Hey folks,

Welcome to the first episode of the Everyday Empires Podcast, where I chat with everyday people building ventures of their own and unpack how they did it.

For this episode I sat down with Matthew Smith, founder of Wimp Decaf Coffee Co.

He’s led design at several startups, founded multiple ventures including Really Good Emails, and most recently led design as a partner at Bunsen Studio, a powerhouse creative studio serving science and frontier technology companies.

This summer, when I saw him post about starting a decaf coffee company, my initial thought was something like, “wait, what?” Then I clicked through to the Wimp Coffee website and it all made sense. The brand work, from the name to the illustrations and the copywriting was all just so good. This wasn’t your ordinary coffee company. Through Wimp, Matthew was branding his own values. He was rejecting hustle culture, following his intuition, and betting on himself. Most importantly, he was having fun.

I smiled, nodded, and subscribed to the mailing list. And then the goods kept coming. The email drips were a masterclass in brand building. So on launch day I purchased my first bag of Wimp Coffee (the Kahlo roast), and then I did what I do best here at Everyday Empires and sent Matthew an email asking if he’d like to chat so I could get the backstory and learn how he brought Wimp to life.

We talked about

* The “why” behind Wimp and the problem with decaf coffee

* The first steps he took to go from an idea to a real company

* Why he started with brand

* The timeline from idea to launch

* Why he left a role he loved to start Wimp

* How he uses AI for decision-making and idea validation

Links and resources

* The Wimp Decaf Coffee website

* Decisive by the Heath Brothers. Matthew refers to this book when talking about making key decisions, such as which business idea to pursue.

* Made to Stick. Another book by the Heath Brothers that Matthew mentions.

* The Focus Course by Shawn Blanc. Matthew mentions how it was through this course that he had the epiphany that Wimp could be his main thing, and ultimately decided to leave his role at Bunsen to pursue Wimp.

* jetpacksandrollerskates is the illustrator Matthew hired to bring Kuma, the Wimp mascot, to life.

* Matthew’s business partners: Matt Patch (the roaster), Elijah Richards (the e-com guy), and Liam Tucker (the dev guy).

* “Meet the next Liquid Death,” an interview with Matthew that goes deeper on the brand work

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.everydayempires.com