25 Innovative Coffee Business Ideas You Can Start Today

In the winter of 2018, I ran into a friend as we were clearing snow from our cars. As we began to catch up in the parking lot that bitterly cold morning, he explained that he had been successful with a podcast about his Amazon and eBay seller business. As we both live in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the epicenter of automotive car shows and car parts swap meets, he knew that I was a car aficionado. Sagely, my friend identified a need -- that our hometown was without an automotive podcast. However, he admitted he did not have the time, interest, or knowledge. This is where the cartoon light bulb came on for me!

It is critically important for me to build strong relationships and loyalties with our listenership.

With my mass communications degree and love of production and writing, the natural path was for me to “take the wheel” and create a virtual product to fill this niche and market gap. At that time, I was busy and satisfied working 45+ workweeks in the same corporate management position that I still happily hold today; however, this new passion creatively fueled me.

I was unhappily working in marketing for a Fortune 500 insurance company when I started looking at ways to create a new income stream. I became interested in ecommerce and invested in a course to learn more. I compiled a list of keywords for products that had decent search volume and not terribly competitive to rank for in organic search. I used Long Tail Pro to get ideas--I had so many when I first started!

My business is a small, mostly passive income stream and I’m okay with that. There is so much more I could be doing with my store, but right now I am loving the extra income stream that allows me to work part-time at my day job and spend more time with my infant daughter.

A bunch of keywords in the dollhouse miniatures space fit the bill. I used Long Tail Pro and looked for keywords that were competitive--which on there is a score in the twenties or low thirties. I also wanted them to have at least 2,000 searches per month. This is not a ton, but five keywords with that search volume that are not that competitive can lead to a decent number of organic traffic if you build your site the right way. My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to find a niche with a nice handful of keywords you can rank for with quality content and a nice backlinking strategy. Don’t try to be number one for some saturated keyword that has a million searches a month. Go for keywords where you stand a chance of ranking--this is usually so-called long tail keywords that are really phrases--for example, “wooden dollhouse furniture” instead of just “dollhouse.”

Back in 2013, I had already discovered my passion - personal development - and had realized writing is the best way to express myself. So I combined these and started a self-improvement blog.

Starting the blog was the best decision and not giving up on it over the years (even when no traffic or money was coming in) was what helped me move forward.

It was first just a hobby and I knew nothing about blogging. Over the years, after publishing a ton of content, gaining traffic, learning about SEO, email marketing, social media, and all the ways to monetize a blog, it became a real business.

This idea was birthed over one night over Mexican food while talking to a friend who is in the coffee industry. I’ve always flirted with starting a business in the coffee industry or doing something with coffee, however, the NZ market is heavily saturated so I never saw an opportunity.

I found celebrating even the little steps was so helpful to feel like I was going in the right direction and that this wasn’t just another job but it was my own.

When we were dreaming of this subscription service it didn’t take much convincing for me to start it. I love working with people so being in a position to work with the amazing coffee roasters and the customers was a winning situation for me. When looking at the market at the time there were only a couple roasters who offered subscriptions so being able to have a subscription that featured more than one brand was what I thought was a brilliant idea.

I’m a life-long learner.

I believe in play, and I love to create stuff. I’m a teacher by trade, turned to stay at home dad. The joke has been if you leave a guy at home long enough, he will find hobbies...and they sometimes involve fire.

Talk to a small group of peeps that are not being served in a certain way and provide that small group a really awesome experience.

Throughout my teenage years I had a few small ecommerce businesses and loved the idea of being an entrepreneur.

I am a self-taught web designer, and have quite a lot of experience with digital marketing and search engine optimisation. That being said, my previous websites/businesses never really succeeded due to lack of funds and/or operating in highly saturated markets.

The samples arrived and Mike and I (very excitedly) spent an evening trying each and every flavour, they tasted fantastic and worked perfectly across multiple machine models. We then invited friends and family to give them a try and had 100% positive feedback.

I am originally from Gabon in Central Africa, my family and I moved to France when I was three years old for business matters. Entrepreneurship has always been a dream of mine from witnessing my Dad multiple and diverse. Therefore, I went to the University of Technology in Roanne, France where I got my degree in Technology in Industrial Logistics, Quality, and Organization. At the end of my program, I was awarded the Young Creator of a National Production Unit in 2007.

Due to my business ambition, I decided to broaden my skills by adding international market language, English. So, I moved to Houston, Texas (US) to go further into my education. In 2014, I earned my bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain Management from the University of Houston-Downtown.

Consequently, I got into coffee about six years ago when I started working for a coffee manufacturing plant in Houston. At that time, I was not a huge coffee drinker but after seeing what it takes to get a single cup of coffee and how it could make a difference in someone’s day. I knew I wanted to be an actor in that industry.

Before LittleCoffee Place I was in college pursuing a bachelor’s in mathematics. After college, I moved around and landed a job with Tesla in Colorado. Here I learned about work ethic, due diligence, and how to manage heavy stress loads. I went from drinking decaf to espresso shots! And Rodrigo lived in Argentina and was teaching himself how to code and be a web developer.

Switching from a high-pressure work environment to running an online business was relieving yet terrifying. Leaving the security of familiarity took a lot of convincing.

So how the heck did we meet, right? The story of how Rodrigo and I connected is a pretty 21st Century cliche. Simply online via a mutual friend through social media. But who knew that such a common connection would lead to a business venture. Aside from mutual friends, we found that we had a mutual love for Coffee! I mean who doesn’t, right? The concept for Little Coffee Place came from Rodrigo.