Forward Drinking Podcast

A Marine's Coffee Journey: The Story of Theory Coffee Roasters

John Hutchings Season 1 Episode 2

Join host John Hutchings as he sits down with Sam LaRobardiere, co-owner and head roaster of Theory Coffee Roasters in Redding, California, on this episode of the Forward Drinking Podcast. Learn how this Marine Corps veteran went from roasting in attics as a satellite TV installer to roasting award-winning coffee and building a rapidly expanding craft coffee business.

Throughout the episode, Sam shares his passion for coffee and the inspiration behind Theory Coffee Roasters. John and Sam also discuss the importance of sourcing high-quality coffee beans, overcoming funding hurdles with creativity, staying true to your values while running a small business, collaborating with other businesses, and using social media to build a strong brand and connect with customers.

The episode concludes with Sam's advice for anyone starting a small business: "Just do it. It's never going to be the right time, but if you have an idea and you're passionate about it, just go for it."

This must-listen episode of the Forward Drinking Podcast is perfect for anyone interested in the world of coffee, entrepreneurship, and building a strong brand with a passion for quality and community.

Thanks for listening to the Forward Drinking Podcast! If this episode has motivated you to create your own amazing story then please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the Forward Drinking Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok @forwarddrinkingpodcast. Thanks again for listening! Until next time!

Announcer:

Some of the most epic things ever accomplished began with the phrase, hold my beer and watch this. So chill those ice cubes, pop that cork or crack open that can, because we're about to share an amazing story. Welcome to the Forward Drinking Podcast. Here's your host, John Hutchings.

John Hutchings:

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the Forward Drinking Podcast. I am your host, John Hutchings. Today, I am thrilled to be hosting our first guest on the show, Sam LaRobardiere, owner and founder of Theory Coffee Company here in Redding, California. For those who have never tried Theory Coffee, I can say with utmost confidence that you are in for a real treat. In fact, we use Theory's Tres Fuertes blend in both our Irish Coffee Cream Stout and our Colossus Imperial Stout. Sam is a first time entrepreneur who followed his passion and opened his own successful and thriving coffee roastery. Sam has an amazing story to share, so we're going to jump right into it.

Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Thank you. Happy to be here.

John Hutchings:

Awesome, glad to have you. Man, I got to ask you dude, so tell me about this Tres Fuertes Coffee.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, Tres Fuertes is our flagship coffee blend. It's our most popular coffee by far. It's the one that we started with, that we just in order to have a really great coffee that works well as a pour over, as espresso, as filter coffee, we came up with this idea that we would use music, because me and my former business partner both came from a musical background. So we wanted something that had good bass, good mid-tones, and then something that stood out as a guitar solo. So that's how we built that blend. The coffees do change from time to time seasonally, because coffee's a very seasonal varietal crop, but it stays true to that good base, good mid-tones, like chocolate and nutty. And then you want something that's going to sing a electric guitar solo, and that's usually an Ethiopian component or something, with a little bit of acidity or a little bit of some fun peach note or something like that.

John Hutchings:

Awesome. Well, I got to tell you dude, since the last couple of weeks since you and I spoke about you coming onto the podcast, I've been drinking it every morning and I got to tell you the stuff, it gets me fired up. I'm like ready to fight a bear after I'm done drinking this coffee, it's just amazing. So yeah, I've really been enjoying it, so I've been super fired up about that since you agreed to come on here, and thank you.

And it wouldn't be forward drinking if we didn't have something to sip on, so tell us what we're drinking today.

Sam LaRobardiere:

All right. So you and I have been working together for quite some time now, and you've been putting our coffee in into your beer for years, and one of the ones that went to mainstream production is this Irish Coffee Cream Nitro Stout, and it's got our Tres Fuertes and your beautiful brewing skills collaborating together to make this just delicious coffee, so I chose that for our drink.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely. Yeah, I appreciate that. And just so everybody knows, I mean, it's not all just about drinking Fall River Beer, but Sam wanted to show off something that collaborates both of our companies, and that's super cool. We also use it in our Colossus Russian Imperial Stout. I can't say enough about this coffee, so we'll just go ahead and get into it.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Let's go. It's one of my favorite parts.

John Hutchings:

Cheers.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Cheers, bro.

John Hutchings:

Alrighty.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Oh, that's good.

John Hutchings:

Let's hear the story of Sam. So tell us about growing up, where did you grow up?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, I was born and raised in rural Michigan, in a little town called Bangor. Most people have heard of Kalamazoo, some people have heard of South Haven, which is on Lake Michigan. We're the little itty bitty town right in between those two towns. Yeah, I grew up running around in the woods barefoot. My grandpa was a blueberry farmer, grew up farming blueberries with him. Just had a great, honestly a great rural childhood, as you can relate to.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think of Michigan, I don't think of blueberries to be 100% honest, but I think of archery hunting whitetail deer, which is totally up my alley. But wow, it's wild, so blueberries in Michigan?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, so we always grew up on a blueberry farm. So Michigan actually is a blueberry state.

John Hutchings:

Wow, shows how much I know.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, so it grows a lot of blueberries, also grows great white tail, you are correct. But yeah, my grandpa, I didn't know it at the time, but I learned later on in life, he was actually the third largest blueberry farmer in the state, at least when I was growing up. He had a pretty big operation, it was super cool to be a part of.

John Hutchings:

Now, did you spend your whole childhood in Michigan?

Sam LaRobardiere:

So I grew up in Michigan, I ended up moving to Virginia when I was 15, so my sophomore year of high school I moved. My parents were divorced, my mom lived in Michigan, my dad lived in Virginia. And when I turned 15, I know there's some other people out there that have had this experience as well, but you get to choose, the court tells you, when you're 15, you get to choose where you're going to live. So I had spent a summer with my dad and he was dropping us off back in Michigan and there was just something in my gut that was like, you're going to move. You're moving, you're going to do it, you're going to make this move. So my dad was getting ready to head back to Virginia and I just made the decision to go back with him, just very spontaneously.

John Hutchings:

Wow. And I think you mentioned before, you said this was a pretty pivotal point in your childhood growing up at that time.

Sam LaRobardiere:

It was. If you can picture this blueberry farming lifestyle, my entire family lived on the same country block, so I grew up running from my uncle's house across the field to my grandparents' house. You never had to call, you just showed up, and you grew up with the same, I mean, my class was probably, I think it was 60 people, so you grew up around the same 60 people. Nobody ever moved in, nobody ever moved out, really it was the same 60 people all your life. So yeah, it was a big move.

The Virginia area, so I moved to Northern Virginia, which is just outside of Washington, DC, so kind of metropolitan area. So from super rural to playing football in the parking lot now around the cars, it was just very different.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely. So was there ever a time growing up between Michigan and Virginia where you're like, I think my future will somehow hold entrepreneurship or starting my own business? Was that ever anything that crossed your mind back then?

Sam LaRobardiere:

I go back to watching grandpa own his own business and be the boss. When I was a little kid, I would walk through the blueberry, the packing plant where they'd picked him, now they're sorting him and boxing them. And I would walk through and I would hold his hand, and he'd just be whistling all the way through the packing plant. I just remember feeling like, yeah, I want to be like this guy. I want to be like grandpa. So he was an entrepreneur, unstoppable force, honestly just grow, grow, grow, more land, more blueberries, and he did it all with a lot of grace. So yeah, that was my first memory of thinking this is what I want my life to look like.

John Hutchings:

Heck yeah. Now, did you mention before through that your dad had also dabbled in entrepreneurship as well?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, my dad started his own remodeling company, he did kitchens and bathroom bathrooms specifically, and I worked with him a lot. So my grandpa had a big operation, and then my dad had more of a one man, two man show sort of operation, so it was cool to see how both of those operated. Yeah, I think they both really inspired me to step out on my own.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely. And I think that the differing ends of the spectrum between being able to see firsthand a larger operation versus something that's more of yourself running in the hamster wheel and doing it, it's just a sole proprietorship. I mean, it's a very big broad spectrum of getting a foray into business, something that I never was exposed to as a youngster. That's super cool.

So did you finish high school in Virginia?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yep, I graduated, barely, graduated from high school in Virginia. I mean, this probably goes into my entrepreneur skills, but I had it calculated right down to the very last second that I had to be in class in order to receive a diploma.

John Hutchings:

Awesome, awesome. So what happened after high school? I mean, where'd you end up? Did you just jump right into the workforce? Did you jump into entrepreneurship, or what'd you do after that?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, I joined an organization called the United States Marine Corps. That's what I did out of high school. Yeah, no, it was the first moment where I felt like I had another huge choice in front of me. I think that maybe that was my second moment, but I almost ended up in the Army. Not that the Army's bad or anything, but there was something about the Marine Corps that just, I mean, it had just a different feel to it. And when I met with the Marine Corps recruiter, I was like, this is it. I got to do this. So signed up and went to Paris Island for bootcamp, and spent four great years in the United States Marine Corps.

John Hutchings:

So I've known you now, I was thinking about this the other day when we were talking about coming on the show, I've known you now for 10 years and never in a million years would you have convinced me that you were in the Marine Corps prior to this. It's like, Sam is the most gentle soul. I just can't picture you packing it in for-

Sam LaRobardiere:

When I got out, I closed a chapter. It was really good for me, but I've got a lot of buddies that continued on, like I'm a Marine, I'm a Marine, respect me I'm a Marine. And I learned that it just doesn't work in the real world.,The rules are different. So I just decided to adapt to the new rules of the world after I got out. And I hear that a lot, you were in the Marine Corps? And I was like, yeah, I was in the Marine Corps. I actually did okay.

John Hutchings:

So you have to have some pretty crazy stories. I mean, what's the craziest you guys did when you were in the Marines?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, other than just barely making it back to the ship because we were so drunk, young kids that could finally drink alcohol out in bars and in public, a lot of funny stories about that. But my first real adventure in the Marine Corps was going to do hurricane relief for Hurricane Mitch in Nicaragua. I'd never been out of the country before and found myself in rural Nicaragua, helping the Nicaraguan people rebuild their bridges, we were making water for them. And when we got there, they were like, hey, we're getting threats from the Sandinistas, who are like a gorilla military. And so they're threatening to basically bomb the camp, they were not happy that we were there. So we had to form this task force that would, basically if anything was going on with the Sandinistas, we would all grab our weapons and we were informed to engage if we had to, we were given permission, rules of engagement, to open fire if necessary.

And I remember having a human in my M16 sites, and just wondering if they were going to do anything, and thank God they didn't. I don't envy anybody that's ever had to pull that trigger, it's just not the same after that.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, I can't even imagine. It reminds me a lot of my Netflix, Netflix and Chill kick lately, watched Narcos on Netflix and the guerrilla fighters that they deal with down there in Columbia. It sounds a lot of the same, which is crazy.

Wow. So what happened after the military?

Sam LaRobardiere:

After the Marine Corps, I didn't have a lot of clear direction at that point, so I was just trying to figure it out. I'd asked myself, what do I want to do? I'd really gotten into fitness, so I decided, well, I'll just go be a gym teacher. I wanted to help youth too in some way, shape, or form, that was kind of in on my mind. And so I thought, well, I can probably be a good example to kids that have had pasts like mine that were somewhat troubled and that sort of thing.

And so I decided I wanted to be a gym teacher, that lasted for a little less than a year, and I went on a mission trip to Mexico. And then I came back from that trip from Mexico and decided that I was going to pack it all up and go to a very tiny little Bible college up in Rochester, New York area.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, wow. Talk about a pivot.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Serve the Lord.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, we're holding the rifles at Sandinistas and now we're going to Bible school.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Oh yeah, the story's all over the place.

John Hutchings:

I love it. Cool.

Sam LaRobardiere:

A lot of good experiences.

John Hutchings:

Man, I got to tell you, it sounds so far, if I was to compare your life to an NFL running back, you'd be like Barry Sanders dude, the [inaudible 00:14:26].

Sam LaRobardiere:

That's fitting, I grew up in Michigan. Go Lions.

John Hutchings:

Heck yeah. So at what point in time in your life, I mean now you've gone off to Bible school, and when were you starting to look at or what caused you to look at going from the East Coast to the West Coast? How did you end up in Redding, California?

Sam LaRobardiere:

So after Bible college, which is where I met my wife, we got an offer to move back to Virginia to youth pastor, and then I was a worship leader in the church that I grew up in. And so we moved back there for about six years, and during that six years... in addition to that I should, for the majority of my income I was doing residential remodeling. I was working with a really great company in Virginia doing residential remodeling. And when the housing market crashed and the financial crisis of 2008 hit, slowly watched the bank account dwindle, watched my work go from full on home renovations to patching drywall, working 60 hours a week to 12 hours a week.

And before I knew it, we were basically in a foreclosure, so our house got foreclosed on. And back then, it's probably the same today if you go through foreclosure, but I don't want to know because trauma, anyway, they offer you cash for keys. So if you get out of there fast, they're going to give you a little bit of money to leave fast, because they had people that were staying in their houses after foreclosing for months, if not years.

So we took the cash for keys, I had been out here to Redding prior to making the decision to move, and I had a really good experience with it. It actually reminded me of Michigan a little bit, because it's actually kind of a mashup of Virginia and Michigan because it functions similar to a small town, but it has more, I don't know, there's a bigger population than my 2000 person hometown of Bangor, Michigan. So we went through the foreclosure, took the cash for keys, made a decision to move to California, which is a state that I've always wanted to live in. And Redding was just a great mashup of that Virginia and Michigan experience.

So yeah, we moved the whole family out here, rented a house, sight unseen, and just, I don't know, just took a big risk.

John Hutchings:

If you listen to episode one, for those who haven't listened to episode one, you should, I had a lot of the similar story, and it's wild to have gone through that time in our lives. And I think this is something we're going to be this old geezer someday, not nearly as bad, but talking about the stock black Monday or Tuesday when the stock market crashed, should be like the 2008 financial crisis for a lot of us. And I went through the same thing with just losing everything during that period of time, and watching something go from so good to so bad so fast, and it definitely seems to be a common denominator thing with folks that we talk about today.

But I got to say, good on you for having something like that with the cash for keys to go ahead and parlay that into growing your life, instead of just using it as your safety net to just hole up. I mean, that's super cool. So yeah, it's amazing how something so awful sometimes can turn into something so good.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, it was amazing. And we thought we'd probably be here three years licking our wounds from the foreclosure and that sort of thing. And here we are, I think we're 11 years later now, so I'm sure we'll get into more of that, why we stuck around. But we love Redding, we love it so much, my whole family. I mean, if I talk about moving, my kids are just like, they'll hate me. They'll kill me.

John Hutchings:

That's awesome. All right, we've gone across the country now, more juking and jiving, were in Redding. Tell us what happened as soon as you guys hit Redding.

Sam LaRobardiere:

So got to Redding, and I had an acquaintance out here who's now a friend, who was running a, more juking and jiving here, satellite dish sales and installation company. And I was looking for a change honestly from the residential remodeling, and there wasn't a whole lot of it going on here when we moved. So I jumped into that satellite dish installation, well started off with sales, door to door sales. I was walking around Redding in the heat, knocking on doors, asking people if they wanted to switch to Dish Network or DirecTV or whatever, we sold various products. And then with my remodeling background, I quickly moved into the satellite dish installation side of the business.

That was cool, because that business bought me a little bit of time and they allowed me to moonlight when I started my first coffee business. So they allowed me to work as much or as little as I needed so that I could get this business off the ground. Although the job was not awesome, I'm really thankful for it.

John Hutchings:

So I got to ask, between the door to door satellite sales versus the installation, some people get super scared about selling, some people feel like maybe doing the more hands on work is in their wheelhouse, can you describe which one was better or which one was more brutal?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, I would say honestly, door-to-door sales is hard. It's hard. I mean, there are a lot of types of sales that are much easier, door-to-door is probably the hardest, but I will say you learn a lot doing door-to-door sales, I think crawling through attics in the middle of the summer in Redding and being on top of a hot roof or crawling under crawl spaces and turning your flashlight on and you're like, there's spiderwebs everywhere and I just saw a black widow, that was worse.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, I can't imagine. We bought our house a couple years ago and we had a guy over trying to get our internet going, and hats off to the dude. We gave him a couple six packs of beer before he left because we were checking the temperature in the attic, it was the summertime and trying to get it going, and it was breaking temperatures of 180 degrees up there. And he would crawl fast, it was 30 second countdown for the guy to get to where he needed to be and get back. I cannot even imagine.

Sam LaRobardiere:

It was brutal.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, it was brutal.

Sam LaRobardiere:

I can't even imagine.

John Hutchings:

Cool. Well, I tell you what, at this point in time, we're going to go ahead and take a short break. I think Sam and I are going to refill our Irish coffee cream stouts, maybe take a tinkle, and yeah, we'll be back here in a little bit. Check out our sponsor for the show, Fall River Brewing Company.

Announcer 2:

Inspired by the unspoiled nature of the Fall River Valley, our craft beer community is always open to adventure. It's the spirit of innovation and exploration that move us forward. We push through tough times, step beyond our boundaries, and expand our horizons at every opportunity. Our beers have scaled mountains, floated downstream, been fireside, and a part of all the little moments that make up a life well lived. From small beginnings to big ideas, it's our passion for craft beer and the community that we have created that keep the heart of Fall River, well, brewing. Whether it's the crack of a can, the rush of a tap, or the clink of a glass, these are the sounds that pull us forward toward connection, connecting to nature, connecting with friends, and connecting the memories you make with Fall River Beers.

Fall River Brewing Company is proud to sponsor the Forward Drinking podcast. We hope these stories motivate you to think creatively, take risk, and put a plan into motion. Fall River Brewing Company, Redding, California. Please enjoy responsibly.

John Hutchings:

Welcome back to the show. We're here again with Sam LaRobardiere.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Diere.

John Hutchings:

Diere. Do you know how many times I had to record that when we were getting set up?

Sam LaRobardiere:

It's a tough one.

John Hutchings:

I keep wanting to throw the LaRobardiere, I'm throwing the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, it's pretty phonetic, but it's long, so it becomes really intimidating. I think the French say it like this, [French 00:23:20].

John Hutchings:

That sounds like, just poetry.

Sam LaRobardiere:

I know, sexy.

John Hutchings:

I love it. All right, well, let's get back into it. So I think before the break, Sam was talking about roasting his ass off in an attic and how maybe roasting his ass in an attic made him want to roast some coffee beans. Sam, get us into how in the heck did you decide to start a coffee roasting company?

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, I guess I got to go back a little bit to when I was in Virginia the second time, so after the Marine Corps, my dad had gone on a trip to Guatemala, and when he was in Guatemala, he went to Chichicastenango, which is the largest open air market in the world, and he found a vendor selling green coffee. He had never seen green coffee, so he was like, hey, let's grab 10 pounds of green coffee and I'll bring it back for Sam as a gift. So when he got back from Guatemala, he showed up with 10 pounds of green coffee. And at that point, I had never seen green coffee, I knew I liked roasted coffee, but I'd never seen it in its raw state. So looked at it like, well, what do we do with this? I grew up roasting all sorts of things, we had sunflowers, so we'd roast sunflower seeds, we had pumpkin seeds, we'd roast those in the oven, you just spread it out on a baking sheet and you'd go for it.

So that's what with the coffee, spread it out on a baking sheet. And at the time, my palate has changed, but at the time I loved dark coffee. So we cranked the oven up, we put the coffee in on a baking sheet, and then just let it cook until it started to get, we had the oven light on so you can see in the door. And we started to get to the color, we opened the door up, and I cannot tell you how much smoke just came up billowing out of that oven. It was a smokey mess, like a total debacle honestly, and we quickly learned that that was not how you do it. That's not how you roast coffee. I mean, I suppose you probably could do it that way, but it's not the best way to roast it.

So set me on this journey of, if that's not how you do it, how do you do it? I started hopping online and looking up how to home roast coffee. And so the next step in the process is hot air popcorn popper. So you get a little hot air popcorn popper, the one that swirls the popcorn around, and then when the popcorn pops, it shoots out the spout in the front, so a lot of people roast coffee on those. And there are different models, there's one model called the West Bend Poppery II. If you find that one, pick it up because you can actually roast pretty good coffee on it. All the other models are either too slow or too fast. I quickly went out the next day, started hitting up the thrift shops to find hot air popcorn popper, and I found one. And so took it home, and you can only roast about, I think it was a quarter of a cup at a time. So I put a quarter of a cup of that green coffee in there, and I think in about three or four minutes, which is way too fast, I had dark roasted coffee.

So that was my first roast that felt successful. It just really started this journey for me of roasting coffee, and eventually I figured out how to use that roaster so that I got pretty good results out of it. I was sharing coffee with friends and family at that time for gifts and that sort of thing. It was just my way of, it was 100% a hobby at that time. And after giving some coffee away to a friend at Christmas, I remember getting some feedback and he was like, Sam, you got any more of that coffee? That was actually the best coffee I've ever had. I was like, what? So all these little markers along the way just kept me going, something I got to be good at.

I actually roasted on a hot air popcorn popper I'd say for a few years. Fast forward to moving out here to California, I had a friend of mine, who was an acquaintance at the time turned really good friend, his name is Justin Collins. He was out here and he had converted a barbecue grill to a coffee roaster, so he could roast eight pounds of coffee at a time. He told me, he's like, I could roast eight pounds at a time, and I was like, oh my gosh, I've got to come roast with you. So I basically just inserted myself into his life and I showed up every roast day that he had, and every time I showed up, he would look at me surprised, what are you doing here? I'm like, dude, I'm in.

And so I would just do whatever he needed, I'd carry bags of coffee, I'd bag it all up, I'd do whatever he needed. And then eventually, he was like, you want to try roasting? I was like, yeah, I'll roast. So we had this barbecue grill with this high powered motor on it. It's kind of like a spit system, if you were to do a rotisserie chicken. And then the drum was this perforated stainless steel drum, you'd pour the coffee in and then set it up on the motor, and then it would spin over the flame. And then about 20 minutes later, you'd have eight pounds of roasted coffee.

So he and I ended up doing an event together. We took the coffee that we had roasted, we bagged it all up, we took it to this event, we brewed it for people, and we sold it as whole bean coffee in bags. And it was that moment that I was like, oh wow, this could be my career. I could dedicate my life to this. It was fascinating to me to have roasted this coffee and then to be able to hand it to people happily exchanged for money. And both of us were happy, the customer was happy and I was happy, and I just never felt so good about something that I was doing in my life, honestly. I remember leaving that event, and the next day I was driving around town and I'm looking at all the stores, all the grocery stores, and I'm like, we could get our coffee in there, we could get our coffee in there, we could get our coffee in there. So I pitched it to Justin, I said, Justin, we got to start selling coffee, this has to be a business.

And he was very clear that he just wanted to keep it a hobby, so I respected that. And finally, about three months after pitching that business idea, he decided he was going to move back to New York where he was from, and offered to sell me his coffee roasting equipment, a little bit of green coffee inventory he had, and the one paying account that he had. So that was the moment I think that all the stars aligned for me. I was like, no way. I'm going to be able to roast coffee, make money, this is real life. So that was the moment where the coffee business started.

John Hutchings:

Picturing how you're explaining this, this reminds me a lot of my garage hobby with the brewing. So at this point in time, were you considering yourself to be, I'm in a legit coffee business, or was this like, I'm in a hobby business that I'm working into a legit business? How would you explain that moment at that time on where you were at with your business portion?

Sam LaRobardiere:

I was moonlighting the business, so I was still doing the crawling through the attics and stuff. I knew that I wanted to make the business something that could sustain my lifestyle, could bring an income that would allow me to do that solely, but there's no way I could have just jumped right into it. So I think it was a glorified hobby at that moment I would say, a heavy hobby.

John Hutchings:

Oh yeah, for sure. I liken hobby like a meth addiction. It's just something you got to do, consuming everything. So how did you get from hobby business then? How did you foray that into, okay, now I'm going to go pro? We're move this from hobby to something to where I can actually say, this is what I do now, how did you make that jump?

Sam LaRobardiere:

That was a really gradual progression for me. I mean, there was a moment where I did make the leap, but I remember getting into the business and realizing, I don't have a lot of business experience. I saw it from my grandpa and I saw it from my dad, but I couldn't read a spreadsheet. I didn't know how to do any of that, I couldn't create a spreadsheet. I would manually fill every cell by myself to get to the end, and I was like, this is not how you do that. You and I met at one of these tech startup events, you were donating beer-

John Hutchings:

Beers and bites.

Sam LaRobardiere:

... and I think I may have been donating coffee. But I would go to every single one of those events and learn how to do business, because I needed that gap filled before I could make the leap. So when I felt like I had learned enough about business, and I had built the coffee up to a place where I could see if I were to continue at this pace, that over the course of the next year it would be more or less sustainable, that's when I made that leap into, I'm just doing coffee.

And I got kind of kicked out of [inaudible 00:33:16] to be honest, because that satellite dish company, I walked into work one day and they're like, guess what? And I was like, what? They're like, it's your last day. We're closing this shop. So then I had to decide at that moment, what do I do? And I knew for me it was, I wouldn't say a no-brainer, that makes it sound like I didn't think about it too much. Talked about it with my wife and she was like, I think you've got to do it. I think you need to make the leap. And I had friends tell me both ways, they're like, don't make the leap until it's sustainable. And I had other friends saying, hey, as long as you have this other job that's making the majority of your income, you're not going to build this other thing up because the income generating job is going to consume all of your time, energy, and effort.

So I was caught in the middle there, but honestly, shutting down that division basically helped me make the decision, help me and my wife make the decision.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely. Sometimes it just forces you to jump.

Sam LaRobardiere:

It just forced us, yeah. We had to jump, we had to take the leap. But thankfully, we had about a year, a year and a half maybe, of operating as a business under our belts at that point. So it wasn't all risk, it was probably more like 60% risk.

John Hutchings:

So walk us through how you bridge that gap. I know one of the things that I talked about in the previous podcast was bridging that gap on getting just clever ways to get the funding to get started. And I know you had mentioned before, your company used to be called one name and then it transitioned to another, which had a story I did not know. So walk us through that, how you bridge that original gap to get that funding so that you could get started with boosting your coffee business to the next level.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, I think if I could just take a second and say, one of the things that I feel like entrepreneurs have to do, it's a non-negotiable, you have to be creative at deal making. You've got to create creative deals or else you'll never get past square one. So we had leveraged everything we had when we moved here from Virginia, and we were down to one car, I was using that car as my work truck. So my wife was stuck at home with my three, I had three toddlers basically. And she is such a trooper, she made the best of it. She would put them in a wagon and take them to the store and make life fun for them, that sort of thing, but we needed a second car.

So I humbled myself and I reached out to my dad and I said, hey, I need to borrow $5,000 to buy a car, I'll pay you back. And he was like, okay. So he loaned me $5,000, which I went out and bought a International Scout. And the thought was, oh, I'll use the Scout for work and Becca can use the Honda Pilot, which is the other car, to run the kids around and grocery shop and do whatever she had to do. And I never got that Scout on the road, because I wasn't familiar with the way California operated with making a car street legal. So we would pull that Scout out and drive around the neighborhood every weekend, it was like this little fantasy that was living in our garage, and just never quite got it off the ground.

But as soon as Justin offered to sell me the coffee roasting equipment, Becca and I looked at each other, we were like, we got to sell the Scout. So we sold the Scout, I think we bought it for $3,500, we sold it for a little over five grand, $5,500 or something like that. And took that money, turned it into the business, which some people listening to this may remember Scout Coffee, so we named the coffee after the sacrificial vehicle that we used. So that was creative deal number one.

The second creative deal was when we started Theory, if you can imagine, our business was basically setting up and tearing down a coffee shop every single week out at the farmer's market. It takes a toll. And so we found a coffee trailer for sale in Redding. So somebody had a coffee trailer that they had used in the past, it was sitting idle, they wanted $20,000 for it or something like that, $25,000 I think. And I had talked them down to $20,000, and they said yes to $20,000. And I said, okay, here's the next thing, I don't really have any money. I was like, hey, how would you feel about operating as the investor for us? We'll pay you 10%, which is a pretty standard kind of, I'd say on the lower side of private money when you're going to borrow money from a private lender, because there's a lot of risk involved on their side so they usually hike the interest rate up on you. But she said yes.

And so we essentially owner carried, had the owner carried the note on this coffee trailer that we started using to build the rest of our business, so Scout Coffee became Theory Collaborative. And we can talk more about how that happened too, because that's a fun little story.

John Hutchings:

Awesome. Yeah, I remember you had mentioned before, we talked about meeting at that first Beers and Bites tech startup thing, and I think we hosted it at our tap room at the time, back in 2013. I remember you had your little bags of coffee that had the, I think it was like a tripod stick, figure tripod.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, it was a telescope.

John Hutchings:

Telescope on it. And that was the first time you and I had met, it was my first time trying your coffee. And we were both trying to figure out how in the hell we're going to get people to figure out how to get us into business, and it's amazing to see how far things have come. I actually for the longest time had forgot that your original company was Scout Coffee. So walk us through, how did it transition from Scout to Theory, and give us the blow by blow of how you guys have ended up where you are now on California Street, a very successful business?

Sam LaRobardiere:

So we took that Scout Coffee and we hit the farmer's market every single week. We got the coffee into Holiday Market and Orchard Nutrition, which is a local health food store, got in to enjoy the store, we got it into, for those of that have been around for a while, remember Anselmo, I remember just thinking how huge of an accomplishment it was to get our coffee into Anselmo, it's was the best restaurant around. And so I had started to build Scout Coffee, the P&L was looking better, the revenue was looking better, but it was still pretty meager, I would say.

And so there were at the time, a couple other coffee roasters in town. One was Stewart out at Heritage Coffee Roasting, and then my former business partner, Jason Miller, he was roasting out of a coffee shop that doesn't exist anymore, called Coffee Bar. And so I really wanted to go to origin, to coffee origin, to see the growing, the picking, the farming, the milling, all that stuff. I wanted to pull back the curtain and see the other side of coffee. And so none of us were big enough to go on our own and purchase coffee, but we figured, hey, if the three of us get together, combine our forces, we can go to origin and maybe purchase a really nice coffee and bring it back to Redding.

So we all hopped on a plane and went out to Nicaragua. And when we were in Nicaragua, Jason Miller and I, we had a lot of time to talk, and I would just start talking about what I wanted my coffee shop to look like, what equipment I was going to buy, just kind of dreaming for the moment that this was all going to take place. And we were in these conversations and he was like, oh yeah, me too, and I want to do that too. And then he would say something and I'd be like, yeah, that's what I want to do too. So this just happened so many times that something clicked in my head, I'm like, well, we're either going to compete cats and dogs here for a few years and one of us is probably going to fail, or we could combine forces and we could do something really cool.

So we shook hands over tacos and decided to become business partners-

John Hutchings:

The Taco deal.

Sam LaRobardiere:

... which we didn't even know at that meant at the time. We were just like, yeah, we're going to be business partners.

And so that is how Theory Collaborative was born. Jason Miller and I, two coffee roasters roasting in the same town, decided to join forces and instead of competing, collaborate, and that's how we formed the company that Theory Coffee Roasters is now, which was Theory Collaborative.

John Hutchings:

Got you. And how did that end up working out for you guys?

Sam LaRobardiere:

So after Jason and I formed, that's when we got the coffee cart, so we got the coffee cart, we did a bunch of events. We did at a bunch of pop-up markets, we had started to get a cadence of weekly pop-ups and markets, and they were starting to gain momentum traction because we were inviting other people in. We took this collaborative business model approach where we're just inviting all of our friends to come pop up with us together, and so it was super fun. We just had these events and a bunch of makers and artisans would all show up at the same space, and we would serve coffee and they would sell their thing.

And eventually to get back to this, how did California Street happen, eventually we realized we needed a space, because the popups were just, they were at Jason's house or they were somewhere else downtown, and we were renting a space. And so we were like, well, we could do this on a regular basis. So a buddy of mine, Jack Burgess and his wife Susie, were looking at this place downtown on California Street which is now our cafe, and Jack texts me, he said, hey, I think I found your space. So I rushed down there and I walk in and the first thing I see is these red brick walls, and they had done a little remodel on it. Jamie Lynn, for those of you that are Redding people will know who Jamie Lynn is, he had given really big storefront windows, he had raised the ceiling, super high, big red brick, exposed. And as soon as I walked in, I was like, this is it, this is the spot.

So we were going from no real space of our own, this space was over 5,000 square feet. And I remember thinking, it's so big, I don't know how we're going to do it. Again, we don't have the money, that's for sure. We knew we didn't have the money to support it. I still called the owner of the building and I said, hey, can we meet up? I really like your space. So he met me there, he was a really fascinating guy, also a pilot.

John Hutchings:

Nice.

Sam LaRobardiere:

And he came in, he's an older guy, he's like, I really want to get out of this space and eventually I want to sell it. I also don't want to go through the hassle of leasing the whole space because it was much more than we actually needed ourselves. He's like, what what would it take you to lease the whole space and then become the landlord, basically? I said, well, I think I could do that for about 55 cents a square foot, which for downtown Redding, that's a steal. And so he was like, okay, deal.

So it was a moment where I was like, oh my gosh, did I really say that? Did I really commit to this whole building? Now we have this 5,000 square foot building with two stories and we're on the hook for this rent, and now you got to figure it out. So borrowed $20,000 from some friends and family and remodeled the upstairs offices, there's seven off offices upstairs, remodeled them, leased them out to all our friends. That covered the lease for that California Street location, which bought us some time to then restart that market and get people back into the rhythm of coming for coffee at California Street.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely.

Sam LaRobardiere:

So that's how we got into that building, and then how that building transformed into an actual cafe is another story. You want me to-

John Hutchings:

Oh, yeah. Let's just keep [inaudible 00:46:09]. We're hearing some Shark Tank stuff here that's pretty amazing, let's just keep rolling with it.

Sam LaRobardiere:

So we did these popups for quite a while. And one of the things that if you're an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur and you're doing something that starts to gain some notoriety, along the way people will come to you and they're like, hey, if you ever need anything, and they'll wink at you, like money, if you ever need money, if you ever need an investor, you just let me know. So we started to build this little list of people that had offered us money, and we started to vet them and came down to a couple people.

But I remember our current business partner, Joel Taylor, I remember meeting with him and hearing how excited he was about the company and how he loved the name, he loved the company, he loved the momentum, he saw a vision for it. And I remember having a lot of meetings with him, because he was always asking for financial stuff that I didn't know how to do. Back to that, not knowing how to do a spreadsheet. But eventually, I was able to put enough financial data together for him to look at it and become interested enough to actually make a real offer.

And I remember after he made that real offer, I walked out of his office, I didn't accept the offer at the moment, but the offer was on the table. And I remember just walking out and spontaneously did this jump up in the air heel click sort of thing, which I don't know, it's funny because it's become my gut reaction. If I do a heel click after something, I know we're onto something. It just happens, it's weird.

So anyway, we accepted Joel's offer and Joel helped us build out, he came in with $100,000 for 33% of the company at the time. So Jason and I diluted our shares, we were 60:40, I was 60, he was 40. So we both diluted our shares, brought Joel in at $100,000, which was a lot of money for us back then.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely.

Sam LaRobardiere:

That's not enough to build out a cafe though. So we went to Joel and we said, hey, listen, we're ready to build this cafe out and we need to find the funding for it. Do you want to put in more money? He's like, well, if you can help me buy the building, the California Street building, then that'll make me feel safe enough to be able to give you a super low interest loan so that you can build the cafe out the way that you want it.

So thankfully, when I had struck the deal with the owner of the California Street location, I had the foresight to put in first right of refusal. That means if someone wants to buy the building from him, then we would have the first right, we'd have to first say no, first right of refusal. So we leveraged that first right of refusal to be able to get Joel to be able to buy the building. Joel bought the building, gave us a really great low interest loan, and that's how we built out the California Street location.

John Hutchings:

Wow. That's quite a foray of deals there. But dude, I got to hand it to you, the one thing I love about entrepreneurship is, I think everybody that's been through this knows when there's a will, there's a way, and you figure it out. And I know it's always been something that I've wrestled with in the past was, how am I going to come up with the money to do this? And you just mill it over and you mill it over until you find a way.

And I know a lot of people have the idea, and it's this cliche thing with everybody has this idea, well, they must know somebody rich that gave it to them, or their daddy has the money, all these bullshit excuses about why they can't do it. And I listen to this, and thank you by the way for sharing that additional information and stuff. I think it's very key for people to learn to actually understand the brevity of it all.

But congratulations to you on that, because that was quite a shark tank type of a deal you got going on.

Sam LaRobardiere:

It was some wheeling and dealing, but I had gone to the banks. I had gone to the banks and I said, oh, what do you think about our company? And they were like, way too risky, so we couldn't get money from the bank at the time.

Now, I will say Cornerstone did step up and helped us purchase our equipment. So there's a difference there, the equipment is backing the loan, it's the security for the loan. The business couldn't really offer the bank any security. So we had to go that route of having a private investor, because if we would've waited for the bank to come through, we would've never gotten off the ground.

John Hutchings:

Absolutely. And my wife and I dealt with the exact same thing with the start of Fall River Brewing. In fact, early on before we had even moved to trying to have a production facility, and we still had the garage facility, someone had encouraged us to say, hey, go talk to your local bank about a business loan. I don't know if they did it to maybe laugh if they knew we were going to go in there and get our balls kicked in and then walk out with our tail between our legs. But it was a very, very good humbling learning experience when this lady came in and she asked us a couple of questions, you could just tell, she had her folder opened up and was acting like she was ready to take some serious notes. And then she asked us a couple questions about, well, how much liquid capital do you have in the bank? We're like, none. Do you own your home? We've owned it for less than a year. How much equity do you have in it? Very little. And she just closes the binder and was like, tell me about your dreams and your goals and your aspirations for life? And I'm like, okay, we're getting shined. This isn't going to go anywhere.

But as I had mentioned before, learning how to become bankable and what that means and getting to that point is a really good thing for opening up funding sources later on down the road. As you had mentioned, it costs you a portion of the company to be able to do that. And I think for a lot of us, that is what we have to do to bridge that gap. But until you get to where you become bankable, that's what you're left with in a lot of ways.

Sam LaRobardiere:

I think it's probably, and I don't have the data around this, I'm just shooting from the hip here, I'd say more people start with either a loan from their parents or their friends and their family or some sort of private money. Because if you don't have an established business with a history of revenue, and especially if you're in a risky industry sector, like basically we're in the restaurant sector, that's a risky industry sector. Nobody wants to lend money to restaurants, unless it's for equipment. So you got to get scrappy, you got to figure out how to get what you need to get off the ground. That's all there is to it.

John Hutchings:

Yeah. It's quite a feat, but kudos to you guys for pulling it off. I want to pivot here and have you take us through mean, for those who have never seen the facility here off California Street in Redding, I would encourage those that are in the area to go check it out because it's absolutely freaking amazing. But one thing I do know about these types of stories is they don't come without taking a toll on people. So walk us through the opening, the actual opening of California Street, and just how that went for you.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Well, so it was exciting. We got all this money, and then we start building out our plans, we got our architect going. This building we have is one of the oldest buildings in Redding. And it was previously an office building. It was configured really weird, and nobody had done any work in there for a very long time. So we got into the project and quickly realized that what we had budgeted for this project, is was nowhere close to what the project was going to cost. And so we had to go back and ask for more money, and thankfully our investors at the time, we hadn't asked for nearly enough and I think they knew that. So there's a little bit of grace there from investors sometimes, they're like, yeah, we'll give them that much, but they knew it was going to be more than that.

And so we asked for a second round of funding and they gave it to us and just tacked it onto the loan. And then we ran out of that, and then we asked for a third round and they tacked that onto the loan. And then on the third round, they were like, Sam, that's it, and we ran out of that money. So we were building this out, and I could see, you talk about this, there's this term runway, how much runway do you have? Which means, how long do you have before you run out of cash? And we were going to run out of cash before we got our doors open, which put me into kind of a panic mode, because now literally everything is on the line. Not mine, not just mine, mine, my wife's, my kids, my business partner, his wife, his kid. We've got everything that we've ever worked for up to this point. And we're not young, we're like, let's see, this was 11 years ago, I'm in my early 30s. And so everything was on the line, and it just felt so heavy and so risky.

So spun me and my business partner into these 80 hour weeks, we just started doing whatever we can. Both of us had backgrounds in the trades, he did a lot of work with drywall, and I could do everything, trim, whatever. So we were pulling 80 hour weeks, both of us, and literally out of energy, out of money, and just, I don't know, it went from really exciting to really, really dark almost instantly. And so then I was the one pushing the pace, I was like, we've got to go, we've got to get this open. We're not going to be ready, but we've got to get it open.

So our contractor finished, hats off to Jamie Lynn, if you all know him, but he finished our remodel and asked for his final check, and I was like, I'm going to get it to you, which meant, here's an IOU.

John Hutchings:

This is better than money.

Sam LaRobardiere:

This is as good as money. Little dumb and dumber. And so he hung in there with us and was gracious, and obviously, we had to communicate a clear path to getting that money for him. And we did, we paid him off in full. But I just remember, I'd never felt that amount of stress, that amount of pressure, and there was nobody else to look to. I'd come to the end of all the resources, the physical energy, the money that can overcome physical energy because you can just pay somebody to do the work. But now you're just doing everything and you're trying to get scrappy at a level you've never had to be scrappy at, and it was brutal.

But Jamie finished the build out, we got the health inspector to come in, give us the sign off from the Health Department. And the last thing we needed was a certificate of occupancy, but we were out of money, literally out of money. So we opened pre-certificate of occupancy, and I think that's where we learned in business to play dumb once in a while. Once in a while, you have to build the slap on the wrist into the business model.

John Hutchings:

Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, I think you operate more by the book as time goes on from my experience. But back then, when you're early on, you got to build those slaps on the wrist, I don't know, the written warning into your business plan, or else you possibly could have waited a little too long to open.

John Hutchings:

We had a few of those, I'm not going to lie. There were a couple of like, hey, we're either going to move this forward whether you want us to or not, or we're not going to be here, and you can't get blood out of a turnip. Not really sure what you're going to do to me right now.

Sam LaRobardiere:

What do you want? What do you want to do?

John Hutchings:

But you guys got it over the finish line. You made it and you crossed that hurdle and you got it done.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, we opened the doors, we put out a little Instagram post to, I don't know, we probably had 1,000 followers at the time, something like that. So we put out a little Instagram post and we were just like, hey, by the way, we're not doing the popup this weekend. We're actually open at our new location. And we had a line out the door. People showed up, and I could almost cry thinking about that morning. It still is a very emotional feeling. I was feeling it when I was listening to your podcast too, there's just so much emotion that happens in this moment, but to watch your friends and your family and all the people that you've been working so hard to serve show up for you, it was it an incredible moment. I'll never forget it.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, hats off to you guys. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's a staple here in Redding now. I love going in there on a regular basis to pick up coffee for the beer, grabbing coffee on a regular basis just to have as I'm cruising around town and it's beautiful. But that's not where it ends for you guys, I mean, take us through, now we've got this location, but where's Theory Coffee headed now? You guys have done a lot of things since then and have a lot more even on the horizon.

Sam LaRobardiere:

So let's see, the California Street location will be five years old this coming March. We had a goal early on, we were like, we're going to build five shops in five years, and so that's been like our North Star. So we built our second cafe on Hilltop near Chick-fil-A in Redding, if you're in Redding, so we built that. That one is so beautiful, I love that cafe. We brought in a designer in town, her name's Olga Vornokovich from [inaudible 01:01:46], and she and Ryan Russell, our architect, they just knocked it out of the park. We've got a mezzanine, we've got floor to ceiling windows that just overlook Shasta Bally. It's so beautiful when it gets snow capped and you can sit up on that mezzanine and just look out, it's one of the best views in town.

So that store has been open over a year now, we opened in August 2021. And then in November 2022, we opened a small cafe in our airport. And then as far as the future of Theory, we've got one more lease that we've signed up in Mount Shasta, it's a very small town, but tourism is really booming there. They are seeing some really incredible tourism numbers. And so we really like that area, my wife and I and some friends of ours bought an Airbnb up there so we can spend a little bit more time up in Mount Shasta. It's just really, really wonderful place, magical. So that shop should be open in June if all goes well.

John Hutchings:

Nice.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Yeah, we should be submitting plans here in the next couple weeks to Mount Shasta.

John Hutchings:

Well, congratulations.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Thank you.

John Hutchings:

I mean, holy mackerel, it's a lot to get done in a very short period of time, and it's just amazing. Like I said, I've had a front row seat from the day that you set up your little card table next to mine to try to sling some product and figure things out.

We're going to pivot a little bit Sam, I want to ask you some questions. First off, for the people that are trying to get into entrepreneurship, and I like to ask this to everybody to just get the different foray of answers, but first off, tell us about what you think is the most important thing to make somebody successful at entrepreneurship? What do you think that one thing is?

Sam LaRobardiere:

I would say extreme ownership. If you've ever read this book, and there's a great book called Extreme Ownership.

John Hutchings:

It's funny, I've got our leadership team at Fall River Brewing actually reading it every other week, for our operations teams meetings.

Sam LaRobardiere:

That's awesome. The premise of the book is that everything is your responsibility, absolutely everything. And I'd gotten into the habit before being an entrepreneur and I quickly had to get out of the habit of blaming people or blaming things or blaming circumstances for being the reason why I could or could not accomplish something. And in doing that, I had given away my own power in life and basically made excuses for why I was or was not successful or able to accomplish my goals. And as soon as I was able to say, you know what, everything rises and falls on my shoulders, I'm going to take responsibility for absolutely everything that happens in my life from this point on. That's when things changed, I wouldn't have been able to do this without embracing that idea of extreme ownership.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, Jocko Willink is a badass. How can you not get fired up when you read about that guy, it's like you're ready to go out and fricking charge buildings and stuff. I couldn't agree with you more. And like I said, we've got our leadership team reading that book right now, and we're actually getting ready this Friday, we're going to go over chapter two. It's just a really, really good, kind of a North Star for guiding you on what it takes to be successful, not only in entrepreneurship, but just life in general. I feel like a lot of people could benefit from that.

So second question here to wrap up, and again, this is more of a pointed business question, but you talked about bringing in private equity investors into your business, and I know we did some of that to fund Fall River Brewing Company for buying out some of the company's stock in order to get the capital to get started before we were bankable. But one thing that I think is a very crucial portion of that is, how do you vet those people in order to find out who you're bringing into your business? Because this is a very scary thing, and I think of the movie, it's about the McDonald's brothers and Ray Kroc, I can't remember what the name of it is, but Michael Keaton starred in it maybe five, seven years ago.

Sam LaRobardiere:

The owner, is it the owner? Or something like that.

John Hutchings:

Something like that. But the two McDonald's brothers are having an argument over one blames the other for bringing Michael Keaton into the business, and he says, there's a fox in the hen house and you let him in. And it's such a powerful thing for those who have gone in business with other folks and have gone through having to make the decision, do I know who I'm letting into my business for the money that I'm receiving for it? So can you walk us through the steps that you took to make sure you vetted these people that you knew you were going to get somebody that was going to help grow Theory that wasn't going to be a thorn in your side or a hostile takeover or anything?

Sam LaRobardiere:

We've had actually quite a few, we've taken private money from a lot of people, a lot of people, and some of them are very close relationships. So those become a little bit easier, because that's typically what people call that friends and family round, where you start to raise that initial capital. But then once we started to need more money, we took a relational approach, but I would say a cautious relational approach, because not only did we spend time with our original investor, Joel Taylor, we spent time with him, we did dinner with him, we hung out together. We met together over the course of six months, so this was a slow burn here. It gives you time to ask people, you're basically interviewing people that are in this person's life, what's your experience like working with this person?

And I think if you do that, you can save yourself a lot of heartache. If the person is well regarded, well respected, and they've worked with a lot of people in your sphere and you feel like you can get honest feedback, that's a really good way to mitigate that risk. Although you're never going to get rid of the risk, you'll never know exactly what it's like to work with someone as a business partner until they're actually a business partner. I'm convinced that you'll never fully know.

So the cautious side of that is, we built contracts for this and we didn't just build them together. We got legal help, we got people to look over them, third parties, people that were more interested in our wellbeing than our investors' wellbeing, to look at these contracts and to give us input and advice. And I think that was really key for us in that first main investor relationship. And I tell people all the time, I'm like, I don't know if I just got lucky, but any business that I do from this point forward, I want Joel Taylor involved. He's my man. So maybe I got lucky, but that's what we did in order to bring Joel on to the team as an owner.

And we have another business partner, his name's Chuck. Chuck's a really great guy, he is a civil engineer down in the Bay Area. He helped us build out our second location, the Hilltop location. We found him through a mutual friend, the guy that did the scooters in town, Chuck helped him get that business off the ground. And so when we were looking for another in investor, we candidated quite a few people actually. We had some options there. As you grow, you get more options, it's fun. But Chuck, he had a lot of really great experiences under his belt. He was seasoned in business. We were able to interview people that we knew that had done business with him, and they didn't all say everything was 100% positive. They said, well, he's a really busy guy. It's hard to get ahold of him, that sort of thing.

So you have to learn, you got to do your due diligence, really is what it comes down to, when you're getting into a relationship like this, because your whole business could rise or fall on that relationship, and so many people have awful stories about business partnerships. So I would say go into it skeptical and protective. And so when you do that, I think you're going to mitigate that risk a little bit. That would be my advice to anybody that's trying to bring an investor onto their team.

John Hutchings:

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And for somebody that's done it as much as you have and been so successful with what you guys have done, congratulations on that.

So Sam, thank you so much for sharing your story with us. I appreciate the vulnerability and all the information, everything you shared, the knowledge. As a person who's had a front row seat watching the last 10 years unfold, congratulations on everything that you've accomplished, and I know Theory's got a long ways to go here in the future. Thank you very much for being here today.

Sam LaRobardiere:

Thanks for having me, John, and it's been super fun doing this alongside of you. I've looked at you guys and been inspired by what you're doing, and actually I love rubbing shoulders with people like you that are doing big things, it inspires me. So thanks for being an inspiration.

John Hutchings:

Well, thank you. Boy, my head just swelled so big from that compliment, we're going to have to cut a hole in the wall for me to get out here now. Just teasing.

But all right guys, well, we're going to wrap up this episode two of the Forward Drinking Podcast. Thank you very much for listening today. For those that are new to the podcast, please make sure that you go and like and follow at the forwarddrinkingpodcast.com, as well as on our social media sites. Subscribe to the podcast at your favorite hosting site and make sure you tune in for the next one, we'll be back very soon. Cheers.

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Thanks for listening to The Forward Drinking Podcast, hosted by John Hutchings. Has this episode motivated you to create your own amazing story? Then please subscribe and leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app. You can also follow the Forward Drinking Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok @ForwardDrinkingPodcast. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.

 

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