The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – How to Bounce Back: GC Brown’s Story of Redemption and Entrepreneurship with UpCup Koffee

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

How to Bounce Back: GC Brown's Story of Redemption and Entrepreneurship with UpCup Koffee GC Brown Books: GCBrownBooks.com UpCup Coffee: UpCupKoffee.com About the Guest(s): GC Brown is a dynamic author and entrepreneur with an intriguing life journey. Originating from a farming background in Indiana, GC Brown traversed the world, finding himself in Africa's diamond fields before landing in the United States federal prison. During his time in prison, he began writing, ultimately securing a seven-book publishing deal upon release. An innovative thinker, Brown is also venturing into the business world with the launch of a functional mushroom coffee brand called UpCup Koffee. Currently residing in California, he juggles his roles as a husband, father to four boys, and an active contributor to literature and business. Episode Summary: In this riveting episode of The Chris Voss Show, GC Brown returns to share his expanded literary journey and new entrepreneurial endeavor. Known for his charismatic storytelling, Brown delves into his life story, from a farmer's son in Indiana to a federal prisoner turned award-winning author. His latest release, "Sniff," part of the Sniff Smoke Shoot series, is just the beginning of a planned seven-book series. Brown thrillingly incorporates prison-inspired anecdotes into his works, feeding Hollywood's interest as options for film adaptations come into view. Brown also discusses converting his innovative ideas into reality with UpCup Koffee, capitalizing on the burgeoning functional mushroom coffee market. This venture not only supports brain health and wellness but is also a testament to Brown's relentless entrepreneurial spirit. Joined by two former cellmates, he has created a coffee product that delivers health benefits without compromising on taste. As a unique coffee enterprise, UpCup Koffee will boast a nationwide retail presence by 2025, underscoring the transformational power of second chances and dedication. Key Takeaways: GC Brown's prison time sparked an impressive writing career, leading to a lucrative seven-book publishing contract. His latest book, "Sniff," draws from rich, diverse experiences and is gaining attention in Hollywood for potential adaptation. Brown's entrepreneurial venture, UpCup Koffee, redefines the health coffee market with a blend of efficacy and delightful taste. The global functional mushroom coffee industry is witnessing explosive growth, forecasted to more than double by 2030. Integrating business experience from former cellmates highlights the power of collaboration and resilience in entrepreneurship. Notable Quotes: "Sniff is a cross between hangover and Oceans 11… a fun ride taking you through grand adventures." "Most kids at that age making that kind of money, taxes and Uncle Sam weren't really at the forefront of my thoughts." "If you're looking for energy without all that caffeine, you're gonna love this coffee." "I came out with a plan and surrounded by people ready to make a difference." "This coffee does exactly what I'm telling you. It does."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, the Iron Lady sings, and that makes it official. Welcome to the big show. For for 16 years going on 17 and

nearly 2100 episodes we bring in the chris voss show and yeah that's it uh we just been doing it so i don't know what that means or why i'm telling you that i just make up shit on the ramble and i don't have anything so i'm just rambling the ramble is the ramble go to goodreads.com fortresschrisvoss linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfast. Chris Foss won the TikTokity and all those crazy places on the internet you can find people. Today we have our returning guest. So we interviewed him in October for the launch of his new book. We're going to be talking about his new mushroom coffee company that is launching on Black Friday 2024.

For those of you watching this 5, 10 years from now. Somebody was commenting on a video of ours from 2012 it's kind of interesting in the day we get that a lot it's and they're always like hey this isn't new anymore and you're like yeah do you look at the dates on the video so we have GC Brown returning on the guests with us today. His latest book just hit the shelves in October called Sniff, the Sniff, Smoke, and Shoot series. We're going to be talking to him about his newest venture that he's got called, I believe it's Up Coffee, Up Cup Coffee. It's launching on Black Friday, so you can catch it and get it before they sell it in the inventory. GC Brown came from a farm in small-town Indiana to the Diamond Fields of Africa and to federal prison back in the States and everywhere in between.

He's just been on tour, really. He's just doing the tour. Now from his home in California where he lives with his wife, two sons, and their brand-spankinganking new identical twin boys, he's balancing babies, books, and business. His new book, Sniff, is the book one in the Sniff Smoke Shoot series and his debut novel. Taken by Storm, book one in the Mason Storm series about a mma fighter turned west palm beach detective is due out in march of 2025 welcome to the show gc how are you sir great thank you for having me good

to be back again good to have you as well boy you sure came back quick so give us your dot coms where do you want people to find you on the interwebs okay so for the book stuff it's gc brown books.com gc brown books.com and the coffee a functional mushroom coffee brand new is up cup coffee with a k.com and so give us a 30,000 overview of the book and then of course the coffee company now okay so the book obviously i wrote it while in federal prison had Had never written anything in the past. Went to prison and for various white collar crimes they claimed, I was offered a three-year plea. Went to prison, didn't take the plea, went to prison, or lost trial, went to prison and did 16. While I was there, I took up writing. It was the only thing that I could do from there. I had the pleasure of

being in federal prison with the pleasure or not, but with bank robbers and drug lords and politicians and billionaires and millionaires and professional athletes and all these different types of characters, pimps, pedophiles, everybody you could think of. That's Fridays around this place. Yeah, it was a crazy business. And anyway, I took stories and I, I added some glitz and glamor mixed in my life. I wrote a book of sniff. I wrote a few books, but sniff the first one that came out November 1st. It's about a banker in the middle East.

He's living a high on the hog. He's earning six, eight million dollars a year. Investment banker. Owns his own business. The world's great. Married to the woman of his dreams. Has the kid. Has the Swiss Chateau in the mountains in Switzerland.

Has the apartment in London. The whole deal. Has everything. Life is great. Markets crash. He finds out that his wife has a terminal disease well at the same time the markets crash his life falls down around him he gets addicted to some drugs dying trying to speed trying to stay up around the clock looking for that miracle to save his wife the speed turns into a heroin addiction, which turns

into moving to the United States and robbing banks in Palm Beach County, Florida, South Florida, and gets caught. He's robbing these banks to support the wife's cancer treatment, and that is not his drug habit. Anyway, he winds up robbing some banks it's a fun ride it takes you all over the middle east it takes you to america brings you back to the states takes you to egypt takes you to paris it takes you all over the place a great read we're getting great responses it's on amazon now it's i walked out of prison luckily enough to a seven book publishing deal. Doesn't happen very often. And boy, I'm living it now.

The sniff is a, we're getting great, great, I can't talk enough about it. It's amazing. Great reads. We've garnered some attention already from Hollywood. Of course, they got it months before everybody else did, but there's some major things being talked about. Gotta get those movie options. Yeah, gotta get those movie options yeah i gotta get the options yeah yeah we're hoping so so while i was in prison i told you

some of the characters i ran across uh some of the for the up cup coffee side of things over i've always been kind of a health nut my whole life and while in prison and surrounded by some of these billionaires and millionaires and professional athletes and the guys that really had it out there in the world, some of these guys were taking $10,000, $12,000 a month worth of vitamins, which is just when it sounds like it's ludicrous to think about stuff like that. But guys are pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into their bodies per year the guys that can afford it trying to live longer and live with more energy be more sustainable more

relevant the whole deal there's a guy who's doing that who's just two million dollars a year i don't know if you've seen the videos of him but it's pretty crazy and he looks pretty sickly yeah it works yeah they live forever but they're a beanpole and a lot of them don't look happy that they're living this lifestyle they look he looks miserable i'm not even sure he's getting laid i mean he just he looks he looks like anemic and his skin tone and and stuff but you know he's in he's in good shape he's skinnier than me so maybe he will live longer but yeah the running joke is they'll probably get hit by a bus next week and they'll be all right or not get laid and be miserable i mean what are you doing he just looks miserable and i mean when you're getting blood

infusions from your own son i mean yeah we've gone too far the whole thing's i don't you know and who am i to judge he'll probably live to 150 and I'll I'll be he'll be pissing on my grave or something but yeah yeah there's a lot of people do that we've had I can just see the visual now of him pissing it would you say about me on that podcast boy podcast and you're in your uh who's live now bitch yeah yeah that's what it'll be that or that'll be all my axes anyway it'd definitely be the axes peeing on my grave which is hard to do for women but they'll still i'm sure pull it off just in spite remember that time you didn't you didn't put the toilet seat down anyway the horrors of my relationships are to that fathom but what was the

question I was leading up to there was something I had and I lost it in the in the brain fog yeah coffee see this is what we're this is what we're doing we're creating it's kind of like those movies where the commercials where the girl goes I have a awful headache and you're like oh but here's folgers crystals snort them you know everything will be fine we all do that it's just me no it's you it's just me so oh the thing i was leaning into is you you you've you mentioned the green room you've only been one year 365 days out of jail is that correct 300 yes the 23rd i I went in June 15th, the Monday after Father's Day, 2007. I came out of prison November 23rd of 23, which is 367 days ago, 368 days ago. So it's been only a year, and all this is happening.

And remind us again how much you've accomplished in a year. I mean, you've done a lot of things in the last year. I have. So I came out, like I said, to a publishing deal. I've got two different series going right now. And it was a seven-book deal, right? Seven books, yep. Two different series, seven books.

I came out to – I'm married for the first time in my entire life. I'm the guy that said it would never do it. I walked the aisle. I married my best friend, as cliche as that sounds. I wrote my love story in prison and I'm currently living it. And what I wrote in prison, going back and forth with emails to her in a joking manner. I said, how cool would it be to have some kids and how cool would it be to have a couple twins?

And lo and behold, I've spoken into existence. I said, how cool would it be to have some kids? And how cool would it be to have a couple twins? And lo and behold, I've spoken into existence. We have identical twin boys that tomorrow, it's crazy. You've been busy when you got out of school. Busy immediately. There's nine months and they're somewhere. They're out somewhere, just barely. So there's a couple of series. There's the brand new identical twin boys, 16, 17 weeks on Friday.

There's the launching of the Up Cup Coffee. There's some other things going on that we're involved with and just living life. I can't believe it's been 365 days. And before you went to prison, you were super entrepreneurial too as well. I mean, this is a thing. I was running three different companies on three different continents all at the same time. And I could have been better paying Uncle Sam. I wasn't, which most kids at that age making that kind of money living in the city I was living.

Taxes and Uncle Sam weren't really at the forefront of my thoughts. And neither was understanding the plea. They said that I did things that I didn't do. I fought them. I should have just taken a plea on the taxes and been done. I fought them, and this government prints their own money and has won a couple of world wars. 97% conviction rate. The feds don't usually bring a case.

We've had a lot of people from the Justice Department on, and they usually don't put a case down unless they've got it in lockdown. They have a success rate of like 97%. 97%. But let me ask you this, and I know we're getting sidetracked. Let me ask you this. 97% conviction rate. This is the same government that can't get your mail delivered to you on time

i mean do you see where i'm going with this do any of us really and we are we are it's not like this is a couple of cases that they fought and won and not have that conviction rate we leave the entire world in incarceration yeah so we're saying we're all agreeing that the government has a 97% conviction rate of millions of cases. Do we really think our government is correct 97% of the time? It's not. And I've heard people say that, oh, once the feds get you, it's pretty locked and tight. It's not. It's a story that they've created.

They bend the facts to fit their narrative. They don't care if you're innocent or not. They care about a conviction and they care about that 97% conviction rate. They will do whatever they need to do. There are no rules. There are no lines that they have to

stay in. It's unfortunate. I'm not saying I was innocent. I was innocent of what they claimed I did, but I did other things and other stupid things as a young guy in a big city making way too much money claimed I did, but I did other things and that other stupid things as a young guy in a big city making way too much money. I did some of them immoral stuff. Some of them are back to, what do they call it? Repaying society for whatever. I don't know. Yeah. I think I paid at 16 years. I mean, I think it's great that you're, you're, you know,

you're breaking that recidivism cycle that many people that come out of prison have. And I think you're doing a good example. One of my friends is, she had some drug problems. She grew up with drug problems and trauma, I think from childhood. And a lot of that was resolved. It didn't help that I believe she had a father who was a pharmacist who also had drug problems. And he got her started in his drug problems. And because he was a pharmacist, he had access to stuff. So finally in and out of prison and jail with her and her drug problems, she finally turned her life around. And then one of the things she started was an employee leasing company that helps people when they come out of prison to get placement for jobs. And she retrains them and everything.

So her experience from prison is she's now helping other people and i just think it's great when people are successful coming out of prison and you know they can find a new life because there's a lot to go back and they don't do anything on a side note they don't do anything to help you in there there is no there is no they they help you and they they it's either you get up and do it yourself or you go back and do the same. And that's why the recidivism rate is at 80%. It's not because people don't want to change their lives. They're not given, they're stuck in a meat freezer and hey, hang out here for 200 months and good luck when you get out. And they kick you out the door and hope that you do better.

They don't teach you anything while you're there. It's the prison industrial complex. I mean, it's really, it's an industry into itself and it's really, it's job is to suck you back in. I've had friends that have... It's a money grab. And yeah, and you can sneeze and you can get banged

back by your parole agent and they want that. You know, anyway, different broadcast probably for some of this stuff but I just think it's inspiring what you're doing. So I wanted to highlight that to the up cup coffee. Tell us about that. What ventured you into that and all that good stuff?

Okay. So yeah, no, no, you can't, you can't make some title of the book and then the coffee together. So like I was saying, like I was saying the, I was in prison with all these guys, some big time guys, guys, like I said, that were 10, 12, 13, 14,000 a month in additives and vitamins and trying to stretch life as far as they could. So I'm kind of a research guy and there is no research in prison outside of talking to people. So I came out of prison with a, after talking to all these guys and the doctors and stuff, they're all there too. I came out with a list of things,

additives that I was going to take when I got home. And some of them, which the main three was Shilajit, which has been around for 4,000 years. It's a natural substance. It's found in the Himalayas. It's been used in medicine for 4,000 years. It's an energy substance. It's found in the Himalayas. It's been used in medicine for 4,000 years. It's an energy enhancement. It supports cognitive and brain function. It's an antioxidant. It balances your metabolism for the weight control. It does everything.

And it really is amazing. I started taking that. I was also taking some NAD+, which is the anti-aging stuff. It plays a key role in improving your energy metabolism, your cognitive function again, your overall well-being, supports energy production, the DNA repair, the health aging, all of that. Also amazing. And the last one was the lion's mane, the big one. Everybody's talking about these mushrooms now, the healthy mushrooms, not the other ones, not the psychedelic ones.

We had a guy on yesterday for the psychedelic ones. He runs the treats in Denver. That's starting to become mainstream too, the microdosing now by some of the psychedelics. Yeah, sterilization, yeah. Yes, I think it's coming. Anyway, so lion's mane mushroom. It's amazing.

It's one of the biggest mushrooms out there. They're talking about right now. I think it's searched some 300,000 times a month right now, just on Amazon, tick tock in the Instagrams and they put it at the forefront of society now. But again, that's a cognitive function, memory enhancement,

again, anti-inflammatory immune support, nerve regeneration, growth and repair the whole deal so anyway i get these uh additives at home and i start taking them but they're terrible tasting they're a lion's mane mushroom it tastes like you lick the back of a wet tree the i was doing the mushroom coffees and i was trying one after another and all of them. I had bags. I had bags sitting in my pantry. I'd take out one cup of this stuff and choke it down.

And what in the world is why this is good for you? How can this be good for you? So I was taking these things, and I continued to do it. And the shilajit, like I said, it's a char. I was putting it on the back of my tongue. Yeah, I do it every day. Yeah, you know. So that stuff has a terrible taste. I've gotten used to it, though. Yeah, I do it every day. I've got. Yeah, you know, so that stuff has a terrible taste.

So what I'm doing. I've gotten used to it though. Yeah, you get used to it. And your body actually gets used to it. You get, you stop the burping up. And anyway, I was burying those three things into my coffee every morning. It's the only way I could do the taste into my mushroom coffee. Just put it in there, slam it it to sink and then brushing my teeth afterwards

and just done for the day at that time i was in the middle of setting up a drop ship company with ex-felon also one of my cellmates alex diaz we were in the middle of setting up a business that we had talked about 10 years earlier but we didn't know what but we knew we were going to do something when i got out he got out 10 years earlier than me he was know what, but we knew we were going to do something when I got out. He got out 10 years earlier than me. He was my cellmate for three, four, four and a half years, something like that. We agreed we were going to do something. So we're talking on the phone every morning, setting up this drop ship and what are we going to sell? We talked about the hats, the pins, the coffee mugs, anything just to get going. And in the meantime, we're both making fun of each other and all the different additives

that we're both taking, the different ways where it's stand on one leg and take this and try to mix with onion powder and all kinds of different things. Yeah, it's just craziness. This for that and that for this, the whole deal, laughing and playing. And one of us says, we should just come up with our own mushroom coffee. And that turned into immediate, let's go. I'm a business guy, an entrepreneur. I've done everything. Immediately, bells and whistles started going off in my head. Listen, it doesn't even got to taste good.

All of this stuff that's out there is terrible. It doesn't even have to taste good. I wasn't worried about the taste. Let's just mix this stuff in and get it out there. So we get about a month, month and a half down the road and getting this put together and alex comes in with the hair brine brain idea hey let's make it taste good i'm like why do we want to make it taste good nobody tastes good nobody's buying it expected it to taste good why would we do it so that turned into him talking me into that and he lines up a coffee expert out of california which turns into a team of chemists which turns

into up cup coffee yeah so while i'm while i'm doing all that i was doing business with another dr william mcarthur another cellmate from 14 years earlier. Let me preface this too. 16 years in prison, I took five people's information. That's the people that are in prison. I took five people's information when I left prison that I would go forward, do things with, that I was comfortable bringing around my family, guys that I knew had made that change and would never go back. So it's limited the amount of people that I'm not, it's probably the wrong thing to say, but think like I do. There's not many people like that. Most guys are sitting around and just waiting for the next day to happen. I attacked it. I came out with a plan.

These guys did the same thing. Dr. MacArthur, I was doing some real estate stuff with him on the side. But he got his medical license back. He's actually a doctor. So Alex on one side, we were doing the drop ship and Doc and I were going to do the real estate. They don't know each other. Only I know them. So I call Doc. Alex comes up with this harebrained idea. Hey, let's make this thing taste good. I happened to be calling Doc that morning on some real estate stuff and explaining to him the first time about the mushroom coffee and about Alex. He says, hey, I'm doing some of the same stuff, the same additives. We got to talking.

Long story short, I introduced them together. The three of us went forward and produced up cup coffee. It's made with a hundred percent Arabica bean sourced out of Columbia, which basically it's a fancy way of saying it's a, it's a single origin bean. There's no blending. It's not a hybrid and it's considered the highest quality. What came back from the chemist, Chris, is an actual mushroom coffee with these other additives in it that actually tastes like

a good cup of coffee. It doesn't taste like licking the back of a tree. It tastes amazing. So when we get this... We probably shouldn't shame people who like licking the back of trees. There are 300 lickers. back of trees. Right. Yeah.

There are trees. Might be helpful to the audience. They're all out there. Hey, man. We've all done it. We've all licked a tree every now and then. We've had those nights. Don't talk about it out here. Yeah, we didn't talk about it.

It's like Fight Club. So anyway, we come up with this great tasting coffee. And then, of course, nowhere to go. It's 3X Felons. I've got the book release coming up. No one's going to hand us money. It's a new idea. None of us have been in retail space before.

We're thinking we're going to. We bought our first order was 50 bags. We talked the coffee guy, the coffee and they're giving us 50 bags i mean it took it took a month and a half to convince this guy to give us the bags no one wants to run a coffee mix for 50 bags so we're thinking we're gonna sell one bag at a time two bags three bags eventually we'll land on um wall street or wherever we land we're going to get to the point of a big deal. So in walks my PR firm for the book, Devin Blaine from the Blaine Group. She gets a hold of the coffee, and she rushes us over to one of her long-time standing associates,

who is the largest distributor in all of North America and Canada. They fall in love with the coffee. We immediately see that we're going to need some funding. We can't do, they're going to want more than 50 bags. How are we going to do this? Like I said, no one's willing to give us the money. I have a brother who's been in corporate America his entire life, has always done the right thing, can manage to stretch a dime from

here until he probably still has his first dime this kid can save my younger mother by a couple of years his name's jim jimmy to me this guy can stretch a budget out to it's unbelievable he he will wear he's the type of guy that will wear the same t-shirt and hat for a week straight to save on laundry soap. He's going to save, save, save. He was taught this from corporate America. He's never been in trouble, always done the right thing. And he had a bank full of money. Thank God he saved.

Everybody made fun of him for saving, saving, saving. I went to him and said, hey, listen, this is the deal we have. This is a coffee we have. We need you. We need somebody. He literally, he drove over to, I'm in the middle of, funny story, so I was in the middle of trying to figure out how do I pitch my brother? Him and I have never done business like that. I've always been the guy, the fast and the loose, and he's been tied up. Everything's perfect. No way I'm taking those kind of risks i said to myself how am i going to

approach my brother and ask why i knew he had it he by chance just drove he drove over four and a half hours on a surprise on a saturday drove from arizona to california on a surprise just to take me to lunch and turn around and go back while i'm in the middle of trying to i'm on the computer typing the night before of how i'm going to approach him on this. He shows up, we go to lunch. I spill the beans. He literally next week drove his truck back out and with his retirement fund in the back, not physically, of course, not literally, but drove back out and funded UpCup Coffee. He's been our sign-up partner this whole time. He eventually will come on in 2025 as the CEO. And so I'm lucky enough to get to do UpCup with two of my cellmates, two of only five people I took information from, two of the best people

that I know. I get to do it with them and I get to do it with my absolutely amazing brother and his wife. Now, my wife, it's a family biz. It's been incredible. Incredible. Yeah. And so tell us about some of the ingredients that are in here. And now this is launching on Black Friday. So if you guys are interested, how can they find it on Black Friday on Amazon? You can go to our website.

You can either go to Amazon and search UpCup Coffee, just like it sounds, coffee with a K, or you can go to our website, which is upcupcoffeeagainwithak.com, and you can see it there. It's true. It was not supposed to be released until Black Friday. We decided to open this website 10, 12 days ago, and the Amazon just for a soft open to make sure all the buttons work, all the links work, everything was like it should be. And we got a call from Amazon yesterday.

We shipped inventory to them for the Black Friday launch. We got a call from them yesterday. Hey, we're down to 16 units. We literally sold out all of just from the different podcasts and some of my social media for the book we were down to 16 units left so we had to overnight some more inventory to amazon thankfully it'll be there on time and orders will go out beginning of the next let's see beginning of next week we're already. But it's for sale. You can actually get it right now. The shelves are stocked there

at Amazon. So it's good. The coffee, what do people get from benefits of drinking these mushrooms? Those who aren't familiar with the whole process there. The lion's mane, the reason people are taking it and the reason mushroom coffee, let me tell

you this really quick. So functional mushroom coffee last year did 2.3 billion dollars in the united states oh yeah they're not on the there's no mushroom coffees on the shelf this is all just e-commerce that number is expected to grow to over 5 billion by 2030 yeah. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Now, coffee did $95 billion. Regular coffee did $95 billion last year. The functional mushroom coffee, people are just catching on to it. Imagine only, it's not on the shelves.

We're going to be the first guys on the shelves because of who we signed the deal with. We'll be on your nationwide shelves, the Targets and Walmarts and the Crovers and all that in 2025 but 2.3 billion dollars last year was done over the internet that's how popular these mushrooms have become yeah it's it's insane there but the things that they do the cognitive and the memory enhancement it's unbelievable It's the immune support.

It's just these mushrooms are in the forefront of everything right now. I firmly believe that they don't have the number right. And I'm not a Wall Street guy or anything like that, but I've been an entrepreneur since I'm 17. They did $2.3 billion, like I said, last year. It's expected to go to $30 billion, and no one is talking about on shelves. They're talking about just off the Internet. Like I said, we're going to be and no one is talking about on shelves they're talking about just off the internet like i said we're going to be the first one we'll be on in costco walmart and bjs at the end of 25 beginning of next year kroger's walmart target public's trader joe's state of everywhere we'll be nationwide on shelves so i think that number wrong. I think they have that number wrong. I

think it's growing faster than that just because of the benefits. People are raving about these mushrooms. And Chris, a lot of these guys that are making these mushroom coffees are putting just enough coffee, just enough mushrooms in it to call it mushroom coffee, but they're not giving you, we put 250 milligrams of lion's mane mushroom in every cup. We have 250 milligrams of shilajit in every cup. There's 100 or 150 milligrams of the NAD. So these guys out there talking about, oh, our coffee has mushrooms, our coffee has collagen. Turn it over. Look at the back of the bag and see how much

they're actually giving you. See if it's the amount you're supposed to take on a daily basis. See what theirs tastes like. We ask you to go out and try other guys. All these bags of mushroom coffees, if you've looked, you know that they're $30, $35, $40, $45. Mud water, I think, is up to 50 or $60 a bag now. It's insane. It's insane. It's insane. And here's what we decided to do early on. All of us in the company, Jim included, and his wife, Marlene, we were trying these mushroom coffees.

I lived with Jim and Marlene when I got out of prison. You have to be released to family i was on an ankle monitor so i was in their one of their spare bedrooms so i got marlene jim's wife hooked on the different the mushroom coffee so her and i are trying stuff from all over the internet and we're trying all these coffees and we're taking a spoonful of these 30 and $40 bags and doing the first cup and it's sitting on the shelves. Jimmy, the penny pincher is coming in and looking at the pantry. What are you guys doing? There's mushroom coffee. Why are you guys buying more of this?

It tastes like dirt. We want to find the good ones. It tastes like dirt. So we decided to do an up cup because we don't want people wasting another $30, $35, $40 on a bag of coffee. It's senseless. We put a $10. In fact, you'll see it right here. We put a nine-serving, $9.99 bag. I just knocked off the K-Cups. We put a $9.99 serving or a nine-serving, $9.99 price tag on a trial-size bag for you.

Try it. If you don't like it, you've wasted $10, not $9.99 price tag on a trial-size bag for you. Try it. If you don't like it, you've wasted $10, not $30. It's a sealable bag. If you don't like it, give it to your neighbor. But I promise you, if you like coffee and you're interested in the Shilajit and you're interested in the NAD and you're interested in energy without all that caffeine without that dirty feeling without that 15 cups a day to keep you going without that crash without the the jitters that you're going to love this coffee you're going to love it you're going to love it let's see what else do we need to touch on for what you guys have here now is it it sounds like it also comes in K-cup. Is it brewed normally like traditional coffee?

And I believe it's Italian coffee, correct? It's an Italian medium blend, which doesn't mean anything. That's just the way they roast the bean. It is. So here's where we differ also. There's only one other mushroom coffee that we found on the market. But let me back up. We can all agree that instant coffee is just not

good. Most instant coffee is terrible by itself. The better cup of coffee is always the brewed coffee. All of these foul tasting, dirt smelling mushroom coffees that are out there and I'm not bad mouthing people. It's just what it is.

Try it. Check it out. There's $300 worth of coffee in there that the Blaine group tried of all the different places to compare ours to. It is what it is. I forgot what I was doing with the point. If you try it and you realize the instant coffee is not good and it doesn't taste good, we went ahead and did the brew. We did an actual brewed cup of coffee. We hired a team of chemists. We spent a ton of money to get a brewed cup of coffee so it's not instant it tastes it's a brew cup it's brewed it's just with your cake or you can brew it yeah you can brew it it's it's coffee

grounds it's not a powder it doesn't have if you open a lot of these mushroom coffee bags you'll see that it looks the substance is foamy. It feels like the mushroom texture. You can tell when you open the bag and smell it, this is not going to be good. Open our bag. You don't even have to open the bag. Smell the outside of it. You smell it.

It's real coffee. It's a real coffee bean. Does it taste like coffee, or how would you describe the taste? In fact, these right on the front here, and we wouldn't put this on the front of our bag if we didn't mean it. Right on the front, it tastes like a great cup of coffee. We're not going to take and put that out there and chance. Here's what we did with the website.

A lot of these websites, you can go into your back end and you can choose to the reviews that you get. You can choose to, if somebody sends you a bad review, you can set your dials in the back of your website to only post fours and up, fours and fives and threes up, post whatever you want. We didn't. Ours is open. If you get a bad review, we get a bad review.

So we're not going to take a chance putting it tastes like a great cup of coffee on the front of our Rolls Royce bag and have it taste like crap or taste like dirt or have it taste like you licked the back of a tree. It's a great cup of coffee. We put it on the front of the bag. We left our comments open. The reviews are open. We post everything. You're going to see what people say. You will find out as it works. You will find out. Anything more we need to know about the coffee and what you're going to see what people say. You will find out as it works. You will find out. Anything more we need to know about the coffee and what you're doing?

Anything about making it, how it's distinctive from other brands on the market? It is distinctive mostly because it's a brood and it tastes good. The biggest thing is that most people that have tried, and when I say most, nine out of ten people that have tried mushroom coffees, they're going to tell you the same. Man, it's terrible, tastes terrible, but man, the benefits are out of this world. They're all going to tell you the same thing. Now, the other side of that is, hey, it tastes great. And hey, it does what it's supposed to do. We're three guys that three ex-felons that in prison, if you don't do what you say you're going to do and you don't live by your word,

things are stuck in your ribs, blankets are over your head, you catch beatings, you get a whole, you suffer. The three of us and Jim being in corporate America, he's a VP at a public company, so he's kind of had to live by that too. We do what we say, we stand behind what we say, because we know that that can cost us. So the three of us ex-felons, and Jim, we live and die by that. This coffee does exactly what I'm telling you it does. It's immediate. You feel it immediately.

No jitters, no caffeine crash. You know, if you drink it, I don't know if you're a coffee drinker or not. If you just drink three, four cups, you, at the end of the day, that sticky, that dirty kind of caffeine feeling from drinking all that coffee all day. Oh, I do. You absolutely will not have that. I will refund you your money personally out of my book proceeds. If you can tell me that, hey, listen, I feel like crap after this coffee. It's just I got the jitters. I got the caffeine crash. I got all the things you said I wouldn't get, listen, I feel like crap after this coffee. It's just, I got the jitters. I got the caffeine crash.

I got all the things you said. I wouldn't get GC. I got them. You get ahold of me and we can do it live. We can do it live. If you can honestly come back and say that I'll refund you on live on your live podcast. That sounds like a good deal. We'll try it.

So where can people get this? It's launching on Amazon on black Friday. So it's kind of available now. Yes. Kind of. It's available now. now just go to amazon search up cup coffee up cup is one word obviously coffee with a k okay coffee with a k coffee with a k up cup coffee with a k and you can go to up cup coffee again with the k.com and you can find it there just search up cup coffee we're all over the place like i said it's or a bunch of different retailers between now and the end of the year e-commerce sites and the beginning of next year we got a mushroom container coming out it's pretty cool oh wow yeah we got we got some cool things

happening but you're going to see us everywhere and starting in 2025 we'll look forward to it and your next book where you can come back maybe in march yeah that was the title of that book that one is taken by storm taken by storm it's a series set in the south florida detective series pretty cool it hasn't been done yet it's a i actually wanted i won the benjamin franklin award on the first book and but the publisher chose to come out with snip first uh it's a cross between hangover and oceans 11 and they think it's yeah they think it's going to there's talks of a there's talks with netflix already hbo already and a movie so sniff is a it's a wild ride it's a fun ride it's a you're people are people love it check out the reviews it's the reviews all over the place. Crazy days. All right. Thank you very much for coming on the show.

Give us the dot coms as we go out, GC, of all the stuff. GCBrownBooks.com for Sniff and all my other books. And check us out at all of the socials. GCBrownBooks, GCBrown by itself. We're on 21 different platforms. The Up Cup Coffee is Up Cup Coffee with a K. We're also everywhere, 21 different platforms. You can search us on social media. You can find us on the website. I encourage everybody

to check out the website and read our story. It's a pretty cool story. It reads like a novel. We had somebody tell us the other day and brought tears to their eyes. Quick little short story about us, but you guys are going to love it. Chris,ris i love this show it's the best one that i'm on i love how loose and free you are what a great what a great platform what a great well we've done a show or two so we're good at it a little bit we're still working on getting good i noticed on your website too gc brown books.com you have the the cover art up for the taken by storm that's coming out we're talking about in March 2025 and you can read the first four chapters there too if you

want so yeah yeah okay so both books are available that way yeah so check that out folks thank you very much GC for coming on the show we really appreciate it thank you great to be here thank you for audience for tuning in go to good reset com for chest Christmas LinkedIn comm for chest Christmas Christmas one of the tick-tock knee and all those crazy ass here. Thank you for your audience for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, FortunessChristmas, LinkedIn.com, FortunessChristmas, Christmas1, the TikTok, and all those crazy-ass places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you

next time. And that should have us out.