The Best Branding I've Ever Seen - Coffee with Purpose | #FFLTV Case Study

Holy crap. Where'd all this coffee come from? This is the part of the show where we go through a case study, usually one of our students businesses. Today we're joined by our tribe director, Maruxa Murphy. What's up? So it was a year ago that Maruxia said to me, I have this idea for a coffee line that I want to launch. And pretty much everybody here@the capitalism.com team runs some sort of physical products business or some sort of a side business. And Maruxia had this idea for a coffee line. And Maruxia, I don't think you even thought it was possible to be able to do something like this. So I wanted to kind of unpack the. The launch strategy here, the branding you did here, because I think you've done a spot on job. So would you talk a little bit about the process and then I'm gonna ask you some questions.

Sure, sure. Well, basically the process was I joined the Freedom Fast Lane team in August of 2015 and basically started to hear and learn from you and from many of our members who had been taking their companies from just an idea and growing it and really making a big impact on so many lives and their own lives. And I started to watch literally client after client after client after client doing this. And I said to myself, I'm so incredibly appreciative of the fact that all of us are entrepreneurs here in the office. And.

What if that idea that I had about a year before that to start a coffee line could actually happen?

So it was just like an idea land. And then you started to see that it was possible.

You know, it's one of those moments where it's like, where you are like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if. And I had that idea about two years ago now, a year before. A year before I joined, and. But I didn't know how to do it.

And I figured it out and now she knows. I think you have done two things incredibly well, which is the reason why this is going to be a really successful line. And the first was you started documenting the experience before the product even existed.

Right.

Like, big tip here. Write her downer here. No, I talk a lot about building audiences, launching to an audience. You didn't have a huge audience. You just started documenting the process of, I'm building this product line because I believe this, because I want to make this impact, because. And this is my vision. And you started doing it just on your personal Facebook. And then you started, you know, a Facebook page for the coffee line and. And you were starting to get like a thousand views here, a thousand views there. Talk a little bit about that.

Yeah. So basically, honestly, one day I went to one of the roasters I was interviewing and I was so incredibly pumped up about what he and I were talking about with coffee. And I'm a huge coffee snob, so I'm pretty snooty about what is in my cup. And so as I'm talking to him about my vision, he was getting excited about the vision and I was getting more excited about the vision. And I was like, okay, so if we're all excited about this vision that we're creating, maybe I should share this vision with more people. So I literally was on my way back to the office and I got my cell phone, my iPhone out and did a selfie video. And I was so freaking nervous. But I was just on that high of this meeting that I just had had and I was just like, hi guys, on Facebook, pretty much, right? And was like, this is what I'm going to do with. Well, one of our other members here in the team saw me doing this video outside the window and was like, you're posting that video?

Heck no, I'm not posting this video. And I was double dog dared. And if anyone ever double dog dares me. Alright, fine. So what happened was that that video in particular got about 3,500 views and.

My Facebook message box was full of people excited for me. I was getting messages over email, texts like, you need to do this, this is amazing. And honestly, it was. And a lot of them were tribe members actually, which was really, really cool to experience.

And they were all people who wanted to support the vision. Like, this is really, really good coffee, but it could not be really, really good coffee. And people would still be like, I want to be a part of this. Cause you put your vision out there, right? Because there's people rallying behind this. And if you, as a new business owner, you can rally a few hundred people by just publicly talking about what you're doing as a business. It's one of the reasons why Kickstarter has been so successful. They're putting out their vision and their mission out there and people share that and they talk about it and you get a few hundred people and that builds your base for customers. Now, you did one other thing. The second thing that I think you just did spot on, was you absolutely dialed in your target market and you built your entire branding around that. Like, when we look at this, first of all, this branding is spot on because the avatar is front and center. Of the package. Like, you are basically targeting women housewives. You even say on here on the back of the package, you are powerful. You are simple, you're serious, you're thoughtful, you're playful and complex. You're silly and unstoppable. You're speaking to a very specific person and you don't care. You're happy if I buy the coffee, but I'm not your target market. And so that allowed you to really dial in your marketing. Talk a little bit about that.

Absolutely. So in my case, in this scenario, to really get clear on this particular target market, I had to make the choice to know who I wanted to serve. I have a community here in Austin of moms.

That tell me every day how they feel about the motherhood journey, about.

What it's like to know that you've had a career your whole life and have been so incredibly powerful and smart and felt so on top of the world. And then you go home to your little one and you feel like, does anyone even remember me or matter? And it tears me up all the time because so many women are going through this. And so as I started to build out this coffee line and think about the journey I had been on, myself as well, started to remember that wait in the coffee space. Every single coffee, if you look around and I would encourage everyone to do this today, go and look at the coffees that are out there. It's all marketed in a very masculine way, in dark browns and oranges and things like that. And there's really nothing geared to the women who are 85% of them are the ones buying all coffee in the first place. And there's no one marketing to them and hearing them. And so a part of what I chose to make a stand for. You talk a lot about disruptor businesses and about creating a brand that either will make it and succeed majorly or fail miserably. And both are huge successes. And I was like, you know what? That I want to do that. I don't want to be lukewarm anymore. I don't want to, because I've done that too, and I've failed miserably.

You mean like built up cash flow businesses just there for the money? Totally fine. To have a business that's just about the money. But in this case, you didn't want to do that.

I didn't want to do that. I was just like, well, if I'm going to stand for something and I want to build something long term, what would that. What could I stand behind? And it was to me, honestly, the easiest thing to stand behind was the journey that I had been on, the journey that so many women, millions and probably billions of women have been on.

And know very well. And so I wanted to. To speak to their story and to who they are.

And here's the beauty of this. As a result of having it so specific of who you're talking to, every one of those women are excited about the mission, are lining up to buy it. You have like, basically a waiting list of people who want it. All of those people are gonna come back and leave a review. You don't have to beg for a review when you have a market that is passionate about what you are doing to actually really simple if they really believe in what you're doing. So you're already taking sales. I don't know that you're on Amazon yet, but you're getting there. But you have people, oh, my goodness, you're taking orders from an E Commerce site without having an Amazon presence or an email list. Like, you have people already coming to you and saying, I want this because you put the mission out there.

Yeah, absolutely. So once I put them. So what happened was that first video then catapulted a whole series of videos chronicling the. The whole process of going from an idea to this, to the product today and to being in, you know, just starting to do our first sales. And what's happened is I found that my audience was incredibly invested in the process. So it's become an easy thing.

Not. I wouldn't say sales are always, you know, it's always a thing. Right? Like, at least maybe that's something I have to work on in my head. But.

At the same time, it's felt comfortable to just say, hey, our products finally here. And actually seeing all these sales coming in, because they literally, they were the ones who helped with the logo. They helped with, oh, hey, the bag design. They helped me actually. We had over 50 women taste test our roasts throughout the process. So whenever I had a potential roaster, I would interview the roasters. I'd bring home maybe anywhere from three to five different coffee roasts from our roasters. And my. My community said, oh, this is disgusting, or this is amazing. We need to go with this. And this one in particular won hands down. Five out of five, like, every single time.

And what, what was it like to like to put it out there and make that first inventory order once you had the decision made like this? Like, like, it's one thing to say, what should my logo be? And get feedback about the logo. It's another to be like, what flavor should I have? It's another to say, I'm going to take however many thousands of dollars and say, okay, decision made, let's go. Which is a completely different mindset and it's scary for most entrepreneurs. What was it like for you? How do you navigate that?

I think, I mean, a big part of that was knowing my numbers coming in, saying, okay, here's the money that we are putting into the company. And then saying, okay, so if we want to grow, you know, if we want in our first 30 days to have a thousand sales, let's say, what would, what would it take to make that happen? So we really calculated all those costs ahead of time to know what I wanted, like how much money we were both myself and my partner were going to be putting into the company. So that.

So did you bring on it? You brought on a partner? Was a capital partner. What type of partner?

A capital partner.

Okay, got it.

So we came in together because, you know, my partner's skill, skill set is so opposite of mine. It was a really good partnership and I was like, we can create something really fast together if we put our minds together.

And our hard work and sweat and tears.

Did having a capital partner make you feel more confident making the order?

Yes, yes, yes, Definitely, definitely.

Part of that was because I felt like that person was that much more invested into what I was building long term. And so we were doing something pretty magical together.

That is pretty magical. Where can people find out more? Perkyperkey.com you've done a bomb ass job at your brand. This is probably the best branding I've ever seen. I'm so proud of what you have. I have begged Marusha to take my money as a capital partner, but they're going to be super successful with or without me. Great work.

Thanks, Ryan. Appreciate it.

Sam.