One of the most frequent questions we get whenever we talk to friends, family, or you all out on the streets of Puerto Vallarta is “How is Con Todo Coffee going?”
We love getting this question!
We have been absolutely blown away by your response to the launch of Con Todo Coffee and by your support for our new business! Con Todo Coffee would not be possible without you all and from the very first time we started thinking about starting a coffee company, we knew we wanted to bring you all behind the scenes and share what is going well for Con Todo Coffee and, from our perspective, what we are struggling with.
Part of knowing “todo” (everything) about your coffee is having a look at the business side as well!
What’s going on at the farm?
Production at the farm is going really well! Our contact at Finca Las Chicharras has informed us that this year they are expecting a 30% increase in coffee bean production this year!
Also, the kids at the school are loving playing with everything you all sent them a few months back.
Whenever we started Con Todo Coffee, we wanted to make sure that we would build in a way to give back directly to the farmers and their families. While we chose to work with Finca Las Chicharras partially based on the premise that they pay the highest salaries to their workers, we knew we wanted to give back even more to the very people that make our daily cup of joe possible. To that, we donate $1 per month for every Con Todo Coffee subscription purchased. Whenever we started this business, we were simply hoping to sell out of our initial coffee bean purchase (about 500 bags worth) over a whole year...we never could have imagined sending out more than that much every single month!
It is incredible to know that, because of the success we have had thus far with Con Todo Coffee, you all are making a huge impact with the students at the Finca and their entire families. Thank you for being a part of something truly special!
What are we struggling with?
The purpose of this article is to pull back the curtain a little and show you what’s really going on. It’s time to get real. What are we struggling with?
Here is the truth: running a coffee company is a lot more work than we anticipated!
However, we are blessed to say that it has been more difficult than we expected because we have WAY more orders and more interest in our coffee than we anticipated. We would much rather struggle with growing pains than the alternative which would be not selling any coffee!
But what specifically are we struggling with at Con Todo Coffee?
Logistics
Logistics
Logistics
Logistics are kicking our butts!
Getting our coffee beans from Finca las Chicharras in Chiapas to Dallas, ordering poly mailer bags, and ordering coffee retail bags (the pretty teal ones you all love!) and ensuring that we have enough of each, at the right time, and that we order them at the right time.
Coffee can take anywhere from 4 to 14 days to arrive to Texas.
Poly mailer bags ship in about a week.
Coffee bags take about a month.
And don't get us started about shipping labels, boxes, and tape! :)
Keeping track of the inventory of each tiny piece and knowing how much to order and when to place that order has been a struggle for us thus far. Having said that, with about 6-7 months under our belts, we are starting to figure things out. We now have a pretty good estimate of how long each product will last us, but that’s not to say that we don’t sometimes randomly wake up in the middle of the night wondering if we have enough retail bags!
As new business owners, it is easy to get bogged down by all of the things that we know we are not doing, or fret about things we may not be doing well. We are our own worst critics. But the truth is that as a whole, things are going really well with Con Todo Coffee and we are SO excited about the future!
What is going well?
We have a Facebook page!
That sounds like something super simple, but you have no idea how difficult it has been to create a Facebook page for Con Todo Coffee. We have created FOUR different pages now, with the first three being banned by Facebook.
Why were they banned? Couldn't tell you!
Let’s not focus on the negative :) We have a Facebook page now and we are excited to finally be able to use Facebook to share recipes, what we are drinking each morning, updates, sales, and more! Apart from Youtube, Facebook is really the heart of our community so it feels great to be able to connect with you again! Here is a link to our page: 100% Mexican Coffee - Con Todo Coffee
The next thing that is going well: the release of our dark roast!
We have been extremely happy by our sales of our limited edition 'Levanta Muertos' dark roast coffee. More importantly, we are really excited about the feedback that we received from all of you! If you haven't had a chance to get yours yet, here is a link to buy our Levanta Muertos!
We are not sure if a dark roast coffee is here to stay permanently or not, but thus far, we are liking the idea of offering two great tasting roasts.
What do you think?
Should we offer a dark roast coffee year round or should we make it something special and only offer it seasonally?
What about a light roast? Is that something you would like to try?
There are so many more things that we are struggling with and much more that we are having success with, but we hope that this quick glimpse behind the scenes of Con Todo Coffee was intriguing for you.
We hope to provide updates like this in the future. If this is something you enjoy and would like to see in the future, let us know in the comments or shoot us a message on Instagram @ConTodoCoffee!
Live Con Todo,
Hillary and Greg Kennon
