We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Valerie Urrutia a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Valerie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

I’ve always loved coffee, but I became super obsessed with it after I spent some time in Florence, Italy. I couldn’t stop thinking about owning a coffee shop after that trip, but it always felt like some far-away dream. In looking back now, I think I was too scared to do anything about it. The idea came up again when I started dating my life partner, Chris, who also wanted to own a coffee shop. Neither of us thought much more of it until a random night in late 2019. We were sitting in our living room (in San Diego) when we asked each other “Hey! Do you want to open a coffee shop?” We took our dream serious this time, and started taking action to make it happen.

We spent the next few months coming up with a name, Surje Coffee Co., and writing the business plan. Our initial plan was to reach out to investors and open a coffee shop in late 2020, but the pandemic made quick change of that. Since we weren’t sure when restaurants & bars were going to re-open, we decided to take a different approach to the Surje Coffee Co. coffee shop. Instead of opening a physical store during those uncertain times, we chose to launch as an online coffee roasting & mobile coffee cart business.

My background is in Market Research, and my partner’s is in Health & Safety, so we spent most of 2020 reading books, watching YouTube videos, and attending conferences to fill in our gaps of knowledge. Both of us are naturally business-minded and have had an entrepreneurial spirit from a young age, so we mainly focused on learning about the science of coffee and coffee-roasting.

It took nearly one full year to get familiar with roasting coffee, finalize the branding & packaging, and get all of the equipment we needed for Surje Coffee Co. At that time, we were dealing with so many supply chain issues that we had to push our launch date back multiple times. It took our coffee roaster and espresso machine 8 months to get delivered! We also used that time to form our business, setup our website, try green coffee from different vendors, decide on our product, and finalize pricing.

Surje Coffee Co. finally launched in June of 2021, and it’s been a fun adventure ever since. I have learned so much (and continue to learn) about coffee, and running business, and even more about ourselves. We still plan to have a physical location for Surje Coffee Co, and we’re using the mobile coffee cart business model to raise the capital we need. We currently have pop-ups at different events & markets in San Diego, San Bernardino,Riverside, and Los Angeles. We sell our coffee beans and Surje Coffee branded merchandise directly to coffee-lovers and other coffee businesses through our online website (surjecoffee.com). We also provide curated coffee-experiences like French Press Brewing & Tasting classes for private events.

Now that Surje Coffee Co. has been in business for more than a year, we are going back to the drawing board in terms of our vision for the design of the Surje Coffee Co. coffee shop. I have truly enjoyed this process of taking Surje Coffee Co from a concept to a real-life product. I still can’t believe it and I’m always humbled seeing all the orders come in and hearing the great things people are saying about Surje Coffee Co. I hope that all our customers feel the love that goes into everything we do.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I like to consider myself a foodie. I’m obsessed with food, drinks, and coffee. My favorite is trying the food and drinks from different cultures, and coffee from different geographic regions. I was first introduced to coffee through my parents. They have always been coffee-lovers and continue to drink it regularly. When I was small, my parents would let me take a few sips of their McDonald’s coffee. I eventually graduated to Nescafe with a side of bolillo, and then later to Starbucks’ caramel frappuccino. My taste for coffee has evolved over the years as I have discovered new roasts, flavors, and brew methods.

Now that I’m running Surje Coffee Co. alongside my life partner, Chris, my passion for coffee has grown. I am enjoying new things like roasting coffee, pop-up markets, and curating coffee experiences. Surje Coffee Co has always been about more than just coffee. We want it to be an experience that draws you in and keeps you coming back. We want it to be a place that invites and builds community. Our mission for Surje Coffee Co is to cultivate memorable experiences in an environment that welcomes people from all walks of life. I have a very special connection to coffee because of my Mexican culture, and Chris has his special connection through his Armenian culture. For both of us, having coffee is a communal experience. You get together with family or friends, you share pastries or bread with your coffee, and you chat for hours on end. That’s the experience we want to share with our customers. We want you to walk away feeling caffeinated AND rejuvenated.

Right now we’re using the Surje Coffee mobile coffee cart to deliver the experience we envision. We love it when customers order coffee and then hang out with us. It’s exactly what we want! Surje Coffee Co is a labor of love that we want to share with others. We take pride in doing almost everything in-house, because it gives us the flexibility to be creative and maintain the high-quality standards we have. We roast all our coffee in-house upon order so that we can deliver the freshest coffee possible. We also make our own cold brew and flavored syrups. One of our values for Surje Coffee Co is “quality you can taste and feel,” so we hope that comes across in everything we do.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Surje Coffee Co’s first year in business was full of twists and turns. We had to push back our launch date twice because delivery of our roasting machine was delayed due to supply chain issues.

We ran into a similar issue with our espresso machine. Rather than waiting to do pop-ups until our espresso machine arrived, we started out with a very limited coffee menu that included drip coffee and cold brew — that’s it!

Thankfully we received both machines and are now fully up and running with our small batch roasting machine, and fully-equipped mobile coffee cart.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I am a huge fan of podcasts and frequently listen to The Economists, Gary Vee, How I Built This, and Keys to the Shop. I love these podcasts because they have helped me understand the overall patterns and trends in the economy and in businesses. I even bought the “How I Built This Book.” It was full of lessons on things you can do to improve your business, as well as mistakes to watch out for.

I recently finished reading the book “We Should All Be Millionaires.” I enjoyed this book a lot more than I expected to. I especially loved it because it talks about entrepreneurship and wealth/financial management from a woman’s perspective. It’s filled with plenty of activities to help re-enforce the key take-aways of the book. I also enjoyed it because it challenges all women to level up in business and/or their careers.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://surjecoffee.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/surjecoffee/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/surjecoffee/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFTPWecPpVSm5y8au4USB9w/featured

Image Credits
Christopher Yerikian, Surje Coffee Co Sydney, Four Lane Photo