Coffee Lover Bets His Beans On Workplace Coffee Subscriptions

Notes from Chris

Episode 306

Ben Martinez was the Vice President of HR for a high-performing tech company in Salt Lake City, Utah. His strategies lead to a large amount of growth in the company, his team was succeeding, and overall, he was becoming well-respected in his field. But something wasn’t quite right.

After 20 years in corporate America, Ben was struggling to feel that same exhilaration he was once familiar with. He slowly found himself less engaged in his day job and more fascinated by one of his passions.

Coffee. Rich, delicious, fresh coffee.

Ben was itching to try something new, so he started brainstorming ways to combine his love for great coffee and his business savviness. And he found one.

To his utter dismay, coffee in the workplace was often ordered as an add-on alongside printer paper and staples by office managers who either didn’t drink coffee at all or couldn’t differentiate between high quality and low quality coffee even if they did. Ben was floored—how could anyone be expected to do their best work when the coffee was flavorless and stale? But even when the underwhelming quality of the coffee was addressed, they were stumped as to where to find better coffee.

That’s when he thought—what if he could create a quality-centric coffee subscription for workplaces that was not only affordable but easy to get as well?

With this model, not only could he satisfy the business with simple, affordable delivered coffee—it would also keep their employees positively swimming in freshly roasted, high quality beans. And, thanks to the subscription model, he would have a predictable cash flow each month.

In less than a year in business, Sumato Coffee generates over $1,500 in monthly revenue, with about $600 in monthly profit. Business continues to pick up, however, and with the onboarding of a partner with experience in e-commerce business, Ben's confident that Sumato Coffee will continue to grow and thrive.

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MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Sumato Coffee: Be your office's hero—check out Ben's workplace subscription service on his website!
• Recharge, Buffer, & MailChimp: Three of the platforms that Ben used to manage customers, social media, and email marketing (respectively)
• Artemis Health: The Salt Lake City tech company that became one of Ben's first customers
• Secret Tech Sauce Talent: Ben's up and coming recruiting and consulting firm that specializes in talent acquisition, employer branding, technology, core HR services, etc.

SEE ALSO:

• Fire Roasted Coffee Dreams Lead to Big Beans: When searching high and low for fresh roasted coffee leaves a father in the Yukon with an empty mug, he starts making it himself and creates a side hustle caffeinating the masses
• “Mommee Coffee” Becomes a $20,000/Month Side Hustle: Tired of the guilt associated with consuming coffee while pregnant and breastfeeding, a biomechanical engineer creates a line of coffee bean options that keep Mom happy and baby healthy
• Boring Desk Job Leads to $14,000/month Coffee Pod Biz: When a British man wonders why he can’t find Nespresso pods in other flavors, his curiosity leads to a pod-tacular side hustle that earns a full-time income

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,