THE INTERVIEW THAT WILL CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK - Sahra Nguyen on The Motiversity Show

Being in my 20s, especially the part when I was in New York City and I was freelancing and, you know, New York has energy of like, we're all out here hustling, we're all trying to make it, right? I was like really engulfed in the energy a lot and I think I felt like, really, I felt like I was rushing a lot in my 20s, like rushing to make it or like rushing to prove something of myself or rushing to have something to show for myself, right? A piece of advice I give my 20-year-old self is don't be in a rush, you know, enjoy the journey, enjoy the process, enjoy everything you're going through because it goes by really quickly, right? And then it gets a lot harder. So yeah, that's what I'd say. Don't be in a rush. Hey everyone, today we're talking with an incredible entrepreneur, Sarah Nguyen, the founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply. I'm your host, Joel, the founder and CEO of Motiversity. Our goal at this show is to share with you powerful lessons learned from people who can help you achieve everything that you are striving for in your life. Sarah founded Nguyen Coffee Supply, America's first specialty Vietnamese coffee company in 2018. She's on a mission to bring diversity, sustainability, and cultural integrity to the coffee industry, which is an industry with a huge misconception about coffee beans that aren't labeled 100% Arabica and that typically renders coffee farmers invisible, leading to a lack of transparency and representation. Sarah founded Nguyen Coffee Supply, America's first specialty Vietnamese coffee company in 2018. She's on a mission to bring diversity, sustainability, and cultural integrity to the coffee industry, which is an industry with a huge misconception about coffee beans that aren't labeled 100% Arabica and that typically renders coffee farmers invisible, leading to a lack of transparency and representation. Not only does her company have an incredible mission, but only just a few months ago, they raised a multi-million dollar seed investment round from a prestigious and diverse group of investors. Sarah, welcome to the Motiversity Show. Hi, thank you for having me. Now before we get into your coffee company, I want you to take us back in your story and the reason is, I think it's key that everyone understands your past to understand your present business success. Oh wow, okay, we're going all the way back. So I am a first generation Vietnamese American, which means I'm the first generation to be born in the United States. I was born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts and prior to that, both of my parents are refugees from Vietnam. They escaped to the country soon after the war ended. They are part of a group of folks called Boat People, which means they escaped the country on a boat. This was around 1978, so it was right after the war had ended. It was a very, very dangerous experience trying to escape. They eventually made their way to a refugee camp in Hong Kong and then soon, a few years later, they were sponsored to come to the United States where they settled in Boston, Massachusetts where I was born and raised. I grew up really during a pre-social media era, 80s and 90s. I was the first class to get a Facebook account, so that just kind of shares a little bit about my experience really not having any sense of representation or reflection of people who looked like me. I didn't have Instagram or YouTube or this incredible world, this incredible community of diverse creators to feel seen and represented. One of the most defining experiences I felt for me as a first generation child of immigrants growing up in Boston in the 90s was I felt really invisible and I felt like people didn't quite understand my experience and or my parents' experience. I felt like a lot of my interactions around Boston and the supermarket, at the movie theaters or anywhere public really, I felt like my parents were often not really seen for their full humanity because maybe they didn't speak English as well, maybe because everyone knew they just came here from Vietnam, the US was just off the heels of a horrible war in Vietnam with so many lives lost. Growing up, it was really difficult for me and my family and I really didn't have a lot of pride in my culture because I felt like my culture made us really different and it made me feel really marginalized or alienated. That sense of shame or embarrassment really changed a lot when I entered high school. During high school, I joined a youth activist organization where I got involved with community organizing and social justice work. From that experience, I learned a lot about some of the social constructs that made me feel marginalized or discriminated against and it helped me really understand for the first time what my parents went through as refugees. Before that, they never talked about it, they never talked about the war, they never talked about their journey and also the public school system from K-12 never taught me about the Vietnam War as well other than maybe a paragraph or two. Fast forwarding a little bit, all of that really sparked my lifelong journey into activism. After high school, I went to UCLA where I majored in Asian American Studies. I continued to be involved in community organizing and after graduating, I spent six years working as a freelance documentary filmmaker and journalist where I really focused on telling stories about my community because I felt such a deep passion for increasing representation for not just my community but really any community that felt invisiblized or unrepresented in mainstream media. Even though now I've totally shifted from media to the world of importing and roasting coffee, very, very different industries, I do feel like my mission is the same which is to bring diversity and inclusion to the industry, is to bring representation to a part of the world in an industry that has been historically rendered invisible in global coffee conversations and it's to represent my culture and my family heritage with pride. It's an incredible mission. The more I read about your story and the mission of the company now, the amount that you've raised totally makes sense in everything you're building. It's just incredible and I really look up to it as an entrepreneur myself as well. I actually started looking back into what's my vision and what's my beliefs in different things as I heard you speak in one of the interviews I listened to from you. I want to go back a little bit to when you talked about feeling invisible and you said that you felt invisible when you were young and that's kind of a trending theme between yourself and the Vietnamese coffee space. How did you, you mentioned high school, was it really high school and just finding groups of friends that you related with, is that what really brought you out of that feeling of invisibility? Yeah, so it was definitely in high school, it was really a specific moment. It was because when I was in high school, I joined a youth activist organization. So I joined a youth activist organization where I spent all of my after school hours and the weekends unpacking my experiences as a person of color and as a child immigrant, studying different social justice movements and the civil rights movement and the black power movement and the anti-war movement throughout American history, unpacking systems of oppression, whether it was sexism or racism, you know, all these things that kind of like made me feel, it just basically gave me social constructs and language to, it gave me social constructs and language to help me define and understand how I was feeling, right? And so that whole journey just, that whole experience in high school and being involved with community activism really helped unlock this sense of empowerment, right? Because I went from feeling small and invisible and discriminated against and marginalized and alienated and not fitting in to understanding that there are actually larger systems of oppression that are happening every day that make me and make people like me feel this way, right? And once I kind of understood that, I realized that the reason why I felt this way wasn't inherent to me, but rather it was just like these larger systems that we are now today actively working to fight, working to create more equitable and more inclusive community experiences, right? So that was really the whole spark of it. I also had mentors, you know, who worked in ethnic studies and Asian American studies and who helped me unpack all these things. And so from there, it really sparked my critical consciousness, which really has set a strong foundation for everything I've done afterwards, including going from Boston to UCLA to major in Asian American studies to deepen this path of critical consciousness, which leads to my current company today of building a more diverse and inclusive and equitable coffee industry. Yeah, that's incredible. And I think a lot of young people listening to this will really relate. It's the whole high school to university to where there's a lot of figuring out in that time period, right? And a lot of people, I think, also feel like you're feeling or like you felt at the time, invisible, lost, unsure, you know, whether or not they're a minority or not or whether or not their parents are refugees. I think just a lot of people will relate with your story there. Moving on from high school, was university, did you cruise through university, get into it easy? Was that an easy time period for you? Or was that a harder time period? Yeah, it was not easy. Actually, I did not get into university easy. I feel like looking back, like my my personal statement or the college essay was really, I didn't realize that looking back, I feel like my college essay actually really worked against me. This was like 2005, right? And I was a young, radical activist, just discovered, you know, activism and in this whole world of like critical consciousness. So my college essay was super radical. It was all about how much I wanted to like change the world and like change the system and like, you know, builds like a better world. And it sounds great now. But at that time, it was it didn't it didn't seem like it was helping me get into college. I actually got rejected from most of my from most of my schools. I think like I got rejected like out of like nine out of 13 schools I applied to. I got rejected and I was like super bummed. And I was like, now that I look back, I'm like, I probably should have written something a little more tangible. Like, I love to go to a law school to become like a civil rights lawyer, you know what I mean? But that was that was on me. However, I ended up at UCLA. But actually, I also got rejected from UCLA when I was applying as a high school senior. However, I was so, you know, passionate about Asian American studies at that time. And I was so passionate about community organizing activism. I wrote a letter of appeal, which is something that you can do with the UC system. I wrote a letter. I wrote a letter of appeal to basically appeal my rejection, explain why I really want to go to UCLA, explain why I really want to major in Asian American studies for my community activism for my social justice work. And then through that letter of appeal was how I eventually got into UCLA. So what was your direction after after UCLA? Yes, after UCLA, I went back to Boston, I got offered a job at a youth arts organization in Boston called Artists for Humanity, which is actually an organization that I was a part of when I was in high school. So it was a nice full circle moment. I helped run the video production studio. And I also helped them start a literacy program where I helped high school students who are going through the arts program, write their college essays and get into college, right. So it was kind of like two different things. I did that for about a year. After that, I got recruited to go back to UCLA to run their writing program. So I got recruited to UCLA to be their program director for an on campus writing program called writing success program, which is in one of their campus centers where again, I was helping college students at this point develop their critical thinking and finding their voice through the writing process. And we work on everything from academic papers to, you know, graduate essays, etc, etc, anything writing related. So I've always had a huge passion for writing, which leads to my later on, which later leads to my career in journalism. I've always had a passion for writing, but more broadly for storytelling and for using the writing and storytelling process to develop our critical thinking to help develop our worldview. So I did that for a few years. So I worked at UCLA for a few years. And then after that, I was like, you know, I just was craving a more creative path. At my heart, I've always been an artist and a creative person. And so after a few years at UCLA, I quit my job there, I moved to New York City, and then I became a full time freelancer, working across all the different media networks, writing, and also producing digital content and documentary films. And so you just you just quit your job and job and move to New York. What's the? I did. Did you were you offered a job in New York? Is that something that's pretty incredible in itself? Yeah. No, I was not offered a job in New York. I've never after I left UCLA. And after I left LA, I've never had a nine to five full time job again. I was totally freelancing the entire time. And then I started my own company. Was it difficult to move to New York? It's a pretty brave thing to do, right? Yeah, I think my my coming to New York sure is. I think it's quite common to a lot of people where, you know, I crashed with my cousin and my best friend for like the first six months. And I actually would go back and forth between my best friend's studio apartment in the LAS and then my cousin's apartment in Bushwick. I would just go back and forth and crash at both places for a little while. I'd kind of like, you know, I'd saved up from working full time for three years. I would slowly build my network in New York City. I actually interned for, you know, at a place in New York City in the beginning for free, for no pay, just to kind of build my network and meet people. And after doing that for about six months, you know, I eventually started getting freelance gigs. They're all very, very small. You know, I also worked. I've worked in the service industry since I was in high school as a server and a host. So I also did that on the side. I did lots of random gigs, whether it was freelancing as a writing counselor for college essays, copywriting, writing articles. I did some some hospitality work. I was just like classic, brand new to New York, doing a million jobs. And I've heard you say, again, somewhere else that I read, you talked about your nine to five and then you talked about your five to nine. Tell the listeners a little bit about that. You know, while I was working, you know, full time jobs for a solid three years, the first job was in Boston. The second job was in L.A. When I was working like this nine to five job, I was always kind of building like my own creative career off the clock because, again, at my heart, I was always an artist and a creative storyteller. And during those first few years post-college where I was working for another company full time, I really built a structure around my work life where I could dedicate my time off the clock to building my creative career. So as soon as I was like, quote unquote, off the clock at 5 p.m. at my daytime job or whatever, I go straight into developing my creative projects and my creative projects included, you know, writing poetry or making chapbooks or making digital content or, you know, making new websites. Like, I really treated my creative career during those years as like my second job at just as if anyone would have like a double shift. Right. And doing that for a few years really helps me feel comfortable eventually quitting my day job and then moving to New York and then kind of like hitting the ground running with all my creative energy. Right. So, yeah, I definitely I remember when I was doing like so many different things at once. And I think for people who, you know, want to have a creative side hustle or they want to transition from like their day job to like a full time creative career, just having the discipline to building out like what does that transitional period look like? Because for me, you know, unless you have like, you know, a nice chunk of money where you can just transition easily like I didn't have that. I was like saving up and and working this second job creatively to build my creative career so that I could slowly transition. That's how I made the transition to New York. Yeah, I think I think what you just said there, you know, it's it's it's funny because you say it's so like this is my life. This is like what I do. But a lot of people, you know, I can relate myself to just a lot of people, you know, go home at five and day's over. Netflix is on. TV's on. Video games are on. And it's good to relax and all that, I think, for sure. And especially like, you know, I get everyone I get burnt out. People get burnt out. But but to also find time for, you know, creative work and find time to work on things that that you want to work on when you when especially when you're not working on something that you really, really enjoy and want to do forever in your in your nine to five is is great. It's great to hear. That's that's what you what you what you did. I definitely did something similar when it comes to YouTube. YouTube was my hobby before this, and I never really expected it to be like a full time thing by any means. But it's it's incredible just how often that you hear that story. Just people I talk to, too. It's it was a passion of theirs that they really put time into when they could weekends after work, different times like that. So, yeah, I think what you did was was amazing. So take me from there into the coffee industry. How do you go from, you know, media and everything you were doing at the time into the coffee industry? So, you know, yes. So as a freelancer in New York, you know, from like 2012 to about 2019, I spent a lot of time in coffee shops. Right. Especially because I was crashing at people's apartments and or I eventually got an apartment, which is very, very small. And so I spent a lot of time in coffee shops and I started noticing Vietnamese iced coffee popping up as a trend on a lot of cafe menus around 2016. And this was also around the time of like Vietnamese food and culture was having a really big moment in mainstream America. We're seeing the emergence of like so many more first generation owned and operated Vietnamese restaurants. Right. So we're definitely seeing this cultural wave grow quickly around 2016. However, every time I would order the Vietnamese iced coffee at one of the specialty cafes, they were never using actual Vietnamese coffee beans. And I knew this because I would ask the barista, what's in this drink? And they'd say, oh, it's our house Brazilian or house Ethiopian. And we add sweetened condensed milk to it. So I thought this was really interesting and problematic for many reasons. One, when we do that, we're rendering the actual producers invisible, whether they're Ethiopian producers or Brazilian producers. Why? Why can't we just call it Ethiopian coffee with sweetened condensed milk? Right. In an industry that prioritizes transparency. Right. You think that that's what they would do to give credit to where it's due. We're seeing people who want to leverage this trend or the culture cachet of Vietnam or Vietnamese coffee because Vietnam is trending. But yet the producers and the people of this culture, specifically Vietnamese people or Vietnamese farmers, are not benefiting from this transaction. And so I found that to be really problematic as somebody who comes from a community organizing and activist background. I found it to be exploitative. I found it to be appropriation. But more than anything, I found it to really exclude people from the opportunity to be part of this moment. So I asked myself, like, oh, why don't they just use real Vietnamese coffee beans? Right. This is when we are experiencing the third wave, especially coffee brands like Blue Bottle and Stumptown and Intelligentsia are offering these single origin coffee beans, specifically Arabica from specific locations. Right. And I could not find a single origin Vietnamese coffee bean anywhere on the craft roasting, especially coffee market. And I wondered, well, maybe Vietnam doesn't grow coffee. Right. Not true at all. You know, in my research, I was so blown away to learn that Vietnam is actually the second largest producer of coffee in the world. Right. And I didn't know this. And I feel like most people I've spoken to since were also like, I didn't know that. Right. And I was like, wow, how do I not know this as a Vietnamese person? Right. As a Vietnamese American. And this led me to feel like, oh, because a lack of transparency and lack of visibility and lack of representation, because instead of like for some parts of the world, people can say, oh, this is a Colombian coffee. But for some reason, that value of transparency is not being applied to Southeast Asia as a region or Vietnam as a region. Right. So there's a huge level of hypocrisy happening here of like who we determine is deserving of that of that value of transparency. So lack of transparency, lack of visibility, lack of representation. These are all things that I felt in my life as an individual growing up. Right. And so even though Vietnam is a major contributor to coffee experiences around the world, Vietnam has essentially been rendered invisible in the global coffee conversation where we are not calling out this is a product or this product contains coffee beans from Vietnam. It's simply coffee. Right. So it was such a then when I was kind of like working through all of these realizations, I was like, wow, this is such a missed opportunity for a culture connection and appreciation and more than anything for people at the end of the supply chain to have an opportunity to elevate, have agency, have respect and recognition and to have a chance to advance their livelihoods. So as I was working through all of this, you know, I'm deep in my career as a filmmaker and storyteller dedicated to increasing representation on the screen. And so all this was like, oh, now I'm just going to transfer my mission for increasing representation, visibility in the coffee industry. That's really interesting, like where you saw that opportunity from your media side and from your, you know, your side of just looking into cultural representation and really, really interesting. Do you find is it mostly Vietnam specifically or is it the coffee industry as a whole? Is it a problem? The lack of representation of coffee farmers? I would say just from my experience, what I was learning was that because Vietnam is the second largest producer of coffee, yet most people don't know this, I do feel like the lack of representation is specifically to Vietnam. However, you bring up a good question, Joel. More broadly than the origin of Vietnam, Vietnam is also the world's largest producer of robusta beans. Robusta beans are one of the most popular types of coffee beans in the world. And the other piece of lack of representation and lack of visibility and also inclusion was happening around the robusta bean as a variety because in especially coffee culture in the U.S., what we have been experiencing is this high praise to Arabica exclusively, right, where the industry explicitly only prefers Arabica as a coffee and they explicitly exclude robusta by literally saying things on the Internet, you know, on packaging, saying things like robusta is inferior to Arabica. So the coffee industry has developed this narrative that Arabica beans are superior and robusta beans are inferior, which is simply not true because what makes it great, what makes it superior or inferior or good coffee or bad coffee is not inherent to the qualities of the bean. It's dependent on the production of the coffee, right? And so even though Arabica has been hailed as like the specialty coffee variety, there's also poorly grown Arabica around the world, right? And so this level of care that we've seen through the specialty coffee industry to elevate Arabica varieties around the world was not being offered to robusta beans, but more specifically to robusta farming communities. And so and now even though Vietnam is the number one producer of robusta beans, many countries on the world also grow robusta. So now we are dealing with an issue of lack of representation, but really lack of inclusion and opportunity for growth for robusta farm communities all around the world, right? And when I go to like specialty coffee conventions, I meet producers from Uganda, from Ethiopia, from Brazil, from Colombia who all come up to me and say, oh, we also grow robusta. And we also feel like we've been left out of the conversation, right? So yeah, so it's definitely Vietnam as an origin, which is something that I talk about a lot naturally because of my connection to the space, but also because Vietnam is number two in the world. But more broadly, it's actually robusta as a variety has also been excluded and hasn't really been properly represented in the coffee industry. So through our work by elevating Vietnamese coffee as an entry point, we're also elevating the conversation around robusta as a variety. And if we can generate this awareness and this appreciation for robusta, we are able to unlock a pathway for robusta farming communities all around the world to sustain their livelihoods. I had never heard of robusta before. Arabica, you see that everywhere, right? On the McDonald's coffee, it says like 100%, but you don't, I can't remember anywhere I've seen robusta. So, or, you know, even just the origin of coffee once in a while, maybe sometimes with like craft coffee, you see where they got it from, but it really, it's about the company, right? It's about the brand, the Starbucks of the world. And speaking of Starbucks, do you, are you against like companies like that, like Starbucks, are they doing an okay job? Do you like some of those bigger coffee companies, are they not doing a good job? Yeah, I'm not against, I'm not against any, any coffee company. Um, I'm sorry, what is your question? Just when it comes to like how they're doing, when it comes to visibility of where they're getting their coffee from, and even just how much they give back to farmers, how are they doing a good job or a poor job? Yeah, I don't know enough about all these other companies and workings and what they're doing to really speak on their practices. Um, I'm not against any other coffee company. Um, I'm not trying to replace any other coffee company or even the variety. I'm simply here to expand the conversation, right? And to expand the future of coffee, to be inclusive of robust as a variety and to be inclusive of underappreciated coffee growing regions, such as Southeast Asia, and more specifically Vietnam, who is also the second largest producer of coffee, right? That's really, I appreciate your question, Joe. And that's really important for us as a, as a company is we're not here to, because part of our mission is to break down this really elitist, um, culture of coffee, which says this is good. And this is bad coffee. This is a good coffee brands is a bad coffee brand where we're simply not here for that. We want to break down elitism in coffee, and we want to build a truly diverse and inclusive coffee culture. And so part of that is saying, if you like bodega coffee, that's great. Good for you. If you like a latte, that's like specialty, single origin. Great. That's good for you. If you like instant coffee in the morning, because it's because you prioritize convenience, that's great for you. If you want to grind your coffee, good for you, right? We're definitely, we're definitely, we're not here to say this is the best way to drink coffee. And we're not even here to say Robusta is better than Arabica. Definitely not because Robusta and Arabica beans will never replace each other. They do different things, right? We are here truly to expand the conversation and to make room to include the communities and the countries and the origins and the varieties that have been excluded from the conversation for way too long. I like that. I like how you're, you know, you're building your own thing. You're looking at what you stand for and what you think is the right thing. And you're not too worried about the others, right? What is Starbucks doing today? I don't care because I'm building my own thing, right? And growing the industry as a whole. And the whole industry is massive, right? So definitely not worried about what anyone's doing. I have no control over that. However, what I am confident about is that if I can shape the industry through this new perspective and framework of how do we be more inclusive of Robusta and Southeast Asia as a region and inclusive of all communities, if I can promote that framework and perspective well, then I hope that other coffee companies, big and small, can begin to implement the same framework and perspective, right? Maybe some of these other bigger companies who only put 100% Arabica on their packaging, maybe they'll start to put 30% Arabica and 70% Robusta on their packaging, right? Maybe they'll start to offer transparency and variety on their packaging. Maybe they'll say, may we're Robusta beans from Vietnam, even if it's just 10% or 15% in their expresso blend, right? That is the hope that we will be able to affect the entire industry. So I want to go back to the journey a little bit because I think one piece that I'm curious about is how did you go from idea to getting started? And that's, I think, where a lot of people get stuck. Sure. I feel like building a business, especially in the very beginning, is like putting a puzzle together, right? So for me, when I'm building a business, especially in the very beginning, I didn't have the blueprint. I didn't have the entire roadmap. I had no idea what it looks like, honestly, but I just did really focus on what is the next step you need to achieve to get yourself to that next step, right? And that's how I approach building business. I feel like sometimes we can get overwhelmed when we're like, I don't know the whole picture. I don't have the whole plan. I've always entered, um, you know, a project or a business without having the whole plan. I think that's really key to getting started and really key to figuring things out. So just like a puzzle, like I would just look for like that next puzzle piece that I needed to just capture and lay down. And once I picked it up and I laid it down, I connected it to what I was doing and I figured out what the next piece of the puzzle I needed was, then I would move on to the next piece, right? And so that's how I've approached building the business from going from idea to action. And so to be more specific, I have this idea and I was like, well, what is the very first thing I need? I was like, I need to see if I can actually import coffee beans, right? I need to see if I can develop a direct trade relationship with a producer. And so I went to Vietnam and I visited my family and I asked my family, does anybody know anybody? And they're like, we do. And like they helped me strike up that first relationship. The next question was like, well, how do I bring coffee beans here? I start asking Google, how do you bring coffee beans to the United States? How do you import? And then Google tells you, well, you need this. You need to register the FDA. You need a customs broker. You need a freight forwarder. And then I'm like, what is a freight forwarder? And then you Google a freight forwarder, right? That's literally how I built the business. I just asked a lot of questions. I asked Google a lot. I focused on finding one piece of the puzzle at a time. Once I found that piece, I'd lay it down and look for that next piece until eventually I had my first pallet here. I had my bags here. I had everything ready to go. I had a website up. I had photos. And then I had a launch party. Wow. You make it sound so easy. In retrospect. Yeah. In retrospect. Exactly. But I mean, not everyone. Yeah. I mean, you went to Vietnam. That's not everyone would take that step, right? People get stuck right there. So I think your journey is pretty incredible. Well, actually, you know, what's really even more interesting about that trip? I actually, I wasn't going to Vietnam specifically for coffee. I was actually on my way to Cambodia to film my documentary that at the time for NBC. And because Cambodia and Vietnam were so close, I was like, let me just swing by Vietnam first to visit my family. And then that at that point was when I started asking about the coffee farms, right? But it actually was very interesting. Like my journey in film brought me to Southeast Asia. And I just happened to have made like a pit stop in Vietnam. All right. I got a couple of different questions for you that kind of go off of the timeline and just into more of like life advice or more about you. So when you think back, I guess I don't know how old you are. Are you in your 20s or 30s? Oh my gosh. No, I'm 35. I definitely don't. I wouldn't feel confident building this in my 20s. Not that some people can't do, but me, I don't think I could do it. And so I guess that's my question is what advice would you give to your 20 year old self? 20s, 20s, 20s. I feel like in my 20s, like being in my 20s, especially the part when I was in New York City and I was freelancing and, you know, New York has like such this like energy of like, yeah, we're all out here hustling. We're all trying to make it right. I was like really engulfed in the energy a lot. I felt like I was rushing a lot in my 20s, like rushing to make it or like rushing to prove something of myself or rushing to have something to show for myself. So if I could, you know, a piece of advice I give my 20 year old self is don't be in a rush. You know, enjoy the journey. Enjoy the process. Enjoy everything you're going through because it goes by really quickly. Right. And then it gets a lot harder. So, yeah, that's what I'd say. Don't be in a rush. That's great advice. And I can relate 100% with that. Everything feels like a rush often. So I got to pull it back some days, right? Do you have any daily habits or rituals that you do? Yeah. Daily habits or rituals. Let's see. Well, I definitely drink coffee every morning. Daily habits or rituals. I in the mornings, I like to really take my time. I wake up like maybe around between 6 and 7 a.m. and I just really enjoy my morning, whether it's, you know, sometimes I'll take a cold bath or I love just like I'll either take a cold, sorry, not cold bath, a cold shower. I'll either take a cold shower or I'll just wash my face with cold water. I love the feeling of like stimulating like my cells and my body and my brain with cold water. I love to make coffee in the morning. I usually have a coffee routine here. Usually do like a Vietnamese latte with like a double shot of espresso and using our Vietnamese coffee beans, some steamed milk, squeeze sweetened condensed milk, not too sweet. And lately I've been adding collagen powder, not for flavor, but more for the benefits. I do spend a little bit of time in the mornings catching up on my phone because I turn my, I kind of unplug my phone early at night. And then during the daytime, I really don't have any time to be in my phone to like either be on social or like check the news and just working a lot during the day. So in the mornings I like to do a little bit of scrolling. And then occasionally I'll do like my morning stretches for like five minutes. When it comes to your coffee, I think it's mostly sold within stores, right? Or do you guys have a physical location anywhere? We do not have a physical location. We are importing and roasting company. We're sold primarily online and through wholesale. What's the percentage like? Is it more online? More is it 50-50? Yeah, it's more aligned. It's about, I'd say like 85% online right now. What have been your greatest failures and what did you learn from them? Failure. I guess if we're talking about failure in a traditional sense, we don't get into this. But I guess if we're talking about failure in a traditional sense, one of the things that I did work on in my time in New York before starting New England Coffee Supply was I helped open a restaurant. A really small, fast, casual Vietnamese restaurant here in Brooklyn, which I'm no longer part of. Definitely not a failure in my eyes. It was such a great learning experience. I got so much great value out of it. However, I'd say that experience has made me such a better entrepreneur for my current company. I'd say some of the lessons that I learned from my first restaurant business was to get really clear on why you're doing something and when it's no longer working. I think there were lots of moments in my restaurant journey where things weren't really working and I felt like I didn't want to let it go. Another lesson I learned from the experience was to have really clear boundaries with the people that you work with, especially if they're your business partners. In small businesses, we tend to have really intimate relationships and we're really in a lot of the trenches together. It's easy to feel clouded by the sense of intimacy when we're going through all the highs and the lows. However, a lesson I learned from that was to have really clear boundaries and to remember why you're in a relationship in the first place, which is the business. It's really important to put the needs of the business first. What else? I'll try to offer one more. One more lesson I learned from my last business was to not take things personally. I had that business in my 20s. I'm a very different person now. I've had a lot of time to reflect and I think when things don't go the way I wanted them to or the way I expected them to, I would often take it personally. This relates to what I was just saying. In business, it's never personal. In business, it's always about what is the best thing for the greater collective here, which is everyone involved in the business, not just one individual. It's never personal. This continues on from some of what you were just saying, but on those days that are really tough, how do you stay motivated? Currently, on the really hard days, how do I stay motivated? I'm easily motivated nowadays because I have such a strong, strong passion in what I'm doing. I feel so strongly in our mission. I have such deep conviction that this is what I am meant to be doing. That sense of why, that sense of purpose for me and why I'm doing this, that North Star is so clear to me that the hard days never really feel that hard. They just feel logistically difficult, but my sense of purpose is always clear. I think getting really clear on why you're doing something really, really helps bring forth the motivation when you're feeling low or if you're going through a challenge. One more question. We didn't talk too much about culture. We did at the start, but how do you deal with people who don't know much about your culture and community and your business? How do you deal with those kind of people? If people don't understand, is it education? Do you show them your website? Do you explain what you're doing? I think a lot of it is having a conversation with people and sharing my story, sharing why I'm doing this, which includes educating them about the coffee industry and about the inequities that exist and educating them about the different varieties. Definitely a lot of education. For us, a lot of education happens through storytelling, which is something that I feel really fortunate to enjoy doing because I did a lot of that in my previous career. That's great. I do think that's a really strong strength of yours from what I've seen from your videos, this interview, and your website as well. The story section is really enlightening of your journey and where the company comes from. Next question is, what's next for you? What's next now that you just raised some money? That's really interesting. First up, we just announced our first national retail partnership with The Wing, which is a women-centered co-working space. They have six locations across the country, and we are their primary coffee roaster. We're very excited about launching that this month. Also, a lot of the funds that were raised is going towards new product innovation, which we've been working on for the last eight months. We're getting really, really close to launching something really new and exciting and unprecedented, actually, in the category. We're really excited to launch that, and people will probably hear about it this summer. When you think of the word successful, who is the first person that comes to mind and why? Definitely my parents. They have gone through so much more than me. What they've experienced in their lifetime alone is just such a wide stretch, right? From living through a war in their homeland when they were teenagers, escaping the country on a boat during the 70s, coming to the U.S. without anything, not knowing the language. Then now, it's a point where they've built their own businesses here. They've raised three kids, and now my dad likes to go golfing. They're engaging in cryptocurrency conversations with their kids. My dad tried the Oculus for the first time a few weeks ago, being immersed in this 3D world. Just the span of what they've experienced is really inspirational to me. I feel like everything they've gone through, they've experienced, everything they've survived, and to the point where everything they've accomplished to thrive in this country, I find to be insanely successful and really the epitome of success. Everything they've gone through and their ability to continue to overcome, you know what I mean? And to continue to learn and grow, I find so cool. What is the book that you recommend the most? I wouldn't say I'd recommend the most, but it did come to my mind. I really enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers when I read it. It just really resonated with me, and it just helped me think about the world in a really unique way. What is something that you believe that other people think is insane? Well, I'd say that when I started in the industry, the fact that I believe that Robusta coffee is great and that Robusta is the future of our sustainable coffee future. Sorry, I said future twice. The fact that when I first started and entered the industry, the idea that Robusta coffee is great and that Robusta is the future of coffee is something that I am so passionate and adamant about, and I champion so proudly. Because it was just completely opposite of the status quo, the conventional norm of the industry when I started, I'd say people, maybe they didn't think I was insane or that the idea was insane, but that they just weren't on board with it. However, that's changing now. I read Robusta is two times as much caffeine. Is that right? Yes, and the higher caffeine content acts as a natural pest repellent, which is why it's more easier to grow, which means it puts farmers at less risk in the face of climate change, and it grows more robustly because it's pest repellent, which means it produces a higher yield per volume for farmers. So it's not only more caffeinated and delicious for consumers, but it's also better for growers. What are some common misconceptions about you? I don't know. I'm not a mind reader, but I feel like people often think I'm younger than I am because maybe I'm quite exuberant in my natural state. I'm not in a tough meeting, but I think that's a common misconception, and I'm always really surprised because I'm just kind of like, I don't think I could build this business if I was younger. Do you have a quote that you live your life by or think about often? Yes, a quote that we talk about often in our company and in just like my community of founders is, a rising tide lifts all boats. What's the worst advice you see or hear being dispensed in your world? The worst advice I hear way too often is that fresh coffee is no longer good after like two weeks post-roast, right? This idea of like, we need to have the freshest coffee, and if it's like two, three weeks after the roast day, it's bad. I absolutely hate that idea. I think it's a terrible idea. It really leads to like this sense of like fast coffee, like fast fashion, and it leads to more waste because then people feel like they need to toss the beans or they're judging beans if they're a little bit old. It's just simply not true. To me, of course, the experience of the coffee will be different if it's two weeks post-roast or like three months post-roast, but it's just going to be a different type of coffee. However, it's not bad by any means. Yeah, good to know. I actually had no idea. How long does coffee beans last? Forever? Or is there like a lifetime usually? Forever. They never expire, but of course, they're going to taste different. It's like anything. Over time, things oxidize, right? Like a slice of an apple, right? Over time, it's going to oxidize and turn brown and dry up. Like that won't happen naturally with coffee beans, but they technically don't expire. I do have one more question, which is where can people find you? Yeah. Okay, so we are super active on Instagram and TikTok, and our handle is our company name, Nguyen Coffee Supply, N-G-U-Y-E-N, Coffee Supply, or our website, nguyencoffeesupply.com, and my personal account is at oneouncegold, O-N-E-O-U-N-C-E-G-O-L-D. Awesome. Thanks, Sarah. It's been a real pleasure talking with you today, and I'm sure our viewers are really going to enjoy this interview. Oh, thank you so much for having me.