I always had this idea about building something big.

Not just a company, but a vertically integrated brand that stretched across continents. I loved the thought of finding a product being manufactured or grown in a faraway land, bringing it to market, and then wrapping it in story and brand. The dream was never just about importing or selling. It was about piecing together a puzzle of culture, logistics, storytelling, and consumer behavior into something people could feel a part of.

But the puzzle is harder than it looks. It is not enough to have a product or even a vision. There are economic moats. There is market saturation. There are first mover challenges. There are distribution and supply chain hurdles.

For almost two decades I obsessed over those pieces. Supply chain. Warehousing. Branding. Marketing. Storytelling. Sales. Sourcing. Finance. Every time I thought I was close, something slipped through. I would put everything into an idea only to watch it falter because I didn’t fully understand the invisible walls, the economics of scale, the importance of iteration, the patience required for true financial management.

I probably tried a hundred ideas over the years. Each one taught me something but none of them held all the pieces in place long enough to stand.

Then came my co-founder.

We met about ten years ago. He was not the person I would have expected to build with. His mind was always racing with futuristic concepts like Bitcoin, lithium mining, blockchain, AI, 3D printing, always years before they became mainstream. I admired his ability to see ten years down the road, long before the rest of the world could.

We started running together. Once a month or so I would call him and ask to meet. Those runs became a ritual. I never wanted to ask for too much time, but every time we ran I felt invigorated. He had a way of making me feel like the future was wide open.

What I noticed early on was that even though he was financially successful in his real estate business, it was not where his passion lived. He had big, bold ideas but none of them had broken through. He wanted one of his visions to matter. He wanted to see something he dreamed of become part of the zeitgeist.

He had the financial success, but not the creative expression. I had the creative adventures, the failures, the travels, and the hard lessons, but not the financial success. He wanted the feeling of building something the world would notice. I wanted the chance to finally line up all the pieces I had been gathering for twenty years.

It took us years to realize how complementary that was.

After enough runs and conversations, we began sharing office space. We knew we were both looking for a co-founder. We circled around ideas together like lithium mining in the desert, blockchain, AI, public domain concepts. But it wasn’t until Excelsa coffee came into focus that everything clicked.

For him it was another vision of the future. He saw a species of coffee ignored by the industry but brimming with potential. He imagined a world ten years from now where Excelsa was known as a climate resilient, chemical free alternative to Arabica and Robusta. For me, it was the missing piece. All the supply chain lessons, the go-to-market experience, the scars of first mover attempts, the years of working inside brands like Chosen Foods, it was all finally useful.

That is where the partnership really formed. He kept me disciplined on patience and iteration, reminding me not to move too quickly. I kept him grounded in how things actually get built like the warehouses, the certifications, the sourcing, the building a brand. Together we found a rhythm.

It has never been easy. Every day has been a struggle. But every day has also been progress. There is a deep respect that comes from two people walking such different paths and realizing they could only meet at this point in time.

He spent twenty years despite many worthy successes, unable to bring his most biggest world changing ideas to life. I spent twenty years putting all the pieces together but never finding the one idea that would bind them. Excelsa became that bridge.

That is why this company feels like more than just another startup. It feels like a once-in-a-lifetime convergence. It is not just about coffee. It is about two journeys finally meeting in the middle, each incomplete without the other.

And that is why I am so excited for the future.