Mark,
SunbeltNE

“Santa Barbara Coffee Company” is an good name. It lets people know they’re supporting a local business – the kind of name you could build a following around. Most people would probably assume you should pick something that can expand later (“city coffee” etc), but then you’re just another corporate coffee. Reminds me of the “law of sacrifice” (from the 22 immutable laws of marketing).

Take only advice that is going to help you get started, but ignore all the discouragement.

I actually put some thought into this a few years back for an entrepreneurship course I took and would be happy to share the presentation with you.

I to quickly building a strong brand centers around distribution. You could certainly go the traditional route of trying and encourage foot traffic to your store, but I think there are other ways for a unknown company to ramp up sales faster. The implicit assumption in all of this is that you’ll have good coffee. That means having consistent coffee. From what I’ve seen, a decent roaster that provides consistent coffee is a moderately large amount is a at least a few thousand dollars.

I start the business by (1) buying a roaster and getting the roast down, (2) developing a killer logo and great website, and (3) distributing your coffee through other stores.

A couple of examples of companies that have done a great job branding themselves in the coffee space (besides starbucks, obviously) are Kaldis Coffee in St. Louis, MO (http://www.kaldiscoffee.com/) and Santa Barbara Coffee Company in Santa Barbara, CA (http://sbcoffee.com/). Both have blown up in recent years due having a great brand and a good product. They were helped by a great brand image. SBCC sells the Northern Cal lifestyle. Kaldis coffee has great distribution deals. Kaldis started off 12 or so years ago selling through a free standing stores and then working their way into local restaurants and has since launched bigger deals with local Universities, corporate cafeterias, grocery stores, etc.

I suggest that after you’ve created a great brand / logo with the help of a website like http://www.crowdspring.com for $300-$500, you buy a good roaster, get an attractive website and go restaurant to restaurant and try to sell them on why they should stock your coffee. Also, you might want to consider selling into the gift shops at high rise condos – you could sell coffee that is less than 24 hours old on Saturday morning, for instance, out of a high rise building (I’m thinking 20+ stories to get the scale).

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Chuck Cohn

If you could have Brimo send me an email (referencing your blog) I’ll give him a free copy of my Coffee Shop Secrets course.

To your success,

Wayne