Humble Beginnings to Household Names: Lessons from Great Coffee Brands!

Do you ever worry that your dream is too big and your resources too limited? Fear that your knowledge is inadequate or the timing is all wrong? Take a lesson or two from some of the biggest coffee brand manufacturers in existence today who all found their start with very, very humble beginnings and went on to establish companies known around the world.

No. 1: Ascaso Espresso Machines

Jose Luis Ascaso, founder of Ascaso, was an entrepreneur who wasn't afraid of hard work and combined those character traits early in life to begin what is now an extremely reputable, world-wide known espresso machine manufacturing company. Born in a small town in northern Spain, he quickly realized he needed to be somewhere that afforded more opportunities and ventured to Barcelona with just dreams and about $30 to his name. He worked for Gaggia for a time during the fifties, when espresso was just finding its popularity in Spain. Production and distribution of spare parts for espresso machines had become an exclusive and very expensive market, and Jesus, ever the entrepreneur, decided to supply parts of all brands to the market and at lower prices. This was in 1962, and the very start of his own company, one that manufactured spare parts alone. Now, Ascaso sells to over 50 countries and offers everything from spare parts to extremely high quality coffee and espresso machines and even coffee grinders. And Jose? He spends half his time in the factory and the other six months of the year he lives in his original hometown and tends his tomato plants and honey crops.

No. 2: Bialetti Espresso Machines

Bialetti began in the heart of Italy in 1919, when Alfonso Bialetti opened a very small shop to make semi-finished aluminum products. Inventing n the side, in 1933, he introduced Italy to the Moka Express aluminum stovetop brewer and completely transformed home-coffee making by making it not only possible, but common. The Moka Express, reliable and easy to use, quickly took the world by storm. By the 1950s it was an established design icon. To this day, the Moka Express has a place in almost 90% of all Italian homes and is still the world's most famous coffee pot. While we now think of aluminum as synonymous with good coffee, it's thanks to Bialetti and his innovations with aluminum that first made the trusted combination.

No. 3: Mr. Coffee

With just a $500 loan from his dad, Vincent G. Marotta partnered with Samuel Glazer in 1968, and founded North American Systems, Inc. (NAS), a simple coffee delivery service. It was just two years later in December, 1970, while Marotta was recovering from a brain tumor operation, that he came up with idea for "Mr. Coffee," the first automatic drip coffee maker and the product that put the brand, Mr. Coffee, on the path to becoming a common household name. With some work and production processes in motion, the company was producing the coffee maker by 1972, and by just 1974, there were already one million sold. Mr. Coffee was already taking up 10% of the entire coffee-making business in America. NAS established a factory in 1975, and upped their employment from 300 to 1,000 over the course of the year 1974-1975 and to 2,300 by 1977. Mr. Coffee now sells over 50 types of coffee makers.

No. 4: Proctor Silex

Proctor Silex started incredibly small! And by small, think a one person start-up found in a 14 year old boy from Jackson, Michigan, named Joe Meyers who had a passion for inventing. He started out playing around with one of his mother's irons, an item which existed at the time only with fixed temperature settings. He went on to design a way in which to create irons with adjustable temperature settings and by 1926, he located a company to support his endeavors and begin selling the first ever adjustable temperature iron. Proctor & Schwartz, inventors of the automatic toaster, soon became captivated by the boy's company: Liberty Gauge, and purchased it in 1929. Proctor & Shwartz then manufactured toasters and irons for the next 30 years, until they picked up the Silex manufacturing company, producers of coffee makers. This marked the start of Proctor Silex's introduction to a whole range of coffee products in 1960. Proctor Silex is also now a household name.

As we can see from these coffee giants, it doesn't take millions to get started. It just takes an idea, a dream, and a lot of motivation. If you're struggling to get inspired to take the next step, do a little more research into one of these companies. You'll be amazed at what some hard work can do!