Yeah, You know, I, so I looked
8:39
at all the various types of roasters, the smaller units,
8:44
just thinking of doing something for myself.
8:46
My, my background currently is I'm a solutions engineer for a
8:50
software company. So I, I, I'm a subject matter
8:52
expert in specific products and I demo those.
8:55
But prior to my time with this company that I'm currently with,
8:58
I was a senior project manager and that was kind of all the
9:01
travelling that I used to do. So I would manage budgets, you
9:05
know, multi $1,000,000 projects. And I kind of got a skill set
9:09
that allowed me to think a little bit beyond just roasting
9:13
for myself. So I figured if I was going to
9:15
make the investment, I might as well see if I can't turn it into
9:18
a business. I crunched a lot of numbers, did
9:20
a lot of research into the market.
9:22
And then from there I said, I think I can do this.
9:24
And if anything, it'll be a really expensive hobby and I'll
9:28
have, I'll have great coffee to show for it.
9:32
My wife actually was helping me with the investigation and she
9:35
actually brought Mill City to me said, hey, you know, this is
9:38
kind of everything you're looking for.
9:39
American base company. They have support here.
9:43
They're on our hours and they have a educational platform with
9:47
their roasting one O 1 class. And just the amount of content
9:50
that they put out as well is, is always appreciate, appreciated
9:54
from from someone that's always looking to learn as well.
9:56
So. Sure.
9:58
Our friend Dilbrey, Mill City, Bryant, Bankers Canal.
10:01
We made this coffee with him right behind me, one of their
10:04
education team members. I learned things from him every
10:07
time I talk to him, and I don't even want to.
10:09
Yeah, yeah. You, you, you start roasting
10:16
about when, where in the timeline are we?
10:18
You said about a year ago. Yeah.
10:19
So December I did the roasting one-on-one class.
10:23
It was probably May of last year.
10:26
So 2024 is when I started doing the kind of research and getting
10:30
into it or looking at it from a business perspective.
10:34
And at that point I said, I, I think that I have something
10:38
here, you know, there's, there's something that I can do
10:41
organically grow. It's not my primary source of
10:44
income, but it's something I'm very, very passionate about.
10:47
And from there, the idea was, you know, if I could turn this
10:50
into something, get in the farmers market, service, the
10:52
local community, that would be an I, I an ideal place for me to
10:56
start. So.
10:57
You know, the idea that you're filling a need in a smaller
11:00
community that doesn't have as many options as say a Denver or
11:04
Colorado Springs. Colorado generally being a great
11:08
coffee state, at least I'd say the western half for sure.
11:14
How long from starting to roast to that to the day where you're
11:19
going to yourself? You know, not only are these
11:21
roasts coming out the way that I want them, but I think other
11:25
people will like them. And it's worth me not driving to
11:28
that place I know is going to be great every time.
11:32
You know where. How long did it take to build a
11:33
little confidence in that to say this is worth sharing?
11:36
Yeah, You know, I, so I went into it knowing that I wanted to
11:40
turn it into a business upfront and I was going to have a
11:43
learning curve and I did a lot of research ahead of time.
11:46
And when I looked at the roasting one O 1 course, I
11:48
actually took the course before I got the machine to make sure
11:51
that I was going to be confident that I could go into it hitting
11:55
the ground running 'cause I, I'm kind of isolated out here.
11:58
I don't have any mentors, people that that are doing something
12:01
similar to me. So I knew I'd have to go get
12:03
that knowledge elsewhere. So when I looked at the course,
12:06
like I'd called, sent lots of emails, talked to the education
12:09
team, they were absolutely amazing, super friendly.
12:12
And just the amount of support upfront during and then after me
12:16
getting the roaster has been phenomenal.
12:18
So I felt really comfortable to pull the trigger, get the
12:21
roaster after I did the course. I received that kind of the
12:26
beginning of January and then from there I had some issues
12:30
getting it installed 'cause I'm, I'm roasting out of my house.
12:33
So right now I'm operating under cottage law in Colorado and I
12:37
had to get some venting and stuff like that squared away
12:39
since since I was going to be doing something, you know, quote
12:43
UN quote commercial. So I'm operating under cottage
12:46
law, but it's a commercial machine and I try to follow all
12:48
the best practices that I learned during the hosting
12:50
one-on-one class. And to answer the second part of
12:53
your question, probably about a month and a half, you know, I, I
12:58
started doing sample roasts. I had bought some green beans, I
13:02
did the seasoning and you know, I don't typically get too
13:07
nervous, but the first time I was standing in front of the
13:09
machine, my heart was just beating and I was like, Oh my
13:12
God, this is real. This is going to happen.
13:14
And it was great. You know, I had something that
13:17
was tasty. I'd given it to all my friends
13:19
and, and some family members and I got a lot of great feedback,
13:23
but I knew I could, I could do better.
13:25
So right now I'm, I'm on roast 100 and 167, something like
13:31
that, 167 batches that I ran through through the equipment
13:34
and I'm much more comfortable now, but it's probably a good,
13:38
you know, 10 or 15 roast before I felt like I, I knew enough and
13:43
I could take what I learned from the roasting one O 1 class and,
13:47
and be comfortable making the adjustments to, you know,
13:49
airflow, my gas, understanding the, the different phases and
13:53
trying to highlight modulate the flavor profile as well.
13:57
Beyond actually roasting this coffee, you came up with a
14:01
brand, you came up with a name. Where did APIs come from as your
14:05
name? And and you have this honeybee
14:07
imagery that I like a lot. You know, how does that
14:09
incorporate into the whole vibe of what you're doing?
14:12
Yeah, so I, I, I really enjoy the idea of the honeybee.
14:18
That's always been something that's kind of stuck with me
14:19
since I was little. But my wife is a part time
14:23
beekeeper. So we actually have had hives in
14:25
the past. And we're part of a network here
14:29
local to the southwest corner Colorado for a, a beekeeping
14:33
association. So we went to a couple courses
14:35
there. And part of the kind of persona
14:41
that I wanted to take on as a, as a business owner was
14:43
community that that's really important to me.
14:46
And then leveraging local artists and bringing them into
14:49
the fold. So it's not just roasting, but
14:52
more of like a platform where the idea is eventually to have a
14:55
physical location, but starting with something small and then
14:59
thinking about the brand of how I can grow into that brand.
15:02
So APIs is the genus name for the honey bee.
15:05
And ideally in the in the future, I have a few drinks that
15:09
I make at home that are honey based.
15:11
So I have a an iced cappuccino that's honey based.
15:16
So the idea was to build and make our own syrups around
15:19
different flavors of honey so we can contact and bring in the
15:23
local network of beekeepers that we know for the flavoring.
15:27
And then also pairing honey with coffee is something that that
15:31
we've kind of gotten into. But then also again, the
15:34
imagery, the hive, that was something that stuck with me and
15:37
resonated and APIs just sounds cool as well.
15:43
I took all that and, you know, built a brand around it, so.
15:47
You just mentioned the idea of a future tasting space or cafe or
15:52
something, some sort of retail location.
15:56
As you're looking at the marketplace now, even if that's
15:59
a ways down the road, do you see this being a coffee shop?
16:04
I mean, do you see it being a kind of honey coffee experience?
16:09
Because it sounds like you, you can see a of a spider webbing,
16:13
sorry, microphone. You can see a spider webbing,
16:15
you know, of the, of the concept as you're growing with, with the
16:18
theme. And you could easily drop coffee
16:22
and have APIs be, you know, the, the focus and have this
16:25
expansive brand line, right? What is your, your vision for
16:29
that for the future? And do you think it'll fit into
16:32
the location that you're in? I mean, there had to have been a
16:34
reason why there wasn't a lot of other coffee shops in your area
16:37
before you kind of jumped, or roasters rather, before you
16:40
jumped into this. Yeah, So there's, there's a few
16:43
in Castle Rock, but they primarily focus on kind of
16:47
darker roasts, medium dark roasts.
16:49
That's that's kind of the preferred roasting profile that
16:53
I've found around Castle Rock. They they don't really focus on
16:59
the niche kind of specialty coffee.
17:00
They, they have some offerings, but the majority of them are
17:04
typically darker roasts. So there's, there's a lot of
17:07
people at the cafes here locally.
17:10
There's, there's three that I can think of that are, which
17:13
kind of fit that not cookie cutter like a Starbucks or
17:16
something like that where you just go with drive through and
17:18
you get your, your coffee and you're on your way.
17:21
So that in particular was something that I, I thought
17:27
about where I, I want to start small and grow organically.
17:30
So operate under cottage laws, get the brand, the bags, get a a
17:34
presence online, get all that figured out, build a client base
17:39
off of that. And then from there move into a
17:41
commercial space to then start looking for wholesale accounts
17:44
and trying to get into the local grocery stores here locally and
17:47
or stores. There's a there's a local, it's
17:50
actually called the local like a shop in the surrounding areas of
17:54
where I'm at. Try to get in there.
17:56
And then from there, if I had that commercial space, then have
18:01
a little kind of coffee bar up front as well.
18:03
But I did, I didn't want to necessarily rely on retail
18:07
selling cups per SE to be able to kind of maintain the
18:09
business. So that was forward thinking.
18:12
And then from there is again, creating a space where people
18:15
can come enjoy coffee. And again, sticking with the
18:19
kind of imagery and the idea of the, the honeybee colony is
18:23
community. Everyone has a job.
18:24
It's a good place for everyone to come back to.
18:26
And then from there you're, you're supporting each other.
18:30
Well, Speaking of jobs, what you're describing is a fairly
18:33
big expansion. I mean, is this, you know, is
18:37
this like an announcement to your boss right now?
18:39
Hey, like five years from now, you're going to have to replace
18:42
that. You know, not, not to put you on
18:43
the spot too much, but like how do you find balance?
18:46
I guess is really the question between this, this hobby turned
18:50
job business, your career, which is enabling you to continue down
18:55
this path. And I assume you enjoy you've
18:56
been in it for some time and then also your family and the
19:00
other hobbies you might have together.
19:02
Yeah, I know. I, I look at coffee primarily as
19:07
something that I'm very passionate about.
19:09
You know, ideally I could see this growing into a physical
19:12
location, but it's not something that I have a plan to like try
19:15
to execute in the next two to three years.
19:17
It's, it's something that if it grows organically that that'd be
19:20
great. I wanted to take the approach of
19:23
working and being professional so that even though I am
19:26
operating out of my house, that you're dealing with a
19:28
professional company, even though I kind of do everything
19:31
minus the books, my wife helps me with that.
19:33
So, and, and from there, the idea is to be able to, you know,
19:38
go to the farmers markets, have a little coffee cart there, just
19:42
kind of do weekend events, supplement my income that way.
19:47
But right now, you know, I'm happy with where I'm at, what
19:50
I'm doing. I have a very good work life
19:51
balance. I have two little kids that take
19:54
up a lot of my time as well. So my main focus was to be able
19:59
to have something that wasn't going to take all of my
20:01
attention. And in, in reality, I don't, I,
20:05
I only primarily roast once a week on the weekends in the
20:08
evenings when my kids are asleep, after we've done all our
20:10
activities. So my my primary roasting days
20:13
are on Saturdays and Sundays in the evenings.
20:16
You know, a year into this as you are, you're learning on a
20:20
regular basis, I assume you know what, what's needed to make this
20:23
successful or, or how to continue improving your skill
20:26
set. You know, rostars asked me to,
20:30
to gather information to pass along to our to their consumers,
20:33
their other roast, other roasters in your position, maybe
20:36
a year behind you, you know, is there any advice or any lessons
20:40
that you've learned along the way so far that you, you could
20:43
pass along so that we could, you know, spread that education open
20:47
source style? Yeah, absolutely.
20:48
So I I would focus primarily on making sure that you understand
20:54
the laws in your state. I am in Colorado and we have a
20:57
very good cottage law where coffee roasting falls under
21:03
that. So there's specific limitations
21:05
around that. There's requirements in terms of
21:08
having specific information on the bag, making sure that the
21:11
consumer is informed. So you'll see that on my web
21:13
page. I try to be as transparent as
21:15
possible there and then I'm compliant with actually, I have
21:18
my coffee bag here on the backside of it.
21:21
I have all the verbiage that's required by law.
21:24
They require me to have my contact information, my home
21:27
address as well. So all of that's on the bag.
21:30
And shout out to Rostar as well. I work with them to get the bag
21:34
there. So definitely make sure you
21:36
understand cottage law if you're going to operate there and start
21:40
there. The second would be
21:42
understanding the financial component.
21:44
Like I said, I had a have a background in in finance,
21:47
business administration was my degree out of college and then I
21:50
was managing profit and loss statement.
21:53
So PNLS, big, big jobs. So having a very good
21:57
understanding of kind of your cost of goods sold, what goes
21:59
into that and then understanding that at the end of the day, it
22:02
is a business. So I have a margin that I have
22:05
to operate under to be able to continue to buy coffee, keep
22:09
reinvesting into the web page, building the brand, paying
22:13
outside consultants if need be to bring them in to, to help me
22:16
with anything that I'm deficient in.
22:18
So that kind of be the first thing if you're looking at it is
22:21
make sure that you can have some type of financial model that
22:24
would reflect revenue coming in and having a good understanding
22:27
of what your costs are. Man, I knew I did something
22:30
wrong. That was it.
22:32
Should have thought about the money upfront.
22:34
Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
22:34
Well, I. Was just going to say, you know,
22:38
that's kind of the big primary thing if you want to look at it
22:41
as as a business. I, I, I made a big investment,
22:43
right. So I've, I've, I got a 1
22:46
kilogram machine buying that the shipping, getting it installed,
22:51
all that fun stuff. I'm not made of money.
22:55
So I have to, I have to try to, you know, justify that,
22:58
especially to my wife. She's the, she's a wealth
23:00
management advisor and she was like, Are you sure?
23:02
What's the ROI? You know, I was like dealing,
23:04
dealing with like an investor almost, but it all came from a
23:07
place of love. So it's like, if we're going to
23:09
do this, let's make sure that we, we do it right.
23:11
And at the end of the day, you got to might make sure that you
23:13
can stay afloat. I mean, realistically, she and
23:16
your kids are investors in your company.
23:19
I mean, they, it's not just the money, but it's the time that
23:22
you're going to spend doing it. It's the time away or the time
23:25
together. Your hobby becomes a group
23:27
hobby. You know, her beekeeping becomes
23:29
the group thing. It's part of being a A-Team and
23:34
it's such an important component of starting a business.
23:36
I think for a lot of, I would say if you're a small business
23:42
starting a, I don't want to call it a hustle, but like something
23:46
in addition to your career that could grow and you're part of a,
23:50
a unit, you know, it's going to impact them, whether more than
23:53
you realize, you know, your stress becomes theirs.
23:55
And so you got to take take that into account when you're making
24:00
your plans. What's the next step for you
24:04
guys? You know what, where does the
24:05
future, let's say the immediate 2025 future for APIs look like
24:10
and beyond? You already kind of described
24:12
the five year plan. Yeah, absolutely.
24:15
So right. Right now year one was getting
24:18
comfortable with the roaster, building the brand, getting a
24:22
online presence. That was year one and I've I've
24:25
accomplished all of that to various degrees.
24:28
The 2025 is to now get into a farmers markets.
24:32
So I'm actually looking at local farmers markets here in Parker,
24:35
Co, which is just north of me like 20 minutes.
24:38
And then in Castle Rock where I live, it's about 15 minutes
24:42
where they had the farmer farmers market to my house.
24:45
So right now I'm looking at the application process there.
24:48
I ordered, like I said, a lot of bags from Rostar and I have a
24:54
good source of beans coming in from La Bodega.
24:57
So I'm working with them. And so I have all that kind of
25:00
upfront squared away and then just going to farmers markets
25:05
every other week. So that's part of the balance is
25:07
I didn't want to do every weekend.
25:09
And then with my current customers that I have, I've kind
25:12
of noticed they're about every three weeks they're they're
25:14
buying a bag. So I figured I could do every
25:17
other week at a farmer's market here local and then I could use
25:20
the other weekends. And I'm not doing something to
25:22
make sure that I'm spending time with my kids and my family and
25:25
doing cool things with them. So.
25:27
When you started the retail, the online retail in particular, and
25:33
I'm asking this selfishly because I've, I've kind of been
25:35
thinking about this a lot. Did you expect a certain amount
25:39
of sales right away? And did that happen or did you
25:43
find that what you mentioned the customers you have every three
25:46
weeks or so, did your customers kind of become regular customers
25:50
quickly or do you have to kind of keep reminding them?
25:54
You know, I've always been surprised at the kind of
25:56
continual drip of, of pushing you have to do to be successful
26:00
in retail. Yeah, so I, I'm lucky to, to the
26:06
extent of, so I do jiu jitsu as well.
26:09
I have a great community behind me.
26:11
I, I train at a place called Go Squad in Castle Rock and my
26:15
friends there support my business.
26:17
So I, I let them know, I said if you're interested, please reach
26:22
out. So primarily majority of my
26:24
cells have all been kind of one-on-one with these
26:27
interactions. And while that was going on, I
26:31
had some friends that bought once or twice.
26:33
And then I've had other friends that they've, they said I'm not
26:35
buying coffee anywhere else. What you're doing is, is
26:38
fantastic and I want to support you.
26:40
So with that, I, I had that kind of experience, like you said, I
26:44
could probably reach out to my other friends.
26:46
Hey, if you're interested. I got new coffee, but I, I
26:49
wanted to primarily focus on just making sure that I had a
26:52
really good product and that I was comfortable with my process.
26:56
And then the expectation for the web page specifically was to
27:00
have an online presence to think again future for all of Colorado
27:04
when I can then try to build a brand, build a following through
27:08
the farmers markets, get those Google reviews on the web page.
27:12
Right now I think I'm at about 18 reviews.
27:16
They've all been positive. And to grow that and then from
27:20
there start pushing marketing to to be able to drive them to the
27:24
web page. So, you know, very targeted
27:26
stuff through Facebook, Instagram, all the social
27:29
platforms, since I'm a one man band and I gotta make sure that
27:33
I'm spending my money wisely. So they that that was the
27:37
initial idea was to have the best presentation from a web
27:42
page perspective so that people could go.
27:44
It was intuitive, it was educational, it's friendly and
27:46
easy to use. And from there, make sure that
27:50
that's the primary focus of like, if someone now asked me,
27:53
hey, I want to buy coffee, how do we do this?
27:56
I just even point my friends now to the web page and I say, hey,
27:59
if you find something, let me know.
28:01
We can, you know, talk about that more.
28:03
But I have everything up to date on my web page.
28:05
And if you're interested on different brew methodologies, I
28:10
have a blog post about that as well.
28:11
And a big part of what I realized as I was going through
28:15
this was a lot of my friends aren't big coffee nerds like me.
28:20
So there was a lot of similar conversations that were being
28:23
had. And I said, you know, I'll just
28:25
do a little blog post here to just at least Orient them in, in
28:29
a direction of the different brew methods that you can have,
28:32
not having to go spend, you know, hundreds, if not thousands
28:35
of dollars on a espresso machine that you could have an amazing
28:39
experience with a cup of coffee through a pour over and, you
28:42
know, a decent grinder. And from there it's highlighting
28:46
the the the quality of the bean and kind of what I'm trying to
28:49
to do from a roasting perspective.
28:51
Yeah, coffee can meet you. Or whomever, wherever they are.
28:54
It doesn't. It doesn't have to be the
28:55
fanciest, it doesn't have to be the worst.
28:57
It can be somewhere in between. Something I like to do near the
29:01
end of a show is just ask our guests if they have any sort of
29:05
charitable or nonprofit efforts that they support or they just
29:08
want to share, spread the word about yes, no others at all.
29:12
Any answers are are welcome, but if there's something important
29:15
to you, now is a chance to kind of just let other people know
29:17
about it or or know how they can get involved.
29:20
Yeah, I, I, I'd say right now I request or say make sure that
29:26
you support local business. Try to find the individuals in
29:29
your community to to help support.
29:32
Like I had mentioned the beekeeping stuff that came up
29:35
through my wife being a a beekeeper, we try to support and
29:39
buy local honey from those individuals.
29:41
I have friends that are Potter's as well.
29:43
So again, big master plan is one day having a space where I can
29:47
sell their art in in a shop or even online.
29:50
So provide them with a, with a platform for that.
29:54
We do everything we can to support the farmers markets, the
29:56
local individuals there as well. So that was just a real natural
29:59
fit for me. So I'd say if you can look shop
30:02
local, those are kind of the big important items for me outside
30:06
of, you know, the, the charitable organizations and
30:08
stuff like that. It's, it's making sure that we
30:11
kind to each other. I, I feel like that gets lost,
30:13
especially nowadays. There seems to be a big divide
30:16
amongst individuals and I feel like we have more in common now.
30:19
Whatever I feel, I feel like we have more in common than we do
30:23
in terms of differences. So that's, that's always what
30:25
I'm looking for is to see where I can be of service to an
30:28
individual and if that means supporting their business to to
30:32
do that. Yeah, I think that's an
30:34
important distinction. You know, we say, I say
30:36
charitable or nonprofit because it's an easy way to broach that
30:39
that subject, but that doesn't mean necessarily I'm trying to
30:43
get a tax deduction. It just means where's a place I
30:46
can put my money that is going to help somebody else or my time
30:50
or my effort if it's volunteering and not financial
30:52
in that that manner. Anything that I didn't ask that
30:55
you wanted to make sure people knew, or that we shared about
30:59
APIs, Coffee, about you. Yeah, I guess the, the one thing
31:04
that I'd probably highlight is, you know, I'm just a normal
31:07
person. I, I have some specific kind of
31:10
ideas in place and I wanted to use something that I was
31:13
passionate about in coffee to, to be able to connect with my
31:17
community. And I would just encourage
31:19
people like if you have that sensation that there's something
31:22
you want to do, whether it's coffee related or not, to be
31:25
bold, go out, do it, learn you, you don't get an opportunity to
31:31
learn if you're not uncomfortable in your current
31:33
situation. So I, I always try to promote
31:36
that and I always try to at least help individuals if it's
31:40
something that I could say during this podcast or you know,
31:42
a conversation around coffee or something else that I'm
31:45
passionate about doing, Just be confident in yourself and, and
31:49
take that step. Forward When you were driving
31:53
for a cup of coffee somewhere and you weren't drinking your
31:55
own stuff and you stopped into a cafe, what are you going to
31:59
order? Oh man, I'm a sucker for a good
32:02
cappuccino. Yeah, I love cappuccinos or a
32:05
pour over. I typically like to, to start
32:10
with just a basic shot of espresso just to see what that
32:13
tastes like, since I, I have an express machine at home.
32:15
And then from there I order a cappuccino.
32:17
So I, I want to see what it tastes like so I can have
32:19
something to compare it to and kind of dial in my setup.
32:22
But I I do cappuccino every day and then if I'm feeling frisky
32:25
I'll do a pour over as well. Well, I hope that you weren't
32:29
feeling too frisky here. This is not that kind of show to
32:32
everybody listening. You can find all the links that
32:35
we've talked about in today's episode, including the one day
32:37
APIs coffee in our show notes. You can also find it in our
32:40
newsletter at roastwestcoast.com.
32:42
We also have coffee peoplepodcast.com.
32:45
I always waffle between what to send people to, but it's the
32:47
same thing. This show is a part of the Roast
32:51
West Coast Coffee Network. You can find it on your favorite
32:54
podcast platforms, Apple and Spotify reviews, follows, likes.
32:58
All that stuff really helps. Please subscribe.
33:01
Shout out to our presenting sponsor, Rostar Incorporated,
33:04
the coffee packaging company helping small businesses tell
33:07
their big story. Businesses like APIs Coffee.
33:10
Fabian, a real pleasure. Thank you for being here on the
33:13
show. Oh man, Ryan my my pleasure.
33:16
Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and just
33:18
an opportunity to get out and talk to like minded people.
33:22
That's it everybody. Thank you for listening to us
33:24
share the stories of coffee people.
33:26
Please tip your baristas and be sure to drink good coffee.
34:18
Fabian, I thought of this earlier and I really wanted to
34:21
say it, but I feel like with your jiu jitsu experience, you
34:25
should have some sort of promotion where if somebody pins
34:27
you, they get a free coffee. I just feel like not at, not at
34:32
your like your training facility, just like anywhere on
34:35
the street. If they come up to you and pin
34:37
you, they get a coffee somewhere.
34:41
We might have to make that happen.
34:42
I'll send my location right? Yeah, what the phone apps that
34:48
Pete you can track like your partner with, you know, if
34:51
they're on a trip or something, something like that, where
34:53
people can find you, challenge you on the spot.
34:56
Yeah, I'll, I'll set up a, a partner portal.
34:59
I'll, I'll put it the the pin challenge on my web page and
35:02
you'll send me an inquiry and I'll send you my location.
35:04
I'll, I'll be ready for you. I think that's it.