Episode 2: Ashish D'abreo Co-founder of Maverick & Farmer Coffee

Welcome to The Resilient Entrepreneur podcast where every month, author and speaker, Dhruti Shah shares a new story of an entrepreneur who has proven to be unstoppable by staying resilient. Success stories are great to keep you motivated, but true learning happens when you fail, stumble, reflect, and rise. If you listen closely, you will hear the entrepreneurs reflect and who knows, you may experience some lightbulb moments yourself.

Our guest today is the dynamic Q Grader, coffee roaster, Ashish D'abreo who is co-founder of Maverick & Farmer Coffee, a brand that has introduced Indian coffee to consumers in an unprecedented and immersive manner. Renowned for its culture of experimentation and innovation in crafting distinctive flavour profiles and unearthing hidden nuances within coffee beans, Maverick & Farmer has consistently introduced ground-breaking coffee beverages, expertly presented to captivate all sensory faculties. Ashish spearheads the experiential facet of the business among others – hit play to meet this resilient entrepreneur!

Brought to you by the team at C2C Organizational Development, a firm that supports companies in bringing people and strategy together.

Explore the world of Maverick & Farmer Coffee here: https://www.maverickandfarmer.com/  

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Write to us at podcast@c2cod.com and tell us what you thought about this episode. 

Transcript

Hello there, thank you for tuning in. This is Dhruti Shah and welcome to the Resilient Entrepreneur podcast, where every month I bring to you the story of an entrepreneur who is proven to be unstoppable because they're resilient. This podcast is a culmination of my own story of resilience.

As someone who taught herself early on to be mentally tough, I came to realize that success stories are great to remain motivated, but true learning happens when you fail, you stumble, you reflect, and you rise. This podcast is an attempt to bring to you, to my listeners, the situations that test your nerves, your grit, and your resilience. If you listen closely, you will hear the entrepreneurs reflect, and who knows, you may have some light bulb moments yourself.

The Resilient Entrepreneur is brought to you by C2COD, a firm that specializes in bringing people and strategy together. With that, let's meet my guest today. Coming right up.

Welcome back. Okay, one word hint on who my guest is today. Coffee.

Actually, more like coffee, coffee, coffee. My guest today is not coffee, it is someone who, to put it mildly, lives, thinks, and breathes coffee. He is Ashish Diabrio, the dynamic Q grader, coffee roaster, and the co-founder of Maverick and Farmer Coffee, a brand that has introduced Indian coffee to consumers in an unprecedented and immersive manner.

Renowned for its culture of experimentation and innovation in crafting distinctive flavor profiles and unearthing hidden nuances within coffee beans, Maverick and Farmer has consistently introduced groundbreaking coffee beverages, expertly presented to captivate all sensory faculties. Ashish spearheads the experiential facet of the business, among others. Well, let's find out more from the man himself.

Hi Ashish. Welcome to Resilient Entrepreneur. So good to see you.

Thank you, Jyoti. Good to be here. Ashish would love to understand for you what has been your journey like at Maverick and Farmer and maybe before that as well.

The journey has been great in the coffee business. I've been on this journey for, I think, 14 years now, where in 2012 we started with probably one of the first artisanal coffee brands in India called the Flying Squirrel. And at a point when freshly roasted ground coffee was almost an unknown in the market, when people thought coffee, they only thought instant coffee.

Yeah, that we felt we wanted to bring in a better presentation of Indian coffee. We grow a lot of coffee. But India really doesn't know how and hasn't really experienced in the way it should be apart from that.

So my partner Tej, who's also a very old friend of mine, we studied together in college. We decided to set up this online store where we would roast once or twice a week and supply and sort of deliver freshly roasted coffee, customized as per grind size, etc. First we started off with friends and family and then it just grew from there.

And yeah, since then we sold that company in 2018 and then we started Maverick and Farmer in 2018. And it's been phenomenal. It's been really great.

And I think in spite of whatever's happening in the Indian coffee industry, it's like really buzzing and there's so much action and activity happening. But I seriously believe that as one of probably one of the oldest players in this business, I feel that we're still at the tip of the iceberg. There's lots more to come.

Absolutely. And I remember going to the Flying Squirrel in Kormangala. It was about be blunt, the salon.

And I fell in love with the place. I went there in 2013. And we were looking for a place that is, you know, Indian serves good coffee.

And I remember the counter space and everything that you'd created was so, it was so good to just look at, you know, and of course, the coffee was phenomenal. So I remember that experience very well. And that's why Maverick and Farmer, when I ordered the, I think you have a blend called Tall, Dark, Handsome.

And I absolutely loved it as well. So this interview is very personal as well for me, because I'm a lover of coffee. And, you know, we grind the beans at home, and we make our coffee as such the cappuccino and flat whites.

So yes, this is fantastic. And, you know, you said that, you know, you started the Flying Squirrel online store, and then Maverick and Farmer happened for you. So you've been a serial entrepreneur in that sense, always sticking to coffee as the core.

What I would love to understand is in all the formats that you've had, right. And I believe you have a coffee plantation as well, somewhere around Gurg, is that right? Yes, my partner does. Yeah, he's a farmer.

Okay. The plantation, yeah. And you're the Maverick.

No, no, no. Great. So my question was that of all the transitions that you've had from the Flying Squirrel to the online store to Maverick and Farmer, what are some of the challenges that you faced, Ashish? Well, there have been different challenges at different points of time.

I mean, obviously, you have daily challenges, that's probably something common with every business with life as such. But I think the initial couple of years, I think even up to about three to four years of being in this business in this industry, the biggest challenge was convincing people that there is that one and a half to three minutes that should be spent in making quality coffee at home. It's like today, if you invite people over for dinner, and you want to serve Chinese, you're not going to just open a packet of instant noodles.

And okay, today, that segment has evolved to say that, okay, I'm actually going to boil egg noodles or vegetarian noodles and then throw together some spices and some seasoning and some flavors and actually prepare. But that mentality with coffee is still unfortunately, is still pretty strong. But the first four years of our business, three to four years of our business was very strong.

People just associated coffee with instant coffee. And for them, the thought of actually, you know, bringing home a packet of freshly ground coffee, and then that you would actually brew and extract coffee from that was, was very alien. And some of the biggest complaints to get was very angry, middle aged people calling and saying, I'm mixing and mixing your coffee, and it's not dissolving, there's something wrong, take it back.

And so yeah, I mean, it was fun also, because at that point, we did participate in a lot of events on ground events. There was a lot of farmers markets and stuff like that was happening all over the country. And we participated in all of them.

And we actually showed people how to brew. So it took some effort to actually convince and change people's perspective and make them realize that there's a huge difference between drinking instant coffee and drinking actually freshly brewed coffee. So that challenge was I think, and I think that was shared by there were two other players at that time, there was a blue turquoise, and there was another brand called Indian Bean.

And I think we all started within two to three months of each other. So that responsibility was sort of shared by the three brands at that time. And for about two to three years, there was almost nobody else in the market.

Then the challenges became different, wherein I would say as a slightly more established brand, the entry barrier actually for this business is very low. Because if you just think that you know how to taste coffee, you can just connect with any coffee grower and producer and just get coffee beans, you can just get it roasted at some somebody who will roast coffee for you. And then you just to actually start a website, I mean, to design a website today is not is not that difficult, right? Because there are some that are so DIY, that anybody almost anyone can actually set it up.

So therefore, then the entry barrier became very easy. And it was not only dependent on taste and someone's ability to understand what good coffee is. And that sensory appreciation of coffee was not a mandatory for you to get into the business.

So then suddenly we saw this sort of brands coming in, where people who didn't even know what coffee was all about, but were able to get whatever they were able to sell really cheap because the investment in manpower of people or whatever was no, they didn't have to buy equipment because they were roasting elsewhere. So then we went through that phase where there was even if it was our B2B market, which is a big part of our business, which is we supply to cafes, restaurants, hotels, workplaces across the country and abroad, we would always find people trying to undercut us. And in fact, at one point, we decided to stay away from social media, where we talk about where our coffees are being served, because people will look at that as a as a sales target and say, okay, let's go and target that out.

And then if you were selling at say 50 rupees, you know, they will go and say, I'll give it to you at 750. So you know that that entire game was going on. But obviously, once you mature and stabilize, you're no more able to reach those price points and operate within those low price points if you want to serve a quality product.

So both from the customer side, from the consumer side, that is the cafe owners, or our own B2C customers, there was a certain involved in process that happened where we really just understood, okay, it might be cheaper, but it's not as good as what I was paying, I mean, when I was paying a slightly higher price. So that was probably this next set of challenges that we faced. And yeah, I mean, I'm not sure today, if you ask me the kind of challenges would probably be real estate costs that are really becoming exorbitant, as opposed to the kind of revenues that one would expect to generate in certain places.

That's, that's probably a big challenge when it comes to cafe spaces, when it comes to online sales, I think the big challenges are the dependence, obviously, the dependence that we have on logistics. There are actually very few quality logistics players in the market. And the prices are really high, the costs are really high.

And we are not able to pass these costs on completely to customers, because obviously, it is still a price sensitive. We're already perceived as if you go to a supermarket and you buy coffee, you don't check, people don't check, but that coffee would have been roasted some four or five, six months ago. But they get that and say, oh, this is just 200 rupees for half a kg, but yours is 800.

So you know, we are in that sort of a sensitive market. And therefore, the cost of logistics, which is a big part of our business, because we're every day shipping hundreds of orders to customers across the country. I think these are some of our challenges today.

And yeah, and yeah, of course, the entry barrier is still low. And we keep having these little challenges that come about. But those things, I think, over a period of time, they sort of stabilise and mature.

Right. And so I'm hearing a lot of challenges in that sense, right? Of course, there was one part where you were educating the customers and creating awareness or what it means to have a fresh cup of coffee, not the instant type, right? And there was, of course, the competition and logistical nightmares that you could be facing sometimes. So what really keeps you going? And the passion is coming across very clearly for what you do.

What else keeps you going in that space, Ashish? Well, coffee is a fabulous beverage. And the way we looked at it right from day one, I think from 2012, when people were still talking about wake up and you need that morning jolt, look at us and you need your wake up magic potion, then you need to buy coffee from us, etc. We never, ever spoke that language.

For us, it was like, it's again, if I look at a different industry for comparison, you can get drunk on any alcohol, right? But then you choose a certain kind of wine, you can rather you can get drunk on any wine, but then you choose a certain quality of wine, a certain maturity, the kind of grapes that are used, etc. Because you're looking for just more than feeling high and happy or whatever. So if you want to experience flavour profiles, finer nuances of that wine, etc.

The region from which it's where coffee is exactly the same, actually, there's, it's not about caffeine, the caffeine jolt, etc. It's, I mean, that's, that's great. It's there.

And I think people get over it pretty fast. But what remains is, is the kind of flavour, the kind of experience on your palate that coffee brings. Story is the kind of, it's just so, it's actually therapeutic.

I mean, I brew my coffee every morning and at least two to three cups at home, I pour over and it's just, I mean, I don't even play music during that time. I just want to, I just want to watch, I want to take in that aroma, I want to touch, I want to feel the temperature, I want to experience. So coffee is a lot more than just caffeine.

And I think that's what keeps us going. Because there's so much you can do with coffee. And there's so many things you can create, there's so many experiments just waiting to happen.

And our entire maverick approach to coffee is, I think, what makes us unique and exciting. We're not adding flavours or we're not adding any artificial fragrances or aromas or anything. But with just what we have on the estate, the estate that we also refer to as 140 acre laboratory, we're doing so many experiments there with coffee, the way we process it, the way we dry it, the way we store it, the way we harvest it, cultivate it, water it, lack of watering.

All these things actually have a direct impact on the way coffee tastes. So it's a, it's more than a full time job. So yeah, it's like you eat, drink, sleep, breathe coffee in that sense, right? Because you're constantly thinking of ways to innovate.

And I can hear and I've heard and read your articles as well. I've heard some of the interviews that you've given. I can always hear this one aspect where you're talking about experimentation.

And that is integral to your entire brand, the name itself Maverick, right? Trying out something, being independent, being bold. Along with that, of course, Ashish comes a lot of risk taking, right? And the ability to take that risk and to build that appetite. How do you keep going? And I'm alluding to, you know, what kind of mindset would you have to be able to take that risk and reign it, you know, in that sense? So how do you go about that? Well, the risk taking is, again, we're talking to a customer set that has a very similar mindset to probably all of us.

When we travel, when we eat, when we drink, when we meet, when we go out, whatever, you're constantly looking for experiences that are very different, that are very unique, that are off the beaten path, that are off limits. So obviously, we are also talking to customers with this mindset. And trust me, there are tons of them in this country today.

People are also willing to take that risk with you and say, okay, I'm going to pay 550 for this pack of coffee and probably I'm going to risk it. I might hate it, but I might love it. And so therefore, and more often than not, I mean, there are the tasting notes that one can read, etc.

But the things that we create are mostly, I would say, appreciated. Of course, it goes through a little bit of a check already on the estate and our process actually, the bulk of our work begins now. I mean, this is, I'm talking about the non-cafe work.

I'm talking about the coffee work. It starts in the middle of November when the harvest season is on. So we are on the farm most of the time.

We are the first lot of harvest that happens, the first few tons of coffee cherries that are harvested. A lot of that goes through. So all the ideas that we've had through the years, why don't we do something like this? Why don't we smoke it? Why don't we add this kind of yeast? Why don't we process it? Why don't we let it ripen on the tree completely? So all these experiments that are on paper, we actually put them down into practice for the first 15 days of harvest.

We do tiny little things and then we dry it out, we brew the coffee to get your coffee green beans, and then we roast it and we actually taste. So we taste like multiples of roasts and different cups. And then we sort of evaluate.

Probably I would say last year out of some 27, 30 experiments that we did, we actually ended up with only four or five. Because then you say, okay, this was a great idea, but it didn't really work. It was good on paper, it didn't work.

This looks stupid on paper, and it looks even stupider. Yeah, so all that is there. And so that's the risk you take because it brings you joy, and because you're creating something new all the time.

There is also the confidence that even our, I think the Mavic customer also is a Mavic, and is happy to take that risk with you. Nine out of 10 times I think it works out, even at the cafe level. So we created this drink called the Clarified Cappuccino, which was completely unheard of and a very different way of making a cappuccino.

It was a cappuccino that's almost transparent. And then we started it in a slow manner when we started our cafe in 2020. But today it's one of our star beverages.

People come, they come to Bangalore and they say, okay, I need to go to Mavic because I have to taste this Clarified Cappuccino. I've heard so much about it. And it's pulling people into our cafe.

Our Mavic approach to coffee itself is pulling people into our cafes, into our websites. Yeah, so I think it's a risk, but it's worth taking. And also in your cafe, I've heard you have a caustic evenings or something like that.

You're a performer yourself. Is that right? We do all sorts of things. I mean, as long as we're having fun, as long as our customers are having fun, I think it's good.

And therein lies such an important message, right? For all entrepreneurs, I think, and I think from the whole experimentation point of view, you know, I can hear a lot around meticulous planning, the ability to call your own BS and say, hey, you know what, this is really not working out. I mean, let's just move on from there. And constant improvisation.

And I can also hear things like, you know, the joy that you have in creating what you truly care about. And just being at it, right? So what I'm really curious about, and I'm sure our listeners would be too, is how did this entire thing come to being for you in that sense, right? If you have to go back days before the flying squirrel, is this something where you saw a white space and you're like, okay, this is what I'm going to target? Or is this pure passion, right? That, okay, I'm going to recreate the coffee market in India? Or what was this a result of? Well, it's a multiple, I mean, it's different factors, I feel. A is I'm an avid coffee drinker.

And it's not just happened because of this coffee wave that's happened in the country over the last whatever number of years. But I grew up in largely a coffee, like my grandfather was a coffee planter. My mom didn't take it on, but all my uncles and aunts were all in the coffee cultivation business.

Growing up in Mangalore, coffee was a big part of our lives. And we all grew up on the this, the beautiful South Indian filter coffee, which I still love. We are probably one of the few brands that's considered this hipster band, but still has the South Indian filter coffee on our offering with chicory.

We don't look down on chicory either. It's a great cultural icon, probably. It's really nice.

And lots of people from abroad come to India and they want to try this chicory coffee. And I don't know why a lot of our Indian customers, the new age coffee drinkers look down on it. But anyway, so in Mangalore, that was a big part of our lives.

Growing up, coffee was very integral to our culture. But then also, we, along with three other partners of mine, we co-founded an advertising and design agency in 2000. So straight out of college, we started this and I've never really worked for someone else for even a day in my life, I think.

And so that training of looking at things creatively, I was a creative director there for many years. Just there's only one way to look at something and that's to just look at it creatively and see how you can communicate or be very, very different from everyone else. I think that sort of training that just goes on for 10-12 years will bring that approach to coffee as well, where there's no chance I was going to offer what everybody else is offering.

And I think that continues, that bent of mind continues, where whatever we do, we want to do it not different just for the sake of different, but obviously, because same is boring. It's just that. And so therefore, I think this whole maverick approach to coffee stems from these two.

One is a crazy interest in fashion, drinking coffee. And I switched to drinking coffee also at a very early age, not because of anything, but I just didn't like milk. So I switched to drinking coffee, black, at a very early age, I think when I was about 15, 16.

And ever since that, and I feel that there's a lot more, I'm not looking down on milk coffee, but I feel that with black coffee, you can, if it's not a dark, horrible roasted coffee like certain brands in India do, but if it's a nice, medium roast, there's no better way to drink coffee than to experience it as a black coffee. So yeah, and I think so all of these put together is what has really helped us create all of this. Amazing.

And I'd like to ask you one more thing, right? Has there been any point in you being an entrepreneur, you started off early, as well, you mentioned you did it right after you came out of college, right? Has there been a point where you felt like you wanted to throw in the towel and say this is really not for me or? If I'm being very honest, I think during the pandemic, I think all of us really, really hit all of us very badly. And then by the time you had your family and it came at its own, whatever demands. But I can say the biggest blessing I've had in my entire work, life, career, everything is that I have three very fabulous partners.

And we all sort of stood by each other and saw that period through. So yeah, for those for that brief moment, it was tricky. But otherwise, never.

Yeah, so you've had great team. And you found the right people that you can gel with, connect with having a similar mindset, and of course, the passion for coffee. So that is so good to hear.

Ashish, any words, any final words for aspiring entrepreneurs, or even established entrepreneurs, you know, given your long entrepreneurial journey that you've had? Well, I don't know if this is the right advice, because it's, I mean, it's worked for me, but I don't know if that's what people want. But I definitely think that when you're building a business, you should just run after passion and money will follow. But however, sometimes it doesn't follow.

A lot more enriching, it's a lot more fun. And it's a lot more self actualizing, I think, to just run after the passion, run out of passion, and somehow something will happen. I mean, money will somewhere follow but and I think that's that's something that's worked for us right through.

We've not really been looking at huge earnings and big targets and this but I think we've always kept passion foreground and then everything else has just worked out. Absolutely. Thank you so much.

And I've also felt that you know, you're always in competition with yourself because you want your coffee to get better. You're not looking necessarily at the landscape out there and worrying about what the rest of the world is doing. You do what you're good at.

You're good at experimentation, you're good at innovating. So just keep doing that. And you know, your loyal customers will be with you throughout.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Ashish. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you.

I really appreciate this. Thank you. Hey listeners, another interesting conversation with another entrepreneur who talks about his passion and his resilience and how he has made it happen for himself and his team.

So let's bring in my producer Ramana. What did you think Ramana of this conversation? Hey Dhruti, for me, you know, as I was listening, Ashish has that very cool, calm, collectiveness about him, you know, sort of like a quiet determination and I feel like he's somebody who's not easily deterred and that's such a great quality for an entrepreneur to have. Because you know, while it's great to pivot and be agile when you're trying to especially jumpstart a company, right? I think it's equally important to also really believe in what you want to do.

And Ashish has really stuck to his guns in that way and his passion, you know, his belief in what he does has been unwavering through the years. That really comes through in this conversation. Absolutely.

And you know, stuck to the gun, stuck to the coffee, same thing. Because the way he was talking about coffee, it's like romanticizing coffee in that sense, right? Because why not? I mean, it gets the heart pumping, the blood racing and the body energized. So clearly his love for coffee was, you know, coming through, shining through in the conversation.

And I love his conviction as well. You know, I loved it when he said, there is no chance I'm offering what others are offering. So, you know, here is to Ashish, here is to Maverick and Farmers and to the crazy passion that they are following.

And you know, may they keep serving oodles of coffee for all us coffee lovers and, you know, convert the tea lovers into coffee lovers maybe while they're at it. Great. Thank you so much for supporting us.

And to all our listeners, stay tuned for the next episode of the Resilient Entrepreneur. Until then, take care. This is Dhruti Shah signing off.