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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”
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…”
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…”
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.”
Hain Celestial made a firm acquisition offer to purchase Numi Tea.
“Yeah, they did make a hard offer.”
Numi tapped a $1 million credit line on their father's house.
“We just had this working line capital from the bank on our dad's house, which by then increased to almost a million dollars.”
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…”
Numi took about ten years to reach positive EBITDA profitability.
“About 10 years into the business, we were able to kind of get a lot more solid and create a profitable EBITDA.”
Numi raised $5 million, then $25 million to buy out early investors.
“And it was right around then that we had a lot of cash cause we raised about five million. And then we raised about, you know, five years later, twenty five million to take out some investors.”
It took 15 years for Numi to repay their father's $1M loan.
“When we raised that 25, 15 years into the business, we were able to finally take out our dad's million dollar working line capital”
Numi initially rejected distribution offers from Walmart, Target, and Trader Joe's.
“Walmart wanted us in year seven, eight, you know, Trader Joe's wanted us in year two, Target wanted us when we were young, and we kind of said, oh, we're not ready for them yet.”
Rahim: Co-founded Eastern European Wholesale Business Selling 300 Loose Teas
“They asked me to be a partner, then we opened up some more tea houses, and then we ended up opening up a, Pretty big wholesale business of loose teas, about 300 loose teas that we sold to tea houses through a lot of Eastern Europe.”
Suppliers initially mistook Numi for automotive manufacturer NUMMI
“I used to call people for packaging and I'd say I'm from NuMe. And they would call me back. They would give me all the attention in the world. I'd be like, wow, they're really helping a tiny little startup. And then later on, I realized they thought we were ne…”
Numi will never discontinue its weak-selling namesake dried lime tea.
“Even though it still doesn't perform that well, 20 years later, we would never get rid of it.”
Numi generated over $100,000 in retail orders during its first year.
“I would say over a 100,000 when we look at some of the chains that we got in, like Sur La Table and Neiman Marcus and Cost Plus and Rainbow. I would say over a 100,000 for that year.”
Food service and luxury hotels drove Numi's revenue early on.
“Cafes, restaurants, hotels, Ritz-Carlton's and Fairmont hotels, and all the fancy places, and department stores, so that would be specialty, but food service picked up really quick. That was actually the majority of our business in our first year and a half to…”