Building a Business with Josh Lewis + Maggy Nyamumbo

If you've ever wondered what it was like to have your own business, be your own boss, and become an entrepreneur, you'll get the real scoop on what it's like in this episode. Alex Aiono is joined by business owners Margaret Nyamumbo and Josh Lewis to unpack all the blood, sweat and tears that go into business ownership. Entrepreneurship is no easy way of life, but especially not for these two - both have been disrupters in their industries. Josh Lewis is the creator of Beat Kicks - a revolutionary cover for your headphones that nobody knew they needed until it existed - and turned it into a million dollar+ company. Maggy Nyamumbo is the owner of Kahawa 1893 and a third-generation Kenyan coffee farmer - she's using cutting edge tech and harnessing blockchain to benefit the people who actually work on the coffee farms, rather than just the big coffee corporations. Whether you've always wanted to own your own business and set your own hours, or you're just looking for really great holiday presents for your family, take a listen to this fascinating episode.

Executive Producers Jack O'Brien + Miles Gray

Produced by Catherine Law + Joelle Smith

Edited + Engineered by Catherine Law

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Alex, and I am an entrepreneur. No, no, alright,
it will be alright forever. Nor right, no will be
alright forever. I guess I kind of fell into it.

(00:24):
I didn't really like, no, you know, I didn't come
out of the womb being like, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm
gonna have a business. Um. But I obviously I loved
music ever since I can remember, and ever since I
can remember, the only thing I ever wanted to do
was make music, and I wanted to share that music
with other people, and I wanted to perform for other people.
And obviously as I as I grew up, I stuck

(00:45):
to that, and I moved out to Los Angeles when
I was fourteen, um going on fifteen. I you know,
I met my managers, which I still have to this day,
and we got working immediately. And I never really saw
it as anything other than like following my dream. I
didn't really put the business aspect into it. I didn't
really put the money or financial aspect into it or
the other responsibilities outside of writing music, performing that music

(01:09):
and kind of being a musician. And it wasn't until
I started signing contracts and I had to create ll
c s, and I got a business manager to help
work with me on on taxes and all of these
things that I realized, Wow, I'm actually like a businessman.
This is pretty cool. And I started taking meetings um
and now to this day, I'll take meetings as as

(01:30):
an investor, or I'll take meetings as a consultant, or
I'll take meetings as still as an artist obviously, or
a writer or a producer or any of those things.
And I realized kind of throughout this process that not
only am I a musician or an actor or a
writer or a producer, I'm also an entrepreneur. You know,
I have a business. And now that I have a business,

(01:51):
I have to you know, pay employees, and I have
to you know, have insurance, and I have to cover
you know, unemployment, like a lot of things that I
never realized I would ever have to face. And it's
really really interesting because especially in today's world with social
media and you have your Gary vs and your Grant
cardones and and all of those incredible sources of information

(02:15):
to help you kind of get your business off the
ground and follow your dreams and and chase real true
happiness based off of you know what your passions are
in life. I'm seeing more and more entrepreneurs left and right,
and they're looking for, you know, for answers or for pathways.
And so I thought this episode would be really, really
amazing to do because it could help anybody who's a
listener who is maybe at a job they hate and

(02:37):
has a real passion in life, or anybody who you know,
they have an idea in their head and they want
to take it to the next level, or they want
to start their own business, or they want to chase
something that isn't kind of the regular nine to five
clock in and clock out. And so I wanted to
do this episode featuring two amazing entrepreneurs and just kind
of get a feel for what it really means to
be an entrepreneur. So that got me thinking, what does

(03:00):
does it really mean to be an entrepreneur? No, welcome back,
This is let's get into it. I'm alex Iono and
we're talking about entrepreneurship. I'm so hyped about today because
maybe I'm wrong, but I think a lot of listeners
are a lot of people on Earth right now are
on the fence about starting a new business. And there's
everybody doing everything from four x to trying a new company,

(03:23):
to drop shipping to you know, flipping or garage sales
and all of these things. And so I think this
episode will be amazing to talk to two people who
have experience in being an entrepreneur. But I want to
introduce you to them right now. Um. First off, I
have an m b A holding Harvard Business School alumni,
studied economics at Smith College and at the London School

(03:44):
of Economics. She's also the owner of Cahawa Coffee and
she's working to revolutionize the global coffee trade from the
ground up. The One and Only Maggie near Mumbo. Maggie,
how are you. I'm doing well. I'm telling you I'm
also doing well. I'm so excited that you're here because
I'm I'm just baffled by your your repertoire. I mean,

(04:07):
we're talking Harvard Business School, We're talking Smith College, London
School of Economics. I'm so hyped to dive into it.
And I'm also excited for our other guests. He is
not only the founder and CEO of Beat Kicks. He's
not only a former Indiana University starting baseball pitcher. He
is not only a Peloton monster. And not only did

(04:29):
we get our first call of duty win last night,
he's also my brother in law, my sister's husband, the
one and only Josh Louis. What's up it, hey man?
Thanks for having me up to your house to yeah
the long drive. We live ten minutes away from each
other with no traffic, which is great. Guys, I'm so
excited to have both of you here. We have some
awesome topics we're gonna get into. First, Josh, you and

(04:49):
I are going to talk about from side hustle to
day job is what we call this category, talking about
the transition from doing a regular nine to five or
a regular day job and switching over to being a
full time entrepreneur. Then, Maggie, you and I are gonna
be talking about goodbye status quo, breaking that status quo,
of of you know what it really means to be
an entrepreneur. And lastly, all three of us are going

(05:11):
to talk about blood, sweat and tears, what it really
takes to run your own business, to be your own boss.
But before we get into those topics, I have a
question that I ask all of my guests, and that
question is what are you doing this week to improve yourself. Um,
I will start just so you guys have some time
to think. If you watch this or if you listen

(05:33):
to this podcast often, you'll know that a lot of
them are about being healthy and like really sticking to
my diet or you know, any of those things. I
was talking my therapist this week and he was actually
he told me, I need to give myself a little
bit more of a break. And so I last night
is what I did. Last night. I ordered two dozen
and you probably don't know this company, but look them
up because they're delicious. I ordered two dozen Diddy Reese

(05:55):
cookies and I ate as many as I could. It
was only three, but I I enough until my stomach hurt,
and I was like, you know what, this is good
for me? Um. So that's what I've been doing this week. UM.
I know it's not a great example, but Maggie, do
you have something that you've been doing this week to
improve yourself? Yeah? So this week I've actually been doing
a lot of writing, so I channel a lot of

(06:17):
my energy and an introvert, so I channeled a lot
of my energy into internally. That's how we rest introverts
when we are kind of at peace with ourselves. So
I've been doing a lot of writing. It's a piss
that's been on my mind for over two years. I've
wanted to write essentially a guide to the coffee industry, um,
so people can really understand what's going on, how they can,

(06:42):
you know, make better coffee, but also how they can
understand the history of coffee. So I have all this
information from sort of my perspective as are as a
farmer and also as someone with the background in economics,
and wanted to bring all of that into one piss
that people can really understand. So I've been kind of
writing that and now I'm like twenty pages in and

(07:03):
it's like not an essay, it's not an article, it's
not a book. So trying to figure out like what
is it exactly, But that's really what I've been doing.
It's like writing and getting all my creative energy on paper.
That sounds amazing. Also, as a somebody who drinks coffee
multiple times a day, I absolutely have to figure out
the guide to starting a coffee business because I might

(07:25):
I might have to start one, and I might be
I'm not gonna lie, I might be a competitor later
in life, So don't I'm just saying, game on. We
love more people into coffee, so you'll definitely not be
a competitor. You would love to have you. I don't
have three degrees in college. I also I don't even
have one degree and I hardly have a high school diploma.

(07:45):
But I still am an entrepreneur. So so don't count
me out of Josh, you've got something for me on
what you're doing this week to improve yourself. Yeah, as
you know, Alex, we got our sixteen month old at
the house, so getting sleep has been a little hard,
especially during courd teen with working from home and and everything.
But I've been trying to get up a little earlier
to you know, for myself, to get time to think

(08:07):
about the day and obviously be a better dad to
my girl. Uh, spend a little more time with her
before the the wife wakes up, and you know, just
click my thoughts for the day when I need to
get done. A lot of that has helped me plan
out the rest of that week, and then you know,
it's just just been really good. Yeah, man, I mean,
I I applaud you for that, obviously, I know the
inside because your wife happens to be my sister. But

(08:28):
she's been working a lot this week as well, which
means you're not only working from home, but you're working
from home and being a dad at home. And my
favorite thing about your daughter, my niece, is that she
loves being with other people. She's just like me, and
she almost does not she can't handle being by herself.
So I applaud you for getting work done while Mila
is yeah, or or the lack thereof getting dubs. That's all.

(08:50):
That's all that matters, guys, call of duty, dubs, It's
all we care about these days. Well, I'm so glad.
Both of those are great. Better than me eating three
cookies at once, but great. We're all improving. That's what matters. Uh. Well,
Maggie will be with you in just a second. But Josh,
I think it's time for us to go one on one.
We're talking side hustle today, job. But before we get
into that, I want to dive a little bit deeper.

(09:11):
You were the first in law in our family. Um,
you were the first person to kind of come into
our circle. This is how are you? Six years now?
Six years now you've been married to my sister. Um.
I will take credit that I knew you before her
because we played basketball. We played basketball, and I was
like sixteen years or seventeen years old. Um, and then
my sister was like, oh, I'm dating this new guy.

(09:32):
And I was like, I know that guy. That's the
guy who played basketball with But you got quite a history, man,
I mean you, and I'll let you tell the story.
But long story short, when you were in college, you
were planning on going you're planning on playing MLB baseball.
Talk about that. Yeah, just rewinding a little bit. Like
the high school. My sophomore year, I had just a

(09:52):
freak not really an injury, you wouldn't call it, but
how to paint in my knee, and I found out
that I had a vascular necrosis, which is basically dying bones.
So I had to have a like not emergency surgery,
but had to have surgery. Couldn't play my sophomore year.
So it came in my junior year, not really knowing
if I was even good at baseball, you know what
I mean, because been a year off. I don't even
remember filling out many college applications. But anyway, I got
a scholarship, went to school. Uh, start as a freshman,

(10:15):
had a pretty good career my junior year. A couple
of days before the draft, that same knee I had
surgery on started hurting. Yet I just and I've always
had pain, you know, just normal pain, just having a
bad knee. But it got progressively worse throughout the day,
and it was just got to the point at night
when I was in like little tears on the couch
because I couldn't even I don't even know what was
going on. I remember having friends at the house, like

(10:36):
getting ready to go to a movie because we were like,
we plan to go to a movie. That's how fast,
That's how rapid had happened, just like plans of the midday. Nighttime,
I'm in the er because my knee was so bad.
Long story short, found out I had lime disease. My
knee was like the size of a balloon. I couldn't
walk for two months. The draft caming went, I got
invited to play in like an uh invite only college league,
which only only people that can get invited are usually

(10:58):
the best in college. Couldn't do that, so I couldn't
do anything all summer. Usually you're playing all summer to
get in front of Scots and just get better, right,
And then came into my senior year literally not doing
any all summer before my senior year, and we got
a new coach, had a decent senior year, thought I
had a good enough resume to get drafted. That came
and went, didn't happen. I got some offers to play

(11:19):
independent league ball, which is similar to the minor leagues.
It just doesn't feed the major leagues, but a lot
of guys go there and kind of work their way in.
But to be honest, dude, I was just so upset
and just mad. Yeah, that's gotta be insanely crushed, because
I think, in my mind, the way that I see it,
the same way that I see myself as an entrepreneur,
a professional athlete or somebody chasing that is also an entrepreneur. Honestly,

(11:40):
to me, I don't know what the definition of an
entrepreneur is, but I think anybody who's not like going
for a kind of traditional job. I don't know if
that's the that's appropriate term to say, but like, anybody's
not going for a traditional job, in my mind, is
in essence an entrepreneur. So for something that you had
dreamed about up until your senior year or the end
of your senior year even and for that to kind

(12:01):
of all crush. How did you battle your own like
kind of self confidence out of that hole that I'm
sure it probably took you to. Yeah, I mean it
was rough because I mean I remember flying to Utah
to go to be with my family for the draft
because I thought for sure I was because I like
advisors that advising me, telling me, oh, yeah, this team,
this team, this team. But nothing happened. And it was
like the most embarrassing thing ever, you know what I mean,
Because you go from high school being a star, you

(12:22):
go to college, you're not like a star, but like
you're good, you know, and you're like you're this close
to like maybe living your dream. It's like I went
back to school after that didn't work out, I think
it might degree, and then came home in January. It
was like no clue what I wanted to do, you know.
But I had some opportunities in l A with the job.
I remember, just like one day was like all right,
taking it. Three days later, I packed my car and
drove l A by myself, like a little hand a chord,

(12:44):
look at you and and now. So then, so that
job is the job that you then had for No,
So I came out worked in real estate for a
little while, but that was during two thousand and eight,
thousand and ten with economy just right, So I'm trying
to learn the industry. You know, people I knew were
making tons of money the business. We're making zero dollars
for years and years, right because nothing was happening. So

(13:05):
I had to get out of that, you know, worked
at an agency for a few months here and there,
but then yeah, I fell into medical sales, which some
teammates like, you know, they like, dude, you would love this,
and they love athletes and it was really competitive, and
so yeah, I got my first job and think it
was two thousand ten. Yeah, and so you and then
you did that obviously you did that job for how
many years? Six seven years? It was nine? Yeah, I

(13:27):
was like two thousand eighteen I think when I left
the job, and when full time on beat Kicks, right,
And so that's where we're gonna get into right now,
which is beat Kicks. And let's let's rewind to the
birthplace of beat Kicks before we get into it. I'm
gonna try my best as your brother and as a
user if you watch any of my YouTube videos or
right now, if you were to see me recording this,

(13:48):
I'm using beat Kicks products. UM. Beat Kicks are headphone
covers um that protect your headphones from usual sweat. It's
very popular now in gym's if you'll see a bunch
of athletes on on the field or on the court
wearing over ear headphones and and the the original products,
as you've obviously now branched out into different products, was

(14:09):
to protect those from sweat, um from the damage that
the sweat can cause. And I've had the same pair
of beats since you started the company and they've protected them. Uh, perfectly.
Did I do a good job on the spokesperson? Now?
I just got a job as a spokesperson for beat Kicks, UM,
but tell me how the hell did you come up
with this concept? Yeah? It's funny. I mean when your

(14:29):
intro with entrepreneurship, it's you know, a lot of people
do something that they're passionate about or that you know
they're just really good at. Like it wasn't like I
was like some headphone of ficionado or like anything, you
know what I mean, Like honestly, at the gym, I
was wearing you know those earbuds. It just wrapped around
your neck and you put them in your ear. But
I would see people at the gym wearing their headphones,
and I know they're expensive, three all you know, beats
or three dollars bows or four dollars. And it's funny

(14:52):
because i'd see people that would wear their headphones and
in a way to protect them, they put a towel
over their head and then put their headphones over towel.
Maybe you've seen those guys at the gym, or I've
honestly seen people where napkins on their ears and then
put their headphones over there. Like. Um So, it just
kind of like and that's really silly. Maybe there's a
way to like fix that and make it look cooler,
you know what I mean. Um So, it's kind of

(15:13):
how it started. Like I said, it wasn't like passion
of mine or just kind of like I was an idea.
Maybe let's literally like no idea, what's going to happen
with this? Let's just see how it goes. You went
from being an entrepreneur baseball wise, to working a few
jobs with a boss you know your traditional based jobs
and then now you're doing a whole new thing something
like you had mentioned, you're not like an aficionado you

(15:34):
in creating businesses, not much experience. How did you navigate through?
Like what the next right thing to do? Was? Well?
Interesting thing is the job that I had before, I
was technically an independent contractor and every one of those.
So in the real estate world, I was an independent
contract I was technically I worked under this agency, but
I was an independent so I'd pay for my insurance. Right.
Moving into medical sales, same thing. I sold for a company,

(15:56):
but I worked under a distributor, which was made me
an independent contract so in a way I was technically
I mean, listen, I wasn't my own boss, but yeah,
but you were like it was like it was if
any I guess, if anything, it was training for becoming
truly owning your own business and the great thing. And listen,
when I came to l A, I mean, like I said,
I told you had to put baseball away, and like
forgot about it for two years, and I think that

(16:16):
helped me to just put my head down to work
because like otherwise you know, who knows what I mean?
So but yeah. I mean, like the medical sale was
great because even though I had a technical boss, but
I kind of was on my own pretty much every
day working at my hospitals and surgeries doing a thing.
So I was able to manage my time kind of
on my own and you know, be able to do
my own thing. But yeah, I mean you add this
to it's just it's a whole new world. I mean,

(16:38):
it's a different ball game, Like because you are it,
you know what I mean, that's it. Wow. So obviously
beat Kicks has become what it is now, which is
you're over a million dollars in sales and you've been
at the biggest athletes. Mr. Olympia wears Beat Kicks. At
this point, it is you've taken over the fitness industry

(16:59):
when it comes to headphone protection. But on that journey
you had, obviously you had to stay committed even when
sales weren't what you had dreamed of or things weren't
moving as fast as you wanted to. What gave you
that kind of confidence to like keep pushing to where
you are now with a million dollar company. I think
I'm a pretty determined guy, you know, Like I don't

(17:20):
I don't like letting people down. I feel like if
I'm not doing a good job and people see that,
it's like it didn't work out like that. To me,
that's like that just I don't like that. So like
at the very beginning, I mean I was medical sales.
You know, you were, I was married to your sister.
I mean, you know, I mean my schedule was crazy
in medical sales. I was literally sitting on the couch
phone call I'm gone, you know what I mean. I'd
go to hospital and do the case right then I
would come home. You know. I would work literally from

(17:42):
what ten thirty until three in the morning for two
straight years, like because I was a filling orders from
that loft upstairs in that apartment. So um, you know,
you you you know, and as you go you learned
how to like make things more efficient. But it was
definitely a struggle in the beginning. And like yeah, like
you said, like getting to that point where your things
may not going well, It's like, I just think I'm prettydetermined,
and I think you to be an entrepreneur, you have

(18:02):
to be determined, otherwise you're not. You know, they're gonna
have rough days. I remember I used to get a
sales on my phone like back in the day, Like
it was like I had to like just get rid
of those notifications because like I can't let that dictate
how my day goes. I need to think about the future.
And if I'm thinking about every sale it comes through
and if it's a bad day, like it's letting it's
putting me in a bad mood or like I don't
want that negativity, you know what I mean, And like

(18:23):
negativity can crush on entrepreneur. Oh absolutely, I was just
gonna say, I think obviously we're brothers now and we've
seen each other for the last six years in the
way that we work, and it's and I think we
can both say for each other, but I can absolutely
say and that's why I want to transition into you know,
from from side hustle to day air to your day job,
because there were two and a half years where you

(18:45):
were coming home from your job to start your other
job like that, and that's the level of tenacity that
you really do need to have. And the same thing,
you know, it's like we've we've missed both of us.
We've missed weddings and we've missed day parties and We've
missed things. We've missed family dinners and all these things
because we knew we needed to get the work done. Um,

(19:06):
and so I want to transition over into that. For
two and a half years, obviously you kept both your
side hustle. I mean, you kept your your day job
and you kept Beat Kicks obviously alive and moving. How
did you know it was the right time to transition
out of your day to day kind of medical sales
job into full time CEO Beat Kicks. It was a

(19:29):
tough time to know. I mean, I mean, just staring
you in the face of sales numbers. You have to
have a certain number of sales, right, because I have
to be able to live off something, you know what
I mean, Like I'm leaving you know, decent six figure
salary and medical sales too. No, I'm not going to
pay myself pretty much anything, right, you know, and we
live in l A and it's expensive. But honestly, it
was just to a point where it like the revenue
coming in was consistent enough that I felt comfortable and

(19:50):
you know, I ran through the numbers as you have
to do as an entrepreneur that you know I can
do this. We can live off. This is gonna be tied.
But luckily we had some savings or whatever. But having
that that read them, you know, at peace of mind
to like doing this stuff when you need to do it. Um,
that was another check in the box like, yeah, I'm
not gonna make some mo money, but I have more
time to work on this. And if I can work
on this every single day for ten hours or whatever,

(20:11):
how much further kind of grow? Because I literally grew
the thing from an operating room on my cell phone,
you know, I mean I literally ran the Instagram. I
mean I was responding to customers literally in surgeries while
I'm like a work like I'm they're flatlining in the
hospital's like, hey guys, that wasn't my job. That was
those guys job. But you know, I'm you know, the
great thing about social media and technologies that I was

(20:32):
able to run my business through my phone at my
other job and then when I came home I could
do to fulfillment right. Um, But yeah, I was really
just crunching the numbers and be like we can do it.
You know, we'll it'll be tight. We'll have to live
a little bit more for ruble whatever for a while.
But you know the end game. You're always looking at
the end game, right, So I think the thing that
I that I find beautiful about the process, the entrepreneurial process,

(20:54):
that a lot of people don't see, especially like I'm
I'm fortunate enough to have seen what you have created
out of nothing, out of an idea. I remember when
you first had a sock like as your first model
of what a what a headphone cover would look like.
I remember when you first got your first set of
beat Kicks. Like a lot of people I think, who

(21:17):
aren't entrepreneurs or want to be entrepreneurs, or a judgmental entrepreneurs,
do not know or appreciate how hard and how dedicated
you must be in the darkness before you even touch
a sliver of light. And a lot of people only
see the light, you know what I mean? A lot
of people. I think we could name collectively thirty people

(21:38):
who you told about beet Kicks and then never talk
to you again until they hit you up and we're like, yo,
can I get a pair of those beat Kicks? Like
now that it's a popular company, and uh, and it's
insane how how much effort truly goes into it and
and that isn't something that I want to say for
the listeners to to shy away from becoming an entrepreneur.

(21:59):
I'd just want to set the expectations right so that
you know that being an entrepreneurs I would say the
hardest job in the whole world, because you have to
stay motivated, you have to stay passionate, you have to
stay confident. Like you had mentioned, there were days where
you were you had to turn off your phone because
the sales. There's also days. I think my favorite memory
of Beat Kicks, as I believe it was, it was

(22:20):
either Thanksgiving or it was Christmas, and we were watching
a movie a pirate Don't don't arrest us, but a
pirated movie. Um during the holidays, off of your phone.
Don't arrest him. I didn't do it, but that phone's gone,
don't track the IP address. But we were watching a
movie off of your cell phone, and the notifications were on,

(22:42):
and you had like a sale going and we were
counting it. It was always Black Friday, that's what it was.
We're counting the Black Friday sales and we were just
like every it was it was coming. They couldn't even
stay on the screen long enough for you to read
who the who bought the product like it was just
rapid fire, rapid fire, rapid fire, and moments like that.
I can attest to not that moment, but to moments

(23:03):
like that. It's the most gratifying. There's nothing more gratifying
than building something like that. So as we close out
before we take this break, my last question is what
advice do you have for people who are out there
who want to be entrepreneurs or I feel like they
could be an entrepreneur, have an idea, um, but are
where you were five and a half years ago? Anybody
who is in that same place, or the advice that

(23:25):
you would have given yourself now, what is? What is
that advice? You know? It's interesting. I think a lot
of people have great ideas. I think a lot of
people want to be entrepreneurpreneurs, but there's a few things
holding them back. Could it be financial reasons, could it
be you know, not of time? Right. I think a
lot of people have so many good ideas, it's just
just taking that leap of faith really to be like

(23:45):
I'm gonna do it. I want to do it, you know,
and some people just can't write whatever. I mean, family
issues too many kids. You can't worry you have to
work any of job. You just stabilize your family. Uh.
Unfortunately for me, it wasn't enough financial wise, It wasn't
a high cost out of pocket in the beginning um
to do it. But I mean, honestly, you've gotta be
a savage, you really do. You've got to be a
savage to be an entrepreneur, you really. I mean, like

(24:07):
you said, in the dark, people don't see it. All
they see is your Instagram posts and like, oh, he's
at a convention. That must he must be doing well,
Like you know what I had to do to get
to that point, you know what I mean? People don't
see that part, right. They see these cool companies pop
up out of nowhere, and it's like, do you realize
what that company had to do for you to see
that and see everybody liking those pictures and reposting it
and all that stuff. I mean, you gotta you really

(24:29):
just gotta have that mentality of like, nothing's going to
stop me, and I'm gonna put my head down to
just work. Absolutely. I mean, that's that's what we're gonna
Our whole last segment is going to be that exact thing.
And again, I don't want anything that we say today
to scare you away from doing, you know, from chasing
your dream anything. We want to, all three of us

(24:49):
here on this episode want to encourage you to chase
your dreams and be that entrepreneur and follow it. But
I think all three of us would be remissed today
if we did not let you know that it's not
a walk in the park, um, that it's not as
easy as it looks, and that it's going to be
a big work. But Josh, I love you, bro. We'll
see you in the sec We're gonna take a quick break.

(25:09):
When we come back, we'll be speaking with Maggie. Don't
go anywhere. Welcome back to Let's get into it. I'm
Alex I O no and we have Maggie new Mumbo
with me. Maggie, how are you. I'm doing well. You're
up in San Francisco right, Yes, I want to. I
want to point out as all I believe, all four
of us, including Catherine, our producer on this on this

(25:30):
zoom right now, all live in California. And I saw
a funny tweet that I talked about earlier. Because it's
so cold in California. For some reason, I saw a
funny tweet that said, sixty degrees in California is way
colder than four dy degrees in New York. And you
cannot argue with that. And I don't know why. It
just makes sense. It just makes the building so in
New York is all this steam coming out from under

(25:52):
the and it's why it smells so bad. Oh man, Well, Maggie,
enough of out New York. Enough about smells. I want
to talk about I want to talk about the great
smells of kahawa Ere. You are the owner of this
this coffee company, but you've also lived multiple lives, you know,

(26:13):
quote unquote multiple lives, having left a successful career on
Wall Street to start your company. But you also are
a third generation Kenyan coffee grower. So I think it's
to me, it makes uh, makes pretty good sense of
why you were working in the coffee industry. But I
don't know if that's necessarily the only reason why you
wanted to start a coffee business. So what made you

(26:35):
want to start khawa Ee? Yeah? So I was actually
working on Wall Street and I used coffee as a drug.
So it's something that I drink this day. A week
and I was doing investment banking and a typical day,
I'd be leaving the office at sunrise, that been going

(26:56):
home at six am. So coffee was like such a drug.
I used to just stay away, give me productive. And
I got into coffee actually from it was. I attended
like a weekend competition for the Startup Competition UM, and
it was about social impact UM. And at that competition
that you had to come up with an idea that

(27:17):
had a social impact. And that was really the first
time I thought about business because I've always thought about
just a background on me. Grew up on a coffee
farm in Kenya, and because my parents were entrepreneurs, they
were on the opposite side of the spectrum where they
were like, do not become an entrepreneur, got to school,

(27:38):
get educated, get a real job. And so the idea
was to always like run as far away from entrepreneurship
and coffee as possible. But after that competition, we actually
like we're like number two on that and I started
thinking about, actually this could be a business. So I
started talking to coffee people in New York, going to workshops,

(27:59):
and I struck up a friendship with a roster in
New York, who actually has been the business since the eighties.
He helped Stabbuts open their like third store in Seattle,
So that's how long he's been around. And he loved
Kenyon coffee. So he took me under his arm and
really showed me the business. And as I got more
comfortable and a lot more, I got intrigued by that,

(28:20):
by the by the business um, and especially because I
saw sort of a huge opportunity to essentially improve the
lives of farmers who do a lot of work to
make coffee possible. I mean, so in essence, you're you're
you're flipping the whole status quo when it comes to
how farmers are treated. The term fair trade, I know that.
I think everybody's heard that term, but if you asked

(28:42):
people to define it, I don't know. I don't know
what fair trade means. So can you give me an
idea of what that looks like? Kind of from your
boots on the ground perspective. Yeah. So, the so the
coffee industry for a long time, the market has been
really very very hotel So the coffee prices are set
in New York on Wall Street, and then the farmers

(29:05):
have to essentially sell their coffee at that price, and
what has happened for a long time is that price
is below the cost of production. So imagine, Josh, if
you're to sell your products below what you produced them at,
that's kind of like what the farmers have to contend with.
And so and for me personally, sort of growing up

(29:25):
on the farm and seeing that all of the work
really on the farm about is done by women and
then they don't get paid. So I was like, we
have to do something about it, um, And so that's
when I started er. I wanted to very specifically figure
out a way where we can get the money back
to the farmers. So when you buy our coffee, we
have like a QR code on there that you can

(29:48):
scan and tip the farmers um. And so the idea
is it's almost like a type of fair trade. So
fair trade is when you buy the coffee, you you
pay a certain price above market so that the farmers
can make money. So in this case, it's like a tip,
the way that you can tip your barista, the way
that you can tip someone at the restaurant. This is
the way of recognizing the farmers are not making enough.

(30:11):
You can send them like five dollars ten dollars on
each bag, and that way they can actually make a
living from coffee. And especially for us, for the women
that we work with, we have a fund for them
and they're able to kind of use those funds to
to develop themselves. We're educating some girls on the ground.
So it it was really for me something of like,
we have a market that we can't really affect right now,

(30:34):
but how can ask consumers? How can I invite other
fellow coffee lovers to essentially participate and make good ethical
choices around coffee. So that was really the model that
we built around. That's around coffee. That's something that I
really loved in my research, which was you had mentioned
how you can help the women in the coffee industry.

(30:56):
In in the coffee trade in Kenya, women do most
of the work, but men are getting paid and you
have way more ownership than the women do, and you're
talking about all of these things. How else are you
guys working to reverse that more so than just helping
the women make a little bit more. Yeah, So the
other way that we're doing is essentially investing in them

(31:18):
so that they can produce specialty coffee. Um, so, as
you know, specialty coffee is where farmers can actually earn
better prices for their coffee. Um. And so because the
farmers had not been paid well for a while, so
the machines were down, they didn't know how to process.
So it was really very very for me, very very
fulfilling to go on the ground and I worked directly

(31:41):
with the farmers and we improved the quality of their coffee.
We even sold it to Blue Battle. So like our
coffee is like Blue Bottle quality. By the way you
beat me to it. I love, I have to I
have to shout out. I know. I make coffee at
my house, Um, nothing, nothing fresh. I have an espresso machine.
But when I do feel bougie and want to go
and buy my own coffee, Blue Bottle is where I go.

(32:02):
And I think that it's amazing that you work with
companies like Blue Bottle because they really are that that
next level. I mean to me, like, I love, I
could have a Starbucks coffee and I won't throw a fit,
But if you give me a Blue Bottle coffee, we're
best friends. Um. How did you go about developing relationships
like that to build your brand? Yeah, so it was
essentially again you know, just approaching the bronze and kind

(32:26):
of talking to them about so they are aware of
the sort of this this issue with farmer is not
getting a fair price, and so in this case with
True Bottle is approaching them and kind of telling them
about the vision that I had in the mission that
I had on the ground UM and they were on
board with it. I actually traveled with a coffee buyer
from Blue Bottle back to the farm and Kenya, I

(32:47):
wish and met the women UM and we essentially you know,
give them tips, give them a new new ways of
like processing UM. And so it was really just talking
about the mission to people and then essentially and a
lot of people want to help and a lot of
people want to adopt new solutions, and so this is
just a case of presenting another way of doing things

(33:11):
and very very surprised by by the reception. Even in California.
We've worked with other tech companies like Facebook, Twitter, we
served before Covid, we served our coffee in their cafes
in the in the campuses, UM. And that was really
just companies that are into the mission and they understand
what we're trying to do and they want to be

(33:32):
part of part of that solution and sort of fun fact,
we actually it's to the coffee that we really helped
improve the quality got got like from a blind test.
There's like a coffee rankings website that's similar to the
wine rankings um that we submitted like our coffee and
for blind tasting, and it came out as one of
the top coffees in the country. So that was right

(33:53):
for us and so our and that was the first time,
like our coffee we put this like our our farm
on the up. Before then, like our coffee had never
been served as a single origin ever in the world.
It was always like and branded. So this was the
first time that like we could put that like village
coffee on the map, and like other roasters were like

(34:15):
now reaching out and wanting to serve that coffee. So
it was really like Josh said, it's just like you
gotta start it, you gotta believe it, and then like
people will start to like take notice and also just
like be invested. So people are just looking for a
leader that can kind of help them build around a
similar vision and a CineMo mission as well, right, And

(34:38):
that's why I think it's so interesting. And obviously every
entrepreneur is going to have their own story. But the
thing that I love about your story and a lot
of stories like yours, is that you are trying to
make the world better. Like you're You're obviously creating a business,
but you're trying to make the world better. And I
know that you said you were surprised that a lot
of companies wanted to do more um kind of collective

(34:58):
mindset things. I'm not as surprised in the sense of
I think when you offer like the same way that
when you're at a grocery store and they say, hey,
do you want to donate two dollars to the blank
blank blank foundation, I all like to me, I'm always like, yeah, sure,
why not. I think a lot of people do want
to do the right thing, and that's what I love
about your company. Um. Your company also sells uh, single

(35:19):
serving coffee tea bags, which is something I've never ever
seen before. I didn't even know that you could do that.
I thought that I thought you got arrested if you
put coffee in a tea bag. Um, But they're super
convenient and they're environmentally friendly, way better than you know
your k cups. Luckily, I want to point out I
do have an espresso, and I recycle the pods. I
take them back to an espresso. So I'm doing the

(35:40):
best that I can, UM, but still not as good
or environmentally friendly as the tea bags that you guys
serve your coffee in. I think what I love about
your company is that your company starts at doing the
right thing and people genuinely seem to follow that. Is
that something that you would agree with? Yeah, I would say,
and even um, you know with this QR code. Um,

(36:01):
it's the idea was you know, there's a lot it's
a very long supply chain. There's like, you know, almost
twenty people between the farmer and the consumer. Um, and
so the whole idea was like, you know, you want
to make a difference, but like there isn't always like
an easy way to do it at the grocery. So
and this is one of those ways where like it's
like having you know, a backet at the cash registrate,

(36:25):
just like making it really easy for people to have
an impact. But also um for the coffee tea bags,
which people really love. I mean, I'll tell you the
story behind it. So the story behind it was I
remember giving so when I started the coffee company, And again,
coffee is actually something that even though coffee was discovered

(36:46):
in East Africa, so like you know, e Europians the
bathplace of coffee. We give coffee to the world, but
Black people in general were not that prominent in coffee.
Coffee was not the choice of drink in the black community.
We get like sprite, it's like the is what gets
advertised in the black community. Um, so coffee is like

(37:09):
not something that people were on top of. So I
remember gifting my friend a bag of coffee. It was
like whole being coffee. And then I went over to
her place to make it and she was about to
make it without grinding it. She did not know you
had and so and at that moment I realized that,
like when I joined the coffee business and I'm actually

(37:31):
one of like very few black women in coffee, I
realized that was such a huge gap in like coffee
knowledge in the industry where you know, in the specialty
coffe industry is very very like white brower culture. It's
very hipster um. And so I really wanted to create
that bridge between sort of the average person who really

(37:51):
wants to enjoy specialty coffee, but it's very intimidated by
all of the trappings of that. Right. So this the
coffee tea bag is that whether you can make coffee,
it's like a French press, but already has a filter
around it pretty much. Um. And so that was a
way where the coffee is you know, kind of trapped
in there and it stays fresh for a long time
because it's like nitrogen flash. And so for me, that

(38:14):
was one way I could easily share coffee with people
and really introduced them in a like a non intimidating
way to coffee. So I really love that as like
a way of introducing people to specialty coffee, especially for
communities that are you know, previously having been um, sort
of partaking in coffee because it's intimidating to them. Yeah, no,

(38:35):
I that makes absolute sense. And again you're making the
world better by you know, kind of removing that that
I'm I'm sure as hell I'm not moving outside of
mine espresso when it comes to me making coffee, Like
it is so intimidating to make it because you have
your French presses and you have your poor overs, and
you have your you know, your this, that, and the other.

(38:56):
It's intimidating. So the fact that you made these you know, again,
I want to reiterate the idea that when you start
by doing something right or doing something good, whether it's
something as environmentally friendly or or convenient like a tea
bag or you know, trying to switch the status quo,
people generally tend to follow. But I also, again I

(39:16):
want to point out not only the good side, but
also the bad side, is that when you switch the
status quo, there's also another end, another side of people
who are not happy with that, who like things the
way that they've been. Have you had any pushback from
kind of the opposing side of of you know, whether
it's people who still want to make the same amount
of money, or it's you know, big coffee industries who

(39:37):
are who are not wanting things to be shaken up. Yeah, no,
I think there's a lot of So another thing that
I'm part of, like I mession, I'm writing an article.
Part of the article that I'm writing is essentially, you know,
taking people through my learning process, and I'm calling it
I'm learning coffee industry myths. So there's a lot of
myths about the industry. Um And as I become an

(40:00):
expert in the industry, I'm starting to like essentially break
them my path and realize some of this was sort
of essentially created to like isolate or keep other people out. Um.
And so I'm learning as I learned more, I'm like
really surprised by all of that, but at the same time,
like not very surprised because it's a very competitive industry. UM.

(40:20):
So I think the only uh, I think pushback that
I would say I've received is around I think when
we came out with the tea bags, it's like the
snobby people being like, oh, you can't put coffee and
tea bags for instance. On the other side, um, it's
also just recognizing that, you know, you know, people are
just like used to doing things a certain way, so

(40:41):
there's gonna be a resistance to the old too, you know,
shaking up the system. But that's something that we actually
want to do more of because it's it's a gentle
push over. And I'm really very very inspired by like
the new generation gen Z that's kind of like does
not care. I think Maggellennio and like my generation we

(41:03):
were like there was like this whole thing of like,
don't buy five dollar Starbucks because you can say for
your mortgage. And I feel like gen Z is really
like shaking up a lot of status school just as
a generation, and that's kind of helping us a lot
because nothing is taken for granted anymore. So I really
like kind of like, well your generation is doing with

(41:26):
just shaking up the status school, so that for us
was shaking it. It's not an earthquake. Um, right, right, man,
I I really, Maggie, I'm so just I love your
story and I love the love what you're doing, and
I think it's incredible and I'm so lucky that you're
here as a guest. Um. I cannot wait to hear

(41:47):
your advice or what it really truly takes to be
an entrepreneur. Um. But we're gonna take a quick break
and when we come back, because I wanted to show
you something. Yeah, I want to show you this new
mag that I have. It's part of like my Gentle
So this is like a coffee Mac. Can you see it? Yeah?
But then look at what it says, all right, so

(42:10):
you can't you guys can't see this, But it says
the revolution will be brewed and that is incredible, like, oh,
a gentle way of just saying that, like there is
an oncoming revolution. I thought I thought I could not
love your company and your story more, and you just
proved me wrong. Maggie Kaw. I'm so hyped to try

(42:32):
some of it, um, but we're gonna take a quick break.
When we come back, we're going to talk about what
it really truly takes to be an entrepreneur. Don't go anywhere,
Welcome back. This is let's get into it. I'm alex Iono,
and we've had some incredible conversations, but it's time to
kind of strip the pretty away and get down to
the nitty gritty, which is why we're calling this segment blood,

(42:53):
Sweat and Tears. We got Josh here with me, my
brother in law, also the founder and CEO of beat Kicks,
protecting your over the ear headphones and now also have headbands, towels, masks,
which was a major thing which I want to talk
about in this segment. Uh and also now if you
have air pods, both the air Pods regular and the
air Pods pros, you can protect the case of those

(43:16):
air pods. They're they're dope. I can't find my air
pods right now. I'm pretty sure they're lost, but I'll
have to buy some new ones so that I can
put them on. But we're here with with Josh and
also with Maggie new Mumbo Uh, the founder and CEO
of Kaha Coffee, and we're talking about what it really
truly takes being an entrepreneur. Like I said before, I
really do believe it's the hardest job from a to

(43:38):
z um and anybody who started their own business knows that,
and they know that you really do. I know this
saying has kind of been thrown around blood sweat and tears,
but you really do put your blood, sweat and tears
into it. Josh mentioned that he had spent you know,
holidays answering emails, that he spent ten pm to three
am s you know, working and packaging his product and

(44:01):
printing labels, and the amount of effort that I've seen
Josh go into, and obviously the amount of effort that
I know that I've put into my own career. And
talking with you, Maggie, from flying executives of other companies
back to your homeland of Kenya to show them how
beautiful the culture is of coffee in East Africa. There's

(44:22):
so many, so many things, and we mentioned it in
the first segment of Like the Darkness, so many things
that nobody gets to see, and nobody really does see
unless you show them that. It goes into, you know,
creating your own business, being your own boss, really truly
being an entrepreneur. So my first question is to this day,

(44:43):
what keeps you motivated on a daily basis? Maggie. It's tough,
you know, why do it right? Why why should you
do this instead of, you know, a day job where
you're guaranteed a paycheck. And I think for me, it's
just looking on my life and thinking about what kind
of leg see do I want to live behind, Like
what's my purpose in this world? Um? And when I

(45:05):
thought about um sort of my journey and what I
wanted to give back, I figured that there was actually
a way for me to do those concurrently. So there
was a way for me to build a business around
coffee and then use that as sort of a way
to engage the larger community around social issues that I
care about, so like helping women making sure that there

(45:28):
was gender equality in coffee. So for me, coffee isn't
really just a business that I run. It's everything that
I do, so I bring all my values to it
and being able to make a difference. So in a
perfect world in the future for me is where we
get to a place where I think, I think a

(45:50):
little bit of ourselves as almost like Tesla, but not aggressive.
You know how Tesla went from like we need to
like get rid of force of falce, we need like
clean energy and that there's a world where we can
have nice cars that you know, run on clean full
like that's a thing. So I feel like in a
future in coffee, I think there's a future where we

(46:13):
can have delicious coffee, specialty coffee, and in that paradigm
also have you know, farmers fairly compensated, so like being
able to like build that into our system and like
removing sort of the old colonial system and replacing it
with like a modern system where everyone's like paid fairly
for their wages. That women are getting this like gender

(46:35):
equality in the industry. So for me, I think being
able to emerge a future where that's possible and realizing
that actually I'm building the blocks towards that that that's
what keeps me up at night. And also that's like
what makes me go to bed thinking that I've achieved
something for the day, right, right, And I think that

(46:55):
that's more than enough to keep you motivated. Something as
big as you know, chase seeing down a dream like that,
or if there's a problem in the industry now and
we need to fix that problem. Josh, your story is
obviously different. You had a problem, you saw a problem
in the gym, and you fix that problem, and that
problem is pretty much fixed like you, I mean like you.
If somebody has that problem now, they can fix that problem.

(47:18):
So having done that, you know, you fix that problem
before you went into headbands and towels and masks and
all that. Once you hit that point, you're a million
dollar company. What keeps you motivated to keep trying to
reach that next level or hit that next thing? More
than obviously money, it's always a good motivator, but you
your heart is in this. You've had offers for people
who want to come and and buy, you know, pieces

(47:40):
of your company or your whole company, but you obviously
have said no to those things and stuck to it
to build it into an even bigger empire. What keeps
you motivated? Yeah, I think for me, it's the athlete
of me. That the thing thing I keep thinking about.
It's the competitiveness and wanting to because like right now,
what you said, we're we're in the fitness base pretty much.
You fallow fitness, you see it, right, But I mean

(48:00):
there are so many different areas that we can hit
and we were starting to hit. So for me, that's
that's the motive. It's it's the drive to get in
those different spots. Like you remember times when I was,
oh I got this implement or to try them, and
where I'm now, they're like wanting to be a part
of the brand, Like how cool that was? Like there's
so many different areas that I think we can we
can get into and industries And for me, that's in

(48:22):
driving force. It's you know, because you get that little bit.
It's a little honestly, it's like a high right, you
get all this big influencer, million followers. They want to
be a part of it, like oh my gosh, like okay,
I want the next one. Where's the next one? Where's
the next one? Right? And then you know, building a
brand like you know, the covers are a baby and
that's what we do, and that's what everybody knows for.
But yeah, I'd love to just be a brand that
represents different products. We're getting there, but you know, it's

(48:44):
a ton of work. It's a lot of work. I
want to talk next about about the financial aspect of it,
and a lot of people um for I would say
for most entrepreneurial businesses, you have to start by shelling
out of your pocket or taking out a loan or
ending it, you know, financially, really taking a risk. And

(49:05):
the other thing that I think is funny as a
total side note is um and I'm gonna out you, Josh,
but I'm also gonna out me. We love Josh and
I love blackjack like we love and I'm guilty of it.
I love going to the casino and playing black jack.
But I think that that's something that really feeds into
our entrepreneurial spirit because you have to be willing to
take a risk, a big risk. And Maggie, that even translates.

(49:26):
I don't know if you like black jack. I hope
you do, so one day we can all have some
Kaha coffee and play some black jack. But you had
to say you're taking a risk every day by shaking
up a full industry and changing that status quo. But
financially specifically, you have to shell out your own money.
I last year, Josh, Josh knows this because he's my brother. Like,

(49:46):
I had to spend a lot of my own money
to put together a tour um the fund to three
tour because I had a dream and I wanted that
dream to come to life and have a screen on stage,
and so I put my own money into it, knowing
that it was a risk. And sometimes those risks work,
sometimes those risks don't work. Josh, what were your financial

(50:07):
fears or struggles? You were married at the time, and
I know that as cool as my sister Sydney is,
you know, spending family money and knowing you're dipping into
savings and knowing that if it doesn't work, then this
will happen, or if it does work, then that will happen.
What struggles or fears did you have when you were
starting B Kicks? Yeah, I mean it's like like I
mentioned before, it's going from you know, a job that

(50:27):
pays a decent salary or commissions whatever, and knowing that
I'm going to pay myself you know a fifth of that,
You know what I mean? For the foreseeable future and
not worth really no end in sight, you know, and
then you just go into the workings of the business.
And listen, we all heard the saying you've got to
spend money to make money, right And I don't know
about Maggie, but I boostrapped this whole thing from I
didn't raise any money. It's all been my money. And

(50:48):
you know, so you've got to be really picky and
where you spend that money. You know, you can't you know,
whether it's marketing dollars or you know, influencers which falls
into marketing whatever. But yeah, there's been times where it's like,
I don't know if this is a right move, but like,
how many eyeballs would see this if I pay this
amount of money, you know what I mean? Like, listen,
I've had multiple mistakes, you know, trial and error, spent money,

(51:09):
didn't work out. But I mean, like you said, you
got to take those risks. I mean, you're never going
to see where your idea can go. Dude, you came
out of fourteen like with a guitar and like, you
know what I mean, and now you're doing what you're doing.
That's why I think is interesting, is I like for me,
I've all I've ever known was my entrepreneurship. Right. But
for both of you, Josh and for you, Maggie, you

(51:29):
both had good jobs like you guys. You guys weren't
like in a place where you were like, oh man,
what am I gonna do? I guess I'll guess I'll
have to start my business, like you both had the
option to or not to become entrepreneurs. So, Maggie, coming
from Wall Street to starting your business, what was that
financial fear slash struggle? Like you had a good job

(51:50):
like you were, You're on Wall Street. People people died
to believe it was to work on Wall Street. Meanwhile,
you're starting your own business and leaving it so similar
I strapped like Josh, um And I think that part
of that is, I think we're gonna have to acknowledge
it is a little bit of a privilege that you know,
to be in that position. Um. I think for me
to be in a position where I had had had

(52:12):
worked in jobs that allowed me to save, so I
had a financial safet in it. So that's not true
for a lot of people. So I think for me,
I felt comfortable doing it because I felt like I
had saved enough money to be able to essentially bootstrap
this and kind of build it, especially building this business
where it's a lot of about about values and I

(52:35):
have to be very picky about who I work with UM,
So having financial backuds that have different you know, interests
and motivations would not be the best situation. So it
was it was very you know, it was again like
George said, you get very creative. You really think about
is this what doing? What's the arrow I on this?

(52:55):
But I think the beauty of this looking at it,
you know when I now reflect act upon it. The
beauty of having the opportunity to build that with you know,
limited resources, is that you become very very intentional. But
also you build a stronger community because it's very you
become very authentic because you don't have not like you

(53:16):
have a limited bank account to be flushy. You really
work with the scraps, and I think that's something that
really radiates and allows you to build a stronger brand.
So you're not buying you're not buying followers, you're not
buying UM you know, you're not buying people with sales
or with like you know, giving huge discounts or you're
essentially giving people products for free. You you essentially cultivate

(53:39):
a very very strong following and a strong community. So
I think that there's definitely as a as a person,
if I was starting out, I would advise people that
sometimes I think gets stressed about not having enough capital
to think about that has an advantage, not a disadvantage.
It really pushes you to focus on like what's the
most important thing um and to focus on the right things,

(54:02):
because otherwise you maybe get distracted and you know, make
really some companies have been killed by having too much money,
like Quibi companies. So I think that there is some
advantage of being bootstrapped and being under resourced at the beginning.
But obviously i'd be remiss Alex if I don't mention

(54:26):
that I know, for a person like me still even
with like my education, my privilege, I still feel that
I fall into the same troubles that other you know,
entrepreneurs of color. As you know, less than one person
of funding goest to women, less than point one person
goes to women of color. So it's it's it's like

(54:47):
a huge gap where if you started to like spend
your time looking for money like you would just like
it's not it's not a good odds. We come back
to black tack, you have better odds. Focusing on raising
money from customers. I'm doubling down at that point, I'm
doubling down. I'm splitting. I'm doubling each of the splits.
We're going hard. So I got one thing that that

(55:07):
one thing. Yeah, So it's funny, it's like the word
and we have to be nimble, right, I mean, even
to this day, you know, I think to myself, what
do people care about when they get my product? They
just care about getting it into being good quality. So
in my even in our packaging, even to this day,
like it's not the greatest packaging, but like I just
know they bought it because they want it, and when
they get it, it's gotta be good quality. So those
things are good for me. That's enough. I don't need

(55:29):
to spend that extra capital right now to give them
this awesome package box that costs another fifty cents every order,
you know what I mean. So, like you know, we've
done in the past, but it's like is it worth
it right now? Like you know, so like small things
like that, it's like you know, what what what does
the customer really want? Like you know, we both boost
trapped it, so we had to be like pretty nimble
and how we do things so you can see what

(55:49):
really is the most important thing and what do the
customers what do they want? You know what I mean,
That's the question I think all entrepreneurs are trying to answer.
There's a lot of movement that you have to that
you might not be like that. There's so many things
that I didn't realize I had to do as a musician,
so many things, like you said, you didn't realize, like,
oh man, I got to think about the packaging. I
remember you had boxes, and then you had certain like

(56:09):
certain cool plastic, and then you had like they you
were um you had the like labels that were going
around it or on top of it. And at the
end of the day, those are things that you have
to really think about as an entrepreneur. Another thing that
a lot of people have to think about as an entrepreneur,
or more so deal with, not think about, is the naysayers,
the haters, the oh man, I really think you should

(56:31):
do this, Josh, You and I both know how many
people and I don't know as much as you know,
but I've witnessed it firsthand. How many people have told
you you need to do this, you need to do that,
don't do this, that's not gonna work. And I'm sure
you had the same thing, Maggie. A question for both
of you, how do you tune that out? Because I know,
like as some I've had naysayers my own way, you know,

(56:53):
for my own career as well. But how do both
of you guys tune it out? Yeah? I mean, honestly,
I just don't care to be honest with do you
know what I mean? Like, listen, there are times where
if it's a specific product thing, like maybe there's an
issue with something like obviously I want to resolve that.
I don't want to just throw it to but like yeah,
like these are too expensive or why is a logo

(57:14):
so big? You know what I mean? Like you gotta
tell your you got to think, like how what's the
percentage of people that are actually complaining about these small things?
And it's like that's why I just do it. In
my head, I'm like, listen, it's under one percent of
people that are complaining about this or that the other
It's like you kind of have just pick and choose
the things that really matter, Like listen, if it's a
like a quality control issue, like if something broke, ripped
or whatever, We're going to fix that as fast as possible.

(57:37):
We're gonna talk to manufacturer and make sure hey, like
be more careful, right, you know what I mean. It's
just there's trolls out there, and it's like they get
a high on like trying to make you feel a
little bit of negativity. Right, So I'm just like, you
know what, press on man, you know what I mean,
absolutely absolutely, Maggie, have anything to add to that, Yeah,
I saying I think you really got to tune it out.

(57:58):
I think when I started UM, for I think a
lot of people, it was like I was not who
you think you know sells coffee, Like I was not
the face of coffee. So for a lot of people,
they've only seen two you know, two types of coffee.
Was either like big coffee stuff. But so they had
seen like Hollywood celebrity like starting a coffee brand, like

(58:19):
for charity. So they were like these two spectrums of
like charity coffee and then big coffee. So when people,
I think when I started, they were like, oh, is
it a nonprofit? UM is it, like, are you gonna
make money? Like you're not rich. So there was a
lot of people that were worried that I was, like,
not a Hollywood celebrity doing this for charity. So that

(58:39):
was trying to like explain to people that this can work.
But also like just you have to at the beginning.
You just have to know that not everyone will see
the vision until it Like you said, you know, there's
a lot of like working in the dark. There's a
lot of small moving paths to building a brand. So
I think it's just you know, I think just giving

(59:00):
people time to really warm up to it, and you know,
it takes time. So I think that I having that
attitude of like, you know, they're seeing a half drawn painting,
so like when it's fully drawn and then they might
appreciate it more. So I think it's just knowing that
that's it's natural for people to want to be protective

(59:21):
of the status quo. Yeah, totally. I mean I think again,
nobody sees nobody sees the darkness. Everybody only sees the light.
You know that nobody sees what happens behind closed doors,
and so it's important to just stick to your guns,
trust yourself try and just you know, whether it's avoiding
comments in your comments section, whether it's listening with you know,
with half an ear to your your weird friend or

(59:43):
family member who thinks that they know your business better
than you do, whatever it is. I think the last
thing I want to talk about is like, we're here
and we're in the middle of a pandemic. We have
so many businesses closing down, and even in good times,
new business is very rarely turn out successful. John, she
mentioned being nimble. I think one of the smartest things
and from the outside that you did this year is

(01:00:05):
you started producing masks. Masks was not something that you
did at all, but somehow it works perfectly with protecting
your beats, protect your face, protect your you know, your
immune system. That nimbleness, How did you come to that?
How did you keep your mind and your and your
options so nimble that you could have an option like
that that you go, yes, we need to jump on that,

(01:00:26):
and and your masks sold out immediately when you dropped them.
Tell me about that. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I was
fortunate that my manufacturer had a customer who was doing
mass so I was able to and listen. I didn't
early on, I just didn't even think about it. I
just I was doing my business, you know, with what
I go down there look at my inventory or whatever.
But you know, it's like, you know, in Februarily March

(01:00:46):
came around, it was just kind of like this thing
is maybe a real thing, you know what I mean.
I was like, you know, maybe we should do it.
And listen, because of the high costs of manufacturer, I
had to put down it up front the money, and
they weren't cheap, mask. I mean everything's getting made down
town l A. I mean, these were not cheap, like
they're good Mass. I want I want to voice said,
it's it's the Mass that I endorsed myself. Um. So,

(01:01:07):
I mean, listen, March was terrible for me. Let's be on.
I mean, my my product is mainly in the fitness space.
Gym's closed, right, people were freaking out, like going to
the banks taking thousands dollars put in their under their
own mattress because they were like, what's going to happen? Right,
So no one spending money and gyms were closed. So
for me, it was like the worst month I've had
in probably ten months. Um, but then we decided to

(01:01:28):
make masks, and April was my biggest month in eight months.
The day I launched a mass I never promoted it.
I just put it up and we had a bigger
day than my Black Friday, which is crazy. So yeah,
I mean, honestly, I was fortunate enough to have that
opportunity because if they weren't doing it doing it, I
wouldn't have had that opportunity. But but listen, I had
to make the call, right, I had to say, Hey,
I'm gonna spend this much amount of money to do this,

(01:01:49):
and who knows, Like, I mean, luckily, like Maggie was saying,
you build that customer base and that loyal following that,
you know, I just put up in Boom and like
they're listen, they're expensive, like compared to other masks, they're
pretty expensive, but they just took it. Was I'm not
gonna say it's saved the business, but like it's almost
a blessing in disguise for me because at the time
my manufacturing shut down, my covers and everything else, all

(01:02:12):
they did was making mass It was like it was
like a factory of mass making. So luckily I had
enough inventory on handle the covers that the orders it
did come in, we were able to fulfill. So I
was able to lower my inventory and everything and that
was profit. And then we had masses. We had another
product to sell and was sold like crazy. It was
like we were able to actually come out of it
a little better I think than most people, just because
we had that ability. Yeah. No, I mean a lot

(01:02:32):
of companies came and went or we're here and left
and and uh and so I think that nimbleness is
what keeps companies alive. And and that's why I think
it was amazing. I had to point it out because
the wrench was thrown into this year. This year has
been the worst. And so for a company like Bee Kicks,
where you were working, you were a fitness based company

(01:02:52):
or where that's where you started from, and then the
thing that kind of powers that goes away, you have
to move quick. You have to act quick, Maggie. On
top of the pandemic, we are also in a year
that people are trying to obviously we are. We have
unearthed um racial injustice here in America and racism in general.

(01:03:13):
There are so many fights for taking away women's rights
and women's reproductive rights. And on top of that, you
come from an immigrant family, the cards were not sent
in your favor. How have you, as a CEO and
a founder of a company powered through that. Yeah. I

(01:03:34):
actually posted on our Instagram that when the elections came out,
now that we have Kamela the first black and Indian
immigrant vice president, I was saying, oh, twenty twenty is
definitely UM. It's going to be interesting when we discussed
it because we saw the worst and it's also now historic.

(01:03:56):
So I think that the reason election was such a
you know, a breath of relief, I think, especially for
a lot of people whose lives were UM sort of
in a non territory because of the last four years. UM.
For us from a business perspective, obviously the coffee industry
was massively impacted with coffee shops can't open up, shut

(01:04:18):
down UM. So for us, we UM as a nation.
We used to serve offices in the Bay Area, so
we had a huge office business which went away immediately
because no one's going into the office. But again, like
Joe said, it's a blessing in disguise because it really
pushed us to do direct to consumer, which was which

(01:04:39):
is a beast of its own, but it's once you
start to do it, you start to love it, especially
interacting directly with customers and you know, even emailing with Catherine,
when customers like message me their thoughts or asked me questions,
it's very very fulfilling. So that was for me going
through transitioning from sort of more are b to be

(01:05:01):
and doing more direct to consumer, which you know has
as now with the Black Lives Matter movement and sort
of people really um looking to support brands that you know,
share values with them. So it's been really interesting time
for us, I think, to be an outspoken activists for
a lot of these issues and very very like refreshing.

(01:05:22):
So is a very mixed year for me, But I
think it's gonna in a good note. I sure hope so,
and I think for all three of us, I do
have a good feeling it's going to continue trending upwards.
I think my biggest takeaway from this is that an
entrepreneur is so much more about the spirit that you have.
There's so many ways in which you can be an entrepreneur,

(01:05:43):
and so I think my takeaway with that is also
the dedication that you have to prepare yourself to have
in being an entrepreneur. It's amazing. And so I really
implore you if you have even an ounce of yourself
that wants to explore being an entrepreneur. You don't have
to a full time Josh didn't go full time for
two and a half years. You don't have to have

(01:06:05):
a groundbreaking idea. Uh. You can simply find something you're
passionate about and see if there's a business in that.
Um and and that's really my takeaway. Uh. And I
hope you like this. I've really, I really loved this episode.
I thought it was amazing time. Thank you Maggie, thank
you Josh, both of you for your insight and sharing
your experiences with this. I want to point out before

(01:06:25):
we get into my favorite part of the show. Both gifts,
both Khawa Coffee and Beat Kicks, whether it's the headphone protectors,
that air pods covers, the headbands, or the towels or
the masks, are incredible holiday gifts. We're going to the
holidays right now, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure you guys
get you get get your man's or your woman's or

(01:06:45):
your or your person. Some headphone covers and some coffee,
and I can guarantee you they're gonna smile, You're gonna
have a great holiday. It's gonna be incredible. That being said,
it is time for the shameless not so shameless promo. Basically,
I just give you guys each time just to ug
everything you want. You don't. I'm already buying it, so
you don't have to sell me on it. But it's
time for you to just sell it to the listeners.

(01:07:06):
Maggie hit Us with some not so shameless promo. I mean,
I think that we have the best coffee in the world. Seriously,
I think that you know, you should check it out. Um,
it's I sometimes wonder, you know, I feel bad for
people that haven't discovered it yet. That should be a slogan.

(01:07:29):
That should be a slogan. If you haven't tried it,
I feel bad for you. I love that. Josh hit
Us with some not so shameless promo. Listen. So most
people listen to music, and that's you know, and everybody
likes to customize things. We're all trying to match things, right,
I mean, whether you're trying to protect your headphones, they're
good for that, but also just to match something we

(01:07:50):
have multiple designs. We also have a customization aspect. Now
we can go in and make your own not only covers,
you can make your towels, you can make headbands. So yeah,
I mean we're here for you. We protect you, we
got you covered. Oh my gosh, you guys are just professionals.
Check this out. If you like music, if you like
big teeth, if you like Polynesian men, and you like

(01:08:13):
an i heeart radio podcast, let's get into it as
the podcast for you. Um, you guys already know where
you can follow me. Uh, you can follow me at
alex Iono on all platforms. Do you guys have an
Instagram or a or a social media platform? Here and
it is at Cahawa nine three Josh, you gotta you
gotta social media platform for Beat Kicks Instagram, Beat dot Kicks,

(01:08:36):
Beat dot Kicks, alex a i O n Oh. You
can find and follow all three of us. But more
importantly than me, following me on Instagram makesure you follow
Khawa and follow beat dot Kicks on Instagram. You can
also rate our podcast and subscribe. It's the it's the
way that we grow, and you can give us a
nice review, especially after this episode. But thank you so
much for listening. I I love you guys so much

(01:08:58):
and we'll see you next time piece. We really want
you to get the help you need, so if you
need help, please seek independent advice from a competent healthcare
or mental health professional. The views and opinions expressed in
this podcast are solely those of the podcast author or
individuals participating in the podcast, and do not represent the

(01:09:20):
opinions of I Heart Media or its employees. This podcast
should not be used as medical advice, mental health advice, counseling,
or therapy. Listening to the podcast does not established dr
patient relationship with hosts or guests of alex Iona Let's
Get Into It or I Heart Media. No guarantee is
given regarding the accuracy of any statements or opinions made
on this podcast. Well, if that's a doozy