Ahmed Rahim, co-founder of Numi Organic Tea, explains the financial liabilities and cash flow constraints the company faced while bootstrapping.
Opinion
Ahmed Rahim credits psychedelics with saving his life and expanding his worldview.
“Well, I always say that psychedelics saved my life, and definitely gave me an awareness of what the bigger world is like”
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Starbucks acquiring Tazo drove independent coffee roasters to buy Numi instead.
“It was actually a great opportunity for us, because coffee roasters and the food service didn't want to support necessarily Starbucks, so they wanted who's the new kid on the block, and Numi was a great fit, so we actually were able to take advantage of that o…”
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Numi Tea Financed Its Launch With a $250K Line of Credit on Dad's Home
“We went to our dad and asked him if he would use the leverage of his house to get a loan. So we partnered with a bank in Cleveland and he refinanced his home and he had a line of credit on his home up To X amount, but we just started with a 250,000 dollar line…”
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Numi hit $4.5 million in revenue by year four on $2,000 salaries.
“Yeah, we were already probably north of four and a half million by year four, and we were probably taking two to 3000 a month of salary.”
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Hain Celestial made a firm acquisition offer to purchase Numi Tea.
“Yeah, they did make a hard offer.”
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Numi's revenue flatlined during the Great Recession after hitting $20 million.
“There were years we were growing 40, 60, 70%, but at this time, as we were maturing a little bit, and we were probably north of 20,000,015, twenty million, those kind of growths became a lot more challenging. Then, well, there was the 2009, 10 recession. Where…”