anything goes with emma chamberlain - starting my own company

Episode Date: October 1, 2020

Starting a business has a ton of ups and downs, and Emma’s been through it all launching (and re-launching) her company and passion project Chamberlain Coffee. All of the trials and tribulations of getting a company up and running, from creating the product, creating the voice, branding, etc. Emma chats about it all and gives advice to anyone considering starting their own business as well. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everybody, welcome back to anything goes. I have re-recorded this intro 50 times. And I honestly think I'm kind of nervous for this episode because I want it to be perfect. But I just need to relax. Okay, this is my safe space. Anything goes is my safe space, truly. So let me loosen up. I'll take a deep breath. Let's get started. Today I'm going to be talking about Chamberlain Coffee and my business life, if you will. This is something that I never talk about, which is surprising because I talk about 90% of my life on the internet. I just don't talk about this a lot, and I think it's because, number one, I don't know if it's interesting.

Number two, I sometimes feel like talking about the business element of things. Can, like, ruin the experience when you know too much of the behind the scenes. I don't know, I worry about oversharing about the business side because I'm like, will that take away from the customer experience? I don't know. I also just haven't been able to talk about it because a lot of things have been a secret and we've been working on so much stuff for so long and it's been like a secret. So I couldn't bring it up and I couldn't like

allude to it either because then that's just annoying if I'm like half talking about something but I've been waiting to do this episode for months. Like since I started anything goes, I was like, I wanna make an episode about running a business and starting a business and chamroling coffee and everything like, I want to. But I had to wait until we relaunch the company

because we've been working on relaunching it for so long. Anyway, you guys don't care. Let's just get right into it. I'm so excited. This is very long awaited for me. And I just, it makes it to tell you guys about the process and what it's really like and the truth of it all, I guess. So buckle your seatbelt and let's take a ride into coffee town.

I regret saying those things every time. I say things like that. Say to my friends, I say it by myself. I say to my parents, whatever, and I never feel good about it. I always regret it. So, there's just another one. It's like, I say things that are cringy and I know that they're cringy and I think it's funny.

But then, it still hurts even when it's a jo- and you know what I mean? So I'm gonna work on that. I'm gonna work on being cooler. I know I'm gonna be a nerdy mom when I'm a mom. I, maybe not, but I feel like there's a decent chance that I'm gonna be a massive nerd when I'm an adult. Kind of like my own mother.

I love my mom, but she's very nerdy in her own little way. Like she loves squirrels and she loves Lord of the Rings and stuff like that. And she like, you know, says things that are funny because they're like, she likes the corny stuff in life. Sometimes she likes corny quotes and stuff. Corny Pinterest quotes, like that's her thing.

That's her forte. She loves that. I feel like I might end up like that too, which is fine with me, because my mom is one of the most endearing people ever and sweetest, except when she's yelling at me and I'm yelling at her back, but still, like, you know, that's mother daughter stuff.

Majority of the time, she's a very sweet and endearing woman. And, but I do kind of feel like I'm going to turn into her because I say things like let's take a ride into coffee town and I'm like there's just no way that that's not going to get worse and worse is I age. You know what I mean? Those things are just going to keep happening and keep getting worse. So feeling bad for my future children already, they're going to be cringed out constantly. Let's get into it though. Okay, so let's talk about Chamberlain Coffee.

Chamberlain Coffee is my coffee company. We launched in December of 2019, I believe, and initially we launched with one product, which was a steeped coffee bag. Basically imagine a tea bag that has fresh coffee grounds in it that makes one single cup of coffee at a time, or you can use it for cold brew, etc. But basically a multi-use steeped coffee bag, almost like a tea bag, but with coffee in it, you get it. If you keep up with me, you've probably seen me talk about it a thousand times.

So this is not new. We launched with that product and we launched with a very simple website, a very simple aesthetic. Everything was very simple about it. We were really focused on the product itself and making that perfect. And we weren't as focused on the voice of the brand or the aesthetic of the brand or anything like that. We were very, very focused on the product and like everything else was very secondary. We also launched very quickly after making the decision that we wanted to start a coffee

company. Like the second that we found the roaster that we wanted to use and we started working with them, it was a very quick turnaround. It only took a few months and then we started the company. I feel like it happened in a blink of an eye. So we launched. Everything was very simple. One product.

We were just going to put it out, see how it did, and go from there, right? So that's what we did. And it ended up doing very well, which was super, super exciting. I mean, it was one of the coolest moments of my life to be selling a product under my own company name. I mean, it was like the most insane thing that's ever happened to me.

And it was such a dream for me, because coffee's been such a big part of my life. One of my dreams growing up was to be a barista and to start a coffee company was just like, the dope is shit ever, right? And when people responded to it well and loved the product, I was over the moon. And so for the first few months,

we were just kind of seeing how, you know, it did over time, seeing what people were requesting for the company to do next, just kind of gathering information and just like thinking and brainstorming what was next. And you know, although the experience was very amazing and you know, people were super pumped about the product and all of that, there were some struggles within the first few months. One of those struggles being, you know, nothing is perfect when you launch a business. There's no way to predict how things are going to go or what problems may arise. It's just like you just have to do it and deal with things as they come.

And one of the issues was shipping. We had some shipping delays because, I can't exactly remember why, but I think we sold more than we expected, and so we had to roast new coffee, and that took more time than we anticipated, and then a bunch of orders got delayed, and a lot of people were mad at me, because they were like,

Emma, what the fuck, like is this a scam? Like, you know, where is it? Like, what the fuck? And I'm like, oh my God, I don't know to do like, I don't even, I don't know what to say, like whatever, not to mention, we didn't expect to sell as much as we did. And so we didn't have the proper customer service team that we needed to be responding to the people that were asking questions about their order.

And so it was just, it was immediately on a larger scale than we anticipated. And so that was like terrifying for me. And I took it very personal, right? And it hurt my feelings almost because I was like, fuck, like, everybody's mad at me, but like, this is not my fault, but also this is my company and they trust me to get their products, but we're so new and we don't know what the fuck we're doing, like we do, we know what we're doing, but like we didn't expect it to go like this and go as well as it did. And so what now, you know what I mean?

It was inevitable to have a few slip ups. And so the shipping thing was definitely one. And luckily, over time, I've figured out a way to remove myself from the stuff I can't control emotionally because people complaining about shipping or like even shipping costs or even the cost of the product, like things like that. People complaining about that used to like genuinely upset me and hurt my personal feelings. But it's part of the territory. I mean, there's, it's not avoidable.

It's inevitable that that stuff's gonna happen. But in the beginning, it was tough for me because I was very emotionally invested and any mean or negative comment about the company or criticism or anything, I'd take it straight to heart in a way that like, I don't even do with my own channel or my own personality. Like when people come for my own personality, I don't even do with my own channel or my own personality. Like when people come for my own personality,

I feel like with the company, I was taking it so much harder. And so, luckily I got over that, but it was really tough in the beginning, and I think that that's something that, you don't realize, but when you create a company, it's kinda like your baby, right?

And it's like you're raising a child. And when you have a child, that child's gonna throw up all over your shirt sometimes. That baby is going to get in trouble at school or in preschool, whatever. The baby is going to break some house rules, might like take a crown and draw on the wall. But you teach it those things and then you move forward, right? It's the exact same thing with a company. When a company is a baby, there's a lot of growing pains and there's a lot of problems that arise that you can't even anticipate until they come up.

And so that was tough for me because I think I expected it to be perfect right off the bat and it was just so far from that. And that was hard for my ego to accept at first. for me because I think I expected it to be perfect right off the bat and it was just so far from that. And that was hard for my ego to accept at first. But after a few months, we kind of leveled out and the chaos was over, the initial launch was over. We were establishing ourselves as a brand, but it started to feel like the brand was empty. And I'll explain that.

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design templates as a starting off point. Then add whatever you need to show off your ideas to get your side hustle on. You've got all the tools you need to sell products, schedule appointments, and send email campaigns to your mailing list. Plus, everything is optimized for mobile, so it looks just as good on a phone as it does on a desktop. Check out Squarespace.com for more features and inspiration, and when you're ready to build your site, use the offer code Emma for 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. One, we had only one product. Two, the aesthetic of the brand was not clear.

Like there's no clear brand aesthetic. It was very bland and not as interesting as I personally like. The social media was kind of boring and it didn't feel unique. And so my team and I decided like let's turn this into the company that we all want it to be. A company that has a distinct voice, a distinct aesthetic, a cool vision, a cool message. Let's figure all of that out and make it happen, right? So we started to build a stronger foundation for the company, meaning hiring employees,

finding investors, stuff like that, so that we could have the means to turn the company into what we wanted it to be, right? That process took a long time because, again, your business is your baby, and you don't want somebody handling your baby if you don't trust them. It's like having a babysitter. Are you going to hire some suspicious babysitter for your baby? No, because that's your baby, and if anything happens to it,

we're gonna have issues. It's the same thing with the company. So when you're hiring employees and finding investors, you wanna find people that get it, right? And that's not easy to do, because everybody thinks so differently, and finding somebody who shares the same vision as you is not easy.

And luckily I had my team, which are, you know, people at my agency who helped me start this in the first place, I had a lot of people on my personal team that, you know, does everything for me, basically, whether it's YouTube, podcasts, whatever, they are my everything, whatever. They were the ones that helped me start this company, and I luckily had them in my roasters as my initial foundation, and that was amazing, but like we needed more. And so after a little while, we found that foundation. We hired some employees. We found the perfect investors that got it and it just made sense to them.

And they saw the vision and they loved it and blah, blah, blah. And we got that all sorted out, which takes way more time than you think. Like, you know, there's a lot of legal documents that need to go back and forth. There's a lot of negotiating when it comes to equity and, you know, all of that. There's so many different things and it takes a really long time to get all of that sorted out. When you start adding people in to your company, the thing is that we were trying to build our foundation

while still running the company, right? And we were trying to deal with the team building, like basically building the team and adding more people into the company. We were trying to deal with the team building, like basically building the team and adding more people into the company. We were trying to deal with that. And that was so much work that when it came to like advancing Chamberlain Coffee at all, like there was just no time to add new products or update the website and make, you know, add new photos and stuff like that, or put a lot of time into photo shoots for the Instagram page. Like, we were so focused on

building a foundation under Chamberlain Coffee that we weren't able to really work on the brand in the present moment. We needed to get those people on our team before we could truly get started on revamping the brand and like making it amazing. And so that was really stressful for me because it was like, okay, on the outside it looks like the brand is just staying the same and is just kind of like plateauing in a sense. Not necessarily in sales even, because we still were, you know, selling quite well, it was more like we weren't advancing.

You know what I mean? Like the brand still seemed very new and very novice in a sense. And that bugged me because I knew deep down that we were taking the steps to make the company badass, but it was like it didn't look like that from the outside for months and months and months because there was so much work that had to be done behind the scenes. So that leads me to working on the relaunch. We got the investors, we got a bunch of other employees,

all of the documents were signed, it was time to start working. And so there were three main things that we worked on. Number one, the voice of the brand. What do we want the voice to be? What's the message of the brand? What's the tone of the brand? Almost as if the brand is a human being. Like, how does the brand speak to the customer?

That was one of the first things we worked on. Then it was aesthetic. Like, what's the aesthetic of the brand? You know what I mean? What's the color scheme? What's the new logo? Do we want a new logo? What's that all gonna look like?

What's the social media gonna look like? Just the overall vision of the brand. And then the last thing was, we need more products. We have one single product in one single coffee blend. We need to add more. So those were the three things that we needed to work on. Very quickly it was obvious to us that we were going to just relaunch the whole company. And it was going to be a brand new bitch. And it is, as you guys have seen, completely different brand. I mean, the coffee is still the same and, you know, it's still the same Chamoriling coffee. It's still has the same heart and soul in it. If anything has more heart and soul in it, but, you know,

it's a totally new brand and we realized, okay, there's nothing wrong with relaunching the company. I think that that's a kind of terrifying thing because relaunching a company insinuates that there was like a failure the first time. There wasn't a failure. The company was great before, it was great, but it was not as great as it. Well, you know what, let's just say it was good. It was really good. The product was good.

The product was actually great. But the brand itself was just good. We wanted everything to be great. And it's similar to like, I compare it to stupid genius versus anything goes. Stupid genius was my first podcast that I had. It was very science-based, whatever. And I did it for a few months, and then I eventually was like,

this is so not what I want it to be. Like, I enjoy podcasting, but this format doesn't work for me. So then, I took the L, and I was like, you know what? I'm just going to start a whole new podcast. Fuck it. And I'm just going to do what I want and I'm going to make it whatever I want and use what I learned from doing stupid genius to make anything goes as amazing as it could be. And anything goes has done so much better than stupid genius and has been so much more fun for me and has been so much more true to me.

And it's been an amazing experience. And even though it felt like a failure when stupid genius didn't work out, I wouldn't have anything goes if I didn't do Super Genius. Because Super Genius taught me everything I needed to know about making a podcast so that when I relaunched my podcast and renamed it anything goes and had a new format, I knew exactly what I wanted. Because I had tried it once, failed, and when I tried again,

I took what I learned, put my ego aside, and it worked out. But sometimes people want to give up. They're like, okay, the first time I didn't work, I'm done. Or the first time wasn't perfect, I'm done. You can't do that. You take what you learned, you reroute, and who knows? You know what I mean? Things don't work the first try.

Like ever. How many times did I start a YouTube channel before it worked? Like five. I literally had five YouTube channels before the one I have now. Those five didn't work. This one just did. It's the same thing with Chamberlain Coffee.

It's like the company did well. It was a successful launch. It had a successful few months, but it was so not great, branding-wise and identity-wise. And so I realized that that needed to be a priority and I made that my priority. So back to what I was talking about before, there was those three things that we needed to work on.

New products, new aesthetic, clear brand voice. And I won't get into the gritty details of all of it, but it was just a lot of trial and error and a lot of really long conversations with our whole team, just trying to narrow down what we want the whole thing to be. And you know, we had a lot of fun with it, but it was exhausting mentally. Trying to figure out how you want your brand voice to sound is one of the most confusing things ever, because it's like, okay, a brand is not just one person.

So you kind of have to create a character for it. And I never realized that. I never realized that people spend, well, companies spend months figuring out how they want every word on their page to look so that when you read a little excerpt on their website, it fits with the rest of the brand. Like it's a mind blowing thing that that all connects. But those were all the things that we needed to work on. And you know, coming up with a color scheme. And then eventually coming up with the idea to match each individual blend of coffee with an animal. That was something that came up super naturally.

Like I can't even, it was like we wanted to put an animal in the logo, but then we're like no, that's like too much, that's scary because then like what if we don't like that animal in six months, and then I was like well what if we have a simple logo and then we have a different animal for every blend so that we never get sick of one animal We have a bunch of animals and it's fun and Then you know that happened and then it was time to taste test But it was COVID so then I was getting coffee sent to my house and drinking like coffee after coffee after coffee after coffee after coffee after coffee and you know it was just crazy and Not to mention our launch got pushed back

by months and months and months just because of shipping delays with COVID. And then one of our manufacturers had a delay because there was the fire in Northern California. And so there was a lot of delays. There was a lot of bumps in the road, whether it was like figuring out color scheme that made sense to figuring out how to make the website perfect to like every detail was looked at by me and was looked at by every member of my team. Like not one thing didn't get 20 sets of eyes on it

and it took so long and it was so hard because they couldn't talk about it. And it meanwhile, this was the hardest thing for me. I knew that I was about to relaunch this company and it was about to be a whole brand new bitch and I knew that but no one else did. I was about to relaunch this company and it was about to be a whole brand new bitch and I knew that but no one else did so everybody, you know, I'm like promoting Chamberlain coffee, but deep down I'm like, uh I want to be showing them what I have in store. I don't want to show them what we have out in the world right now Like I love it and I love the product and

This is my baby and I like, you know, and I'm the product. And this is my baby. And I'm proud of it, but also I know what we're working on and I know what we have in store. And I just want people to see that right now. And it was hard for me mentally because like the rebranded version of the company was, I mean, it is levels and levels above where we started. And so it was hard for me to like not explode. And I just wanted everybody to know so bad.

Anyway, I'm gonna take a sip of my coffee now because I've been talking really fast. And I'm using my Chamelink Coffee Mason jar, which is one of my favorite products that we have ever come out with, even though it's not even coffee, but I just love the Mason jar, as well as the Night Owl blend in latte form in my cup. This episode is brought to you by Liquid IV. Liquid IV believes everybody needs hydration every day. It's not just for athletes or that one time you try to hot yoga class, staying hydrated

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Here's the thing. Now that it's out, I wanna tell you what my goal is with this company and where I want to make a difference in the coffee industry. I have always felt like coffee brands tend to be very mature and very serious and very polished, right? And that's the blueprint. Chamberlain coffee came off that way in the beginning because in a way, we were kind of copying what other coffee brands had done before, subconsciously,

because we didn't know any better. But after months of thinking and working on it and getting more familiar with this industry, I realized, where is the fun, playful, honest, no bullshit, coffee brand out there? Like, I couldn't name it, right? I wanted this balance of high quality, high, high, high quality coffee with playfulness, right? Because I feel like there's never those two things together. And even though we have a playful energy to our brand,

And even though we have a playful energy to our brand, or some of our core values are being organic, being fair trade, being eco-friendly as much as possible, all of those things are so important to us. We wanted to be a coffee brand that was high quality, educational, meaning like we explain to you in simple terms what you're drinking. That's a huge priority to us. But in an easy to understand, in not overly complicated way, we also want to have an inviting and honest and reliable.

We wanna be the reliable, honest, inviting coffee choice. You can rely on us because you know that we're organic, you know that we're fair trade, you know that we're as eco-friendly as we possibly can be, you know that we don't use pesticides, we make that very clear, that's why we're reliable. But we also wanna be honest.

So, you know, on the social media, on the website, every word that's written is honest. We're not trying to sugarcoat anything, we're not trying to make anything fluffy and overly serious. We're just honest, and straight up, and no bullshit honest, and straight up in no bullshit. But also making coffee fun,

because I think that a lot of coffee brands tend to be overly serious, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think that there's something fun about that. You know, the kind of super polished coffee brand, I totally get that, but I wanna be the fun option for the people that wanna add a little bit of color to their day. I totally get that, but I want to be the fun option for the people that want to add a little bit of color to their day, you know what I mean?

They want to smile a little bit more when they're drinking their coffee, okay? That's what I want, Ted, and want. And I really hope that that translates and I really hope that you guys feel that. And you know, we've worked so hard on this and it's truly one of my favorite things that I've ever worked on in my entire life.

I am so proud of it, and I never admit that to myself. I never say that I'm proud of something, but I am truly so proud of this, and it is my child. And, you know, I'm a control freak, but I let other people in, and I let other people come in and help me make this company as amazing as it can be, and they've done such an amazing job.

And I've given up some of my control, which was tough, but because I did that, we were able to build Chamelain Coffee into what it is today. And I hope that all of that made sense, and I know that you guys asked me some questions, so I'm going to get into questions now. But before actually, you don't know, fuck that.

Before I get into questions, I just wanna thank you guys for supporting Chammeling Coffee during its awkward teen years. It has now officially gone through puberty and how to glow up. And now everybody wants to date it. But nobody wanted to date Charmeling Coffee before. Because, you know, Charmeling Coffee had braces, Charmeling Coffee, you know, started getting acne. Chamelink coffee started smelling bad during PE. Like it was going through fucking puberty. And Chamelink coffee had a mother fucking glow up. And now, Chamelink coffee is hot and sexy and very mature, but also still playful and fun

to be around, okay? Thank you for being there for every step of Chairman Lincolff's life thus far. It is truly my child and is truly my baby. And you guys supporting it really, really means the world to me because it is genuinely a passion project for me. And from the bottom of my heart, it has nothing to do with the money, with

whatever. I haven't even made a dime off Chandler and coffee yet. I put everything back into the company. It doesn't matter to me. This is my passion project. I am so passionate about creating a coffee brand that makes people feel good that I don't care about any other element. And I really feel like this relaunch has been the most amazing step in the right direction for this company. And she's just a brand new bitch. And I love her so much. So let's get into questions. How long has it taken you to feel comfortable putting yourself out there in the business world and do you still have anxieties about it today? Yes, so here's the thing. When I started this company, it's not like I was super experienced in say roasting coffee beans.

In fact, I had no experience. The only thing I had experience in is being obsessed with coffee and knowing I wanna do something with it. But when it came to certain elements of starting a coffee company, I wasn't a pro. And I knew that and I was okay with that. But as a business owner, sometimes you feel underqualified

when you don't know how to roast a batch of coffee beans perfectly. And that's what your company is about. But personally, I wanted to challenge myself Personally, I wanted to challenge myself and learn more and find people who are really passionate about roasting coffee beans and bring those people in and have them help me, you know what I mean? And that's okay. I have good tasting coffee, I think, in my opinion.

And so, you know, I took those skills and combined them with the skills of the roasters and, you know, we created, and we continued to create amazing blends, again, in my opinion, but I hope you guys love them as well. But it does hurt, and it does make you anxious when you're like, okay, well, I'm not a pro at this. You know what I mean?

I have my specialties, but I'm not good at everything. And I'm not good at every element that goes into this business. I'm not a pro at every moving piece in this business. I don't know how to do everything. And that can make you anxious because you're like, well, then should I not be doing this? Because I'm not a pro. But it doesn't really matter because as long as you create something that brings other people joy, who cares how many people are involved to make that happen? Who cares if you're an advanced coffee roaster or if you're kind of new to that, but you

love coffee and you're going to bring in people who know exactly how to do it and have been doing it for longer than I've been alive, right? Who cares? But that was something that I struggled with in the beginning because I was like, is that bad? Is that wrong? You know? And the answer is no.

What goes into creating something doesn't really matter as long as everybody's getting the credit that they deserve. Everybody is being treated fairly and properly within the company and the company is honest and ethical and I mean who cares about the rest, right? Somebody said talk about pricing products and criticism on prices. Okay, yes, this is something I totally forgot to talk about earlier, but it was going to. So this is tough too, because I'm somebody who's always really prioritized the quality of products that I release. And with Chamberlain Coffee, it's like that and more.

Like I want this coffee to be the best quality that it possibly can be because I'm a coffee snob, point blank period, I'm kind of a snob about it. It's actually funny because I was going to name Chamberlain Coffee, snob coffee. That was one of the name ideas I had, but it didn't work out because it was already like taken or something. But I was gonna name it name ideas I had, but it didn't work out because it was already taken or something. But I was gonna name it that because I was like,

I'm such a snob, I wanna make a high quality coffee brand, premium coffee brand, and what better name than snob. That's perfect, but anyway, I'm glad that it became Chamberlain coffee and that's a perfect name and wouldn't want it any other way, but When you're dealing with premium products and high quality products the prices are just naturally going to be much higher and I know You know, Chamberlain coffee is not a

cheap coffee brand by any means You know, I mean for the steeped bags, it's $2 a cup, which is not too bad. For bags of whole beans, it's definitely pricey, same with ground beans. But it's because we're organic and we're fair trade and we don't use pesticides and we're eco-friendly and all of that.

Those things all add up very quickly. And I think if those are things that are important to you as a customer, then amazing. You know what I mean? Our products will align very well with you and what you stand for. If you aren't as concerned about those things, then the higher price may seem unnecessary, but having those quality characteristics, it just makes the products more expensive. And I totally understand, you know,

I'm getting older and I'm starting to learn more about the importance of buying quality products, whether that's clothes, furniture, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes when things are more affordable, there can be harmful things about them. You know what I mean? And that's still something that I'm learning about, whether that's like fast fashion or, you know,

not organic or not fair trade products. And with coffee, especially, fair trade is very important to me. And I'll read a definition of fair trade to you so that you kind of understand, and I can explain why especially fair trade is very important to me. And I'll read a definition of fair trade to you so that you kind of understand, and I can explain why it's so important to me. The official definition of fair trade means trade between companies in developed countries

and producers in developing countries in which fair prices are paid to the producers. This is extremely, extremely important to me. This is extremely, extremely important to me, because I want everybody involved in Chamberlain Coffee to be treated perfectly. Obviously nothing's ever perfect, but I want everybody to get what they deserve. And, you know, when a product is fair trade certified,

you know, you spend more money producing fair trade products because you're paying more to get the product. That is totally fine with me. I wouldn't want it any other way. I'm okay with losing sales because the prices are a little bit higher because of that. As long as the people who are growing my coffee beans are being treated fairly, I'm happy.

The criticism of the price, all that I don't care, it doesn't matter to me because I know that every person who is technically working for my company is being treated well. That is very, very important to me. And so I'm okay with having higher prices. And I'm also okay with some people being like, you know what, I don't wanna spend that much money on a bag of coffee. I totally get that too.

And also as a relatively new business, our prices are gonna be slightly higher anyway because we're still building our company. And so, you know, there's a lot of factors when it comes to price that stress me out more than you even know. Because obviously, the ideal thing to do is have an affordable product, but sometimes having an affordable product means skimping out in other areas and I just didn't want to do that and don't want to do that. So anyway, when it comes to the criticism of prices, I totally understand, but at the same time, you don't have to buy it.

I know that the product is worth the money and is in honest and good moral product, if that makes sense. And if that's something that people want to spend their money on, amazing, and that is such an honor, and I'm so grateful for those people and for people who don't. Totally fine too, and I don't judge, and I don't, you know, everybody's thing is their thing, and I don't expect, you know, my product to be for everyone. But for people who share the same passion for coffee

and all of that, you know, I think that those things are going to be a selling point even if it means you have to pay a little bit extra. You know, so that's kind of where I'm at. But any who, somebody said, is there anything you wish you would have done differently when you first started Chamberlain Coffee? No, definitely not, like at all, but at the same time, I do think in area that we didn't spend enough time on was developing the brand aesthetic. I think that it was very, very bland in the beginning.

And the funny part about that is that I've always been somebody who's so obsessed with the aesthetic of things. I love buying into an aesthetic. I love shopping on a website that has a cool look to it and a cool feel to it. I like buying products that have cool packaging. I like that. That's always been something that sells me. And it's funny because Chamberlain Coffee didn't have that eye catching aesthetic that

I normally buy into in the beginning. I think it's because I didn't realize how important that element is and no regrets because I think that our relaunch has brought it exactly to where I wanted to be and so absolutely never regrets. But at the same time, we didn't spend a lot of time with that in the beginning. So maybe some advice for some of you guys who are starting a company or wanna start a company,

take your time and develop everything before you start. There's no need to rush. Develop your voice before you start the company. Develop the brand voice. Develop the aesthetic. Develop the color scheme. Develop a six-month plan. Like, have all of that ready before you even test run it. Because I think we just kind of went out with one product and had no idea what we were going to do next. We just wanted to get it out there. And then we were like, you know what, we'll figure out what we do next based on what we

learn from the launch. My advice would be, you know, you could prepare, I think preparing more never hurts. And obviously you can always change your plan as you're working on it and you can continue to evolve with the current events. Like you don't need to make a five-month plan, six-month plan and stick to it perfectly. If things change, things change, but at least you have a backbone, right? I think that that's super important and I think we could have done that a little bit more, but at the same time, now here we are, and all as well.

And I'm very proud of it. And I wouldn't want it any other way. And what I've learned from everything so far has been so valuable to me. And so that's more of like taking my experience and giving advice. But I wouldn't have done anything differently, truly. Somebody said, how did the process start? Somebody reach out to you or did you bring it up

to somebody? So I am so fortunate to have an amazing agent who I love so much and she's been with me since I moved to LA pretty much. We've been working together forever. And, you know, I've always told her how much I wanted to do something with coffee. And she was always super down for it, but it was just never the right time. And finally, she started doing a little bit more research and work on figuring out how we could start it. And then next thing you know, we have a few people that want to be a part of this, and then we started it. So I owe it all to my agent.

Thank you, Queen, you know, who you are, you rock my world. I love you to death. Somebody said, I wanna start a business when I'm older, a sustainable fashion related, or healthy vegan snacks. How would you choose between the two business ideas? I would say, although I'm no expert at anything, I'm not an expert at anything, and no one is. I'm going to give advice based off of what I think, but at the same time, it really, you know, who knows?

Okay. Here's the way I would look at it. What's more in demand? Sustain sustainable fashion or vegan snacks. Let's say your sustainable clothing brand is like maybe more generic or simple. There might be less of a demand for that because there are already so many clothing brands that are very popular that are sustainable and stuff like that. That might be a harder area to enter into, there might be more competitors, and stuff like that.

Whereas, let's say, with vegan snacks, there's nothing like the product you have in mind. There's a need for that, you know what I mean? People would love that, moms would love it to put in their kids' lunches, stuff like that. Like, I would say choose based Moms would love it to put in their kids' lunches, stuff like that. I would say choose based on what's in higher demand. Or which idea is more unique and more new

to the space that you wanna enter. You know what I'm saying? I also think you should pay attention to what you're more passionate about because starting a business is hard and it's a lot of work and it makes your brain hurt and it's stressful and you know, it's exhausting and it's tedious. You want to make sure that what you're working on is something that you're going to be pumped on and motivated by for years to come. Because it doesn't happen overnight and it takes longer than you think.

And you need to have that stamina. And I think that the stamina comes from passion. So what are you more passionate about? You know what I mean? I think that that's actually more important than maybe even entering an area that has more demand for a product that you have an idea for,

I think that the passion just needs to be there. And if you share a same passion for closing for vegan snacks, then that's when you go, okay, well, there's more of a demand for, say, vegan snacks, I'm gonna go in that direction and start there. But also, in 10 years, maybe you pick up the second one and do both. There's no limit, you know what I mean?

Somebody said, thoughts on just hiring people to run the business for you versus being very involved in working as well. I'm gonna take it back to when I started my YouTube channel. When I started my YouTube channel, I was running everything on my own. I was reading my own emails. I was editing my own videos, filming my own videos, coming up with all my own video ideas,

doing every element by myself. And I had a really hard time with giving up that control. And that's why a lot of people when they start gaining following on social media immediately get a manager or an agent, I was like, no, I don't need help. I want to do this all on my own. I don't trust anyone and I don't want to let anyone in. But what I didn't realize was that that was stopping me from getting more opportunities. There was no way for me to read my emails

for three hours a day and it was too much. And at the time, you know, I was in school for a little bit there. And then I left school, but then I was like, okay, well, fuck, I'm out of school now. I need to be making a living. So I was working extra hard, making like three videos a week and editing all of them each

Video taking like 20 hours to edit and it was like I was so overwhelmed because I was like oh my god I need to start making money now like this is serious because I just left school I took a massive risk. I need to prove to myself and To my family and to everybody that like this is a sustainable thing. And so doing all of it myself became too much very quickly. And I started, you know, not being able to read all my emails and stuff like that. And I was missing out on so many different opportunities. And so once I moved to LA, I started meeting with some agents and I got an agent and it helped me so much.

I still have to read emails, but not even remotely as much. And I still don't read emails. And if my agent is listening to this, she's like, yeah, Emma does not read emails, because I'm the worst at emails. I think I have slight trauma from all the emails that I used to read when I managed myself, if you will. It was very upsetting, and I'd be on email

for like three hours a day, and it ruined my life in my brain. But anyway, I relinquished some control. I think that's the right word. And I gave some of that control to my agent. And it helped me so much, right? And there is a learning curve, you know? You have to teach them what you're about, what you like, what you don't like, how you prefer to work.

Like there's a lot of things about it that are tough, but it's about working together so that eventually the work feels easier on both ends. And that happened again when I got an editor for my YouTube videos because I used to edit all my videos, but my quality of life was terrible because I would spend all night editing, night after night night and like I

was miserable and it made me really depressed and it made shit really hard for me because I was editing all my own videos but I also wanted to be a normal teen and like do fun shit and like enjoy life but it was this constant endless cycle of like I'd get a video up and I'd have to film a video the next day and And then I'd be editing that until the next week. And then I'd upload and then it was this, and it was like a never-ending cycle and I never got a break. Whereas now it's like, okay, I film a video,

I send it to my editor and then I start working on the next video. And it's given me so much more time to be around the people I love and have a better quality of life, but also Have more time to do other things with my career whether that's starting, Chamel and coffee or whatever I wouldn't have been able to do that. I wouldn't have had enough time in the day to do that if I didn't have an editor It's opened up my time so that I can start creating more things and that is so important, but it's really hard

to Give up that control. And it takes time to train your employees. And it takes a lot of time to create a working and flowing system. But once you do that, it is so beneficial. And so I think that it's important to be extremely involved and be very aware and invested in what's going on emotionally, but also understanding your place in those different endeavors.

Like for YouTube for me, now that my editor understands my editing style and like has almost his own, that he has created that works for me and you know that he enjoys editing in like my job is to come up with the concept and to film it myself and have fun with it. His job is to edit. So I'm still very involved but my job has shifted. It's like I just have a few less things on my plate as for Chamberlain coffee I don't know how to roast the beans. I don't know how to do that could I learn sure, but there's so many people that are so amazing at it I'm gonna work with those people and let them do that stuff while I focus on the vision of the brand I mean the rest of my team, we all work together and we all

discuss these things and share opinions and all of that, but at the end of the day, I am very involved in every minute detail of the company. Even though we all work together and I have a lot of people that do different things, and we're constantly all communicating, it's like I still see every element of the brand. Like there's nothing that goes under my nose, if that makes sense. So I think there's a balance. It's like being involved in the areas

where you need to be involved involved and then relinquishing, I don't know if that's the right word. Definition of relinquishing. Relinquish means. Okay, I was right. And yeah, shut up Siri. Relinquishing control where you can, but being heavily involved in passionate in the areas where you pull your weight.

The last question I'm going to answer is did you ever feel like you experienced the feeling of imposter syndrome when starting chairman and coffee or maybe still feel it to this day? If so, how did you deal with it? Definition of imposter syndrome. Here's what I found. I'm reading a definition because although I know what it means, I want to read an accurate definition so that I'm not butchering it at all.

Imposter syndrome is a physiological, psychological, my God, how do I have a company? That's just embarrassing. Impostor syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments or talents and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud, despite external evidence of their competence. Those experiencing this phenomenon remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve all that they have achieved. I am the definition of having imposter syndrome in every element of my life.

I constantly feel like I don't deserve what I have, that I didn't earn what I had in the right way, whatever the fuck that even means, like that, you know, I don't deserve any. Like I have struggles with that forever, and I always will. I think that's just my brain chemistry, unfortunately. I have a really hard time being excited for myself because I always feel like I could have worked harder or I could have stayed up later working on it

or I could have, you know, whatever. And I was like this in school too. Like I would get a great, great on a test and I'd go home and still feel bummed out because I felt like I could have studied harder. I'm learning to kind of get out of that. I'm trying, but it's also like, I wonder if it's just my brain chemistry

and the way I'm to, but it's also like, I wonder if it's just my brain chemistry and the way I'm to be forever. I think the thing is when you work on projects with others and you have employees and all of that, it's weirdly easier to feel proud, even if you're not necessarily super proud of yourself, you're at least going to be really proud of your team. But then you're going to realize, oh, wait, I'm part of that team. And so if I'm proud of the team, I'm proud of myself. And it's almost like tricking yourself into being proud of yourself.

Like if I make a great video, my brain doesn't say, oh my God, Emma, great job on that video. My brain says, oh my God, Emma, great job on that video. My brain says, oh my god, Emma, you're edited. So amazing on that video. But also the video wouldn't be the video without me. And so it's tough because I can be proud of something, but I never will give myself the credit. And that's just the way it is.

And I mean, it doesn't harm anyone. But I did talk to a therapist about it once. And therapist was like, listen, it harms yourself and your self esteem to not give yourself credit for things that you've done. Like, you need to celebrate your success and like, you can be humble and still be proud of yourself. And I'm working on it.

I am, but it's just like, I hate like hate like I really truly have a feeling in my stomach that like I Could have worked harder constantly and I don't know where that stems from but I'm excited to hopefully release that bird in at some point because I feel like it's very unnecessary But it's also something that I can't control about my own mind. So I don't know if you guys have any tips on how to like Get over in Posters syndrome, please let me know. I might watch some videos or read a book about it, more like listen to an audiobook

because I don't fucking read, but... Anyway, thank you guys for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. It was very kind of serious and very professional, but I had fun talking about it with you guys and sharing this whole thing with you guys in the behind the scenes and I hope that you enjoyed this episode and I love you all very much and I hope you all have an amazing day and go check out the Chamberlain Coffee and I hope you love everything and I love you guys so much and thank you for your constant support on all of my endeavors.

It always is the most amazing feeling to see you guys enjoy the things that I create. And also just to bond with you guys over it and I just love it so much and I love you guys so much and I will talk to you next week and until then Stay awesome. I love you guys Peace and love