We were lucky to catch up with Tyler Costa recently and have shared our conversation below.
Tyler, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
I have an industrial energy consulting company that helps keep manufacturing in America and my wife is an RN that selflessly serves the needs of other people for the greater good of humanity. But we’ve always wanted to do more. I’ve always looked back with regret for never having served in our great country’s military as I got started in business right out of college. My wife has always had the dream of having a quaint country style coffee house that brings community together. During the initial waves of COVID uncertainty, a coffee house was not a viable option, so we decided to go direct to the people and build a distributed but united community.
It started shortly after the birth of our first child, a beautiful little girl. A desire to do more and to BE more. To show her the path of how to become a better and stronger person. It was a fusion of passions…of coffee, of fitness and health and of service to others. The medium is coffee, but it’s more than just coffee…
RGCC is a mindset built on a foundation of uncompromising core values that we believe can help make anyone a little bit better day after day. Formed in a tumultuous time of unrest and doubt, we strive to bring together a community of like-minded individuals who see challenge and hardship as an opportunity for success…who see failure as another chance to get stronger…who are relentless in their pursuit of having unmitigated daily discipline.
It’s more than just coffee…It’s a shared vision and a unity behind a common mission. To WAGE WAR ON COMPLACENCY. To improve yourself each and every day and in the process better your world. It is absolutely about coffee, but it’s more than just coffee.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Relentless Grind is much more than coffee, it’s a mindset….a way of life. It is a dedication to unmitigated daily discipline in all things. It’s not a sales gimmick or catchy tagline to get behind. The coffee itself is best in class, but we didn’t want to stop there. Many can make great coffee, but there are few that can make the best coffee with purpose. In addition to uncompromising quality in our coffee, RGCC does not compromise in our support of the American people with our 100% American made supply chain of merchandise and gear. RGCC will NEVER compromise in our support of the people that serve us day in and day out. Each year we select a foundation that serves veteran, LEO, first responder or nursing causes and donate a portion of our annual sales to this foundation in addition to supporting their annual outreach efforts.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Starting with direct to consumer (DTC) coffee sales is great because it is very low capital and allows you to scale at your own pace. We’ve worked on expanding our monthly subscription services by offering free monthly order porch drop off, which has definitely helped to get our name out more.
We also recently partnered with a local bar that had an events trailer out front by their patio that allowed us to transform it into a “coffee trailer” and use their patio. This enabled our local outreach to expand even more. The next logical step would have been to buy our own coffee trailer or jump on a brick and mortar storefront. Right as we wound down this trial “summer series” of a bar side coffee trailer, a friend reached out that was a partner with a local civil engineering company to do an in house employee appreciation day, where he thought bringing in RGCC would be a nice treat for employees and morale.
The event ended up going great and opened our eyes to the potential of “baristas for rent” in the corporate world. We are continuing to investigate this opportunity, but in metropolitan areas, this is a very real opportunities for up and coming coffee companies with a story to tell!
Can you open up about how you funded your business?
Relentless Grind Coffee Company is the story for the people with an idea…and patience. It’s the story for the 9 to 5er that has an idea, where she thinks she can do more or be more. It is NOT the story of Silicon Valley growing, scaling and selling…it’s one of taking iterative steps and small decisions to see what maximizes the profitability of your slowly budding and growing company. We kicked off RGCC with an initial investment of $20k, where WAY TOO MUCH of that went to merch……no one at all will know who you are when you kick off, so you have plenty of time for swag. Our main mission is to give back to those that serve us, so expenses are kept to a minimum. We put in the work to grow our name in our local community and use that word of mouth to expand out to other opportunities. From there you build and make connections. At that point, your ambition is the limit of your expansion.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.relentlessgrindcoffee.com/
- Instagram: relentessgrindcoffee
- Facebook: relentlessgrindcoffee
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-costa-36053a177
