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S2E2. How Pack Katisomsakul built a growing coffee business during the pandemic
77 Plays2 years ago
Covid-19 has impacted so many people around the world and for some, has changed our lives completely.
Many feel overwhelmed by it, but many could see the opportunities to thrive. In this episode, we talked to Pack Katisomsakul from Thailand, an entrepreneur with about ten years of experience in startups, and the founder of 50 Milk Street.
Without any coffee know-how, how could Pack start his coffee business during the pandemic time and build a growing coffee business just in two years, how he did it? Listen to this podcast and find out Pack's secret.
If you want to read Pack's story, read the full article here
https://notabarista.org/pack-katisomsakul/
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Transcript
Introduction & Podcast Overview
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to the I'm Not A Barista podcast. We're here to talk about all things coffee from industry careers, brewing tips, community support and more with some really incredible people who love coffee as much as you do. Because humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower all the people behind every cup.
00:00:29
Speaker
So, what's up? Nothing much, man. Been great. Been seeing a lot of things today, brewing some coffee yourself. Cheers. This is my fourth cup of coffee today. No way. How many cups you drink, bro?
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, a lot, a lot. I run off coffee every week. That's a lot.
Guest Introduction & Thai Coffee Journey
00:00:49
Speaker
So earlier we featured a story and then we got to know a little bit about you, where you're from and how your coffee journey started. You're from Thailand. Yes, I am.
00:01:02
Speaker
And in this article, we got to know you, you are promoting Thai coffee farmers. And for me, I have never tried coffee from Thailand. So yeah, that's, that's very interesting. Like only last year I started to know Indian coffee. So I'm pretty sure there are a lot of great coffee out there. I haven't tried. I'm not birthday. So, you know, so tell us about how you start your coffee journey. Not a long time ago, right?
00:01:30
Speaker
Yep, not too long ago, about two years, I think. Yeah. So I was starting the coffee when the farmer sent me the coffee bag. Like he sent me like three bag of coffee, which is first bright rose, second medium roses, and third one is the dark rose.
00:01:48
Speaker
So pretty much, I have no clue on how to brew a coffee at the time. I barely drink coffee. I usually drink instant coffee at work, because I work in the, like, cold working space environment. So usually I drink instant coffee. And, you know, during the COVID situation and things happen, I was staying home and the farmer and my friend just sent me a coffee from the north of Thailand, which is Chiang Mai. Oh, no, sorry, Chiang Rai.
00:02:16
Speaker
And yeah, that's the starting point on how I get to know coffee because they sent me and shipped me the bean and didn't tell me anything about the bean. So I was figuring it out myself searching about like how to brew coffee with just a bean. And it was very fun because you know, sometimes you only drink instant coffee and you never know this thing except like coffee grinder. And I never know there's a coffee grinder.
00:02:44
Speaker
So I was searching on what kind of coffee grinder I need and what is the beginning and where I can start brewing a coffee with a coffee grinder. And after that, I found a friend press. It's a very beginner tool and good after you have a grinder. So I went to the mall, do a shopping around in Thailand and Bangkok and I felt like
00:03:13
Speaker
no coffee equipment at the mall, no coffee equipment at the cafe. And only a certain cafe has the coffee equipment at the time when I was started, which was surprising. And I was like, huh, there's no way people would like have no crew about the coffee grinder. And I believe that there's more people who doesn't know about coffee grinder and how to brew coffee like me.
Growth of Thai Coffee Industry
00:03:38
Speaker
So
00:03:39
Speaker
I found myself to get a couple of coffee grinder. My first grinder was Hario. I forgot what the name behind is, the Hario grinder with the milk grinder, which is ceramic. I'm sure you have seen it. And I got one friend press from IKEA, and I brew coffee. That's the first coffee I had.
00:04:02
Speaker
And at first, I don't understand the coffee at all. So I tried to do like, I want to do a mocha, like a mocha with French fries. Because, you know, I have no idea. How did that go? It was good, actually. I grew dark roast coffee and I have some milk and chocolate there. It tastes decent, but not as good as Starbucks mocha and, you know, other place for sure.
00:04:27
Speaker
but it's kind of decent and at the start. But then I grew other coffee with friend press, which is the light roasted, which I have never tried. I write roast coffee before. And when I had it, it was like, it was weird. It's high acidity. I forgot the flavor of it already, like which flavor I got, but it's more like on fruity size and does keep me wonder like,
00:04:54
Speaker
Why the coffee tastes this way? And then I start to do more research about it, right? Like, all coffee can be fruity, coffee can be grape, coffee can taste like apple, coffee can taste like nutty and stuff. And no one told you about that before? No, no one. No one, Larry. Coffee should be bitter. Yeah, I know, right? So...
00:05:18
Speaker
So that's the way it is. I start to learn about it. And as I told you right at the beginning that, you know, I feel like there are more people who doesn't know like me. So I start to write a content.
00:05:31
Speaker
about like coffee, about how to brew coffee, about the type of the coffee. And the more you get into it, there's more in the coffee size like processing, like wash, natural, you know, an Arabic or honey and how are they different? And no one talked about it at the time I was. I mean, there are certain people talk about it, but they are very expert in the industry. And when I read it, it's very,
00:05:58
Speaker
hard to contain and very hard and difficult to understand, right? So I try to put it more in a simply word, I would say. Like, why honey? What's different in a very simple word? And that's when I start, I start to buy more coffee grinder because I feel like it's cool. So I bought a lot more like product grinder, the Calome grinder, which is Raimi now.
00:06:25
Speaker
Until I got the Combanante at the time and I got Kinu as well. And I like to compare them with the same coffee bean and tell people about how they go and stuff. So that's the beginning of my coffee. Wow. You said that everything started about two years ago only. Yep, that's right. And after two years, you have your own coffee business. That's insane.
00:06:51
Speaker
It's very fast. It's fast because of the community broke me through and the people who support me after I got into the coffee, I feel like the Thailand coffee community are very strong and tight. So when you need to know something, you can ask people about it.
00:07:09
Speaker
And there's a lot of Facebook group that talk about how to fix your coffee routine, how to make it better, how to brew better or how they work, how to do cupping and stuff. So in Thailand, there's
00:07:23
Speaker
They're pretty cool. I think people know things about coffee now. The market here moved very quickly within this two years from the people who drink Starbucks and now they moved to brewing at home now, drinking expensive geisha, expensive... What's it called? Eugenitis, that one last year.
00:07:49
Speaker
It's pretty crazy here. That sounds beautiful. All the coffee you are promoting or you're selling or you're dealing with there are original from Thailand. First from Thailand and from the other origin as well. Okay, so tell us more about the coffee from Thailand. We never heard too much about it. Most talk about Brazil, right, Colombia. In Asia, we talk about Indonesian coffee. Maybe sometimes
00:08:15
Speaker
Indian coffee. But Thailand doesn't sound like a country has anything associated with a coffee. Indeed. I think the coffee in Thailand started a couple of years ago. I don't know the exact number, maybe 30 years ago, that people wrote
00:08:35
Speaker
grow the other plant and then it doesn't work in that way. So the king of Thailand, the king number nine, he was on the mountain and found that maybe you should grow coffee here. The latitude and longitude is high enough for the farmer to grow coffee. So he bought a coffee from Colombia to kind of start growing in Thailand. And then it expands to a typical
00:09:05
Speaker
But katui, I think, I think it was katui and katula. Bourbon, red bourbon, yellow bourbon, that's what brings to Thailand. And that's the start. Thailand coffee is still new in the market, I would say, according to the people who are in the industry for me before.
00:09:24
Speaker
But, you know, things get improved a lot. But the density of the coffee is still not as much as the Columbia and Panama or Honduras and stuff. But I think we are getting there. We're starting to learn how to grow coffee better. And there's a lot of people here in Thailand now who are trying to help the coffee local farmers in both Arabica and Robustasai. So I think
00:09:48
Speaker
I think it's new, but it will be here and reach the stand out soon so you guys can have it freely in the future. That sounds awesome. And it's fabulous. You're helping the farmers to figure out a new way. So we're talking about everything happening within two years.
From Travel Startup to Coffee Business
00:10:06
Speaker
And for me, it's unbelievable. It's just so fast, you know, from one to 100. Real quick. I want to ask you,
00:10:16
Speaker
What did you do before coffee? You said that you started your coffee journey in the pandemic. What happened before pandemic? What did you do? Sure. So before I started the coffee business, I was working on a startup named Sneak. We are doing the platform where you can plan a trip by selecting a photo.
00:10:35
Speaker
So pretty much it's easy as you have a photo and you can plan a trip based on the platform. So anywhere you want to go, any photo you want to see, you can select it and our platform will create the itinerary for you for you to go from A to B to C and tell you the exact location.
00:10:53
Speaker
how and where and how much money would get you there. So pretty much that's the whole concept. We want to make a trip planning easier and faster than in the way. And also, as you know, that picture, 1000 words, right? So we represent photo for them to like, hey, I want to go there. That's pretty. And that's the view that I want to be there once in life. So that's how we gathering together information and help them plan the trip.
00:11:23
Speaker
So when did you start that sneak? When did you launch it? That would be 2018. And then we start from that to 2021. Yeah, that's how we try to stop the operation. Yeah, that sucks, right? After launching that startup and the pandemic hits and you're working, that industry needs traveling.
00:11:48
Speaker
Right, I know, right? But it's happened sometimes. You just need to adapt. And, you know, industry change. You just need to overcome yourself. Sometimes it's very difficult. And I can say that the time when I was with Sneak was very difficult. And luckily, because of the coffee bag that I have, the support from my family, my wife, my parent, my friend is trying to get me through it. And yeah, that's it.
00:12:18
Speaker
So definitely you have a lot of real experience working as the entrepreneur and then you can quickly start your own company called 50 Milk Strayed. That's right. How did you get that name? What does it mean?
00:12:34
Speaker
It's very cheesy how I get to the name. So the name is 50 Mill Street. It's the street where one of the buildings in Boston, right? And this building has a lot of company there, like the Cambridge Innovation Center. So a lot of startups.
00:12:52
Speaker
grow there. A lot of startups happen to be in 50 Mill Street before going to fundraising in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and stuff. My first startup when I was in the US started from there. In addition to that, 50 Mill Street is where I asked my wife to be my girlfriend at the time. It was very special to me. I named the store 50 Mill Street after the pandemic. I think it's a nice name and very good meaning for myself. That's how the name came from.
00:13:24
Speaker
Thanks for explaining to it. In an article you mentioned that every month you could sell 300 items from your shop. That's a lot. How is that possible? I know many business owners online.
00:13:39
Speaker
e-commerce owners, they recently started own business and they are struggling a lot. They know the market is growing because the pandemic is still there and the people do throw coffee at home and they spend a lot on it, but they just cannot sell there too. So how did you make that happen?
00:13:56
Speaker
If it's not a secret, I think it's more like discipline and how you work through it and you know people give you opportunity and stuff and I was lucky that 50 mil street was starting with a page to build a community right to give a knowledge to people and that's that's how we call inbound marketing and that's what I learned back in the US in 2000.
00:14:19
Speaker
15, 16, I guess, it's the time where you build marketing to kind of interact with people to come to you and building a very good SEO, building a very good place where people can find you. And that's how I apply to my business, right? So I built a community, I got a very strong community. And after that, I started to sell because, you know,
00:14:43
Speaker
When you build a page, it's very hard to buy a revenue and generate some benefit. That's why we start to see what kind of coffee equipment is not here yet. So at the beginning, I was just doing a pre-order just like other people in the market. And I found one product that's very cool, which is PackKit. I think you have seen the name. The portable
00:15:07
Speaker
Kettle that you can bring and brew anywhere. So that's our first product We did the pre-order and people ordered from us, right? So we got a small margin at first and then we start to the Rubital cold brew coffee with their Rubital cold brew made by Hario, but they have a different color, right? It's blue and also gray So that's technically very minimal and I love it. So I start to do another pre-order on that and
00:15:36
Speaker
And that's how I generate the first revenue. And just need to say that when sneak before sneak costs, we almost lost all the money we have because we put all the money to investment, right? So I don't have CAD to start a new business right away. So technically that's why I do the pre-order
00:15:55
Speaker
for the good and also coffee equipment at the time. And after you kind of start the pre-order, I start to get money and I start to get attraction, which is more viable than the money I get. Because the attraction that I have, I can't present it to the company of the district in Thailand, such as Fellow and also Kinto at the same time.
00:16:18
Speaker
And after I got a very good traction, I went to Kindo and Philip to talk about how I could sell their product, but I don't have money. So they would be like, you don't have money, but you want to sell our product? Are you serious? And I was like, well, I mean, I've been doing a lot of research on the internet that you can do this ABC, we can do a contract, we can do a consignment and such. I could sell your product. I could be a market for you guys.
00:16:48
Speaker
the reason because I have enough market for you and we can do, we can increase your market share. So that's the beginning how I pitched to Kinto and Kinto was like,
00:16:59
Speaker
And it worked. And it worked. What are you talking to, Christopher? No, I wasn't talking to Christopher. I talked to the people in Thailand. I talked to Koon Ping. I think Koon Ping is the only sole distributor of Kindle in Thailand.
Understanding Coffee & Entrepreneurial Challenges
00:17:14
Speaker
She still is. And she gave me the opportunity. And also, during the time when we keep on working together on Kindle, we start to file Boo Boss together. So Boo Boss was filed by me and people in Kindle.
00:17:29
Speaker
That's awesome. You're a smart guy. You can start business without money. I think... Oh, it's hard, man. It's difficult. It's not easy. We all have to learn from that, especially us. It's difficult. It's not easy. It's like you need to keep sailing your dream and you have to fake it until you make it. Yeah. I believe that is one of the...
00:17:53
Speaker
the attributes that many coffee people, they are not aware of, or they don't have, let's say new business owners. And as you may know that many coffee people, they start their career as a barista, and then they save some money, they open their own shop, maybe they become a roaster, and they sell their own coffee. But then it's just hard for them to take off, for the business to take off, because they are lack of this kind of mentality. Like you said, you have to fake it.
00:18:23
Speaker
Wow, what a story, man. I understand to get to know specialty coffee could be very, very difficult. I remember back a few years ago, I think I started around 2017.
00:18:36
Speaker
I got my first Hario, a kettle. I just had no idea what I was doing. I was Google. But there were a lot of information on the internet. You don't know which one you need to follow. Someone said, oh, this is better. The other one is better. And there's a recipe. And there's a grinder. And grinder is a different. What is the most challenging thing have you ever made during your beginning? The most challenge?
00:19:03
Speaker
I think it's the little board game. I think that's the more challenge for me to learn about the coffee variety and the flavor of the coffee from its origin or its country.
00:19:16
Speaker
And yeah, that's the most challenging for me. The coffee equipment I think is reasonable and you can kind of get to know them one by one. And it's not too complicated to kind of see how things work, like physically. It is more like science on that way, right? But when you come to the filling part, which is the coffee bean,
00:19:39
Speaker
which is special first and also like you need a lot of experience. You need to try a lot of coffee. You'll be able to kind of explain and tell which coffee from where and which coffee from which altitude and longitude, right? And which coffee is from which roastery, which coffee is from air, which coffee is from heat. It is all crazy. And that's how I learned about coffee variety very quickly as well. So that was the most challenging part.
00:20:09
Speaker
I think the coffee, defining coffee is the most challenging for me. Like, which coffee from where? Even especially in Thailand, it's very difficult to define this typical or this bourbon because they're still not fully developed in Thailand, but they will get there.
00:20:31
Speaker
And you can't separate it, it's very difficult. And also, like, identified by leaf of the coffee tree, that's difficult too. It needs a lot of experience. Wow.
00:20:44
Speaker
You really go into that direction to become a coffee nerd person because you're talking about the sensory, the science and stuff. But most people don't want to go through that. I hate that part. I don't understand the charts and the flavors. I just hate it. I wish I could just make a cup of coffee easily. Yeah, I wish to do that. Definitely. I think it is challenging. Yeah.
00:21:04
Speaker
Well, what is the fun part? The fun part? The fun part is tearing coffee. I love tearing coffee with people and I love to learn more about coffee and how the other think about the coffee. So there was one time we kind of got the coffee from the option. It's the Ethiopia
00:21:27
Speaker
Ethiopia's COE, number 1A, the auction happened in 2021, and we put that on brew rocks, right? So we bring one of the coffee to each roaster and let them brew it for us.
00:21:41
Speaker
And then after we do that, we kind of see a lot of things happening. We see one roaster use, you know, V60 and get one flavor. The one roaster like to use Lily and it's get one flavor and you know, it's, it's kind of crazy to, to go drink the same exact coffee with different flavor and also a different perspective, different, um, what's it called? Description.
00:22:07
Speaker
and describe how coffee works. And it's actually surprised how each coffee represents the roster. It's very cool. It's a fun part of it, and especially coffee. It has money into it and then drinking coffee just more than an activity,
Innovations in Thai Coffee & International Expansion
00:22:26
Speaker
right? It's become a part of life, your routine of life.
00:22:30
Speaker
Fairly. Let's talk about coffee in Thailand. How do you tell other people introduce Thai coffee? How do you introduce Thai coffee? How do you describe them? That's a very hard question. I think to introduce Thai coffee, I think you need to get to know Thai culture. I think Thai culture is very nice. The Thai coffee is also nice. It's kind.
00:22:55
Speaker
So you would feel the kindness of the coffee. That's how I would describe Thai people are very kind. Thai people are very special and the farmer work very hard. And the farmer are very talented here in Thailand. And one other thing in Thailand is that we can build a very small lot right now because we seem like we cannot produce a high volume of production at the moment. And we have a lot of like small farm in Thailand.
00:23:23
Speaker
And surprisingly, I love how the local farmer roasts their own coffee and sale.
00:23:29
Speaker
That's very interesting. I don't think, I talked to you like about a days ago about this and it seemed like not happening the other place in the world, but in Thailand, the farmer just bought their coffee and then they sell the coffee directly, building their own brand and just sell it to people and they sell it to Japan, sell it to other places. And in Japan, you can find Thai coffee easily now. They have a very good franchise they call Akama. Wow.
00:23:57
Speaker
Other places, you can find it in the US, the UK, but other places, I don't know. Maybe Russia is not famous yet. And that's one of the...
00:24:08
Speaker
Actually, I can tell you that I have a friend, Max, from Singapore. We'll talk about your story. And he said lately, he's seeing a lot of coffee from Thailand in Singapore. Yeah. And it's very innovative now too. Thai coffee, they kind of do a lot of experiments, I would say. Like in Colombia, you would have a special process, right? So in Thailand, they actually start doing that too.
00:24:35
Speaker
They do a lot of like some crazy anaerobic wash and some weird yeast, some interesting yeast, like the yeast from the, what's it called, soy sauce. And they kind of bring it to ferment that with the coffee. There's so many things happening here. Oh my God. So later you can try the coffee and taste like limey flavor. Yeah, it's crazy.
00:25:05
Speaker
It was very creative.
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, very creative, talented farmer. And it's true that we rarely see that coffee farmers, they grow their coffee and they roast them and they sell them. It's like one-man group, you do everything yourself. Normally, you have farmers doing the farming part and then the traders, the roaster, do the roasting part and have someone else brewing like baristas. So how is that possible for Thai farmers to do that? I mean, do they have enough time and money just to do everything themselves?
00:25:37
Speaker
I think it's because of the new generation of the coffee farmer. So these coffee farmers are the third generation, right? So in Thailand, the people from the North, especially the farmers in coffee, they would send a kit to the city.
00:25:52
Speaker
So I believe that how things start. So when they get to the city, they would learn more about things and then they bring back to their own village. And after that, they kind of bring innovation or creativity to their farm. And then think of their coffee can be better. And they kind of see examples from like other places in the world, like, for example, Ethiopia or Panama or, you know,
00:26:19
Speaker
Colombia, they would heard the story of 90 plus and see how they do. They use a lot of geese, the youth fermentation and stuff. So they was like, how do I do that in Thailand too? And I want to do that. And a lot of people in Thailand, they kind of like to go to the farmer. It's very interesting. It's like a travel place for people who love coffee. So they would go to the north and visit the farm. And when they visit the farm, they would share their knowledge. They would share like, they have the coffee farm
00:26:48
Speaker
maybe from 100 tests like this and there's this kind of process, this kind of honey process and how do you do and how do you do your honey and then they would explain this is how I do my honey and the customers are very smart and also like the community of the coffee here in Thailand so they would suggest the farmer.
00:27:06
Speaker
Which is very interesting, right? Because usually the farmer community would have to kind of get to themselves and learn. But the roaster here in Thailand, they kind of love to support the farmer. So they would do a direct trade to the farmer, right? Each farm is very interesting. So each roaster would have some kind of good relationship with one farm and they will source the local bean from that farmer.
00:27:35
Speaker
and how they grow together. So when they do a nano lot or micro lot, they would sell to each specific roaster. And this roaster will always visit the farmer. It's like China building the community and chair feedback and stuff. So I think it's a very good start for Thai coffee and also very good behavior to improve the coffee quality in Thailand as well.
00:28:00
Speaker
That's an amazing story. Thailand's a new country for coffee, already doing direct trade. And it's lovely to see communities there are so tight each other, for instance, sorry, roasters and the farmers that work together and to benefit each other. I remember you mentioned that you want to help the farmers to, or to help the coffee community to grow 1% of GDP or somehow, what was that goal? Can you tell us more about it?
00:28:30
Speaker
It's just a goal for myself, so I always dream of increasing one of the GDP in the whole country or the whole like, Southeast Asia. That's my dream goal. I don't know how I would reach there, but that's the dream when I was in college and I wanted to do that. It's a pretty cool dream, but it's very hard.
00:28:50
Speaker
to kind of get through it and do that. At the time, I thought travel would be the one. When I was working on the travel tech, right? The sneak, the picture group planner. And I was, I would be able to do that with the travel industry. But because of the COVID made me have to move the industry, but you know, you can't stop. And coffee is one of the kind of the, what's it called?
00:29:16
Speaker
the agriculture that can grow. And there's a very huge volume of this. So if I could help the coffee community, both in Thailand and other places like Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, or Indonesia, and if they grow,
00:29:33
Speaker
they could reach my goal one day. I don't know, maybe coffee would be my thing, or maybe something else would be my thing in the future.
Integrating Travel Experience with Coffee Business
00:29:40
Speaker
But my goal is always support the community and bring together to the 1GTV of the whole entire country. And I cannot do this alone.
00:29:51
Speaker
is need people around me, is need people who are trying to do things, to make things better for their life, to help us increase to go as a community or as a whole nation or a legend to up rise together to be a 1%, which is not easy.
00:30:07
Speaker
Yeah, I agree that. 1% GDP, that's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. And if you talk about many smaller countries and then you in coffee, and that's very challenging. But it's fantastic. You have this goal and I believe many people agree with you and they want to support you and make it happen. And you just remind me that you have a company called Snake earlier, that's the virtual based travel platform.
00:30:33
Speaker
And have you ever thought about to connect that with the coffee industry? Because you visit coffee farmers lot and you know, a lot of people that pay a lot to go to coffee farms to pick cherries. I actually did a coffee project before I do a coffee coffee hopping. So I turned because of the COVID, right? And people cannot travel internationally. So we turn the sneak to Cafe Hopper. So we would have a lot of cafe photo.
00:31:01
Speaker
And people can kind of hop and go to cafe based on the picture they see. But you know, it's very hard to generate the revenue. You know, you need to do a lot of small share profit with the cafe and very hard to track. And also the COVID come again and multiple time, which we have to drop that project too. And that's why we kind of turn to coffee foodie. To be honest, thinking about like bringing sneak to the farmer, I think it's possible.
00:31:29
Speaker
I honestly think it's possible. But during the time of your journey, sometimes you need to be focused on things. If you focus to so many things, it would be difficult for you to manage, especially if you have a small team right now. And also, the sneak or the platform requires a lot of tech person. And now we don't have the tech person anymore because they work on their new job and stuff. And this is difficult and expensive part to be able to maintain and start a new project.
00:31:58
Speaker
So yeah, that's about it, man. Wow. What a wonderful story. I hope pandemic, when that is over, you can have a sneak back and then somehow connect with the coffee so people can really use your app to visit different countries and make their coffee trip. That'll be amazing. Yeah, man. That would be awesome.
00:32:18
Speaker
Really great story. I have so many questions. I have a list, a full list of questions. Let me pick one. Interesting. So next question is, okay. It sounds like an interview question, but I want to ask you, where do you see 50 mil straight in five years? In five years?
00:32:38
Speaker
I think we are on the way with our partner now. We have a very good partner with Outlaws. It's the brand from Korean. They built the Dripper called A27 Dripper, which is very cool and we're very interested in this kind of dripper. We love to see different types of drippers and the performance of this dripper is pretty awesome.
00:33:00
Speaker
But we started to promote it. It's still new in the market, as you know. You may not have heard of this brand before. And the other brand is called Orea. You may have heard of this brand on Instagram. Yeah, they're big. But before I met Orea, which is the owner of Orea, at the time,
00:33:21
Speaker
They're still not very viral as this but I believe that this product could bring the world some new phase of the dripper and also some new brewing method and stuff because his imagination is very wise. I literally like how he thinks about the dripper and how the commodity would grow together as a coffee and I think 50 mil street would grow along with them.
00:33:49
Speaker
like the new brand that we build relationship together with in five years. In the Thailand market, definitely I will try my best to reach and take the market, the profit margin and the market chair in Thailand as much as possible, would grow a team.
00:34:07
Speaker
would find more new product to add onto it and we love kind of new product and and innovation um coffee grinder and stuff to bring into you know the company but we love new thing dipper uh whatever about coffee so we bring it there
00:34:25
Speaker
So this is what the mystery would be and still be, but during the time I think we would try to focus more on coffee bean as well. We believe that the coffee bean is very important and if we could export the coffee bean somehow and bring coffee bean,
00:34:42
Speaker
in Thailand for people to get to know from outside of the country. I think that would be the next goal. But within the next five years, that would still be 50 mil street, the coffee equipment store that would kind of keep accessible to the people in the market. And yeah, I think that's about it. Yeah, five years. A lot of things could happen. And I wonder, do you have a physical store at this moment?
00:35:10
Speaker
No, we don't have the physical school. So everything should be done online. Correct. Okay. But you're selling a lot of gears there every month as to say, I wondering how big is Thai market? I remember when I was in Thailand, I was there a few times and then I was looking for especially good coffee. It was so difficult.
00:35:34
Speaker
It was difficult two years ago, man. Yeah, how big is the market right now? Yep, there's a very huge market grow consistently. And you know, based on our data, just only our data store I have
00:35:47
Speaker
and other people data as well. But I think based on our song would be better. We have a lot of retention on buying our own coffee. And especially what tell the most is how they buy a coffee, the paper filter. So every month I generate a lot of sale via coffee filter.
00:36:07
Speaker
which tell a lot, a lot of home brewers are growing in Thailand right now. And you know, the coffee or the cafe or balista, they would buy from the distributor themselves already, right? But the home brewer, they still buy online like this. And at least 200 order are, no, not 200. About 150 order are like the paper filter already.
00:36:34
Speaker
which grows every month. And this retention tells us a lot about how Thai people drink coffee. And I have only one store, right? In Thailand, there have a lot of stores, like a lot of coffee stores. And they sell a lot of coffee paper filter. According to what I've seen from the other store and also my neighbor, they sell like 300 paper filter a month.
00:36:58
Speaker
Which is a lot. And I think 10 store, that would be 3000. And if you think about that, it's over 30,000 people ordering paper filter a day, which is home bureau. So that's the market, man. It changed a lot. Yeah, that's growing very fast. You consider how small Thailand. Right. It is small, but big.
00:37:22
Speaker
Yeah, small. Is it growing fast? So listeners, if you're a business owner, you are selling creepers, grinders, including amabersa, we didn't sell our grinders too soon, very soon. You have to talk to Pac, right? Because he's the guy in Thailand can help you to grow your business there. And it's a great opportunity. You have to catch this opportunity. Thailand. Next time we visit Thailand, we don't just visit restaurants or good bars. We need to visit farms. We need to talk to Pac about the business, right?
00:37:52
Speaker
No, you just sailed in. Yeah, visit farm is a must. It's like a very must thing to do. It's like you're going to... Well, one thing is that when you travel to the north and visit the farmer, they would have like a homestay and stuff. So you would get to eat and stay with the farmer.
00:38:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool. That sounds really amazing. There should be on your plan, you know, the app. Should like a virtual trip first and we'll have to take a look how pack as many as day at a farm. And by the way, this food is completely free and this is not a hotel. I'm not paying anything.
Startup Lessons & Business Growth Strategies
00:38:24
Speaker
It's free too. So come to Thailand.
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah, you guys should, man. It's fun. Thailand is fun. Wow. Still, I'm amazed by how two years you can achieve it in these two years. I wonder how your previous startup experience at Neek is Sneek.
00:38:43
Speaker
And many other experiences help you to grow your business in a coffee. I think it's a very important question. And I think it would help a lot of people as well. Just to give a little more background about me, I have been working in the startup for over 10 years now. Like I have been in the startup since then.
00:39:02
Speaker
seen in Boston and moved to Thailand working on snake and now working on a small business which is fifth industry right what I learned is that when you start a business right a lot of people would who say no to you and sometimes you know when they say no it's okay you just need to keep on walking you need to be disciplined on things you do you cannot stop and if thing doesn't work
00:39:28
Speaker
You need to find a way to make it work. I will talk about this small business side, not the startup side, because it would be different. In the small business, if you have things that you think is good and you cannot market to them.
00:39:43
Speaker
You cannot market to the market. Yeah, I think that's the word. You just need to keep on going and try a new thing. Don't stop learning. Ask a lot of people how they do. Apply other business industry and the method of the other industry to your business. Like for example, if you see like coffee, it's not related to a healthcare, but sometimes healthcare business model would apply to a coffee business.
00:40:12
Speaker
which allow you to grow. And no one is going to know which way would work and you guys need to figure it out, right? But the only thing I can just suggest is that you cannot give up just one note. Even though you have 10 notes or 10 things doesn't work, please don't stop. There's always a way to work.
00:40:34
Speaker
Definitely, that's from someone who has startup experiences, right? Rejection means motivation. You have to keep going, restart burn. And no doesn't mean any no. You just need to keep going, and then explore a little bit here. Just keep going, man. And it's interesting. You mentioned, you used an example that some business model fund from the other industry can work in a coffee industry. Did you find something special that works in other industry, but you apply in the coffee industry and it works?
00:41:02
Speaker
I think it's the healthcare business that I found. So they have the program that allow, you know, you go educated the, what's it called, the patient, and then you sell the thing, such as 50 minutes to it. We educated, we put a lot of content on education, and then we find a way to help the coffee, you know, whole group to fix
00:41:26
Speaker
their flavor of coffee and that's how we do it. So we kind of know what to just suggest to the whole group by knowing what they lack of. For example, if someone like come to you saying that, okay, hey, my coffee is very, very acid and I don't want to acid and how do I do?
00:41:47
Speaker
So first of all, you can fix it by, you know, riding a coffee, like, okay, the water keep on observing to the coffee and the coffee would be less acid. And if the flow rate go very fast, that would be more, more acid, right? But the way to fix that, if you deal with the drip, for example, you buy Calida Wave and you buy Rubato coffee dripper or the flat bottom dripper, that would help reduce acid, right?
00:42:13
Speaker
So that's how we go we suggest them this would reduce the acid we sell them but one thing that we found is that you know people there are more people like him the guy just come ask you so you make a content based on that and you sell the product that suit those people.
00:42:29
Speaker
You see what's happening? Yeah, I see. Yeah, it makes sense. I remember my business school experience, my teacher always said, business is always about solving a problem. If you help someone else to fix his problem or her problem, you can help many others and then money just comes.
Closing Remarks & Future Aspirations
00:42:45
Speaker
So it makes sense. Yeah, that's right. And the healthcare. But meanwhile, you're helping people. So that's good.
00:42:51
Speaker
Right. No character loves doing this because it's very difficult and challenging for them to sell their product. So they always use this kind of strategy to build their audience base. Yeah. That's awesome. Thank you so much. I have learned a lot today about Thailand, people and the farmers and the coffee industry and your story. That's amazing. And thanks for sharing the tips how we can help new coffee entrepreneurs to improve their business performance. Right. Peace out. For sure.
00:43:20
Speaker
Thanks for tuning in to this I'm Not A Barista episode. Subscribe to this podcast and follow us on Instagram at I Am Not A Barista for more empowering vibes and true coffee stories that connect you with coffee lovers around the world.