We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Camilo Giraldo. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Camilo below.

Camilo, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So, let’s start with a hypothetical – what would you change about the educational system?

As en entrepreneur, the experience that I’ve had from my dad as a business owner growing up has been a great example in work, discipline and consistency in which I have been able to use in my growth and development in my business today. In school most of the education in based on doing work to obtain a grade, the same happens out the in the working world today. You preform a job to make a salary at the end of the week. Due to this mentality, I believe a lot of people do the bare minimum just to make their salary instead if going above and beyond because either way they are going to get paid the same, Thanks to the example I had from my parents I saw another path and lifestyle that interested me and it seems to me more self fulfilling. A lifestyle where one is responsible for ones failures or successes in your business and home life. Being a business owner is the path to the freedom of determining the use off your time and finances but it should done in a responsible way, with concrete bases and with values completely different in what is taught in our educational system. Having self- discipline.

I would have loved to been taught more about time management, how to manage our emotions when things don’t turn out how we would like, being proactive, having mental toughness, and how to set goals and execute them in an independent way. It would’ve set me up to be a more well rounded person. In the traditional education system we aren’t taught, not even the basics of personal finances, something that is so important in these times where things seems to be obtained so easily but their are no bases being taught on how to manage your assets or how to build instead of waste. The ultimate goal in our education system is get a degree to get a stable job, which what is doing is creating employees and not entrepreneurs. We are not giving kids on option in another path.

Camilo, 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?

My name is Camilo Giraldo and I’m one of the owners of Puro Tinto Coffee. Before creating Puro Tinto 3 and a half years ago, I used to work as a bartender, but I knew that wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. When we found out we were expecting our son, Matthew, I realized I had to do something else. I wanted to create something where I would be able to spend quality time with my son and be able to create something I could leave for him. We went on a trip to Manizales, Colombia before Matthew was born and we saw the coffee infrastructure my family has in Colombia. We automatically thought we should work with this and that’s where Puro Tinto began.

Our goal with Puro Tinto Coffee is to bring the Colombian coffee culture to the US in a unique and modern way. We import our coffee in small batches from our family owned coffee farms weekly to provide the best quality coffee beans and mark a difference in the coffee industry ensuring freshness in our products. We have an online store where we ship coffee to all United States and we also have our in person location at the Yellow Green Farmers Market in Hollywood, FL where customers can come and enjoy a cup of coffee. On our online store we sell our coffee beans, ground or whole bean, our pour over packets along with the gooseneck kettle and our cold brew concentrate. At our physical location we sell prepared coffee such as tintos, cold brew, cappuccinos, lattes, affogatos etc. along with our products that we also sell online. Our main goal is for our customers to leave with a positive experience. It’s not just about the coffee, but about the experience you have with us while you enjoy good cup of coffee. We also love to be able to share our knowledge of coffee with our clients as well, from teaching them about grind size, to being able to prepare a good cup of coffee at home, its all part of the experience at Puro Tinto.

We started this business from zero. It was only an idea and we brought it to life. From products designs, webpage, our location at the farmers market, social media, we are proud of what we have created. Each one has been a process, and none were easy at the moment but we can look back at everything we have done and we’re proud that WE were able to create it. Even with obstacles in our path, we have never stopped or given up when times were hard and we can see the growth of everything we have done and put into our company since day one. We feel proud that we are able to represent Colombia here in the US.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

The best source of new clients for us has been word of mouth. Apart from just selling a cup of coffee, we like to show our customers where their coffee is coming from along with a great experience. We treat everyone as family, so they feel welcome and at home. Most of customers come recommend from a friend or family member that have come to visit us. Many of our customers have turned into friends because of the connections we form with them.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

We began production two months before COVID, but we knew that couldn’t hold us back. We decided to create our online store through Shopify and made our products available to all of the US. It was difficult at first being a new brand, since a consumer can’t smell or taste the coffee before purchasing it. It was basically marketing our product well and making it appealing to the buyer. We worked with influencers and our social media to boost our online store and we were able to survive the pandemic as a new small business with great feedback and recurring customers. Once we were able to get back to selling in person our online store has been a great factor. At our location we meet a lot of people from other states and they are able to try our products with us and continue ordering from home.      

Contact Info:

• Website: www.purotintocoffee.com
• Instagram: www.instgram.com/purotintocoffee
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/purotintocoffee
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@purotintocoffee