S7 Ep10: From Bean to Green: Roasting a Solid Foundation for Growth with Melissa Villanueva
“[Entrepreneurship] is a mix of optimism and hope coupled with just a tenacity to make it work no matter what happens.” —Melissa Villanueva
Embarking on the journey of being a first-time founder is like that invigorating first sip of coffee in the morning, filled with both excitement and uncertainty. Just as each carefully roasted bean lays the foundation for a rich and complex brew, every decision and milestone achieved forms the bedrock of your startup's growth. With time, effort, and a sprinkle of innovation, you can watch your business percolate and flourish, just like that first sip of freshly brewed success.
Brewpoint Coffee CEO, Melissa Villanueva went from being a recruitment director to a coffee shop owner overnight after finding a listing on Craigslist. Without experience nor a solid plan, she took a chance, bought a struggling coffee shop and turned it into a thriving multi-location business.
Tune in to hear her tips for entrepreneurial optimism and problem-solving your way to success, inside scoop on Brewpoint Coffee's mission-driven approach, the importance of creating an inclusive and diverse community space, the impact of data-driven decisions to profitability and sustainable growth, and her advice for founders dreaming big.
Connect with Melissa:
Melissa Villanueva is the CEO, owner, and founder of Brewpoint Coffee. Brewpoint has four coffee shops, a wholesale roastery, a premiere event space, and a book called, “Starting & Running a Coffee Shop.” Brewpoint Coffee has been mentioned in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Sprudge, and a number of leading publications.
Melissa is most proud of building a thriving business she 100% owns and leads. This is important because profit often dictates a business owner's decisions. Still, if you have the power to fully decide why you do what you do, you can build a system that is not just about profit but about social and environmental impact.
Episode Highlights:
02:00 Entrepreneurship= Passion
06:10 Scaling to Multiple Locations
08:39 The Importance of Data-Driven Decision-Making
12:46 Building a Foundation for Growth
Tweets:
Starting your first business? Don't get all frothy before developing a solid foundation. Tune in as @jreichman and Melissa Villanueva, the CEO and Founder of Brewpoint Coffee spill the beans on strategies to filter out distractions and perk up processes. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season7 #BrewpointCoffee #coffeepreneur #firsttimebusinessowner #communitybuilding #sustainability #inclusion #datafocus #visionaryleadership #strategicgrowth #femalefounders
Inspirational Quotes:
03:13 “Creating Brewpoint for me was creating a space of belonging for myself, but also wanting to create a space of belonging for others and wanting to be as inclusive and diverse in that as possible.” —Melissa Villanueva
04:55 “Part of entrepreneurship is partially being a little delusional.” —Melissa Villanueva
09:13 “[Entrepreneurship] is a mix of optimism and hope coupled with just a tenacity to make it work no matter what happens.” —Melissa Villanueva
09:39 “I needed to be all in to not give up.” —Melissa Villanueva
10:22 “You need to have that vision that makes you want to do it so badly that it doesn't matter what you're doing.” —Justine Reichman
14:47 “There's a fine line and a point where scrappy meets strategic.” —Justine Reichman
15:22 “Scrappiness can get you from zero to a million. But when you want to go beyond that and know what your goals are, it takes more long term strategy and more longer term investments.” —Melissa Villanueva
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good morning, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Melissa Villanueva, who is the CEO and Founder of Brewpoint Coffee.
Welcome, Melissa.
Melissa Villanueva: Thank you so much for having me, Justine.
Justine Reichman: Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm so glad that we are able to have this conversation. I love learning that one of my favorite coffees taught you how to roast so that's quite a fun fact. Now I'm excited to try your coffee when it comes. But in the meantime, can you tell us a little bit about Brewpoint Coffee?
Melissa Villanueva: Absolutely. So have you ever looked on Craigslist for an espresso machine only to buy a coffee shop instead? Because that is the story of Brewpoint Coffee. Nine years ago, me, my son and a month-old boyfriend found his coffee shop on Craigslist, bought it with no idea what we were doing. Nine years later, I now have a full fledged Coffee Company with four coffee shops, coffee manufacturing, and I really focus with a mission on creating a more inclusive and diverse environment for DuPage County. So right outside of the Chicago land area.
Justine Reichman: Wow. Okay, first of all, going on Craigslist.
Melissa Villanueva: Yeah. It says as well as it sounds. Honestly, it was like I was looking for an espresso machine to start toying around with. I thought maybe in three years, I would open a coffee shop. I needed a business plan. I needed money. I had none of that. But I had a boyfriend, now husband, who really believed in me and support from family as well. I found this coffee shop on Craigslist, bought it in one month and just really was dedicated to getting a little bit better every single day. Hence now, we have our full fledged Coffee Company nine years later.
Justine Reichman: That's amazing. So curious, what were you doing before? What were you doing when you were looking for this coffee machine?
Melissa Villanueva: Sure. I was a Director of recruitment and retention at a financial firm for three years right outside of college. And then I met my boyfriend and he encouraged me to quit my job, follow my dreams. And so for two months, I was unemployed in the Philippines trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I just caught this vision of a community space driven by coffee. And that's what I was like, I think that's what I want to do. But I want to be responsible and put a plan together. The week I came back from the Philippines, I found this coffee shop on Craigslist. And the rest is history.
Justine Reichman: Wow. You're a first time entrepreneur. You had been doing something completely different, recruitment. You have to recruit to be an entrepreneur. So did you always have this passion for coffee, sustainability and inclusiveness? Was that something that you felt like a core value for you that you were missing in what you were doing and wanted to create something around that?
“Creating Brewpoint for me was creating a space of belonging for myself, but also wanting to create a space of belonging for others and wanting to be as inclusive and diverse in that as possible.” —Melissa Villanueva
Melissa Villanueva: Yeah. As you know, a brown woman in the US likes, I think for me, belonging has always been a key part of my journey. And creating Brewpoint for me was creating a space of longing for myself, but also wanting to create a space of belonging for others and wanting to be as inclusive and diverse in that as possible. And so really, Brewpoint was driven by this desire to build community and as inclusive and diverse a community as I possibly could. And then as I kept going, I was like, well, I have to be sustainable. I have to make some more money. I have to figure out the systems and operations so we're not all chaotic. And so it has been this like month after month, just trying to figure out how to get better. Not just create a culture and create great products, but also create a business that can last beyond me. It's been a wild journey.
Justine Reichman: Given this is your first time at that being an entrepreneur, how did you feel when you picked off this company? And you've never done it before. In your head, you're like, okay, I can't do this until I have a business plan. And then all of a sudden, you're buying a coffee shop. So how did you bridge that gap, that conversation in your head.
“Part of entrepreneurship is partially being a little delusional.” —Melissa Villanueva
Melissa Villanueva: Sometimes, you flow in life and certain opportunities come your way . You just know in your gut that this is something that you can't miss out on. And that really was the moment I saw this coffee shop on Craigslist, my stomach dropped. And it was like I have to figure out how to make this work. We actually lost the opportunity at one point where someone else had swooped in and purchased it. And that's when I knew for sure that I did not want to lose that. Luckily, it came back on the market, and I knew that I had to move forward with it. And so for me, it really has just been this matter of living out. Part of entrepreneurship is partially being a little delusional. I was incredibly optimistic and a manifestation of what you think is possible to get anything close to that. And even though I didn't have the data, I did have a strong belief in myself and a strong belief on what I could do. And so I just knew I could figure it out even if it meant long days, long nights, that's a lot of money at first. But over time, it really has been able to build up. And so one little snippet I'll give is that the coffee shop that we bought on Craigslist, we just bought the assets, but it was doing $180 a day. And so I remember thinking, I think I can do better than that. And now, that location average is between 2 and $3,000 a day.
Justine Reichman: That's great. That's really good. So you say you bought this, you didn't have money? Because you said you were, it's not like you'd save for this. It wasn't like you planned for it. Go buy your espresso machine to toy with it. So how did you get from being unemployed, to getting an espresso, to buying this company without having a plan? What were some of the resources you tapped into to make it come to fruition?
Melissa Villanueva: It was a very quick turnaround as well because we found it in June, bought it in August. But with that being said, my seven month boyfriend, he was very serious. I was very serious about him, but we're pretty new in our relationship. Essentially, instead of an engagement ring. I like to joke that he bought me a coffee shop instead. And so we locked down that relationship very quickly, we got engaged two months into Brewpoint and married four months into that, but it was a little bit of that. And then also support from both our parents. I do feel like we were really lucky to be able to make that type of decision. I know, on a financial standpoint, my worst case scenario would be that we'd be a little bit in debt. But in a worst case scenario, we could get jobs and pay off our debt fairly quickly. It was like a low access point owning a coffee shop because I think the shop itself was $36,000 when they had invested about $100,000 a couple of years before.
Justine Reichman: Wow. So it's how many years later now?
Melissa Villanueva: Nine years.
Justine Reichman: When you got this coffee shop, where did you dream 5 years, 10 years down? Because that's where we're at now. And I'm curious, how does that align with what you had dreamt about in your head?
Melissa Villanueva: Honestly, I don't think I had all that. I was dreaming about this community space where people come in every day, they enjoy their cup of coffee. And within the first two years of owning Brewpoint, I realized really quickly that maybe me and my husband could make enough money to make ends meet for us. But we really couldn't do that very well for our team and really couldn't do much in terms of investing in farming relationships as well. And so two years in, we decided that we'd grow so that we could have a little bit more economic viability, so that we could build relationships with farmers and we could start paying career level wages for managers and above. And it kind of just kept going from there. So it was like, okay, can two shops do it? No two shops can do it. Can 3? Can 4? Can roasting and manufacturing? And so we ended up becoming not so much of this replicable, scalable coffee shop. But we've become this whole ecosystem having relationships with our farmers in Costa Rica, having a whole supply chain from that relationship. And then also making sure that we have our multiple coffee shops that we can utilize our buying power so we can have some long term sustainability.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. That's exciting. So if you were to be talking to other Founders that are listening to this podcast or watching the videocast, what would you tell them if they had an idea without a plan?
“[Entrepreneurship] is a mix of optimism and hope coupled with just a tenacity to make it work no matter what happens.” —Melissa Villanueva
Melissa Villanueva: I think that it is this mi. I really believe that you have to have some level of delusion and an increased amount of hope and optimism to take that leap and be an entrepreneur. Sometimes, trying to line up all the plans. Make it like you never really open a coffee shop or your business ever because nothing ever really aligns. I think that it's a mix of this optimism and hope coupled with just a tenacity to make it work no matter what happens. And so it is problem solving each problem at a time. Not becoming overwhelmed when you see the larger picture, but you just kind of focus, you accomplish the next thing and accomplish the next thing. So if you can really believe in yourself and you know that you'll be committed to going all in, I knew I needed that. I needed to be all in to not give up. I think I might have just defaulted to things I'm more comfortable with. But I do think that assessing what's your worst case scenario, making sure you have that figured out and then just jumping in is what can make you know your reality or your dreams reality.
Justine Reichman: I think that I would agree. I like the comment that there is some delusion in it. You have to have a pie in the sky kind of dream. And that Chinese medicine, they call him sure. But I'm trying to think like it's the incentive, it's the drive to want to make that happen. Because in the beginning of the business, you're doing everything, it doesn't matter. So you need to have that vision that makes you want to do it so badly that it doesn't matter what you're doing. Yeah, it can happen. In my mind, that's how I see it. Because there's no one more motivated than me in my business. Although I have a great team starting out, I had to be my own motivator. And I think that's really key. So now that you have about nine years under your belt and you're looking at the future, what do you see for the future for you guys?
“You need to have that vision that makes you want to do it so badly that it doesn't matter what you're doing.” —Justine Reichman
Melissa Villanueva: So it actually is really interesting because we're in an interesting time where we had some rhythm before the pandemic, and then we have the pandemic. And now, we're in this new stage where everything is just trying to figure out this new economic system in our industry. If I'm entirely honest, I am struggling. Coffee is one in which unless you've scaled to a higher level, I'm really curious how most small businesses are going to make it work. Brewpoint is in this middle ground, where we're able to be that small business that can disrupt and be a bit different because of our size. But if you're a bit smaller, if you don't have the same traction, if you don't have the same buying power, our margins overall have really decreased since the pandemic about 5 to 10%. And that just saying would Brewpoint specifically, it's more just generally across the board. Global warming has caused, especially coffee farms, to have to increase their prices, which is absolutely necessary. And then the cost of wages, costs of general cost of goods have all gone up. And so there has to be a lot of data orientedness, a lot of strategy when companies like me that have been a little bit more culture oriented, a little bit more just like vision and inspiration. We've had to really pivot into being data oriented since 2023. A lot of us did get some level of support during the pandemic, which helped us get into a strong position. And for myself, it has been data focused in 2023 looking at 10% profitability across the board in 2024, and then reinvestment that aligns with our values into our systems, into our people in 2025. And so for me, it is about, I want to have the strongest foundation possible to make sure that our next step moving forward is something that I like, not just that I want for myself, but I want for my life and community. Because one of the entrepreneurs that I really do admire and really like how they've made an impact is a (inaudible). And I think it's because of their hyperlocal investment while also being nationally known who they are and what they do. And so for myself, I want to be hyperlocal. But I also want to showcase how we've done what we've done so others can be entrepreneurs and make the local community impact coffee shops, as well.
Justine Reichman: Admirable, and really amazing as you grow what you're focused on. I give you a lot of credit for that. For me, that's the way I drive. What I buy, what I eat, what you know? So I think that that story is so important so that the community can get behind you not just because you got great coffee, but because what you stand for is so amazing. So I'm curious, looking back as you were a new entrepreneur, is there anything that you might have done differently now with this set of experience that you have?
Melissa Villanueva: I think that part of it is just being really honest with your skill set. So for myself, I can cast a vision, I can do sales, I can do recruiting. So my team is way more talented in all the departments that they run. But it is knowing that this is what I'm good at and what I'm not as good at is being hyper detail oriented. Sometimes, follow through on something that I've struggled with in the past, and make sure that you align yourself with a team that really compliments your skills because you can't do everything. So for myself, I know something that I wish I did in the very beginning, we did it within the first year. Investing is the main things like the right accountant, the right attorney to set up everything correctly. Now, sometimes we can be so scrappy that we might not know where to put the right investments in. And I do think that those two things are kind of non negotiable. You can be scrappy in a lot of other areas, a small business owner, but you don't want to be scrappy too much in the ways that you do accounting or the ways in which you formulate yourself legally.
Justine Reichman: I think there's a fine line and a point where scrappy meets strategic. I think it's important to think along those lines because you really do need to be scrappy, but you equally need to be a little bit strategic to be able to set that foundation in a way that you did that makes it so strong going forward.
Melissa Villanueva: And it's been also interesting as my company has gotten bigger to realize that I don't have to be scrappy all the time. That sometimes, that might be detrimental to what we're building on a larger end. Because now, we have more access to resources, and we can make larger scale decisions. And scrappiness can get you from zero to a million. But when you want to go really beyond that and know what your goals are, it takes more long term strategy and more longer term investments.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I would agree. And so for those folks interested in Brewpoint, where can they find your coffee?
Melissa Villanueva: You can find us at brewpointcoffee.com. We sell and distribute nationwide. We are in the Chicago land area primarily in Elmhurst in Oak Park. And so we are in a number of wholesale accounts. We are in local grocery stores and restaurants as well. But you can also find us on Instagram and Facebook @brewpointcoffee.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today. It was great to learn about you, your journey and what you've built.
Melissa Villanueva: Thanks so much for highlighting us, we really appreciate it.
Justine Reichman: Keep us posted on how things progress. We'd love to revisit this with you as you grow, expand and evolve over the next few years.
Melissa Villanueva: Thank you. I'm looking forward to you taking a sip of my coffee.
Justine Reichman: I can't wait, thanks so much.
