Learn the vital business ingredients Steven Sutton, founder of Devoción, uses to run his company that aims to put happiness in every cup.
“Everything that has to do with coffee has to do with love.” So says Steven Sutton, founder of Devoción, a New York-based company whose cafes serve coffee from beans sourced in Colombia and roasted in Brooklyn. Steven built his company by skipping the middleman and working directly with coffee farmers in Colombia, formulating a unique fresh roasting process that wasn’t being done anywhere else.
With its operational and sales reach spanning across multiple continents, Devoción could not exist without connectivity. “Everything is done through the internet,” says Steven. “We have to communicate back home to Colombia every day to make sure that our farming activities and inventory are aligned without sales needs.”
Besides corporate communications, Steven notes that reliable Internet connections are vital to Devoción’s cafe customers. “Ninety-nine percent of our sales come through the tap of a credit card,” he explains. And his attention to detail goes beyond what’s in customers’ cups. Steven and his team have created inspiring spaces for their products to be enjoyed. “After they make their purchase, people want to sit and relax and stay connected,” he says of the artwork, furniture and technology that keep customers coming back for more.
“Devoción can not exist without our team and our customers and our vendors,” he says, and the combination of passionate people and powerful technology allows them to achieve their primary focus: “We want everyone who comes through our doors to have a wonderful experience, and to have a cup of coffee that is completely different from anything you’ve ever had.”
Securing Your Success, a series that highlights small business success stories and the importance of connectivity within entrepreneurship, is sponsored by Comcast Business. Learn more at entrepreneur.com/comcastbusiness.
“Everything that has to do with coffee has to do with love.” So says Steven Sutton, founder of Devoción, a New York-based company whose cafes serve coffee from beans sourced in Colombia and roasted in Brooklyn. Steven built his company by skipping the middleman and working directly with coffee farmers in Colombia, formulating a unique fresh roasting process that wasn’t being done anywhere else.
With its operational and sales reach spanning across multiple continents, Devoción could not exist without connectivity. “Everything is done through the internet,” says Steven. “We have to communicate back home to Colombia every day to make sure that our farming activities and inventory are aligned without sales needs.”
Besides corporate communications, Steven notes that reliable Internet connections are vital to Devoción’s cafe customers. “Ninety-nine percent of our sales come through the tap of a credit card,” he explains. And his attention to detail goes beyond what’s in customers’ cups. Steven and his team have created inspiring spaces for their products to be enjoyed. “After they make their purchase, people want to sit and relax and stay connected,” he says of the artwork, furniture and technology that keep customers coming back for more.
“Devoción can not exist without our team and our customers and our vendors,” he says, and the combination of passionate people and powerful technology allows them to achieve their primary focus: “We want everyone who comes through our doors to have a wonderful experience, and to have a cup of coffee that is completely different from anything you’ve ever had.”
Securing Your Success, a series that highlights small business success stories and the importance of connectivity within entrepreneurship, is sponsored by Comcast Business. Learn more at entrepreneur.com/comcastbusiness.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Everything that has to do with coffee is love.
00:02 We say that you cannot do this without devotion.
00:05 I was managing a company in Miami.
00:21 We would import the roasted coffee from Colombia
00:24 into the States and we were just kinda selling it everywhere.
00:27 The specialty coffee industry was just starting.
00:30 Why don't they have Colombian coffee?
00:32 That question mark, plus the idea that we were just
00:35 kinda selling a commodity, I found out Colombian coffee
00:39 was almost unexplored, so I decided to go and explore
00:43 and I found out that Colombian coffee was just very,
00:47 very hard to get if you wanted to go directly to the farmer.
00:51 So we decided to create Devocion.
00:55 And the whole idea back then was, okay,
00:58 let's go into these areas where you could not
01:01 really go into, get direct to the farmer,
01:04 pay them extremely well, get their coffee
01:07 before it actually landed in some pile
01:09 with other coffees that were not that interesting,
01:12 and get it back to Bogota, roast it,
01:15 and actually show it to the local people.
01:18 No, we actually didn't, we're not thinking of exporting
01:21 or coming to the US or nothing, we're just really focusing
01:24 on getting the product to Colombians and showing them
01:28 this beautiful thing that they had.
01:29 That led to a discovery, that aha moment,
01:32 which is what Devocion is now, and the discovery was
01:35 that we were actually roasting fresh coffee.
01:37 The produce, the actual bean that's growing inside
01:39 of the roaster is actually fresh.
01:41 In the world of specialty coffee, a roaster could be
01:44 roasting five months old coffee beans
01:47 that were just laying around, and then, yeah,
01:49 they freshly roasted.
01:51 Our coffees were laying around for days, weeks, not months.
01:55 So that flavor that people were getting excited about,
01:59 that attention that we were getting from people
02:01 that are coming in, was exactly the freshness.
02:05 The biggest challenge that we still have
02:08 is communicating the fact that coffee should be fresh
02:12 before roasting.
02:13 The way we are overcoming the challenge
02:15 is definitely by education.
02:20 We built these spaces that pretty much were trying
02:23 to take you to origin through the authenticity,
02:26 through the greenery of the spaces,
02:27 trying to get your mind to understand that a coffee
02:32 is a fruit that comes from a very tropical place, right?
02:35 And it's not just grown anywhere.
02:37 And secondly, the actual location,
02:39 the actual space has to be grand.
02:41 We are an international company.
02:44 The home base is still in Colombia.
02:47 Everything is done through internet.
02:49 I mean, we have to communicate with back home
02:52 every single day.
02:53 We have a team that not only sees inventories
02:57 and movements in Colombia,
02:59 but it's also seeing our movements, our inventory,
03:01 making sure that everything is aligned.
03:04 99% of our transactions is a credit card.
03:07 Efficiency comes with a tap.
03:09 And once you come in here, I mean,
03:11 you're really looking to sit down and relax.
03:14 We want the atmosphere to be very welcoming.
03:16 And people need their internet.
03:19 People need to be able to sit down
03:20 and not disconnect from their chores,
03:23 but still disconnect mentally for a second or two
03:25 in our shops.
03:26 We need to upload things that everybody can actually see.
03:29 So using a drive provider that's secure is essential.
03:34 And so we don't lose the material.
03:35 So cybersecurity has become one of the most important facts.
03:39 We have around six people just in quality here.
03:44 We have around 20 people just in quality in Colombia
03:47 to make sure that everything that is going into a cup
03:50 is special.
03:52 Everything that we do, we're thinking about our impact
03:54 to our employees, to our community.
03:57 Devotion cannot exist without our vendors,
04:00 our teams, our patrons.
04:02 We are a mission-driven company.
04:04 We're a value-driven company.
04:06 Everybody has tasks,
04:08 but everybody's hand and DNA is involved in our structure.
04:12 So it's a devotion of coming in to our space
04:15 and giving everybody the most wonderful experience
04:18 that they can.
04:19 At the end, the cup of coffee that is in your hand
04:22 is completely different from anything else
04:24 that you ever had.
04:25 For us, that's devotion.
04:28 (upbeat music)
04:30 (upbeat music)
04:33 (upbeat music)
04:36 (upbeat music)
04:38 [MUSIC]