Trapdoor Coffee was a coffee business that I started with 3 friends in 2016. It was fully bootstrapped from zero to six-figures in revenue in four years. It started as an at-home hobby but quickly ballooned into a profitable side business. We roasted and shipped coffee every Tuesday for 200+ weeks straight. It was time-consuming, challenging, well-caffeinated, and really fun. We learned a lot about coffee.
Our coffee was sold in one boutique grocery store for 3+ years, featured in over a dozen cafes, and shipped to over 2,000 online customers.
We closed the business in early 2020 for personal reasons – mainly, we wanted our time and sanity back. But, we ended strong, shipping over 500 pounds of coffee to a major corporate tech event in Texas.
Today, I'm still roasting coffee at home on my Aillio Bullet R1 Roaster.