The Exchanges

Q You wanted to be a new, like a newscaster?

A Yeah. Well, I was actually on the track more of producing, and I loved this job, but it became clear to me as I was doing it that if I were to pursue that, um, career, that industry, I would be Beholden to moving to the different markets that that job required me to move to, and at the time, Scott and I, you know, we had been together for a long time, and we'd been living apart for a long time, and we agreed that if we were going to stay together, we needed to actually be together, which meant moving to London. We were not married at the time, but yeah, I moved there in 90, and then we ended up getting married in 91.

AI assessment note: “Well, I was actually on the track more of producing”

Q All right, so you've got this job, pretty good job, and now you've got, um, what did you do when you got there for work?

A Um, I said, let's go get a latte, and, uh, and then I'll go get a job, and I was so naive. One, there were no lattes, and two, there was no way an American could get a job without a work permit. I did not know that. Um, so the very first Monday that I was there, I walked around looking for coffee because I thought Scott had just been working too hard, and he just hadn't found the good coffee places, and a family friend of mine worked in publishing, and I, I knocked on many doors trying to get jobs in publishing, um, because that was the only connection I had there in London at the time, and so, um, I ended up getting a job with a, a magazine called City Limits. It was kind of like Time Out, Um, and it was actually a very fun job for an American living in London because I, my job was to make sure that the magazine was distributed and marketed and, and, and had visibility on all the streets. So I would spend hours and days walking the streets of London, getting to know the news agents, making sure that they would put city limits up in a way in which people could see it. So I would drive at my little commute every day with my little homemade cup of coffee, my, my hack of, uh, Starbucks-like coffee offering that I, that we were looking for, but we would have to make our own coffee, bring all the coffee back from the U.S., and that was, that went on for a while.

AI assessment note: “I ended up getting a job with a, a magazine called City Limits.”

Q You guys found a spot in Covent Garden, which is obviously a sort of a tourist hub and a, in a bustling area, and, and was it, was it a hit right away?

A It was, and it was so validating because we would get people piling out of a black cab in front of this little location of ours. These euphoric Americans that had heard finally, they were the, they were what we would have been two years prior, three years prior, looking for the people that would finally open one of these places. So they would come in so excited, or a lot of people that had been traveling around Europe had heard. They would show up in London. Their first stop would be Seattle Coffee Company because they could get a taste of home. That was really fun to see. But the nice thing about Covent Garden is it's such a, it's so crowded and so busy, so very quickly we also had, you know, British people that worked nearby. The lines developed very quickly, and it was fun to watch how people would, some people knew exactly how to do it, and then a lot of people didn't, and so we had to create, you know, beautiful posters that demonstrated the architectural build of one of these coffee drinks, and

AI assessment note: “It was, and it was so validating because we would get people piling out”

Q Why, why Ali? Why were you saying that?

A Um, I specifically remember one moment that made my hair, you know, stand up. Um, I was driving our big family rig. We had groups of, you know, our boys and a couple other friends in the car, and we were doing one of those typical things where you're between a game and a practice and got to drop off, and this guy's hungry, and now I am too, and what are we going to do? And we really struggled to find the right solution for the car load. You know, if we're going to feed them, then we're going to be hungry. If we're going to feed us, They're going to be picky, and it's going to cost a fortune, and it was just one of these, and we'd had so many moments like that, and then we just had this one in the car that day of that deja vu feeling of, we are looking for something that doesn't exist, and I know that what we're looking for, other people would want to, and because we'd had this backdrop of somebody talking to us about pizza and the exploration of not doing pizza by the slice, but individualized pizzas, which of course is the way it's done on the street in Italy, and So we had that in the back of our mind, and then that deja vu moment of, we are looking for something that doesn't exist. Wow, if we could go and get pizza that we could all customize, that is interesting. So I think it was a deja vu moment of, we're frustrated, we have a problem to solve, we should pay attention to …

AI assessment note: “I specifically remember one moment that made my hair, you know, stand up.”

Q from the beginning, well, because we, we should dive into this. I mean, you're, sort of, the hiring practices are, are, are, are quite interesting. I mean, you, you hire a lot of people who are formerly incarcerated, and, People with, with developmental disabilities and, and people who sort of have struggled with homelessness. So was that baked in from the beginning? Was that the intention or did that evolve?

A It was baked in in the sense that we had a philosophical approach when we were starting mod. We were in that, um, you know, lucky position to be able to, we didn't have to build mod. We wanted to build mod, or we wanted to start this thing, and if we're going to start this thing, what do we want it to be? What matters to us? I mean, we were able to take time to ask all these questions, and we knew that we wanted to build a business that We were proud of and something that we wanted to see grow in the world, and, and there were problems that we were seeing, and then when the recession kicks in, the problems were even worse. Can we make sure that what our business is doing is, is a force for good in some way? Can we help deal with some of these issues that we're now all having to deal with? The world seems to be melting. This is scary. What can and should mod be? And from that moment on, you know, we knew we've got this Platform. We do two things. We employ people and we feed people. So let's make sure that in every, with every opportunity of feeding or employing, we're using this for good.

AI assessment note: “It was baked in in the sense that we had a philosophical approach”

Q In, in, in sort of building this business, how did you guys divide and conquer? I mean, did you, who did what? I mean, were you, who was the CEO? What did you, Ali, what did you focus on? Scott, what did you focus on? And, you know, was it similar to how you operated at Seattle Coffee Company?

A I think it was similar. I think it, I think it was very similar, and I think Seattle Coffee Company, that experience helped us understand how we best divide and conquer. We're really lucky, I think, because we've known each other a really long time. I think it happened naturally, the way that we divide and conquer combined with the fact that we have very different strengths, and we just naturally kind of Each focused in the areas where we could help the most. Scott is absolutely the CEO, and I've always liked working with him on some of the big strategic focuses that we have, but I also love getting into the weeds in the areas that I know he and I, the whole reason that we're doing this. We're so intentional at the beginning with Maude. We're only going to do this if we know that it needs to be done, that it matters, and that we can actually do something good with it. And because that was very intentional at the beginning, that's that element of it, um, ensuring that we continue to be focused on the why behind the business is, is always been a primary focus for me.

AI assessment note: “Scott is absolutely the CEO, and I've always liked working with him on”