We recently connected with Derek & Sandy Davis and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Derek & Sandy thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

Our business is all about family. Derek had the idea of starting Lelo’s while visiting Sandy’s grandfather (Abuelo) in hospice. After Abuelo’s passing, Derek wanted to serve his memory in a meaningful way and Lelo’s (short for Abuelo) was born.

The business has always been just the two of us, with close family and friends supporting us along the way. The dream is to build something with love that we can not only share with our friends, family, and community, but with our children as well, for them to carry on if they choose to. The most meaningful legacy we could leave would be for our family as a team to honor Lelo’s memory by sharing it through something everyone loves: coffee.

Derek & Sandy, 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?

At the core of it, we are coffee roasters. Derek is constantly researching and refining his craft of roasting the best coffee beans on the planet, and Sandy tends to excel at developing relationships with customers. We have grown the business from roasting coffee beans in a pan on our stove one quarter pound at a time, to a beautiful mobile cafe, and to then opening our first storefront and cafe later this year. The most exiting part of the business is seeing people enjoy our product and the work is made all that more fun when we can connect and collaborate with other people and businesses in the community. We sell coffee online as well as supply to local restaurants and breweries and we have started branching into merch! We are all about finding new ways to share our coffee and Lelo’s story with as many people as we can.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

As many readers probably realize, building a small business from nothing is tough, and to be honest, we had no idea what we were getting into. When we started Lelo’s, Derek was working full time in the mortgage industry, and Sandy was (and continues to be) a clinical psychologist. We also had two children under the age of 4. It was incredibly difficult to juggle the work, kids, and researching/building the business. There were many times when it felt so overwhelming that it made more sense to just shut it all down (and that definitely would’ve been easier). But as a family, we agreed to “take the leap” together and Derek began working Lelo’s full time because ultimately we love the business we are building and the meaning behind it, and giving up ultimately would not have honored who we are as a family.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

Early on, we decided to approach a business to partner with them for housing our roaster and serving coffee in their large space. The business was excited about our idea and were instantly ready to proceed. Unfortunately, we ran into significant problems due to city zoning and similar issues and had to abandon that avenue. Nevertheless, we maintained a strong relationship with the business, continuing to collaborate as often as possible and later this year, we will finally be successfully opening our storefront with them, as we had initially planned.

Contact Info:

• Website: Leloscoffeeco.com
• Instagram: @leloscoffeeco
• Facebook: Lelo’s Coffee Co.