Jan 12, 2026 · 1h 8m · how-i-built-this
La Colombe Coffee Roasters: Todd Carmichael and J.P. Iberti. A Brotherhood Built on Coffee (2020)
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of 'How I Built This,' host Guy Raz traces the entrepreneurial journey of Todd Carmichael and J.P. Iberti, who bootstrapped La Colombe Coffee Roasters into a culinary powerhouse and pioneered the canned Draft Latte with backing from Chobani's Hamdi Ulukaya.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 35.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 3.2 Guest teaching 2.5 Guest disagreement 1.0 Guy pushing back 0.9
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 54:35 Boardroom rejection of retail cafe expansion
Todd forcefully rejects the private equity board's demand to build 200 cafes, immediately stating they would buy out the investors instead.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 26:40 Questioning the choice of Philly over SeattleGuy challenges the decision to abandon Seattle at the dawn of the American coffee revolution to start a specialty business in depressed 1990s Philadelphia.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 46:00 Educating on direct sourcing diplomacy in HaitiTodd explains how foreign buyers often abandon developing regions and how building repeated farmer trust allowed them to bypass dangerous local cartels.
Guy holds their own ▶ 44:25 Guy breaks down coffee middleman supply chain complexityGuy demonstrates deep knowledge of agricultural supply chains, explaining the multi-tiered markup system that impoverishes coffee bean growers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Todd Carmichael's Early Adversity and Athletic Drive | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy asks empathetic biographical questions regarding Todd's upbringing in eastern Washington and family struggles with bipolar disorder. Todd explains his athletic drive and fear of failure openly and collaboratively. | |
| Todd Carmichael's Seattle College Years and Warehouse Job | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy contextualizes pre-boom Seattle in 1982 while Todd recounts how an accidental warehouse job hauling green coffee sacks sparked his fascination with exotic origin countries. | |
| Jean-Philippe Iberti's French Upbringing and Seattle Flight School | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | JP shares his transition from flight school to roasting in Pioneer Square. Todd and JP have a humorous slight disagreement over whether JP was wearing a gold vest when they met at a grunge concert. | |
| Dreaming of a Culinary Coffee Venture and Early Careers | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy probes how casual dreams turned into concrete plans while Todd worked corporate tax before saving capital in Monaco and living frugally on a boat. | |
| The Handwritten Business Plan and J.P.'s Commitment | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Todd recounts squatting in JP's closet until JP agreed to partner up after Torrefazione Italia was sold. Guy gently clarifies JP's emotional and professional timeline. | |
| Mid-Roll Break: Pitching the Top Restaurants | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Guy pushes on the counterintuitive logic of abandoning Seattle at the height of its coffee boom to move to Philadelphia. Both founders explain seeing an empty, walkable canvas on the ground floor. | |
| Bootstrapping the First Cafe and the Garbage Chute Chimney | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | The founders describe bootleg renovations on Rittenhouse Square, including jackhammering a 20-story trash chute to serve as an exhaust chimney and clearing clogs with bowling balls. | |
| Crashing the Kitchens of Le Bec-Fin and Jean-Marie Lacroix | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Todd and JP describe storming the kitchens of premier French restaurants uninvited, cleaning their espresso equipment, and serving coffee directly to renowned chefs who immediately signed up. | |
| Coffee as a Precious Spice and Restaurant Wholesale Expansion | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Guy questions how they justified charging $7.50 a pound when the wholesale standard was $1.50, and Todd explains framing coffee to culinary chefs as a concentrated spice rather than a generic commodity. | |
| Pioneering Direct Farm Sourcing from Brazil to Haiti | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | Guy details the layered complexity and middlemen of global coffee trade. Todd educates on navigating dangerous environments in Haiti and El Salvador by demonstrating persistent long-term loyalty to farmers. | |
| Todd's Mental Health Crisis and South Pacific Sabbatical | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Todd speaks vulnerable about experiencing severe manic anxiety and exhaustion, prompting JP to manage the company while Todd spent three months recuperating on a remote Pacific island. | |
| Overcoming Doubts to Expand into New York City | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy asks why they decided to expand into New York cafes after 13 years of treating their initial cafe as a standalone fluke, leading to a major inflection in revenue growth. | |
| The Boardroom Clash and the Chobani Rescue | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Todd recounts clashing with private equity investors who demanded 200 retail cafes, leading him to invent a canned draft latte prototype using a volleyball valve and pitch Chobani's Hamdi Ulukaya for a buyout. | |
| The Draft Latte Boom and Multichannel Growth Strategy | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Guy explores the massive commercial scale of the draft latte and asks both founders how attaining vast wealth has altered their perspective on security and philanthropy. | |
| Luck as the Grout Holding the Mosaic Together | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks his closing question on luck versus skill. JP weights luck at 50%, while Todd offers an evocative metaphor comparing luck to the grout binding mosaic tiles together. | |
| American Express Spotlight: Peter Mann and Oransi Air Purifiers | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Sponsored profile of Peter Mann detailing how his son's asthma prompted him to engineer Oransi air purifiers, pivot to custom motor manufacturing, and advocate for neurodivergent hiring following his autism diagnosis. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Starbucks rejected Todd Carmichael as a barista before he founded La Colombe
“What I really wanted to do, and this probably exposes the kid in me, but I wanted to be a barista. I wanted to be the cool kid, right? And Starbucks wouldn't let me do it. You know, come on, I mean, I was a flannel-wearing farm boy, you know, I cut my own hair…”
Carmichael needed to raise $95,000 to launch La Colombe with J.P. Iberti
“I knew I needed to put together 95,000 dollars so I could start this coffee company with my best friend.”
La Colombe was founded to supply an expected American fine dining renaissance
“We had a deep, deep belief that there would be this restaurant renaissance in America. There was gonna be this huge inflow of French and Italian high-level cuisine, and that the coffee in America wasn't going to accommodate it. Coffee in America was just dedic…”
La Colombe's name was inspired by a French inn and the dove
“So I think the inspiration of the name is connected to the place, but it's also the symbol of what La Colombes, you know, internationally.”
Philadelphia had no cafes when La Colombe scouted the city
“There were no cafes in the city. You know, it's a city of a million, some people, and there wasn't one cup of coffee.”
La Colombe originally operated strictly as a wholesale supplier for restaurant kitchens
“Our idea was to be purveyors and to serve the kitchen, so it didn't really matter.”
Carmichael vented La Colombe's first roaster through a 20-story outdoor garbage chute
“I jackhammered a hole into a garbage chute that runs the outside of the building, and I think it's about 20 stories high. And I piped the, then cemented the piping into the garbage chute and told JP to fire it up.”
La Colombe built its original Philadelphia cafe entirely without municipal permits
“In fact, we built the cafe by our, like, with no permits. Like, I did all the wiring, all the plumbing. Like, we asked forgiveness rather than permission on pretty much anything.”
Carmichael designs food and beverage products for just one or two individuals
“I think it's really hard to make food and beverage for everybody. It's like Kurt Vonnegut wrote for his sister. He wrote for one person. And I think that when I make food and beverage, I have like one or two people I think about.”
La Colombe priced wholesale coffee at mid-$7 against a $1.50 market standard
“When we arrived in Philly, coffee wholesale to restaurants was at about a dollar 50 a pound, and ours was the mid-sevens.”
Pre-1990s American espresso was too abrasive to consume without milk or sugar
“Because espresso in America up to that point was an abrasive liquid. It was not to be consumed without tons of sugar or milk on it.”
La Colombe expanded nationally by following restaurant chefs relocating to new cities
“A lot of people go into a kitchen and then move away to San Francisco, LA, Denver, Miami, and we had such roots in the kitchen with supply that people ended up taking us with them when they moved. So we did move from kitchen to kitchen, you know, and it went, …”
Direct coffee sourcing requires repeat visits to earn skeptical farmers' trust
“The problem is, in places like Haiti, or in Africa, or even El Salvador, there are loads of gringos that show up making promises and then never come back. You have to show a resilience that you're coming back time and time and time again.”
Commodity coffee traders ignore specialty buyers due to their small purchase volumes
“And traders that are trading over borders, or they're, you know, taking big lion's share, and it ends up in some Maxwell House blend. They're looking for giant volumes, and we're not disrupting that. We're looking for this creme de la creme, and often they lea…”
Carmichael offered to surrender his La Colombe shares during a mental crisis
“So, I went to JP, and I said, you can have my shares. I don't want to ruin this thing, you can have it all.”
La Colombe clashed with its first PE backer over canned cold brew
“We did the deal, and that lasted 52 days to the first board meeting.
I said, ok, I believe that cold brew is going to be a thing, and La Colombe needs to be the father of it.
We also need to create ready-to-drink drinks that include milk, and hopefully one, if…”
Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya bought out La Colombe's initial private equity backer
“In order for that to happen, you need to take out this VC.
And he said, great, let's meet him.
And we met him, and he did.
And they had no problem with it?
They were like, sure, we'll sell.
That's fine.
Yeah, they doubled their money in a couple months.”
La Colombe Draft Lattes are in nearly two-thirds of U.S. grocery stores
“I'd say, yeah, it's probably higher than that now. I'd say we're getting like two out of three. It's close.”