Lessons from Copper Cow Coffee’s $10 Million Success

0:00We immediately got into 300 Walmarts and that's when it was really clear that no investor can say this is going to be too niche.

0:09hey everyone i'm schwang esther shan welcome to shopify masters your companion for starting and scaling a business so many of us start our day with a cup of coffee but how often do we think about where those beans come from and who's growing them debbie way mullen is on a mission to change that whenever people are telling me no i always try to think about how can i make this undeniable. With roots in Vietnam and a background in international development, Debbie founded Copper Cow Coffee to bring Vietnamese coffee into the spotlight. You close Series A with$8.5 million, which is such a remarkable feat.

0:51We were in Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom's and like all these really premium places. She's not just building a brand. She's making history by launching the first ever certified organic Vietnamese coffee brand in the U.S. Welcome to the show, Devi. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to have you here. I love how the beginning of Copper Cow is a merge of your heritage as well as your experience in international development. Talk to us about how you were able to create the change that you wanted to see by building a business. So when I first started to think about Copper Cow Coffee, it came kind of in a convoluted way where I was first working in international development.

1:32I was working at the World Bank. My mom's from Vietnam. She was a refugee who came to the U.S. in 75. And getting to go visit Vietnam, I remember just being so, so taken by how amazing the culture was, the food, but also how much there was no opportunity. And that was why she had to leave and really wanted to have my career dedicated towards making better opportunities in Vietnam. And I just found that the work I was doing at the World Bank didn't really suit my personality. It was like a really big, slow-moving organization. And when I started to think about what am I really passionate about, it's about creating better opportunities.

2:06But also, my family were just completely obsessed with all things Vietnamese cuisine. And I first actually started with a couple of food products that I was doing on the side. They were like cooking oils for you to be able to make Vietnamese food at home. And when I started to learn, though, about the Vietnamese coffee space, I had no idea that Vietnam was the second largest coffee producer in the world. And that it was just completely left out of the specialty coffee scene and just realizing what an opportunity that would be for Vietnamese farmers and for people along the supply chain in Vietnam to be able to have economic development in Vietnam by having access to the U.S.

2:43specialty market. I think once I realized that, I can't really remember thinking about anything else since that happened about almost nine years ago now. Yeah. And to your point, right, being the second largest producer yet not included into the conversation of specialty coffee, there is a lot of misunderstanding by consumers and maybe investors about Vietnamese coffee. So how did you go about kind of incorporating the piece of education while you're still trying to market this new idea? So at the time, you know, third wave coffee was really taking off. Cold brew coffee was really taking off. First, I was trying to do a cold brew product, wasn't able to formulate something I loved.

3:21And then my father, he's from just down the way, he's from LA and he's a big coffee snob and he drank pour over coffee every day of my life growing up. And so when I discovered this little convenient single-serve pour-over format that's very popular in Asia, I got really excited about the idea that you could have a pour-over so much more conveniently and that you could also emulate that experience of a Vietnamese coffee if I manufactured an individual little sweetened condensed milk creamer. And that you have this kit to have a perfect coffee that really merged the two ways that I think really were very unique expressions of coffee that I wanted to bring to the market.

3:58What was hard was that I remember being very self-conscious that when I was starting the brand, Vietnam had such a bad reputation with coffee. And I kept getting a lot of pushback from people in the coffee space that I worked to make the packaging as premium as possible to show how much care was being put into how is the product made and what we do with our farmers and how much we pay to make sure that there's a certain quality of coffee. And we were able to get into about 2 ,000 retailers very, very quickly. Because at first when I was trying to talk to investors about it, everyone just kept hearing a Vietnamese coffee brand, they assumed that meant coffee for Vietnamese people.

4:35And I kept saying, no, Vietnamese coffee has this like chocolatey, nutty, super robust taste that's going to be completely mainstream, especially once we're able to put some care into it to make it specialty. I think that what has been challenging was just trying to convince people that this could be a mass market thing. And so for two years, I bootstrapped the company until literally Walmart called me. Walmart called me and said, we are really interested in you coming to Arkansas and to tell us about your product line. They were finding that Asian inspired flavors and Asian inspired high end products were performing really, really well in their stores and with the customers that they were really trying to woo into their doors.

5:12And that was when everything kind of changed. We immediately got into 300 Walmarts within the first two years of the company. And that's when it was really clear that, you know, no investor can say this is going to be too niche if Walmart is literally calling you to come on their shelves. What an amazing moment to have a retailer support you and open doors to investors as well because you've had such a long investing journey. I know that in 2021, you closed Series A with$8.5 million, which is such a remarkable feat in this climate with investing. Throughout all the rounds, you had to convince so many people to take a chance.

5:50I guess, what is your advice for founders who are in the direct-to-consumer space, in consumer packaged goods space right now, that's having a bit of a hard time to share their story and get buy-in? The thing that I always come back to whenever people are telling me no, and I really believe in something, is I always try to think about how can I make this undeniable? You know, I remember going and talking to investors and them just being like, I mean, I like it, but, you know, they say that this was wrong or that was wrong. And I think that you begin to say, what is a number or a thing that can just completely kind of, you know, quiet any type of concern that someone would have?

6:30and that would always be kind of the North Star. And because that was the thing that I repeatedly got was that this is too niche. This is too niche. This is going to be too small of a product line, too small of an audience. And to say, what is the proof point? And I remember when Walmart called, I did have some of my peers say, well, Walmart is low end. You can't go into Walmart. You're a premium. At the same time, we were in Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom's and like all these really premium places. And nobody cared because I was saying that we're not going into Walmart because we're going to be low in.

7:00Walmart is trying to be high end and that's why they're bringing brands like us in. And that's really the thesis that we were able to bring forward around where the brand was going to go and the potential of how big it could get. And I think that just what are the numbers that you can show? What is the traction that you can show to just make something completely undeniable and to think about what kind of resources you can have towards that? That's always what I've come back to because I think that you just can't make someone see something unless you prove it yourself. Yeah. And I think the customer interest really speaks for you as well from, I guess, the customer acquisition side.

7:36Has strategy changed over the years? Because the proof point is that there's so many people interested in cow per cow and that's why there's retailer interest and there's investor interest as well. Our acquisition or customer awareness strategy is literally changing every day. I mean, And it's changed so much over the course of the company. When I first started, it was literally going to, you know, farmers markets and craft fairs and just trying to get feedback about what people thought. And then eventually we were able to afford, you know, meta ads. And that's when it felt like kind of everything changed during kind of the heyday of being able to really find customers through those platforms.

8:14And then now today, I think it's definitely much more about storytelling and it's about word of mouth. and I think that it's about just having the best product at the best price on shelf and that's going to be what is going to drive people to want to try something more than anything is that they're going to hear that it's great and they're going to see a great price point and they're going to see a beautiful package and they're going to be interested in trying it. For years we were able to kind of grow our pour over and our creamer strategy through direct to consumer because the visuals were so unique and it was so eye-catching through the ground coffee where it's really hard to understand visually what's the difference between your ground coffee and someone else's.

8:52It's been word of mouth that has driven it to be now 50 % of our business today. That's incredible because that's also your intuition and also following the feedback of customers to expand into new product lines and really grow with where your customer wants the business to be. To your point, you know, expanding out of the latte kind of setup, the pour over setup, the creamers to now ground coffee. Has there been just like customer feedback and other processes that have really helped you to be closer to the customer? Yeah. I mean, I think that no matter how big your direct-to-consumer business is, it is so valuable.

9:31You have all the contact information. You know exactly where someone lives. You know what product they bought. It is like such a treasure trove of information. And so something that we've always done is we call our customers or we ask them if they're willing to be recorded on an interview. And people are always so excited to be part of a brand that way. And so what made us actually launch the ground coffee line is that we had interviews with customers. We would look at, okay, let's just like call a random, you know, 20 customers that had bought a certain type of product mix. And we would ask them, okay, so what do you, do you like the product?

10:06And it would have like, we had a crazy NPS score. We always, we have like an Apple NPS score. So we're like, so why did you only buy the coffee twice this year if you love it so much. If you say it's your favorite coffee, people would even say. And they were like, well, it's my special occasion coffee. It's the coffee I drink when I go and visit somebody. It's the gift I give or it's something that I drink when I go have a coffee date with a coworker. It's something that we were realizing was someone's travel coffee or at best Saturday coffee. And we're like, all the work that we're doing in Vietnam, all the work that we're doing around putting real flavors into coffee, this stuff that's innovation for your everyday cup is being really kind of held back by the format.

10:52And so as much as the format was kind of, to be honest, like an acquisition, like juggernaut, and that like, you know, it does really well in ads because people are just so, so entranced by a unique new coffee product, but really you want the coffee to sing because that's actually what we're really about and what we've spent the most time innovating on. And so that was when we decided, well, how can we become more of an everyday coffee. And it's been a really long journey. It took a while for our existing customers to kind of take hold of it. We've been national with Whole Foods with the pour over line for the last four years.

11:24And as soon as we got the ground coffee on shelves, it had like triple the velocity. So it just really showcased, and not only that, but you really see it build over time. Like as you do promotions, as you're able to kind of get new customers, you see that those people are the ones who are probably buying it once or twice a month, which is the kind of customer that you want to have. Yeah, you really increase the lifetime value of customers because now this is a everyday ritual instead of a special occasion ritual. Yes, it's like an incredibly high percentage of our subscription today, for example, you know, and how that's really important about how do you please that customer and what I always call like, how do we get more of the share of their coffee wallet?

12:00Because, you know, we all spend a lot on coffee more than ever today. And so how do you really kind of win over that customer to be their everyday coffee is what we're after today. And on the flip side, in addition to building those investor relationships, retail relationships, customer acquisition, you're also building so many incredible relationships with farmers in Vietnam and actually setting up a great system for them to grow with you. Where were some of the challenges you were facing in the early days to build on those relationships? In the very beginning, I remember it being really challenging because obviously I'm not a farmer, but I knew enough to maybe be a little bit dangerous.

12:39But I also especially knew some of the things that just had to be eliminated for how they were practicing. The overuse of pesticides and chemical fertilizers was a very important thing. But also in just the way that they would pick cherries from coffee was something that was very clear needed to be changed. They would just, as soon as the cherry would get to a certain size, they would pick it. And if you just wait until there's a certain sugar level in the cherry, which is not hard to measure. It doesn't take that much longer to wait for. These like really small things that were different that we were able to introduce at the farm level completely changed the flavor of coffee that we were getting out of it.

13:17And it was challenging in the beginning because I'm trying to talk to these farmers and, you know, I'm not a farmer. I don't even speak Vietnamese fluently. And I'm going through a translator and a lot of people are like, well, my family has farmed for generations. Why are you telling me that we're doing something wrong? But the conversation really, really changes quickly when you just want to spend time with them, when you're curious about what they do, you're curious about how they've been able to improve their farms. And then most importantly, you're able to talk to them about the economic opportunity of the changes.

13:51I'm not just telling them that I want them to do it differently and that they're going to get the same. I'm like, no, I'll pay you twice market rates, which nobody is doing in Vietnam at that time. And we came back the next year and we bought all of the coffee. And the next year we came back and we encouraged the co-op to expand further into the standards that we had. And we were able to buy more and more every year. And now we've got a really great reputation with farmers and they want to listen. They want to talk. They want to hear about how they can have access to better markets. And I think that that's where when I think about sustainability, yes, of course, it's the amount of pesticides and herbicides and things that we're working really hard on, but it's also about following through on like a business relationship and having that trust.

14:33And that's really what makes things sustainable and makes people want to improve because we've looked into doing fair trade in Vietnam and it was absolutely impossible because fair trade came in a really big way about 10 years ago into Vietnam and convinced everybody to pay all of these additional fees, do additional paperwork to be fair trade qualified. And because Vietnam just wasn't really premium enough, nobody came and bought the coffee. No one was willing to pay. They were like, oh, I don't even pay the 5 % extra for fair trade. I'm going to just go to the farm next door who didn't pay for that.

15:06And they got burned really bad. And we found that it was really impossible for us to go in that direction. And that's why we decided that, you know, let's just skip over to our end goal, which is actually organic. And it's been really incredible to build those relationships and how excited that our co-ops have been and our farmers have been to to dive into that. And they're really aware of how much this is going to affect their lives too. And I think that that's been a really big lesson for us is that we're launching our first organic product and we're just going to do one because we don't want to over-promise and convert the whole entire line.

15:39And then if something happens, we don't want to like ruin the trust with these farmers. So we're saying, what's the exact amount that we know for sure, no matter what, we're going to be able to buy. And then next year and the next year and the next year, and to build that trust in a much more impactful way through organic. Yeah. Even for the certification process, there is such a hurdle for farmers due to language, bureaucracy, and cost. So the fact that you are helping them to be certified organic for certain lines is a huge win that they can unlock for future as well. So it's really incredible.

16:11Yeah. I know that you spent most of your time in California running this business, and you also spent a lot of time in Vietnam. How are you juggling everything, trying to run the business, scale it, grow it? I guess I'm juggling with my hands and feet. I was like how it feels on a day-to-day basis. I have two small kids. I've got a four-year-old and a one-year-old. And before I had kids, it would be so easy to just hop on a plane and spend three weeks over there. And that's become increasingly harder and harder to do with kids. And so what we've been able to do is do something that's kind of like a little bit of like a hybrid where for the last two years I've spent about two months a year in Vietnam and it's ended up being this like pretty special work and life experience where my husband works at the company too.

17:00He's been working full-time at the company for four years and so we go out to Vietnam together. We bring our kids. My mom comes and it was really special because my mom and I went to the country when I was first thinking about starting Copper Cow in 2016. And it was even such a different place then than it is now. And, you know, we went and we just kind of, she's from the city center of Saigon. And I think we just kind of did some touristy stuff. And over the last, you know, eight years, I've gotten to know this totally different side of Vietnam. There's so much going on culturally. There's so much amazing stuff.

17:36There's this incredibly large thriving middle class and how it's such a different place than the way my mom remembers it. Having the opportunity to go there for two months with her and for the first time in 2023 and then again in 2024 and to be able to show her just the way, I mean, she's just like, oh my gosh, it's like Gelson's, but Vietnamese, you know, she's like so excited about all of the ways that Vietnamese people are living and thriving as their economy has been, you know, the fastest developing economy for almost 15 years now. And so we go there, we land, we hire a nanny, and we're able to just kind of sprint and work there for two months and be able to get so much done, which is the way that we've been able to create the operation and the relationships that we have in Vietnam, even though it's a lot harder for me to juggle between L.A.

18:27and Vietnam. And I think it's been a lot of work, but I think it's been a really, really incredible life experience. And my four-year-old son talks about Vietnam all the time, you know, and he loves it. And, you know, he speaks a little bit of Vietnamese from that time there even, which is really fun to hear. And I think that it's a really cool way to be kind of raising my kids. You mentioned that Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies, but you're also a part of that change, right? your business is literally providing the livelihood of so many families. And then also on the flip side, you come to California, you can go into Whole Foods and Air One and see your product.

19:03Yeah. How does that feel to see the impact of your idea in real life? I think something that's a challenge or a curse of being an entrepreneur is I feel like, you know, like if you had told me, you know, like eight years ago that this is what would happen, I'd be like, are you kidding? That's like, it's going to be an air one. It's going to be in Whole Foods. It's going to be in Target. And you're going to be able to certify organic. You're going to do all this work. I would just be so excited. But something that I feel like that keeps happening when you have a mission or an impact orientation with your company or what you're doing, everything always takes longer than you think it would is one thing.

19:42But then also as that happens, the vision of what you think is possible for the impact gets bigger too. You know, I'm eight years in and I just feel like the bar has moved so much further. You know, I see Vietnam being this incredible solution to like the coffee crisis that we're in right now. You know, coffee prices across the world have been double for almost a year now. And any coffee drinker is feeling that when they're walking into a coffee shop or looking at like their bag of beans being much more expensive. And Arabica coffee, which is primarily what America drinks today, is getting harder and harder to grow.

20:16And Robusta coffee, which is what Vietnam specializes in, is much more climate resilient, which requires much less water, much less labor. And it's going to be a big solution for you to have an amazing cup of coffee at an affordable price. And so I think just the ambition of what that's going to be and what that impact is going to be to the market feels so much more exciting than what I had even set out to do in the beginning. I had no idea what it would be like to actually convert the farms organically and to see how much they thrive in those environments compared to Arabica has been really, really exciting.

20:51I try to take time to appreciate how far things have come, but it's really hard to not just be like, but this hasn't happened yet. And that's all actually I can be thinking about and what I'm focused on. Yeah, because I think I visualize it like you're summiting a mountain and you're kind of seeing the new peaks. But it's also nice to kind of look down a little bit and be like, wow, I've actually come really far. I think all my investors are always like, you don't do that enough. You need to pause. And they're always like, you always come to me as being like, I have all these problems. And they're like, it sounds like things are actually going really well.

21:27And it's like, I think it's about a mindset that takes a lot of conditioning and practice that I'm currently working on. Yeah. Yeah. One of the reasons why coffee, the commodity price is at its highest in decades is because it's an environmental impact and the lack of supply within Arabica coffee. How does that impact the growers and farmers you work with in Vietnam? Climate change is affecting all coffee and it's harder than ever to grow coffee. Coffee requires a lot of water. Arabica coffee requires a lot of care. And Arabica coffee requires quite a bit of like pesticides and chemical fertilizers compared to other crops.

22:09If you look at other commodity spaces, like rice or flour or fruit or vegetables, there's a much higher penetration of organic products than for coffee because Arabica is so difficult to grow organically. So for like our organic farms that we have today, we have almost 3x productivity in our organic farms compared to a typical conventional Arabica farm. So like per acre, we're making about three times as much coffee in an organic farm. And it's requiring less water per pound, a ton less labor. And it's really just because Robusta is, it's very caffeinated, so pests don't want to eat it. And it doesn't require as much water.

22:48and the beans are about twice as large as an Arabica bean. And so that's why there's so much more coffee that yields per acre. And that's why investment in Robusta, you're seeing it in Vietnam, you're seeing it in Brazil and a lot of coffee growing regions that Robusta does seem like a much more productive crop. And for us, we've really honed in on it's particularly exciting for organic because people want to drink organic products. People want organic products in their pantry. and coffee just as I feel like there's kind of two places for organic coffee right now. It's either like a$25 bag of super high end organic coffee, or it's going to be, you know, no name, like, you know, grocery label organic coffee that honestly tastes kind of terrible.

23:30And so I think that this is going to be a really big solution for you to be able to have a great cup of coffee at a good price. And it's going to be organic. Well, you mentioned, you know, the process of certifying organic is an unlock because you know, it's hopefully a solution to the commodity crisis within coffee. I guess for anyone who is at the beginning of a certification process, what are some things they should think about? Because it is a quite big undertaking. I've got some good friends at Patagonia Provisions, for instance, who are doing amazing work in like regenerative organic. And I was like talking to everyone I could about how to become organic certified.

24:09And it's really hard as a brand, because I think that almost all the advice was, well, you just search in the organic database and find a farm. But I'm like, but what I want doesn't exist in Vietnam. So how do I go about it? And I think that what I would really recommend is to make sure that is there a market for what you want to do? And if there is, just don't be afraid to talk directly to everybody along the supply chain. Because once we got the farmers on board, we thought that we were done. And it turned out that actually one of the biggest bottlenecks is processing coffee in an organic certified facility.