We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brian Jenkins a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brian, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
At BlackFin Coffee, the brand and the mission are one and the same. Our mission is to save the southern resident killer whales from extinction by restoring the critically endangered chinook salmon, and honoring indigenous peoples’ treaty rights. What does that look like exactly? Simply put, we support non-profit conservation organizations through donations from the proceeds of our coffee, and by upholding our 3 core values: Kindness, Conservation, and Excellence.
Hi, my name is Brian. I started this coffee brand in honor of the southern resident killer whales, and here’s why. In 2013 my wife (Nicole) and I moved to Seattle with our 3 month old son, and it all started with the killer whales. Nicole pursued a marine biology program at Seattle Pacific University in 2003, all because she wanted to work with killer whales. When she found out that there were killer whales that swim through Seattle waters, that sealed the deal. This laid the foundation for what would eventually become “BlackFin Coffee”.
Fast-forward to 2017, and I wanted to spread my wings and branch out as an entrepreneur. Up til this point, I had been involved Seattle’s coffee scene. One thing led to another, and I was chasing my ambitions as a fledgling entrepreneur. So, like every new entrepreneur, we started with a name and a logo! We chose the name BlackFin and incorporated the dorsal fins from the killer whales into our logo. As we were beginning to pull our new company together in 2018, the southern resident killer whales made ripples around the world when J-35 “Tahlequah” pushed her dead calf around the Salish Sea for 17 days. This was the moment when we realized how important BlackFin Coffee was going to become for the community, and it began our process of galvanizing our brand for the sake of these killer whales.
For now, I’ll spare you the dirty details on how it came to be this way, but it wasn’t until October 2019 that I had a product launched and available through my first iteration of BlackFin’s website. In the beginning, we didn’t have this whole donation thing worked out yet, but we had always wanted to figure out a way to give back to the community with a portion of our proceeds.
Then, COVID….
The good news about all of this is that my brand was 100% online e-commerce. So the COVID lockdowns opened an opportunity for us to network and grow our brand through social media, without the worries of shutting down a brick-and-mortar business. And this is where it all began for us.
In May of 2020, we established our first non-profit relationship with an organization called PNW Protectors. I took the art from their paintings, and their 3 core values, to create 3 PNW Protectors Coffee labels. With these product, I promised to give the full retail proceeds back to the non-profit organization. This partnership really helped us to establish ourselves in the community as a brand that cares for orca conservation, and it drew out people from around the world that loved the work we were doing through this partnership. The partnership would live on through the end of 2022.
Starting in 2023, BlackFin launched 3 new labels with new label art, and changed our donation promise from just these three labels to expand our donations to $2 across all of our coffee products, and to donate to more conservationists who are all joined in the same fight to save the southern resident killer whales.
Along the way, I launched a podcast. Through it, I’ve interviewed key leaders in this community that have dedicated themselves to educating the world about the issues surrounding this ecological crisis. I’m proud of the work that we’ve done so far, and I really believe in what we’re doing!
So, to answer the question more simply, “Why is our mission meaningful to me?”. It’s because these killer whales mean so much to so many people around the world. Their numbers have slowly declined steadily since the 1970’s “capture era”, when these killer whale populations were desimated for the sake of profitable theme parks. The chinook salmon populations have also declined since the construction of dams have inhibited the possibility for salmon migration and reproduction. These declines in salmon populations have violated treaty rights that the U.S. struck with multiple indigenous sovereign nations. This mission is important to me because it’s a story of redemption and restoration. We still have time. It’s still possible to take down the lower 4 Snake River dams and restore chinook salmon populations. These chinook salmon, being the primary food source for the southern resident killer whales, can help the killer whales populations to recover. We can honor the rights of our indigenous brothers and sisters to fish salmon by ensuring their population vitality. We can still do all these things.
And so, this is why this mission is so important to us.
Brian, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Wow! So, most of this I already answered in the previous section, but I’ll try and summarize what I said back there.
1. I got into the coffee industry when I moved here in 2013 by taking a job that serves Seattle corporate offices with artisan coffee supplies. Through this business, I was inspired to startup my own coffee brand by bumping into other local micro-coffee startups. I took a new job to learn everything I could about the supply chain and operations of a coffee company. From there, I went out on my own to launch my own e-commerce coffee brand.
2. We provide an a-la-cart coffee product for customers all over the U.S. through our website. On the website, you can order a wide variety of coffee products. Here’s a list of some of them.
a. Coffee Blends including our flagship “Transient, SRKW (stands for southern resident killer whale), and Chinook” blends. We also offer our own cold-brew, espresso, and whiskey barrel aged blends.
b. Single Origins available include: Brazil, Colombia, D.R. Congo, Rwanda, Sumatra, a Swiss Water Decaf Colombia, and one single origin on rotation called our “Limited Edition” coffee. All of these are available to your roast profile preference.
All of these products will be ground to your specification, and shipped around the U.S. Everything is roast-to-order which means customers get only the freshest product possible. We do not hold hundreds of pounds of inventory in some warehouse to drop-ship from. Everything is done from my home, from he roasting of the coffee, to the packaging, and this shipping, it’s all done in my home. This affords us the ability to scale our brand to great heights, and serve customers quickly and efficiently.
3. As I eluded to in the previous section, the problem we’re aiming to solve is an ecological one – We want to save the southern resident killer whales from extinction. By designing an excellent quality coffee product, we are able to provide people with the ability to give back to these conservation efforts, as well as supporting our business. It’s a win-win-win for our customers, conservationists, and our business, and it just makes people feel good to know that their dollars are doing something impactful!
What I’m most proud of, is being able to break the negative business norms that are pedaled to us through big business and media… I strongly believe that creating a top-quality product is the best starting point for any business. However, businesses don’t need to only “exist to create a profit”. And, those profits don’t need to make a few key individuals massively wealthy. At BlackFin Coffee, my dream is to shatter the debate surrounding what we call “income inequality”. True “equality” means 1=1. Or in the case of wages, the boss’s $45,000 salary = the employee’s $45,000 salary. This is a bold claim, and it requires a top notch crew! Even if the boss’s salary isn’t that much, I believe that whatever it is – when the day comes when we can hire employees – I’m going to do everything in my power to establish a new industry norm that distributes wealth equally to all employees. If we can proof a concept of true income equality, we will be able to change the world through our leadership, by showing people that businesses don’t need to be greedy. It won’t be easy, but nothing worth while ever is easy.
Secondly, I’m proud of what BlackFin Coffee stands for. I’ve worked many hours and poured a lot of effort into our branding through social media, a podcast, and face-to-face interactions with customers in our community. The feedback I often get the most is how people think it’s awesome that we’re doing what we’re doing. My thing is this… If your’e going to buy a bag of coffee for $25, then you’re willing to spend money for the best quality product. Right? So, why not take those same dollars and make an impact in our world through our company. You’re going to get coffee that rivals the top roasters in Seattle, AND, you’re going to feel good about it because you know that our brand stands for something important for our planet as well as the people that live in our beautiful region of the world – here in the Pacific Northwest.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
The most obvious theme to the story of BlackFin Coffee is one of undying resilience!
My wife and I created the idea of BlackFin Coffee in the fall of 2017. I started out by trying to perfect a cold-brew recipe, and so I did. In those days, I worked for a food manufacturing company that just so happened to package all sorts of coffee products for hundreds of brands.
In the summer of 2018, I struck a partnership with 2 people. The first was our investor and he was going to run the finances for the business. The second was a family owned catering company, and they were going to open a cafe in the Pioneer Square neighborhood in Seattle. As things were finally beginning to materialize in the spring of 2019, I decided to take a dive off the deep-end… I quit my job in April of 2019, and decided to drive Uber & Lyft until we opened up our new cafe together. This where things took a turn for the worse… By May of 2019, my business partners had a dispute and the whole thing fell apart completely.
What was I to do? Go back to my old job? Keep driving Uber & Lyft? The truth is, I thoroughly enjoyed this new-found freedom in my day-to-day life, but it was extremely challenging trying to do this all on my own.
I retook 100% ownership of my company, BlackFin Coffee, and I went to work on getting the thing launched. By October 2019, I launched my website with a handful of offerings. It was ugly in the beginning! But I knew I could get better and better over time and that I could market my brand on social media, completely organically, and eventually get some revenue.
It was rough… In the beginning, everyone thinks that your friends and family are just going to support you because you think they’ll care about your ambitions and they’ll support your efforts, because they want you to succeed! Right?! Well, sadly, the truth is maybe only 5% of those people will actually do that. Now – those 5% are really important and you really appreciate these people so much more because of it! But, your hopes are dashed against the rocks of despair when you come to grips with the cold hard truth.
Ok. So, I’ve got a product launched. Now, it’s to the moon with success, right?! Wrong… In the beginning I didn’t understand just how much I SUCKED at this! So I had to do the hard work of not just improving my products, but also improving myself! I battled with my demons of insecurities and depression. I had to learn to become self-sufficient in my mind when others didn’t believe in my vision and mission. I had to learn to forgive people of the pre-conceived notions that I had of them.
Then, COVID…
As I said before, Uber & Lyft were my main sources of income while I got this brand to take off. But, when I quit my job, I did so under the pretenses of launching a cafe with partners. Then those partners disappeared and I was 100% on my own. The thing is, however, rideshare demand dropped off like a ROCK. Suddenly my income was down 80%. Now I’m struggling just go keep my roof over my head, much less keep a business operational! I took the opportunity to really go hard with my social media efforts and establish my brand in these online communities, but it was a struggle! We depended on every dollar of assistance we could get our hands on.
Finally, in early 2022, I was at the bottom of the barrel and I thought it was all going to come to an end… I had to make difficult decisions between paying for supplies for my company to keep providing for customers, or paying my electric bill. It was the most stressful period of my life. We had some generous friends help us little by little, but it wasn’t completely enough…. Only just barely enough to stay floating.
After all this time, I finally broke down and I went back into the workforce. It was humbling. So, I started a new job in February 2022. I took the opportunity to get myself a loan to get caught back up on my finances. I kept the embers aglow for BlackFin, but only JUST.
In April 2022, they fired me. They fired me because I was doing TOO good of a job! I was like, “seriously?!” Yes. Seriously.
At this point, the world was roaring back to life as we were finally coming out of the pandemic! I began driving Uber & Lyft yet again, but this time it was the best income I’ve ever seen! Finally… I could breathe a sigh of relief! I fought hard to keep my brand alive, and it paid off.
Since then, new challenges have presented themselves but the moral of the story is simply this: If you truly believe in the mission of your brand, then you can never give up on it, because eventually it’s going to pay off and eventually you’re going to see the hard-earned reward for your efforts… Just don’t give up!
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
Yeah! So, really from the very beginning for me, I always knew that social media was the way to build my brand. It’s the best way to get your product in front of the eyes of the most people possible without ever having to spend a penny on marketing or advertising. But, it wasn’t easy.
With social media, there’s 3 basic principles that makes it work.
1. Consistency.
2. Engaging Content.
3. Engage in Online Community.
When I started in 2019, the world was dominated by Instagram. It took a while, but I had to learn how to connect with people organically by creating good content. But there was a whole strategy to it that I had no idea about in the beginning. So, I sat down with a couple friends and tried to learn as much from them as possible.
My first friend was my social media manager friend. He taught me the tips and tricks needed to utilize the best hashtags, the best photography, the best time of day to post, etc. He taught me that 1 post a day was enough, and that I should focus my content on what gets the most attention. For me, it was pictures of orcas. I could write my own captions that would engage with the audience. I started tagging organizations that were relevant to the content and they would re-share to their audience of tens of thousands. I was able to build my following, organically, up to about 5000 at one point, until the attention shifted to TikTok.
My second friend was my marketing company friend. He taught me what I needed to do from a design standpoint in order to create visually appealing labels, product photos, and even website design. He helped me to ultimately change my philanthropy strategy to one that was more focused on my own brand rather than individual organizations outside of my company. This helped me shift my thinking with regards to the kinds of products photos that should be in my IG feed.
Finally, there’s video content. Now, this gets really challenging because it’s not easy to just create video content all the time. However, the reality of the matter is all of the world’s attention is now on TikTok, Youtube, IG Reels, and Youtube Shorts. To be successful in today’s social media landscape is to be a successful content creator. That doesn’t mean that Instagram and LinkedIn posts aren’t still useful, because they are. But, for the greatest reach, you’ve gotta have a presence on these video platforms. This is our next hurtle in social media, but, I’m happy to say that Instagram has done us really well.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.blackfincoffee.com
- Instagram: @blackfincoffee
- Facebook: Blackfin Coffee
- Linkedin: Brian Jenkins – Owner – Blackfin Coffee
- Tiktok: BlackFin Coffee
Image Credits
Stephen Rink Brian Jenkins Lauryn Fly Snow Scammell