Motivation Daily by Motiversity - Building A Multi-Million Dollar Coffee Business | Life Changing Advice For Entrepreneurs

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Sahra Nguyen, award-winning filmmaker, director, writer, and founder of Nguyen Coffee Supply, shares how she built a multi-million dollar coffee business.Listen to the full interview: https://bit.ly/MotShow"I didn't have a road map, but I stayed focus on the next step, and then the next step, and the next step, just like a puzzle piece, I would solve one problem at a time. That's how I approach a business idea, I figure out what I need to do first and then I do it."– Sahra NguyenSpeaker: Sahra NguyenSahra Nguyen, founder and CEO of Nguyen Coffee Supply, the 1st specialty Vietnamese coffee company in the United States importing through direct trade relationships and roasting in Brooklyn, NY. She is on a mission to bring respect to Vietnam's most abundant but long misrepresented coffee bean. Follow Sahrahttps://www.instagram.com/oneouncegold/http://sahranguyen.com/aboutMusic:Epidemic Sound Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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The link is in the description. 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, you're all out here hustling. We're all trying to make it, right? I was, like, really engulfed in the energy lot. And I think I felt like really, I felt like I was rushing a lot in my 20s, like rushing to make it.

like rushing to prove something of myself or rushing to have something to show for myself, right? 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. 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. So yeah, definitely a lot of education. And 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. 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. So that sense of why, you know, 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, right? They just feel like logistically difficult, right? But my sense of

purpose is always clear and I think getting really clear on why you're doing something really helps bring forth the motivation when you're feeling low or if you're going through a challenge. 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, you know, a project or a business without having the whole plan. And I think that's really key to getting started and really key to figure. 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 that 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, oh, you 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 United States? How do you import? And then Google tells you, well, you need this. You need a registered 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 palette 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. 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 at the time for NBC. And because Cambodia, Vietnam were so close, I was like, let me just swing by Vietnam first, visit my family.

And then 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. We didn't get into this. But I guess we were talking about failure in a traditional sense. One of the things that I did work on in my time in New York before starting Nguyen 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. and 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, in that experience has made me so much, and that experience has made me such a better entrepreneur for my current company, right?

And I'd say, you know, some of the lessons that I learned from my first restaurant business was to get really clear on why you're doing something was to get really clear on what you're doing and why you're doing something and when it's no longer working, we have to reevaluate, right? 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, right? Another lesson I learned from the experience was to have really clear, was to have really clear boundaries with the people that you work with, especially if they're your business partners, right? In small businesses, we tend to have really intimate relationships,

and we're really in a lot of, like, the trenches together. So it's easy to feel clouded by the sense of intimacy when we're going through such, you know, 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, so it's really important to put the needs of the business first. Oh, another lesson I learned, another lesson I learned from my last business was to not take things personally. This was, 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, you know, the way I wanted them to or the way I expected them to, I would often take it personally. And this relates to what I was just saying of like in business, it's never personal, right? 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. So it's never personal.