Owner Supported the Boys and Girls Club and Juvenile Diabetes. I hope you guys are up for it. Dustin: That's where we've heard the story. I'm just crazy. Jeff: Oh heck yeah. Coffee is very competitive. "I'm like, "Actually, nothing. I was looking for a paycheck at the time. When I started the business, my goal was just to make an extra $5,000 a year. I actually did, I went out and did that. Forgave over $200,000 in debts to the small business customer to help them stay on their feet when they missed government-funded programs. On this very special episode, Mike joins the show to talk about how he started in accounting and what it was like transitioning into owning his own business. THIS MONTH: Austin and Mike talk to actor and director Andre Gower about his documentary on The Monster Squad "Wolfman's Got Nards", One month's worth of the world's strongest coffee and a hand-made ceramic mug. Jeff Ayers (The Incredible Jeff) reminded me that it would be a good idea to write everyone a letter recapping this year. I would just be like, "I'm going exploring," I'd just walk around the City Hall, because there was really nothing for me to do, but I had to be there to supervise over my team to make sure they didn't cause any trouble and boy they did. Two years ago, Mike was named the 2017 Entrepreneur of the Year for Emerging Business in New York. I feel like that works out for me.Jeff: Agreed. It's funny when I first started the business, I'm like, "Oh, this is great. Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. Here's the stage, man. Mike wanted to provide customers the world over with a stronger, bolder, richer, more intense coffee to set them up for the day. Sometimes when you switch job tracks, it gets a little hard to wrap your mind around it. How can we add more and charge less? I worked for the comptroller's office. Mike: Yeah, it is. Mike gives details about the new cold brew coffee and the giant Death Wish Coffee truck, and also reveals something that no one knew about! ... Wishing y'all the best with many blessings and the rest of the Death Wish Coffee family this year. The way the state works is it's hard to get people out once they're in. Jeff: Motivation from motivation. Dustin: It's a very limited run because it's a very intense process to do it. This time Mike talks about how the company has grown since last year, including getting into … Yeah, I think with a good team in place, we could go either way and I still think we'd succeed. Yeah, definitely. Episode Info: Mike and his company, Death Wish Coffee, have achieved every brand's dream: a following so strong their customers are actually getting tattoos of their logo! ABOUT MIKE BROWN: Founder and owner of Death Wish Coffee, Mike Brown, joins the show for the second time. After college, I struck out on my own for a little bit and then had to move back in with my parents. Can you talk a little bit about the transition of that? I'm just like, "It's going great, man. Jeff: Best business ever. "Jeff: Yeah. His Death Wish Coffee beans are ground very fine for extra potency - and Mike even says the extreme brew is his most popular blend. Mike, a coffee devotee, was on a mission to create the world’s strongest coffee, and he set about trying to achieve this objective. The coffee is primarily sold online, but it is also sold in grocery stores across the United States. This goal is big, and it is never-ending. Jeff: We'll start kind of at the beginning, but there is a lot of information about the beginning of this company anyways, one thing that I think I've never really heard touched upon is it's known that Mike, you started out kind of in accounting and then you went into working in a coffee shop. Dustin: By the way, we don't condone skinning cats on the [inaudible 00:16:15] Deathcast.Jeff: But it is the truth. This is great." Yeah. It's kind of like, "Okay, what's making me get out of bed in the morning. Helped support local small business organizations with donations to keep them helping others. Yeah, the more competitors the better, come on in. I'll wake up in the morning and I'll start reading about it again. Secret Santa? We shut down production when COVID-19 got really questionable in the beginning, but all employees were paid full pay through the downtime. Plus your weekly dose of community and birthday shoutouts and news about more products from the World's Strongest Coffee. Sounds crazy, but it's true. He was actually doing a lot of the work on his end, as well, putting together this blend. Donated way over $100,000 cash and products to front line workers, service men and women, truck drivers, local businesses, business groups, food banks, and provided over 10,000 masks to those who needed them most when the economy started opening again. THIS WEEK: Chad Gray talks about his career with Mudvayne and HELLYEAH and his passion for music. No matter how much you know, there's always more to know. In 2012, Death Wish Coffee Co. started in a small coffee shop in Saratoga Springs, NY. Please leave a review or recommendation if you have enjoyed Death Wish Coffee. Life Changes at Death Wish Coffee: 5 Questions with Founder Mike Brown Posted November 25, 2015 by brandchannel Death Wish Coffee , dubbed “The World’s Strongest Coffee… BRAD, CHRISTINE, AND MIKE are the real (hidden) MVP's behind scenes. Mike Brown started his business back in 2012. She would love to have me back at home. I'm pretty sure. Bid to win a meeting with Mike Brown, Founder of Death Wish Coffee and EY 2017 Entrepreneur of The Year, in Albany, New York.. She was great. I know there are many other things my team has done, and I wish my memory was better. You have your own accounting team working under you." How to make Bulletproof coffee with Deathwish, Meet the team behind the World's Strongest Coffee, A Lighter Shade of Bold: Introducing Medium Roast. Death Wish Coffee was founded by CEO Mike Brown in 2012. Did you get to that point or were you just ...Mike: I was tiptoeing around that point for a while and then that same conversation where my bosses had me in the conference room and they're like, "You know, you're missing a lot of days." They're bringing other customers ... they're spending their money to market to bring customers into our category and then when the people get to our category, they're gonna quickly find out who the leader of that category is and that's Death Wish Coffee. Spotlight's on you.Mike: No, nothing for me personally. It wasn't just you and your idea. I have a few bets ... one bet in particular here in the office where ...Dustin: Wait, should we talk about it?Mike: No. Lisa Barone of Overit, Mike Brown of Death Wish Coffee Co., and Karen Torrejon of Glauconix Biosciences Inc. have been selected to a national list of … I didn't know anything about coffee or running a business. Jeff: Excellent.Mike: But the program was very intensive. They're coming to the market with a coffee in our category. The famous story is that you were working at Saratoga Coffee Traders and your customers wanted the strongest cup of coffee that you could not provide for them, so you started to research how to do the strongest cup of coffee. That's what my passion is with internet marketing and that's where I spend a lot of my time reading, but even people management and, in some aspect, psychology. It was a coffee that we age in spirit barrels and Starbucks just released theirs. Subscribe to the newsletter. If there's a problem in front of you or a puzzle, something you don't know ... you've already talked about you didn't know how to run a business, so you did a bunch of research on it, you learned how to do that. I guess in the same realm as Starbucks and Starbucks gets a lot of attention, which is good, because it will drive people towards ours and, actually, John ... we're working on another run right now of our barrel coffee. Finally, we always ask people where you can find them. You guys have seen it. "What are you going to say? Dustin: Yeah, I feel like personally, I work better-figuring stuff out on my own and that's why I feel like this team is right for me. You've got to start somewhere. Audit it and see how they're doing. I'm done. We're kind of focused on the meat of our business. I'll have to go back to school for a little bit. Mike Brown started his business back in 2012. I can't remember who said it, but one of the books I was reading recently. It's funny, the ones that don't work out, looking back you're just like, "Oh, that didn't work out. I learned a lot about running a business and how much you have to keep an eye on things and how much you have to watch the money going out, just as closely as you watch the money coming in. Jeff: It's an unhealthy thing and it's weird that the mind will do that, so it's really important to dispel that ... just forget about it. I don't want people to learn or know more than me. It wasn't like, "I want to be an accountant for the rest of my life." Jeff: That kind of leads into ... we've had a few of the employees on the podcast at this point and one of the things that we like to talk about, especially because we've had people like Eric Donovan who has been there since the basement days at Saratoga Coffee Traders, stuffing envelopes and stuff. My bosses recognized it. Thank god it didn't. Death Wish Coffee customers are being warned of a lethal form of food poisoning. It wasn't just you in a dark basement, mixing coffees together by yourself and tasting them. How can we serve more customers? Dustin: Was it as nice as you thought it was going to be?Mike: Oh my, yes. The information I've never heard, that I've always wanted to ask you is what was that mad scientist, alchemy process like? I hate to use the word fondly, but maybe just with a little bit of a rye chuckle when you think back on some ideas that we wanted to implement with Death Wish Coffee that, at the time were like, "Yes, this is a great idea," and it just didn't pan out. Most people are in church or watching football or watching basketball. Mike Brown, the founder and owner of Death Wish Coffee, a blend with twice the amount of caffeine of most coffees, won a contest for small business owners who … Jeff: Those are the best minds. I'm just like, "I'm kind of missing this sense of purpose right now." Death Wish Coffee Company was created in 2012 when CEO Mike Brown created a strong, smooth, and never-bitter dark roast coffee blend to keep his coffee shop customers caffeinated and ready to go. ... Mike Brown. The other 3 were based on distribution, sales, and products. I wonder sometimes how you feel about all the copycats that are springing up now. They're like, "Oh yeah, you got it. (It rhymes with 'she hipping'). The stuff that's good, again, we're like, "What's good about their product? Entirely. I'm really excited about some things we have coming out. The way my mind ... sometimes I think I'm insane, sometimes. RE-FUELED: Death Wish Coffee CEO Mike Brown talks origins and his 'eureka' moment Powered by Restream https://restream.io/ The thing about a small team is you start bringing up projects, bringing up projects and eventually you spread yourself too thin and something that may have worked out, it just doesn't have the manpower or the focus to drive it to success. Mike Brown is the man behind this invention. Bring your people into our category, because once they're in the category-Dustin: We'll just be up at the top making it. I didn't think I did that great, but I must have nailed it because the next day they called me up. One of the things that jumped out to me during this meeting was that almost all individuals took a moment before their presentation to talk about what this year, this company, and this team meant to them. Billion dollar bank accounts, which was kind of cool, because I'm like, "Look at all this money I've got at my fingertips," but not really. Today, the Death Wish Coffee Company brand evolved into one of the leading names in the coffee world both in the United States and beyond. Mike wanted to provide customers the world over with a stronger, bolder, richer, more intense coffee … I think Starbucks knows where their ... they are starting to move into other markets, which I think is probably not the smartest for their brand, but at the same time, they are large enough where they can ... they can compete on a lot of different levels and compete in the online realm, the supermarket realm, the coffee shop realm is where they started and where they should focus most of their time and attention, which I think they do. "We actually barcoded the whole system and ran it through the mail room and I pretty much worked myself out of a job. On the night of December 21, Saratoga Coffee Traders’ General Manager Scott Swedish took to social media to air grievances he had with local coffee juggernaut, Death Wish Coffee Company—a business, which, ironically, had been founded in the basement of Saratoga Coffee Traders in 2012 and whose founder/owner, Mike Brown, had once … Thinking about that and how happy it makes others, that gets me up in the morning. That’s more than $2,083 a minute. The team was at 37 people, and we were getting ready to move into our new office at 260 Broadway in Saratoga Springs. I have a lot of people that I respect highly that are business leaders that I talk to on the phone. They just wanted to stay in. What problems are our customers experiencing? John Swedish, on the DWC team, for continually pushing me to be more giving with the company funds. I should say, three credits or one class every two or three weeks, but we would just focus on one class and it would be all day long for three weeks. My team busts their ass and sacrifices a lot to do what’s right in their community and for others. It was incredible. I really did nothing. They fuel me. Like you said, every day is a battle and that's with any business, not just this one. I know for me, I remember I was supposed to head to work but I was sitting on the couch, looking at my hands, just being like, "I don't want to do this anymore." So as we grow, everything we have, all the systems and procedures we have in place, they all have to be rewritten and we have to, basically, start from scratch again. Mike: This one's horrible ... next.Jeff: Yeah, you were completely working off your buddy, John. WFH Prep? If you, for instance, had a business and you dissolved your business and the state owed you money, my job would be to reach out to you and be like, "Hey, we owe you money." Mike: You've got to be not only ready to work with other people, but-Jeff: Willing.Mike: ... willing to ask for help. 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