My first business out of college was a digital agency focused on early ecommerce, branding, and marketing. This was nearly 20 years ago. My business partner handled the design and coding. He came from a well-connected tech family. I took on sales and operations, carrying $85,000 in student loans and the quiet pressure of parents who actively discouraged me from pursuing entrepreneurship. I was hungry to prove them wrong. I wanted out of debt. I wanted to make a mark.

After a few small projects in the $2k to $5k range, I was desperate to land bigger clients. We got our shot when a bi-coastal investment bank from New York reached out with a request for proposal. On the drive over, my partner and I argued about pricing. He begged me to stick to our usual range. In their boardroom, I didn’t. I quoted a price ten times higher than our biggest project to date. My partner visibly flinched. I stomped his toe under the table to stop him from speaking. The room got tense. I held the silence. Then they agreed to the terms.

On the way back to the car, my partner quit.

I had no backup plan. No cash. Just a deposit check and a massive commitment. I scrambled to build a team, hired designers, outsourced development to India, and charged forward. I thought the project was a windfall, but it dragged on for months. I ran out of money. Took on credit card debt. Moved back home. My chest hurt every day. I lost hair. I had no margin. But I delivered a new site, launched a rebrand, wrote a 60-page style guide that still sits on my desk, and made sure every person who worked got paid.

During those sleepless nights—handling designers by day and developers in India by night—I came across a new song from Arcade Fire. It was called Intervention. One lyric from the chorus hit hard:

“Hear the soldier groan, we’ll go at it alone.”

It stuck with me. It became a mantra.

When I felt alone. When I didn’t know what would happen next.
That line anchored me.

Years later, I had co-founded a charity that trained lifeguards across 25 countries. We’d been building it for seven years. We had a team. We had resources. Then the Syrian refugee crisis hit. I saw images of drowned children in the media. Lifeguards we’d trained in Greece and Turkey reached out and asked us to help.

I sat in my office in Los Angeles and felt the weight of it. I knew stepping in would overextend our nonprofit. I knew it would drag us into territory we weren’t prepared for. But I also knew if we didn’t do something, no one else would.

We went. We poured everything we had into that year. We supported rescue missions. We trained teams. We coordinated gear, transport, and logistics in an active humanitarian disaster.

Over 2,000 lives were saved.

It was one of the hardest and most uncertain periods of my life. And again, that lyric came back.

“Hear the soldier groan…”

I wasn’t even sure what I believed in spiritually at the time. But I knew what faith felt like.

Years passed. Things stabilized. I had a good job. A six-figure salary. I walked to work. I had balance. Life was calm. But something in me was still restless.

Despite the comfort and the appeals of people who cared about me, I signed a lease 45 minutes south in a high-crime area near the Mexico border. A warehouse. My name on it. I sourced a product from a factory in Wuhan. The idea was bold. I believed in it.

Then COVID hit.

The factory shut down. Orders disappeared. I had to scramble to find new inventory, sourcing product myself from trips to Guadalajara and CDMX, Mexico. I kept trying to pay my employees, working late night shifts on the forklift myself. Trying not to default on the lease. I took on more debt. More investors. Long drives home. Chest pain. Sleepless nights. I’d left a good life for this. I’d risked everything.

Part of me was angry at myself. But the other part knew this was the path.

And that line came back again.

“Hear the soldier groan, we’ll go at it alone.”

Now there’s Excelsa.

This coffee variety is different. It’s resilient. Pesticide-free. Chemical-free. Beautiful. A chance to serve farmers. A chance to offer something better to people. A shot at real climate impact and meaningful ritual.

There are amazing people doing work with Excelsa—Ron Dizon’s Teofilo in Los Angeles, who showcases all four coffee species as Philippines coffee heritage. Taste and See in Camiguin Island, who opened the world’s first Excelsa-only café. Dr. Aaron Davis at Kew, doing climate-resilient research. Excelsa café in Dubai serving all four bean types (and our own Excelsa cafe serving exclusively excelsa in California). Women owned farms in South Sudan growing Excelsa. It’s inspiring. But there’s no coordinated push to bring this to the world at scale.

That’s what I’m doing now.

A full, intentional effort. To scale farms. Integrate supply chains. Bring Excelsa to direct-to-consumer, to cafés, to retailers like Sprouts and Whole Foods. To tell the story right. To do it in a way that honors the farmers and the land.

If someone else were already doing this, and I could support them, I would. But they aren’t. So I am.

It’s not about being the hero. It’s just about listening to what keeps calling. About knowing what your work is, even when no one else sees it yet.

This is the fourth time that lyric has carried me through. Maybe the most important yet.

And once again, I hear it.

“Hear the soldier groan, we’ll go at it alone.”