10 Lessons I've Learned Building a Dark Coffee Brand on Shopify
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- Опубліковано 10 чер 2024
- Hi friends! Today I want to share with you 10 lessons I've learned from launching with my own money my very first ''product'' business, aimed to be a D2C enterprise on Shopify.
I document what I've learned during the first (almost) full year of operating my artisanal coffee brand, which is freshly roasted locally!
I've always been obsessed with coffee and decided to apply our branding knowledge to a real brand and use it not only for a case study but to scratch my own itch of having my own brand.
Here are the 10 lessons I've learned along the journey of the product business!
Get the coffee here: cafefonce.com (shipping everywhere in Canada for a reasonable price)
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Chapters
0:00 - Intro
1:03 - The Product: Café Foncé!
3:03 - Over Investing in Branding
5:14 - Test for Product-Market Fit Early
6:02 - Surf on Momentum (Course Correct If Needed)
7:43 - Content is King, but Strategy is Queen
9:06 - I hate newsletters (but it's important)
10:43 - Give your product for free!
11:23 - Why I chose Shopify over Squarespace and WooCommerce
13:45 - Perishable products = challenging
15:39 - Paid Advertising requires more cash to be worth pursuing
18:32 - Time, Grit & Patience is the key to succeed
20:39 - BONUS STRATEGIES
20:50 - Selling on Etsy
20:58 - Contest Shopify Plugins
21:17 - LOOX: Reviews with Pictures
21:32 - Vyper: Viral Giveaway
21:52 - Gleam: Viral Giveaway
22:02 - Start the newsletter (that's worth subscribing too)
22:15 - Drops in Collaboration with Artists
22:31 - Improve the Instagram Feed with People
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💌 I'm starting a newsletter. 💌
Subscribe → www.seempaq.blog
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Links
☕️ simonpaquin.com
🐦 TWITTER → / seempaq
🎧 PODCAST → open.spotify.com/show/372xMYc...
#BusinessStrategy #SmallBusiness #Freelancer #Solopreneur
![How to Sell Coffee Online [ Is Selling Coffee Online profitable ]](/img/n.gif)
I have a coffee business and it exploded when COVID hit. I created 'coffee tailgating' and gave away free cups of coffee. A large part of my customer base is people who came to that.
That's an amazing strategy! I started with door to door sales of a smaller version and influencers. It really is starting to pick up haha! Glad to hear you did some sort of meetup, that's amazing.
How did you make money giving away cups of coffee? Sounds dumber than a dumb dog.
Hey, I’m looking to launch a coffee business. Would you be open to taking a moment to answer some of my questions?
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing your journey. Very inspiring and lots of things to learn. Good luck on your venture.
Nice suggestion from the algorithm. Love your video, I wish you good success with your brand. I'm also from Montreal, it's so rare to find UA-camr from the city hahah
Suuuper useful. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for these insights! I’m researching a bunch now and your video helped a lot :)
Wow cool. Let me know if you need anymore infos ! It might inspire me to make new stuff!
Thank you, Simon, for sharing. I started my own e-commerce coffee brand as well. You helped me, realized "lesson learned." I have experienced some of the same pain points.
my pleasure, long live your brand!
Am proud of you thank you for the inspiration
Great video, very clear to understand. Thank you
you got it
!
Really good information Mr. Paquin! im myself been this year investigating about a coffee proyect.. as a side fun bussiness. Thank you for the heads up!
Best of luck my friend! My next video is going to be about a little update on the coffee biz :)
Merci Simon
Vraiment intéressant et instructif ta présentation.
Just came across your channel 'cuz I've been doing some searching on selling coffee from South America, where I'm from. You have me so many more ideas thx.
you welcome!
so helpful, thank you!
the pleasure is mine
Dude. the moment you smelled your coffee.. sale moment right there ;)
lets gooooo
Did you ever think about starting a product business? If you did, what is it? :)
Mine is Island Brow Coffee. I roast my own, on demand.
I watched from beginning to end... your English is great 👍 👌 good content
glad you liked it!
Thanks!
Thanks for the content
My pleasure!
Just found your channel and wow great content! I will be trying to catch up on your videos, do you have a video explaining the journey creating your coffee brand such as bag design, labels, etc.? Thanks again!
Hey Ethan! Glad you like what you found! I do not have a video on the topic but that could be interesting !! I’ll add to my video idea list!
I’ve been wanting to start my own little coffee business, thanks for the video! I’m a stahm so I want a little side business.
Me too! Don't even know where to start.
You speak very good English, thank you for a great video. You have given me a lot of inspiration to help me move forward with my business idea.
Happy to hear that!
Good content!
Thanks!
Good video very interesting points.
Thank you good sir!
this is awsome bcs im just starting out and i was thinking about getting into drop shipping coffee but i like to roast my own.
Thank u ❤
Really helpful
glad.
Hey! Thanks for this informative video! What are your thoughts on drop shipping coffee? Is this a good avenue to sell coffee in the long term? Thanks in advance!
Hi Samantha! I think any strategies are great as long as they are keeping you afloat and profitable. If you find a way to dropship coffee that deliver a great customer experience, why not!
@@seempaq Thank you so much!
Good Video good content! I want to do something similar with olive oil and I'm looking for guidance at the beginning. I would be interested on how the start went, like the first ten sales and the initial one.
sure man, could give you an hour of consulting if you want, email me when you're ready or just sign up on my website: simonpaquin.com
great video and I'm totally in the same shoes starting out!!! Would you still pay for a shopify designer if you were to do it again? if so how much would you spend?
I would not, I'd go on canva, make a logo, sell coffee and improve the brand as the customer base grow. I spent about 8k CAD for Brand identity + Copy + Web design
Hey Simon,
Loved seeing your video on how you created your own coffee brand. Would love to connect further so I could ask you a few questions on how you got started
Bon video Monsieur. J'ai appris beaucoup. Ton anglais est bien.
haha thanks man.
Hi Simon, I love that you hate newsletter.
Fucking hate them lolll the only one I like are those you can fully consume at a glance.
How do you decide which FB interest to target for your coffee business.
Hey Earl, I'm not running ads because the Cost per acquisition doesn't make sense for me at the moment. And I do not have funding, it's bootstrapped.
How do you get your own brand coffee?
Like getting the product and branding it? Making it unique?
Do you personally make all your own coffee?
Hey! I did simply ask a local roaster to make me a blend with my taste in mind, we tried a bunch of things to end up at a product I enjoyed! as simple as that! do not complicate things! :)
Do you have a roast supplier with a license or do you have a license yourself to mail your coffee? My wife and I are trying to start a company however we are hitting a road bump with licensing. Feel like roasting ourselves might not be the way to go with our current situation and might have to resort to a roaster. Location is Florida.
That’s a great question, I work with someone with a license already. Roasting yourself is a huge step to get through. I’d recommend grow the business then expand operations.
I started a coffee business about 2 months ago. I had the intent of roasting my own coffee, packaging, and selling it online. In California, the law sounds similar where you can't mail coffee cross state lines on what's called a Cottage Food License here in California. I ended up partnering with a coffee roaster here in SoCal. Try googling private labeling coffee roasters in your area. I think it's a good way to get started, while you scale to roasting your own coffee. Hope that helps.
@@markymark7397 thanks. I’m gonna look into that the private roasting
Vraiment intéressant. Pour l'instant je cherche surtout à dropship vue que j'habite en Asie mais je vends au Canada. As-tu des suggestions?
Suggestion à quoi?
@@seempaq De companies qui dropship du café au Canada.
@@Johnnyrockenvoyage Maybe check with Canadian Roasting Society?
Do you roast the coffee yourself? Can you elaborate on a little bit. Thanks!
I used to work with a small local roaster.
Cool! Where can we buy?
not for sale anymore! sold the company
how do you source product?
I'm working with a local coffee roaster that is roasting my recipe! I initially contacted him to create the blend I wanted then he is roasting it on demand.
@@seempaq okay thank you very much I am having a hard time finding a roster at this point
@@fastmovinghomes3552 I would look near where you live for small coffee shops that roasts themselves, there are also usually collaborative places many roasters get together and rent it and split the costs!
Hi Where do you wear how's your coffee and how do you fulfill it
basement, at home.
@seempaq you fullfil it yourself from home?
I was in a room at home yes when I ran it! It's sold now and I'm focused on something else I will start sharing soon ;) @@dspinoy
@seempaq that's really inspiring, thanks for taking your time to reply on my inquiries.
@dspinoy anytime
Im from Chiapas Mexico .I'm a coffee bean producer.and looking for someone to help me to bring my beans to USA or canada
You should probably talk with importing companies
Tomas, escríbeme. Soy tostador y importador en California.
Contact me
Hi
How can I contact you for consultation?
check my website. simonpaquin.com
Umm dont mind - but thing which i noticed that you paid $2000 for this website. Like trust me - in $2000 you can get much better website or even in $200. I am able to say because I personally makes brand stores.
Hey. At the time I paid a designer an hourly rate to work on it together. Turns out it went up to 2000$, I’m not saying I got 2000$ of value. But as an experiment we had a lot of great conversations and I learned a lot about building an ecom store!
I'm with you on the newsletter thing, and even worse are the companies that refuse to remove you no matter how many times you request to be removed (@intuit this means you). Thanks for the tips and plugin suggestions.
all good homie, enjoy!
If you are reading this, never pay 2000$ for a shopify Store. Anyone with basic computer knowgledge can learn this in a week or you can pay someone on fiver 200$.
My store didn't cost 2000 dollars. I paid for the knowledge of a designer to execute something that doesn't look like someone who paid 200$ lol
Create gift cards and offer that in your marketing...
context please? haha
@@seempaq haha just referring to your comment about not sure what to send your customers through email. I was thinking if they're subscribed and getting your coffee sent to them every month, you could send them emails about a gift card for friends and family or discount code for a referral sign up that gives them a discount too on their next subscription payment.
@@TheOne-ry6mt Yoooo that's an amazing idea. Let me see if and how I can implement this.
Along these lines, I offer an associate program. Customers can choose between a 10% or 20% discount. I create a specific discount code for that customer. The customer gives that code to friends, family, social media, etc... Once that code is used a certain number of times, I ship a free 12oz bag of coffee (their choice) to the associate. All they have to do is tell people where they buy coffee and say, "oh btw, use this discount when you order".
@@bradwilson7470 damn, some next level affiliate marketing right there, I like the app: Loox, it kinda automate that whole process!
Malade ton video! Merci pour les tips!
my pleasure
In any ecom brand social visitors > Direct visitors but in your case it's different. Your Desktop visitors are almost high as compared to mobile visitors. Being Honest it's so easy to generate fake orders so to prove me wrong, show your ad accounts and payments dashboard coz they don't lie.
I don't do ads.
Bootstrap? wtf?
wtf what
7 months in business and you earned $3k in total sales and feel you have something of value to share on 10 things you learned?
Lesson #1 I follow is do what successful people do not don’t take advice from somebody who acts like they are successful.
This isn’t to say you don’t have something to share but come on.
That’s a very unsolicited comment tbh. I never claimed that it was my first business nor that I was successful but I’m simply sharing what I’ve learned just bout starting a coffee dtc brand.
I’m sorry if I made you waste your time and you got absolutely no value from this.
I found this video very valuable and helpful
@@zacharylosey196 Thank you! That was the purpose lol.
Hey Simony thanks for your video do you have contact info. About the business
thanks sir
hello if you speak french, where can i chat with you ,?
here, what do you need to know
@@seempaq je souhaite savoir comment se lancer depuis la France ? Les délais ? Avoir des échantillons pour tester les cafés
@@jayjay-rf2oz Depuis la france je ne saurais pas, tu peux aller voir un torréfacteur local et demander de te faire une recette pour commencer peut-etre? :)
@@seempaq mais il devrait se faire référencer sur shopify ?
@@jayjay-rf2oz haha.
thanks sir