Episode 274: Building connections and community through Coffee with Amelia Hicks, Co-founder of Old Quarter Coffee Merchants
How can your business have an impact? In today's episode, Fiona chats with Amelia Hicks, co-founder of Old Quarter Coffee Merchants, about their business journey, tips, and so much more. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
How Old Quarter Coffee Merchant started
On work ethics
Bringing Southeast Asian coffee to the forefront
On time and resources
Amelia's eight principles
Pros and cons of working with a partner
Pandemic's impact in their business
On Toxic positivity
Optimism Exchange Program
Biggest achievement of Amelia
Books, People and Resources that helped Amelia
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
@OldQuarterCoffeeMerchants - Instagram
“I look back on it now and I realize that the need to show up day after day was such a gift because sometimes when you're building a business with no office, no location, or no customers, it can be hard to stay motivated. Whereas if you have to show up every single day, it pushes you because if you don't like it, then you need to grow it, you need to make it better. I look back now, I'm grateful for that experience.”
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Welcome to episode 274 of the My Daily Business Coach Podcast. This episode is an interview with an incredible small business owner that I was lucky enough to connect with and chat with in late 2022. Now, we are into 2023 and I'm excited to bring you this interview. If you have started the new year with a want to help other people through your business and connect with your audience and do so in a genuine, down-to-earth, and wonderful way, this interview is for you.
Before we get stuck into that, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the beautiful lands in which I get to meet all of these people and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get into this interview episode.
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It is my absolute pleasure to bring you an interview with Amelia Hicks. Amelia Hicks is the Co-founder alongside, Yose, her partner, with a business called Old Quarter Coffee Merchants. Amelia contacted us midway through 2022 and said, “I need to put myself out there and it is one of my goals to get on a podcast, and three podcasts are in mind and you are one of them.” A lovely, down-to-earth, and real email.
We get a lot of pitches. I feel like I say that a lot. I'm not trying to boast but there are a lot of agencies out there now that pump out requests to podcast about 100 a day. You can tell that they've found us on ranking and they have never listened to the podcast at all. It's refreshing to see an email from somebody real who listens and has listened for a while and who is taking on board some of the things we are saying like putting yourself out there and getting onto podcasts. I loved reading her email and I loved chatting with Amelia.
In our interview, we go through how Amelia and her partner, Yose, created Old Quarter Coffee and why they created it but also how they have spent the time to invest in understanding and connecting with the community that is responsible for growing the supply that they use in Old Quarter Coffee. Amelia comes from a background in social enterprise and not-for-profits and wanted to do something with that.
It's a beautiful story, I'll let her tell you how it all eventuated. It is a huge undertaking for anyone in Australia or anywhere. Australia is known for its coffee and particularly people can get obsessed with which brown they have, where those beans are from in the world, how they are roasted, and how their coffee is filtered or brewed. For any newcomer to come into that business or that industry is competitive. To do so, getting your beans from a place of the world that is not necessarily well-known at the moment yet here in Australia for coffee is another thing, as well as trying to then create that whole business to be as sustainable and ethical as possible.
If you are hoping that 2023 is going to be a year where you do create a bit more sustainability in your business or you look for different suppliers or manufacturers or maybe you have great manufacturers and suppliers but the connection that you have with them could be stronger, you are going to love this chat. Everyone is going to love this chat because Amelia is positive, upbeat, engaging, and so passionate about what they are doing at Old Quarter Coffee Merchants. It was my absolute pleasure to chat with Amelia. I won't ramble on any further. Here is my interview with the lovely Amelia Hicks, CEO, and Founder of Old Quarter Coffee Merchants.
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Amelia, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me on.
I'm excited. I'd love to ask because I ask everyone this, how are you feeling about life right now?
I'm a little bit nostalgic. Our business turned five. It’s such a milestone and I'm trying to sit with that because it's been a bit of a journey. It's great, a good time for reflection.
People often say that businesses are like children and at five, that's when you send them off to school. Big time, whether you have a business or a child. That's awesome. I love also that you're reflecting on it. Often, we go through the day-to-day and they're like, “It's been six years,” or, “Three years.” We don't stop and go, “That's incredible.”
It is such an important practice for me. Practicing gratitude is a big thing for my mental health. A practice of reflection and celebrating small wins helps you be more at the moment. It’s not always easy to do in the hustle and bustle. We lack ritual in our lives. I'm all about taking it where we can get it.
I love that. I know this is going to be a lovely conversation. We have a saying and my nine-year-old hates it but having him prompt us, we constantly say, “Gratitude not attitude.”
He would hate that.
He has such an attitude sometimes and we're like, “Gratitude not attitude.” It's also for ourselves as well. I love that. You are here to talk about your five-year-old business, Old Quarter Coffee Merchants. In your own words, how did you start it? Why did you start it? How's it all going and what's it all about?
I started the business with my partner, Yose. We import green coffee from Southeast Asia and we roast it, wholesale it to other cafes, and sell it online. We have our own cafe. It’s a bit of a monster but I love it. We both were at a stage in our lives where we wanted to start our own business. I had been working in a startup in a social enterprise. I felt like I wanted to do something that had a bigger purpose.
Yose and I both had a long history in Southeast Asia. He grew up in a regional country Australia and traveled to Vietnam when he was 15. It blew his world open and inspired him on a deep level, the culture and the people. I had a similar trajectory. I come from a very humble background. I traveled overseas for the first time when I was 19. I also went to Vietnam. When we fell in love, we also went there as our first trip over ten years ago.
Yose, my partner, was also falling in love with coffee and learning how to roast it. We combined this need to be doing something in the world that was bigger than ourselves and that would create an impact with our love of coffee. We wanted to give back to the people and the places that had helped shape who we are. There was a sense of like, “We have so much privilege to have been able to travel and to have been able to learn and we could do something cool.” That's the genesis.
How did you sit down with your partner and go, “This isn't like, ‘Bring back some coffee for our friends or let's roast and make people end-of-year gifts,’ but let's turn this into a business.” You wholesale, you've got the coffee, and then you've got a cafe as well, any of those three isn't a small thing, let alone all of them together. Did you sit down and go, “Yes, we want to do this.” How did you decide that this is going to be a business?
I wish I could go back and say it was all strategic and I planned it out and I did everything the right way. As with most startups, you usually go where the opportunity is. I often look at other people's businesses, maybe they sell one product to one type of customer. I have to say that I do envy them day-to-day when I'm managing many different parts of the business. I wouldn't have it any other way.
How did we decide to do a business? I was working in a startup so I was managing or running the Australian branch of a UK-based international development organization. Over that time, I'd developed the confidence that no matter what came my way, I could figure it out and solve that problem. My partner and I have complementary skills and he was going to be the person that could drive the product forward. He's exceptional at working cross-culturally. It's hard to nail it but sometimes you know that you want to do something big and you want to go all in and that was us.
We wanted to have an import business. We wanted to bring green coffee in but that's such a massive business and you need an immense amount of money and cash flow to make it worth it because you're bringing things in container loads. It was one of those things, it happened organically but we always had that mindset of wanting to grow, wanting to reach more people, and wanting to have that impact. Every time there was an opportunity, we grabbed it and we figured it out as we went along.
A friend of ours said, “I know you guys want to start this coffee business. I know you're starting to import beans. I've got this shed, this warehouse, and you could take the lease. It would be perfect.” Shout out to Matt. We grabbed it. Everything is such a calculated risk. It seems funny now that a few hundred dollars on a lease were scary but at that time, we jumped into that.
Our business is based in the industrial estate and we could see that there was much good coffee. I was like, “It’s quite a good opportunity.” We thought about the roasting side of things. It was always a part of it but then, why don't we start selling cups of coffee because there's a niche? We did that. Honestly, it's been like that. We started to get such good feedback on the product. Ultimately, we ended up running a cafe for a couple of years, which was far from our original plan, and probably not exactly where we wanted to be but I wouldn't change it for the world because it gave us many things. It was such a great learning opportunity. I could talk about that all day.
Lots of people say, “At the coalface.” You are talking to people while they're having a coffee if you run a café. It's like a focus group on a massive scale.
That is exactly what it was like. That helped us build our confidence but also not just learn about our product but also learn about our customers. I apply it now still. We understand intimately what it's like to own and run the café and so it's made us empathetic for our biggest customers like other people who own cafes.
That is the most intense industry, by the way. You just cannot learn that without doing it. Even now, when we're building our online store or we're thinking about the user experience, how people choose coffee, and what overwhelms them, I always come back to that coalface, that face-to-face experience that we have with our amazing community in Ballina.
Also, even though when I was working 60 or 70 hours and I went from running a whole business to getting up at 4:30 and making sandwiches and running a cafe, I didn't love it at the time. I look back on it now and I realize that the need to show up day after day was such a gift because sometimes when you're building a business with no office, no location, or no customers, it can be hard to stay motivated. Whereas if you have to show up every single day, it pushes you because if you don't like it, then you need to grow it, you need to make it better. I look back now, I'm grateful for that experience.
Thank you so much for sharing that story. It reminded me of getting up at 4:30. I used to work in cafes and that's where I first started. When I was at uni, I worked in cafes. I used to live a long way from the cafe. Even when I was in year twelve, I worked at this cafe. I'd get up at 4:45, drive all the way into the city, and get all the coffee. It was like, “Get everything ready.” There’s so much stuff. That's been a big part of my work ethic as well. If you start in that space, you're like, “You have to get up early. You have to show up. People are expecting you.” It holds you on good ground for the rest of your life.
I couldn't agree more. You have to provide service. You need to multitask. You need to problem-solve. You develop a lot of skills. Humble hospitality jobs can be important.
Incredible, it's like customer service, thinking on your feet, and problem-solving as you say. There's no time. It's fun. Coffee is a huge thing in Australia. I started working in cafes in probably 1996, a long time ago. I was at high school still. I've seen the coffee. It used to be that a cappuccino was fancy and now you have all the other things. What kind of coffee do you drink? What type of bean is it? How much milk? Do you have milk? Do you not have milk? Is it called cold drip? I don't even know the terms anymore.
It's a huge part of our culture in Australia and you've invested in bringing Southeast Asian coffee to the forefront. You talk about this a lot in your marketing how coffee from that part of the world has been underrepresented here in Australia and maybe in other parts of the West in the local coffee scene. Why do you think that it's been underrepresented? Also, is it that Vietnam holds such a special place for you that you were passionate about getting coffee from that part of the world and bringing it here?
It's such a good question and yes, we are lucky to have such a thriving specialty coffee scene and such a big base of people that value it on that whole another level. I feel very grateful to be a part of this industry. I'm inspired by the people who work in it. We are following in the footsteps of people who've paved the way for specialty coffee in Australia. Also, a little tip of the cap to those guys. I often say with our business, you are always trying to identify what makes your business unique. Apart from what we do, it's about what we believe and why we do what we do.
For us, coffee has become the conduit for the way that we create impact. It's 100% what you said that we were connected to the people and the places and the culture. I wouldn't say coffee comes second, it's equal to, but it's different to other people's coffee roasting or importing businesses. It's not always about the people, it's not about the places, it's very much about the quality and the variety. We take it one step further. Southeast Asia is close to our hearts.
The reason why it hasn't been showcased as much in the Australian market is mostly to do with access. There is no reason why Southeast Asian coffees can't be as high quality as the ones that you get from Africa, South America, and Central America. It's that they're at the beginning of their journey. I have no doubt that in 10 years or 20 years, the quality of the coffee coming out of Southeast Asia will be as good.
I got such empathy for the life of a farmer. Many of us know it but we don't think about it and it's nice to take a moment to give gratitude to these guys. Often, they'll want to improve the quality. Let’s say a farmer will look to plant a new variety, sometimes it won't produce fruit like cherries for five years. It's a long-term investment. We feel privileged and excited to be custodians of people's ideas about Southeast Asian coffee.
It's something that drives Yose and all of our team but he's the head roaster and the head of production and sourcing. Apart from his wonderful and analytical personality and drive to make things better, it's that idea that he might provide the first taste of a Southeast Asian coffee, a coffee from Lao, a coffee from Vietnam, to somebody. That's quite a big responsibility and something that motivates us to do the best job that we can.
I love how passionate you are. You're oozing this passion, it's nice. It's contagious to listen to you.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome. I feel bad telling you that I don't drink coffee. I used to drink coffee.
Fiona, get out. I'm only kidding.
I drink decaf once a week. I allow myself to have a proper decaf coffee and I don't even decaf. People are like, “Eww, decaf.” There have been cafes that I've gone into and they're like, “Decaf?” It’s as if I'm speaking another language. I used to drink coffee. I gave it up in 2018 but I often didn't want to go back to it.
I have converted a few people, I'm not going to lie, Fiona. I can send you some decaf though.
Do you do decaf?
Yes, absolutely.
I'll buy it and support you. Speaking of everything that you were saying about working so closely with the farmers and supporting them and this big onus and responsibility on you to bring their amazing stuff over to this country and how much responsibility is on there. You've talked about starting the business and wanting to create this ethical supply chain and even your background previously working with a social enterprise. You guys started in 2017 if I'm correct. Is it 2017 when you started?
Yeah.
Not everyone was doing that. People aren't doing it now but there's a lot more pressure on people to do it now. What did it mean in terms of time and resources? I'd love to hear a bit about the practical parts of this because a lot of people want to do this, they want to have an ethical supply chain. I work with a great woman called Belinda Humphrey. If anyone's interested in the fashion ethical supply chain, she helps people find great fashion ethical suppliers and manufacturers.
I don't know if there are people that can help you do that in the food part. Both are the practical side of it. Did you work with an agent or a specialist to help you find these farms that were treating their work as well and paying properly and all of that stuff? Also, how do you know for sure if you are not on the farms all the time? That's the biggest thing that people find when they're getting anything produced offshore. Even here in Australia as well, knowing that people are being treated well the whole way along the supply chain.
It seems like just a monster task, doesn't it? Our approach is we did it one step at a time. Our story is different from other roasters. Traditionally what a coffee roaster would do is they would say, “Excellent, I'm going to roast coffee. I'm going to get a roaster. I might set up my cafe but I'm just going to build a relationship with a wholesaler.” They carry all of that risk, they do all of that legwork, and they sell me coffees to my taste. I order as much as I want on a weekly basis or monthly basis.
Yose and I had to, from day one, forecast how much coffee we thought we would use in twelve months. it's been an immense learning experience. Honestly, it's one of those things that you don't know what you don't know. It's lucky that you don't know what you don't know because you look back at it and you think, “Did we not make our lives so hard?” Not only did we need to find farmers to work with but then we needed to learn how to import coffee.
Import-export is massive. Obviously, you knew how to roast but still, scaling production, learning how to operate a café, sales, and all the things. It's mad now that I think back on it. What we chose to do was source 700 kilos of coffee from one family in Vietnam that we still work with today. I get goosebumps when I think about it because our business is built on a product that they produce, can you even imagine? I could talk about that relationship all day long. We said, “We can only do what we can do.” Through that, we sold that one product.
Most people have five different coffees on offer and a blend. We sold one coffee for a year and the next year, we said, “What's the next relationship that we can build?” We did it like that. We never got advice. Although I highly recommend leveraging other people's experience. It was something that we didn't do because it was close to our hearts and something that the personal relationship was everything.
If anybody is thinking of setting up an ethical product or a social enterprise, it's not rocket science. Figure out the impact you want to have, figure out your purpose, build a business plan, and set your parameters early. Every person's social enterprise is going to have a different model and, in many ways, that's the beauty of it. You don't have to do it all and you don't have to give away all of your profits and you don't have to change the world yesterday. You need to decide what little impact you are going to make with your life or your business and then build a plan around it. You've got this, guys. If I can bloody do it, you can 100% do it.
It's like that Arthur Ashe quote, I've often come back to this, which is, “Start where you are with what you have and do what you can.” I'm paraphrasing that. That's the thing, we sometimes think, “It's difficult.” 700 kilos, that's huge. I guess you had this warehouse already as well.
700 kilos is one palette. I remember we've got a photo of yours sitting on the palette, it was the most momentous moment. Now, we import from the same relationship in Vietnam. We've grown together. In 2022, they were able to produce more and we were able to buy six tons from them. I've got goosebumps all over because that's what it's all about, it's all about long-term relationships. When it comes to the social enterprise part of things and the structure and the way that you do business,
Some people go for certifications, and that is such a good model for certain types of businesses. The difference with us was that we wanted to go beyond the certifications that existed. Because we are a relatively small business in the scheme of things and we are able and pride ourselves on working with small-scale farms and growing with them, a certification is pretty well unattainable for them on a financial level.
We created eight principles of how we do business, personal relationships, and long-term nature of them, that's where we can have such an amazing impact. Year after year, people's needs change, and our model is designed to be flexible and our support is designed to be targeted. That'll be different from other people's businesses.
They're so easy, they can probably say, “We do this and then we plant a tree,” or, “You buy a pair of shoes and we give you a pair of shoes.” In some ways, I'd like to go back to the start. The thing that makes us a little bit more complex is what I believe is the thing that makes the impact a lot more targeted and greater.
I love that you talked about those eight principles, it's almost like a checklist for working with a supplier or starting a relationship.
I use it as an example because you need to come back to those values and those principles to help you make decisions and they'll evolve as you learn more. It's straightforward, anyone can set out how they want to create an impact in the world. Ultimately, it inspires the business owner and the team on a daily basis. We get the benefit. I'm passionate about the concept that when you give, you receive, it's that same thing.
Can I ask what is your usual or ultimate coffee? What do you drink most mornings?
You should never ask a coffee person this because you'll be shocked. I have had periods of time where I do drink less coffee. At the moment, that's not the case. I am loving it and I don’t want to stop. I start the day with a single espresso and then I'll usually have a filter coffee so either a V60 pour-over or maybe a batch brew if it's at the cafe. That's a coffee that's made with equipment. I will then probably have a milk coffee. If I feel like it, I might have a cold brew.
You have four coffees in a day.
It's an occupational hazard.
I love that you've got such variety in there. You're not like, “This is exactly what I have and that's all.” Part of your business model as well is trying new things and getting other people to try different types of coffee.
It's exciting and it changes. You might have seen, at cafes, they have a barista's breakfast, it's usually a single espresso, a flat white, and a filtered coffee. We're known for our intake, that's for sure.
You've talked about your partner, Yose, quite a bit and working with him, and that's your life partner and your business partner. It's interesting because a lot of people would like to have that with their significant other, they'd like to be in business. I always like to ask what it's been like for you too as a couple but also as a business partnership. What are the pros and cons of working with a partner?
I honestly think that potentially, not every couple is meant to work together. For us, it's been the biggest gift of our lives, honestly. It's interesting that you say a lot of people would want that. I love that that's the attitude because when we started to tell people that we were going to go into business together, I'm sure it's usually well-meaning people. There was so much negativity and fear about, “You’ll get sick of each other and you'll become a business relationship.”
Yose is such a brilliant human being and he said, “It'll be what we make it.” In the early years, I don't know if we would've been able to run the business and succeed unless we had each other to lean on. You get to share the wins but you also have the losses and you go on that journey together but I would not change it. I get passionate about this. We've been together for over ten years. We got engaged.
Congratulations.
I love him to bits. He's inspiring to me. Most people will know that it's their intimate relationship that they usually learn the most about themselves. Usually, your children become second or equal to that in terms of being your biggest learning. We don't have kids so it's very much our business is our baby and it is the biggest reflection of, “Are we in a good place ourselves? Are we thriving? Are we leading? Are we inspiring?”
The combination of getting to work with your partner and getting to build a business and both of them reflecting back on you is not always comfortable what you see. I truly believe that it's helped me grow in many ways. I'm definitely a different person and hopefully, a better person now than I was years ago. If anybody's thinking about it, I recommend that don't be afraid of the way that it will change your relationship.
There'll be times when you are business partners and you are not lovers and that's okay. You find ways that work for you as a couple to carve out those special times. Ultimately, if you give each other the space to work and you don't try and occupy the same space or the same role, the shared journey makes any cons worth it. I'm a big advocate, you can tell.
Congratulations, ten years in itself is huge. I looked this up for something a while ago, the average Australian marriage lasts 12.1 years. You guys have been together for over ten years. You're almost at the other end of that. Are you going on to honeymoon in Vietnam?
Yes. We got engaged in Vietnam. We haven't traveled for three years and we haven't been to Vietnam for four years so it was exciting. We went in September and he proposed there. It's this special place for us. We got to celebrate with our farming partners there and all of our old friends. Hopefully, we'll be back soon.
Congratulations. On that note, you said you haven't traveled for so long because we've had the pandemic. How did the pandemic impact your business? Not only are people not necessarily going out and having as much coffee. You're in a different part of the country and us being in Melbourne but still, a lot of people were staying home even if they weren't in “lockdown” traditionally. You've got that and then you've also got people from overseas and you are importing things and there's a whole lot of freight issues and customs issues. How did the pandemic impact the business?
What a whirlwind we've all been through.
We're still going through it. I feel like the twenties are going to be up and down.
It goes in cycles, doesn't it? On a practical level, there was an immense amount of impact. For me, the biggest thing was about psychology. This is the beauty of working with Yose and being able to lean on each other. I remember when we got the news and everybody remembers that this is so terrifying. You didn't know what was coming. I remember it took me a little while. I wish I could say that I was one of those people that made decisions in a day and absolutely nailed it but that wasn't me. It took me a week or two of feeling vulnerable.
My partner is great in a crisis so he grabbed it and ran with it and helped to coach me through it. I remember this moment when it all sank in and we both realized that there were people relying on us. Our farming partners at that stage, particularly in Vietnam, we were their biggest customers. The difference between us buying the coffee and not, was not about, “Would I have less money in the bank?” It’s much more critical for their families. We tapped into our purpose and our reason for being because there was this real sense of determination.
Every entrepreneur and every business owner needs that ability to tap into certainty and that's what we did. We said, “No way. We're going to make this work,” and we did. We never closed. We closed for one day. Of course, we didn't have restrictions on our business so we were able to operate. Still, a lot of businesses in our industry chose to close. That's something that I feel proud of. It's not that it’s anyone else's choice. We’re not the right ones but we pushed through and we dug deep.
Our staff, at the time, were phenomenal. I’m forever grateful for them showing up every day. What happened from that? There are many wonderful innovative stories that came out of this. There was growth in our business because we showed up for our community when they needed us and we had this amazing flowing effect. We were only 2 or 3 years in when that happened so we were still fairly young.
We experienced a huge amount of growth in our cafe from that. Other parts of the business were pretty dramatically impacted and we needed to beg, borrow, and steal to get through. We did and it's been an amazing journey. There's a Warren Buffet quote, “When everyone's fearful, be greedy.” It's all about when everybody's afraid, you be brave, you take risks, and you build your business. When times are greener, it's a lot easier and that resilience sets you up. That's what we did.
You're upbeat. Is that the coffee or is it that sense of temperament? I feel like you've got a can-do attitude and it sounds like your partner is also good at problem-solving and solutions and finding the best. Do you feel like you've both got that temperament of positivity?
Yes, 100%. I want to level with people that, of course, it’s not always. I am the empathetic emotional type and my partner is a logical type. With those powers combined, we met. When I'm down and I can't see the way and I don't know how to lead, he's there for me and vice versa. I’m grateful to have like a co-founder and partner. It's interesting that you asked that because one of our values is around optimism. We ummed and ahhed whether that was the right thing to do because I didn't want anyone to misunderstand that value is fake happiness or always feeling great.
Toxic positivity.
Exactly. There's a lot of research about that in our today's society. What I have realized over time is that not everybody does believe that we can have an impact and not everybody does believe that the world can be a better place. If you have that internal hope or you cultivate it through your practices like gratitude and all those things, that is a motivator. That is a big part of us as business owners and of Old Quarter in general. The cool thing is that we find people like that. We serve hundreds of people a day and we have no bad customers. We work with more than twenty wholesale partners and they're all phenomenal. The way that you attract like-minded people is a brilliant thing.
I could not agree more. My dad was very much into hope and positivity and like, “Anything's possible,” and so is my mom. My mom was more of a realist sometimes. I got all of my report cards. All of the school said, “Fiona is a bit of a dreamer.” I'm like, “It's done me well.” Thinking about toxic positivity and being real but I also feel like you've got to look for that hope. My dad used to always be like, “What's the alternative? Sitting in misery all the time?”
Here in Australia, we are incredibly privileged. Even you and I are talking, we've got access to technology, we've got access to time off to be able to do this podcast, and we've got access to be able to choose to have a business. Why wouldn't we be hopeful about everything? We've got to take that privilege and appreciate it, embrace it, and share it with others as well.
It's deep, isn't it? I was having this conversation with someone and if all our basic needs are met, the biggest single determining factor to our happiness is a sense of purpose and a sense of progress. Apart from the impact that we can have in the world through business, it's exciting to me that the private sector controls most of the world's money.
As small business people, we can tap into that, make a social purpose in our business, and create a real impact. It gives us a reason for being. I'm passionate about the fact that it will lead to more success and will get you more customers. Knowing your why, knowing your purpose, and having fulfillment is a part of privilege but not everybody remembers that and we can implement it into our lives and our business. You won't look back, people. Do it.
On that note, can you tell us about Optimism Exchange? When I was looking at your website, this is incredible but I'm wondering, how do you set this up? What systems and processes do you have to have in place? Is it easy? As you've said before, get on it. when I was reading through some of the impacts that you've had through Optimism Exchange, it's a huge impact on people's day-to-day life. Even if, from afar, you might be like, “We're able to do this, the road stuff.” I don't know if you want to tell people about that but I found it fascinating. I'd love to get your feedback on what is optimism exchange and then how hard or not hard was it to set up.
Optimism Exchange program, the name acknowledges that the farmers who we work with provide as much value to our business as we do to them. We are excited about that because rather than falling into the habit of thinking that we are creating all the change, it's acknowledging the impact of the hard work of the farmers and how that adds so much value to our lives. Our brand idea is around daily happiness so it captures that.
We get so much happiness from their product and then we also want to give back to them because of that. We have different projects in each of the countries that we work with. I often say that the thing that makes those projects so amazing is that they're targeted and they're different for each community. We wanted to approach it in a listening-first way. We could have easily said, “We run this Optimism Exchange program and we're going to give back to your community. We run this type of project. We run a water project or we run an energy project.”
Instead, we wanted to go the extra mile and say, “What do you need?” Sometimes that's different for each place. As a quick example, in Sumatra, they reached out to our communities where farmers were risking their lives bringing 60-kilo sacks and more down steep, slippery, and muddy roads on the back of their motorbikes. It's the men who do this. If the men hurt themselves, the livelihoods of the family are ruined.
We were able to fundraise and donate to that project to pave a road. Thousands of people were impacted for the better. A whole village book gets access to the market and school and all these things. It's targeted at that specific community. In Lao, we realized that this community was producing this dry, natural, and processed coffee because they had no access to clean water. We are raising money to build a water well for that community. It would be a lot easier and it's not a bad thing to find someone who does that work so you can outsource it.
Even Who Gives A Crap, one of our most famous social enterprises in Australia for toilet paper, outsources its toilet-building projects to NGOs. That's 100% an easy model. Because those personal relationships are important to us, we have designed each project. Sometimes it's a direct transfer to a family, sometimes it's money to a co-op, and, at other times, it is outsourcing it. It looks like we'll need to do that with the water well because it's too big. Systems and processes, step by step, but always coming back to the values in order to make those decisions.
I love that idea. When I read it and it's like a road. It seems so simple but by paving that, the amount of change that happens for that community is awesome. I always like to ask people, what has been the biggest thing that you are proud of from your journey in business so far?
I am most proud of the impact we've been able to have in the lives of the farmers we work with. Equally, I am proud of the culture that we've been able to build. We fell off the wagon a little bit when we did not have the culture that we wanted to have and we've built that backup. It's that thing, isn't it? You can't do what you need to do in the world without a solid team.
Being able to focus on our team and provide opportunities in the way that we're able to be is something I'm inspired to do, particularly because I came from a background with limited opportunities. I'm looking forward to seeing how we can improve both of those things. I hope that someone reads this in a few years and they can see how much more impact we've been able to have.
I love that. Also, you guys are helping many people whether that's through having a nice coffee that they can have or through your team and other such things. Has anyone helped you both with your business or have you sparred with each other? Has there been any books or documentaries or a business coach or any mantra that you two live by that has helped you build this business?
Never-ending learning, absorb all of the content. Yes, many people have helped me. I'm a big believer in leveraging other people's experiences. You don't need to make the same mistakes twice. I don't always get it wrong because I'm sure my ego gets in the way and I want to figure it out myself. I am obsessed with your podcast and so many podcasts.
How lucky are we that we live in an age where anything we pretty much want to learn, we can? I have to laugh before I say this but Tony Robbins has had the biggest impact on my life. I went to one of his seminars, which Yose and I both did, and it was profound. It won't be for everyone because he's a big gregarious and American man but he has the strategies and tools that I can relate to.
In terms of the mantra, I wish I had some cool quotes to list right now. The thing for us is that people talk about the reasons why their businesses fail or the reason why they maybe don't fail but don't succeed to the level that people want. Our biggest realization or biggest learning has been it's the mindset. You can blame it on cash flow, you can blame it on anything, but ultimately, it's our mindset, it's what we are thinking and focusing on.
Yose and I have to check ourselves sometimes. When your relationship isn't the way you want it or your business isn't the way you want it, it's usually to do with what's happening up top. We focus on always trying to improve. I always ask myself, “Am I the best person to be running this business?” If the answer is no, I need to go and get the skills and the personal development to make sure that I am the right person and I'm the best person to be running this business.
It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. If somebody is reading this and they maybe have a business idea and they're like, “I'd love to chat to them about this,” or they want to buy some coffee, or they wanna stock your coffee, how do they get in touch? What's next for you and Old Quarter Coffee Merchants?
You can find us online at OldQuarterCoffee.com.au and grab coffee there. What's next? We want to grow massively this 2023 and we want to have more impact so stay tuned for more Optimism Exchange programs that will be released. If you want to get in touch, you can email us or jump on the website, Hello@OldQuarterCoffee.com.au.
Thank you so much for your time and your passion. I'm thrilled that you've come on. Also, thank you for sending an email because I was saying to you before that a lot of people pitch us and I felt like yours was genuine and heartfelt. That's also a lesson for anyone reading not necessarily to my podcast unless they want to but putting yourself out there. It's nerve-wracking but it can lead to all sorts of things and go good at doing it.
I love that. Thank you so much for having me on, Fiona. I'm glad that my email cut through. This has been such a privilege so thank you.
Thank you so much. Bye.
Bye.
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How lovely is Amelia? A lovely story. What an origin story when you think about it from a brand perspective. It’s interesting, human, and lots of points of connection there. It’s such a pleasure to chat with the crew at Old Quarter Coffee Merchants. I would love to know what you took away most from my chat and what stood out for you. As usual, I'm going to highlight two things that stood out for me in my chat with Amelia Hicks from Old Quarter Coffee Merchants.
The first is I loved this Optimism Exchange that they have and the idea that you don't have to always be doing these huge things to be meaningful. She talked about raising money for the 500 meters of road to be corrected and built properly so that people can safely get to school and work. That in itself is huge and it's not anything small. Sometimes when we think about, “How can our business have an impact?”
We think of these huge things, like, “I want to put through twelve women through university,” or, “I want to do this,” or, “I want to do that,” or, “I want to build a whole school.” These things are sometimes so far away and feel unattainable rather than working with the community, what do they need? What will make a difference for them in their day-to-day life? I absolutely love that. It doesn't always have to be this massive thing to make a massive difference.
It's not small by any means what they did but smaller things can make as big of an impact. I love that she talked about that. Also, they just do it. She, her partner, and the rest of the people at Old Merchants are doing things to change the world and to change it with the people that they're working with. It's a huge part of their company ethos and it's something that they live by and you can tell that through the passion in her voice.
The second thing that stood out and how it goes hand in hand with that was understanding their brand values and living up to them, the idea of daily happiness and, “What can we do?” It’s being honest and real about parts in their business where maybe that wasn't necessarily working so well and what they have done to change that.
She's a happy and positive person and part of her is a natural temperament. They also look to bring that happiness to their customers, to their team, and to the people they work with through their marketing. Even chatting with her on the podcast, I was smiling because it's contagious. I love that it's not in that toxic positivity. We've been given such a gift to be able to have our own businesses. How can we embrace that along with all of its challenges but embrace what a gift it's been and bring that happiness to other people that are in our life communicating with us and connecting with us through our business?
I would love to know what you heard and what resonated for you from this podcast episode. You can find us and send me a DM anytime at MyDailyBusinessCoach.com or Hello@MyDailyBusinessCoach.com. You can find Old Quarter Coffee Merchants at OldQuarterCoffee.com.au. Over on Instagram, you can find them at @OldQuarterCoffeeMerchants. Thank you so much for reading. I'll see you next time. Bye.
