We recently connected with Jesse Perez-Chenge and have shared our conversation below.

Jesse, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

White Rabbit Coffee’s existence is thanks to a collective of ideas developed by a group of 5 of us lifelong friends (Jeronimo Sotelo, Jefferson Vance, Andres Loya Estrada, Allen Gonzales, Jesse Perez-Chenge). We all loved the idea of working together in hopes of becoming business owners. The idea at first was to create a bike cart and serve coffee. By a number of meetings and various types of research we came to the conclusion that before executing the coffee bike idea there was still a lot of work to be done. This work consisted of forming our business plan, registering/documentation with the state, getting proper permits, health training, brand creation/growth, equipment research/purchase, and most importantly capital generation (this was the most important because some of us left our day jobs to pursue this dream).

At WRC we are are proud of our mexican cultural background. We love sharing with our community a little taste of that background through a cup of our sourced coffee brewed with freshly roasted beans.
Mexico is a country rich in soils and is blessed to have the right ecosystems to produce a wide range of coffee varieties given the fertility of the soil. There are 12 states that produce coffee in Mexico: Chiapas, Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guerrero, Hidalgo, San Luis Potosí, Nayarit, Colima, Jalisco, Queretaro, and Tabasco.
Alongside the Santis family from Infuso Cafe in Tijuana, Mexico we had the amazing oppurtunity of visiting the state of Veracruz where we visited several fincas (coffee farms) and got to experience how our coffee beans go from seed, to plant, to its consumable state. From walking through the coffee plants to seeing the harvest go from a berry to a green bean; followed by a roasting process leading to creating a consumable beverage, we gained knowledge that is priceless.
Before joining San Diego local farmers markets we organized what we called coffee tasting parties. We’d invite friends and family to enjoy free coffee beverages prepared by us and encouraged them to share feedback to help us perfect our mobile setup and recipes.
This business was founded by 5 people, and now continues with 3 of the original founders (Jesse, Jerry, Jefferson).. After several tasting parties we joined our first local farmers market at the Otay Ranch Mall. After several months of hard work we joined many other markets. (Gaslmap Artisan Market, OB Market, Scripps Ranch, South Bay Market, Santee Market).
Perfecting our set up and converting it into a more efficient one, it propelled us into the idea of also providing custom coffee and espresso bar set ups for private clients. This changed our perspective of the business completely. Not only did were we reaching our local market, but also providing a service for local companies (i.e. Click Up).
Like any other business the more we grew the more we’d find things to fix. As we fixed these things, we notice the growth and experience we were gaining. At WRC we don’t ever find our knowledge of coffee to ever be complete, we love coffee and the community that it creates.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Roles in WRC:

Jesse- Business Operation Manager

Jefferson- Brand Creator/ Creative Department

Jerry- Coffee Specialist/ Market Manager

Can you open up about a time when you had a really close call with the business?

For the first year White Rabbit Coffee was in business we did not pay ourselves or make any profit. All the money we made we put back into the business to grow it. This was very exhausting and sometimes discouraging, but doing this helped create and grow what WRC is today.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

To create WRC, all 5 of us founders shared our personal income to help establish and propel us into a self sustaining business. None of us had experience creating a coffee business and getting it off the ground; there were times where we would put months of work in and wouldn’t see a profit. This helped push us even more to find ways to cut unnecessary expenses and make the business more efficient.

Contact Info:

• Website: whiterabbitcoffeesd.com
• Instagram: whiterabbit.coffee
• Facebook: whiterabbitcoffeesd.com

Image Credits
Jefferson Vance Vance Media