Original subtitles

Muy nos dias. My name is Hector

Carvajal and I'm the founder

and CEO of Don Carvajal Cafe

and I'm going to give you

an un ching of my story.

Hector, what if we give us un chin

Hey, Tomoki.

(laughing)

So I'd like to talk to me.

Where are we right now?

Right now we are in

Irvington, New York.

I would say about 30, 40

minutes out of New York City.

Yep.

Right next to the Hudson River,

it's like three blocks that way.

You know, the river

towns of Westchester.

They call it the sleepy side.

The sleepy side.

Sleepy side.

It's pretty fun.

Nice, nice, nice.

Before we talk about how you got here,

I just want to ask you a little bit

about your business.

How did you start,

the name, a little bit?

So basically, the idea

started brewing up in 2018.

Okay.

So I was transferring between CUNY

and the University of Rochester

because of the community college.

So my two years ended,

had to go somewhere else.

I wanted to continue my education.

Okay.

Ended up at the University of Rochester

studying business and marketing.

And I've always had

a thing for business.

I've always loved entrepreneurship.

And I was just like, one day,

I don't know what got into me, man.

It just hit me.

I was like, coffee.

Why does nobody

represent Dominican coffee?

Dominican coffee.

And it just hit me

like a free train, man.

And I'm like, man, if I made a brand,

I'll put my grandfather on

the logo and I will call it.

Don't go, it just hit me, bro.

Really?

It just hit me.

And I was like, this

is such a good idea.

Like, it just hit me.

And I'm like, I've had so

many bad ideas in my life,

but this was actually kind of good.

Right.

And here I am now at the

University of Rochester

studying business and

doing business plans,

learning how to build a marketing plan.

And I'm like, learning

economics and accounting,

how to do accounting for a business.

And I'm like, man, maybe

I can just take everything

that I'm learning and

create, like expand on my idea.

Okay.

That was learning how to

expand on business plans,

how to put together

different parts of the business

and the supply chain and stuff.

So the next thing you

know, some rest of the later,

I have this idea that's

built in a class project

called Don Carvajal Café

Wow, so it was a class project.

So I had a class project

to create a marketing plan,

business plan.

So I looked at my professor like,

can I possibly make my term project,

this business idea,

and just expand on it?

Because it's like, you want me to

create a fake product,

how about I just work on something

that I might be actually interested in?

We still have to create

something from scratch.

That's right.

So he was like, yeah,

but it was a group project.

He's like, as long as your

teammates are cool with it,

but if they don't want to do it,

then I want the group to do what the

whole group wants to do.

So I pitched it, I'm like, oh yeah,

I got most of the work done.

I'm invested in this.

I will carry his home.

They were like, all

right, I don't really care

about this class.

I don't really care about this class,

but they helped me, you know,

but I was really, I was very passionate

about it, like extremely passionate.

So it was cool.

So they didn't care about the project,

so I mean, they didn't

care so much about the class,

and you were like, let's do it.

Yeah, let's do it, you know,

but they were really cool.

They were invested.

They were really good students.

It's just in terms of the idea,

I was always really

passionate about it.

You know, it was my idea.

So we ended up doing the project.

You know, we got one of the best grades

out of the whole class.

Everything was phenomenal.

And then when we presented the idea,

you know, cause I was going,

we were saying to City

Ham, I was going ham.

Like, I literally got bags of coffee.

I got real coffee.

Like I found a local

roastery that roasted it.

Like I had a label and

like I literally created

a real life prototype, you know?

And I brewed coffee for everybody.

Like I asked one of my friends that

worked at local coffee,

said, yo, can you help me

brew like 50 samples of coffee

for the whole class?

I need everybody to try

this in my presentation.

That's how I'm bringing it home.

And we did it after the

presentation was over.

Somebody's like, hey,

this is real coffee, right?

Can I buy it back?

I was like, I just showed

you how I'm going to sell this

to you and now you're trying to buy it?

Professor, come on, man.

And it wasn't even planned.

Like somebody actually lifted,

I didn't even know who it was.

I wish I knew who that person was, bro.

I'm waiting for that message one day.

Like, no, I wasn't that person who

bought that person's bag.

Cause I don't remember

who that person was, but um.

He has the

collectives item if he has the--

For real, no, actually.

So then that happened.

And right after that class,

I literally went to my dorm.

I was like, how do I file a

company in New York state?

I did not.

So you file your

company right that same day.

That same day.

I was like, bro, somebody

just bought this like that.

I was like, nah, that's crazy.

And I had coffee left

from the project, you know?

So, yeah.

So how do you go from,

okay, I got a good reaction

to manifesting this

beautiful, beautiful idea.

Well, one thing I'll say,

cause I hope a lot of

students watch this.

If you're a college

student, something that I did was,

when I was in college, I

had a secure credit card.

I had credit, I don't

come from a family line up.

We know how to play with credit.

My mom has great credit and

she put me on at some point.

But it's one of those things

where we don't come

from that generation

where like financial

literacy is a part of at least

my experience as a

Hispanic Dominican man growing up.

Now we're getting to that, you know,

generations into America.

But I had a $500

credit card, which I used.

And my school had an

entrepreneurship center

that one of the alums donated.

And you can actually apply for a grant

for like a project or

an idea or a conference

and stuff like that.

That's what I did.

I applied for 500, they gave me 300.

I was like, I'll take that.

con eso yo compre café

i bought bags

So, you know, I did a

pinch of what I needed

to create this idea and

to have the experience

of creating a product

and building something.

And I got it.

So I built that and

then it was super helpful.

So I just say that because

I think a lot of students

sometimes don't maximize

the resources on campus.

It's free money.

It's free experiences.

Like I've traveled before to Congress,

it's to San Diego, to Harvard,

and it was all paid for by the school.

Because they just, as a student,

they just want you to learn.

You know what I mean?

I represent the school.

So just a fun fact, that was a little

detail in there too.

Yep.

As far as manifesting

to making it reality,

I know that it took a long time.

I have my own business.

And just going from that to now,

the grid that you're showing to do it,

just talk to me a little

bit about what does it take

to make something happen like this?

Man, what I tell you,

I think there's 52 weeks in a year.

Yep.

I've had more than 52

reasons in a year to get them out.

Yep.

Every week is something new.

You know what I mean?

It's not easy.

Especially when

you're relying on yourself.

Like let's say you pay

bills off of your ideas.

Yep.

You pay credit cards off of your ideas.

Stuff like that.

It's hard.

So sustaining yourself out

of what you do is really hard.

That's different.

That's a different level of commitment.

I think a lot of people who are young,

they're rushing out

of their parents' crib.

And I'm like, that's the

worst thing you could do.

That's a financial killer.

You're not trying to

go from paying zero

to 3,000 a month, zero to 2K a month.

That's a crazy jump.

I always tell people be careful

with the decisions you make.

I have a grid relationship with my mom.

Not everybody can say that.

Yep.

But I have a grid

relationship with my mom.

I stayed there.

I literally just moved out this year.

At 28 years old.

We're really at 27.

Then I turned 28 within a few months.

But you put every

penny into your business.

Right.

So it's like all the

money you could be spending

on dumb things really that you don't

need to be spending on.

You invested in

yourself and your business.

It's kind of how I looked at it.

I was like every penny I was making,

I was putting it right

back, putting it right back.

You know what I mean?

It's a reinvesting.

I think a lot of

people start businesses now

and they just want that Instagram.

Instagram, Instagram, Instagram,

they just want to check right now.

You know what I mean?

Another thing is how do you

go and get your products now

and connect to DR and start getting?

Because I know that you

have different parts of DR,

different coffee and

you become an ambassador

of the culture here,

but also connecting,

not just Dominican Americans,

but also connecting back to the land.

How did that happen?

I mean, it all, honestly,

everything that I have right now is

inspired by my mom.

Like she basically

wasn't my target demographic,

but she wasn't.

Because for years she was telling me a

demand that she had,

but there was nobody supplying it.

There was a need.

There's a gap that

Dominicans experience.

(speaking in foreign language)

It's like, man, we

go to the supermarket,

avocados are

expensive and they're wack.

(speaking in foreign language)

And they're just not that sweet.

And it's like you just hear

all these little complaints

about the gaps between

the campo and the country

and the good stuff we have

and living in a big city like New York.

You know what I mean?

We're millions and

millions and millions of pounds

of products, if not billions.

Who knows?

I don't really know the

number, but it's high.

And for me, I was like, wow,

you know what's so big in our culture?

Coffee.

What's the first thing they offer you

when you go to somebody's house?

It's not water.

(speaking in foreign language)

That's the first thing.

My mom wakes up every

morning to drink coffee.

If you look at a commodities chart,

coffee's the second most rated

commodity in the world.

In the world.

After crude oil.

You know what I mean?

So it's just like, when I started it,

it was like a $400 billion industry.

Now it's like 500 plus.

So it's just like, it

survived the Great Depression.

It survived all these diseases that

have came in the past.

It survived the world wars.

I looked at it like, wow, it's like

salt, sugar, coffee.

Sasson is, they all

fit within that box.

It gets into necessity.

Like coffee is really not a necessity,

but we sure make it feel like it.

So that's kind of how I looked at it.

I was like, if

something major was to happen,

would this still be around?

It's like coffee's one of those things.

No matter how good or bad the world is,

you're probably gonna want coffee.

It's like a thing.

If it's probably,

that's probably the one thing

you will give yourself

through a rough time.

Not a little more in

Cavesita, you know?

So I looked at it as, if I

ever want to do something,

I want to do something that people

think of or do every day.

And that's how I look

at the stock market too.

Like, I'm not really an

investor in the stock market,

but I always tell people,

you should invest into brands you know.

Not some brand that somebody tells you,

the market cap is gonna be, like,

you don't even know this brand.

Invest into stuff you consume.

Because maybe just like you,

there are millions, if

not billions of other people

who think like you.

Don't be a super

outlier when it comes to stuff

that you're not in control, you know?

So that's how I look at coffee.

So then it was inspired by my mom,

the journey, the grind,

and it was bridging

that guy for Dominicans.

I was born in the yard too, man.

I was born there in the 90s.

I migrated here in

2004, and I noticed it too.

You know what I mean?

You go back every

summer and you're like,

"Man, it's just not the same."

Not even rice and

beans hit the same, bro.

Everything's different.

And I wanted a bridge

that gap for our people.

You know, with the

coffee, with products.

Hopefully in the future, you know,

we'll do more things.

Like cacao, like

honey, and stuff like that.

From the yard, you know what I mean?

I think we have great products.

There's nobody representing it.

And if they are representing it,

it goes to Europe,

Japan, somewhere else,

where it's not even

Dominicans consuming it,

which is crazy.

So it's, you know, a

lot of gaps to bridge.

Beautiful, beautiful.

Well, I wanna thank you for giving us

a cheek of your time.

Before we go,

I just wanna name,

you mentioned that

it's your grandfather.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Your mother gave you that idea

when you came up with the idea.

That's all you.

Why your grandfather?

The stories I've heard of him,

I think he's a very exemplary man.

I mean, I heard nothing bad about him.

Like it was just,

to do what he did,

he did so much or so little.

Yeah, he was always an honest farmer

and he just,

I went to the camp all

the time working hard, man.

Every single one of his kids is like,

we love that man.

He did a great job.

He did the best that he

could for this person,

for that person, for this person.

He was a great community man.

Like everything he did, man,

it was just for

everybody in the community

and for himself and for

his family and his kids.

Just beautiful, man.

And I see that DNA,

that same energy in your shop.

You know, it's like the

people that come around,

they're very thankful, you know,

they can pass.

That's the vibe.

That's the vibe.

I mean, I got,

I created a space where I'm like,

some people are not meant to be there.

And a lot of people are

also meant to be there.

So if you're meant to be here,

you're welcoming, you're happy,

this is spot for you.

You know what I mean?

And also, I'm an old soul, man.

I don't know why, but I'm an old soul.

So I go back in time.

Like I like reliving his time.

Like I love pop art.

I love stuff from back in the day.

I love old school things.

So we have a vinyl

player, you know what I mean?

Like just get off

the front for a second.

Forget the Bluetooth,

you know what I mean?

If you'll be like,

oh, he's a vinyl player,

doesn't have Bluetooth.

Like no, man, it's hardwired.

Like it used to be,

you know what I mean?

So it's the little things, you know?

We just gotta go back in time, man.

But I love the time he was living in.

I think life was so simple

and now life is

really complicated, man.

And it's funny because from the time

that our grandparents come from,

life was so simple

when everybody was

just chasing technology

and the industrialization, right?

Yep.

That's the end we're gonna meet.

That made it perfect.

So all these things

that we were chasing

and technology and

all these advancements,

(speaking foreign language)

now we're fighting to go back.

Some people literally leaving the city

to go to the campo,

to go to some type of suburb

that makes it feel like a campo

or people who run their own farms

and stuff like that,

just for self sustainability.

By the way, you know what I saw?

Is immigrant in you?

That drive.

That drive, you know what I mean?

That drive.

That drive.

You go munching like that.

(laughing)

Just a little bit.

Yeah.