Jul 20, 2020 · 1h 4m · how-i-built-this
La Colombe Coffee Roasters: Todd Carmichael and J.P. Iberti
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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, Todd Carmichael and JP Iberti recount how their deep friendship, DIY grit, and culinary obsession turned La Colombe into a pioneering third-wave coffee brand and retail beverage titan.
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 32.4% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 1.6 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 0.6 Guy pushing back 0.5
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 54:03 Confronting Private Equity Board
Todd Carmichael describes rejecting his private equity investors' mandate to build 200 retail cafes, abruptly declaring they were buying them out on the spot.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 26:00 Questioning the Move from Seattle to PhillyGuy Raz challenges the founders' logic in abandoning Seattle right as it exploded as the national coffee hub to relocate to an economically struggling Philadelphia.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 37:39 Coffee as a Spice AnalogyWhen Raz asks if high-end restaurants thought they were crazy for charging over five times wholesale market rates, Carmichael educates him by reframing coffee from a generic commodity to an artisanal spice like saffron.
Guy holds their own ▶ 44:15 Dissecting the Coffee Middleman Supply ChainGuy Raz demonstrates deep knowledge of agricultural commodity supply chains, outlining the multi-tiered middleman layers that exploit local farmers before bean export.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book Announcement and Episode Advisory | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Introductory monologue and teaser clip where Guy Raz promotes his book and frames the history of specialty coffee waves in America. As an intro monologue, host-guest interaction is absent. | |
| Todd Carmichael's Upbringing and University Years | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy Raz gently prompts Todd Carmichael about his early childhood hardships and time at the University of Washington. Carmichael shares intimate personal details openly without conflict. | |
| Seattle Coffee Culture and an Unlikely Friendship | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | The guests recount how they both worked in 1980s Seattle coffee shops and met at a grunge rock bar. JP mildly corrects Todd's embellishments about his outfit, while Raz keeps the narrative moving pleasantly. | |
| Formulating the Vision and Committing to the Business | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Todd and JP describe formulating the vision for farm-to-table culinary coffee and Todd squatting in JP's closet to convince him. The storytelling is highly cooperative and reflective. | |
| Naming the Brand and Relocating to Philadelphia | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | Raz questions the counterintuitive decision to leave Seattle for 1990s Philadelphia rather than staying in the coffee capital. The founders explain their logic regarding ground-floor real estate and the proximity to world-class dining. | |
| Building the Rittenhouse Roastery Against the Odds | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Todd details the chaotic DIY opening of their Rittenhouse cafe, including jackhammering into the trash chute without permits and dropping bowling balls down it. Raz expresses incredulity over their brazen disregard for building rules and code. | |
| Cracking Fine Dining: Le Bec-Fin and Early Success | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Raz asks whether restaurants balked at coffee prices that were five times the going rate. Carmichael sharply reframes coffee as an essential spice comparable to saffron, convincing top chefs like Georges Perrier. | |
| Mid-Episode Break and Sourcing Teaser | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Raz explores the complexity and danger of direct sourcing coffee beans by cutting out layers of middlemen in countries like Haiti and El Salvador. Carmichael educates Raz on the grit and consistency required to earn local farmers' trust. | |
| Personal Breakdown and a Sabbatical in the South Pacific | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The conversation turns vulnerable as Carmichael discusses suffering severe mental strain and stepping away to an uninhabited island, while JP supported him and held the company together. | |
| Retail Expansion, Boardroom Turmoil, and the Draft Latte | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Carmichael describes clashing immediately with their first private equity board over retail expansion versus cold brew innovation, culminating in buying them out using Hamdi Ulukaya of Chobani. Raz clarifies the high financial cost of reversing the deal. | |
| Weathering COVID-19 and Contemplating Wealth and Fortune | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | The founders detail navigating pandemic shutdowns through executive salary cuts and reflect on what acquiring wealth means compared to early life poverty, concluding with Raz's signature question on luck versus skill. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Carmichael: Early 1980s Seattle had only around six cafes
“Because you gotta imagine that there's maybe six cafes in all of Seattle.”
Carmichael: American coffee was unprepared for an incoming French and Italian fine-dining boom
“We had a deep, deep belief that there would be this restaurant renaissance in America. There was going to be this huge inflow of French and Italian high-level cuisine, and that the coffee in America wasn't going to accommodate it.”
Carmichael: 1990s Philadelphia had over a million residents but zero cafes
“So the two main beautiful, you know, roads in the city right now is Walnut and Chestnut. They were pretty much closed down. 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.”
Carmichael: La Colombe's first cafe was built entirely without 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.”
Iberti: Fire department came to original La Colombe location weekly
“We got the fire department in, you know, about two, three times a week.”
Carmichael: Food and beverage should be crafted for one or two people
“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.”
Carmichael: La Colombe priced wholesale coffee at mid-$7/lb versus $1.50 market rate
“When we arrived in Philly, coffee wholesale to restaurants was at about a dollar 50 a pound, and ours was the mid-sevens.”
Carmichael: Traditional coffee supply chains can have 10+ layers of middlemen
“Because that chain of events that you described can sometimes be 10 or more deeper than that.”
Carmichael: Direct sourcing requires repeatedly returning to earn farmer trust
“Once you get the faith and confidence of farmers, then you can do pretty much what you want. 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 …”
Carmichael: Commodity traders tolerate specialty sourcing because volumes are tiny
“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 le…”
Carmichael: Offered to give all his La Colombe equity to co-founder Iberti
“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.”
Carmichael: La Colombe Draft Latte is in nearly two-thirds of US 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.”