Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#6. Meet Tim Rogg 🇬🇧, from filmmaker to coffee entrepreneur
127 Plays4 years ago
How do you turn a big concept like specialty coffee into content that’s educational, digestible, and entertaining at the same time?
Tim Rogg, co-founder and the ‘brawn’ behind The Right Roast, has spent the last decade doing just that. Along with his wife Aiko, who makes up the ‘brain’ behind the brand, the creative duo have devoted their effort into building an ecosystem that unites roasters and consumers alike in an online marketplace that’s designed to grow into something so much more.
You can read Tim's coffee story
https://notabarista.org/tim-rogg/
Make sure you follow us on Instagram @iamnotabarista to connect with the global coffee community, let's empower people behind the cup together.
Support the showRead more coffee stories on
https://notabarista.org/
Order Coffee Wristbands and support I'M NOT A BARISTA's charity work
https://notabarista.org/product/notabarista-coffee-wristbands-2023/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the I'm Not a barista podcast where you can get inspired by real life stories from the people behind the cup. Join us as we talk about everything to do with coffee from having a career in this industry to brewing tips and how you can support this global community. Humanity runs on coffee and together we can empower the people behind the cup.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello everyone, my name is Miki Wang, your host of M. Knoppers, the podcast.
From Filmmaking to Coffee: Tim Rock's Journey
00:00:32
Speaker
Today we're gonna talk about how do you turn a big concept like specialty coffee into content that is educational, digestible, and entertaining at the same time. To this guest is Tim Rock, the cow founder and the brawn behind the right roast. He has spent the last decade doing just that, along with his wife, Iko, who makes up the brain behind the brand.
00:00:54
Speaker
The creative duo have devoted their effort into building an ecosystem that unites roasters and consumers alike in an online platform that is designed to grow into something so much more. So, let's meet Team Rock. Welcome to the M. Nobel Prize podcast. Could you please tell us your background? How did you end up with coffee?
00:01:17
Speaker
OK, well, my background is as a filmmaker. So for many, many years before I was even in the world of coffee, I was working in film and television. And it's such a weird industry because you try to sort of make a success of a career in a very fragmented industry. And I witnessed it change over the years. So I kind of went into film and television.
00:01:43
Speaker
wanting a more traditional career in film and television that I grew up watching sort of in the 1980s. Filmmaking was not digital, so it was really not for everybody. It was a very difficult, expensive thing to get into. And I pursued it and really enjoyed the pursuit. But I found that in the 90s, as I was sort of properly getting into the business,
00:02:09
Speaker
It was changing rapidly. It was becoming a much more digital industry and therefore the type of person that would work in film and television was changing.
Is Passion the Driving Force Behind Specialty Coffee?
00:02:20
Speaker
And I found that I was falling out of love with the whole process. So it was difficult for me to reconcile with the career that I'd chosen as a child that was slowly becoming something I wasn't suited to.
00:02:34
Speaker
And I felt sort of a little bit lost. And then I met my wife. And then about 10 years ago, I started getting into specialty coffee. I remember I went to New York, visited a little cafe in Brooklyn called Blue Bottle, and tried a, there was a big long queue outside. And I wondered why there was such a long queue for a little cafe. And my friend said, it's because they make these new kinds of coffees that take ages to make.
00:03:03
Speaker
And I wanted to try it. I like coffee. I didn't think coffee was a special drink, but I thought, if everybody's trying this new drink that takes a long time to make, I want to try it. And then I waited in the queue. And when we got inside, I saw that they were making these sort of pour overs. They were just doing very fancy things with their new kettles with dead goose necks and being all fancy.
00:03:24
Speaker
But what surprised me was that they were just making a plain cup of coffee. They weren't really making foamy lattes with caramels or any sort of crazy drinks that Starbucks were telling you about. It was just this ordinary looking drink. And so when I tried it and I could see that it was the flavor that was the exciting thing, not the fancy things that were putting in the drink, I started taking a genuine interest in coffee.
00:03:50
Speaker
And that's really how my journey began into specialty coffee and away from my other career. I believe Blue Bottle as a specialty coffee big brand has advocated so many people and opened their doors of a specialty coffee world. It has been 10 years since your first specialty coffee at Blue Bottle. What do you think about Blue Bottle nowadays?
00:04:16
Speaker
Blue bottle now is, I think, because I haven't had a blue bottle of coffee since I was in Japan. And we were in Japan about three years ago and we did a sort of Tokyo coffee scene.
00:04:29
Speaker
video and I visited Bluebottle again because well we just wanted to cover the scene there and I enjoyed the coffee there. I thought it was really great and I think that they're still making really good coffee. I just think it's a bit sad maybe that their business side of things, their business model became very aggressive and they really wanted to sort of grow rapidly and become a chain and I know that when you grow that fast you often swap
00:04:55
Speaker
quality for, you know, where you just compromise on quality. And I could see that happening. But I'm glad that they didn't become Starbucks or anything like that. So they're okay. They're fine. I remember I used to drink Starbucks a lot before I get to know specialty coffee. And then there's no way back. 10 years is almost a decade. Could you tell us a bit more about the coffee industry that you know?
Filmmaking Techniques in Coffee Storytelling
00:05:20
Speaker
Well, I think it's amazing. I mean, the journey for me of learning more about specialty coffee is about learning that there's so many people who are passionate and dedicated to so many things that nothing to do with profit.
00:05:38
Speaker
Just so much about specialty coffee is about the passion of the farms, the passion of the roasters, the passionate people working the baristas, the passion of everybody so that you are given great quality work and.
00:05:55
Speaker
It's just incredible how much you can learn about the work that people do. The passion equals information and knowledge. And for me, it's difficult because I want to learn all these different aspects of specialty coffee. But at the same time, I want to convey it. I don't want to convey my passion for it to other people. And I can see that it can be quite scary, can be quite daunting, huge amounts of information.
00:06:22
Speaker
for a lot of people who just want a really great cup of coffee, but maybe don't want to be scared off by all the information. They want some of it. So I began to sort of feel like maybe I can take what I'm learning and convey it to other people, but in a very palatable way. I always sort of kept as a filmmaker that that that sensibility of
00:06:44
Speaker
see it from somebody else's point of view. What you're about to tell everyone about what you love about specialty coffee, make it fun, make it easy, because it can be a really daunting thing and overwhelming. So I've always tried to sort of make my information that I've learned.
00:07:02
Speaker
I'm sure your past experience as a filmmaker helped you a lot in this case. I believe for many people seeing the world from a different perspective. Sometimes it could be very, very difficult. I know that you started your YouTube channel back in 2013. That was pretty early.
Tim's Role as a Marketing Professional
00:07:24
Speaker
Could you share us, how did you transform yourself from a filmmaker to a coffee professional?
00:07:31
Speaker
I'm definitely not a professional. I haven't been SCA trained. I haven't had formal sensory classes. I've just allowed myself to sort of learn more because I follow my desire. My desire to learn is how I capture information. I find that when I like something, when I'm passionate about something, I'll absorb that information.
00:07:54
Speaker
but I'm kind of nonstick when it comes to things I'm not into. It doesn't seem to stick in my mind long. So with specialty coffee, I'm just, I'm like a vacuum cleaner. I'm taking up all this information and I'm loving it, but I'm not a professional. And I think that it's a good place to be because I'm not trying to be a professional.
00:08:16
Speaker
There is an industry here of professionals. My professionalism is in marketing, is in understanding how to convey what other professionals are doing.
00:08:25
Speaker
So I am a professional. I'm a professional marketeer, filmmaker, conveyor of information, storyteller, entertainer. These are the areas that people in specialty coffee might look at me and say, you're not a coffee professional. But I don't think it's my job to be a coffee professional because I see that specialty coffee needs to be, needs an agent. An agent doesn't have to be a professional actor. An agent just knows how to represent that professional and speak for it.
00:08:55
Speaker
It is so great that you know your role in the coffee industry as a marketer, as an agent representing those people behind the cops. But I still believe that you are a coffee professional after a decade in the coffee industry. You know coffee very well, considering how big your coffee business is in Europe and you have so many customers around the world. And tell us more about your daily coffee routine. What coffee do you drink every day?
00:09:24
Speaker
How do you make your coffee? When I get up, sometimes I want to eat coffee in the morning to be a different thing just because it's my job as well. Depending on my priority will depend on the type of coffee I want. Sometimes when I'm getting up and I have to go straight to work,
00:09:42
Speaker
Then it's a work coffee, and it'll be one that I have to profile. I'll enjoy it. I always like a cup of coffee in the morning, no matter what it is, because it'll help wake me up. But it will depend. Sometimes it's a work coffee, so I have to just sort of go straight away to my notepad.
00:09:57
Speaker
And while I'm enjoying the coffee, I'm also profiling it. Sometimes it's just a fun coffee, and I like it when my wifi code makes a coffee for me in the morning, and I don't know what it is. That's a really great way to wake up, is to sort of just enjoy the coffee without knowing the flavor notes or anything. And then when you're sort of going, oh, I wonder what it is. Is it a Kenyan? Is it a washed? That also helps bring you back into the real world by using your mind as well.
Aiko's Role in The Right Roast
00:10:27
Speaker
Talking about the morning coffee, who normally brew the first cup of the day? No, I'm now become the brewmaster of the house. We know that behind every great man, there stands a woman. Very often, we know that you are the person in front of the camera and we see you have this live brewing section on Instagram. There is one person behind the camera. Could you tell more about Aiko?
00:10:54
Speaker
Okay, Ico is not from a coffee background. They're not from a filmmaking background or anything like that. But when we met, we started to sort of take a mutual interest in specialty coffee. I had already discovered it, but it was very new to me. So I, as someone just learning about this new drink, introduced my new girlfriend to this interesting drink. And together we started to sort of
00:11:20
Speaker
take a real interest in it. And then very quickly, after just a few months, we thought this cool drink could be something that we could talk about in a video. We could sort of make videos because I have the time. I'm a filmmaker. And just for entertainment's sake, why don't we try making some fun video? Ryro started more as a cafe guide, I would say. Our aim was to be a London cafe guide. And I go without any filmmaking experience. I remember I said to her,
00:11:49
Speaker
Why don't we try making these little videos? And when we went to our first place, location, to make a video, it was at Prufrock Cafe. We didn't really have a plan, we just knew that we were gonna film the cafe and I would talk and review a coffee. And the very first shot that we did was standing outside the cafe and I just gave her the camera and said, right now, point it at me, film me and sort of start close and then move backwards as I talk and I'll reveal the entrance.
00:12:16
Speaker
She didn't know how to sort of film properly. She did know how to take pictures. But I just assumed and I put the camera in her hand and gave her a few instructions. And I think this has been what's amazing about Ico is that she's just she's like a sponge. She absorbs information very quickly, learns really quickly. And then she'll be better than anyone at doing that thing that she learned five minutes ago. So she's a quick learner.
00:12:41
Speaker
never more truly with Aika. She's really great at adapting to things, at learning new things, and she has gone from being someone who didn't really understand about the filmmaking process to being the main, she's now in charge of photography, filming, all of that type of things. She's an amazing producer, she's more than half of the right most. I mean the fact that I'm in front of camera talking makes people believe that
00:13:05
Speaker
It's me doing everything, but really she does more of the business than I do. I'm the front of camera guy. I'll take care of a lot of the sort of entertainment side, the media side, but the business of the right roast, it's run by us, but she's the boss. And I've been really, really amazed by her skills.
How Did COVID-19 Impact the Coffee Industry?
00:13:28
Speaker
Well, before the pandemic, we were making a push for our marketplace. We launched our marketplace in 2019.
00:13:36
Speaker
And when we did, we were going to all the roasters that we had built relationships over the years and said, hey, we're starting a new kind of marketplace where you can buy, you can see coffees available to buy. We won't stock the coffee. You'll still send it. But at least customers can see all these new coffees coming out in one place. And that's been the vision from the beginning. We're still going that way.
00:13:59
Speaker
And in 2019, when we were approaching all the different coffee roasters, it seemed like a radical idea. We're not talking about that long ago. It was new. It was different. And now it seems like the most normal thing.
00:14:14
Speaker
And in fact, we're seeing a lot of other people jumping on board this sort of concept. And it's a crazy thing that the pandemic has completely changed the world and made what seemed like a crazy idea we were doing just two years ago now seem the most normal thing and very vital, very necessary. And I'm glad that we were at the right place at the right time. And we're going to capitalize on this. And the pandemic has just been a great chance for us to move rapidly
00:14:42
Speaker
on expanding our network of roasters and as you know this very important mission of getting people to appreciate specialty coffee at home as well as at cafes and it's a hard thing to get people to learn to brew at home as well as your barista can do but pandemic has been has been a game changer for specialty coffee at home. The pandemic definitely hit us so hard for coffee shops they have the closed down
00:15:11
Speaker
The other players in the coffee industry seems experienced a bit different situations. According to your sales data, do you see you sell more coffee than before?
00:15:21
Speaker
It's growing, yes. I'm not sure if it's on as rapid a growth as some people, but we're definitely seeing an increase due to the pandemic. But because we launched new just before the pandemic, and the scale of our ambition, I think, is very large. Where we want to go is
00:15:42
Speaker
Very big. We have an entire ecosystem that we'd like to build. The right roast is going to be much more than just a marketplace and a subscription service. We've got a lot to do this year. There are many projects that we want to unpack, but it will be always part of a right roast ecosystem, a place for specialty coffee lovers to discover new coffees and talk about it with each other. Exactly. When you talk about ecosystem, what do you mean by that?
00:16:11
Speaker
It's a place that's a marketplace and a media center and where people can talk to roasters directly or to each other about that roaster. It's a sort of forum platform. You'll get the videos, you'll get the latest coffees, you'll get the latest information, subscriptions. It's like having a lounge environment, a shopping environment, a chat environment, but they all connect. For instance, if you want to learn about a roaster,
00:16:40
Speaker
that you don't know what coffees they had six months ago, had an award-winning coffee last year that everybody loved and talked about. Well, the roaster on their website, they take those coffees away once they, you only see what they have for sale now.
00:16:53
Speaker
So what we want to do is have this place where you can learn about that roaster, what they were doing last year, or when everybody was excited about that new geisha they had last month, you'll be able to see that excitement. You'll be able to track the kind of history of the roaster, short term or long term. And there needs to be a place for that kind of thing. Thanks for explaining the ecosystem for us. And in your future plan, will you include coffee shops in your ecosystem?
00:17:21
Speaker
They will be one day. That's not yet, but we have stages to how we grow the business. It's very dangerous to grow a business too fast, too quickly. You can confuse your audience and you can just simply be not sustainable in your operations. A roaster or a cafe in a small country somewhere can be part of a bigger network if we create this effective network. And then the cafes can connect with their customers locally that pull them into this network.
00:17:52
Speaker
So for instance, a cafe on our network can organize events for the consumers that we have on our network that live near them. So there's a lot we can do with this. Tell us more about your current business, your coffee club.
Exploring The Right Roast Coffee Club
00:18:10
Speaker
The coffee club. Yes, we launched that in September.
00:18:15
Speaker
Because we have this marketplace, we thought that, like I said, we have these different things we want to unpack. The marketplace is the bedrock. It serves everything because with the marketplace, you have the network of roasters, and we want to keep growing that. On top of that, it makes sense to have this subscription model because we now have this viable marketplace of coffee roasters. Why not?
00:18:41
Speaker
pull in the coffees from these roasters, the best ones each month, and create a nice set of coffees for consumers. Because when you shop on the right roast, you can also see that it's the shipping from international coffees that's the problem. This has been the main issue with setting up marketplaces where you're going to buy coffee from the roasters not centralized. If you want a coffee from one roaster in Sweden and one roaster in Germany,
00:19:11
Speaker
you're going to have to pay two different shippings internationally for those two coffees. And it's just not worth it. So the subscription model allows you to have four, five coffees from four different roasters each month. And you're not paying the collective shipping of having those coffees bought in. This is a very popular thing. There are other companies that do this. There are plenty of subscription models.
00:19:37
Speaker
But we want to create something that's slightly different. So ours is about having the Coffee Club whole bag subscription for people who want that. Yes, that's not new. But the taster set, that's the original one. And that we're very excited about because it's samples of coffee, four samples each month. With the test run we did, it was five every two months. And this is just a really exciting way for you to try different coffees.
00:20:05
Speaker
without having to pay so much on shipping. And more than that, we'd like to create themes around each edition. There's so much going on in specialty coffee that we want every edition to be a different kind of coffee adventure. So this month, our latest edition, the theme is Latin America. So you have five coffees from Latin America and
00:20:28
Speaker
because we bring a lot of added value. You're going to have videos, interviews, and everything will be about those five origins and about Latin America generally. And then so when you subscribe, you get one set of five coffees from these countries and the videos and the interviews. And we feel that you'll get an experience that's different to a usual subscription model because you're going to get educated, fun. You'll get four coffees or five coffees from one place or one origin or tell one story.
00:20:59
Speaker
And that's the exciting thing I think we can bring to the subscription model of Specialty Public.
Challenges in Scaling in the Coffee Industry
00:21:08
Speaker
After a decade in the coffee industry, what is the biggest challenge for you? And then how did you solve it? Well, a few years ago, we did a first version of the Taster set. And it was a very, very ambitious project. It was where we were going to visit a different city in Europe.
00:21:28
Speaker
each month or every two months and have three samples of coffee from that city for you to try. So we had one from London, then we did Barcelona and Berlin. And we visited these cities. We made the videos. We filmed a coffee scene in the city. We made three videos for the three roasters.
00:21:50
Speaker
And I think I spent about three weeks on each of these editions, working 24 hours a day through the night, so until 5 AM every day, editing all these videos, making all this stuff. I'd never done so much work for such little return before, but I mean, I enjoyed it. It was a passion project. And I think I learned a lot about what not to do. So from that, my biggest challenge was how do I, how do I contain, how do I make all my passion?
00:22:17
Speaker
and ideas scalable. That's been a constant challenge for us, I think, is that we have a lot of ambition at the right roast and a lot of ideas, but how do we make them sustainable, scalable, repeatable, and always fresh?
00:22:33
Speaker
My challenge is staying relevant. Four or five years ago, I was making videos in my kitchen called Hyper Reviews, which were these crazy ideas of entertaining people and reviewing coffees. And then I would reinvent it. Every few years, I was always looking for that next thing to be fresh and entertaining. My biggest challenge is trying to stay relevant, entertaining, and fresh in a competitive world. So what have you learned from this challenge?
00:23:02
Speaker
I think it's by learning that you don't always need to have wild, crazy ideas. You just need to, when you have a good idea, just put it into a system, a framework that you can then
00:23:15
Speaker
It can be doable. It doesn't require huge amounts of efforts to execute that concept as long as you can repeat it regularly. For instance, I review coffees that come in and I put them on Instagram, but they require a lot of work to just simply sit there and talk and review a coffee. For me, it requires me to have the coffee here, film it, taste it, talk about it. Then I've got to edit the video. That will take another hour or two.
00:23:44
Speaker
Then I've got to put all the stories on Instagram. I've got to create all these stickers, product labels, tags, links. So in the end, one simple little review that lasts one minute on Instagram takes three, four hours to do. That's not sustainable because I only have so much time in a day. So everything I'm doing now is about creativity, but on a sustainable and scalable way. So yeah, that's just where I'm at now.
00:24:14
Speaker
Thank you so much for sharing so many tips with us. And I hope everyone today listening to this podcast, you can also learn something from Tim. You can follow Tim Rock on his Instagram, The Right Roast.
00:24:31
Speaker
Thank you so much for tuning in to the I'm Not a Barista podcast, where people get inspired and connected through coffee stories. If you want to join our community, then please subscribe for future episodes and follow us on our Instagram to get connected. Until next time, keep smiling and most importantly, keep drinking coffee.