Episode 11: Aaron Fender
Pouring a New Narrative in The Coffee Industry with Aaron Fender, Co-Founder and CEO of Portrait Coffee
The majority of the world’s coffee is made in areas inhabited by people with black and brown skin. However, coffee culture has cropped this out. Aaron Fender, co-founder and CEO of Portrait Coffee, wants to pour a new narrative. Aaron is driving the conversation around the origins of coffee through his unique brand, where each product is a portrait of an inspirational person with ties to the flavor of the coffee within.
We dive into where Aaron found the inspiration for the brand, and how curiosity drives Portrait’s mission, and even came up with brilliant marketing idea on the spot! We also learn where Aaron’s passion for coffee started, how he came to realize the rich history of coffee being overlooked by the industry, and why he saw entrepreneurship as the only answer. Uncover the wealth of experience that lead Aaron to becoming an entrepreneur to solve the problem he’d identified, and where he finds his inspiration. From submitting an NBA salary caps article alongside his compensation table, to why brewing coffee is similar to a barbecue, Aaron’s outlook is wonderfully unique. Grab your cup of coffee and tune in to uncover a world of passion and progress in this exciting episode!
Episode 11: Show Notes
Key Points From This Episode:
• Welcome to today’s guest, Aaron Fender, co-founder and CEO of Portrait Coffee
• What Aaron would love this conversation to contain: a learning opportunity!
• The creative accomplishment Aaron is most proud of (creating the coffee named Barry).
• Why Portrait Coffee is so unique, and how it pours a new narrative into the coffee industry.
• How curiosity drives Portrait’s mission.
• The origin of the Barry coffee, and the translation from black skin under moonlight to a coffee flavor.
• How Aaron was drawn to coffee: from hospitality to sparking a conversation.
• A great idea from Jeremy on how to get Portrait customers to engage in the conversation.
• The story behind Aaron identifying the lack of representation of people of color in coffee consumption.
• The moment Aaron realized he needed to seize the opportunity before it was too late!
• How Aaron’s experience in startups prepared him to become an entrepreneur.
• Where Aaron gets inspiration to problem solve.
• The story of the NBA salary caps article and how it was involved in designing a compensation table.
• Why roasting coffee is like barbecuing.
• Flipping the questions on Jeremy: his book recommendations and advice on business direction.
Tweetables:
“Something that [Portrait Coffee] is obsessed with is pouring new narrative in the coffee industry. Coffee can only be grown in areas of the world inhabited with people of color, black and brown people who look like myself and Marcus. We feel that part of the story has been cropped out.” — @fenderaa [0:05:41]
“For me, a beverage is a catalyst for conversation, whether that's a glass of wine or a cup of coffee.” — @fenderaa [0:11:09]
“The only way that I like to talk about coffee roasting is a direct correlation with barbecuing. I've barbecued longer than I've roasted coffee, but the moment I understood how to roast coffee was when I realized this same thing as barbecuing.” — @fenderaa [0:31:02]
Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:
Profit First: Transform Your Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World
Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
“AF: It sounds weird to translate it into taste, but visually eyes that's one sensation. Taste, that's another sensation, but for me to translate that, it's like, okay, well how do we develop a coffee that is that almost futuristic? That's that, like flavorful, powerful. So some of the words that came when I translate it is like juicy, fruity, eclectic, a warm, inviting, approachable, that was a translation and some of the inspiration there.”
[TRANSCRIPT]
[00:00:34] JU: Welcome to The Paint & Pipette Podcast. My name is Jeremy Utley. It's my job to illuminate the tactics of world-class performers across domains. As a day job, I teach at the Stanford d.school helping students learn what it takes to come up with ideas. I've realized, I need to stay in the classroom learning myself, and this podcast is my classroom.
[00:00:57] MH: Hey, hey. I'm Marcus Hollinger. I lead Marketing and Creative at Reach Records, an Atlanta-based independent record label. I'm also co-founder for Portrait Coffee, where we are seeking to reimagine the picture that comes to mind for folks in specialty coffee. I'm so excited to pull up my desk, alongside my good friend and fellow learner, Jeremy. I think, y'all are going to love what we have for you this season.
[00:01:28] JU: We've got some amazing stories on deck, and we can't wait to dive in and learn alongside you.
[00:01:33] MH: Grab your pipette and your paint brush, and let's make something beautiful together.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:41] JU: This episode, we have a chance to talk with Aaron Fender, Co-founder and CEO of Portrait Coffee, which is seeking to pour a new narrative in the coffee business. We talked with Aaron about how he likes to leverage metaphors and analogies not only to transfer knowledge, but also to solve problems.
[00:01:57] MH: He talked to us about how he decided to launch the company and enlisting the collaboration of one of his creative heroes. This episode also features something we've never done before.
[00:02:09] JU: He flips the script and gets us to do a live brainstorm on one of his problems. Amazing. Can't wait for you to check it out.
[00:02:16] MH: Okay, you're walking into this, long leadership meeting. What would it take for this to be not only energizing but the most energizing conversation you've ever had like this?
[00:02:29] AF: Good question. It has to be the best learning opportunity I've ever had. Honestly, I appreciate you, Jeremy for chatting with us, but honestly, I want to learn from you. So hopefully this can be a dialogue.
[00:02:43] JU: Oh, oh. Don't flip the script on me my friend. You know, we're always learning. We'll all learn together. Tell me, I mean, Aaron, I have the privilege of not knowing you the way Marcus does. So give me, if you had to give me a couple of your greatest hits, just so I'm and you weren't afraid of bragging on yourself. Tell me what are a couple of creative accomplishments you're most proud of? Because I feel that will give you a couple inroads to get to know Aaron Fender better.
[00:03:11] AF: Yeah. Thanks for asking. If this is a safe space for bragging, my most creative accomplishment is we have poured your coffee, created a coffee named Barry, named after Barry Jenkins, the Oscar winning filmmaker. He got that coffee, tasted it, loved it and co-signed it. It's for me, for him being my favorite film director. That was one of the coolest moments in my career to profile something in a creative way and then to have that creator co-sign it. So that was really special.
[00:03:45] JU: What does it mean for him to co-sign it? Tell me a little bit about that, because I fear, I don't even appreciate the magnitude of that accomplishment.
[00:03:52] AF: Yeah, absolutely. We created the coffee. We put it out into the atmosphere. We just posted on social media and said, “Hey, we've created Tony and Barry. Toni after Toni Morrison, Barry after Barry Jenkins. Barry is juicy, fruity coffee profile. Here's his work. Here's what inspired us, all of these things. So people kept tagging him. It went viral. He responded back he said, “Yo, this is dope.” Then we sent him a bag. Well actually he ordered some, we sent it to him and then he brewed it, talked about what he tasted in it, talked about how he profiled it, all of these things. I mean, we've kept in touch ever since. That was an honor for me to have that opposite.
[00:04:34] JU: So for him to co-sign it is, there is tasting notes almost. It's like, it became not only your product, but our products maybe or there's a collective pronoun there rather than just portrait, it was Portrait and Barry’s or Barry became a part of the Portrait team almost.
[00:04:50] AF: Exactly, exactly. Then for our one year anniversary, actually he followed up and sent us a message to just keep in touch and thank us for the work we're doing, so that was pretty special.
[00:05:01] JU: What exactly did he appreciate? Tell me maybe, we can even back up a level, tell me and our listeners a little bit about Portrait, what makes it special? What makes it the place that Barry would want to be associated with and want to commend on its one-year anniversary?
[00:05:15] AF: Yeah. Marcus, you want to tackle that?
[00:05:17] MH: Nope.
[00:05:18] JU: No, he can't do it. No way. I’m calling a time on it.
[00:05:22] MH: No. Not at all. This is your interview, buddy.
[00:05:26] AF: Oh, man. I thought this was a team…
[00:05:30] MH: You need to get your spanking, or good job after. Until then, it’s on you, my boy.
[00:05:38] AF: Yeah. A little short and sweet, with Portrait Coffee, something that we're obsessed with its pouring new narrative in the coffee industry, so what that means or looks like is, coffee can only be grown in areas of the world inhabited with people of color, black and brown people who look like myself and Marcus. We feel that part of the story has been cropped out. Most people when they go to, let's say, your blue bottle, your Stumptown Coffee, the experience and the relationship they have with those brands. We don't feel blackness is a part of that. We don't feel people understand how that coffee is processed, how it's grown. The origins of that story, the Motherland that is Ethiopia, to coffee, we don't feel that's been a part of the narrative. A huge part of our mission is telling that story and bringing people into that conversation
[00:06:30] JU: I don't know if it's, where I would, I mean, I by the way, I've gotten Portrait in my trade coffee subscription, which I tagged Marcus. I was like, “This is awesome.”
[00:06:39] MH: Unprompted, by the way. This is not a product placement. This is not an advertisement. Jeremy, you founded in a while.
[00:06:47] JU: As a consumer yet, but one thing I would say is, even that experience, I mean, the packaging gives me a little bit, but if I'm imagining, if I’m a Blue Bottle, and they're carrying Portrait, how do you carry the torch? Or give folks an experience of blackness when the environment, when you don't control the environment, right? You know what I mean? Because the environment of Blue Bottle, for example, is it is whatever they've made it, good, bad or neutral. How do you think about bringing in appreciation and bringing that narrative to folks who don't understand the origin story? What are ways that you do that?
[00:07:23] AF: Yeah. Now I'm in over my head, because this is where Marcus is the expert. I profile the coffee's, I develop the flavors, I look at excels. But Marcus is much better at answering this, but I would say for me, it's the answer is curiosity. Like I said, our coffees are named Toni, Barry, Stacy. All three of those names are very intentional. It's not the full name, but when you see T-O-N-I, spelled out on the coffee bag, no one's ever seen that before. Most people don't — unfortunately, don't even know who Toni Morrison is, in some of the markets that we're entering. Yeah, as absurd as it is to say…
[00:08:05] JU: That's insane.
[00:08:06] AF: It's true. Thankfully at portrait, we've been able to introduce an incredible author and woman, that Toni Morrison is to folks. But I would say curiosity is the gateway where they say, “Hey, not only is this coffee, incredible. Why is it named Toni?” It sends them on the exploration, or what do you think Marcus?
[00:08:27] MH: Well, I want to ask the same question, but in a different way. Let's go back. Okay. You started off and you talked about Barry Jenkins is your favorite filmmaker, right? For those who are listening to this, yes, you need to go not only find out who Toni is, if you don't know. You need to go watch a Barry Jenkins film airing. When you roast, how did you — maybe you could tell us the story of that connection? How did Barry Jenkins stories make it to your fingertips to roast this coffee? Maybe you can bring us there. What was the moment when you said, “Okay, I want to make that connection and pass it off to whoever might get this coffee.”
[00:09:14] AF: Yeah. I think, one of my favorite films of his is Moonlight. One of the most beautiful sequences in the film is when you see black skin depicted under the moonlight and it becomes this very special hue of blue. I would contend we've never seen black skin translated in film in such a way where there's been such an attention to detail and specificity to that context. So that, it sounds weird to translate it into taste, but visually eyes that's one sensation. Taste, that's another sensation, but for me to translate that, it's like okay, well how do we develop a coffee that is that almost futuristic? That's that like flavorful, powerful. So some of the words that came when I translate it is, like juicy, fruity, eclectic, but warm, inviting, approachable. So that was the translation and some of the inspiration there.
[00:10:17] JU: You sound like, maybe this is a, I'll ask a very basic kindergarten question. What drew you to coffee? I mean, you, super knowledgeable. If you asked me, I mean, I would say I know enough of that coffee and I know when I like it, when I get one, can I get a trade coffee subscription, like I pour over all that stuff. But even when I’m pressed to ask what flavors do you like? I choke up, because I don't really know how to describe it. You have a fluency and a vocabulary of someone who's obviously passionate and experienced. Has it always been that way for you? How did you get into it? How did you grow in your knowledge and experience?
[00:10:53] AF: Yeah. I know the lexicon and some of that stuff now that came over time. I was a barista while I was in school, at college. I honestly, my heartbeat is for hospitality. I've always enjoyed the opportunity to have drinks with folks. For me, a beverage is a catalyst for conversation, whether that's a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee. So for my professional career, it started with coffee and so I just always have eventually my job or my career changed a little bit, but I always kept in that hospitality vein. No matter what I always was drawn back to coffee, because even to this day, we've talked about, you get that portrait in your trade subscription. Boom, that's a conduit of conversation again of, “Hey, how'd it taste? How are you feeling about it?” Yeah, I mean, I've just always been drawn back and back and back to this hospitality world.
[00:11:48] JU: I got to say, this never happens. I don't think Marcus. You told me, this is unprecedented in all of our conversations thus far, but you just, you're spinning ideas in my mind. Again, because I'm thinking, I mean, I've been in Blue Bottle so many times, and I would say there's no connection. By the way, not even with the barista, because they're almost “the soup Nazi” (from Seinfeld) of the coffee world. It's like — “you asked for milk?!?” It’s like, do I get kicked out?
[00:12:11] AF: Yeah.
[00:12:12] JU: Right, but one thing I was just thinking about is, I don't know, I'm just brainstorming, just riffing for fun. Could you, because I think your mission is so powerful. It's so unique. Could you get retailers to do stuff for example, with the Barry or with the Toni, could you get a stack of stickers and you required. If they want to sell your coffee, they've got to put the sticker on the cup. Queuing in like this catalyst for conversation. What's Barry's conversation prompt? You've got him in, right? What's Toni's conversation prompt? I just wonder, because to me the thing is, when I'm at Blue Bottle, I don't really have a connection with their coffee, per se, I’ve got a connection with this experience, but the cup is the primary vehicle, right? Could you own that? Could you be co-branded? If they got to pour a cup of Portrait, do they have to pour it in a different a cup maybe? With it's a Barry cup.
I just wonder if you can play with all of the aspects of that environment, think about environments where multiple brands are living. Yeah, I mean, just the question of bringing an awareness or even as you said, stoking curiosity. I wonder what you can do structurally or from an interaction perspective that might still get curiosity that you are so passionate about.
[00:13:28] MH: Jeremy, that's a first. I mean, yeah, you just set a new precedent. Now our guests are going to start asking, “Hey, I need one of those Portrait ideas that you put out there, that's a new function we got, thanks. But Aaron, I mean, that's a great question, man. Yeah. How do you process that?
[00:13:45] AF: I don't know, Marcus. I mean, you can tell me if we should move in a different direction, but that just got my…
[00:13:49] MH: No, no. I think that's great. My only thing is, I'm like, “Oh, now we got a new function of this show”, where folks are now going to start expecting, “Yo, Jeremy, I listened. I heard what you did with Portrait and okay, so I need you to give me one of those.” Yeah, Aaron, I mean, what do you think about that?
[00:14:06] AF: Yeah. I think that's really special when, like you said free advice. I mean, ancillary, I think about someone like, Stacey Abrams. We have a Colombian dark roast coffee that's named after Stacey Abrams. It's like, wow, think of all the different questions we can ask. All the conversations we can have around that, whether it's about freedom or fairness, equality, or someone like Barry. We can talk about, we started this conversation talking about what's energizing or what sparks creativity with you. Then think about all the questions we can ask there. Or some with Toni Morrison, what is your internal thought life like? What are you fighting for today? What are you feeling today? I don't know. Yeah, that's crazy.
[00:14:48] MH: Yeah…
[00:14:49] JU: I think, that bumped a conversation with the cup, right? Maybe Toni's like, what if there's a tasting recommendation, right. If somebody rolls up, and they're alone, they get poured Toni, because Toni wants to have a conversation with them. But if they're in it, I mean, I don't know enough about these particular artists to have a say, but just imagine, but Barry's all about prompting, it's on a date. If you're on a date, you got to get the Barry, because that's the date coffee. But the point is, it's actually that you're cueing off of the dynamic, not even the flavor profile.
To me, there's a whole, I mean, the flavor profile could reinforce it or whatever, but there's almost a whole other purpose that you could infuse, especially in some of these specialty environments that are looking for differentiation. To me, a spectacular tasting coffee is table stakes. But can the customer experience be different, because of the conversation or because the meaning that you're provoking or illuminating. To me, it's just there's so many incredible opportunities. It's really exciting.
[00:15:46] MH: Oh, man. Now I got to break the fourth wall here. I see the CEO and co-founder of Portrait is texting me saying, “That was a great idea. You need to figure out how to make that happen”. Thanks. Thank you. That is very interesting in how coffee and I think that's really great, what you say about how beverages can be a platform or even a conduit for conversation. I want to ask a question. Going back to the purpose, right? Maybe can you tell us a story when you were confronted with that reality of the lack of representation? Or when did that burden become something that you felt you needed to acknowledge? Can you maybe share a story or the story?
[00:16:33] AF: Yeah, I think it's segmented in two parts of my head. First part of that is, I was able to travel to some parts of East Africa and study the coffee supply chain, and really get a better understanding of what coffee is and where it comes from, how it's grown, how it's processed, sourced. It was a really mind altering experience. I just never knew how intricate all this stuff was. So that's where I first really realized that, oh, wow, all of these people really do look like me. Not only do they look me, but the quality and level of expertise and knowledge that they have the same crap that I carry in roasting the coffee, and the same credit at times we get for how good our product is.
I mean, they're sweating the details just as much overseas doing that work. So then I came home and it was this weird paradox where actually at the time, I lived — I was actually roommates with Marcus in Southwest Atlanta and my wife was born, raised in the community in which we now live in historic Westend, a rich neighborhood full of incredible black history. We also live in a neighborhood which is quickly changing, not a unique narrative, but is quickly being gentrified.
So it was coming home from that experience of seeing crafts, men and women who look like me, producers of this incredible product, realizing that they're getting gypped of credit and economic opportunity, and then seeing that same economic opportunity being stripped away in my own neighborhood, where a lot of developers and key players and in the future of our neighborhood, are not people who look us. So really, it was like a conversation with Marcus and family and others and saying like, “Wow, we really do need to do something now before that opportunity is no longer there.”
[00:18:35] MH: Okay, that just sends me down another trail that I think would be useful. Let’s spin a little bit, because you compare what's happening in coffee to what we're used to seeing the neighborhood, at what point did what was going on in the neighborhood? Maybe you could tell us a story or a specific moment. What was the one-to-one moment or a one-to-one moment where you could look at what's going on in the neighborhood and say, “Oh, my goodness, this is the same thing, I have got to do something”.
[00:19:05] AF: I mean, that's a good question. I mean, I think, I can tell you the road is [inaudible 00:19:10] to Abernathy, and it's right before East Ontario. Marcus, you remember, there's a tire shop right there?
[00:19:13] MH: Yeah. Yea, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:15] AF: Yeah. There's a tire shop right there. I looked at that same tire shop and I saw literally the same silhouette of a very popular coffee shop that's located on Edgewood, over on the other side of Atlanta. I thought…
[00:19:27] MH: Sure, sure.
[00:19:28] AF: It haunted me, because I was like, “Oh, my God, it's going to happen.” I saw the coffee shop, in our neighborhood, in that specific location, so that was one of those moments at scooping where, I was like, “No, we really need to do this before we're not able to be participants in this.”
[00:19:42] JU: There's a lot of different ways to be involved. I would say that not everyone sees entrepreneurship as the way. How did you think of or how did you process the question of should I start a company? I imagine that had to be a question. It's a lot of risk. It's a totally different lifestyle, right? Where did the idea first come from? How did you make the decision? The way to address this, the shadow looming is to actually for me to start a company.
[00:20:11] MH: Okay, I just want to make a comment real quick. I hope you can keep that Jeremy, this is also unprecedented. I don't think I've ever been this jealous of a good question asked.
[00:20:21] AF: That's another part.
[00:20:24] MH: I’m like, wow, that was great. That's not weird to say, but that's an awesome question. Aaron, please.
[00:20:32] AF: I mean, to answer your question, I need to think about a little more, but it's so funny, because now, my man, I wish I — in my head, there wasn't another solution besides entrepreneurship. I've never really thought about the answer a different way.
[00:20:47] JU: Maybe then even backing up, because it seems like — How did entrepreneurship come onto your radar as a career path? I mean, there probably lots of things you could have done for a career, why was entrepreneurship even one of the choices? I would say for myself, I'm from Oklahoma and then I moved to Texas, when I was 15. Starting a company was never even on, it wasn't even a possibility. I didn't know anybody who had their own company. It was never would have even occurred to me. It's like go get a JOB, right? That's the only thing that I knew. How was entrepreneurship even on your radar? Then how did it become the de facto only option when it came to solving a social problem?
[00:21:28] AF: Yeah. I mean, to give a little more context, I think, there's a few more layers to it, because at the time, so I worked in coffee for a while. Then I had the opportunity to work at a couple of different startups in the realm of hospitality or community management. I learned a ton. A lot of the things I learned are directly applicable to the way I lead and how I run a company today. But there is something unsettling about those environments, probably not the first minority to talk about how potentially, lonely or conflicting, some of those 3X cultures can be. It’s like, “Hey, we're going to do it this way. Here's our core value. This is who we are. If you're not that, then you should seek other opportunities”. It works from a stock market perspective, right?
That's another layer too, where I was like, man, here is these companies that are growing and scaling, and I mean, doing the work. I had exposure to those things, but I also understood that's not exactly what I wanted for my life. I think, you said the words “social impact”. I think that provided a lot of clarity for me to just say, “Well, here's a problem”. I've been exposed to how you can effectively solve problems and entrepreneurial mindset, just because with those startups it is very much so like, “Hey, look, grab a shovel, we're all fixing this problem, whatever your job is today, that might not be it tomorrow”. So it was that culture and mindset that really did help me say, “Oh here's the problem I see in my neighborhood, I have a shovel, I have an incredible community and support system, why don't we solve this problem?”
[00:23:11] MH: That's such a great line of thinking and I want to tap in on something specific, you said. You said, “I've been exposed to ways of solving problems.” What you just described was the problem, like on a macro level. I think it would be really cool, maybe, what are some of your go to methods for solving problems? Maybe you could give us an instance of a unique challenge in the business that you had to solve and how you got through that?
[00:23:40] AF: Yeah. I think the process has evolved over time. I think the answers to those problems have come in times of quietness of mindfulness, of reflection. Sometimes it's been a book, right? Sometimes it's been Adam Grant book of like, “Oh, wait, actually, you're thinking about this problem totally wrong. How about we rethink how we're even addressing this problem and let's address it again”. Sometimes, it's been a book Profit First, where it's like, “Oh, wait, let's totally change our minds in how we think about a profit along the sheet”. Sometimes it's been a hard business review article.
I think, in all those things I'm saying, it's been an appetite for learning and digesting and asking people around me. I am very appreciative of I mentioned community earlier, there's been other entrepreneurs that I have a relationship with, but I've been able to call and say, “Hey I'm having this problem, I’m thinking about scaling, specifically how do I pay for our growing inventory needs? What would you do?” They're like, “Oh, we had that same problem two years ago. Here's what we did. Here's a book I read. Here's someone else you can talk to.” It's honestly been a lot of conversations like that.
[00:24:55] MH: There's what I hear, you said like, mindfulness, reading or community, I want to try something here, because you actually did something that I was a part of. I admired it and this is going to be the first time. Sorry to put you on the spot here, but I'm going to ask about it on this podcast. We were designing a compensation table within the business, and any business owner has probably done that before, but you did something that I have still been shocked by. You sent your draft our follow up draft of the compensation table, along with an article about NBA salary caps. What were you thinking when you compared what goes on in the NBA to this coffee business? How do you process things like that? Take me back to before you sent that email, and you found this information and you were like, “Oh, this is how I'm going to present this. This is why, this might work”.
[00:25:52] JU: Just to make sure I can be proxy for the listener here. You're saying, when you're making comp decisions, you sent the comp table to whom, I don't know, with an article about NBA salary cap. Who was the article and table going to?
[00:26:09] MH: Yeah. I sent the article and the table to Marcus Hollinger, my co-founder in the context of saying, “Hey I built this table. Here's a frame of reference for how I'm thinking through this table.” So is that enough clarity for them, maybe explain the article, okay? So what happened is, or what I was thinking about was forget 2017, the Golden State Warriors, they were able to sign Kevin Durant at the time, it was mind blowing, because you shouldn't have been able to have four superstars on one team. The whole point of a salary cap in the NBA is to essentially avoid that heavy setting team.
The way that salary cap should work is saying, if you have your own player like Stephen Curry, and you draft him, you take care of them, he hits these comp, benchmarks or whatever. He can make this amount of money, but essentially, what Marcus is referencing is the NBA, and I'm sorry, if someone's going to send me an email being like, now you messed this up. The NBA Players Association had this opportunity to bargain with the owners of these teams and say, “Hey, let's do” — they could have picked a gradual cap escalation. They could have said, “Hey, over time, the first cap is 90, then 95, and 108, then 120. So we can gradually increase everyone's compensation” or “We can go from 90 million to 120 million overnight”.
Again, I'm not specific on the numbers, but because the Players Association chose to do this not gradual, but explicit escalation. That was the backdoor for the Warriors to be able to sign Kevin Durant. Going back to Portrait, specifically, what I was sending to Marcus was, hey, when we think about growing a team, when we think about being able to sustainably grow as a company. I would to present a gradual curve for how we think about compensation across the board, so that we don't have this escalation where we have collateral damage that we weren't thinking of, if that makes sense. That was comparison.
[00:28:27] JU: Awesome. Walk me through that, so I get it financially. To me, a lot of times these things click into place, almost Legos, right? It's there's this problem that you had, and I'm projecting, you tell me what's right and what's wrong. It's useful for me to think about this. You had this challenge of, I'm trying to figure out how I want comp to work, and I want growing our team to work. I'm not really sure. Maybe you have the answer, maybe you didn't, but you're looking for a way to rationalize or justify it or explain it. Then you happen to be reading this article on espn.com or something. It's like, that's the explain. How do they come together for you? What were you looking for? What was the moment that you had that realization?
[00:29:07] AF: Yeah. That's a good question. I mean, I think of it more intense or one book I love to reference, just because it's so good and I think it actually, I could be wrong, I don't remember if it's, I'm not going to quote it, because I don't know if I remember it right, the Range by David Epstein. He talks about this idea of you might have this one idea about the NBA salary cap, and then you might be sitting working on a compensation table. Basically the more exposure you have to these different ideas, and different knowledge set, the more your brain is able to say, oh, hey, these Legos do go together. I think, what's fun sometimes which sharing it with other people sometimes it's not a perfect fit with Legos.
It's actually funny you brought up Legos, because I'm a LEGO fan. I have a sneaker I wish it’s behind me but I built this Adidas Superstar sneaker the other day, it was great. Yeah, it was this Lego moment of like, hey here's a frame of reference for how I started to think through these things. When we're thinking about compensation and growing a team, I don't want this thing to happen that we weren't expecting this spike. In the same way there was a spike in the NBA salary cap, maybe it's not a perfect fit, because maybe there isn't a Kevin Durant, that might be signed our team or maybe there isn't this opportunity in the same way, but here's some helpful context for me, at least when I was thinking through this problem.
[00:30:31] JU: Yeah. First of all, I'm a huge fan of Range as well, love it. Two, analogies in general analogous thinking, love it, as well. I really believe in that. Can you think of another time, Marcus referenced this NBA article. Are there other times where you've derive value from an analogy? Can you think about another example where you made this unexpected connection that led to special moment or special outcome?
[00:30:57] AF: Yeah. I mean, maybe this one isn't as unique, but it's essential for me in my training and learning. But the only way that I like to talk about coffee roasting is a direct correlation with barbecuing. I've barbecued longer than I've roasted coffee, but the moment I really understood how to roast coffee was when I realized this exact same thing as barbecuing.
[00:31:18] JU: Tell me how, because I'm a Texas guy, right? But tell me how coffee is like barbecue.
[00:31:23] AF: You're a coffee roaster then. Okay, there's two inputs with barbecuing, right? You have airflow, and you have heat, right? Yeah, but it's two things.
[00:31:31] JU: I'm with you, I'm tracking, I'm tracking.
[00:31:33] AF: Okay, great. If you're smoking a pork shoulder, you want to have steady airflow, and you want to keep that thing at whatever between 25 to 75. If your temperature is a little too low, the first thing you can do is introduce more airflow into your barbecue to raise the temperature up. Then you can play with a couple variables depending on what you're working with to control that temperature. Coffee rousting is the same thing. I have two main variables that I'm playing with, heat, like how much gas pressure am I applying to the drum, which is the coffee roaster. Then airflow, how much airflow am I introducing into my roast to keep the quality of the actual coffee bean cleaned. There's a lot of smoke that's emitted from the coffee. I want to make sure there's enough airflow to keep those whatever toxins, whatever word you want to use smoke out of the roast. Then also I can use that airflow to amplify the heat and the temperature in the drum.
So on a basic level, when I'm introducing roasting to someone, I'm like, “Hey, have you ever grilled the steak?” Another example is a maillard reaction happens in coffee roasting, so if you ever throw a ribeye on the grill in 450, 500 degrees, the first thing you see that you get excited about when you grill steak is those burn marks. What you're seeing is a maillard reaction. You're seeing the caramelization of that meat, and you get that delicious caramel sugar sweetness, salty thing on your steak. Same thing with coffee, the middle of the coffee roast, we call it the maillard phase that we're developing sugars in that roast.
[00:33:08] JU: I didn't realize that, that's cool. This is a total aside, but as a paleo wannabe — part time paleo, which is really not paleo — kind of person, I didn't think coffee had sugar.
[00:33:19] AF: When I say sugar, I mean naturally occurring sugars in the…
[00:33:30] JU: Right, right, right. But would that show up in my, in the ingredients, would sugar be there or no?
[00:33:31] AF: No, no. I mean, I'm talking about enzyme reaction, so I don't even know, I've never actually said well what is the sugar content in a cup of coffee, but I don't think it would show up. I'm curious. You just gave me homework.
[00:33:45] JU: There you go. That and the sticker in the cups.
[00:33:49] MH: I'm not the only one coming out of here with an assignment.
[00:33:51] JU: Aaron, okay. Let's flip it. I mean, we want to wrap here, but you said you had questions or you wanted to learn. Not that I think I have answers by the way, but just to honor that request. Is there a particular question or thing you want to learn about to make sure that the conversations two-way, because we started with that goal and it's basically been us extracting, like hot water extracts caffeine from coffee beans. If you want to go reverse extraction.
[00:34:18] MH: You got brewed? Yeah, do get brewed…
[00:34:22] JU: You got brewed.
[00:34:25] MH: Hopefully y'all got a good extraction out of me. No, I mean, well, based off everything that we've talked about thus far. I mean, can I get a book recommendation and or a train of thought that you think would be beneficial to business considering you just extracted me?
[00:34:43] JU: Yeah. Books, I love Steven Johnson's Where Good Ideas Come From. It's one of my favorite books up there with Range in my opinion. I also love, if you want a little bit more of a historical, I mean, I guess, Johnson's book is historical, Where Good Ideas Come From is great. The other one that I really like is called The Idea Factory. It's a history of Bell Labs, one of the most inventive centers of innovation in the 20th century, it's really incredible.
In terms of directions to go, to me, there's something about providing differentiated drinking experiences beyond flavor, and even beyond brand, because I think about my local and this goes back to the conversation we were having earlier. I think you have to have a good relationship with a couple of shops and really try stuff and you have to, I would say, if there's any business advice it’s develop data on the business impact of a change, because the reason to make a change, even if somebody a partner is really aligned with you, the reason they're going to make changes is, does it make somebody spend more? Does it make somebody come more often? Does it make somebody buy more beans, etc.?
Developing some of that data, I think is useful, but then data around what? To me, there's something really fascinating about trying to enhance non drinking experience, for example, enhance conversation experience, and enhance learning experience. Yeah, that are in keeping with your brand values, I believe. I would experiment, I find a couple, I have a coffee shop in my neighborhood that I love, called One Ounce Coffee, just make a plug for my guys, that's just in my neighborhood. They always have, they have two or three coffees that they feature, I don't have much of a relation. I mean, the packaging, everybody says their coffee is special or something like that. Nobody prompts me to consider something else. I don't know exactly, I wonder if in the shop, or at the point of that’s a go cup, it’s great.
If you're drinking there and you get ceramic, maybe you can't do much with it, but everybody has the same paper cup. It's like an indie shop, it's they stamp their logo on it. It's super — it's like a blank canvas. I wonder what you can do with the canvas to try to affect either conversation or learning. I want to track some outcome measurement. I'm a big fan of QR codes, mostly because you can track hits, but could you drop a QR code like “Barry's recommended conversation with this coffee, scan this QR code”. Then see how many use get in. It is their way to then circle back and ask them about the conversation or get Barry to weigh in on the conversation, right? Then what happens to that, I don't know how to aggregate all this data, but want to understand what happens to the experience in the coffee shop. Do they stay longer? Do they buy pastries? Do they buy a bag of beans? Do they get a little discount, if they buy a cup and they recommend or they request Portrait?
I would be trying to experiment with some of the stuff that you all care about. Marcus has heard me preach this sermon a lot of times, but it's like volume of experimentation is what's going to give you input. It's not like “Try our very best idea and then cross our fingers that it works”. Let's try 10 crazy, different things and let's be clear on the outcome variable. What is it we're measuring? What are we tracking? Then let's compare these ideas against that same outcome variable. Let's see.
I mean, I would do something like that, because to me the opportunity, like coffee is a commodity in the best sense. I mean, it's ubiquitous. It's incredible, because it's so ubiquitous, and yet people are still so dialed in and tuned into the flavor. I wonder if you, in keeping with your brand values, if you can get them to tune into origin conversation, their meeting, their thought partner. What are the different things you can get them to tune into? That's the stuff that's on my mind. I mean, I think you guys have a really special brand. I think is a really special opportunity. It's going to come from more than packaging. It's going to be around the drinking experience itself. To me, it's just such an undifferentiated experience, actually drinking other than the flavor.
I would find a couple of forward leaning coffee shops, people that you know, who believe in the vision and say, “Hey, we're going to try this thing with the stickers. We're going to try this thing with the, I don't know.” Whatever it is, and see can we start to change the nature of the learning and the nature of the conversation?
[00:39:07] AF: Jeremy, your check is in the mail. Thank you.
[00:39:11] JU: Get out of here.
[00:39:13] AF: Please see invoice here.
[00:39:15] JU: I believe in the mission. I believe in the product. I love the product. I wish you nothing but the very best and I'm happy to anytime to continue the conversation and brainstorm more and especially as you get into trying to figure out how are we going to instrument this? How are we going to parse the data? How are we going to make sense of it? That's really fun. I'd be happy to continue the conversation.
[00:39:34] AF: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
[00:39:36] JU: Totally. Aaron, last thing, if folks want to find out more about Portrait or if they want to follow you, where do they do it? Tell us about your details on the interwebs.
[00:39:45] AF: Absolutely. You want to learn more about Portrait, you can go to our website www.portrait.coffee, our Instagram handle is @portraitcoffee, and then I personally love good old LinkedIn. You can find me at my name Aaron Fender and I would love to connect.
[00:40:06] JU: Awesome. Thank you Aaron for joining us today. It's a real privilege to get to talk to you.
[00:40:10] AF: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
[00:40:12] MH: Bye.
[END]
The fine folks over at Section recently interviewed me about some common mistakes I’m seeing folks make when they use AI. One of the biggest ones? The tendency to expect too little, and get just that.