In this series, WeWork’s director of digital community selects a WeWork member to get to know better, sharing her fun findings with the rest of the community.
Who doesn’t love a great cup of coffee? When I saw Trevor Corlett’s Madcap Coffee tasting events happening here at WeWork, I had to reach out to learn more. A fellow Midwesterner like me, the WeWork Chinatown member’s passion for coffee extends to sourcing beans and presenting them in beautifully designed packaging. Read on to learn about starting your own coffee brand, what it’s like to see your coffee on social media, and more.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started with Madcap Coffee.
I’ve been working in coffee now for almost 16 years. Before Madcap, I’d actually tried to start a few other cafe/roaster business concepts, both of which didn’t work for a variety of reasons (as those startups tend to do). So Madcap was my third attempt at my own cafe/roaster concept and part of my team, when I started, was comprised of people who’d worked for me in my previous businesses. It was in 2008 when I founded Madcap in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
At that time, I had become obsessed with coffee and everything that goes along with it—being a very global product that’s very much relational, from producing farmers onwards. So there was a big draw there to focus on that and create an experience that was all relational at all levels. That was the premise that Madcap is based off of, and from the beginning, we had a focus on working directly with producers we sourced coffee from, highlighting their stories, and we wanted to take an approach that showed that every cup of coffee has a story. We’ve become very focused on creating an experience around coffee.
Now we have an office in Washington, D.C. based out of the WeWork in Chinatown. That’s our East Coast base essentially for providing support to our East Coast wholesale accounts. We have accounts throughout North America that we provide coffee, equipment, and consulting through, so we spend our time in our WeWork space doing tastings, meeting with customers, doing beta testing of equipment, research and development, and all kinds of fun things.
What makes Madcap Coffee so unique?
Our focus has always been first on the people. But we’ve tried to create a product that, through every avenue it’s presented, has a degree of intentionality that is obvious and very present—even from a packaging perspective. Our packaging is really simple: a black bag with two labels on it. One label has the info on the coffee. Each coffee has its own Pantone color palette. We buy seasonally, so each one is only on a menu for three to four months. Hopefully we are building relationships so that coffee can come back the next year, so customers will see the same colors come back the next year. For example, we have a coffee from Ethiopia whose label is neon pink, and that color has become very synonymous with that coffee, and our customers become excited for it every year. And the other label on the bag is a woven fabric label, which you don’t really experience until you pick it up and touch it. So even from a presentation perspective, you have a rainbow of colors that is represented that makes the product stand out.
And that goes into everything from how a drink menu is built, to how we try to accommodate customers with different tastes. That level of intentionality, that focus on people, hopefully differentiates us. We think that we’re buying some of the best coffees in the world, and we’ve put together a team that represents that. There are a lot of great teams out there selling great coffee, but we like to think that we do that at a high level of intentionality and purpose. We also work with small farmers where there’s no one else buying those coffees, and we pride ourselves on building those relationships.
Your brand has a strong focus on art and design stemming from the designers Seth Herman and Chuck Anderson, who Madcap hired in 2009 to help design the look of the brand. What are some of your favorite aspects about it?
We were very blessed to find these guys—we found them because they were customers of ours first! They came in every day, and I was doing everything in-house at the time. As a lot of entrepreneurs do, I was trying to do everything myself. So we were very lucky to have these guys come in, approach us, and say, “We really resonate with what you’re doing and would love to be a part of this.” Ultimately, they are helping us elevate the brand outside of just the product we present to people to consume.
What’s some of the best feedback you’ve gotten from Madcap coffee drinkers?
One that always resonates with me initially was when customers would say, “Oh, this cappuccino reminds me of the cappuccino I had when I was in Florence,” or “When I was in Milan drinking it and looking at the Duomo cathedral.” Even now it resonates a lot, because it’s speaking to a holistic experience. Our cafe experience in Michigan—to say they are having an experience that reminds them of Italy is hopefully a testament to the level of experience we are trying to create.
We’ve moved to a level where a lot of the drinks we are creating are at the level of a “mocktail,” with different glassware, accouterments, accessories, garnishes—we even have a drink with cotton candy in it! Seeing customers post those drinks on social media is one of the highest compliments you can receive, and those are very lasting compliments.
Anything else we should know about you?
Coffee doesn’t define me (or I’d like to think it doesn’t). I’m married with three daughters who aspire to be baristas at times (at least judging by their affinity with coffee). I go to a lot of soccer games, offer a lot of support, and try to be a father as much as I’m a business owner, entrepreneur, and all-around distributor of caffeine.
Also, it’s interesting that being a coffee professional opens you up to all the things that are similar—I’ve become a beer geek, I’m really into craft cocktails, I love taking winery tours and seeing how people make wine and how it defines who they are. It’s not just related to food and beverage, but so many industries like design. When you’re really focused and passionate about something, it opens you up to other people and what they are passionate about. Passion is contagious.