Moii

Every time I talk to roasters about coffee sourcing, I hear something like this: "I wish I knew more about how well farmers are compensated." Not well. Here’s why: Yesterday, I shared the story of Regassa, an Ethiopian coffee farmer who’s been forced to sell to large exporters because he doesn’t have access to international markets. I was curious, so I asked him what price he gets for his coffee when selling to these companies. He said, "at most 400 birr per kg" (Ethiopian currency). That’s about $1.50 per pound. And here in the U.S., that same coffee sells to roasters for anywhere between $4.75 and $5.25 per pound. Regassa is earning around 30% of what his coffee is worth. That’s a serious imbalance. And he's not the only one. Producers around the world face the same problem. So, if you’re a roaster buying from large, traditional importers and wondering if farmers are being compensated fairly— They’re not. Not even close. -- P.S. Attached is an image of the traditional coffee supply chain vs. how we do it at Moii.

We just onboarded another Ethiopian farmer onto our platform, Moii. And his story highlights the problem we’re tackling. His name is Regassa Ticha. He’s been a coffee farmer for over 30 years. For 25 of those years, he sold his beans to middlemen because that was the only option he had. Then in 2017, Ethiopia changed the rules. Farmers like Regassa could finally get an exporting license and export their coffees. Sounds like a problem solved, right? Not quite! Though Regassa produces great coffee and has an exporting license, he lacks the most important thing: - Access to international markets. So he ends up selling all his coffee within Ethiopia to larger exporters—for far less than it’s worth. But now? He’s on our platform. Roasters can connect with him, request samples, and buy coffee directly from him. This is how coffee should be traded, and we’re here to make it happen!

We recently got this message and it blew me away. A coffee shop owner from Malaysia—yes, Malaysia—heard about the coffees we source and wanted to sell it in his shop. I knew word of mouth is powerful, but did I expect it to reach a whole new continent? Nope! If you’re a coffee roaster in North America looking to source Ethiopian coffee, check out?https://moii.coffee/. Moii

We’re Pivoting! After months of work, we’re shifting from a direct-to-consumer coffee company to a B2B software company focused on logistics. Our new platform, https://moii.coffee, is a marketplace where North American roasters can buy coffee directly from farmers in coffee-producing countries. We take care of all logistics through our built-in algorithm. The coffee supply chain has many problems, and we’re bringing a scalable solution to it! Why pivot? 1. We saw a gap in the market. 2. This allows us to reach more farmers and make a bigger impact. I’m also thrilled to share that Andy Irakoze joined as my co-founder and CTO a few months back. He’s been coding our software at night while keeping his full-time job, and he’ll be joining me full-time in November. If you're a roaster, check out our software, sign up, and let us know your thoughts—we’d love your feedback! https://moii.coffee And for our roasted coffee customers, we’ll be roasting until Black Friday. Thank you for the support that got us here! https://moiicoffee.com Moii Coffee

This past week, we concluded SLU's New Venture Accelerator with a successful Demo Day. Over the last 14 weeks, we worked intensely on scaling our startups by restructuring them for growth. It was an amazing experience working alongside amazing founders like Joe Beggs, Kay Wells, Kirti Madhu, and Gabriel Haas. Huge shoutout to Lewis Sheats, Hayley Johnston, MSW, and Tyler Merkle for building such an amazing program. Throughout this process, I grew significantly as an entrepreneur and gained invaluable insights from mentors like Lewis Sheats, Beth Schulte, CPA, MBA, and others. I enjoy documenting my entrepreneurial journey, so I wrote a blog covering the important lessons I learned this summer: 1. Talking to your customers is the best investment you can make as a founder. 2. Iteration is what great companies are made of. 3. Success isn't always replicable, but failure is. 4. You don’t build a startup sequentially; you build it in parallel. Check out the full blog using the link below. https://lnkd.in/gNAZWbi2 Richard A. Chaifetz School of Business - Saint Louis University, Chaifetz Center for Entrepreneurship, Saint Louis University, Moii Coffee.