The Coffee Ride

Simultaneously, the long quest for becoming a doctor slowly faded as the rejection from the application process became tiresome, and I began focusing on the next chapter. Confused and defeated, I turned to my old therapeutic friend the bicycle for advice. In a complete new direction, I began working in the cycling industry where the intent was to have a flexible schedule with the hope of being able to ride more. The result was finding a great group of friends and an office with unbearably bad coffee. Having been roasting coffee for a few years at home, I began perfecting the product with the help of the picky audience of my coffee-centric cycling coworkers. The best part of my day quickly turned into my 20 minute bicycle commute to the office and the 10 minutes of making a Chemex of my latest freshly roasted coffee. After a few months of seeing the increased level of self worth my co-workers experienced from the results of taking a moment to care for someone with coffee, I was hooked. While always having been nostalgic for my grandfathers career as a milk man, I decided to take the two best parts of my day, riding bikes and sharing coffee, and turn them into a business by delivering fresh roasted coffee by bicycle. 

The next stage began with selling our subaru and purchasing our first commercial coffee roaster and setting up shop in our garage. While most fairytales would end at that, living happily ever after with great success… The reality is that just like life and riding bikes, business is really difficult. I barely could afford a 5LB bag of coffee to roast for the first couple of friends that purchased coffee. I printed out 5,000 door flyers, which was a massive financial stretch at the time, and went door to door offering our bicycle delivered coffee service; sadly I think only 2 people signed up. Business has been a consistent series of failures and learning from those mistakes to make improvements. Being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Considering giving up every single week, but never giving up. For me, what made all the difference was that one connection to a customer. That one person that tells you that they look forward to every delivery day when a bag of fresh roasted coffee shows up on their front doorstep. That every time they make a cup of our coffee, every sip reminds them of their favorite group ride or outdoor family adventure.