The Bossticks - How To Stand Out In A Crowded Space With Alfred Coffee's Josh Zad

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

#277: On this episode we are joined by entrepreneur Josh Zad. Josh is the founder and creator of the wildly popular coffee brand; Alfred's Coffee. On this episode we discuss how to stand out in a crowded marketplace, how to build a brand, how to launch a business, and how to stay disciplined to find success throughout the process. To connect with Lauryn Evarts click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by Feals Feals is a better way to feel better. Our premium CBD will keep your head clear and help you feel your best. CBD has been proven to greatly reduce anxiety, pain, and sleeplessness. Feals has us feeling our best every day and it can help you too.Become a member today by going to Feals.com/skinny to get 50% off your first order with free shipping! This episode is brought to you by Each & Every Each & Every's gender-inclusive deodorant is formulated for sensitive skin–made without aluminum, parabens, baking soda, alcohol, and synthetic fragrances. With just 6 simple ingredients (plus essential oils), Each & Every uses natural ingredients like coconut oil and Dead Sea salt that work together to reduce body odor. Try it risk free with a 30 day money back guarantee and receive 30% off your first purchase by visiting eachandevery.com/skinny and using promo code skinny.  This episode is brought to you by HYDRANT Hydrant is a simple, morning hydration mix, optimized to hydrate you rapidly. Lightly flavored with real fruit juice = subtle, refreshing taste. Up to 3x the electrolytes of a traditional sports drink. There are no synthetic color or artificial sweeteners. It's also vegan and only a buck a day for a 30 pack. For 25%off your first order , go to DrinkHydrant.com/skinny or enter promo code 'skinny' at checkout Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. This episode is brought to you by hydrant. You have probably heard many people, including us, talk about how crucial their morning routine is to setting the tone for a proper day. So we've talked about routines and morning routines. We've talked about diffusers. We've talked about good music in the morning candles, getting your day set up coffee. And we've also talked a lot about hydration. Hydration is so important, especially if you've had a couple of glasses of wine the night before.

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Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you alone for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her. One big mistake that I often see is bringing on partners that you aren't necessarily fit to be partners with. This guy's a good chef.

That is a major struggle that a lot of breakfast. restaurants, a lot of businesses in general have, right? It's like, I am a good front of house operator. Let's do partnership 50-50 and open a restaurant together. But what do you really know about this person? When push comes to shove, like, do you have each other's back? Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to the skinny confidential, him and her show. Happy Friday. We're back with another fire episode. Josh Zad is on the show today to talk about entrepreneurship, building a brand, building a business, and how he builds Alfred's. I'm super excited about this episode because I love Alfreds. I love their coffee.

I love the burritos when I'm hungover. They have this sauce. It's so good with their burritos. Michael loves it too. Anyways, before we get into this episode, I just wanted to say that I really appreciate all the support on my latest Instagram post. I did a post on hormones and I've realized that that is a conversation that I will continue to have on my platform.

There's a lot of questions around it. and I'm going to do my best to get the right people and experts involved in this conversation on the Skinny Confidential. I have so many DMs asking me about, you know, what kind of specialists, what kind of hormones did I get tested? What kind of hormones am I on? I'm going to, you know, sort of wrap up all this information on hormones and present it in a really concise way. So expect more content on hormones on all my platforms. It's coming. I'm working on it. it. I hear you. Anyways, so you can expect some fun, cheeky content. So with that, Josh Zad, for those of you that are unfamiliar, Josh Zad is the creator of the Alfred's coffee brand. It is all

over L.A. It's starting to move all over the world. Alfred's tea room. Alfred's all over in Japan now. He's also got a new beer company called Cali Daddy. Really is an authority when it comes to branding. You know, one of the things that excites me about this episode is we get messages here all the time about how to jump into what is people label as saturated spaces. We've heard, you know, the influencer space is too saturated. The blog space is too saturated. Podcast is too saturated. To me and Lauren, we've always said that this is completely untrue. If you find the right angle, build the right brand, have a way to distinguish yourself. Talk as only you can talk. And you know, Josh has proven that. He built a brand and in most, one of the most extreme,

like one of the most saturated businesses you could get into, which is coffee. Think coffee being Starbucks. Like who would have thought I can build a massive coffee brand? He's done that. And he talks up a lot about how he did it and a lot about how he built a brand that can stand out and how we can do that as well with any medium or any business that we choose. So with that guys, Josh Dad, welcome to the show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Josh Zad, the king of Alfreds. Is that what you call the king of, I guess you're the king, Alphards?

The guy keeping me buzzing, keeping me going, killing my gut, because I'm eating too many Rico Swab burritos. And now I get your chocolates. I got everything. Just really not doing me any favors in quarantine in terms of health, but also keeping me awake. Josh, welcome with the show, brother. Thank you so much. Really glad to be here. Appreciate it.

So let's, listen, we, you know, we just had a little pre-interview. Let's, let's go back a little bit. Let's get, you know, where are you from originally? Where did you grow up? What was the childhood like? Where do we begin with you? I'm born and raised in L.A. grew up, I'd say probably West L.A. area around UCLA. I spent most of my time there. Went to a couple different schools around town and ended up at a small private school, Buckley for an eighth grade and ended up finishing there. made a lot of friends in a lot of different schools growing up, which kind of has been really helpful in my career in my personal life now. And then ended up going to college on the East Coast at Yale and then came back to L.A. for a little bit. Did a little stint in Dallas. And I'm back in L.A. for 10 years now and probably the rest of my life. So I'm an L.A. lifer. Yale. Yeah. Yale's a hard school to get into. Really hard school to get into. And I got in and we don't know how. And I have to. go. You can't turn that opportunity down. If you get it, you got to do your best to get there. So, I did it. And I went there. Yeah. Well, one thing I think, like, you know, we're going to get into the brand in a little bit, but one thing, you know, Lauren and I are not L.A. natives. We're down,

and we're in San Diego for most of our lives, obviously very close, proximity, get up here a lot, have experience. But L.A. is not the easiest city to break into. For people that are trying to move here, I mean, like, you alluded to this, you met a lot of people growing up here. And I think that's obviously been beneficial in certain areas. But if someone's young listener, saying they're like, I want to move to L.A., like, what would you tell them? I'd say do it. I mean, it's all the allure and the charm aside, I think it's a really, a really great place

for once people settle in and really find their way, it's really hard for them to leave L.A., right? There's just so much action. A lot of the industries, like, you know, outside of, let's say fashion, for example, which could be potentially shifting here, you could say, a lot of the industries, like the pinnacle of those industries and the most opportunity is in LA. Add to that, of course, the sunshine, add to that, of course, all the other fun elements of lifestyle that you get here. And it's pretty hard to leave and it's pretty hard to convince someone to not move here once their mind is set. There's a reason for all of it. So I have to ask you this because I just want to know,

how did the idea of Alfred's come about? Like, it's so micro, were you out drunk with friends? Was it something that you'd been thinking about for a while? How did it come to to be about. I had always wanted to start my own business. And I couldn't really pinpoint what that was I wanted to do. And I think there was definitely a lure for me to get into the restaurant business on some level, whether that be a bar or a restaurant. Coffee was probably not up there for me. But coffee, when I had started to think about Alfred, it was mostly Starbucks, right? It was mostly coffee bean. Growing up in L.A., it was, I mean, coffee bean was probably the coolest, and Starbucks was just much more prevalent. And then I started seeing other third wave coffee shops pop up,

like intelligentsia when I'd be in Silver Lake or Venice, I'd make sure to stop by there. And I'm like, wow, what a vibe here. Like, this is just very different. There's a lot of action. And there's like four or five employees, whereas a restaurant had like 20 employees. So it seemed like a much, much less of a headache operationally to run a coffee shop. Plus, you get to close much earlier than a restaurant. And I'm not about that 2 a.m. 3 a.m. bar life.

I thought like forward in my life. It wasn't probably what I wanted to do. So I started thinking about the idea, got obsessed with it. and I decided, you know what, I can do it probably better than a lot of other people because I wasn't specifically a coffee person. I was approaching it from like a design, aesthetic and just like a community space level. I want to talk about that for a little bit because, you know, we get a lot of messages into this show and it says like, oh, you know, I want to start a podcast, but the space is saturated. I want to write a blog, but it's saturated. I want to do YouTube, it's saturated. I want

to do this with saturated. But, you know, I think what you've done well is you've taken a very saturated space. I mean, if you think coffee, everybody drinks coffee. Starbucks and coffee being basically had the market cornered in terms of volumin. but you were able to come in with an amazing brand and stand out. And I kind of want you to speak on that a little bit and how important it is to brand and distinguish yourself because I think people see a space like, like say coffee. And they're like, oh, well, there's no point in trying there because it's already been done. They use saturation as an excuse. So if you could sort of speak on that. Like just a funny thing, like using saturation as an excuse. It's like, like, what's like

the latest thing that people have gotten into? And it's like, okay, like materials for like cleaning materials or like masks, you know, but it's like you have like a one week window before that became saturated too, like in light of everything that's going on in the world. So it's like, you know, here's my mask business I started. But then now there's thousands of masks selling businesses. It's just it's always going to be an excuse, right? So anything you want to do, the good thing about a business being saturated, I think, is that there's opportunity there, that there's a market for it too. So you don't necessarily want to be the first because there might not be anybody who wants your services or your product.

So going into a space that's saturated like coffee, well, guess what? People that were going to coffee bean Starbucks every day, they are addicted to coffee. They love coffee, the flavor of it. It was a daily habit for them. So if I could do it better or differently enough to persuade, you know, a few of those people to come to Alfred every day, then my market is already set. So my job is a little bit easier in a way and I could just focus on doing my part. So I think it could be an advantage to be in something that's saturated, right?

Same with real estate, same with anything you want to talk about. At least the market is ready for you. I cannot agree more. I mean, same thing with podcasts. There's a million podcasts in existence. One million to think about like, you know, people listening. You don't have that much attention. And, you know, what I always tell people from the Dear Media perspective, you can come in at a unique angle and say something different that only you can say in a different way, then like it's not saturated because nobody can duplicate it. I think what you did with Alvards was you created a distinguishable brand that is so much different than what's out there. And for people that we're looking for an alternative, like the category coffee is not going, but it's the same way

like Italian food is not going to wear our Japanese, like there's so many broad angles to go in and you just have to have a point of differentiation. When you originally set out to build a brand, did you always, like, were you clear about it or did you have to do some exercises and practices in order to build out for it's like, how did that all come about? Where's the name even mean? Well, the name is the, it's the name of the butler from Batman. So it's, for me, it means, it's waiting it's yeah it's service it's memorable i mean and everyone loves batman everyone loves alfred so it's just like he's always there for you you know dependable but yeah you ask that question it's like alfred is always a work in progress everything is changing all the time for us um it's not like here we hired a design

firm and they're like here is all you need to know and this will last you for the next 10 15 years good luck. I created this thing organically. It represents a lot of my personality, which is kind of quirky and crazy, and I changed my mind a lot, and I'm all over the place. I think you see that in our drink specials. Every design of each cafe is different. Our logo has changed a few times over the years, but it's just, it stays true to who we are. And it's an ever-evolving business and an ever-evolving presence for our customers, which keeps them engaged as well. So it's, you know, it's a work in progress. But again, that comes back to, that's what I'm good at is like those visual elements. And I also can't sit still. So you put that together and it's a recipe to create something fun like Alfred.

How did you have the foresight to make Alfred so fucking Instagrammy and millennial? Like you, you were one of the people, like a pioneer in the space that made like girls want to flock to your business because they wanted pink on their Instagram feed. Yeah. It's part having the confidence to create spaces that you know people will want to engage with and just like being like, this looks pretty cool to me. And I don't think it's like too out there. I don't think it's too simple. Hopefully they'll come.

And then of course, the longer we go with building a brand name and having a reputable service, reputable product, because people can come take a photo and how many businesses have popped up in LA. They look really cool and they're gone a few months later. Like it has to, the service and the product has to match the level of, you know, neon or wallpaper that you have inside of the store. So it's really the full package. Why do you think of so many business like because, you know, there's a lot of people that like a nightclub or a restaurant or a bar in LA and it's such a quick turnaround. You're somebody's

obviously lasted like as an LA native. Why do you think that is? I think we have a we have a pretty good meter for like internal meter for like what's cool, but like not to try hard, you know, because there's a lot of it's guessing. You haven't opened your doors yet. So are like, are people actually going to like this space? Are they going to like what we're doing here? Or are they going to like this new drink special? Are they going to even engage with it? So I think we have a good read on our customers. We have a good read on the LA customer. We have a good read on locations that we open and how we can kind of identify really cool parts of the neighborhoods that incorporate into our design.

But again, like what I'm saying right now, there's no science necessarily behind that. So luck is definitely a factor. Timing is definitely a factor. When Alfred came up about seven and a half years ago, there were some third wave coffee shops opening up, but it was still a little bit of a risk. But then you see like now a new coffee shop's opening up every week you'll see on Eater, something about a new coffee shop. So it's still very robust. So our timing was great being like on the forefront of this like movement towards smaller,

more more independent cafes instead of the big guys that have been around forever. Hold up. We need to talk about smells because I have gotten my smells under control. Thank God. This is like celebrated. This is like Christmas for me. Like I've been waiting for this day for 20. 20 years. Here's my thing. I didn't want to wear deodorant for like 10 years the whole time I've

been with you because I couldn't find one that was made without aluminum and parabins and baking soda and alcohol and synthetic fragrances. And I've played around with some of the natural ones, but there hasn't been one that like actually stops the smell. You're telling me. It's called each and every. Okay. So basically their whole mission is proven to fight odor. Thank God for but it's also an antiperspirant. So they have six simple ingredients in their deodorant. Totally looked into this. They have essential oil too in it, and they use all natural ingredients.

And the ingredients are like coconut oil and dead sea salt. And all of their ingredients work together to reduce body odor. So Michael is very happy. Each and every, it goes on really smooth. You know how sometimes when you put natural deodorant on it clumps up? This doesn't do that. And it keeps you odor-free all day long. It's vegan. It's cruelty-free. We always make sure these boxes are checked. And it's risk-free. So if you don't like it, you get a 30-day money-back guarantee. My favorite one is the ginger one. So Michael now, instead of smelling my body odor, gets to smell ginger. Lucky him. I woke up today and I feel like I didn't get hit in the nose.

So if you guys are out there and you don't wear deodorant or you've just been searching for an all-natural deodorant, try this one. Visit each and every.com slash skinny and use promo code Skinny for 30% off your first purchase. That's not eligible to combine with other discounts or subscriptions. That's promo code Skinny at each and every.com slash skinny for 30% off your first purchase. Get the ginger. Your significant other will thank me later. Each and everyone. Thanks, Lauren. Thank you each and every. Let's get back to the show. As an entrepreneur, what are some tools or habits or tactics that you do every day that set you up for success? It could be something really small or something really big. Try to have as much structure in my morning as possible.

Tell us about that. Tell us about your structure. Well, wake up immediately coffee. Have to have coffee within two minutes of waking up. Try to wake up at the same time every day. We have a new daughter. So I either have to make the milk or I have to wake her up and change your diaper in the morning.

But either or. How old is she? She's 10 months old. We have a five month old right now. Oh, my God. In the middle of it. I'm trailing you. You're over the hump, though.

You're like, it's like normal now. It's always getting more and more normal. So kind of there and then, you know, answer my emails, work out in the morning. And then, you know, by the time I get to the office, let's say 9, 930, I anticipate all hell breaking loose. I'm ready for it. So everything has to be movable. But at least I have like those three hours of like solace in the morning and kind of the building blocks. I got to set up my day as well as I can because I think in general, managing multiple businesses and

managing multiple locations and so many employees is tricky. You add to that what's going on in the world right now and it's just like anything can happen. You never know. Every day is a new challenge. So we got to wear that armor, the invisible armor and you got to just be ready to fight. I imagine your business is, I mean, listen, it's been a challenge for everybody with what's going on in the world. But I imagine if there was a protected food beverage industry restaurant business, like coffee is somewhat protected. No, people still need to drink their coffee. Like, you guys been using postmates or door to like how do you, oh, open, like, how have you navigated all of that?

Yeah, so we shifted to a takeout model. And instead of taking any payment in the cafes, we quickly launched an app. So you'd have to prepay, pre-order via the app or the web application of the app, basically, or Postmates, which we've been with for a long time. So those are the real two options. We're not taking any payment because we're not letting anybody come inside the cafes. So that's been kind of hard for us to pivot into that. But now we're kind of used to it.

But it's still, of course, not the same, right? someone who casually wants to walk into a cafe, maybe they don't want to download the app. I mean, we see a lot of older customers that don't know the iTunes password to download apps. And it's like, my dad shows up,

he's done. Yeah. You're just going to leave, you know? So you're removing like the most easily and accessible and the most common way of ordering, which is like at a register with a human being, which right then and there makes everything a little bit more difficult.

But we're doing our best to kind of navigate. Luckily, again, like you said, coffee is something that people have a part of their daily lives to begin with. So once things were kind of starting to get back to normal and people were out again or ordering via postmates again, this is a habit that thank God carried over from before until now. So it's been really nice for us in that regard. Can you talk to us about your collaborations?

Your collaborations that you do are so genius. And it's essentially like having a billboard on your coffee cup, which is so smart. Everyone's Instagramming that. I want to know more about that and how you came to the idea. So a long time ago, I used to work in real estate, and we had a parking lot. And we used to always buy these little tickets that you would stamp, like, thanks for coming to the parking lot. And you get your ticket, you get it validated, you hand it back. Well, this company came along and they're like, here are free tickets.

And it was advertising like an HBO movie, you know? So I'm like, this is amazing. These guys are giving us tickets. They get advertising out of it. It's a win-win for everybody. So we don't have to buy these tickets anymore. So partner, I mean, partnered with them. They gave us tickets years ago.

And I kind of always stuck in my head. When I launched Alfred, I really wanted to do something unique on the coffee cups as well. So coffee sleeves were fun. I brought a local artist, actually local to Dallas, where I had lived to design some fun sleeves with mustaches on them. That was cool. But I still always had in the back of my head the idea of monetizing these sleeves or at least creating something cool with brands that we believe in, with local designers and such.

So we were continuing to design our own sleeves for a while with my friend who was the artist. And then we were approached by Kelly Worcler, the designer, whose team was like, hey, we want to design some sleeves for you guys. And I was like, all right, this is the moment I've been waiting for. She did it. It was huge for us. It was a big moment that it kind of gave me the confidence and the wind behind me to be like, all right, it's time to start finding brands now. Or brands started coming to us. And we developed this into a part of our monthly routine now.

it's always, we're partnering with a different brand every month. Great advertising for them. Great way for us to connect with our audience. And I think it's a really, it's been a really differentiating factor for Alfred. And Kylie is on the sleeve right now, right? Kylie is on the sleeve right now. Kylie's skin and the cosmetics. So that is the June partner.

That's pretty sick. There's a lot of young people that listen to this show and there, you know, a lot of them probably had dreams of opening a brick and mortar store. And obviously with COVID now, we have people questioning it. But going back to the early days of Alfred, when you were starting, and did it start with just one location? Just want to make sure. Yeah, it was just supposed to be one fun thing. So when you first start, like, what was the process of drumming that business up? Because there's people sitting right now, they have an idea and they're like, okay, I'm thinking about it. Like, what do you think

the key elements for success are if you're going to go into that vein? Yeah. So I think something to keep in mind is that no one has all the answers, right? So I was, I was not an architect. I was not a plumber. I was not a good salesperson. My skills were like, I was good at design, I thought, and I'm good at math. And I was like, those are the things that I have for sure. Everything else was daunting for me, right? Even things that might seem simple, like, where do you order like your dry goods from? Where do you order napkins from? Like, where do you order sugar packets from? Stressing me out, like crazy, despite all the other things I learned in my life, like those little things for driving me nuts. So understanding that and the flip side of that is that there's experts

out there that could help you with these kind of things, right? You can hire an architect. You can hire a contractor or you can build it yourself. It's there's the walls that you think that are there, you know, cost aside are not so dramatic. Like if you can sit with your architect and figure out what they're doing and give them advice and they might be like, wow, that's a smart idea, Josh. I didn't think of it that way. It's, you know, it's not rocket science, a lot of this stuff. So don't be off putted by all the obstacles and really spend time with all the people that help you when you're relying on their specialties to give input to maybe be able to take some of those items yourself going forward. And it's all a learning process. But of course, the end of the day, if you're going to do something, you've got to decide and just got to do it because dragging your feet will cost you much more time, much more headache and much more anxiety.

What do you think a mistake is for like, say someone's got to follow in your footsteps and maybe not they don't do copy, but they have a similar business model. What do you see as mistakes young entrepreneurs have made when they're getting into this line of work? One big mistake that I often see is bringing on partners that you aren't necessarily fit to be partners with. That is a major struggle that a lot of restaurants, a lot of businesses in general have, right? It's like, this guy's a good chef. I am a good front of house operator. Let's do partnership 50-50 and open a restaurant together. But what do you really know about this person?

When push comes to shove, like, do you have each other's back? Is this person going to disappear for a month and tell you? Are they going to, I don't know, do something that really offends you? And it's a very difficult process. So you've got to be very careful of partners and partnership. When the pie is zero, right? And it's like, we're just starting this idea. Who cares if you give 50% or 10%, 5% of the pie of zero.

It's still zero, right? But once this thing starts building up, if it's a success or it's a failure, there's going to be fingers being pointed. So you have to have that mutual respect with the person and be really careful who you partner with. because there's a great chance it's going to do really well. There's also a great chance. It might not. I have a rule of thumb that I'll do the rest of my life that I learned the hard way

is I'll never ever do a 50-50 partnership again. I'll either do 49% and not be in the driver's seat and let someone else be in the driver's seat and say, I'm passive and I'll help where I can. Absolutely. Or I'll be in the driver's seat and say, okay, like the decision's mine and like I've got to be able to make it. 50-50, a lot of people don't think. It sounds good when you say like we're doing something together, 50-50,

but you don't realize that you can't do anything unless both people are on the exact same page at all times fully agreeing. So I'd rather be like, hey, I'm passive and trusting somebody else or they're passive trusting me. What do you think makes a good partner, Josh? I think number one, you have to be able to respect the person and respect their background. And I think, you know, having either very similar skill set as you or are distinctly opposite so you can rely on each other. I think it gets tricky when there isn't definitely when there isn't that kind of respect between the two of you. And it's like, I've done more work. I deserve this. You've done more work. But you just, it takes a lot of time to kind of get to know someone who could be your partner.

And it really takes like the, I think the success or the struggle to finally understand, understand that, which you don't really get to until the business is kind of more blossom. So it's hard. It's a huge risk. But of course, it could pay off also because you could be two places at once per se. So take it with a grain of salt. Yeah. So when you were starting out, did you, was this, and this may, it's a personal question,

but was it like completely self-funded? Did you bring on outside capital? If you did, what was that process like, on both sides was like, okay, you were shelling out your own capital or you brought on a money partner, done it both ways. I just wanted to get your take on like, imagine you're speaking to a 22 year old college graduate. They have an idea. They're getting ready to jump in. Like, how would you, how would you take care of the financing? So I started it myself and I built Alfred, the one on Melrose Place, the original, on a strictly Home Depot budget, all Home Depot maybe. I mean, from the tile to the wallpaper. I love that. Maybe not the

hardwood floors, but I wanted real hardwood. I got it from Portland, like reclaimed and it was probably cheaper than Home Depot at that point because nobody wanted them. But yeah, I took my time, self-funded, did not hire a contractor, hire just, you know, subs or some day laborers to kind of put it together, which I've had to amend over time because it doesn't really stand up to the trials of a busy coffee shop that's been around for so long. So we've had to change a lot of the things over time or mask them or cover them or redo them. But yeah, I did it all on my own, the first one. It was no time. I mean, obviously now it's been a success, but like what were some of the challenges? Like, if you were sitting, like, what did you have to experience to go through that?

I mean, it's, it sounds a lot easier than I'm sure it was to just do it on your own budget. Yeah, I mean, it took forever, first of all. It took about a year and a half to open the location. And that path of that 18 months was filled with a ton of self-doubt, you know, like from what am I doing why I'm opening a coffee shop? Like, this thing is going to make no money at best to, is this location terrible? To who wants coffee from me when there's other places that are probably be cheaper? because it's going to cost me a fortune just to make a cup of coffee.

I mean, there's questions all along the way. From that to like, do I want this espresso machine that's cheap? But my breakdown in a couple years is this more expensive one that, you know, will be around for the next 10, 15 years? Will I be around? So a lot of those kind of questions caused me to drag my feet, really build this thing. Should have taken maybe four or five months,

taken a year and a half. So that was not fun. How have you leveraged social media and Instagram to build your brand? Because I know you guys have a beautiful aesthetic. that going on. It was a big emphasis for us early on. So when we started, Instagram was just starting to take off. Facebook was already like, eh, it was just kind of there. Twitter, obviously, there's no real sharing of images there. So Instagram was a medium that really I connected with because I'm a very visual person. I'm still a very visual person. It seemed like a great move

for us to kind of to build that following, to put little callouts inside the original cafe of like, follow us on Instagram, post a picture and we'll give you a free drink. I don't know what we used to do. kinds of nonsense. But it was something really embraced. We wanted to have a nice aesthetic also. We started doing like takeovers with like a lot of local, I'm going to say celebrities, but like local bloggers and such, really tapped into that market. Anything we could do, anybody who we could connect with to get into their, to get into their psyche and like their follower psyche. So huge emphasis. It's always been an emphasis for us. This is how we communicate with our customers, how we will continue to communicate with our customers. And of course,

you see Instagram now is that's, that is what it's all about. And I feel. for early adopters of it. If you've been keeping up with the theme of this show lately, in the theme of the world lately, there's a lot of stress, anxiety, depression going on in the world. And one of the tools that we use, both of us use to combat this is CBD. And the CBD brand that we love is called feels. So what you do is you place a few drops of feels underneath your tongue, a CBD, and you feel a difference within minutes.

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You're going to love it. Okay, let's get back to the show. Talk to our audience about your new beer. Because coffee to beer, how did you get there? And where did you see sort of white space to create this beer? So I have been toying with the idea of starting a beer company for a while while I was in the Alfred mix. As fun as it is to open new locations, it's also really difficult and really expensive. From finding a location to building it out to staffing it, I mean, it takes a long time.

Right. So I thought, wow, it would be really great if I could just, like, create a beverage and really focus on sales and marketing, I think we're good at. And just get into grocery restores. It catches on like fire. They'll keep buying more. We'll keep producing more. And then we'll all be super rich from this beer company. Simplified it, of course. So I've been towing with the idea. I finally kind of took the leap, raise some funds from friends and family, decided to launch a Mexican-style beer company, Mexican-style, given that it's a It's made in California, but tastes like, you know, like your Pacificomodelo, kind of same level of ABV, 4.5% alcohol volume, and really drinkable, approachable, hired a branding agency for the first time by the name of Land in Austin. I really wanted to create a look and a feel that was timeless, that was authentic, that you might be like, this guy, Josh found this brand, like, and it unearthed it somewhere, instead of like, oh, this is clearly brand new. So put it all together, made a fire liquid, and we launched about, I think, a little over a year ago, April 2019.

Pretty iconic. It's been really nice for us. It's not as easy as people like it, and it spreads like a wildfire. You don't say. It's more difficult than opening cafes. It's not that easy, of course. But that's what kind of helped me get there was just minimize the work that had to be done and convince myself that I could do it. Otherwise, again, probably would drag my feet and never do it.

I think that's like anything else, though, right? Like if you would have known how difficult everything, like any of us, you like never do anything, but we all convince ourselves that is, hey, there's no big deal. Like, just do this thing and it'll just take off like wildfire in a few years. I'll be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Yeah. That's how much work that way. Easy.

Well, back to what you're saying before, right? What is even more saturated than coffee? I mean, beer, right? And beer is like this or declining, salters like going up. But like beer, like who was starting a beer company in 2019? I'm like, well, people will still drink beer now. They will always drink beer. They will always drink alcohol.

And especially what they are drinking in the beer category is Mexican beers and really light approachable, fun beers, maybe low calorie beers. So again, the market was there for me, right? It's a billion dollar market just in California, just in Southern California. So if I could tap into that market, I don't have to convince anybody like it's not a hard kombucha. It's nothing new that they need to learn about. I mean, it's literally the simplest beverage that everyone gets to know first, probably beer.

My personal opinion on stuff like this is people spend way too much time on ideas and they go and think their ideas like the best, you know, like you talk to the, talk to people and they go, well, here's my idea, sign an NDA. Like, it's this best idea. And then I'm like, the idea is great, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything. What I like, what I think means a lot more is the brand you create around that idea. Like it could be, you know, it could be the best product, the best version ever. But if it doesn't have a good brand, there's no way it's going to be noticed. It's not going to be distinguished. there's too much information out there. It's not going to stand out. So I think young people,

entrepreneurs, anybody in general should spend way, way more time on thinking about their brand and how their brand sends out as opposed to like their great idea. Yeah. And being ready to pivot a little bit because what you might think is great, and you're in the mix of the brand stuff, then you go out in the market and people identify to something else. So you just got to be also ready to kind of change it up with your messaging a little bit or, you know, you might launch a 12-ounce can that people want 16-ounce can. You don't know. So definitely the emphasis on brand though is really important, especially today's age, with Instagram, with people that are much more up to speed in terms of aesthetic. And they're much smarter, quite honestly. You essentially did what you did

with coffee to beer, because if you think of what the alcoholic beverage equivalent is to coffee, it's probably beer, right? Like you said, you're not going, you're not trying to convince someone to try something new. That was the same experience with coffee. You don't need to convince anyone about coffee. If you're launching a matcha store, and I know I want to get into the tea room, but if you're launching just a matcha store, you maybe have to educate people more than you would with coffee. Exactly. So the work was done for me in terms of customers knowing what they're getting their hands on. So then you get to go much faster in terms of brand and lifestyle,

which is what I'm good at. Talk to us about the tea room. The tea room is so cute. You guys, if you're in L.A. and you're in West Hollywood, get your coffee at Alphrates, walk across the street, stand in front of the tea room, it'll fit your feeds aesthetic. It's perfect. And you can get a little, they have the, my little sister loves your, what's the tea with the balls? Boba. Yes, she loves that. The best.

Yeah, the tea with the balls. The best. Tell us about the tea room. So while we were opening, like, I think probably a fourth offer location a few years ago, matcha came into our lives. Macha came into our cafes. We started selling a lot of Mature beverages. Like, it slowly creeped into second behind.

kind of like an iced latte was like ice matcha. So that movement was for real. Add to that, you know, all the teas that we sold like like hot teas, ice teas. I saw a real, a real opening in the market to create a standalone tea shop. Had really high hopes for the standalone tea shop. But the problem was, how do you get people in the door for a tea shop when there's a coffee shop, especially when there's my main coffee shop across the street, which is where I wanted to open the tea shop. So put some time into it, decided I wanted to create a, you know, people think tea, they think dainty, they think pink, they think tea party. So brought the idea of pink into my life for the location. I added layered plants in there to give a little bit of green, created this really cool looking cafe that was very different than the coffee shop, which was more black and white, a little more masculine.

So I figured if people at least come for a photo, once they realize like all the other great offerings that we have, Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention Bola, of course. I added that in there. I figured they'd come check it out, and they'd never want to go to another tea shop again. So we opened that tea shop, did really well for us, got approached by a company in Japan that wanted to take it to Japan, which seemed ironic to us because you think of like the home of tea, and you probably think of Japan, especially Macha, that's where Macha is from. And then here's a Japanese company that wants a few-month-old L.A. tea company and to open it in Japan,

which was just funny and cool. So made that deal happen. We have several locations across Japan, which is fun for us. Wow. Yeah, I had a moment a few years ago. Also, I'm like, this is the future of Alfred is the tea concept. And then I'm like, wait, but people love coffee the most. It's forever.

So what we're doing now going forward, all of our new locations will be a hybrid location. So no longer Alfred coffee or Alfred tea room, just Alfred, with the best of both worlds under one roof. Simple. That is the future. Speaking of the future, so how do you navigate everything that's going on right now? I'm sure there's been projects that you're kind of like, okay, we were doing this. Now are we doing this? Just get hold.

How are you navigating everything? And do you think when we all get back to normal that it's going to be how it was or do you have to accommodate for that? Kind of pretending everything is going to go back to normal so I can at least keep sane, number one. So I can also keep focused on all the ideas that we have. Otherwise, I can't battle an unknown, to be honest with you. And I also can't imagine a world when things don't go back to normal eventually. I don't know if it's two months or eight months or a year. But for better or worse, this is our business.

People like our business. We have an amazing team. Just kind of keeping a lot of irons in the fire, it's important for me because that allows us to kind of adapt a lot more, right? So for Alfred, we're working on a ready to drink beverage. Let's say this thing goes on for another eight, eight, nine months. The cafes are never going to get back to normal for eight, nine months. So if we could launch us ready to drink beverage, go into grocery, diversify the company

a little bit and build some revenue using the Alfred name, using the Alfred trust, and loyalty that we have and generating grocery income with Alfred, which is obviously booming in light of all the stuff that's going on in the shutdowns, that would be nice for us. So it's always important for me to have multiple things brewing, so to speak, and be prepared, especially now that I've learned that things can go south very quickly, very quickly. It's just kind of solidified that stance more. Okay, I have to ask this. What is Josh's specific? Alfred order. Like what's your exact order? When you go into Alfred's, what are you, give us like so, so, so micro-specific. It's an iced oat milk cappuccino. So it's just less milk than a latte. I'm really into oat milk these days.

I told you earlier, I'm crazy and I changed my mind a lot. So I changed my go-to drink a lot. This is probably the longest I've had a go-to drink, which has been like four or five months. So any cafe I walk into right now or walk up to, guarantee that's what I'm ordering. Sometimes I like a little bit of foam on there too, which is kind of counterintuitive because it's an ice drink with ice and they have to make hot foam and put it on top. But it kind of mixes away anyways. But that's my beverage. Less milk, icy cold because it's scorching these days and just keeps me going.

Anything for food? I'm really into perfect bars. It's like this crazy obsession that I have and I've been obsessed for like two years. So those like refrigerated. We love perfect bar. Yeah. And I only like peanut butter. I'm sorry.

It's just the best. I don't know. I'm like a dick that's perfect bar. I can't see one without eating it. Second favorite is probably the chocolate chip one. And then the rest are all third place to me. And the sauce that you have with the burrito, there's this sauce, you guys, just so you know this. After I gave birth, I made Michael order your burritos to the hospital. That's what you got to do. And the sauce, yeah, can you bottle the sauce? The sauce, it's like this green. I don't even know what it is. It's, what is it? It's like cilantro crema. So we get our burritos from the. this company, amazing company called The Rooster. And she makes the best burritos in town.

We've partnered with her from day one. She crushes it. Notice how you asked me what my favorite food from Alfred is and I didn't mention the burritos. It's because I've mentally completely blocked them out of my mind. I cannot stand thinking about them because they are so good. And once I open that, you know,

once that dam opens up, it's like an onslaught of burritos. Yeah, they are so good. There's nothing better than a hungover, Alfred's burrito. Michael eats like one every single morning and his weight doesn't move. I don't know about that much, but I eat them a lot. And I'm actually ashamed of how many I eat.

That's good. The black sauce that they have, the darker one is like the Baja fresh, same color sauce that they have. It's very similar, which is like my all-time childhood growing up favorite salsa. Yeah, it's delicious. It's a guy that's so into aesthetics and brand. Like when you see other people, and it could be in any category, it could be fashion, could be, when you see something like,

what is something you identify? but like, well, that is a really, like, that person did it right? And what's something like when you see it? Like, that's cringy. Like, what do you look for in a good brand? I look for discipline. It's my favorite thing. So I think in a lot of ways, it's what I mentioned before, that it's like,

Alfred is full of personality. It's kind of crazy. Again, we're a coffee shop. So we're kind of allowed to be like that. But if I look at a fashion brand, I like discipline of like, of like, and consistency, like, you know, the captions are always the same. The images are always presented the same. way. The personality is always the same. The way they, you know, respond to people on social media,

they don't respond to people on social media, like these kind of things. And like season to season, like you see the clothes. And it's like they stick true to what they are. They're not chasing this trend or chasing that trend. I mean, it's, it's a loaded answer, but like, you know, a brand like APC that you just look at. And it's like, it's been the same for 30 years. And I'm like, wow, I could never do that. So I really envy it that it's just been so focused, you know, and hasn't really changed much other than just updating styles and such. That is such a good answer. I love.

It's hard to do. Have you ever met Sean Neff? And if you haven't, you should meet him. You guys would like each other. I don't believe so. Okay, he's like a branding guru. You have to look him up. And he was on the podcast, and we asked him sort of the same question.

And he's something about branding. And he said that he walks down the aisles at supermarkets and like Target and Walmart. And he sees where categories need an update. So he was walking down the toothpaste aisle and he saw toothpaste was so outdated and boring and gross and you would never want it on your vanity. And so he created a toothpaste with Kendall Jenner called Moon. And it's a beautiful toothpaste. But he has a very similar mentality to you when it comes to branding. I feel like you guys would really get it off.

Yeah. Absolutely. I got to kind of hit him up. Yeah. I think that you're so right about discipline. Like there's so many brands and they start like, oh, wow, that's really good. And then all of a sudden, like, a new trend comes along or something that's popular comes along. And they completely scrap their whole brand to capture that trend.

And I feel like they're constantly chasing something. And then like the brand becomes like something that's not identifiable anymore. Like, what does this even stand for? And I think a lot of people, you know, with everything going on could learn a lot by staying disciplined with the brand no matter what trend. Yeah. And then you feel crazy. You're like, am I missing out on this? And then you guys remind yourself like, it'll be fine.

Just stick to what you do. Yeah. It's a hard thought to kind of. see so many things, people flocking into a direction and then makes you kind of question your own movements. A lot of people, I think, are going to come out of this whole quarantine experience as entrepreneurs. I think a lot of people are probably starting to work on their own ideas and thinking about working for themselves instead of someone else. If you could leave our audience with you know, a couple of tips on how to be a badass entrepreneur, we would love that. Yeah, I mean,

you're saying that and I have a friend who's starting a sandwich business, another friend who's starting a barbecue sandwich business, another friend, a cousin who started a hot sauce business, another friend who started an ice cream business, probably within the last six weeks, maybe two months. And I see all of this. And a couple of them I reached out to me and it's like, what do you suggest? And I'm like, you know, just start small, you know, don't worry about commercial kitchen. Don't worry about farmer's market yet.

Don't worry. Definitely don't worry about Bristol farms yet. Just worry about fulfilling this week's orders, get the feedback from your friends and family and then the next step will be opening it up to non-friends and family. The next step will be the farmer's market. But just take your time because, you know, you tend to focus or latch on to like the big success stories, right? This person started in their backyard and now they have 20 restaurants and you're like, okay, I got to get to 20 restaurants. Well, that person took like 15 years to get there. So take it easy, worry about this month and do what you're doing and don't get

too caught up. You don't need so much information on the next step yet, you know, because it naturally will come to you. Maybe you're running the person who likes your product who's like, hey, I have this kitchen. Why don't you take over this twice a week to make your sauce, so on and so forth? So simple and small is great. Another one is try to learn as much as you can about the different elements that go into your business, right? You're going to rely on a lot of different specialists from attorneys to chefs or co-packers, whatever it might be. But pay attention to what they're doing. Learn from them also. Don't be so wholly dependent on other people because a lot of it is not so specialized,

and it's just a lot of common sense, too, that maybe you're better at. It is your business. So you can't just give away the keys to a certain part of it to somebody else. Tony Robbins, Michael, what's that quote? He says you overestimate what you can do in a month and you underestimate what you can do in 10 years.

Yeah. It's similar. What is a book, a resource, or a podcast that you can recommend to our audience to round this out? Something that has brought you a lot of value. I think in consideration of the last few months and there's just like so much work, right? So I kind of, I like to liken it to there's like normal work and there's like this heavy hundred pound COVID backpack work.

And it's like you have to get through all of the work, but like pretend like you don't have that hundred pound backpack on you because nobody's going to give any sympathy. That's just how it is having a business right now. So for me, any kind of distraction I can have is like the opposite of serious. So for me, one podcast that really gets me through. is the Bill Simmons podcast and like Ryan Rosillo, who's often his guest, his podcast. Just let's talk about mindless sports all day long. Let's talk about old NBA drafts.

Just keep my mind off of anything else. So when I go for that walk or, you know, I'm driving or I'm even in the shower listening in a podcast, I just want to go to Fantasyland, you know, 2008, who was the first pick in the draft, who should have been. I love that. And a lot of uplifting television, I'm really into Friday Night Lights right now, which is just like all about family. football and loyalty. And it's just like escape. So I'm really big into a couple of elements like that

that I could just, you know, pay attention to or doze off on. But it's only going to take me to happy places. That's where I'm at. You sound like me and real housewives. My wife watches all the time and I actually like it now. It's crazy. I can't believe that I like it. You get you get sucked in. You get drawn in. You're like, Michael knows all about each one of them. Who is that new character? I think she's from Texas or British. Oh yeah. Um, Sutton. At first I'm like, I don't like Sutton. And then like, you know, they're like so mean to her. And she like spoke her mind. And I'm like, you know what? I got her. She got a little bit bragging in the beginning, bragging about how much money her handbag was worth. And it was a turn off. But she is growing on me. I will say that. Yeah. And they're so mean, they're so mean, they're so, how do I stand out? I don't want to be really hot. You know, she came in really hot and turned me off. And then now I'm like, she's cool. Yeah. I mean, it'd be a weird thing. Imagine you go into a show like that. I know. I know. I stand out. I don't want. I don't want. the network to cancel me. I want the girls to like me. You're just like, I got to stand out, you know. I'm just yelling at the screen. There was a scene with her husband,

Denise Richard's husband. I'm like, just stop talking. I know. Get up. Michael and I were like that. This is going to, this may get me in trouble, but you know, I've observed it on these shows. Like women are tough, man. Like they like us men, we don't experience. When you go into a group of guys, like you don't, you're either like kind of like hang out or you don't. Like there's no, we don't get torn down for, for dinner after dinner. It's scary. Yeah, it's scary. I don't scary. I don't know how you guys do it. Josh, where can everyone find you, your new beer company, the coffee company, the tea? Give us your Instagram, pimp yourself out. So Alfred is at Alfred. Alfred.

Alfred, is at Alfred. My Instagram is at Josh from Alfred. Ha-ha. And then Cali-Dad beer is at Cali-Dad. So you could find us there. And our website for Calli-Dad Beer just won an award recently for the beer industry. So CalliDadbeer.com, check it out. It's a beautiful website. We're going to link it all out. Thank you, brother. I got to stop eating your brief. or else I'm going to explode. No, don't stop. You look great. Thank you, brother. Thank you so much, Josh. That was awesome. People are going to love that. Of course. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, guys. As always, to win cheeky, pink, skinny, confidential stickers. Just tell us your favorite part of this episode on my latest Instagram and someone from the team will drop into a bunch of your inboxes and send

you guys some stickers. Also, make sure you've rated and reviewed the podcast. We are doing so many giveaways coming up. We have all these huge giveaways plan, but you have to rate and review the podcast so you can be eligible to enter. All right. With that, we will see you on Tuesday.